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Ravenloft-Beyond the Mists
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<blockquote data-quote="SolidSnake" data-source="post: 915" data-attributes="member: 102"><p><strong>October 7th, 747- "Bars do not a prison make."</strong></p><p></p><p>Whatever happiness the frail man was holding onto, evaporated under the truth of Monsette’s harsh observations. After some discussion, both groups began to glean information from one another. The frail man and his burly companion were apparently from the world of Nymbardax too, but not the same continent. Vanyel, as he called himself, was a linguist who worked for the True Way and Shinlaiden was his bodyguard. Monsette remembered hearing something about the True Way during his time at the Great Library. From what rumor told him, the True Way was a powerful society of mages that controlled all the lands to the east of Sordania and Nordmar. They were a powerful association, not to be taken lightly. Vanyel was an extremely pale individual, whose raven-colored hair was in sharp contrast to his skin. His blue robes were tattered, but the symbol of the True Way could still be made out. What Vanyel lacked in physical strength, Shinlaiden more than made up for in stature and attitude. The muscular man was over six feet tall and had a mace, battle axe, heavy flail, and daggers strapped to various parts of his leather armor. Both men relayed the story that had brought them here. From what they divulged, the two agents of the True Way were sent to collect taxes from a rebellious town in the remote regions of their lands. A strange fog settled over the town and somehow they ended up in a strange town named Odiare. The locals spoke a strange dialect of Nymbardaxian common, but that wasn’t the real problem. The town was without adults of any kind and at night the dolls of the children came alive and attacked them. A very specific wooden puppet named Maligno seemed to have it out for them, because they barely escaped with their lives from Odiare. Running back into the Mists brought them here: the damp, cold, decidious forest out in the middle of God-knows-where.</p><p></p><p>Monsette considered all of the facts that he had heard and furnished personally before making a decision. He suggested that they exit the forest and find signs of civilization. This idea went over well with everyone and turned out to be one of his better suggestions as the party spotted a large village near a huge river just outside the forest. The sparsely populated civilization, seemingly, had only residential houses, but after a while the party spotted a dilapidated structure that resembled the local tavern. The villagers eyed the party with suspicion and fear as they made their way to shelter. Securing rooms was more tedious than Monsette found necessary as he found himself up against a language barrier even his knowledge couldn’t shatter. Eventually communication degenerated into Monsette pointing to a gold piece and then pointing to a room down the hallway. The fat, greedy innkeeper took the coin and handed Monsette a key, after which Vanyel repeated the same procedure. Vanyel and Shinlaiden slept in one room, while Sam and Monsette slept in another. Both groups agreed that the "buddy system" was the more prudent direction at this point. Needless to say that everyone was tired from his personal ordeals from the past few hours. In fact everyone had drifted off to sleep just after locking the door, when their was a loud pounding on Sam and Monsette’s door. Sam was about to check it out when three angry-looking men forcibly kicked it in. One was a large, gruff individual who belonged in the forest not the village. The second was a lithe warrior with the look of absolute hatred in his eye, while the final man seemed the more tempered of the lot. He was an older man with a rotund disposition. The younger men pounced on the dumbfounded Sam, while the older man tied his hands behind his back. The perturbed Monsette was reaching for his sword when he saw the older man’s hand go up in a sign of peace. He began to speak, but Monsette couldn’t understand the stream of words coming out of his mouth, so he went and got someone who seemed to know languages very well: Vanyel. The frail linguist was able to make out a few words from the angered men. Evidently, Sam had been accused of the murder of two of the town’s citizens! As the local official and his two men hauled Sam off to the local jail, Monsette began to run facts through his head in order to awaken his mind. This was going to be a long night…</p><p></p><p><strong>___________________</strong></p><p><strong>October 8th 747</strong></p><p></p><p>The sun was coming up and Monsette felt exhausted. All night, both he and Vanyel had been talking to the pot-bellied official named Yaco about the particulars of this case and they hadn’t found out very much. Sam was accused of killing two-now missing-village residents: a man and his wife. Alehandra and Ussi have been missing for several days now and a man fitting Sam’s description was the only stranger in the village around that time. Monsette was angry at this circumstantial justice system, but as an investigator he had to respect fact, not emotion. In order for him to exonerate Sam, he would have to prove that Sam wasn’t in this village during the murders…which meant, he would have to find the bodies and interview the witnesses. Yaco was the town official that dispensed justice and his two "deputies" were Dimitri and Yanis. Dimitri was the younger, hawk-nosed man filled with rage. Yanis was the large, gruff-looking hunter. The village they were in was called Valetta and the country was called Invidia. This village earned its income from logging and Ussi was one of the better loggers of the town. Monsette was getting a serious headache from all of this.</p><p></p><p><em>It doesn’t make any sense. Sam couldn’t been the one, because he was on Nymbardax just a few hours ago…wasn’t he? There is too much coincidence! A man looking exactly like Sam walks into town, trades some jewelry for a few pelts, and then leaves. This town doesn’t see many visitors, so this man who looks like Sam is a big deal. The woman who he traded with is a seamstress named Celine and apparently the blonde man who looked like Sam didn’t say a word to anyone…strange. What makes matters worse is the fact that everyone loves this married couple. Alehandra was a very gorgeous petite woman who dropped off freshly baked bread to the guards on duty. Ussi was a stunningly handsome man who was best friends with Dimitri…that didn’t help this situation. Yaco has been searching for the bodies for the last two days and so far he has turned up nothing. He seems to be a very well educated villager…something about studying at the capitol of Invidia: Karina. I don’t think that he will try to abuse his position to harm Sam in any way, which is good for us. Vanyel has to be the translator in all of this because I am not making any headway on the language; maybe I will get the hang of it as time goes on. This place is not filled with monsters and there doesn’t seem to be inter-villager hatreds. The puzzle is missing some pieces…I don’t get it. We must return to the scene of the crime to get any answers…we should go to Alehandra’s and Ussi’s house.</em></p><p></p><p>After getting an exhausted Vanyel to get direction to the missing couple’s house, Monsette began stuffing tobacco into his pipe in preparation for his eventual smoke. Yaco was kind enough to lend him some, as he had used all of his up the night before. It wasn’t very good quality, but it would have to do for his purposes.</p><p></p><p>The couple’s house wasn’t very impressive from the outside. Built entirely out of wood, the structure only contained three rooms: a living room and two bedrooms. A window in the living room allowed light to spill into the main chamber from the street, while a smaller one illuminated the master bedroom. The living room was fairly meager in furnishings. It had a simple chimney with a cauldron, a dining table, and a cabinet filled with a few dishes and mugs. There was a small brown rug underneath the round wooden table, but overall the house seemed very clean. The master bedroom contained two dressers and a cozy bed. Everything seemed to have its proper place, even the dolls were well groomed. Vanyel and Shinlaiden blanched visibly at the dolls. Monsette was snooping around the bedroom when he heard a large crash from the adjacent room. Running outside, he saw Shinlaiden standing over a broken dish.</p><p></p><p>"What did you do?!"</p><p>"Sorry Monsette, I was just looking at it and it just slipped."</p><p>"You fool! The first rule of investigation is to NEVER disrupt the environment you find!"</p><p>"Sorry Monsette, let me just sweep it up…"</p><p>"No, NO, NO! Just get out. LEAVE!"</p><p></p><p>The dejected-looking behemoth took one more look at the damage he caused and left the house. Monsette was still a mass of quivering rage after Shinlaiden had left. It took all of Vanyel’s skill to calm him down to a rational state.</p><p></p><p>“That fool,” Monsette cursed as he kicked the cabinet, rattling the dishes in the process.</p><p>“Calm down Monsette, he’s gone now…no use getting worked up about this.”</p><p>“That monstrosity probably broke an important clue that we will never know about! With our luck it may have been able to save Sam! Damn it,” Monsette yelled as he laid into the immobile cabinet some more with his foot.</p><p>“In fairness, you are creating worse havoc now than he ever did,” Vanyel responded calmly.</p><p></p><p>Vanyel’s last few words made an impression on Monsette as he began to realize what he was doing. Smoothing out his robes, the investigator began to try and rectify the damage he had induced. It was then that he noticed something behind the cabinet…it was black. Asking for Vanyel’s meager assistance, the two began to move the cabinet with their limited brute strength. Both Vanyel and Monsette were wishing that Shinlaiden were there to help them as they shifted the cabinet. Monsette began noticing many things as he worked that he hadn’t noticed before. In addition to the new scratches being created, Monsette saw old ones near the cabinet. He also noticed a fine white powder just underneath the cabinet and a square drawn with black paint…not paint, but tar! As the investigator approached, he already noted the smell of newly applied tar; it must have only been a few days old. Using his knife to cut the tar, Monsette began to loosen a makeshift trapdoor in the floor of the house. He cut away three sides, so that the last side would simply swing downwards. As he was cutting, he began to notice the smell of decay. By the time he had cut away the square trapdoor, the smell had become overpowering. Monsette turned away from the origin of the stench and emptied his stomach onto the floor; Vanyel wasn’t far behind him when it happened. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand Monsette asked Vanyel for a lamp so that he would see better the hollowed out area directly underneath the trapdoor. With a bit of disgust, Vanyel complied with the request after which he began to mop up his boots. Monsette tied a handkerchief to his face before shining the light into the small burrow. As the light touched the earth, Monsette recognized the decaying face of young woman and the unrecognizable body of a man. The woman face had been twisted to the back of her head. The man’s body did not have a head of any kind; the tearing marks indicated that it had been ripped right off the torso. Its only identification was a hairy hand adorned with a simple golden band inscribed with some writing Monsette couldn’t make out. No other markings were visible on the bodies, which lent some credence to the fact that both died from their respective neck injuries. The white powder was obviously lime, something used to suppress the reek caused by the decaying bodies. Monsette pulled the handkerchief off of his face and turned around to face the waiting Vanyel.</p><p></p><p>“I think I have an idea where Ussi and Alehandra went.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SolidSnake, post: 915, member: 102"] [b]October 7th, 747- "Bars do not a prison make."[/b] Whatever happiness the frail man was holding onto, evaporated under the truth of Monsette’s harsh observations. After some discussion, both groups began to glean information from one another. The frail man and his burly companion were apparently from the world of Nymbardax too, but not the same continent. Vanyel, as he called himself, was a linguist who worked for the True Way and Shinlaiden was his bodyguard. Monsette remembered hearing something about the True Way during his time at the Great Library. From what rumor told him, the True Way was a powerful society of mages that controlled all the lands to the east of Sordania and Nordmar. They were a powerful association, not to be taken lightly. Vanyel was an extremely pale individual, whose raven-colored hair was in sharp contrast to his skin. His blue robes were tattered, but the symbol of the True Way could still be made out. What Vanyel lacked in physical strength, Shinlaiden more than made up for in stature and attitude. The muscular man was over six feet tall and had a mace, battle axe, heavy flail, and daggers strapped to various parts of his leather armor. Both men relayed the story that had brought them here. From what they divulged, the two agents of the True Way were sent to collect taxes from a rebellious town in the remote regions of their lands. A strange fog settled over the town and somehow they ended up in a strange town named Odiare. The locals spoke a strange dialect of Nymbardaxian common, but that wasn’t the real problem. The town was without adults of any kind and at night the dolls of the children came alive and attacked them. A very specific wooden puppet named Maligno seemed to have it out for them, because they barely escaped with their lives from Odiare. Running back into the Mists brought them here: the damp, cold, decidious forest out in the middle of God-knows-where. Monsette considered all of the facts that he had heard and furnished personally before making a decision. He suggested that they exit the forest and find signs of civilization. This idea went over well with everyone and turned out to be one of his better suggestions as the party spotted a large village near a huge river just outside the forest. The sparsely populated civilization, seemingly, had only residential houses, but after a while the party spotted a dilapidated structure that resembled the local tavern. The villagers eyed the party with suspicion and fear as they made their way to shelter. Securing rooms was more tedious than Monsette found necessary as he found himself up against a language barrier even his knowledge couldn’t shatter. Eventually communication degenerated into Monsette pointing to a gold piece and then pointing to a room down the hallway. The fat, greedy innkeeper took the coin and handed Monsette a key, after which Vanyel repeated the same procedure. Vanyel and Shinlaiden slept in one room, while Sam and Monsette slept in another. Both groups agreed that the "buddy system" was the more prudent direction at this point. Needless to say that everyone was tired from his personal ordeals from the past few hours. In fact everyone had drifted off to sleep just after locking the door, when their was a loud pounding on Sam and Monsette’s door. Sam was about to check it out when three angry-looking men forcibly kicked it in. One was a large, gruff individual who belonged in the forest not the village. The second was a lithe warrior with the look of absolute hatred in his eye, while the final man seemed the more tempered of the lot. He was an older man with a rotund disposition. The younger men pounced on the dumbfounded Sam, while the older man tied his hands behind his back. The perturbed Monsette was reaching for his sword when he saw the older man’s hand go up in a sign of peace. He began to speak, but Monsette couldn’t understand the stream of words coming out of his mouth, so he went and got someone who seemed to know languages very well: Vanyel. The frail linguist was able to make out a few words from the angered men. Evidently, Sam had been accused of the murder of two of the town’s citizens! As the local official and his two men hauled Sam off to the local jail, Monsette began to run facts through his head in order to awaken his mind. This was going to be a long night… [b]___________________ October 8th 747[/b] The sun was coming up and Monsette felt exhausted. All night, both he and Vanyel had been talking to the pot-bellied official named Yaco about the particulars of this case and they hadn’t found out very much. Sam was accused of killing two-now missing-village residents: a man and his wife. Alehandra and Ussi have been missing for several days now and a man fitting Sam’s description was the only stranger in the village around that time. Monsette was angry at this circumstantial justice system, but as an investigator he had to respect fact, not emotion. In order for him to exonerate Sam, he would have to prove that Sam wasn’t in this village during the murders…which meant, he would have to find the bodies and interview the witnesses. Yaco was the town official that dispensed justice and his two "deputies" were Dimitri and Yanis. Dimitri was the younger, hawk-nosed man filled with rage. Yanis was the large, gruff-looking hunter. The village they were in was called Valetta and the country was called Invidia. This village earned its income from logging and Ussi was one of the better loggers of the town. Monsette was getting a serious headache from all of this. [i]It doesn’t make any sense. Sam couldn’t been the one, because he was on Nymbardax just a few hours ago…wasn’t he? There is too much coincidence! A man looking exactly like Sam walks into town, trades some jewelry for a few pelts, and then leaves. This town doesn’t see many visitors, so this man who looks like Sam is a big deal. The woman who he traded with is a seamstress named Celine and apparently the blonde man who looked like Sam didn’t say a word to anyone…strange. What makes matters worse is the fact that everyone loves this married couple. Alehandra was a very gorgeous petite woman who dropped off freshly baked bread to the guards on duty. Ussi was a stunningly handsome man who was best friends with Dimitri…that didn’t help this situation. Yaco has been searching for the bodies for the last two days and so far he has turned up nothing. He seems to be a very well educated villager…something about studying at the capitol of Invidia: Karina. I don’t think that he will try to abuse his position to harm Sam in any way, which is good for us. Vanyel has to be the translator in all of this because I am not making any headway on the language; maybe I will get the hang of it as time goes on. This place is not filled with monsters and there doesn’t seem to be inter-villager hatreds. The puzzle is missing some pieces…I don’t get it. We must return to the scene of the crime to get any answers…we should go to Alehandra’s and Ussi’s house.[/i] After getting an exhausted Vanyel to get direction to the missing couple’s house, Monsette began stuffing tobacco into his pipe in preparation for his eventual smoke. Yaco was kind enough to lend him some, as he had used all of his up the night before. It wasn’t very good quality, but it would have to do for his purposes. The couple’s house wasn’t very impressive from the outside. Built entirely out of wood, the structure only contained three rooms: a living room and two bedrooms. A window in the living room allowed light to spill into the main chamber from the street, while a smaller one illuminated the master bedroom. The living room was fairly meager in furnishings. It had a simple chimney with a cauldron, a dining table, and a cabinet filled with a few dishes and mugs. There was a small brown rug underneath the round wooden table, but overall the house seemed very clean. The master bedroom contained two dressers and a cozy bed. Everything seemed to have its proper place, even the dolls were well groomed. Vanyel and Shinlaiden blanched visibly at the dolls. Monsette was snooping around the bedroom when he heard a large crash from the adjacent room. Running outside, he saw Shinlaiden standing over a broken dish. "What did you do?!" "Sorry Monsette, I was just looking at it and it just slipped." "You fool! The first rule of investigation is to NEVER disrupt the environment you find!" "Sorry Monsette, let me just sweep it up…" "No, NO, NO! Just get out. LEAVE!" The dejected-looking behemoth took one more look at the damage he caused and left the house. Monsette was still a mass of quivering rage after Shinlaiden had left. It took all of Vanyel’s skill to calm him down to a rational state. “That fool,” Monsette cursed as he kicked the cabinet, rattling the dishes in the process. “Calm down Monsette, he’s gone now…no use getting worked up about this.” “That monstrosity probably broke an important clue that we will never know about! With our luck it may have been able to save Sam! Damn it,” Monsette yelled as he laid into the immobile cabinet some more with his foot. “In fairness, you are creating worse havoc now than he ever did,” Vanyel responded calmly. Vanyel’s last few words made an impression on Monsette as he began to realize what he was doing. Smoothing out his robes, the investigator began to try and rectify the damage he had induced. It was then that he noticed something behind the cabinet…it was black. Asking for Vanyel’s meager assistance, the two began to move the cabinet with their limited brute strength. Both Vanyel and Monsette were wishing that Shinlaiden were there to help them as they shifted the cabinet. Monsette began noticing many things as he worked that he hadn’t noticed before. In addition to the new scratches being created, Monsette saw old ones near the cabinet. He also noticed a fine white powder just underneath the cabinet and a square drawn with black paint…not paint, but tar! As the investigator approached, he already noted the smell of newly applied tar; it must have only been a few days old. Using his knife to cut the tar, Monsette began to loosen a makeshift trapdoor in the floor of the house. He cut away three sides, so that the last side would simply swing downwards. As he was cutting, he began to notice the smell of decay. By the time he had cut away the square trapdoor, the smell had become overpowering. Monsette turned away from the origin of the stench and emptied his stomach onto the floor; Vanyel wasn’t far behind him when it happened. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand Monsette asked Vanyel for a lamp so that he would see better the hollowed out area directly underneath the trapdoor. With a bit of disgust, Vanyel complied with the request after which he began to mop up his boots. Monsette tied a handkerchief to his face before shining the light into the small burrow. As the light touched the earth, Monsette recognized the decaying face of young woman and the unrecognizable body of a man. The woman face had been twisted to the back of her head. The man’s body did not have a head of any kind; the tearing marks indicated that it had been ripped right off the torso. Its only identification was a hairy hand adorned with a simple golden band inscribed with some writing Monsette couldn’t make out. No other markings were visible on the bodies, which lent some credence to the fact that both died from their respective neck injuries. The white powder was obviously lime, something used to suppress the reek caused by the decaying bodies. Monsette pulled the handkerchief off of his face and turned around to face the waiting Vanyel. “I think I have an idea where Ussi and Alehandra went.” [/QUOTE]
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