Friday, 6th of Summer: Sergeant Joe Actual delivered the morning briefing. The usual suspects (Gale, Kell, Cippiano) still needed to be investigated. The Rock concert was continuing into its second day. The King was due to visit in three days. More pressing, however, was a suspicious death at the Danoran Consulate. The four constables and their consultant headed out for the hour drive to North Shore. Their drive was interrupted when the horses panicked as the ground shook. Thor and Doctor Aubrey agreed that this was no natural phenomenon. They surmised that it may have been the result of underground industrial activity.
At the scene, they encountered some Flint PD holding the scene. Officer Alfred Bellastair told them that the victim had apparently flown out of a fourth-story window, been shot, and fallen and impaled herself on the consulate's wrought-iron fence. An unknown individual had absconded with some of the victim's possessions and fled the scene.
Thor held the crime scene by intimidating the local rabble while the rest of the squad split into two investigative teams. Joe Actual and Rian Rhannon headed inside to interview the consulate staff and inspect the body while Zamfir and Dr. Aubrey searched for signs of the feeling individual.
Zamfir and Dr. Aubrey followed a trail of blood into an alley to the west of the consulate, where they found signs of a scuffle. Evidence found in this alley:
- latent electic energy
- blood infused with necrotic energy
- a copy of a deed of ownership for a canal barge, marked with the seal of the Danoran consulate
As they investigated the alley, a coachman approached them and asked if they knew "the doctor." Doctor Aubrey replied that they did and the coachman told the constables that this doctor had stiffed him on his fare, so maybe they could settle it for him. The constables offered to pay the doctor's fare plus a new fare taking them to wherever the doctor had gone. During the ride, Zamfir questioned the coachman about this doctor, and he described a human male with a goatee who spoke with a strange accent from across the sea, probably from one of the smaller Malice nations. The doctor had blood on his hands and was carrying a bundle. He claimed to be in the middle of surgery and in need of supplies, but after the coachman took him to his lodgings, the doctor vanished without paying his fare.
Those lodgings were a hostel by the name of the House of the Blue Birds. Doctor Aubrey disguised himself as a known local necromancer and the two went inside and presented themselves as friends of the doctor. The attendant told the two constables that the doctor had rushed in a few hours prior with blood on his hands, asking for water and a towel to clean himself. He had then gone to his room and within a few minutes fled via the back door. The attendant mentioned that a police detective had been by about an hour after that in pursuit of the man. They also notede that this detective had a bandage on his chest and smelled of scorched engine grease, like one would smell in the factories of Parity Lake.
The only evidence they found was in the hostel's laundry:
- a rag blackened with oil and possibly blood.
The two finally revealed themselves as RHC officers and got a look at the file on the doctor, producing a name and two references. The doctor was Wolfgang von Recklinghausen and his references were Dr. Barnaby Camp of North Shore and Professor Lynn Kindleton of Pardwright University. Feeling they had enough for the time being, the constables headed back to the consulate, but not before tasking some junior constables with canvassing the neighborhood to try and follow the trail of Dr. von Recklinghausen.
Meanwhile at the consulate, Joe and Rian were meeting with chief of consulate security Julian LeBrix. While waiting to meet him, they noticed a meeting room with what appeared to be the leftovers from a morning snack. A box of brigadeiros had been mostly picked over, but Joe Actual swiped one while he waited and detected the distinctive taste (and effects) of fey pepper. LeBrix told the constables that a consulate guest had brought the treats and then, while the staff were distracted, headed upstairs to steal some valuables. He intercepted her on the 4th floor and tried to stop her, but instead she ran towards the window. Thinking she was going to jump, he shot her in the leg. She jumped out the window anyway, and then flew across the courtyard, at which point he said he shot her in the back and she fell.
The constables were understandibly suspicious of this story and asked to see the fourth floor. LeBrix resisted, but Rian intimidated him into compliance. Upstairs, they found a broken window and recovered the following evidence:
- a rug moved to cover a bloodstain
- the blood spatter itself, which suggested a slashing injury, not a puncture wound as LeBrix claimed
- the presence of necrotic decay in the blood, as though it were caused by something undead.
Satisfied with the scene, the constables headed downstairs, where LeBrix led them to a storage room and showed them the body of Joe Actual's friend Nilasa Hume. Joe kept a brave face and attempted to examine the body, but was too overcome with emotion to do his job. Rian performed the examination and found the following:
- four parallel facial lacerations consistent with a slashing attack, then healed postmortem
- unhealed lacerations to the scalp
- one gunshot wound to the back of the leg, delivered from about 40 feet away (longer than the hall; about the same distance as that from the window to the fence
- one gunshot wound to the back, which pierced and lodged in the left lung, delivered from about 40 feet away
- latent transmutation magic (consistent with a flight spell)
- latent illusion magic (consistent with an invisibility spell)
On her body were found the following items:
- a bail certificate, paid by Heward Sechim, with a court date of the 10th of Summer
- an empty glass vial with residual illusion magic inside (consistent with an invisibility potion)
- no canary necklace, which she'd been wearing every day for the past few months
Joe was clearly overcome with grief. As Rian headed back upstairs to make friends with Tia, the receptionist, Joe Actual confided in LeBrix that Nilasa was his friend while also pointing out the many inconsistencies in LeBrix's story. LeBrix seemed affected by Joe's story and suggested they meet later that night at a bar in the Central District. Upstairs, Tia shared with Rian that Nilasa had been chatting with a poor foreign doctor who was having passport difficulties and kep coming by every morning to try and make progress. Tia also mentioned that at the time of the incident, the consul had been meeting with a man in the basement, but she didn't know who that man was.
The constables reconvened at the consulate and then made a plan to visit Dr. Camp, Heward Sechim, and Lynn Kindleton before the late-night meeting with LeBrix.
Doctor Camp's surgical theater was in North Shore, so they went there first. The Doctor explained that von Recklinghausen had been a student of his a decade prior but they had kept in touch via correspondence. Wolfgang sent him a letter saying he was having marital troubles and needed to travel abroad on his own, but was having passport difficulties and would need a place to stay in Flint, so Doctor Camp set him up at the House of Blue Birds. Doctor Camp mentioned that a police detective who identified himself as Roger Porter had stopped by earlier, asking about von Recklinghausen. The man was injured, so Dr. Camp offered to help, but the man rudely refused treatment.
After that meeting, the constables headed back to Sechim's Alkahest & Engravings in Parity Lake, where they had prevented an arson attempt just a few nights prior. They met with Sechim to ask about Nilasa's bail. He said she was his best employee, one of the first he hired when he opened his factory five years ago. He was surprised and angry to hear that she had died during a crime, claiming that she had put that life behind her. However, he did admit that she had become enamored of Gale with the past couple of months. During their conversation, Sechim seemed to break a little and angrily demanded the constables find Gale and hold her accountable for influencing young people to do stupid things in her name and die. He suggested that his uncle Nevard in the Cloudwood might know how to contact her, and even offered to help arrange a meeting.
... and that's where we cut the session... they're on their way to Kindleton's at Pardwright. I'm toying with having her in the same housing unit as Xambria, just to help establish a sense of place when they need to return in that adventure. Maybe four apartments in the upstairs above the butcher shop (and maybe another business). I'll probably have them encounter Creed there, just to give them a combat after two weeks of conversation. I'm not a fan of the Cloudwood bandit encounter on the way to Nevard, so I'll probably put something in its place. I love the bloodsucking hummingbirds, so maybe we'll have a fey incursion of some kind.
All is going well. The Coaltongue is going to happen right in the middle of all this, and then Axis Island probably after they go to Cauldron Hill, and then Nevard's rally when they return from that, and then we'll have the showdown with Macbannin (maybe) before giving them a nice amount of downtime before the Kaybeau Arms and Technology Expo (which I have renamed because I like the acronym KATE).
