As you leave, Captain Scultone leads you to the storage room where your supplies have been placed. You have an opportunity to arm yourselves with your own gear. In the corner of the room, you notice a small coffer.
Captain Scultone motions toward the box and mutters, "In case of emergency. Take it if you need."
[sblock=Contents of the box]A set of 14 matching gems worth 14,000 gold pieces (total).[/sblock]
He looks at each of you in turn.
"My friends, you've got the methods and the means to uncover the mystery. Lord Hood was my master. If you find the...(he seems choked with emotion)...the killer, be brave. Justice has a way of forcing itself upon the unjust."
---
You arrive at Thomas' house at midday. The guards posted at the door stand down when they see you approach.
"No one's been in or out. Quiet as a coffin, sirs."
When you enter, it's clear that the house has been disturbed. A low table has been thrust to one side, a pair of chairs has been smashed to splinters, and the drawers of Thomas' desk have been yanked open.
On the desk, a textbook entitled, "On Lichdom," sits open to a page written in a runic cypher. Dangling from one of the drawers of the desk is a gold pocketwatch, which has long since stopped ticking. The back of it is inscribed, "To my son, Thomas. The word is hours." A painting on the wall portrays a wavewracked cliff with a tall lighthouse towering over it.
[sblock=Skill Checks]
[sblock=Perception/Insight 10]There is a thick layer of dust, even on the upturned chairs and table. The events that caused the disarray must have happened at least a few weeks ago.[sblock=Perception 15]A note has been scrawled into the margin on a seemingly random page of the textbook: "Look at it from my point of view."[/sblock][/sblock]
[sblock=Arcana 15]Two items in the room emit powerful magical signals. The textbook on the desk and the gold pocketwatch both radiate intense energies toward the magically inclined.[/sblock][/sblock]