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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wraith Form" data-source="post: 1889695" data-attributes="member: 10789">The portcullis gate guard was panicked. "I didn't kill him!" he protested emphatically. His breath reeked of cheap alcohol and blatant fear.     On the ground was the body of a giant of a man--clearly human--with long sinewy limbs and a deep chest, dressed in the Brelish garb of a caravan guard. That broad chest was currently impaled by the sharpened ends of the portcullis gate tips. The huge man lay face up, dead in the wan mid-morning light, in a pool of his own blood. The portcullis gate bisected the corpse, his head and upper torso on the interior of the portcullis tower and his legs and lower torso pointing toward the street.     There was no evidence of the man's weapon, nor any evidence of identification papers or purse. Despite his Brelish dress, it was clear he wasn't a native of that land. The symbol of the merchant house he once represented was embroidered boldly on his tunic, now swathed in blood. A writhing dragon tatoo crawled--literally, as it was clearly magical in nature--around the circumference of the muscular bicep of the man's left arm.     It'd been foggy the night before: low-hanging, thick, roiling clouds that were shoulder-high on a normal man. The guard claimed that, as he'd dropped the portcullis the prior evening, he thought he'd heard a brief muffled scream. The thick, high fog prevented him from seeing more than an arm's legth past his nose. When there was no other outcries, the guard shrugged and continued on to his post in the portcullis tower (and likely his bottle).     Evidence of bruising on the body, when examined, shows that the caravan mercenary was held down by his ankles and shoulders and his mouth was muzzled by at least two assailants--probably more, as the man was strong and powerful in life and didn't give up without a struggle--as the portcullis was dropped onto his chest.       His dead, pale feet suggest that his boots were stolen by a street urchin at some point in the morning as the fog lifted.      (portcullis location details intentionally left vague)</blockquote>

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