This is Bazaar: Dungeon Adventure

[Badger]

The riddle and rest - Marcus

Knowing the others would be resting the night under the watchful eye of the temple, Marcus gathered a copy of the divination and the list of the missing abductees.

"I will return at first light to meet with you all, but my spellbook is at my uncle's, and I would become of less use to you all without it."

Returning home, Marcus is not surprised to see his uncle working into the night, and knows it is best to allow him to work his grief out in his own way.

~ In time it shall pass...all things pass in time...~

Opening the simple leather spellbook, Marcus thought about the spells he would need for tomorrow. While he hoped there would be no attack on the orphanage while he was there, the possibility could never be ruled out.

~However, the others seem more than capable of handling the physical threats...

With that thought in mind, Marcus refocused on his spellbook and began to study the spells he felt would aid their search the best.

As the last spell locked itself into Marcus' memory, he became well aware of the complaining of his stomach, and took the riddle and list into the kitchen with him.

Setting down to a simple meal of stew and water, Marcus poured over the riddle line by line trying to make sense of the cryptic words, and hoping to find anything that would be of help in their search. Once the words began to blur with him, Marcus knew he would gain nothing further, and he returned to his room and was asleep before his head hit the mattress.

Waking early, he packed his things into a simple leather backpack, making sure his spellbook was the first to go in, and wrote a quick note to his uncle to let him know he was working for the temple. Closing the door behind him carefully, Marcus walked through the light drizzle and returned to the temple.

Locating the others at the breakfast table already, Marcus joined them and listened to hear if any had thought of their first move at the orphanage.

 

[ErichDragon]

Ian - Breakfast

"Right. Here is me idea. I come up with it all on me own too." Ian says with obvious pride in his acomplishment. "Here is what we do. We dress Poto up like a little girl, right. Then we sets him to walking around outside the orphanage. When the dirty robbers tries to snatch him, we snatch them!" Ian laughs heartily at his jesting.

"Just kidding Poto old boy, hope I can joke with you. Say now that I think about it, maybe that ain't such a bad idea. If'n we can't de-riddle that riddle that is"

 

[Festy_Dog]

Griswald strums metal plated fingers on the table. Then casts an analysing eye over the gnome for the potential to resemble a human child.

"Aye, I see where you're going but I dunna think he can fill the role of a wee lass quite well," he says at length, shaking his head.

[ooc: nice post Badger ]

 

[Manzanita]

Poto strokes his neat little beard & looks dubiously at the bard. then suddenly bursts out laughing. "So city folk have a sense of humor, eh? I'll remember that. If we can't figure this riddle out, I'd be glad to play the part."

OOC: Poto takes the spells: cure light wounds (x2), cure minor wounds, detect magic, & light

 

[ToddSchumacher]

During the night Marcus came to some conclusions about the lists he was given...

The victims on the list appeared completely random..the only commmon denomonator being vanishing during the night. The big change is the last four, the last four were children and all taken from the orphanage. So that in itself is significant...if only you knew how.

As for locksmiths in Cauldron, there are a handfull, but the most successful is Keygan Ghelve, a gnome locksmith who has made most of the town's locks. He made the locks for your father's tannery.

And you absolutly know nothing on half-dwarves.

 

[Badger]

Breakfast discussions - Marcus

As Ian suggested dressing Poto up as a girl, Marcus smiled in spite of the seriousness of the crime they were beginning to investigate. His smile grew even more when it seemed that Griswald was taking Ian at face value.

After sharing a laugh with Poto and Ian, Marcus shared what he had thought of during the night.

'While I regret I was not able to think of using such obvious bait as Poto, I was able to come up with a few ideas that I wanted to share with you all.', unconsciously, Marcus began to tick the points off with his fingers.

"I studied the list of names, and discovered that on the surface, none of them have anything in common. The only common thread is that they have all been taken at night, and until the kidnapping at the orphanage, none had been children. Why our kidnappers have now shifted targets, I have no idea."

Allowing them a moment to consider what he had said, Marcus continued.

"Something Priestess Jenya said last night prompted me to think on the matter of the locks. In my own home, the lock was designed by a gnomish locksmith named Keygan Ghelve. He is by far the master of his trade in Cauldron and perhaps he could tell us who placed the locks on the orphanage and how someone could obtain keys to sold locks. However, I think we must be careful in our asking, as we would not wish for an honorable merchant to think we considered him a common crook."

Not wanting to mention the fact he had failed to come up with any ideas on the half-dwarf reference, Marcus looked at the others to see what they thought.

 

[Manzanita]

Poto Knezer

"So, there have been people disappearing in this town for some time, eh? I wonder when this started. Let's see if can determine when the first disapearence was. We might then be able to match that with some other event that happened at that time. 'The locks are they key, yes'. Interesting. We probably should chat up that gnome. BUt I think we should still start at the orphanage itself. Perhaps we could find out more about this there."

 

[Badger]

As Poto entered his thoughts, Marcus made a mental note to go to seek out a star watcher and the guardsmen to see if there was anything out of the ordinary on the dates in question.

~Leave no question unanswered, as only when all facts have been made known, what remains, no matter how incredible, must be the truth...~

 

[Festy_Dog]

"Aye. Ya know, I'm thinkin', just a hunch, tha' the adults who were kidnapped might be related in some way to the orphans. Ya know? Like tha' situation where the parents canna' afford a wee one and give tae' the orphanage," he suggests.

 

[ErichDragon]

Ian

"Maybe we could split up. Two of us can talk to the locksmith and two can poke around the orphanage. I'll volunteer for the orphanage, children love me!"