The group have a think, about mystery over mystery found so far. A gem stolen that only three people knew that their employer possessed, and which only their employer knew the precise location of. A new bride that no one knew anything about, who died shortly after the wedding. A coffin that had held the new bride’s corpse was empty, save for a lamp that had been high enough to have marked the lid at one point, but also in the corner to mark that, but that coffin is empty.
Other coffins had been disturbed, and some, but not all of the jewellery was taken. That having been left was silver. The group start off by interviewing the remaining staff and Lamsira, daughter of their employer, Elisim.
Lamsira, who had been, and presumably is now again the mistress of part of the family business, told the group she did not care for Ihrdel, and Ihradel did not spend any time making friends with her. Ihradel was supposed to be spending time learning the business to take it over, and while she was attentive at first, she seemed to get bored and spend her time just with Lamsira’s father and brother. Lamsira also described that she felt that Ihradel had a slightly rank, warm smell, odd for someone so clean.
The maid, Galla, who served both the deceased and missing Ihradel and Lamsira. She painted a picture of Ihradel as someone who did not get on well with her other mistress, and that the menfolk of the house thought well of her. Ihradel was friendly enough to Galla, and gave her a silver bracelet. The group asked how she handled it, was she wearing gloves, and that was confirmed, how did the group know? Questions about did Ihradel seem more interested in gouging wealth from the family were met with negation, it seemed more the position and authority she craved,
Harpar, the steward of the household, had been present when Lamsira and Galla answered questions. Questioning him produced more evidence of an aversion to silver and, that while Elisim was initially hostile to the idea of Ihradel, a woman he did not know, joining his family, he seemed happy enough once she arrived. Aghbari worried him, as a dissolute wastrel who spent much of his time at some dive called “”The Tower’s Base””, and he suspected that that is where Aghbari met Ihradel. The group looked to the troubadour as someone with his finger on the pulse of the arts and entertainment world, but it was unknown to him.
After discussing the matter amongst the selves, and forming a picture of Ihradel not being entirely human, with an aversion to silver, as many of the demonic and supernatural creatures that they have encountered of late have been. Honestly, if they encountered a mortal, non-ensorcelled enemy, it’d be a nice change, they accepted Elisim’s offer of him taking them to the scene of the crime and vouching for them with the staff there.
Elsiim re-iterated that he was the one that discovered the theft, the room was locked when he got there, and no one else, not even his clerk, had been in.
Although they stopped off for weapons, they still had to check them with the doorkeeper. Elisim made his farewells, but not before Jose used his empathy to gauge his thoughts. His concerns seems to be, in order, getting the gem back otherwise his family’s reputation (and finances) will be ruined and his son Aghbari (but he has to have a family business to hand to his sons, so the family comes first). He is interested in what happened to Ihradel’s body, but not very grieving over the loss, though he knew her only a short while.
The merchants of Iralun have one building where business is conducted. The six largest families have private offices, the lesser business share offices, usually sharing the cost of clerks look after their books. This “”Merchant Factors”” also handles business for out of town traders, as when the group first arrived in the city with the Kotharim, and the wagons were delivered here to have the goods checked in, pre-sold goods distributed, and pre-bought goods loaded.
The Factors is a compound with warehouses and stables, but the building of interest is on the other side, it has two floors. The more public and shared areas on the ground, the private suites of the merchant families on the first.
Initially questioning the door staff seemed fruitless, the security of the suites is the responsibility of the families, they don’t know of any theft from the offices so can’t volunteer any information, and whilst the Deorsin’s clerk, Ghilhali, has the key to the outer office, he only has access to the inner office when the family are there to unlock the door, and both of the keys in the city Elisim holds, though he has given one to the group. Security is being reviewed given the theft. Whilst Aghbari and Ihradel had been in the inner offices, neither knew exactly where the gem was held, and Ihradel had never been in the strongroom.
However the doorkeeper Ghuram (more of a facilities manager in today’s way of thinking) mentions a break in and vandalism from the night previous, the same night as the theft. She shows you defaced paintings in the Great Hall, and the broken door, currently being guarded until they can get it repaired. The group notice that the door was broken OUTWARDS, not inwards and that there are signs of claw marks, and some hairs on splinters, which makes the supposition that this was the act of mischievous urchins
Guram brought back the night doorkeeper, Zhurab, previously dismissed as an unhelpful dolt, and he described a weird incident of that night, his dog, Irakl, became agitated, when let out ran around the central foyer, where there are two fountains, He ran around and around one, both are in the stylised shapes of trees, and barked and tried to climb the fountain.
Zhurab saw nothing, and eventually had to drag the dog to the office and calm it down. He did do a sweep of the building and swears blind that, at that time, all the doors and windows were secure. Although the foyer is open to the upper floor, with a mezzanine on the first floor, the roof is covered over, and in any case the fountain is not tall enough to reach anything else.
The strongroom is concealed behind a sliding panel, and there is a decoy false door, but the strongroom was open, the mechanism had been explained to you in any case and the safes were empty. Although there were obvious chests, the safes had been in a false wall, concealed behind hidden panels, now open and empty, with no obvious external sign, and not regularly placed. One of them was presumably the location of the gem, both from Elisim’s description and the fact that it has been ripped from the wall, claw like gouges in plaster, plates of iron and lead twisted and torn.
There were footprints in the dust, three different ones. A larger set, probably Elisim as he said he had been the only one there, and they seemed to be taking care not to step on the dust, a smaller set, a large child or a small adult, the group suggested that it was the deceased Ihradel, though they have no evidence of her having been here, and animal footprints that the well travelled ranger Utana identified as hyaena.
The group searched the lower floor, hoping to find sign of where the thief entered. The reports on the Offices used by lesser merchants were all undisturbed from reports by the Doorkeeper. Starting from the kitchen, and heading south on the Western side, as it was only on that side and the central foyer that the “”vandals”” had seemed to have been. The cellar proved secure, the storeroom in the kitchen was closed off, the kitchen itself they knew about, and the boards and utensils were not of interest, apart from a portion of the silver service being cleaned, the Great Hall had closed and shuttered windows, and the group felt no desire to search, the chests or boards of that room. Off the great hall is the upper wine room and the Great Hall treasury, where the silver service, including goblets, serving plates, a great covered punchbowl with ladles, and the lesser service of clay, is kept.
Almost absent mindedly, the lid of the siver punchbowl was lifted, to reveal, to the shock of everyone there, the missing gem.
This raised questions. Was this the real gem, it was the right shape and size. As you had been told, it was not set in anything, but was it a fake? If it was the real gem then why go to the trouble of stealing it, and leaving it here?
The group went back to Elisim, who confirmed that it was, indeed, the gem, and he considered that contract fulfilled. He held it up, and showed how the light shone through it in ways that confirmed that this was a gem, and not glass.
However, though he is pleased to pay you for the quick response, and you can see he is relieved beyond all measure, for if the gem had been found by one of the staff, or at the next banquet, then he could not have claimed it, never have said “”this is mine”” and been believed, and you wonder if he has indebted himself to purchase it in the first place.
Now, he says, he wants you to pursude the mystery of who Ihradel was, and is she still alive. He will pay the same as you have already received, but as a flat fee, no timed bonus, as this is less urgent. What you do if you find her he leaves to your discretion.
And there we left it
*COMMENTARY*
This adventure is another published adventure, from a magazine, by a respected UK RPG author. The scenario gives a “”what really happened”” including motivations for the various sections, so, why YOU may have gaps in your knowledge of what is going on, that you feel that you may be progressing along a path but you don’t know why, yet. That is how it should be at this point. You are solving a “locked coffin AND locked room mystery”
Some of the information about motivations IS there, and I am sure to include it in the write up, if you want I can be explicit about it if you think I am being too subtle.
As to finding the gem, brute forcing it as you did IS the only way to trace it at this stage, there is nothing you have missed, you have evidence for where the intruder was, some evidence of what they did when they got there, not all, but some, but no evidence telling you WHY.
You suspect that the thief is Ihradel, but nothing that ties her as live, undead, risen from the grave or a “Weekend at Bernies” style accomplice says she was here, but, again, nothing that says anyone else was here, only a small person and a hyaena.
QUESTIONS TO THE PLAYERS
However, if the bafflement is too much for you, if you aren’t actually ENJOYING this, then let me know and I will see what I can do.
If you want I can be explicit about what you could deduce about motivations from what you have earned already, if you think I am being too subtle, let me know,
If your commitments are changing, and you don’t think you can keep up with this, then, again, please let me know
SUMMARY OF WHAT YOU KNOW
You are hired by merchant Elisim Deorsin, to find a gem stolen from the offices his merchant house operates from. The gem was ripped from the wall safe, actually the wall safe was ripped out, and the gem taken. There are signs of the prescence of a hyaena at the office site.
You cannot find any sign of entry into the office building, but you have found evidence of exit, again showing some kind of animal prescene. Neither have you found evidence of how the offices were entered into. Only Elisim knew the exact location of the gem. You never checked to see if the intruder went straight there or if there is evidence of searching within the offices.
There was distubance in the building, and some evidence that someone spent time there
The family of the merchant is also struck by a family tragedy, the new bride of the youngest son of the family died soon after the wedding, and just before the theft. Your employer has wondered if there was a connection, but cannot think of one.
Some coffins of the family crypt were ransacked and jewellery taken – gold, not silver. Silver was left
No one knows Ihradel’s history or family, the only clues to her background are dancer’s bells, and the suggestion from the Steward that he suspects that the couple met at a caravanserai habituated by dissolutes and wastrels
Ihradel was initially interested in the idea of being a part of a powerful (for this city) trading empire, but soon got bored when she realised the work that entailed.
The gem was found, in a place where it would not be discovered for a while, but whose discovery would be embaraSUMMARY OF WHAT YOU KNOWssing if it were known that Elisim had possessed and lost it. Why someone would make the effort to take the gem, then leave it in that place is unknown.
Elsim is gentually concerned about what the loss of this gem means to his family, He is also concerned about the mental state of his son, the widower, and also what happened to Ihradel in that order, though the first and third has a bearing on the second, it is not that he does not care for his son, but
SUMMARY OF WHAT YOU SUSPECT
That the loss of the gem is not just an embarassment to Elisim, but that a lot of finance is tuied up in it and without it, his family may face severe loss of status and possibly ruination.
You suspect that the bride Ihradel is still alive or was never in the coffin. However everyone testifies that the coffin seemed weighty enough for a body at the time. If alive and escaped, then how she got from the coffin you do not know. There is a lamp there but what the significance of this you have not formed any idea.
You suspect that Ihradel was some kind of not quite human, able to transform, at the very least, into a hyaena, there is supposition of other forms, but no evidence. The apparent aversion to silver is at least indicative of a supernatural nature, as bodies inhabited by spirits that you have met in the past seemed harmed by it.
You suspect that Ihradel used magic to charm the menfolk and to stop a natural suspicion of this stranger in their midst.