CH. 5: The Sending is Coming from Inside the House

[JadedDM]

With that decided, the four of them head over to the waterfall, a place that is said to attract young lovers at night. Or it did, before the Wardens locked down the town.

The party splits up and starts searching for clues. There aren't any people about at this hour, so they are allowed to explore unhindered. After an hour, they haven't found anything substantial.

Moving on, they split up again to interview the list of seven men the waiter told them about. This takes another few hours, as they have to track down the person, then interrogate him. However, none of the men have any information that the party hasn't already heard before from other sources. None claim to have known the victims or dated them, although whether that is true or they are just covering their own hides is uncertain.

The four return to the inn to share what they have learned and plan their next move. It's getting late, but as it is summer, there's still a few hours of sunlight remaining.

===========

It is now 5:00 PM.

(OOC: We're 18 pages into this quest, and the party doesn't have any suspects yet. So to save us all a lot of time and energy, I decided to gloss over the dead-ends. Hopefully nobody minds that, but I didn't want to have to roll up a bunch of new NPCs just for the party to interview, and doing so would have taken up a few more weeks, at least!)

[Jenara]

"So..." Arei says with a shrug as she sits back down at the Paragon. "We aren't the best detectives are we? What do we know that we didn't this morning? Our killer likes the ladies, most of the women in question found a new interest before they died...."

"What now?" She frowns, hands on her chin, her elbows supported on the table.

[Nuke]

"So, it sounds like some baiting may be in order. Mayhap one of us can lure the guilty to his demise."

[HorizonsDream]

"I still think that the murderer would be too smart to take the bait, and Areilon would be too easy I think as bait," Jocelyn says.

[JadedDM]

"Then what is your proposal?" asks Ouragana. "Nobody else can think up anything, it seems."

[Jenara]

"Hhhmpph" Arei mutters, about to say something else. "Well the most obvious person is the Gnome, although I discounted him, perhaps we should look into what he does?" She suggests, thinking again of Hubert, "He doesn't like me, so perhaps you should do some snooping around?" She suggests as she points to the young cleric.

[Nuke]

Val responds to the conversation.

"Arei, I would say you might be the best bait, with a couple of drinks, you look good enough to eat."

sorry, couldn't resist.

[HorizonsDream]

Jocelyn lets out a small sigh. "For this bait plan to work, we need to know where these women met this guy," she points out. "And if you really want to do the bait thing, then let me be the bait. I don't need weapons to defend myself, and who can refuse a follower of Octhanus? We are all suppose to be about love, compassion, and mercy." Though, she still seemed to not like the idea in general. "Really, we should figure out who these women's friends are before we get to these bait idea."

[JadedDM]

"It seems to me, based on the evidence we've found so far, that the murderer doesn't just kill random girls on the street. He chooses his victims ahead of time, meets them, seduces them, even forms a relationship with them. There doesn't seem to be any connection between the victims, though--at least, not that we've figured out yet. This is going make setting 'bait' difficult," Ouragana points out. "We have no idea what the murderer looks like, and thus won't know if we've 'hooked' the murderer or just some random fellow until it's too late."

[Jenara]

"So our bait needs to get friendly with the locals." Arei says with a wink, "What should we do then?"

[HorizonsDream]

"I'm going to ask Brock about his daughter's friends," Jocelyn says. "Maybe we can give some more useful information out of her close friends than people that just know her a little bit. I don't think a girl would keep a hot date a secret from her friends."

[JadedDM]

"Shall we accompany you then?" asks Ouragana. "Or did you two have something else to do?" she asks of Val and Areilon.

[HorizonsDream]

"No, I can go by myself. It shouldn't take long," Jocelyn says as she finishes up her meal.

[Jenara]

"Excuse me." She summons the waiter, "Who would be considered desirable ladies of this town? Were those that were killed considered as such?"

[JadedDM]

Finishing her meal, Jocelyn gets up and heads to the local temple of Gonto. Once there, a young gnome acolyte greets her. "Welcome to the temple of Gonto," she says with a polite bow. "How can we be of service to you today?"

Meanwhile, back at the inn, the waiter approaches and listens to Areilon's question. "I don't think any of the murder victims were all that popular. The first one was just some farmer's daughter, if memory serves. The second one was a lowly street walker who mostly serviced sailors and thugs. The third one did have a number of suitors, but I heard she rejected them all. And Maronna, well...I'm not sure how popular she was, but I don't remember her going on very many dates."