Murder Most Foul, Part 2 (Wednesday, Lamashan (X) 31, 4707 AR)

The heroes continued their exploration for clues of the murderer's identity and motives.

Ibor Thorn

Harker's partner Ibor was a young man, handsome if a bit narrow-faced. He was still in shock after having discovered the bodies when he arrived at work this morning.

His initial attitude towards the heroes was indifferent - before Tsela befriended him, he refused to say anything more, claiming nervously that he'd already told the sheriff everything he knew.

When Tsela secured Ibor's cooperation, he sighed heavily. Ibor confirmed that Harker had frequent midnight trysts with Katrine, but although Ven's a protective father, Ibor didn't think he was capable of doing what was done to the victims. When Tsela convinced Ibor to help with the investigation, he admitted that Harker had been "cooking the books" for some time. Ibor was quick to point out that he never took part in the scams, but did admit that Harker might have stashed away quite a lot of money by skimming from the top of sales and business over the past several years.The Scarnettis, the noble family that owns the lumber mill, have a reputation for being ruthless - there are rumors that they're responsible for burning several competing grain mills in the region, after all, and Ibor wouldn't put it above the Scarnettis to hire someone to kill Harker if they found out he'd been embezzling money.

The Sihedron Rune

The sole occupant of the Thassilonian expert's building was an old man named Brodert Quink, a balding scholar of Varisian history and engineering. Brodert claimed to have spent 2 decades of his youth studying with dwarven engineers at Janderhoff and 3 decades as a cataloger at the Founder's Archive in Magnimar, and was continually baffled and enraged that his learning and obvious intelligence hadn't afforded him more prestige. Brodert had been studying ancient Thassilonian ruins for the past several years and had recently become obsessed with the Old Light. No one believed his theories that the tower was once a war machine capable of spewing fire to a range of more than a mile.

Brodert was an authority on Varisian history who moved to Sandpoint to study the Old Light. Brodert was tremendously excited to be involved in a murder investigation, and did everything he could to aid the heroes. Unfortunately, much of the lore about ancient Thassilon had been lost; what did remain had been gathered from barely legible carvings on the surviving monuments or extracted from the myths and oral traditions of Varisian seers and storytellers.

What he knew about Thassilon was that it was a vast empire ruled by powerful wizards. The sheer size of the monuments they left behind testified to their power, and the unnatural way many of these monuments had resisted erosion and the march of time testified to their skill at magic. Most sages placed the height of the Thassilonian empire 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, but Brodert thought the empire was even older - he suspected it collapsed no sooner than 10,000 years in the past.

Much of what Brodert had to say was vague theory based on conjecture - his belief that the Old Light was once a war machine capable of spewing fire from its peak was relatively unpopular among his peers, for example. Brodert noted with a smirk that much of what was understood about Thassilon indicated its leaders were far from virtuous, and he believed the classic mortal sins (greed, lust, pride, gluttony, envy, wrath, and sloth) rose from corruptions of the Thassilonian virtues of rule. The fact that the killer carved the Sihedron Rune into the flesh of his victims might point to the fact that the murderer was some sort of scholar - although as soon as Brodert came to that conclusion, he just as quickly proclaimed himself to be innocent.

The First Murders

The bodies of the first three victims lay in state in a cool basement room below the Sandpoint Garrison, not far from the holding cells containing Ibor and Ven - the heroes examined them. Although decay had set in, Tsela revealed that all three bodies bore claw marks similar to those that the heroes discovered on Harker's body.

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