Our heros continued on with the Earl’s Progress, leaving Kar Urkonis,the seat of the newly-rescued Earl of Yorma, on the morning of 18 Emblio. On the way to Dolint Abbey, the seat of the Kleros of Gostrial, the cure that Ser Petral (who apparently also answers to the name “Petras”) and Drake had developed began to show some effect on the Earl’s wife.
The two days at Dolint were spent relaxing, mostly, and going over the pieces of the mystery that seems to lurk behind recent events, while the Earl met with the Kleros in private conclave. Some unfortunate excitement came on the second day, during the garden party held by the Kleros in honor of his noble guest.
The Earl intended this event as a means of introducing his youngest daughter, the Maid Carissa, to various eligible young bachelors of the district, in the hopes of getting her excited about the prospect of a marriage. Unfortunately, one of the youths, the newly-knighted Ser Methwin, scion of a minor noble family, got obnoxiously drunk and loudly made a number of crude and cruel remarks about the girl within her hearing.
She fled the party in tears, and her father, who had also overheard the remarks, was enraged. But propriety and the quick removal of the drunken lout by his embarrassed friends prevented any immediate reprisal. The Earl, however, was not content to let this be; he approached Devrik and requested that he seek out Ser Methwin later in the evening, and teach him a stern lesson in manners. Preferably one that involved a number of contusions, and if bones were broken, so be it.
Devrik was surprisingly squeamish about outright assaulting someone, even though he was also upset about Maid Carissa’s embarrassment. Erol might have had no problems, but he was out prowling the town, looking for hints of the drug smugglers or other elements of the Zalik-mal. Fortunately, when Devrik confronted the stupid young rake, the dolt seemed determined not to take a hint, and actively pushed Devrik’s buttons. The resulting thrashing was not fatal, but as the cavalcade left town the next morning, it was obvious to all (including a blushing but pleased Carissa) that Ser Methwin wouldn’t be doing… well, much of anything, for quite some time.
Belthin Keep was the next stop, and before they arrived the Hand of Fortune (and kudos to Davey for coming up with the informal name of our little band of adventurers) worked out a plan to smoke out the evil-doer behind the various murders and attempted murders that have plagued the Progress. They let it be known to a select few suspects that they had suborned an informant who would be meeting them in Belthin to blow the lid off the conspiracy. Ser Andro and his wife were at the top of the list…
Once the seed was planted, Vulk and Drake went to the faux meeting, in the local cemetery, where the others had hidden themselves earlier. But the hours passed with no hint of an attack. Eventually the group gave it up and went back to the castle, only to find it in an uproar. Flames leapt from a tower window, and they soon learned that it was the room given to Ser Petral.
The group rushed up to where the bucket brigade was attempting to douse the flames, only to see the physician’s prone form laying in the middle of the room. Devrik attempted to control the flames, and his fears, and rushed in to try and save their friend. Mariala took a minute, but soon realized she could use her water elemental to fight the fire… as she summoned it, water leapt in a chain from bucket to bucket up to the roof cisterns, then back again in a rushing cascade that smothered most of the flames.
Sadly, Ser Petral wasn’t just overcome by smoke – he’d been stabbed in the back! The fire seemed to have been intentionally set in his traveling case of potions and papers, all of which were destroyed. Vulk tried valiantly to revive the doctor, even to the point of collapsing in aural shock after attempting resurrection. But it was not to be. The fire was soon put completely out, and Vulk taken to his tent to recover, while the Earl pulled Drake aside, distraught that the potions that seemed to be curing his wife had been destroyed along with his friend.
But Drake was able to relieve him of that fear, at least, as the potions had been stored in Lady Lania’s wagon. They were checked, found to be safe, and guards posted on the wagon. Later that morning Cris brought something to the group’s attention – his groom friend, Esar, had a bandaged hand at breakfast this morning. Further investigation revealed he had burns, which he claimed to have suffered while fighting the fire. Certainly others had suffered similar slight injuries, but no one could actually remember Esar being present at the bucket brigade.
Furthermore, the tip of his dagger was observed to have been broken off. When Vulk was sufficiently recovered to examine Ser Petral’s body, he found a small triangle of metal lodged in one of the man’s ribs where he’d been stabbed. This was good enough for the Hand of Fortune, and they made arrangements to get the groom alone in the stables for questioning. He stuck to his story, at first, but both Mariala and Vulk were wielding their arcane truth-sensing abilities, and when the metal from the doctor’s wound exactly fit the end of his dagger, the surly lad broke.
He fingered Ser Andro as his employer, revealing that the knight had recruited him to help arrange the Earl’s death, promising great rewards when Ser Andro’s weak nephew came into the earlship, with Andro himself as the power behind the coronet. He feared his sister’s recover would weaken his position after the Earl’s death, as she would likely wield more influence than he, and so had Esar commit his first murder…
Esar thought that Ser Andro had others who were helping him, people the knight seemed afraid of; but the groom knew nothing more than that his lordship sometimes met secretly with strange men in odd places. Ser Vulk instantly alerted the Earl of this development, and despite his initial incredulity, Ser Andro was order to appear before him. But his brother-in-law was nowhere to be found. His weapons, traveling clothes and best horse were also missing, along with a large sum of money and most of his wife’s jewels. Forced to divest herself of her arcane protections common to the nobility, truth-sense questioning soon revealed that she had nothing to do with her husbands plots; she is a broken and bewildered woman at this point.