The Game Returns, Waiting for Cale, Examining Finlan's Stuff
Subject: Cleaning up the mess; to rob or not to rob...
The halflings furious withdrawal leaves the tower quiet for a moment. Cale stands quietly next to Mission and Garyth, as if unwilling to be the first to speak, though clearly Cadfael is demanding answers from him. Cale's brother continues to tend to the fallen Garth, who has begun to breathe in a deep snoring sound. He will probably be conscious by morning.
Farron puts away the dart he was holding, and moves over to the fallen wizard's bedroll. Using the wizard's pack as a makeshift table, he lays out the items he pulled from the corpse, and begins examining them with Sa'id assisting. The darts are clearly covered in some sort of sticky poison, but Farron does not have the tools necessary to determine what type of poison it is. For the rest, Farron takes a deep breath and then mutters a Detect Magic charm. He then turns his attention back to the items and examines them carefully for several rounds. The amulet gives off a faint aura of Abjuration magic. The metal wand radiates enchantment magic, and based on its construction, looks a lot like a wand of hold person. The component pouch doesn't have any special or unusual components, but there exist enough similarities to Sa'id's components that he thinks this wizard used a lot of evocation magics. The four glass vials radiate no magic aura. The silver wire around the neck of the leather bag radiates a faint evocation. It is clear that opening it incorrectly will cause a spell to be invoked. A casting of Read Magic reveals the scroll to be a spell of gaseous form.
All of this examining will take several minutes, and no one has even tried to look inside the mage's backpack yet.
Mission twitches visibly each time one of the mages casts a spell while examining the fallen man's goods. But finally, he turns back to face Cale, and says, "I understand that we have done nothing to earn your trust." He swallows, and steels himself. "But right now, I'm less interested in your trust than in your information. We seek a foul, Pathless god in this jungle--a god of death and blackness. Do you know anything of this god?"
Cadfael, who has just been asking similar questions, steps toward the thief with a stern look. "Answer our questions man, if you want it to go well with you."
[Tom, I need your responses. Everyone else, sorry for the delay, but we are back in business. Send in any actions you wish now. Matt, I sent you a private email, feel free to respond directly to me on it. Karl, I hope you don't mind me using up your detect magic and read magic cantrips, but it seemed reasonable that you would take those actions.]
From: Mike
Subject: Re: Cleaning up the mess; to rob or not to rob...
Garyth, astonished and chagrined, watches the halfling leave. They had had some friction before, but the days on the road and the comraderie that comes from standing together in battle had done much to ease that tension. All for naught. Would this division ever be healed? Perhaps not, but he had done the right thing, he knew it.
Garyth sheathes his weapons and turns to regard Cale, clearly waiting for the rogue's answer.
From: Raja
Subject: Re: Cleaning up the mess; to rob or not to rob...
Sa'id briefly contemplates pursuing Rennik, but soon thinks the better of it and continues to help Farron examine the dead mage's belongings.
How he wishes he could deflect Cale's words with a shield of firey anger as Rennik had done! If even a fraction of what Cale said and implied was true, the wizard whose belongings they were sifting through had just been killed over nothing more than an idiotic misunderstanding. Logically, Sa'id knew that once Cadfael was taken the party had followed a course dictated by reason, but he couldn't think away the guilt gnawing at his guts.
How it came to this? Sa'id mentally rolls his eyes at himself for even asking such an idiotic rhetorical question. It was patently obvious how it had come to this. In an effort to force his guilt aside, he begins to mentally review the events that had led up to the slaughter as though he were an unrelated third party. They had come upon the tower in the dead of night and sent emissaries to greet those camped there. The emissaries were rebuffed, and the priest was then sent out to gauge their intent in secret. He was captured by use of a sleeping poison. At that point, the conflict had become inevitable... Sa'id sighs. I'm going around in mental circles here, he thinks. I need to rest.
He wasn't so guilty as to be useless to Farron, though. When they finish sorting through and tentatively identifying the items from the mage's body, Sa'id rises and moves over to the mage's backpack. He picks it up by a strap and places it on the ground near Farron before kneeling back down by his companion and opening the bag to begin examining its contents. He does not look at Cale or any of his other companions. "Just so you know," he mutters to Farron, "I'm not interested in taking any of this."
OOC: He tries to speak softly enough that no one else will hear them.