Post by DM Sir Carnifex on May 6, 2009 14:10:55 GMT -5
A Mystery From the Past
"We caught this one robbing this grave, Lieutenant. He chose to attempt to fight his way out and we were forced to strike him down."
The Guard stood over a lifeless body of a man some thirty years of age that was lying next to an open grave. The casket had been pulled out of the ground and a mound of dirt lay over the top of the second grave. In the guard's hand was an amulet with an unusual ornamentation. "We found this on his person. Apparently he had just taken it from the grave."
The guard handed the amulet over to the Flaming Fist officer for closer examination and then continued, "There was a second man involved as well, but he managed to escape our grasp and then fled west towards High Hedge."
"We had best go after him then." The lieutenant looked at the private who stood next to him, who nodded in reply. The two Flaming Fist thanked the captain of the Temple Guard for his assistance and headed off in search of the second perpetrator.
A short journey brought them to High Hedge and there they began to attempt to track the man. A short altercation with a rogue wizard delayed them considerably and they likely would have lost their quarry had it not been for some luck. Just as they stood in front of the castle-like home of the renowned mage, Thalantyr, one of the double doors opened and a chicken was tossed outside. But it was not an ordinary chicken. It was a talking chicken, and it pleaded with them for help, claiming that the mad wizard had turned him into a chicken.
The Flaming Fist realized that this could be the man who they were hunting, so they and a woman who accompanied them, brought the chicken into the house. Thalantyr admitted to casting a spell upon a man who was skulking about and took little convincing to reverse the effect. The Flaming Fist questioned the man-chicken and made him admit to being the accomplice of the dead grave robber. The man, fearful of what could happen to him, identified himself as Cambol and that he was just hired to help lift the heavy caskets. He pleaded innocence to actually doing grave robbing himself, but admitted to having a ring from the grave. The Fist took it and found it to match the amulet.
Back near Beregost, they turned over Cambol to the Temple Guard for safekeeping until they investigated further. Why were these two robbing two graves of unknown people? In search of the answer to that question, they determined they needed to open the second grave to find more clues. Several men picked up shovels and began scraping the mound of dirt away from the other grave until they could open the second coffin. On the corpse they found yet another amulet and another ring that matched the pair they already had. Still, they were foiled in their attempt to identify the two corpses or any motive of the two criminals. All they could find was that the two had been buried somewhere around thirty years ago. Much more investigation would be required before they found the answer. . .