Against the Cult: Suspicion in the Starlight 1.8b

The crowd of villagers encircles the house and barn, spurred on by Aanbo's yell. Faces ghoulishly lit by lanterns from below approach. Several of them are armed with actual weapons, but most hold sticks or clubs, whatever they could grab as they ran out of their doors to see what all the yelling about dark deeds was. Most of them are human, though there are a couple of dwarves and a couple of elves.
"We've got them!" says a man holding a hatchet.
"It's a dwarf and a human!" says a man with a length of firewood in his hand.
"It's those adventurers - I told you they were trouble!" says a man in banded mail and a shield to the two armored dwarves.
One of the humans stumbles, looks down. "Wha...? Oh. Oh, no...Gorge, don't look. Don't look, Gorge!"
They've discovered one of the bodies, that of the villager felled by Joseph's first arrow.
Another calls out "Here's another body - I think it's Parlo Varlen!"
"Murderers!"
"Monsters!"
The ring of encircling villagers tightens, and Aanbo and Chase are illuminated so that everyone can see them.

After Chase addresses him, Ramne twitches his head to the side in warning. One of the other men, better dressed than the others but unarmed, steps forward. "Are you addressing this hermit?" he says. He is the one who some in the party observed going into the Slumbering Serpent Inn earlier; sure enough, the grizzled old fighter is at his elbow, his calloused hand on the hilt of his sheathed broadsword. "They seem to be talking to you, old man! What do you say? Were you talking to the strangers about green monsters?" Ramne looks at the well-dressed man, clearly some sort of authority figure, and back to the dead monster. He nods his head jerkily. The others in the posse step away from the old man. This well-dressed man addresses the Dungeon Busters: "Comporting with this hermit does you no credit!" and sniffs contemptuously at Ramne. Ramne, meanwhile, looks away from the monster and gets a vague expression on his face for a bit, as if reminiscing or thinking of other, more interesting, things.

The man with the firewood in his hand steps forward and examines the dead monster. He recoils at the smell. "This is a troglodyte!" He peers at the two Dungeon Busters. "Anyone who kills a troglodyte has done well in my book." Some of the others are surprised and thoughtful at this.

"They weren't fighting the troglodytes! They were working with them!" the armored man with the two dwarves says. "Why are we even talking about this? We caught these strangers red-handed! It's clear that we have to eliminate them before they kill again!"

"You're telling ME about EVIDENCE??" the armored man retorts, and the two dwarves at his side laugh nastily. "I'm the constable here in Orlane! I decide what is evidence and what isn't! You have clearly staged this to cast doubt on what is OBVIOUS!!" He's turned and is addressing the crowd now. "We all know people who have disappeared in the last few months: our friends, our neighbors, even some of our family members! Who is to BLAME?" He points a finger at the two Dungeon Busters. "These...these 'adventurers!' They're STRANGERS here, and we've just caught them as they have MURDERED more of our loved ones! They pretend to have just arrived, but you heard what they said before! They've been here for months in SECRET!!"

During this interchange, Chase notices a strange interaction. During this speech from the Constable, Chase sees the well-dressed man glance over at two elves that are standing across from Chase. They, along with the dwarves, are alone in not bearing lanterns. They see the well-dressed man looking at them, they exchange a glance, and then their eyes flick to Chase and Aanbo. They turn their heads very slightly to look at the well-dressed man again, and they subtly shake their heads, 'No.'

The well-dressed man interrupts as the Constable and the dwarves are about to draw their swords. "Constable, wait please." The Constable rounds on the well-dressed man, fury in his eyes. He sneers but subsides. "Go ahead, Mayor." The well-dressed man, Orlane's Mayor, continues. "There is clearly much more going on than it would seem. Yes, it looks bad. But as the dwarf says, they could have been innocents, attacked in the night without provocation. This kind of talk - suspecting strangers of dark deeds - is what leads to violence. Nothing here necessarily means that they are the instigators. Who attacked first? It boils down to our guess...against the truth, what actually happened. I suggest we let the families claim their dead and grieve tonight, and we will decide what to do with...with the newcomers in the morning, when we may have clearer heads. Too many have died to rush into executions, when we aren't sure what happened."

There are a few that are still determined to blame the heroes, and then there are a few - the elves and the Mayor - who seem well-disposed to you. The rest, however, are undecided.

Chase lays down his weapons and steps back "I will go peacefully. Law and order: that is our way. Thank you, sir."
Aanbo follows suit: "I would appreciate your advocacy, Lord Mayor," he says, remaining calm. "I will submit myself to custody."

The Constable nods, saying "Donovan," and one of the dwarves, the dwarf with dark black hair, scoops up Chase's bow and sword. "Hulbar, get his weapons," the Constable nods to Aanbo. The other dwarf, the dwarf with dirty blond hair, steps toward Aanbo and then stops. "He ain't got a sword, Grover. No hammer nor axe, neither." The Constable snarls "Then get his stick!" Hulbar the dwarf steps up and takes Aanbo's staff (just recently given back to him from Theran when the druid found his own staff) from him.

"What's going on?" One of the men, the one who had been addressed as "Gorge" earlier, growls. "You're gonna kill 'em, right?" Gorge looks wild-eyed at the group, and some of the other people rumble menacingly. "What are you standing around for?? That's my brother, Fest, laying there dead! Murdered by these monsters, with that bow! You're - what? - you're gonna let that stand? What's the matter with you??" The people look ashamed, and the Constable nods and puts his hand on his sword pommel again.

"Wait." One of the elves steps over and looks at Fest's body, and shakes his head. "No, this man was shot by someone else. Look at the size of the arrow. Now look at the size of that man's arrows, and how long his arms are. His arrows are twice as long as these. These are the arrows of a child or a goblin." The crowd quiets a bit, processing this information.

Frowning, Constable Grover slides his sword back in his sheath.
"A child? Or a goblin?!? I don't see any children or goblins or ghosts or pixies here neither!" Gorge is frothing at the mouth now. "There's a man there who none of us know, who has a bow, and...and he killed my brother!"

"Wise words." the Mayor says approvingly. Then he raises his voice. "Listen, everybody! Nobody is going to kill anybody else tonight. You're angry and you're hurting, Gorge, of course you are. But killing these two right now isn't going to bring Fest back, and more death won't make your grief any less. We've got enough graves to dig and rites to hold without adding to that number tonight."

"Justice will be served, though." Constable Grover smoothly inserts into the Mayor's speech. "When we find out how they killed our friends, you can be sure what the sentence will be, Gorge. We're gonna do things right and proper. For now, everyone gather up the victims. Can they take them to your place, Ollwin?" One of the men, a white-haired human slightly stooped with age, stammers a response. "Wha..? My place..? Oh, uh, sure, sure, we can clear some space."
"Does that meet with your approval, Mayor?" The grizzled old armored soldier at the Mayor's elbow squares his shoulders and starts to step toward the Constable, but the Mayor holds up a restraining hand and the fighter subsides, staring daggers at the Constable over the Mayor's shoulder. "Yes, that's fine. Thank you, Grover, and thank you, Ollwin. We'll contact the families of the deceased and let them know where they can be found." Several people set aside their improvised weapons with dark looks at the heroes and begin lifting the bodies and carrying them east.

"Now we'll just take these two killers back to my place until we can arrange a just execution..."


"Hold on, now, Grover." the Mayor interrupts. "We have to figure out what happened here before we start sentencing people." The elves look at the Mayor impassively. He continues: "A lot of strange and awful things have been happening in our little town lately. You say that they've been here for weeks or months, kidnapping people, but we don't know that's so. They could be involved, or it could be that they're just travelers who got caught up in our mess. We don't want to convict anyone of kidnapping and murder who were just defending themselves."

"Just defending themselves??!" One of the armed men, who looks like he's wearing his bedclothes but is carrying a shield and sword, objects. "How can you say that after what they were yelling? We all heard what they was yelling: that they'd been here in secret for months, kidnapping and torturing our children! Why, I heard it clear across the River!"

"Erroll, it's Kilian," says a man nearby, identifying himself in case it's not clear who's speaking in the darkness of the night and the light of the lanterns. "I heard that, too, but now I'm wondering, because neither of them sound like that voice we heard."

"People can disguise their voices..." Erroll says, but it's clear that the mood of most of the mob is shifting.

At Aanbo's question, Erroll frowns even more. "That is far...for us to have heard you in the middle of the night, you would've had to be really loud." There are murmurs of assent in the crowd.
"Amazing!"
"Unbelievable!"
"How could you do that?"
But Erroll shakes his head, "Who knows how he did it? What does it matter? WE ALL HEARD IT! He's trying to act like it couldn't be done, but don't forget that WE ALL HEARD THEM YELLING." Most of the crowd nods.
"Yeah, I thought someone was in trouble, and I came running. As soon as I got outside, I heard all that about the evil plans and pretending to be adventurers."
"Yup, 'evil plans,' just as plain as I'm talking to you now."
"I wouldn't be here if I hadn't heard the yelling so clear. You threaten my kids, you know I'm gonna do something about it!" With this reminder of the thing that got them out of their beds at night - the magically augmented yelling - the crowd is turning ugly again.

Chase points out the dead body of the villager who had augmented his voice. "That is who was doing the talking." One of the villagers bends down and peers at Villager 6's dead features in the tall weeds. "Why, this is Dom Murpha! What is he doing in this strange getup?" The man comments on the robes Dom was wearing when he died. Then he yells, "Hold on...Dom was killed by one of his arrows!", pointing at Chase. There is no doubt about it; everyone who cares to look can see that the fletching and length of the shaft sticking out of Dom's chest match those arrows still in the ranger's quiver. "How could he have done the yelling, when you killed him?!" Erroll snarls. Even the elves narrow their eyes.

Chase nods and answers. "Yes, I shot this man in the strange getup. He was attempting to use magic on my friend here. It was strictly self defense. Where would he have gotten that strange getup? They look kind of cultish."

"What do you mean, self-defense? Why would Dom attack you?" Erroll demands.

"Dom was sometimes hot-headed," the mayor observes. "You all know it. He could fly off the handle."
Some of the people are nodding.

The older man, Ollwin, adds: "He started that fight last month at the Serpent. You remember, Grover, you had to break it up." The Constable grumbles assent; he can't deny it.

"So he could've threatened them. The man here admits that he killed Dom." the Mayor continues, gesturing at Chase. "But was it self-defense, or was it murder?" He cuts off Gorge, who opened his mouth to object, "There WILL be consequences. Men were killed here tonight, and no one takes that lightly. But what those consequences are depends on what the circumstances were. The point is, we don't know who started the fight."