A month in the World of Man, and so little gained, so much lost.
I have not written in several days because our progress has been so frustratingly slow. Finally, we have something which may lead us closer toward solving the mystery of the murdered thieves, and thus closer toward attaining information which may lead to our enemy.
Our visit to the warehouse did not bring me any closer to understanding. We avoided the longshoremen who were guarding the door, giving them a wide berth, and snuck to the back of the building. Then I gave the magic climbing ring I was wearing to the Infiltrator, and he scaled the building and lowered a rope. We found only two things on top. One was a clump of red clay with a footprint in it, which I took in case it proved meaningful, and the other was a missing pane of glass in the skylight. One of the longshoremen inside or outside heard one of us, and sent men out to search. We made a hasty escape, having gained nothing.
When we returned to the temple, I learned that the two foreign warriors had visited, but the priest had been unable to cure the old man's ailment.
The next day proved even more fruitless than the last. We learned nothing whatsoever during the day, and in the evening, the foreign warriors came again to the temple. I watched the proceedings from the side – they did not seem to notice me. After failing once again to cure the old man (the younger called him “master”), the priest questioned the younger man about the murders. The only additional information I learned was that a material called “smoke powder” was found on the bodies, and a faint trail of it led from them to just below the skylight. This “smoke powder” is apparently an explosive substance of some kind, which I imagine would be highly illegal in this town of armed thieves.
I got the impression that this young warrior was the only member of the town guard who had any interest in the murder. We should question him further.
We spent the next day trying to find the source of the red clay, as it was the only thing we had to go on. Taking a walk along the shoreline, it seemed that the only clay there was gray. On the way back to the temple, I stopped by an alchemist's shop, on the unlikely chance that this was some exotic material, but the alchemist did not need his laboratory to identify it. The clay originated from the north-western area of the town. The alchemist told me a story about a curse that had been placed on that region centuries ago. A ship was carrying some vile artifact as cargo, and a band of adventurers attacked to prevent the ship from coming ashore. In the end, the ship and the artifact were destroyed, but a curse fell upon the area, provoking fear and discomfort to any who entered, and coloring the clay and the water red. I will wait to see for myself before I decide whether the alchemist's story is true, or is a local myth to explain the red clay.
In the morning, I noticed the Empty Hand praying in the temple. I have never seen him pray before. Perhaps I should ask him what has changed.
Yet another day passed without much gained. On the Infiltrator's suggestion, we spent the daytime hours at the docks, questioning the homeless in case they had seen anything unusual, and bribing them liberally with gold. One had seen some people who concealed swords in their clothing, a few weeks ago. He directed us to a bar where they had been seen to enter. Although he clearly had seen them more than once, he could give us no better description than to say they had dark hair and dark eyes. Another person we found could tell us nothing useful at all. After each of these interviews, the Infiltrator and the winged woman insisted on taking the homeless person to the temple for a meal. This seemed to me an absurd waste of time.
At the temple, I learned an upsetting piece of news. People had been coming in all day with trivial injuries, to talk to the priest. Word had made it as far as this town of his heroism in the previous town. Although I did not hear much of myself or the others in these accounts, this type of fame could be dangerous to our mission.
In the evening, the foreign guard returned to the temple with his master, and again I watched from the shadows. The priest could do nothing to cure the master's wound, though he drew on every spell he knew. As the two men were leaving, I stepped out and asked them about the murders. The young guard looked surprised at my question, though not at my sudden appearence, and said he could tell me nothing, as it was the business of the town guard, but that I could meat him at a certain inn near the armory if I had a reason for my curiosity.
I am coming to doubt that this man is associated with the assassin's guild, though I will remain wary.
At night, we searched the region of town with the red clay, but found nothing.
During the day, we again learned nothing. We interviewed more of the poor street-dwellers, but no one had seen anything unusual, at least not that they were willing to discuss. Our luck was no better in the desolate part of town that night, until quite late.
Late in the night, we heard a man's scream. We hurried in its direction, to find a dead longshoreman crumpled on the ground. Near the body were a short sword and the medallion of the thieves' guild, and a bit farther away, the Infiltrator spotted a clump of red clay. While I ran off to search for the murderer, the Infiltrator summoned the town guard. I returned before the guard appeared, to find the Empty Hand examining the body. The man's chest was covered in slash wounds, and deep knuckle-shaped bruises. The guard arrived, and asked us our business and our names. Not having sufficient time to think, I gave the descriptive name that the others use for me. I suppose that calling myself an Arcanist would have evoked an even more suspicious look, though I wish to remain as anonymous as possible. I should spend time considering what to answer in such situations.
The guard thought there was nothing to be concerned about, and sent us away. The Infiltrator thought this murder was meant to implicate the thieves' guild, though the murderer's methods were sloppy, so I found it difficult to believe that anyone could come to that conclusion. What kind of thief would leave his most identifying mark prominently displayed at the scene of a crime? Apparently, the Infiltrator knows this populous better than I. By the next day, the accepted story was that the thieves had murdered a longshoreman who owed them a gambling debt.
When we returned to the temple, the priest told us what he had learned. Both he and the foreign guardsman had attended a town council meeting, where there was much argument between aristocrats and longshoremen, but no resolution, and where the foreigner received an award for bravery – he had rescued a man from a collapsing building the day before. The priest learned a bit about the power structure in this town, and met a baron and the mayor personally. Two other men the priest recognized from the group inside the warehouse by the docks.
Of more import was what the priest learned from the guardsman. The man had, some nights before, found a boy sitting in a hole, whimpering about “red eyes.” On the present day, the guardsman had met with the boy in an attempt to learn more. It is odd how, in this entire town, only one guard cares to investigate anything in detail, and he a foreigner who should have little interest in the activities of this town. The boy was near the warehouse on the night the thieves were murdered. He saw them go in, climbing up a rope to reach the skylight. Behind them, another man climbed up. Later, only the third man emerged, and he scaled the wall face-down like a spider, and had phosphorescent red eyes.
We all suspected that the longshoreman's murderer was the same man or creature that the boy saw. Now we could contact the guardsman. We had our reason.
The priest sent for the guardsman in the morning, but it was not until early in the afternoon that he arrived. Anticipating the delay, I spent my time studying a new spell from one of the scrolls I had bought – a spell that would entangle my enemies in the ensnaring silk of a spider. There must have been an error somewhere in the text, for after hours of analysis and memorization, I tried to practice the spell for the first time, and found myself unexpectedly covered in thick webs. It was another half hour before I had cleaned the last of the sticky silk off my clothing.
When the guardsman arrived, it was a problem of his own, not what we had learned, that convinced him to share information with us. He had been told by his superiors that he had today, and today only, to investigate the murder. Despite his award of the previous day, his superiors were becoming annoyed at his requests to spent time on matters they thought unimportant.
The guardsman told us that the murdered man had been a gambler, and that the most prominent theory – the only theory, actually – was that he had owed a dept to the thieves' guild, and that the thieves had killed him after he had owed it for too long. This seemed a foolish notion to me. What would one gain from murdering a debtor? The guardsman also told us about the boy and the red-eyed man, though, unknown to him, we already knew.
When the man finished telling us what he knew, I offered to help him. He had one day to investigate, and we could find out more as a group than he alone. In truth, I merely wanted to be in a position where he would be working toward our goals, though I implied the opposite to him.
Together, we went to a bar where a large portion of the longshoreman's debt was owed. After a private conversation between the guardsman and the owner of the establishment, and another between him and a man playing a game with darts (with the amusing help of a truth spell cast by the priest), who had been a friend of the murdered man, we found that the longshoreman had owed a good many debts around town, particularly to the thieves' guild At one point, the second man questioned began, due to the truth spell, to uncontrollably insult and threaten the guardsman. The guardsman had his hand on the hilt of his sword and was ready to fight, but the other man backed down. I will remember to be wary of this guardsman's temper.
Although I feel a good deal better about our progress, it still seems as if we have very little direction. We will spend another night searching the cursed area, and probably another and another. At some point, I fear we may realize that nothing but chance can bring us forward.