The Ganoltir Project Forum

"A-another c-criminal organisation?" Vaughn asks, not sure if he wants an answer.

"Don't worry, it's probably Gold Harbor Shipping actually," Alierin says, dismissing Vaughn's concerns as she examines the key more closely. "Down Movek Point towards the ocean."

As stands back up from the corpse, she pockets the coinpurse for now.

Aeron smirks as Alierin readily names the origin of the symbol, impressed. She knows this town like the back of her hand, damn. Crossing his arms, his eyes briefly look back to the corpse before looking to his companions. "Well we know who's behind this now then, but still don't know why. Might not be a bad idea to check in with Tiz, unless you all wanna keep the nokve some more company."

"We should probably check a bit further ahead and make sure there's nothing else down the tunnel," Alierin says. "We should remove this guy too," she adds. Hopefully that'll calm the Nokve down. The ones that are left at least.

You move further through the tunnel, where the two huge nokve lumbered off to. After a slight bend in the cavern, you see light ahead and make for it. The tunnel tapers to a small opening out to the beach — perfect-sized for nokve but a tight fit for you.

"The big ones must have relocated for now," Cymril says. "I guess that's it for us, unless you guys want to go poke around the rest of this cavern. Should we go drag that sorry fellow outside now?"

"Let's remove the sacks we found earlier too." Vaughn replies.

"Yeah, better than him being stuck in here. No one should end up as nokve food, no matter what they got wrapped up in," Aeron says, feeling some relief that they got to the bottom of this, at least halfway. Guess we've got a visit with Gold Harbor soon. Wonder if we can get a hold of his family. Maybe Tiz knows something.

 

"We can probably call it a success after that, at least as far as the fishing tournament is concerned," Alierin says as she starts back towards the body. "Someone give me a hand with him?" she asks, as she bends down to grab the orc under one arm.

"On it," Aeron says, helping Alierin to grab hold of the orc. Romantic. Least he shouldn't bleed on us after this long.

Sisera follows as the others drag the body of the dead man outside, confused by their motivations. Why is it so bad to be nokve food? They need to eat, and he is a fresh source of meat for them. He is not doing anyone any good in death anyway, apart from them as a meal. Why deny these creatures their food source after denying so many their lives? These city people are strange.

Dessarius finally sheathed his shield and blade as the threat seemed to be contained, and assisted in removing the sacks from the cave since Aeron and Alierin seem to have the body on the move.

As Aeron and Alierin lift the remains of the young orc's body, Dessarius goes back to retrieve the sacks — his mask protecting him from the lingering haze of ammonia.

You regroup just outside the cave. The rains have mostly disappeared, leaving a cloudy afternoon. To your right, the boardwalk spans Movek Point. To your left, the beach continues along the cliffside toward the ocean.

"Should we just leave him here, away from the caves? Or maybe bury him with some rocks for now?" Cymril asks. "I'm not sure what the right call is."

"There's probably someone in town who loves and misses him. If we can, we should find them. But for now, burying would suffice I think." Vaughn replies.

Back out of the tunnels, Alierin scans the sky for the sun, gauging how much more time they can afford to spend here.

OOC

How long until we need to go to help Gerirl?

"We still have a good while before we need to be back to help Gerirl. Let's bury him and mark the grave so his people can find it - if we find them," Alierin says, scanning the river bank for a good location.

"Just uh... gotta be careful where we bury him," Aeron says, scanning the surrounding area. "Don't want the tide bringing him back up overnight."

 

Sisera sighs and resigns herself to the fact that she will be digging a hole to bury a stranger. The customs of this land never cease to amaze me. Just leave him to fertilize the lands, he does nothing or no one any good covered in dirt.

"Before we bury him, does he have anything on him? Something that would identify him or his family?" Dessarius asked, letting the sacks he grabbed drop to the ground harmlessly.

"I didn't see anything that would identify him when I searched him," Alierin says in reply to Dess. "There was just the key, the note and some coins," she reiterates. Oh and that boot we found was his," she adds, pointing to his bootless foot.

"The note did suggest they were maybe deliberately trying to rile up the nokve. I wonder to what end?"

"Over there, downriver should work for a grave," Alierin says, pointing out the rocky part of the beach downriver. She bends down to pick up the orc, waiting for someone else to help her move him over to his new resting place.

"Guess it's my turn," Cymril offers, giving Alierin a hand. You haul the dead orc down the beach a ways, coming to a strip of sand that is patched with dirt and rocks. Using a few downed branches as makeshift shovels, you break ground and within a quarter hour have a shallow ditch dug. You roll the corpse in, before covering it well with packed dirt and heavy rocks.

"Back to our employer, then?"

As the body was buried, Dessarius kneels. "Bydded i'ch corff ddychwelyd i'r ddaear, dod yn fwyd i'r cylch, ac anghofio eich camweddau i amser. Cysgwch yn iach, rhyfelwr ifanc, gorffwyswch yn hir a heb drafferth." He whispers, placing a hand on top of the mound of dirt before standing again and adjusting his armor. "Yes, onto our employer. I wonder how they'll react to hearing that some people irritated the nokve intentionally." He looks at the others. "How did you find out that Tiz had a job, anyways? I've been looking for a way to sharpen my skills."

Elvish translation

"May your body return to the earth, become food for the cycle, and forget your wrongdoings to time. Sleep well, young warrior, rest long and without trouble."

After burying the orc, Alierin take the time to stack up a small cairn at the head of the grave, marking its location in case they do happen to find the orc's family.

She shrugs at Dess' mention of their employer. "As long as she pays us I don't really care." she says. "We killed enough that they shouldn't bother the fishing competition. Maybe they'll bounce back now we removed the sacks and the body," she adds with another shrug.
 

After Dessarius, Vaughn takes a moment to say an elvish prayer for the orc.
Then Vaughn asks the group: "What are we doing with those sacks?"

"Yes, we should return," Sisera responds to Cymril, wholly uninterested in the fate of the orc or the sacks found within the cave. Our task is complete, the source of the issue is not our problem.

"Just gotta hope they don't send someone else," Aeron says, frowning as he looks at the grave marker Alierin built. "Could give 'em to Tiz, I guess. Can say it's evidence and ask if she knows anything from what we learned." Surely someone would have noticed an orc headed to the shore with a bunch of sacks.

"There was a posting in the Stout Hall. It's how we've found most of our work so far," Alierin says in answer to Dess' question on their employer.

"It wouldn't hurt. Proves we actually did something down here too," she adds in reply to Aeron.

With the orc buried and prayed over and the remnants of the ammonium-bearing sacks recovered, you trudge your way back through the sands toward Fisherman's Wharf. Now that the poor weather has all but cleared up, the boardwalk is busier — fisherfolk coming and going, intermixed with a construction crew that is hard at work on constructing a small stage for the upcoming championship.

Tiz Teberi is not far from where you first encountered her. She sits on a barrel, shaving her nails with a knife while she occasionally barks orders. At your approach, she sits up with a sly smile, and beckons you further down the pier. You follow her a short distance to the same small shack: an improvised office littered with scattered ledgers and a weighty lockbox resting beneath a table.

"You all look like shit," the orcish woman says, hardly hiding her stare as her eyes take in the state of your armor, clothes, and bandaging. "What exactly happened?"

 

"We solved your problem." Alierin replies dryly. "the nokve were all riled up due to something the Gold Harbor Shipping company were doing in the caves. We killed a bunch of the aggressive nokve and removed the stuff the company left there," she explains.

"Gold Harbor Shipping?" Tiz Teberi repeats, her tone incredulous. "What in Kumara's... What were they doing in there? What 'stuff' are we talking about here? This makes no sense."

"No idea what they were doing," Alierin says with a shrug. "We just found a bunch of these empty sacks," she says, dumping one of the sacks on the table. "That and a dead orc with this key and this note," she adds, pulling the items out of her jacket and tossing them on top of the sack.

Tiz Teberi stays quiet, her eyes following Alerin's hands as the young elf takes out the evidence from the caves. She studies the key, frowning, then the sacks. A sprinkle of the powder shakes free and she wets a fingertip, dabbing it, before tasting it. A repugnant look crosses her face as she puckers her lips. Lastly, she reads the note. After a long moment, she speaks.

"So what, those nokve were getting poisoned, is what you're saying? Something's just not adding up. I know old Ulungi, this don't sound like him. And what would be the point, getting them all riled up? They don't bother us much on the Point, those nokve. Not until now."

She looks at you expectantly, shaking her head slowly in abject confusion.

Aliein shrugs again. "That's all we found," she reiterates.

"Yeah, we're unsure ourselves," Aeron chimes in, his mind theorizing as Tiz questions them. "But the nokve should hopefully return to normal in time, as long as more people aren't sent."

He offers a shrug. "Maybe disrupting business on the Point was the goal? And maybe whoever's behind this is going around this Ulungi you mentioned." Not gonna find out more without looking into it ourselves.

"I don't work on hope, hon, I need certainty. Especially if it's true, what you're guessing at, folks aiming to disrupt business and all. I can't afford any more mistakes with the tournament almost here. This damned construction crew and all..."

Tiz Teberi sighs, her lips pursed in a frown. "Alright, you've done a good start, dealing with some of those fish-for-brain nokve. But I've got more questions and less answers to show for it. Check with Ulungi. He's the bossman at Gold Harbor. Show him this key, and the note here. See what sense he can make from this. Hopefully it's more than I can."

"The job was to deal with what was in the caves. It's dealt with," Alierin says, keen to wrap things up here so they don't miss out on helping Gerirl. "Besides, we killed enough of the nokve they won't be a problem for the fishing competition either way."

"The job," Tiz Teberi starts in, her tone turning to mild irritation. "Was to figure out what in the Old Orc's Name is going on with these nokve, and to stop it. For good. And unless you killed the entire colony up and down the coast, these things aren't just going to piss off by tomorrow. Somebody's got their fingers all wrapped up in this nonsense, and until I know who, and why, I'm not done here yet."

She sighs again. "Look, you've done me a service so far. If you don't want to finish the job, I'll pay you, but I ain't payin' you all of it. I'm already dealing with one crew of workers who don't wanna work for me. I'm not lookin' to have two." She shrugs.

"Aye, that was our plan already," Aeron says to Tiz, giving Alierin a quick glance. We won't forget about him. "Shouldn't have anyone else riling them up for a short while, but we'll do what we can to get to the bottom of this so it doesn't happen again."

He looks to his companions, giving them each a nod before turning back to their employer. "We've got other business at dusk, but got a few hours to go see him til then."

Catching Aeron's glance, Alierin backs down, grabbing the key and the note from the table, stuffing them both back into her jacket in an act of resigned acceptance.

I swear to the ancestors, if we end up mixed up in another shady situation... She thinks, wary of what happened when they interfered with Rajan Lumber's operation.

Dessarius looked between the others, but spoke up when he found a moment; "There was a metal door, too. Looked old, real old. I feel like that might've been what that key was for, but I can't prove that." He says, glancing down at the key. "The handle shattered when we went to try and open it. Turned to dust. I wonder where it leads to." He thinks out loud but then glances up at Tiz. "Did you know about any doors in the caves? Any buildings that might've been connected to them?"

The furrow in Tiz Teberi's brow loosens at Aeron's words, then fades entirely as Dessarius speaks. "A door in the caves?" she asks, now bearing an amused smile. "Doubt Ulungi's key's a part of that. No... more likely it's from the old city. Ah, back when Clan Groznid had teeth, so the tales say. Supposed to be a whole network of tunnels and caves down here beneath Clan Heights — at least, there was, before the Serran occupation. You must have been only pups when they wrecked a galley or two into the damned sea cliffs during a particularly nasty kodrahl."

"Anyways, keep on the hunt. If you can't get this done by tomorrow, I'm going to need to find somebody new."

"Ok," Sisera says, slowly growing tired of the back-and-forth with Tiz as their day inches ever onward. "We look now," she continues, looking towards her companions in hopes that they, like her, are ready to return to the job. First she wants the nokve out of the way, now that they are dead she wants this mysterious problem solved. So demanding for someone not willing to solve her own problems.

"Let's get over there," Alierin says, keen to have things wrapped up as soon as possible despite their window of a few hours. Getting paid is still important, otherwise what's the point.

"Yeah, let's," Aeron says with a nod, taking a deep breath as he sets off for Gold Harbor. It can never be easy. But Gerirl comes first if we can't get this done quick.