faderift | [CLOSED] HARE COURSING

WHO: Athessa, Byerly, Edgard, Erik, Mado, Noon, Sawbones, Sidony, Vanadi
WHAT: The Gang Solves A Murder
WHEN: Early Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: Content warnings will be employed in subject lines, blanket warning for violence/murder, mention of sexual assault, corruption in the City Guard, etc.

I. A COMMOTION IN LOWTOWN

Erik, Noon, and Vanadi hear a struggle near the Alienage and when they go to investigate, they happen upon a shadowy cloaked figure trying to make off with Saoirse, a fifteen year old elf girl from the Alienage. The cloaked figure flees. Erik decides to stay with the girl while Noon and Vanadi take off after the cloaked figure. The perpetrator takes a dagger to the shoulder and Vanadi gets a signet ring off him in the ensuing chase, but ultimately the villain gets away. Erik finds out from the residents of the Alienage that there's another girl missing, and that the City Guard have done nothing to help find her.

II. A GRIM DISCOVERY

Elsewhere in Kirkwall, Edgard and Mado find a dead body buried in the snow. The cold has preserved the body in such a state that they are able to determine the most likely cause of death to be strangulation, judging by the bruising on the young woman's neck. It looks like whoever did the strangling was wearing a ring. There will also be a copper button, presumably from some article of clothing, clasped in the dead girl's hand. She clearly put up a fight against her attacker. Mado is able to smell faint whiffs of expensive laundry soap, cologne, pipe tobacco, and whatever other normal not-clue things on the button. Seems the owner of the vest this button came from is rather well-off.

III. WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY

Sidony and Sawbones will be tasked with acting as Byerly's attachés while following up on a number of petty grievances cited by the citizens of Kirkwall, during which they will overhear gossip (unrelated to the grievances):
Talk of disappearances from the Alienage that the City Guards are doing nothing about
Two City Guards talking to each other about the body that was found, and how strange it is that not even the Guard on duty saw anything
Mention of a cloaked figure seen outside The Crimson Cat at night
Rumors that Madame Lette, the bawd from The Crimson Cat, has found a new financier
A general consensus that something isn't right about The Crimson Cat; it used to be more like the other brothels in the city, but after Devigny was killed in a robbery gone wrong, things have been different.

IV. AMBROSE WARRICK

After some sleuthing it's found that the ring that Erik, Noon, and Vanadi got from the would-be kidnapper most likely belongs to a man named Ambrose Warrick, a nobleman with a modest estate in Hightown. He confirms that the ring was his, but that he gifted it to Giordano Allard, a friend of his. The servants at the Warrick estate will be reticent to speak to anyone, but some light eavesdropping will reveal that some weeks ago, Ambrose returned home late, disheveled, in one of his moods, and demanded that the buttons on his vest be replaced with gold instead of copper. He also sent the signet ring to the jeweler's to be polished the next day.

[CLOSED] HARE COURSING

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