Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!stepsun.uni-kl.de!sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de!physik.uni-kl.de!kring From: kring@physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) Subject: [Welcome] BT: Fulfur's Findings Message-ID: <1993Oct29.004643.2317@rhrk.uni-kl.de> Sender: news@rhrk.uni-kl.de Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 00:46:43 GMT Lines: 190 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bakr's Tales: Fulfur's Findings ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADMIN: This follows "One More Dungeon". We rested for a few days in Ephialtes's cellar. Manual looked out for Caramon on Compass's behalf and indeed found and brought him. But our horses were lost, it seemed. Ephialtes found teachers for us, and they visited us to make a contract. The night after that the door to our room opened unexpectedly, and to our surprise Ziemi and Fulfur entered. "You! How did you find us?" Tarik was alarmed. The old rogue put his picklock away and grinned. "Easy. We only had to find someone who knows enough about throwing stars to be able to teach others, and follow him." "What! It's so easy to find us? Uh... nice to see you, by the way." "Not much longer, I fear. We'd like to have a bit of the stuff you found in that cave." "Oh." A period of haggling followed, and finally the dwarf and his companion got a small part of our wealth. After all they hadn't done much. "And I thought we had been cautious," I said. "How did you know we found something?" "That chain roused my suspicion. Or rather, it increased it, since I had already given the affair a lot of thought at that time." "Could you elaborate?" "You saw that worm. Do you really think it destroyed the fields of Eraton?" "You are right! Lindwurmer don't breathe fire, only steam! It couldn't have done it. Why didn't I think of that?" exclaimed Compass. "Because you had other things on your mind, like that healer and his second personality." "You know that too?" "Ziemi killed him." "Oh." That was sad news. "I didn't know it was the healer," said the dwarf. The evening of the day you went away Mythreides came and made fun of me again. I threw my axe at him and split his head. His last words had been, 'You are so cute when you're angry!'" A grim grin appeared on the dwarf's face. "Then the body changed to Jockel's. Everybody was quite shocked," added Fulfur. "Especially Thelma and Preg." There was a short silence. We had to digest that. Then Fulfur spoke again. "So I could guess what he had told you, but I don't know how you made him admit it." Compass explained to him how we had found out that Jockel - or Mythreides - had murdered the old priest. "Ah! I thought Baros had done it. His dagger was missing." "You know that we are accused of it?" "Sure. That's why we had to look for someone hiding from the Law. I have been hiding from the Law myself, and I know how to find people." "Why does the Mayor of Eraton think that we did it? Because we left that quickly? But that's hardly enough reason." "I don't think he believes it himself. He just wants the money back." "Money?" "This money. The Mayor's and the brigands' money." "The Mayor?" "He is associated with them." "How did you get that idea?" "He was the only one who saw the 'dragon'." "Except the hermit." "Oh yes. The hermit was bribed." "Bribed? The hermit?" "Could you please stop repeating single words? It's a bit annoying. Yes, the hermit. Didn't you see that pretty bow on him that had hung at the Mayor's wall a few days before? Oh, maybe the bow was already gone when you came." "Stop. This is confusing. Please start at the beginning." "Good idea." "The situation before the lindwurm came was like this. The brigands lived in that cave at least part of the time, and they had deposed their stuff there." "Right." "That I suspected because of your horns," he pointed at me, "they look pretty much like that brigand's ones. You got your horns in the cave, so either the brigand had been in the cave too or whatever it is that adds horns to persons must have first crossed his path, then got into the cave. It's reasonable to assume..." "Yes, yes. Go on." "The Mayor helps the brigands, is their boss, or whatever. In any case he is on their side. I'll tell you later how I know that. Then the lindwurm comes and takes the cave." "And kills one of the brigands," I said. "Oh? Anyway, they have to leave their loot in there, and they want it back. Someone has the idea that one could hire adventurers to kill the beast." "That was risky. They should have known that their money would be taken. Enter cave, kill beast, get money, leave cave, is adventuring in a nutshell." "Right. As you know, they appeared after the lindwurm was dead, and they intended to defend the cave against you. But Tarik was just too big then." "Why didn't they fight the lindwurm themselves in the first place?" "A bunch of adventurers that has just killed a lindwurm, or a lindwurm that has just killed a bunch of adventurers, tends to be wounded and thus less dangerous." "Go on." "But of course an adventurer hired by a gang of bandits will think along the same lines, so deceit must be used. This is where the Mayor comes into it. One must convince the villagers to hire adventurers. So the brigands burn the fields and leave footprints -" "They looked real!" "You didn't look at them carefully enough. I did. There are only two sorts of footprints and no trace of belly or tail. You saw how the lindwurm moved. Besides, there are a few human footprints among them. Two or three. And - after it had rained, the dragon footprints reappeared. And - it would have cost the beast at least two days to crawl to the fields and back to the cave. Obviously the brigands found a method to fake monster footprints, either by copying the real ones or by using one of their fighter demons." "I think you are right," I said. "So if the lindwurm was never close to the fields, the Mayor, who claims to have seen it there, must be in the conspiracy." "Or they conjured a demon that looked like a dragon, or the lindwurm *was* there before it settled in the cave," said Fulfur. "In the second case there was no reason for the brigands to fake the footprints after the rain. The first possibility seems unlikely. But there is more evidence for the Mayor's involvement that I'll tell you later. So the brigands burn the fields and fake traces, and the Mayor claims to have seen the dragon. I guess they thought it *was* a dragon. But it's also possible that they knew its real nature and changed it into a dragon to make the footprints more credible. A dragon could have made the distance much quicker." "Hm." "So Almes and Preg are sent out as messengers. Preg returns first with Ziemi and myself. The brigands don't appear on the way. Then you come - and are promptly ambushed. After the brigands hear that you are dragon hunters they look embarrassed and let you go. They know of Preg's mission, but they don't know that there were more to come." "One moment! Preg sent his father a letter telling him that, so *he* must have known." "Right. He didn't have a good way to inform the brigands. Did you see the small wooden peg in a hole beside the cave?" "No. You see a real lot of things!" said Compass. Tarik said, "Yes, I remember. You examined part of the wall." "If you had been in my job as long as I have, you'd see a lot of things too. As Tarik said, I examined the hole and found that a more or less freshly broken peg was in it. Below the hole - bird crap. The same sort of bird crap the Mayor has under his dovecot. More evidence that he was in contact with the brigands. I guess the lindwurm ate their dovecot." "Do lindwurmer eat wood?" Fulfur shrugged. Perhaps it ate only a few doves. Or the brigands removed the cot. Be that as it may, they ambushed you, and Magrondar was wounded. He needed treatment, so he promised to join the party. He seems to be a more honest fellow than you expect a brigand to be, and he kept his word. They protected the party from the gnolls, and they gave us demons. But I guess that the demons were at least partly intended to fight against us after the lindwurm was dead." "I had an anti-demon..." "Yes, we know that Ormgwen." "What role does the hermit play?" I asked. "I don't know for sure. You know that he sees and hears a lot out there in the woods. He probably knew what the brigands were up to. I think the Mayor gave him the bow for playing messenger between him and the brigands after the doves didn't work anymore. But he's independent and seems to find everything quite funny." "Indeed," I said. "After we left, they found their stuff gone, of course." "One moment. You left out a bit of the epistemology!" "What?" "How to find out the truth," I explained. "How did you know about the money?" "Why else should the brigands want their cave back? Why else would you play mad after leaving the cave?" "Hm... but you couldn't be sure." "That's why I searched your backpacks during your last night in Eraton." "Ugh." "So after we had left the lindwurm place, the brigands found their stuff gone, but they still didn't dare to attack us. When Tarik shrank back to normal size, their last demon was gone too. So they consulted the Mayor. Oh by the way, Sundron of course didn't want his son or Magrondar around, fighting against his, Sundron's, allies, or worse, being killed by the dragon. I don't know if they intended to ambush you again, but your leaving took them by surprise. Then someone had the idea to send a dove to Ikonium and blame you for Jelay's death, and the horned brigand and the conjurer were sent here to get their own back." "How do you..." "I saw them." "So they are here in Ikonium?" "Right. Now you tell me what I don't know, about horns for instance, and goblins." -- Bakr ibn Ja'far ibn Musa al Mekneshi, apprentice mage aka Lifilis Kloote, conjurer and artist aka Thomas Kettenring