Necropalypse II DLC Aftermath

Rol screamed in response to the villagers intial screams, he was startled. "Oops."


"If you would talk to anyone with any sort of authority i'm sure they'll listen to you more than me. I'll ask some kids some questions, might not lead to anything but who knows."

"True they probably have no idea who you are." Val shrugged. "Kids often know more than we give them credit for. Good luck." She nods and goes to speak with the high priestess.

The children seem to be grouped together in the corner of the room. There seem to be about fifty of them of varying ages. As Rol approaches them a young girl in a pink dress who seems to be about 7 years old walks up to him. She looks up and looks at Rol silently for a moment. Then she asks: "Are you a demon? Daddy says demons are bad."

"The real question is are you a demon? My momma always told me they were a tricky bunch." Rol looked at the little girl with his hands on his hips. "Or have you seen a demon? Like a red one?"

"I'm not a demon. I'm Embre." The girl thinks for a while after Rol's question about the red demon. Then after a long silence she shakes her head. "No." Followed by another pause. ".. what do demons look like? Are they red? Or just some of them?"

Another kid speaks up. "Demons aren't red, I know cuz I saw a demon once! They were big and green. They lifted a house up in the air! He also very angry all the time. I think his name was Der Bruce Bannor."

Embre looks at the other kid and shouts back. "That's an Orc you idiot!"


"Nuh-uh! It was a demon!"

The two kids start yelling at each other. Some of the others join in and soon the parents have to pull them apart to avoid a physical fight from breaking out.

One of the older kids steps forward to Rol. He looks to be around 12 years old. "Hey you're with the empress right? That means I can probably trust you. I'm not sure if it was a demon but I saw a figure wearing a red robe in the distance on our way to the temple. They were there one second and gone the next. I tried to tell my mom but she said it was just my imagination." The kid sighs sadly.

Embre meanwhile has been put in the corner to cool down. She is silently pouting.

Rol let the kids argue. He was tempted to join in and 'school' them, but the job at hand was far more important. He turned his attention to the boy who told him about the red cloak.


"On your way to the temple? Whereabouts was the red robe? If you can remember."

"I think I saw them walk out of the Inn. I have no idea where they went after that because they just disappeared. Sorry for not being more helpful, sir." The boy answered.

(Hey do i have anything to give the kid, something that would also prompt the other kids to maybe fight him for it?? lol)


"Nah buddy, you've done real good. You might've just helped save the wrold." He.. Uh high-fived him, yeah that seems like a safe impossible to misread gesture. (this is where Rol would slip the kid some.. gold?? i guess? or just leave it at a high-five)

(We haven't really been worrying about inventory so.. I dunno. If you think Rol would have something like that on him go ahead. Gold might get the adults to start fighting too though. lol)

"What's a wrold?"

"Thank you sir." The boy then runs back to his parents when he sees Val walking this way. He seemed intimidated by her. Which isn't surprising since she is the Empress and all.


"Hey, you had any luck? The high priestess didn't know anything useful." Val said as she approached Rol.

"wrold = the world but bigger and more important."


"Don't spend it all in the same place, ya hear?" Rol waved as the youngster ran off.


"Hey Val, I got something, kid over there said he saw the red robe walk out of the inn earlier"

"Which Inn?"


(I forgot if I had said if there were multiple Inns in this town or if there was only the one. Oops, my fault. Doesn't matter though you'd just have to ask the kid which inn he meant. He'd then say the name of the one you are staying at. We can skip that and just pretend that happened.)


"That means we know where to go next. Good work." Val answered and headed out of the shelter.

--

Val and Rol head straight back to the Boarsk Inn and find the door wide open. They hear someone crying inside and run in. There they find the Dwarven owner of the Inn laying in a pool of blood. His half-human son is kneeling next to the body and weeping.

Val comes to a halt when she sees the body. She shakes her head. "Damn it." She approaches the Inn keeper's son and kneels down next to him. "Hey, ... What happened here?"

He doesn't appear to notice her and just keeps crying.

(i probably coulda pieced that one together myself, my b, also like owner guy is totally dead right?)

Roltharus followed Val through the streets of the town on their way to the Inn, keeping a sharp eye out for any red cloth straps. 

His focus quickly shook once he saw the scene that was with in the Boarsk Inn. He look at the body of the owner seeing if the quick glance over could spot the injury that led to the fatality. 

He approached the son, and asked, softly. "Who did this?"

(True. What I meant was that I should have just had the boy say the Inn's name instead of saying "The inn". I completely forgot I had said there were more Inns in this town. Not that it mattered, would have been weird if I had meant another Inn.



And yes, he ded.)

Rol could see that most of the blood came from a wound on his head. There was also a small cut on the palm of his hand.

The son eventually noticed Val and Rol. He tried to wipe away his tears but his hands were covered in blood so now there was blood and tears on his face. "I.. I-I .. I don't know. I was doing the dishes and heard my f-father yell something. Then there was a loud bang and a scream. I wasn't sure what to do.. When I got here he was lying on the ground and bleeding. He..h-he didn't respond. I tried to wake him.. but he.." The son starts crying again.


"Did you see anyone else here?" Val asks softly as she puts a hand on his shoulder.


"N-No, there..there wasn't.. I took too long.. If I hadn't hesitated I might have been able to stop them. I was too late.. I-.." He breaks down again.

"I'm sorry." Val pats him on the back and stands back up.
"I don't think we're going to get anything out of him. We should see if we can find any other clues. See if we can figure out what happened here."

Rol looked that the son sympathetically. "We should probably get him cleaned up and take him to the shelter.." He looked over the dead body once again. "And whatever proper service is done for dwarves.."


He then nodded at Val, "Right priorities. Seems like the back didn't have anything suspicious if that's where the son was. But probably should look anyways."

Val nods. "Good idea. We should probably also check upstairs. It would be bad if we missed any clues by not checking everywhere."
--
Val and Rol went to the back of the Inn. They checked the kitchen, where they only found the half done dishes. Nothing else seemed out of place. They didn't find anything out of the ordinary in the storage room either. 


"Hmm. No clues here. Only place left is upstairs. Let's go."

--

They head upstairs and immediately notice something, Blood. It isn't much but the red stains stand out on the blue carpet. Then there's also the bloody handprint on the wall.


"If I had to guess that's from the Inn keeper's hand wound." Val points at the bloody smear on the wall.
"Which means he got that wound up here. Did they kill him here too then? Hmm, we should probably investigate this hallway a bit more."

Along with the blood there are a few scratches and dents on the wall. The carpet has also been damaged somewhat.
There does not seem to be any blood on the stairs, only in the hallway.
There are six doors up here. Five are bedrooms and one is the bathroom.
One of those bedrooms is Val's and another is Rol's. The other three should be empty as there were no other guests staying in the Inn.

"Time to look into some rooms." Rol said, as he opened the door one of the rooms that that he and Val did not occupy, the closest to the hand print. "Room service"

Rol went to open the door but it didn't budge. He then realized it was locked.

Val tried to open another room and it was locked too. Then they tried the third one with the same result. "Hmm. I guess the Inn keeper didn't want anyone snooping around the other rooms even if they were empty. Makes sense."

She then walked to the end of the hallway over to Rol's room. "Just to be sure." She tried opening the room but it too was locked. "Good. Seems you didn't forget to lock your room this time." She laughs.
She then walks across the hall to her own room and puts her hand on the door. It opens slightly.

"What?" Val frowns. "Did I forget to.. No I'm sure I locked it this morning." She pushes the door open. She gasps when she sees her room. It's been completely trashed. It looks like someone cast a tornado spell in there. Or you know, went through the room looking for something and didn't clean up afterward.


"Okay. I know I toss and turn in my sleep but it wasn't me this time."

Rol sighed at the locked doors. "You know a powerful spell caster wouldnt have any issues with door locks.." And as if responding to that Val had discovered her own room was unlocked.


"That's awful cryptic." Rol entered Val's room behind her observing the mess. "Well they were definitely looking for something, know what that something might've been?"

"That's why most doors have magic locks. With thousands of mages out there that's the only way to be secure." Val replied to Rol's lock comment.

Val stepped into her room and looked around carefully. "I do keep a few important items in my room because my armor does not have pockets unfortunately. Could be they were after one of those. I'll have to look around and see if any of them are missing."

Val headed to her nightstand and opened one of the drawers. "It might take some time so while I do that maybe you can get the keys for the other rooms. The Inn keepers son probably knows where they are." She said as she sat down on the bed and checked behind her pillows.


"Since nobody was staying there I doubt we will find anything in them. But better to check anyway, right?"

Rol nodded. "I'll see if he's coherent now."

The bounty hunter headed back to the sons to ask for the keys so they could continue the investigation. Hopefully even if the son hadn't gathered his mental facilities he'd still be motivated to assist by the fact it could help find the killer... Rol then thought to himself. "Maybe I should ask him what his name is, calling him 'son' mentally is weird."

"My name is Son." was not what he replied when Rol asked for his name.
"The name is Son Goku." No it's not.
"Jason?" Still has son in it.. Why? Also not fantasy-ish enough.
"Yeson?" No.
"My father was a dwarf my name is gonna have son in it anyway." That's only your last name. Also I forgot to give your father a name (I think. If I did I've already forgotten what it was. And I'm too lazy to check my notes.) so we're not gonna mention your last name.


"..Son Mcfathersson." Now you're just messing with me. Also wtf is that 'Mc' doing in there. Dwarves are supposed to have Norse names in Val. Not Scottish/Irish.


"I'm only half dwarven!" That's not how that works!  Now please be serious. Your father just died ffs.


"YOU are the one who decided to kill off my dad just because he wanted to add a little murder mystery."
Just. Pick. A. Name. (Also that's a lie. I was planning to kill him off from the start. "That's even worse!")

"..."
...
"Gardl."
That sounds like you're choking on a piece of chicken. Which means it's good enough.



When Rol came down the stairs and asked the son for his name the son didn't respond at first. He was staring off into space then looked towards Rol. "Oh, Gardl, My name is Gardl."

Then Rol asked him about the keys. "The keys? Sure. I'll go get them." Gardl stood up and walked behind the counter. He started looking under the counter and feeling around. "Huh.. That's odd. They should be here. Oh gods, where are the keys?" He suddenly becomes panicked and starts crying again while frantically looking for the keys.
He doesn't appear to be having any luck and is only getting himself more worked up.

"Champ calm down, it's okay." Rol tried to comfort the half dwarf, not a strong suit of his. "Is there perhaps a master key or copies anywhere? We can take our time with this." Maybe not true, but rushing Gardl seemed like an inopportune idea.

"No, ..I mean yes but.." Gardl took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
"My dad kept all the keys on a single key ring. He only took them out when he needed to open one of the doors or had to give one to a guest. So the key ring should still be here but it's not."


Gardl then sat down on the ground and put his head in his hands. "I can't..I'm sorry."
He doesn't seem like he'll be able to help the investigation any more.

"I understand. Take your time."

Rol patted him on the back and headed back up to Val.

Back upstairs Rol finds Val sitting on the bed going through one of her bags of clothes she brought with her. She notices Rol entering the room and looks up at him. "Hey, got the keys?" She asked.
-

"I'm pretty much done here. There doesn't seem to be anything missing.." She paused and frowned. "...Unless.." She quickly jumped to her feet and checked under the bed. She pulled out a small box and opened it. It's empty. "Fuck."


"Okay, we've got a problem." She closes the box and puts it on the bed. "In that box was supposed to be a key. The key to the room with the big ominous floating orb of doom that we had to fix a couple of months ago."

"Whoever's stealing this shits got a weird key fetish."

Rol scratched his head. "Does this change priorities our? do we have to head back to the room with the death flow?"