A Murder On The Dwarven Express
While not explicitly give to The Goons, Oriza did enlist the help of Severin and Treldaan Freep, not trusting that Melinoe Expspiravit wasn’t somehow involved.
Objective: Discover who murdered Zayeed Ebek-Sur, the guards, and practically everyone else on board.
Layout of the Train
- First Car: Engine
- Second Car: Kitchen and servants quarters
- Third Car: VIP quarters, only accessible by VIP guests.
- Fourth Car: Diningroom
- Fifth Car: VIP Lounge
- Sixth Car: Coach Lounge
- Seventh car: Coach quarters
- Eighth, and subsequent Cars: Storage.
There is no admittance to the Engine or Kitchen cars for guests, and all Storage cars are under supervision.
Occurance After Body Found
- Ghosts are currently missing.
Details of Zayeed’s Death
- His body was found with the door ajar and an odd warm smell of Antean Cider permeated the small space.
- Melinoe Expspiravit says when she went to visit Zayeed, she knocked but only heard a bottle clink to the floor followed by a soft thud.
- A half-empty bottle of Antean Cider was discovered next to the body.
- Zayeed was found laying on the floor staring up at the ceiling.
- At the request of Oriza, Melinoe attempted to Speak With Dead, but Zayeed’s spirit would not be summoned.
- Eight hours later Zayeed’s body took on the appearance of another man, specifically a man resembling Yarrow Lightfeather, the previous lord of Fane.
- Yarrow Lightfeather is known to have left Fane some years ago. Rather than die and leave Fane in turmoil, since he had no heirs, he chose a successor before essentially retiring. His choice was unpopular, a Half-Orc named Bramak Blackhand who was usurped shortly after. The throne was then taken over by the Godfreys, first his father then Petyr Godfrey.
- Zayeed (Yarrow)’s body has a tattoo of the sigil of the first order in Fane’s history, the Order of the Tower, an organization that rose to power shortly after the city discovered Jora Kampfrun was a vampire. They lead the hunts and reorganization of the city infrastructure in the years following Jora’s demise. - - The Order of the Tower was rumored to have been split into the other foundling orders after their task of hunting down vampires, or ‘leeches’ as they were called, teaching the other orders how to recognize vampires and corruption and the means to combat them. As such, the Order of the Tower hasn’t really been around as an organization in the past few hundred years.
- Zayeed (Yarrow) appears to have been dead for longer than he’s been on the train.
- Zayeed (Yarrow)’s body has an aura of necromancy, broken arms with no bruising, and caramel on his mouth and fingers.
- Under his tongue is the symbol, consisting of a circle with almost meeting lines. It is old magic and the closest thing is the soul cage.
Details of Melinoe’s One-On-One Interrogation
- Digging into people’s backgrounds, especially in regard to Narsai
- Keeping the focus on facts, rather than explanations or conjectures.
- Brought up the Sons of Hydra, and terrorist cell of the mage-hunters, mainly from Narsai, want to spread mysterium around.
- Asked about history with Zayeed
- Asked if I hailed from Antaeus
- Asked if I would ever go to Narsai
- Asked about my involvement with the Crimson Path Cult, the attack of Caelfall, and involvement with pirates.
- Asked me about both Rhea Mythorious and E’san
Details of the Guards Murder
- Found impaled on the lamp posts in the Dining Car by Treldaan Freep, specifically with the Roombas and butlers trying to them clean up.
- The smell of Anteaus candied apples was in the air.
- Oriza is checking every person’s hands for sticky substances, as caramel was spilled all over the last booth in the VIP Lounge.
- The Master Butler: Master of Sales has not been seen since he was taken away by the guards before they were murdered.
- The Master Butler and Onslow Greene are both in the lower cars and are not being given access to the dining car.
A Murder Solved
- The murderer was Jora Kampfrun.
- He originally took over the one we knew as Zayeed. When his body couldn’t hold Jora’s spirit, things kinda got out of hand and people died. He then took over Mr. Greene, and swears to Melinoe that while he tried to kill her but he would have brought her back.
- Jora has now taken possession of Sigrol Ken, thus making a pure vampire in a pureblood werewolf.
- After this discovery, Jora confided in Melinoe that he wanted to take possession of his urn and ashes in order to enact revenge for his friends that have been erased from history by Benok Oakenbow.
The Party Divided
- Jora decided to give a choice to Melinoe. Choice 1: Let him have his ashes, go on his murder spree, and he’ll let them live, taking the blame (sorta) for the murders. Choice 2: He’ll kill The Goons here and now.
Treldaan Freep and Severin were not part of this choice, as they were entranced by Jora. - Treldaan, having broken the enchantment, decided the best decision was to get rid of Jora’s ashes so that he would be forced to evacuate Ken’s body. While did chuck the urn at the train window, hoping to smash it, Jora did catch it. Treldaan has now been seen as being directly rude to Jora, so it is likely he will be in trouble in the future.
- Sev and Melinoe have decided that it is fine for Jora to continue his possession of Ken, and for him to leave the group to enact his revenge. Treldaan, on the other hand, is staunchly against this decision and as a result, is disappointed in Sev - as he expected more from him.