Murder in the Library
Mofir, 18th of Destus
General Summary
In the aftermath of the Wild Magic surge last year that killed over 800 Varendionians and left 800 more confined to living in Harmony Brook, neighboring city-states have attempted to take advantage of the first cracks to show in Varedionian society in decades. An agent of the city-state of Salenza named Decimo Arriero was captured two months ago trying to steal restricted records from the Paragon Library and was taken to The Jail of Wood to await trial by the Serenate for espionage.
Before the trial could take place, Decimo Arriero escaped from prison. In the ten days since his escape, restricted documents were discovered to be missing at the Paragon Library, further documents were stolen from the buildings that formerly housed the Serenate, and a book detailing the lineages of the ancient families of Varendicci was purloined from the home of General Strid.
As disturbing as these thefts were to the Serenate in a city that knows very little crime, matters escalated last night when a librarian at the Paragon Library was murdered apparently in another incident of document theft.
Dissatisfied at the cursory investigation of the The Wand of Pureney (a unit of the city watch based at Sterling Town Command), Chief Scribe Cassra Volpi asked her friend, Senator Danilo Spicola to prioritize some resources towards catching the killer.
Senator Danilo Spicola, piecing together some intelligence gained from the The Serenate's intelligence briefings and tying it to recent events decided to put together a team to investigate. Consisting of Aelar Sunfate, retired adventurer and minor local celebrity; Stripling Feous, jailer at the Jail of Wood; and Throom, a Loxodon former toymaker of note with a special interest in the Wild Magic burst of the previous year that destroyed his business; the Senator asked the trio to investigate the murder and the series of thefts, promising them that the resources of the Serenate were behind them.
Stripling would have a vested interest if Decimo Arriero was involved. Throom's investigation into who caused the devastating Wild Magic burst and his vendetta against the culprits interested Senator Danilo Spicola because he suspected that agents of Salenza may have been involved, and he hoped Throom might uncover further evidence to that effect. Aelar Sunfate was someone of experience who the Senator knew and trusted. Together he hoped that the team could uncover information that the city watch might miss or, worse, be disinclined to investigate further, as elements of the watch had recently fallen under suspicion of accepting bribes.
Leaving the The Serenate after being briefed, the party encountered an obviously out-of-place individual, a githyanki calling himself Howl, accompanied by a chimpanzee that Howl identified as his brother. Calling his "brother" Ash, the party also saw that Ash appeared to have his own pet cat. Howl had been sent into Varendicci by the community of chimps in the forests to the north of town, apparently to acquire better weapons for use in an inter-tribal conflict of chimps, though he didn't elaborate much further than that to the group. Feeling it would be a good idea to keep an eye on this newcomer to town, who had arrived in the midst of the thefts, Aelar Sunfate invited Howl along with the promise of taking him to acquire weapons after the group had made some stops of their own.
Their first stop was to be the scene of the murder at the Paragon Library, but before they could get there while traversing Sufnia Plaza, the group were confronted by a gang of thugs led by a human calling himself Viccini. Viccini offered the party a warning on behalf of his employer - stay out of this business, leave well enough alone or suffer the consequences. He even went so far as to threaten an associate of Stripling's by name, referring to "Cryik" - something that disturbed Stripling who seemed disturbed that the connection between the two was known. To punctuate the threat, Viccini signaled one of his men to fire a warning shot through the party, but Stripling, anticipating the move and taking it as an attack, threw a dagger that struck Viccini in the shoulder and Howl, who the warning shot had narrowly missed, understandably reacted to the near miss by attacking the thug who had fired at him. Between Howl and Ash , they charged and disarmed the thug and brutally beat him to death in seconds. Viccini fled the battle with one of his associates, while the party quickly took care of the rest of his thugs.
Moving on to the scene of the murder, the party were able to question Cassra Volpi about the incident and look over the crime scene, discovering the following information:
- The victim was a trainee scribe named Rufina de Pace who had been on her way to reshelve two tomes on the history and practice of magic.
- The books that were taken, titled The Arcane: A Practical Observation and The Divine: A Practical Observation are typically found only in scholarly libraries and while not widely available are not difficult to track down.
- The restricted documents that went missing in the previous incident at the Paragon Library were archived minutes of closed sessions of The Serenate and it is unknown how long they had been missing prior to the discovery of their disappearance six days ago.
- Rufina de Pace was bludgeoned in the back of the head and found lying in a substantial pool of blood in the open central garden of the library.
- Traces of blue ink were found upon some of the leaves of plants close to where the victim was killed.
- A pile of chimp feces was left behind at the fountain - neither Howl or Ash recognized the scent.
- The river facing windows of the library are secure from the outside and would be difficult to open without leaving traces of interference.
- Gaining access to the central garden of the library is not difficult to anyone who is a competent climber.
- Rufina de Pace's body was discovered by Ehlanna Lo Pinto, Cassra Volpi's deputy who was overseeing her training.
Rewards Granted
52 SP and 30 CP
Missions/Quests Completed
Investigated the crime scene at the Paragon Library in Varendicci.
Character(s) interacted with
Varendicci's North Quadrant by Rob Taylor
Report Date
09 Feb 2022
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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