Our heroes Begin their investigation of the Ten Town murders by examining the site of Gerbo’s demise, below a sacrifical cage outside of town.
They find the body buried beneath the snow with an ice dagger through her heart, and a key to the Marinus Arms – a public house in Targos – in an inside pocket of her jacket.
Gerbo’s body is delivered to Triglio, where she can be fitted for a coffin, and brought to a chapel for proper burial. This expense was covered by the heroes three with gold found on Gerbo’s body.
They visited Gerbo’s old stall in the market, where an auction was taking place for her belongings and stall. Here they learn that she was a very successful business person by examining her ledgers. Known but not loved by other townsfolk. She kept to herself and had few known friends.
They then paid a visit to the Marinus Arms, only to find Gerbo’s apartment had already been broken into and ransacked. Those responsible ignored valuable objects and failed to find a secret compartment containing gnomish gold coins and a letter stating:
Gerbo, you have been removed from the lottery, as discussed.
Three carved ivory figurines were also recovered, marked by an artist from Brynn Shander named Kallista.
Gerbo’s former residence was then claimed as a Targos base of operations – in exchange for clearing it of belongings.
On questioning the landlord of the Marinus Arms, a halfling named Giselle, our heroes determined that Gerbo had been killed under the cage of the last victim of the lottery, a fisherman named Gunter. The Marinus arms cook, Jethro also informed them that town guards had entered the building and went upstairs shortly before their arrival, then left after purchasing bowls of fish soup.
On returning to Gerbo’s grave, Gunter’s body was examined more thoroughly, his clasped hands clutching an ivory figurine by the same artist as Gerbo’s.
A magic ice dagger was also found discarded and buried in snow. Though it would be useless in combat for most, whoever conjured it would be able to wield it effectively.
They returned to Triglio to have the art pieces appraised, they discovered the pieces are valuable to collectors. They also learned the previous town speaker still remains in the city, that Naerth strong-armed his way into the position through populist appeal and seems set on controlling the city’s industry through the might of his guards.
Neither Triglio nor the previous town speaker Owern are impressed with Skaern or his tactics, but Owern is too tired to fight and seems content spending his days reading and admiring his Kallista pieces (4 of which are new additions sold by our heroes)
After hearing rumours of 3 frostbitten dwarves in Three Flags Sailing, our heroes decided to pop in on their way to confronting Skaern. The dwarves were attacked by a Yeti and forced to abandon their haul of iron ingots to be delivered to Brynn Shander’s Black Iron Blades.
Hruno’s frostbitten stumps were healed by Yrso’s lay on hands, and the dwarves recognized our heroes could help them retreive their wares. The location was marked and the dwarves would meet our heroes in Brynn Shander to issue payment of 3 50gp Bloodgems.
The dwarves also mentioned that they were present in Brynn Shander for the murder 1 month ago – a young commoner who was found in an alleyway with an ice dagger in his heart.
Skaern took his confrontation fairly well. His involvement was still in question, but it seemed his interest was only in hiding the truth that Gerbo had paid for lottery immunity. He insisted he had nothing to do with the murders, and even allowed Yrso to examine the lottery box to confirm all townspeople’s names were present. Gerbo’s was unsurprisingly absent from the box. He had no other new information for our Heroes, though he promised to pool his resources with them.
How helpful he would be in the future remains to be seen