A Foot (ANRIA) - 11/01/2023 - Archie’s Extracts

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When A New Rumour Is ‘A Foot’

Literally so, in fact…

There was a disembodied foot in the Great Hall, by the notice boards. The Hall had been locked up, while a team of investigators was being gathered.

Humphrey Horizon Brookshar, a well-known member of staff at the Fort, and a well-known Pitfighter too was put in charge by the Fort’s chief (Jenna) to assign the investigation team.

Joining me with their detective caps on, so to speak, were fellow adventurers: Fog; my very tall, Firbolg friend who has a penchant for the wilderness, a hint of arcane and a large dash of the gothic to him. Lilia too was there, another familiar companion; a human lady skilled with a rapier, divinely blessed and adjacently vibes with Fog’s goth look, but with white hair. New to me were the kobold man, Digs, who Mendal is familiar with, a crossbow marksman, locksmith. Lastly, Camwyna; a gnome lady of an unknown arcane expertise.

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On Discerning Fact from Rumour

Between breakfast - which was served in one of the gatehouses while the mysterious foot was not to be disturbed - and my recruitment into the investigation team, I had heard many a rumour pertaining to the foot:

• "Someone annoyed Taz again." - As quick to draw a blade as he may be, I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t kill someone over a trivial matter in the establishment where he resides from time to time. In addition, had he killed someone, he doesn’t strike me as the person who would hide the rest of the evidence.
• "It's a revenant Gith who has been hiding in the woods, trying to get their vengeance on the fort and all who pass through here. A friend of my nephew said she spoke to someone who had escaped from it. They say that if they cut you with one of their silver swords that they can cut your soul away from you forever." - Something about this rumour struck me as too fantastical, even for the Dawnlands. I didn’t entirely dismiss it though. I merely sent it to the back of the queue of rumours likely to bear honest truth.
• "It probably hopped there itself. Round here, it wouldn't have been the strangest thing to have happened" - From the investigation, it turned out that this was true!
• "It probably came into the fort like most things - on the back of a delivery cart. They bring in all sorts of rubbish along with their wares these days. No professionalism anymore." - From the investigation, we could conclude that the foot did arrive on a delivery cart. It is presumed at the moment that it wasn’t supposed to be included.

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On Stepping into the Crime Scene

The first thing I noted whilst stepping into the Great Hall to investigate the foot, was that Lilia is also gifted in minor telekinesis. She also shares a talent for medicine - possibly a professional interest too, judging from her brilliant assessment of the foot. As Digs and Fog looked over the room, Lilia, Cam and I inspected the foot, and came to the following conclusions:

Foot - Great Hall - By the Notice Boards

• Left foot and ankle; medium sized adult, female
• Clean laceration above the ankle, no blood
• Arcane twitching that faded over time to no twitching
• Unknown, blue-coloured fluid in the veins
• Small puncture marks at the top of the ankle
• Tattoo on instep, ‘MIM’, stylised
• Tattoo on sole, ‘MM-G1C-LF’, plain
• Hint of arcane schools detected; mainly necrotic
• Uncalloused, no blemishes

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On Interviewing Witnesses

Lilo, the Sous Chef, (female goblin) under Head Chef Maggie Frosthea (female dwarf) had supposedly seen the foot in the larder, which is located in the storeroom, away from the kitchen and the Great Hall.

Lilo had had quite the fright seeing the foot in the larder. We talked instead to Maggie who relayed Lilo’s account to us.

Witness: Lilo / Maggie

• Left foot found in larder whilst getting morning baking supplies
• One of the Fort Ettin cat’s, Nibbles (tortoise shell coloured fur) was with the foot
• Lilo had not seen the foot anywhere else
• Lilo ran away in fright, larder trap door left open
• No new, unknown deliveries reported by Maggie
• Kitchen log book made available to us

Digs proposed a non-magical method of detecting a possible, invisible assailant. It involved the use of a considerable amount of flour being spread everywhere. While this was going on, I sent my awakened spellbook’s manifested mind out on an excursion around the fort to try and locate Nibbles, having first enhanced my investigative talent with the Fox’s Cunning spell.

The result of Dig’s invisible detection task did not produce any results related to our investigation. It did, however, make all the unseen servant kitchen staff visible - Maggie and Lilo’s kitchen is a very busy kitchen, which I’m sure we all appreciate greatly.

Having located Nibbles in the storeroom, and kept her entertained with a moving red dot of light casted through my spellbook’s avatar, we proceeded to the storeroom. Fortunately, we had two members of our team with the ability, arcane or otherwise, to speak with animals.

Witness: Fiona (Nibbles) the cat

• Fiona found the foot in the larder
• Fiona stated that the foot could hop around quite well when she discovered it
• Fiona saw Lilo enter the larder, was perplexed with her reaction to the foot, and why she, Fiona, was not given affection and a treat

Larder

• Splashes of blue fluid discovered inside
• No signs of forced entry into or out of the larder
• Delivery log book inside storeroom, and another in the larder
• Upon looking at the larder’s log book, it was discovered that ‘MIM’ is the insignia for a regular meat vendor, MacIntyre Meats
• It is now presumed that two parts of MM-G1C-LF are known, and that this is a serial number:

• MM = MacIntyre Meats
• LF = Left Foot
• G1C is unknown

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On Reporting Findings

Upon updating the kitchen’s head chef, Maggie, wisely chose to investigate all the meat deliveries from MacIntyre Meats. No further blue liquid or foreign meat was discovered.

Upon updating Humphrey, it was concluded that information on the foot should be kept quiet until we could investigate further with MacIntyre Meats.

120gp was awarded to each member of the investigation team. I additionally acquired an Elixir of Health, which I was most happy with - I feel everyone should have a vial of said potion, as an adventurer, one never knows when one will come down with an unexpected and fatal disease. An Elixir of Health could be the difference between a horrible death and continued life. (I dare say, my companion Digs would have benefited from said potion in the absence of Clerics in our party, after his ill-advised sampling of uncooked meat from the larder - details omitted here on accounts of the details being undesirable).

In addition, we were rewarded with one item each from the Lost Property storage room that had not been claimed in over a year, which served two purposes I supposed; enhancing our reward, and clearing the ever-filling Lost Property room. I obtained a spinning top carved with four faces: happy, sad, wrathful, and dead. Something about the unusually intricate design of this top suggested that it was intended as an arcane instrument of some kind. But whatever its past, it doesn't seem to be magically active now. There are still some lingering traces of arcane energies to the object, but whether this is because it used to work and is now broken, or is somebody's failed experiment; I am unsure. The Identify spell was unable to divine anything. I will have a technical specialist pass their eye over it.

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