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"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Echo says, though she does appear to be in a rather foul mood. "I just need a moment to shake off this queasy feeling."

Searos looks completely confused.

"Who is they?!?"

He stops suddenly and his eyes get large with fear and terror. He pulls Echo close.

"Wait... do you mean 'they' they? Like, them? You know... 'them'... ya feel me?"

"Get off me," Echo states as she pushes the thief away. "I mean the smugglers."

"Calm down, Searos." Kim says and bends down to the man struck down, checking if he's really dead, and searching him.

"»Them« are the comrades of this man here. Definitely no ghosts. And Brax has just discovered the passage through which they took Amon."


(ooc: Brax wouldn't have needed to do that if I hadn't rolled two sixes on secret door check rolls...)

"Indeed I have." She steps forward, taking Echo's arm lightly with her silver fingers, moving the groggy mage from Searos's grasp. "Take this, it will help." She offers a small crumbled leaf, "You will feel better I assure you."

"The Ghosts do indeed appear to be men, no more." She responds to Kim.

Both men are indeed dead (actually there are two, sorry if that was not clear). The first cleaved neatly by Gunters Battle Axe, the second lays in a pool of blood, a gaping wound to his chest.

They both carry long thin curved daggers, each about 9inches in length, the hilts display a wolf symbol, in total they carry 12cp, 10sp and a strange looking gold piece, with the same Wolf Head.
The first man (with the battle axe wound) carries a small crumpled note, reading: 'Meet me at the pier at midnight' The second (with the dagger wound) wears a silver signet ring on his left thumb, a wolf head emblazed on the front.

(Actions?)

"This appears to be much more than we bargained for, but we also have a chance to make a difference for this town. Should we take them up on this meeting at the pier?"

"First we should find Amon. And then we should consider if we can be a match for them" is Kim's opinion.

Searos backs off from the mage with his hands up and fingers spread.

"Alright Chills, calm down, I was just making sure who it was we are dealing with here. I wanted to make sure we weren't dealing with... others. Very dangerous you know."

He then picks up the wolf's head gold piece and flips it over in his fingers. He takes out the small box full of wolf's head coins and compares them. "Why a wolf's head? I've never seen this print before..."

"Maybe its the payment from whoever bought the goods? If it's from a different kingdom that's probabky why we haven't seen it before. Perhaps if we can find out where it's from we'd have a better idea of the scale of this whole operation."

"Another kingdom? Possibly.." Brax leans over one of the bodies, "Human, hmmm." She ponders, finding a small patch of cloth, "Smell this.." She motions to Gunter.

Gunter gives her a quizzical look and then leans in to smell the cloth...

Gunter starts to feel slightly queasy, his head foggy.

"Interesting, it is the same liquid we found in the chest, very strange." She passes him a small crushed leaf, "Eat this, it will make it go away."

The door remains open a crack with light still visible behind.

"Well, this is all very fascinating but perhaps we should check out this room and find his lordship. Gods only know what trouble he's getting himself into. Probably trying to teach the smugglers how to read or something... though the one thing I don't understand about this whole operation remains what are they smuggling? So we find some nice cloth. Big deal. We haven't seen illegal gems, slaves, drugs, weapons, or anything that anybody normally smuggles. It makes no sense to go to the effort of smuggling perfectly legal goods, ya feel me?"

Searos moves to the door deciding to get this show on the road.

Opening the door Searos sees a room which is so unlike anything else the group have seen in the House that for a moment you pause, somewhat taken aback. The illumination here is good since several lighted torches are held in shoulder-high brackets around the walls.
This was obviously a cellar, but equally obviously it is now used for an entirely different purpose; your first impression is that it is the living quarters for about ten people.

Searos whistles a bit in appreciation.

"Boy, I'll bet the 'lords' of this town would be surprised to see this..."