The First Murders

Sheriff Hemlock explains that, two days ago, a patrol of guards along the Lost Coast Road were assaulted by a deranged man near an abandoned barn south of town along the banks of Cougar Creek. The man was obviously sick and insane, his flesh fevered, eyes wild, mouth frothing, and clothes caked with blood. The guards subdued him, but when they checked inside the barn they discovered the mutilated bodies of three men.

Although all three bodies were far too disfigured to identify, one of them carried a piece of parchment that Hemlock gives to you to read (below). The note identifies the bodies as Tarch Mortwell, Lener Hask, and Gedwin Tabe, three notorious con men and swindlers known well to Sheriff Hemlock as local troublemakers. He personally forbade the three men from operating their con games and barely legal operations in Sandpoint, and wasn’t particularly surprised at the time to find them murdered—it was only a matter of time before they tried to swindle someone worse than them, after all. But in light of the mill murders and the fact that Mortwell, Hask, and Tabe all bore the same seven-pointed marking on their chests that Harker did, Hemlock is convinced there is something worse than revenge afoot.

The bodies of all three men lie in state in a cool basement room below the Sandpoint Garrison, not far from the holding cells containing Ibor and Ven—you are welcome to examine them if you wish.

The insane man has been identified as one Grayst Sevilla, a local Varisian thug. He’s been given over to the care of Erin Habe, caretaker of the Saintly Haven of Respite.