>>5167314You feel a renewed urgency as you close your communications with Felman, and you move with increased vigor towards the grave-mounds where the wraith is said to sustain itself. Yemrep is summoned en route, serving as a guide to the particular half-buried family crypt wherein your quarry (or recruit?) was previously lurking. Only as morning arrives in full does the light of day diminish the hellish weakling to practical non-existence, but the bloated toad has done his job by then—you are there.
However, as your approach, you feel a bolt of instinctual fear go through you. It is not your own insight, but Irinnile’s, which she shares with you: she detects a living soul within the crypt. You hang back, hiding in the shadow of a gravestone until you see a figure emerge from the sepulcher in question:
Sir Chase, the Paladin.
You shudder, immediately scanning the surrounding hills for his gryphon… But no, he has come here alone, it seems. His stance, his grip on his unsheathed sword, and his dour expression and exhausted eyes speak to a night of frustrated failure. That much is good, but the certainty you have that WHAT he failed at was much the same as your own objective—finding the wraith and ‘securing’ it in his own way—is far less comforting.
‘I thought Felman the Incelman said this asshole was off the case?’ Irinnile says, her mental voice hushed even though you alone can hear her.
“Sso did I,” you mutter, before returning to psychic correspondence as well. ‘Maybe he took that personally. He seems like a prideful human. This may be a matter of glory-seeking vanity… It would explain why he brought no gryphon.’
‘Do we gank him?’ Irinnile asks, though you sense her trepidation.
That silvered, no-doubt holy blade fills her with existential dread; the knowledge that Irinnile’s demon-reducing and regenerative capabilities will be of limited utility against a so-called ‘holy’ warrior, especially by daylight, doesn’t make you feel overly optimistic, either.
Still… He is alone. There are no witnesses. You have the element of surprise. And he is clearly shrewder and more determined than you gave him credit for.
What do you do?
>Attack and slay Sir Chase, if you can>Spy upon Sir Chase, and follow him if possible to learn what he is up to>Approach Sir Chase innocently, as a mourner, and attempt to get some info out of him—maybe even an opportunity to enthrall or puppeteer the Paladin!>Leave this place before you are noticed—you want no suspicion cast upon you>Write-in 