Emirikol Intermezzo: the broadsheet Scornbul Observer

Cardinal Brutally Murdered, Sebastian d'Ferrantino Implicated

By Rutger Greenwald, exclusive to the Scornbul Observer

In the twilight of Seasday the Emirikol and the republic as a whole saw one of its longest burning lights of freedom cruelly extinguished. The venerable Cardinal of the West in Emirkol, Toussant Bregmestre, who in his time as the Cardinal of the East helped drive the chaos beasts from the city and in the centuries since has provided a bulwark against our own forces of self-destruction, was slain in his chambers. This loss to the Church of the Endless Ocean is cruel enough but made more so by the presumed identity of the murderer - none other than the Sebastian d'Ferrantino, elder son and former heir to the Loremistress of Ferrantino Library and Cardinal of the East in Signor Bregmestre's own church. It is a cruel tide indeed. 

The accounts of the evening make for harrowing reading, so we recommend that our more sensitive patrons avert their eyes now. As best the investigators are able to reconstruct, d'Ferrantino - whose odd behavior of late in and amongst the good folk of Scornbul has not escaped this paper's attentions, and culminating with his being identified as the headman in an assault on some common folk of the dock quarter by no lesser worthies than the cousins de la Bellasteros - brazenly strode into the Temple of the Endless Ocean, his presence noticed by at least four of the temple's laypeople. 

Not bothering to divest himself of his traveling garments or perform the ritual ablutions upon return to the metaphysical island of sanctity - perhaps because he no longer follows such precepts - d'Ferrantino made his way directly to meet with the aged Cardinal, using his privilege as a fellow cardinal to secure a private audience. It was not until two hours later that Lord Bregmestre's secretary, Osvald Dill, re-entered his master's chambers to find the Cardinal of the East tortured unto death, with what police are calling 'ritual chaotic markings' emblazoned on the walls and floor in Toussant's Elvish blood. 

A full hue and cry was made on the streets of western Serin around the temple only to find that Sebastian had flown. While none saw him leave the temple, he was identified as running pell-mell through a crowd of good gnomish and halfling citizens who were waiting to attend a concert that evening at the Bower of the Sun. Upon interviewing these witnesses the Observer has learned that the gnomes present spoke clearly of the scent of blood on the figure, and one witness - Mrs. Sunhild Elhers, who had been most cruelly trampled by the fleeing killer - spoke of a look of sneering satisfaction on the nobleman's otherwise fair features. 

At the scene of the murder Lord Carlos Oceano, the Cardinal of the South, worked with the summoned agents of the police and Luis Correna, the investigating magistrate, to reconstruct the events described above; these good and true gentlemen identified that the Cardinal of the West had been poisoned with a rare and expensive tincture of bloodbee venom. Those familiar with the sting of that insect are familiar with the thickening of the flood and lethargy that soon follow, and this tincture, whose manufacture is banned in the republic, produces a crippling paralysis so great that the victim cannot even scream. Signor Correna postulated that once the paralysis was in place Lord Bregmestre suffered no fewer than 30 non-fatal wounds before his tormenter finally allowed him to expire. 

Lord Oceano, being attuned as he is to the ebb and flow of the endless ocean, was able to rouse the departed Cardinal's spirit to confirm the particulars. The details of that discussion are not being shared with the press, but the Observer's sources inform us that the spirit of the departed Cardinal did indeed identify his young fellow cleric as the instrument of his murder. Likewise, the Magistrate has requested the Loremasters to provide one of their number to assist in this foul affair, but their mystical inquires are also not being made known to the public. 

This silence, combined with the d'Ferrantio heir's violent and, as it has been called, Chaotic, behavior dockside this last week, are leading many to conclude that the evidence being mystically unearthed furthers the case against this prominent figure, but that his close connection to both the Temple of the Endless Ocean and to the Loremasters might well be leading to misplaced loyalties in this affair. Already calls are arising within the government for Magistrate Correna to either end all magical analysis of the case or stick solely to the discernable facts or to call in the assistance of one of the Tower Residents in Serin for some unbiased assistance. The Magistrate has made no comment on these requests. 

One loose end in this tragic sequence of events is the presence of Cardinal d'Ferrantino at all - Signor Sebastian had left the city Seaday morning as part of a pirate hunting fleet. Unwilling to let such a discrepancy stand, the offices of the Scournbul Observer have at great expense made use of professional diviner Akos Yappi to contact sailors of that fleet. From them we have learned that past midday the fleet came across some sailors that had inadvertently captured a dolphin in their nets, and the unsuspecting Cardinal bore witness to the dead avatar of the ocean mother. By the rules of the Temple any cleric would have to undergo isolated ritualistic cleansing to maintain their connection to the tides, and appropriately Cardinal D'Ferrantino left the fleet in a small rowboat and was therefore wholly unobserved at the time of the murder. How he would have covered the distance from the fleet back to the temple is unknown, but if the rumors are true and the Cardinal had, like many sailors before him, succumbed to the call of Chaos, then such magics might explain it, just as the Cardinal's oceanic magic would have returned him to the fleet. 

This reporter, for one, is hopeful that some other answer will present itself: the Cardinal of the East, Sebastian d'Ferrantino has been a good friend to the city as a whole and the Scornbul Quarter and is one of the communities most favored sons. Still, persistent contact with pirates and the forces of Chaos have undermined other, lesser men in the past. We at the Scornbul Observer will report to you what we see as soon as we see it.