Cases · Misteria Vale — 5 investigations in one world

Fire at the Mill

A village and a burnt mill · 13 villagers

free case

A few nights ago fire broke out at the old mill. In the house beside it lay Maren, the miller's wife, sick abed: she could no longer rise, and she never came out of the flames. There is one death in this village, and the guilt for it lies on whoever set the mill alight. Some call it an accident; others whisper that the thing was not clean. Piece the night together: WHO set the fire, WHY and WITH WHAT. When you are sure, press «accuse» and name the culprit, the motive and the means. The case closes only when all three agree. Walk the village and talk to the people. They are in no hurry to open up: ask, compare, press on what does not add up, and put your findings to them. The counter at the top shows how many motives and means you have uncovered.

What the village knows

A few nights ago the mill caught fire in the night. The flames were noticed late and could not be put out at once. The miller Bram's wife died in the fire — she had been gravely ill for a long time and had taken to her bed before it. The whole village knows of it and talks of it; many came to look at the glow.

Whom you will have to get talking

Bram Ashgrove — The widowed miller, whose mill burned with his sick wife inside.
Elder Maro — The elder who holds the village together and wants the trouble closed quickly and quietly.
Finn — The apothecary, who keeps the ledger recording every remedy in the village.
Hans the Baker — Hans the baker, a neighbour; he stands like a wall for his son.
Magister Kel — The magister of the healers' guild, arrived to inspect the village herbwife.
Odetta the Innkeeper — The innkeeper, where the miller drowned his grief after the funeral.
Odo — The shopkeeper, who is missing a barrel of lamp oil.
Pip the Stablehand — The stablehand from the inn, a quiet friend of the baker's son.
Rein the Tax Collector — The tax collector, come to shake the arrears out of the miller.
Sena Vell — The herbwife who treated the miller's late wife; she hovers at every sick bed.
Tim — Tim, the baker's son; he was wandering by the mill at night, and so falls under suspicion wrongly.
Widow Greta — The widow who washed the dead woman; sharp of tongue and hungry for other people's secrets.
Wilda the Neighbour — The mill's neighbour, who sees everything over the wattle fence and judges everyone.

The Poisoned Cup

A tavern and a wedding feast · 14 villagers

The wedding feast thundered in the tavern well into the night — until one of the guests, having drunk his wine, gave a rattle and pitched face-down into the scraps. The ale was still foaming in the mugs while he was already going cold on the floor. Everyone ladled the wine from one cask, all night, the whole company — and no one else was taken. Why, then, did death choose him alone?

What the village knows

The wine was drawn from a common cask — but the dead man's cup was his own, a particular one, and he gave it into nobody's hands. People remember that just before his death he quarrelled hard with someone by the porch, the voices breaking off into the dark. And the village is already crossing itself and whispering that nothing but a witch's hex laid the poor man in his grave.

Whom you will have to get talking

Balduin Lancet — The barber-surgeon, who examined the dead man's cooling body.
Bart Wort — The brewer, who supplied the ale and the mead; a familiar face in the tavern.
Elder Maro — The village elder, who kept order at the wedding.
Father Vlasiy — The village priest, who married the young pair and sat at the wedding table.
Finn — The apothecary, who sat among the guests and keeps the remedy shop next door to the tavern.
Irma Vitriol — The alchemist, who trades in the village in poisons and etched metal.
Lucia Carat — The jeweller; that particular cup of the dead man's is her work.
Lupen Sweetvoice — The bard, who played and sang at the wedding all evening.
Morvena of the Bog — The bog charmer from the outskirts, to whom the village runs on the quiet for spells.
Odetta the Innkeeper — The mistress of the tavern where the wedding thundered; she poured for the guests herself.
Sister Agna — The copyist nun, who keeps the church's registers.
Tibo called Vinesman — The vintner, whose wine was rolled out by the cask to the wedding feast.
Widow Greta — The village widow, one of the guests at the table.
Zaryana the Seeress — The fortune-teller, who had been laying the cards for the guests at the feast.

The Silver of the Saints

A chapel, a churchyard and a crypt · 14 villagers

Between vespers and matins a silver reliquary holding a saint's relics vanished from a locked chapel — and the chapel stands locked as it stood: the window whole, the door untouched. The keys can be counted on one hand, and every one of them is where it should be, with people the village is used to trusting. By morning the parish is shaking as with a fever: sacrilege within these walls is a worse thing than pestilence. Who carried the relic out through a locked door — and where has it gone?

What the village knows

They talk of one thing only: the chapel was locked fast, the window untouched, and only three people hold keys — the priest, the copyist sister and the elder. And in the same breath they recall that strangers passed through the village the day before — whether it was not their doing.

Whom you will have to get talking

Akolus Quietleaf — The keeper of the church books, in whose inventory the missing reliquary was listed.
Anselm Vayte — The reader of stars, to whom people come for omens; in those days he spoke of a bad sign over the churchyard.
Barnava called Purse — The travelling merchant who passed through the village in those very days and soon went on his way.
Elder Maro — The village elder, who holds the third key to the chapel; the case falls to him to settle before the commons.
Father Vlasiy — The keeper of the chapel and of its keys; it was he who found the empty setting in the morning and rang the alarm for sacrilege.
Kaspar Eventide — The stargazer, who does not close his eyes at night under the open sky and may have marked who walked by the chapel.
Khariton Aspen — The undertaker, who keeps the crypt under the chapel and digs the graves in the churchyard.
Krispin called Eel — The local sharper, whose name is the first the village speaks the moment anything goes missing.
Lucia Carat — The only jeweller in the district who knows the price of old silver and how to move it.
Otto the Meek — The executioner, already called for in case the thief is found and sentenced.
Sister Agna — The copyist who spends her nights over the registers in the chapel's side cell; one of the few who holds a key.
Ustinya Dryquill — The village scribe, who entered the theft and the parishioners' complaint in the parish book.
Widow Greta — The widow whose house stands right by the churchyard; she swore she saw a light at the chapel in the night.
Zaryana the Seeress — The fortune-teller, to whom the village came running for the cards' judgment on who carried the relic off.

Still Water

A river crossing, a ferry and a tavern by the water · 14 villagers

Barnava the travelling merchant, called Purse, was lost at the crossing in the very dusk — he stepped into the fog by the water and never came out. His horse and his abandoned goods were found on the far bank, and of the body there is no sign at all: not in the reeds, not at the ford, not downstream. What became of him — drowned in the dark water, run from a debt that was a noose, or done for by rough men at the ford? Still water is deep, and the cold comes off that bank.

What the village knows

The whole district knows that Purse was deep in debt to Marzella the moneylender — deeper than anyone else hereabouts. That evening he drank late in the tavern by the water, and afterwards, they say, he wandered off towards the ferry — only Mokey the ferryman crosses himself and swears he never took him across. And already the whisper is going round the yards about rough men at the ford.

Whom you will have to get talking

Ayga called Snare — The trapper whose snares are set through the riverside thickets; she knows every path by the water.
Barnava called Purse — The vanished merchant himself, over whom all this began; on his last evening he drank in the tavern and left in the direction of the ferry.
Elder Maro — The village elder, who raised the alarm and demanded the disappearance be looked into.
Krispin called Eel — A sharper and a thief, forever hanging about the crossing; he was first to put his nose into the ownerless goods.
Lukash Mist — The smuggler who works the river in the dark and knows its fords and bends better than anyone; his boat is always ready.
Marzella Halfgroat — The moneylender, who was owed the largest debt in the district by the vanished merchant.
Mokey Stillwater — The ferryman at the crossing — the last man who should have taken the merchant across; he swears he did not take him that night.
Odetta the Innkeeper — The innkeeper of the tavern by the water — she poured the merchant his last cups and saw who sat with him before he left.
Onisim Sodden — The fisherman who sets his tackle on this reach; he was on the water that evening and may have marked something in the fog.
Pip the Stablehand — The stablehand who took in the horse left on the bank and now looks after her.
Radim the Nameless — A nameless newcomer seen by the water in those days; he keeps to himself and shuns other people's eyes.
Rein the Tax Collector — The tax collector, who had a reckoning of his own with the travelling merchant's goods and purse.
Widow Greta — The widow who lives right by the water and rinses her linen on the bank; she marks who goes to the ferry and when.
Yadviga Bulwark — The captain of the guard, charged with the search in this case.

The Wolf's Share

Pastures at the forest's edge, a woodcutter's hut, hunting paths · 14 villagers

A man was found on the pasture at the very edge of the forest — his throat torn to rags, the grass beneath him black with dried blood, and his eyes fixed for good on an indifferent sky. For several nights before that something had been slashing the sheep, and the shepherds crossed themselves at every rustle beyond the fence. A lone wolf, cast out of its pack? Some forest thing of the kind the old men name only in a whisper and with a glance over the shoulder? Or did someone with human hands and a purpose worse than any beast's take a beast for a cover? That is what must be untangled, while the village sharpens stakes and waits to see whom it may loose its anger on.

What the village knows

The stock had been slashed for several nights: one day a ewe would vanish without trace, the next they would find a ripped-open carcass right by the fence — and the village has already sent for a witcher to strike the «thing» down before it grows bolder still. Of the dead man they speak under their breath: in life he quarrelled hard over a disputed boundary and a felling plot, and made himself far more enemies than friends. So some whisper of a beast out of the thicket, and others of human spite, which can be worse than a wolf's.

Whom you will have to get talking

Ayga called Snare — The trapper who was working right by the pastures on the night of the slaughter and knows the paths here better than anyone.
Bram Ashgrove — The miller, to whose millpond all the village paths converge; everyone who goes to the forest or back passes through his yard.
Bricius Axeback — The village smith; he forges the knives and boar-spears now being whetted against the «thing», and knows who in the village bears whom a grudge.
Elder Maro — The village elder, who sent for the witcher; it is on him to hold the assembly and decide whose word weighs more in the old disputes over the boundary.
Father Vlasiy — The village priest; he sang the mauled man out and calms a flock ready to see in the trouble now a punishment from above, now some foul thing of the forest.
Gawen the Grey — The witcher and slayer of foul things, sent for by the village to strike the «thing» down; he came at the scent of trouble, when the blood had already been spilt.
Gwendra called Vow — A wandering knight stuck in the village; she offered to keep watch over the pastures at night, and never did catch the beast.
Kaspar Eventide — The stargazer who watches the sky at night from the hill above the pastures; in those nights he may have marked who walked at the forest's edge.
Madda called Groat — A sellsword from elsewhere who spent the night in the district; a stranger who happened to be at hand at a bad hour.
Odetta the Innkeeper — The innkeeper at whose hearth every rumour gathers; she knows who drank with whom, who quarrelled with whom, and who did not sleep at home that night.
Solomeya Honeywright — The beekeeper from the outermost yards by the forest; her hives are nearest of all to the thicket, and at night she heard both the howling and other men's steps.
Yadviga Bulwark — The captain of the guard, on whose shoulders the inquiry has fallen; it is hers to decide whether to call a drive on the beast or look for a human hand.
Yas Noonday — The shepherd from those very pastures; it was he who came upon the mangled body in the morning, driving the flock out onto the dew.
Zhdan Deadwood — The woodcutter from the plot at the forest's very edge; he knew the dead man as one knows anybody with whom you share the same paths and the same boundary for years.