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Exiting the building down the hallway, Anastasia squeezes past Brother Tobius and three priests standing outside Father Malaki's office. She catches a glimpse of Darl and Gerard inside the room. Darl appears to just be standing there as Gerard walks around examining the room. To her chagrin, she catches a glimpse of a half naked, bloody and mutilated Father Malaki laying in the middle of the ransacked room.

As she walks, Anastasia catches glimpses of guard patrols wandering around the small town. Some groups appear to be going door to door, talking to people and going inside some buildings.

Arriving at the tavern, Anastasia walks through the door and into a bustling room. The man from the previous night is nowhere to be seen, but a girl and a boy of roughly teenage years are bustling from table to table delivering food and drink. A low buzz of hushed conversation is accented by the occasional clanking of silverware and dishes.

Anastasia takes in all what people are doing..it seems people are at least trying to cooperate and find out information and work together as was needed. Just hoping they can find out the needed information thats so desperately needed, she enters the tavern and sits down.

As she waits for one of the teenagers to come see what she needs she looks around at the people, seeing if she can pick up anything from any of them to help. It's very busy and she, being patient, decides to talk to one of the groups of people sitting the closest to her; being her friendly self and in hopes of maybe asking some questions. "Hello there, I'm Anastasia" holding out her hand to friendly shake hands "..seems pretty busy today."

The waitress girl shyly, and a little bit awed by Anastasia's appearance, comes over to the table and without saying a word sets a glass of water and a bowl of some sort of porridge down in front of Anastasia before quickly retreating. {OOC: You can always interject "before this happened...." type of things in your posts. For example, if you want to ask the girl a question before she can escape you could say "Before the girl gets out of ear shot Anastasia asks her..."}

The man at the next table looks briefly at Anastasia's hand before deciding to accept it. He places his large callused hand around hers and gives it a brief shake. "Name's Jim. This is Sally, Lance and Paul." He says indicating the woman and two men seated at his table. Sally gives a barely discernible nod as she gives Anastasia a thorough looking over. The other two small warmly as they are introduced.

"Heard there were some strangers in town." Sally says after appraising Anastasia. "Bit of a coincidence...all the trouble we've had an you all showing up at the same time."

"Sally, don't go startin' trouble with the girl. She ain't done nothin' wrong." Jim reprimands her.

Before the girl gets out of ear shot Anastasia asks quickly, "Hows the town recovering?"

Taking a sip of water and a quick spoonful of the porridge, shaking the hand of the man that now introduces himself and the others at the table, quickly replies "Nice to meet you all. Well yes I guess you could say that, as we've encountered the same question from several others. But let me reassure you, we came here just after another incident and we have been trying to find out what all happened. We all have been trying to investigate to see what people may have heard or seen that could help us in finding out who or what did this. To our dismay, Father Malaki was helping us as us with him only to wake up the next day to the tragedy of his death as well as his guards. We need all the help we can get even if its just a little thing that was seen or heard or pointing us in the direction of anything that ties into this horrible ordeal. If you don't mind, did you happen to hear or see anything or know of someone that has? We want to find the killers before another raid and other lives are taken."

Waiting for any response at this time she drinks some more water as shes very thirsty at this point, and the porridge is filling enough to help gain strength to go hunting for what Daniel needs and report to him and Jordan as soon as possible.

giggles wrote:Before the girl gets out of ear shot Anastasia asks quickly, "Hows the town recovering?"

Stopping mid-stride and turning back to Anastasia, her ponytail flipping around behind her head, the girl responds in a shy voice "Pretty well, I s'pose. Most folks are worryin' about friends and family that fled the town. Some of them may return when they find out that the town survived."

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giggles wrote:Shaking the hand of the man that introduced himself and the others at the table, Anastasia quickly replies "If you don't mind, did you happen to hear or see anything or know of someone that has?"

The closest one, Jim, seems to be speaking for the group. "Nah, haven't heard nothin. The guards have been searching the town, but they haven't turned up anything yet. Personally I don't think they will. Whoever killed Father Malaki is long gone if he know's what's good for him."

"The killer could be hidin' out in one of them empty houses, but the guards woulda checked them first." Lance adds.

As Anastasia sips some more water and finishes her porridge, "Can I please have another glass of water and thank you for the information. Its good to see that things are settling down a bit. But I think we shouldn't let our guard down to quick here, just saying because whoever did this may come back and finish whatever they were set out to do."

As Anastasia turns to the others "True they have probably searched all they could and I agree with Lance on the fact that the killer could've been hiding in one of the houses..it could be they hear the guards and go to another place til they kinda out wit the guards or maybe just fleeing until they see things have settled down enough for them to strike back. I hope that isn't the case, but you never know.They are definitely after something and killing people for it is no way going to settle down to where they stop. But in any case, thank you for your information. I think after drinking my water, I'm going to head back and see if my friends have found out anything. But if you overhear anything or happen to remember something, please come over to Father Malakis office. We will be inside trying to find out what has happened and its the best place to find us right away."

As Anastasia finishes off her water, she asks the shy girl if she happens to have a spare flashlight or 2 or something that would suffice.

She then turns to the group and adds "It was nice to meet you all and be careful ..all of you just in case."

"No, nothing like that here." The girl responds to Anastasia's query about a flashlight. "I'm sure they have something up at the church, though." She says. With a smile she leaves momentarily and then returns with a pitcher to fill Anastasia's, and the other guests, glasses with water.

The group at the table wishes Anastasia luck in her search for the killer as she gets up and leaves and promises that they'll let the church know about anything they hear or see. Her back to the room and approaching the door opening Anastasia feel a suddenly revealed sense of fear and unease coming from the people in the room. The feelings are understandable, but Anastasia feels as if this is more directed. As she lets the feeling wash over her she gets the impression that it's directed at her and her friends.

As she exits the building Anastasia spies The Redeemer standing on the other side of the street leaning with his back against a wall in a spot where he could see into the building that Anastasia just exited. At her appearance he pushes himself away from the wall and moves to silently join her. It appears she has a guardian whether she asked for one or not.

Anastasia thanks the young girl for everything.."Thank you and yes I'm sure my friends may have found something by now as I've taken a little longer than expected, I should get back."
As Anastasia approaches The Redeemer, "Well, people obviously are blaming us for all what has happened here, but I guess I can't blame them in a way since WE ARE THE STRANGERS and things have gone out of control and extreme since we've come here. I didn't get anywhere as you probably already know, nor did anyone really want to give up a flashlight yet you know they have some. I'm sure tho that Daniel and the others have found a source by now from help from the guards so lets get on our way back there and see what we can do now>"
As The Redeemer and Anastasia walk away, she turns to look back and just shrugs her shoulders in disbelief but yet knowing strangers in the midst of a bad murder scene are always the first to blame when it could be someone or something else, they would rather ignore that and blame the strangers. Oh well...

"Yes, I've been getting the same impression about the town's distrust of us. People that have walked by while I waited for you have been intentionally going out of their way to avoid me." The Redeemer replies in his usual hushed, matter of fact tone. "I fear that if we stay in town much longer we may have problems. I think we should wrap up our investigation as soon as possible and move on to finding the orb. If the prophecy is correct, I don't think it's in this town any longer."

The Redeemer walks silently beside Anastasia for a bit before breaking the silence. "I hope you weren't offended that I was keeping an eye on you. Jordan asked me to watch out for you. At first I thought he was just being overprotective, but with the apparent distrust and hostility brewing, his thinking may not have been out of line."

About half way back to the church, I guard finds them and passes on a message from Darl that he would like their assistance with something back at Father Malaki's office. The guard doesn't have any other details than that.

Jordan joins them a block later as he received the same message that they did. Apparently he has been questioning the guards that are searching the town. "They haven't found anything yet. I passed on the fact that the demon may be able to make itself invisible. Hopefully that helps their search."

"Well then, I guess we need to do just that before any trouble starts, which we don't need" Anastasia tell The Redeemer.
As Anastasia sees Jordan approach and hears his report, she agrees with him as well. "Well thats about all we can do at the moment in town. Lets go see what Darl needs and if he or Daniel have found out anything."
Feeling somewhat rushed they all go with the guard and enter the room.