The Sheriff scowls slightly, backing down in the fact of Benedikt's bluntness and Emil's cutting reply. "Alright, alright, I'm not accusing anyone. Just doing my job." He looks to Kendra. "Miss Lorrimor, can you vouch of 'em that they were with you?"

Kendra nods. "I can, Sheriff." She looks over the memorial with a frown. "Who would do this? It seems so... senseless."

Caeller returns a blunt shrug, and one of his deputies scratches his head, apparently wondering the same. The other opens his mouth to say something to Briar as she walks right past him. But then the gnome takes a taste of red stuff covering the plinth, and he seems too surprised to comment. "I'll be damned if I know, ma'am," Caeller replies. "Me and my boys never seen anything like this before. I'm just really hoping it's not people blood."

He looks around, particularly to those who gave a courteous reply – Ulric, Eliazar, and Rastan. "Look, if Miss Lorrimor says you weren't up to nothing, that'll do till I can check that you were here for the funeral. You seem a fancy sort, knows what's what," he says, glancing sideways at Briar and Benedikt as they start to investigate. "So if you know anything that might help..."

Ulric
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Nothing detects as evil.


Benedikt
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The ground is wet, which is good for tracking. As you look down at it, you note a set of prints, human-like, the size of a man's foot, and apparently bare, without shoes of any kind. It's hard to make them out past the treads of the Sheriff and his men's boots. They seem to have paced around the memorial. But your attempt to trace where they've come from peters out as you hit a patch of harder ground.


Briar
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You can't identify the marking – it seems just to be a normal letter "V". On the other hand, the red substance is definitely blood. Rat's blood, to be precise, in sufficient quantities that the rat in question definitely died. Judging by its state, the rat was likely killed in the middle of the past night.