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[Liquefied Spleens]

By the way, dwarves are pretty cool

...and that's why there's a dead midget in your tower.
Well, that fixed the dwarf problem, didn't it? As much as I'd love to put this whole thing to close, however, I can't. The dwarf's head exploding was a fail-safe from someone, or something, that's quite powerful. Meaning that the dead man was just a pawn. Still, you did good bringing him here. With some help, we should be able to track down from what type of magic the fail-safe came from. Not to mention, we know they do have at least one magic user. The dwarf didn't use any magic.
He summoned a pigman, though?
Using alchemy. No need for magic, just some know-how and rare ingredients. Tomorrow, I'll have a few wizards to help you track down whatever it was that didn't want the dwarf to talk. You can go now. I was about to go home, myself. Gods, am I tired...
He stretches as he leaves his chair. you can hear the cracks and he groans in effort for a bit. He shakes his head, and walks to the door. Kasimor keeps the door open, and you leave alongside him.

When you reach the floor with the corpse, the guards have already laid out his possessions on a clean table. From the look of things, he had two more crossbow bolts, a collection of alchemical ingredients (powders and plants), a ring and a note. Most of the guards already left, leaving only two that are going to guard the body, and the captain of the guard with the loud voice. He gives a quick explanation that the note was little more than the location of a dead-drop for the crossbow. He can't do much more, so he'll be leaving soon, as well. The guards will keep the place safe.
Looks like you can go back to relaxing a bit, perhaps even grab a bite. Meandra and Eveline were waiting patiently at the bottom of the tower, not interested in the legal scuffle. They happily take you up on the meal, though, and soon you find yourself in the inn again.

Okay, I know it's been a while, but could you explain how domesticating giant spiders would even work? They're pretty vicious from what I heard.
Oh! Eh... I wasn't one of the tamers, but my father was. It's less domesticating and more convincing them that you're their queen. Spiders on their own are almost mindless, and the queens are too smart to be properly tamed. At best, you can get the queen to accept you, and even then they might just let hunger get the better of them.
Then how do ya domesticate 'em?
We string the queen up by its entrails and use the correct bits and pieces to control the spiders. We can make imitation extract, but the queen itself needs to be hang somewhere so the spiders know they have to pick a new "queen".
Meandra's mouth hangs open a little as she stares in horror. She glances at you with an "are you hearing this" sort of expression before looking intently into her glass of milk. You aren't very affected by it, who cares what happens to the corpse. Not that different from slaughtering cattle.
How do you ride them effectively, though?
Our saddles have a bunch of ropes and somesuch to keep you in place. You need quite some time to get everything on, and you need a special harness. We also have a hook in the spider's mouth to guide it properly, so the saddle is pretty intricate too. Good thing these things can carry so much...
This is a lot of animal cruelty! I'm not comfortable with this, man! What did those spiders ever do to you?
Eveline turns to look at Meandra with unusual intensity. They. eat. us. she says, articulating each word with a defensive fury. Touchy...

Ok! Meandra! So you're going to the orc tower in three weeks, right?
Eh, that's not ENTIRELY sure. My master's a bit... distracted when it comes to planning, so it might be earlier or later. I keep my bags ready to pack at any moment when he speaks of moving, but hey. Keeps you moving!
How would you feel about me traveling with you to the orc tower?
Uh... Sure! We haven't had anybody tag along with us in a long, not since the move from Feldûsh to Al-Raak.
Feldou and whatnow?
Oh! Dwarven cities, rank 2. Below the tourist parts. It's crazy how much more advanced it is down there. The buildings are like massive rectangles that almost reach the top of the cave! They have to be several hundred meters in some cases! And then you've got the guns, artificial limbs, enhancements... And the drugs! Woo! The things I saw in the alleyways of Feldûsh were something to behold alright! You can enter a whole different world with the right drug, or just enhance your current one. Of course, withdrawal's a bitch if you're not careful. And of course, the Ghösh like praying on people that are enhancing their viewpoints, so I kept most of my trips in my apartment building. Did you know they have a magical field that allows them to project shows on a screen!? I watched a cartoon, once. Marvelous! Like a painting that came to life!
Those cities sound like a whole other world.
They pretty much are! I can understand why the dwarves seclude themselves, these days. If all this tech got out all at once, things would get real weird, real fast.I mean, a lot of it only works under their day-crystals, but imagine buildings that could scrape the sky! A box that allows you to see whatever they want! Street-samurai, riggers and shamans! Oh! I heard they have something called com-pjoo-ters if you go down to rank 3, but you need quite a few papers to move even one rank. I mean, the tunnels reach around the whole continent, so most never even discover they could go higher!
You really like the dwarven cities, don't you?
Home is where the heart is! And it's not that I don't love it here! You people have SO much more magic, it's crazy! Not to mention you have a corpse the size of country to the west, and a land of constant political intrigue to the east! all sorts of things north... This place is made for adventure! Much better than all the corporate mumbo-jumbo in the cities.
Maybe I'll visit it when this while brand things is over.
Hm. I'd be careful. It's hard to get anywhere REALLY interesting, and things gets pretty cutthroat if you're not used to how things work. I look pretty care-free here, but it's only because I know I can get away with it. It's LIBERATING, ya know!?.
It's getting late. Meandra is paying for the drinks, so that's no concern.

Talk some more
You can find out some more things. You need a specific topic though.

Go to bed
Tomorrow is another day, and getting some sleep will get your injuries healed up. Not to mention, your father will be there.

Investigate
Go out alone, and see if you can't find anything of note. In your injured state, however, getting attacked may prove FATAL!

Other

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Level: 5
HP: 9 /20
Mana: 5/25
Stress: 20/100

Equipment:
Drider shirt
Expensive Drider Coat (in a bag on your back.)
Steel sword
Overgrown iron shield

Items:
Handkerchief
96 coins
Rough leather armor (in the bag)


Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(1) (invests 1 of your max mana)
Reshape minion: Allows you to slightly change the appearance of your resurrected minions. (//////...)
Minion Vision(weak): Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (invests one mana) (1)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (2 per second)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You can't do anything with it, quite yet. (10 mana)

Skills:
Poison Stinger (Potentially lethal)
Major experience in blocking and swords.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: excellent
Corpse Cutting: Awful.
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge

[RAM]

That stuff about spiders being fair game because they eat people hits rather close to home... Surely you are an exception though. I mean, the first guy was an utterly nasty piece-of-work, and biting is fair game in fights to the death, and of course you put on a show when the audience is thousands strong, armed to kill, expecting a fight, and led by a freakish monster that wouldn't look out of place with a dragon slung over his shoulder. Anything could have happened in that town! It was probably just a pig, or maybe someone force-fed you, or who knows what... and you saved some people? That is a good spider that saves people! And she probably just said that you "ate a dude" for simplicity. I mean, could you even eat that much? It was probably just a bite, in the heat of battle, you take whatever chances you can get under those circumstances! Oh, wow, she said it was our nature, didn't she. She probably thinks that we are just the same as the spiders she knew back home... Can we maybe we can reason with her, explain that we aren't really a maneater, it is just an accident, that keeps happening...

Let's talk magic! What sort of alchemy does Eveline specialise in? It is easy to think of potions and poisons that only work on living creatures but then someone makes a potions that rips holes in the world for monsters to invade through and you start to wonder just how redundant mages might be if someone found a way to produce large quantities of formerly rare ingredients. I mean, normally you think of something like banshee's tears as being difficult to collect, but all you would need to do would be to find an etherically-aligned gaseous addictive mental stimulant and an etherically-impermeable treatment and a funnel. The wailing spirits would practically capture themselves...

And hey, back when the guy's head exploded you panicked and tried to grab his soul. Maybe you could still question it, or find out where it had been and what it had interacted with, or even just discerning its nature might help a little. But now it occurs that meddling with souls could be unpopular... Does Meandra know how the magical community feels about that sort of thing?

Would Eveline be able to design one of those harnesses that would be considerate of the spider's comfort and would not rely upon the front of the spider being there? I'm still not certain how we feel about passengers, but it might be wise to keep our options open...

See if you can get your lizard to dance. Lizards probably have some concept of dancing, and so do driders, and then Death probably thinks more in terms of stupid biped that can't walk up walls... and then a skeleton might just not be able to process something that complex. It would be interesting to see just how it responds to the command.

[Liquefied Spleens]

People get drunk

You talk for a bit longer on a few frivolous topics, such as the weather and some of the fashions of the surrounding areas. Eveline thinks it's all pretty great, but she never knew much more than rags and "things rich people wear". She's got a bit of bias towards proper clothing, more than even the average person. You tried prying in this massive divide there seems to be in her village, but she doesn't want to talk about it. She started traveling to get away from that, and does not care to delve in that bit of history. She also starts stammering way too much when you pry, and tries to stare a hole in the table at the same time. You decide to switch topics
So... Tell me. What kind of alchemy do you specialize in?
Oh! Eh... I never really thought of specializing, specifically. I just... use what I can find.
Meandra slams down her fifth mug of ale. The girl can REALLY drink, she doesn't even seem tipsy! Hey, you gotta specialize in somethin'. There a lot of different things in alchemy and doin' it all 'll get ya killed. The stuff's more dangerous than even wild magic, in the wrong hands.
Trust me, I know! My uncle got eaten by his evening meal once... THAT sure taught me to clean your tools. He survived though, mushroom soup isn't that great at eating people. Good thing it wasn't spider roast!
Ahah... Yeah.
OH! I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i'm, ah, I didn't wanna.  I mean, I... Eveline stops talking, mouth open, and starts staring at the table again.
Dude, I think you broke Eveline.
Yo, Evi? I wasn't that serious. Even if I did, apparently, eat a dude, I'm sure you don't consider me a big spider.
I, uh... I didn't mean to offend. I-i-it really is in your nature to eat peo-ah crap.
Whoah! Meandra adds with a little laugh. Casual racism, much?
I mean I didn't mean to say that what i actuallymeanisthatdridersarejusthistoricallyshowntohaveatendencytowardseatingtheirpreyinbattleandintherecentagesthatwasmostlyconsideredasabadbutIreallydon'twannainsultyouit'sjustthatIsaysomereallydumbthingssometimesandididn'tmeanyou'relikea.....
I get it, Eveline. I'm part of a magical race, we have our little quirks. I wasn't exactly in my right mind when I chowed down, anyways.
Wait, did you actually eat a person?
Uh... Yeah. A few times, actually. When things get really heated in a battle I use my teeth. And I've also got acid poison to digest some prey. It freaks me the fuck out.
...How's the taste?
Frikkin' what?
Like sweeter beef. A bit soft, too.... I kinda wish I didn't remember it that well.
You know, I expected chicken.
Speaking of crimes against humanity, is it bad that I tried to get that dwarf's soul?
Hm? Why would that be bad? Souls aren't sentient, and they all go into the afterlife eventually. All you did was give it slight delay. They're pretty niche, though, essentially they're like a load of energy you can put into things. Not too many people that can figure out a use for it... Back to my subject, though...
Can we talk about something else now, please...

You do so, with success. With the awkwardness of the previous discussion, saddles couldn't be brought up again. Still, it's very unlikely that Eveline knows anything. She was an alchemist, not a leather-worker. As the night draws on, and you start getting tired, you eventually make your lizard dance on the table. It shakes its little rump around, while bobbing it's head up and down. It lashes around with its little flame-tongue, clearly enjoying itself. It seems to interpret the "dance" command in its own way.
Shortly after this, however, it becomes clear that everybody is getting a bit too tired, and Meandra finally managed to get drunk after a few mugs of beer. She doesn't seem to have a shortage of money, that's for sure. Finally, you and your companions finish up, and decide to leave. You put Meandra on your back and bring her back to her home while she sings a little ditty about the different beards of the dwarves. The punchline is really dirty, and you're kind of glad when you drop her off at the house she's staying at. Then, you walk back to the poor district and enter the barn. The place looks a bit better now, but it's still a barn. The hammocks are in use, and you can go to you own little spot. Eveline has joined you in the barn, hoping to get a sleeping place. She looks uncomfortable, though, as she doesn't want to take anybody's place and get kicked out. Your father, who is just wandering around the barn for a lack of anything better to do, agrees with her on that. He yawns, and tell her that he doesn't know if there are even places left. The place is fairly packed, and a decent part of village is in another building.

You eventually find a way for everybody to sleep, as long as she's fine with it. You and Eveline are going to share a space, as she isn't creeped out by your spider parts. She's fairly small and she doesn't mind sleeping against someone, having slept in a lot of worse positions. It really only makes sense to sleep together. You and Eveline quickly fall asleep. You have no dreams that night, and wake up refreshed. When you open your eyes, you see Eveline is a cuddler when she sleeps. She's got her arms locked around you and her head is resting in your...
Hm. Well, this is lewd.

What shall you do today?

Continue the investigation
Today, Kasimor's wizards should arrive. You should probably get busy and discover where, exactly, these shenanigans come from.

Clean up the barn a bit
You've got a morning available to you, and this place is still a bit messy. Perhaps you can make something more comfortable than hay for these people, somehow? You'd be busy until noon if you make more hammocks, though

Gather companions
You're not investigating alone, today! Still, getting everybody would take time.

Other

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Level: 5
HP: 16/20
Mana: 25/25
Stress: 05/100

Equipment:
Drider shirt
Expensive Drider Coat (in a bag on your back.)
Steel sword
Overgrown iron shield

Items:
Handkerchief
96 coins
Rough leather armor (in the bag)
Magic Cookbook(I FORGOT TO ADD THIS FOR I AM INCOMPETENT)

Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(1) (invests 1 of your max mana)
Reshape minion: Allows you to slightly change the appearance of your resurrected minions. (//////...)
Minion Vision(weak): Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (invests one mana) (1)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (2 per second)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You can't do anything with it, quite yet. (10 mana)

Skills:
Poison Stinger (Potentially lethal)
Major experience in blocking and swords.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: excellent
Corpse Cutting: Awful.
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge

[RAM]

Check the cookbook for a list of parasites living in the hay, and see what order the sentient species appear in. This thing could probably work as a powerful detection device if we can figure out its quirks. If we can find a reliable method of knowing if a recipe for servants of the gestating god appears, and can identify the detection range of the book... We can loiter around high-class inns and eateries and laugh about rodent recipes... Really, an enchantment to find everything edible in the vicinity is kind of amazing even without including preparation instructions and meal advice. Goodness, it must include names too! We can finally answer all those "Which obscure variant of grub is that?" questions. Not to mention the enormity of finding a recipe for doppleganger fillets when we next meet The Count... Really, its only weakness is undead and mineral critters, and we have necromancy for that...
*Awaits the prompt nerfing and destruction of cookbook...*
Gather our posse! We are well overdue for a day free of being stabbed. also, Eveline seems to be a permanent attachment, so we may as well introduce her to everyone. And she can regale them with all her helpful knowledge about spiders and their instincts...

[crazyabe]

Check the cookbook for a list of parasites living in the hay, and see what order the sentient species appear in. This thing could probably work as a powerful detection device if we can figure out its quirks. If we can find a reliable method of knowing if a recipe for servants of the gestating god appears, and can identify the detection range of the book... We can loiter around high-class inns and eateries and laugh about rodent recipes... Really, an enchantment to find everything edible in the vicinity is kind of amazing even without including preparation instructions and meal advice. Goodness, it must include names too! We can finally answer all those "Which obscure variant of grub is that?" questions. Not to mention the enormity of finding a recipe for doppleganger fillets when we next meet The Count... Really, its only weakness is undead and mineral critters, and we have necromancy for that...
*Awaits the prompt nerfing and destruction of cookbook...*
Gather our posse! We are well overdue for a day free of being stabbed. also, Eveline seems to be a permanent attachment, so we may as well introduce her to everyone. And she can regale them with all her helpful knowledge about spiders and their instincts...

+1

[TheBiggerFish]

DWARVES HAVE TECH THIS IS AWESOME

Heh, cookbook abuse.

[RAM]

It will be so good when Eveline notices that the cookbook has kobolt recipes... Well, at least it also has a recipe for stuffed drider legs, so, no, wait, cannibalism cookbook is worse... Let's just hope that she has a chance to get properly mortified before discovering that the book is magic and amoral. Actually, it does seems to have a sense of morality, it just doesn't exercise restraint... I bet that the book would be good for finding alchemy ingredients too. Just look up recipes with lots of herbs and garnish. Of course, many alchemy materials will be inedible.

[S34N1C]

Yeeeeaaah we're gonna have to make a trip to dwarf country eventually

[RAM]

I dunno, being independent sounds tough, and siding with the megacorporations feels like a trap. But maybe they have touristy areas that are light on the abductions? But still, I could see some fun from getting some golems to customise and control, sort of redundant with necromancy though, and even setting up the mental link with them would probably inhibit our magic a little bit.

[crazyabe]

...a lot of it only works under their day-crystals...

I think that says a Lot of their shit is 100% useless to us out here.

[Liquefied Spleens]

Good morning

Oy. Doggo. Wake up.
Mmmf, five more minutes...
She changes her grip, and poofs her head down on your breasts again. You have an uncomfortable grin on your face as this increasingly awkward situation escalates. It's less a grin and more a showing of teeth, ultimately.
No, really. Get off!
But I just got comfyyyyy
She squeezes a little harder, and begins drooling a little bit.
Head out of my chest, please!
The increased volume makes her shoot awake properly, although she's still clinging to you. She looks around in a panicked daze, until her eyes meet yours. She blinks a few times in confusion, and then looks where she's holding you. Her eyes seem to nearly pop out of her skull as she immediately stops hanging on to you and crawls back against the wall in a panic. She then covers her face with her arms, embarrassed beyond belief. You can't help but show a real grin at her discomfort. Mirth radiates from your frame as she nearly blushes straight through her blonde fur. Eventually, you tap her shoulder to knock her out of her shame-induced coma.

Come on, I'm going to get my friends for today. I figure I might as well introduce you, if you're sticking around.
I can stay here?!
You just spent the night sleeping on me. I figured that was clear by now.
I figured it was just a temporary thing... You know, like how people take care of stray puppies for a bit.
You begin to equip your goods again, slinging a bag over your back and shaking off a little dust from your outfit. It looks a little ragged, but still fine.
Well, it's not like that. Come on, let's go.
You skitter to the corner of the barn where your father is. He's already awake, and is polishing his axe. No matter how calm his life was, he always kept that thing well-maintained. He even bought some polish, it seems. It kind of makes you wonder what he actually does for money in the city. You haven't asked, but he's clearly doing something.
Ah! Sydney... Good morning. Do you need something?
I was planning on getting everybody together today. So I can investigate the happenings of yesterday.
Hm? Did something happen yesterday?

You simply point to the vines that are bound around your arm. The wound has healed up nicely, and you feel mostly fine. You've lost more blood in a week than you did all through-out your life. You hope that improves soon...
You didn't hear about your daughter catching a crossbow bolt and chasing someone down across the rooftops?
Hold on, that was Sydney? Is this true, missy?
Yeah. His head exploded when I caught him, so now we need to find who did THAT. I'm hoping to get your skills involved, with your history of tracking and all.
Hm. Good call. Alright, i'll be right with you.
He drops the cleaning rag, and puts his axe around his shoulder. He puts on some armor, and you put on your leather patches in the meantime. You forgot you had those things with you. After that, you also take a peek inside the cookbook. There, you learn a few things. First of all, you are considered "inedible", second, there are no rats around here, nor mice. Only something called a "Despa". There are no pictures, but you need to collect 100 grams of them to get an appetiser. Leafing through the book also shows that Kobolts, apparently, have very gamy meat and that you need to be careful about the bones. Of course, they are marked with a "Crime against Humanity" sticker.
 
After your father finishes up, you put the cookbook away and begin walking to the inn to pick up uncle Liam. You found him nursing a glass of milk, still groggy from waking up. He asks if you're fine before joining, and excuses himself for not joining on the chase. He only heard about what happened a while later, and assumed it was just another knife thrower making a mistake. He joins up immediately, as he didn't plan the day out quite yet.

Yunikki was hard to find, but eventually some guards managed to point you in the right direction. Sadly, when you find her, she curtly explains that she's been ordered to run heavy armor drills for some guards until noon, so she can't join you at the moment. She's extremely dedicated to her guarding job, strangely. Your father (quietly) pokes fun at the ex-bandit being such a fan of the law. Still, that means you gathered everybody who you figure will join up with you. Your immeadiate family, and Eveline.
You COULD try Meandra, but she's off doing her own thing, most likely.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Level: 5
HP: 16/20
Mana: 25/25
Stress: 05/100

Equipment:
Drider shirt
Steel sword
Overgrown iron shield
Rough leather armor

Items:
Handkerchief
96 coins
Magic Cookbook
Expensive Drider Coat (in a bag on your back.)

Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(1) (invests 1 of your max mana)
Reshape minion: Allows you to slightly change the appearance of your resurrected minions. (//////...)
Minion Vision(weak): Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (invests one mana) (1)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (2 per second)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You can't do anything with it, quite yet. (10 mana)

Skills:
Poison Stinger (Potentially lethal)
Major experience in blocking and swords.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: excellent
Corpse Cutting: Awful.
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge

[RAM]

Drider is inedible? Magical beasts? Maybe it is the poison? Perhaps the book just doesn't condone cannibalism, we should see if it changes when someone else is using it... Also ask Eveline if she knows what a Despa is, she probably has some knowledge of creepy-crawlies as they probably have alchemical uses.

We should check in with the mage tower, give father a chance to look at the remains and mention that we will be hunting cultists instead of cleaning. It wouldn't hurt to check if Meandra has a hangover or if there are any specialists in abusing the dimensions. And maybe something new might have been discovered?

In the longer term, we have a professional bounty-hunter. Bounty hunting is not so good when you don't know the target, but we should probably let father take the lead if he has an idea. We can check the corpse for residues and insignia. We can check the site of the head explosion for residues or magic and we should definitely look around for witnesses. Also, Mister dwarfism seemed terrified of us. We should check if there might have been something behind us, or maybe he exploded because of proximity to our mark? He was using indirect attacks against so that would not be impossible. Of course, 'someone' was supposed to break the mark, but that seems too good to be true...

I think that we are still not ready to look at the cookbook while in the mage tower as there are some things that one probably doesn't want to know...

[Liquefied Spleens]

...Find anything?
Sure enough... This armor was custom-made, but it wasn't at the local tailor. There's an insignia here, on his collar. I don't recognize it, though.
He shows it to the rest of room, but they don't seem to recognize it either. It looks like a tentacled face, and you feel like you saw it before. Eventually, you remember where! It's a dead ringer for the mask those ruffians that attacked you in the market were wearing. So they're connected to all this, then...
The rest of the group doesn't know much about the group, although your father mentions hearing about some cult that would fit the bill. They call themselves the "New Paladins", or the "Order of Cathung". Apparently, they wish to remove anything evil from the city through prayer and chanting. Some extremists go out and antagonize whatever they deem unnatural, but they've been proven harmless for the most part.
Well, they're clearly not harmless anymore... Does anybody know who or what Cathung is?
Uh... I do. It's a god that people don't pray too much to anymore, because he's a little silly. He's the god of door-hinges and mold. Most people forgot that he represents that, so he's kind of a lost god.
You shake your fist and proclaim to the world: Mankind's worst enemy... Hipsters.

Hm. Well, we should try finding them, in that case. If they're connected, we should be prepared for the worst.
Well, they live in an abandoned mansion in the rich district. You know the type, too expensive to sell, too valuable to destroy. The guards are pretty lax on stopping people from using abandoned homes.
Do you know the place?
Nope, just heard about it from the people at the bar. We're gonna have to look for them ourselves, and that could take a while. Not to mention, an outfit's not much to go on, ultimately. And I doubt a group that calls themselves paladins would have access to magic that pops a head so easily... Did you check the note the guy had?
You pick up the note and take a look. The dead-drop location of the crossbow, simply. You hand it to your father, and him and your uncle take a look.

Look at that hand-writing... That wasn't done by our little friend. It's too scratchy and consistent. It's like somebody tried to write with a clamp.
Could be that they were trying to make it untraceable. And some people just have bad handwriting.
Trust me, you can recognize it anywhere. I don't think the writer of this had normal hands. This was written by magic. Telekinesis, most likely.
Does that help us at all?
Two things. We look at the dead-drop location, and see if that helps us. And we look out for anybody who uses telekinesis, meaning that some magical talent should be there.
Telekinesis IS difficult, according to my old lord.
Well, that should be it, then... Wait! I never went back to check on the crossbow. It fell off the roof when he threw it at me.
I've still got the bolt, though! Hold on...
In a quick and practices maneuver, Eveline slings her alchemist's chest from her back and opens it. She takes the crossbow bolt and shows it off. It's still crimson  from your blood, even. The bolt isn't anything special, however. Average in every way. The crossbow could be a dead end, and it's likely that somebody took it already, but who known? Maybe something interesting is to be found there.

Kasimor suddenly speaks:Ah! You're here. The help I promised is a bit late. They'll be here in the afternoon.
He must have just arrived himself, considering he's still on the way up. It's a bit strange how everybody is late, considering you lost a lot of time getting your companions together. Kasimor looks a bit sweaty and nervous. Despite that, his voice is as steadfast as ever.
I'll be assuming that you'll be gone for today? That's good. We don't need a cleaner today.
Alright then.
Right then. I'll see you tomorrow, then. Bye!
He moves upstairs. Well, that's been squared away.

Find the "New Paladins".
They look to be the most direct lead. Still, it could get pretty nasty, so maybe you'd better be prepared...

Check out the dead-drop.
The area may have been chosen so it wouldn't stick out, but maybe there's still evidence of something...

Attempt to find the crossbow
It may be gone, but the weapon could prove useful.

Other

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Level: 5
HP: 16/20
Mana: 25/25
Stress: 05/100

Equipment:
Drider shirt
Steel sword
Overgrown iron shield
Rough leather armor

Items:
Handkerchief
96 coins
Magic Cookbook
Expensive Drider Coat (in a bag on your back.)

Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(1) (invests 1 of your max mana)
Reshape minion: Allows you to slightly change the appearance of your resurrected minions. (//////...)
Minion Vision(weak): Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (invests one mana) (1)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (2 per second)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You can't do anything with it, quite yet. (10 mana)

Skills:
Poison Stinger (Potentially lethal)
Major experience in blocking and swords.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: excellent
Corpse Cutting: Awful.
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge

[TheBiggerFish]

That's odd.

Why was Kasimor nervous?  "Don't need a cleaner today"?  That's also suspicious.

It almost sounds like he's trying to get us to go away from the tower for some reason.  Do we trust him?

[RAM]

I have a sudden urge to play "refuge in audacity" and walk up to the mansion in bad disguises and walk right in as though we are all members and start asking asking about how the project to assassinate the drider went and talking about how great it will be once the gestating god's abominations move in. By bad disguises I mean tying a pair of trousers to our front with shoes tied to the end of them. And tying a pair of wooden human-ears to Eveline. And then wearing matching "this is a human" shirts.

Actually, that is my vote for next action until I regain sanity, which I currently have no estimate of.