Verbobonc Sewers / What Lies Beneath [POSSIBLE SPOILERS]

[POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW]

Alrighty, let's hold hands a bit here.

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Abiram asks you to do three things:

1. Find and recover the children
2. Discover the perpetrator
3. Locate and bring the perpetrator in

Abiram lists three possible suspects:

1. The madman who escaped from the asylum
2. The day sewer steward
3. The night sewer steward

Abiram tells you where to conduct your investigation and where not to conduct your investigation:

• Verbobonc sewers - yes
• Everywhere else - no

Abiram tells you what the council considers a good case - three pieces in total of these types of evidence:

1. Things - e.g. physical evidence
2. Confessions - e.g. someone saying "I did it"
3. Implications - e.g. testimony of others against others

So we need to rescue the children, find three pieces of evidence to implicate one of the suspects, and then bring them in and/or narc them out to Good Captain Abiram.

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Using basic deduction, we can see that the clearest courses of action to achieve these ends are:

For objective 1 (find the children):

• Method 1: look for them.
• Method 2: get someone to give you information about their whereabouts

For objective 2 (discover the perpetrator):

• Gather information.
  
  • Method 1: talk to people. Abiram told you who the principals are and that you won't find anybody but the principals in the sewers, so the possibilities are very limited here.
    
    • Goal 1: get a principal to confess
    • Goal 2: get a principal to implicate another principal
    • Goal 3: get a principal to give you other helpful information
  • Method 2: collect physical evidence.
  
  

For objective 3 (locate and bring in the perpetrator)

• Method 1: look for them.
• Method 2: get someone to give you information about their whereabouts

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Tools needed

We can see from examining the information above that we will probably be doing a lot of searching and talking.

Searching

Ask yourself, "who would I want to search for me?" Would it be someone incompetent at searching? Probably not. You would probably rather have someone who is good at searching. Then ask yourself "What does it take to be good at searching in D&D?" Answers may range from good search skills to good spot skills to good listen skills. Then ask yourself, "how do I stack the deck in my favor?" Answers would include stat increasing spells and items, and using characters that are natively more adept at searching to maximize your chances at success.

Talking

Ask yourself, "who would I want working a case and trying to crack suspects for me?" Would it be someone who is not very smart and has limited social skills? Probably not. You would probably rather have someone who is smart and knows how to talk to people. Then ask yourself "What does it take to be smart and know how to talk to people in D&D?" Answers will probably center on good social skills. Bluff? Sure, you might have to tell a few tales to get what you want. Diplomacy? Yeah, good cop bad cop doesn't work without it. Intimidate? Always helps to be able to be a hardass in a pinch. Gather information? Yes, being as you are gathering information, this is important. Sense Motive? Could prove very helpful. Then ask yourself, "how do I stack the deck in my favor?" Answers would include stat increasing spells and items, and using characters that have invested lots of points in the needed skills. A barbarian? Noooo. A rogue? Yes!

Ability to think creatively

Let's say we're working on objective 1 - to find the children. So we employee method 1 and look for them but we can't find them. Does that mean we quit and give up? No! Clever investigators will move to a different method, such as method 2 where we talk to people.

Being details oriented

Peculiarities of behavior

If we are shrewd and notice little things, we will note certain clues about the suspects that may help us. These include but are not limited to hard-to-decipher details such as Abiram openly telling you what makes the suspects tick, and the suspects themselves telling you what their quirks and vulnerabilities are.

• Panathaes, the asylum escapee | Abiram says he's crazy. Panathaes acts crazy and cooperates not one bit. And he seems kind of sleepy. And Abiram tells you to knock him out. scratchhe Hmm, conscious = get nowhere ... there must be another way. Think, man! :scratchhe)
  
  
• Boroquin, the day steward | Abiram says he's borderline crazy. He acts surefire crazy. And after you exhaust all avenues of conversation with him, he refuses to talk further and screams at you that he doesn't trust you. scratchhe Hmm, doesn't trust = won't talk ... :scratchhe)
  
  
• Rakham, the night steward | Abiram says he's pretty normal, and he acts pretty normal, if a bit of a tough nut to crack. After you exhaust all avenues of conversation with him, he refuses to talk further and says he's not afraid of you. scratchhe Hmm, not afraid = won't talk ... :scratchhe)

Clever investigators will, once again, use the things they learn and observe about their suspects to exploit their weaknesses and get the information they need. Unclever investigators will simply fail the quest.

 

Fortunately this quest is not easy to spoil with locations and whatnot, which may become more apparent as time goes on, but yes, please avoid stating anything outright.

Crusader, did Abiram also ask you to find the asylum escapee? Maybe you should go look for him.

 

Okay, see spoilers below.

SPOILERS below

Spoiler

You have to find and speak to Panathaes (the asylum escapee guy) before the children will appear. This is scripted behavior.

Panathaes may be in any of eight hiding spots in the sewers that tend to be at the ends of hallways and whatnot. I'm not going to point them all out for you.

As was said above, you have to be very near him and the children to detect them - within 10 in-game feet. This is done automatically by a PC party member who has a spot skill of 19 or greater.

Both Panathaes and the children are concealed/hiding, which means that when you detect them, they will suddenly appear and stand up.

If you are having trouble finding them, look for ripples in the water that appear where there appears to be nothing to cause them.

SPOILERS above

Since you reportedly have all the necessary evidence, did you never go to Abiram with it, even without the children?