Undignified but Unsullied

Karbäth mountains, somewhere north of Komiro, 12th Dyarr YT330.

Something was odd about the privy. Aside from the horrendous odour - something was odd about the privy. They hadn't noticed on their first visit to the village. Perhaps the vile stench had acted as an olfactory camouflage, preventing them from seeing clearly. Something was odd about the privy. Their captive had said that one of his friends had remarked that something was odd and he had died the same day. Others too had disappeared with foul play suspected.

Which was why Voltarr, Father Nicolai, Olorin, Gorran and the others were gathered around examining the outbuilding and holding their noses.

The rest of the bayar band had been gone more than an hour by the time they had reached the village. They had left behind some of the female servitors. None were alive. The bayars had clearly been in a hurry to go. Most of the buildings were ablaze but the stable, the apothecary, the small stone-built house and the two-story headman's house were standing.

The privy was too large. And the lower half was brick built. Clearly too much for a simple village privy in a very seedy looking village. But something else was odd about the Privy.

Which was why, his dignity in shreds, Father Nicolai ended up up-ended in the privy. His feet wedged in two small indentations in the wall and his buttocks on the smooth plank he was reaching backwards at full stretch when his hand found the lever. Eschewing all modesty and at risk of vomiting from the noxious vapour, Nicolai pulled the lever. Water poured into the pit below his head from pipes in the wall facing him and drained away through vents in the opposite wall.

Soon the pungent stink had abated and enough night-soil effused for a secret door to be just visible. Perhaps this was a back-door to the hidden Manor.

The contents were of the remaining buildings were disordered and looted. But by careful searching, Olorin uncovered two very interesting pieces of parchment upstairs in the headman's house. Voltarr collected some intact 'potions' and in doing so came upon the remains of the real physicker.