Snippet #2774787

"Who's corpse is this?" M'Kama asked.

"I don't know," Old Man Tarson answered.

"When exactly did it get here?" M'Kama inquired.

"Don't know that neither," Old Man Tarson responded. He turned to the Yybian. "Look...you some kinda lawman, yourself?"

"Not so much a lawman," M'Kama scratched his chin. "As an unraveler of mysteries."

"....What in God's name are you on about?" the old man grimaced, eyes squinting.

"Do you not have a priest? A gravedigger?" M'Kama questioned, not actually answering the old man, who looked at him in dismay.

"What? Why?!" Tarson asked.

"So the dead can be buried," M'Kama informed him. "So these bones can get the long rest they've been denied."

"You don't seem to get it," Old Man Tarson sighed with exasperation. "We don't know where these bones came from! Could belong to an outsider...could be somethin' that don't belong anywhere near here..."

"Do you have no leads for me...?" M'Kama asked. "Have there been any strangers before me that arrived this town a couple of days ago when Deputy Shelby left? Have there been any strange occurrences around here?"

"You know the only strange occurrence I've seen is some no good stranger what suddenly waltzed into town, playin' lawman..." the old man snarled back, tried of the questions apparently.

"Stranger than skeletons suddenly appearing in the beds of your stablehands?" M'Kama chuckled. "Seems quite doubtful. You have a good afternoon, Mr. Tarson," he nodded, walking away.

"..." the old man shook his head, sighing with a puzzled look upon his face...or was it a puzzling look? "Wait...maybe I can help. Will you really try and find Shelby? Ain't right for one of our own to just go missin' like that."

"I'll try my best, yes," M'Kama nodded.

"Then look...he mentioned somethin' before everything went crazy...somethin' about a deal gone bad. Real bad," the Old Man shook his head. "Think that mighta had somethin' to do with it. Some kinda deal with bandits? Maybe the skeleton was a warning."

"Bandits...perhaps not..." M'Kama noted, drawing three cards from his pouch and beginning to walk off.

"W-wait! Where are you going?! What did you mean?!" Old Man Tarson called out.

"This is a mystery that will indeed be solved, farmer..." M'Kama spoke as he walked back into town. "Just pray that answers unearthed do not lead to ruin..."