Whelan Egilsson, Dr. Egilsson's son, had simply run outside their house in the middle of the night cause he had a dream of the whereabouts of the kidnaped James O'Flannigan, who was being held by his own murderous brethen who had already become the terror of those lands, Jeb O'Flannigan had officially become a serial killer with three confirmed murders in a very short period of time.

Obviously the whole family brusted into a desperated search wide and long the town to find the departed son who by the way was causing much grief and distress to his fiancee, what a scandal, was she really re-considerating marring Whelan? she had hinted so by saying that it would be troublesome for her to be permanently attached to someone so unpredictable.

But after a while the family got to know that Whelan had joined the party that was supposed to venture into the woods to rescue James, and that Whelan claimed that he had dreamed where to find him, (some people in the town were calling Whelan an attention seeker nutter) long where the hours waiting for the coming back of Constable Habsburg and his party of policemen and volunteers, but finally they had returned as heroes, in an intelligent and brave operation from Constable Habsburg and his man, not at all diminishing Whelan's value hand on this, the party had finally catch this O'Flanigan bloke and rescued his very brother, as if it were not enough they had rid the forest of some of the fanatics from a dark cult that haunted the woods.

As usual in these cases Jebbediah O'Flannigan was sentenced to die in the gallows, previously, in his trail this bloke Jebbediah confronted his accusers looking them in the eye with stern face, and with the calmest of voices he confessed in horrifying detail how he lured his brethen John to the woods and decapitated him for stealing his girlfriend, unfortunatelly for him his younger brother James had followed them and witnessed all, and him he tryed to kill as well but James was faster and escaped the vengeful rage of his elder brethen Jeb.

The authorities of Darkensheath summoned Dr. Egilsson as a witness of the execution and as confirming expert of the criminal's death, in those days people were hanged and if their necks wouldn't snap with the ropes they have to be strangled to death, though uncommon some of them were taken down from the gallows (apparently dead) and awoke in the way to the cemetery, then there was the controversy of whether putting them back in the ropes or setting them free, as far as I know some of them actually escaped death penalty this way but they were few among the few.