(1876-03-06) An Abandoned Camp
An Abandoned Camp
Summary: Kenthadus and Myrana stumble across an abandoned camp and investigate what happened. GM'd by Elian-player
Date: 2020 6th March
Related: (1876-03-14) Finn and Fran. (1876-03-14) The Bailiff's Book
NPCs: Nobody named.
Players:
Myrana  Kenthadus  

Somewhere in southwest aequor
An area of woodland
1876 - 03 - 06

A trickle of dark smoke where you wouldn't expect it draws the curious into an area of woodland dominated by great spruce pines. At its source you find an extinguished campfire with a hide tent partially collapsed onto it. Its the hide that is casting up that acrid smelling smoke as it is singed and burnt by the still hot ashes. The earth is torn up and a sack of supplies and a well loved saddle still remain close to the fire. Evidently this was a well kept camp originally. Although not a long term one.


"Do you smell that?" Myrana sniffs at the cool air as she rides along, her mask perched up atop her head to shove the bangs out of her face. Kenthadus knows who Nightbird is by now, after all, and fresh air feels much better than sweaty leather. "Is that smoke?"


Hawthorne looks around a bit as he's riding along and nods a bit sniffing the air, "I do. And it is. And it's not proper smoke. Should we take a look?" He points off toward the direction the smoke is coming from, "Think it's over there." The merc looks around some more and then looks at the horse, "You know how much I hate horses? They're such problematic beasts. Always biting or kicking."


Myrana nods, and follows along to where they find the abandoned encampment, bent low over her saddle as they pass beneath some low spruce branches so that the little lightsilver bell she wears jingles and the pebblegrey charger she rides shakes its head and nickers.

Looking at the torn up earth, concern pulls at her features and she brushes a gloved hand over her snub cutlass in its sheath.

"Really?" She looks at Hawthorne, trying to hide her worry with a wry little grin. "I've never once been kicked by a horse, have you? It looks like there was a lot of commotion here, but uh…" Hesitantly, she slides down out of the saddle and picks her way through the mud to where the saddle has been abandoned, poking gingerly through the saddlebags. "Why'd they leave this saddle?"


The saddlebags contain the water, food, grooming kit and similar supplies necessary for travelling in relative comfort in this area. Whilst poking around the saddlebags you spot that a thick cloak (makeshift blanket) is also abandoned underneath the hide canvas.


Hawthorne looks around the campsite as they roll in and shakes his head a bit, "No actually never been kicked because I know they do it so I stay away from their rumps." He grins a bit from behind the mask and then sighs looking around some more, "Looks like about six horses from the west. Seven left towards the east." He points towards some traces of blood, "And some blood here and there. Likely a fight and a body unconscious or dead doesn't need a saddle. Likely why they left it."


Perception rolls are made. Myrana 7. Kenthadus 10.
(Privately to Myrana) There are a bunch of horse tracks here that all seem to arrive from the west, mill around this area a bit, and then head to the east. They are going faster when they leave than when they arrive but you cant tell a lot more.'
(Privately to Kenthadus) A group of six horses arrived from the west at a modest pace. Shod and carrying weight enough that the riders are probably armored. There is a bit of a mounted kerfuffle in the area of the camp and then seven leave east at a hurried pace. There are a few traces of blood and such around the campsite. Enough to suggest at least one person (or animal) was injured but its not that much. You could easily have missed it. The camp fire seems to have gone out around dawn. Its about noon now.'


Myrana unbuckles the saddlebags and returns to her own horse, Sage, who indeed has an extremely kicky looking back end, laughing at this explanation. "Well I've been bit by a horse," she admits. "The old Baron left behind a monster of a horse… urgh!" She hauls herself back up into the saddle and throws the bags over a hook, gathering up the reins and settling back in. "Want to go snooping?" she asks, grinning. "I'm bored of looking for herbs, how about you?"


Hawthorne looks around some to see if she's asking somebody else because the One knows he does, "Does a bear shit in the woods? Lets go." So the merc is a bit uncooth. But he's a commoner it's okay. As he wheels his horse around a bit he starts off towards the east, "The horses were carrying some weight it looked so guessing they've got armor on as well. Raiders maybe?"


"Whoever they are, I'd rather know than wonder," Myra nods, and pulling her mask down sighs, shaking her braid down her back and settling the mask into place. "We'll just take a look. If it looks dangerous… we'll just leave!" This chipper assertion fools nobody. Off they go following the tracks!


Following the torn earth left by hurried hooves and the broken twigs and branches left in their wake you find evidence of a long running chase. A chase which turns deadly about five minutes later with the discovery of the first corpse. A man sprawled in the dirt without any obvious injuries unless/until he's turned over and his broken neck can be seen. A lamed (and saddled) horse is hovering nearby. A couple of minutes later and another man is discovered. This one caught a crossbow bolt with his eye. Then five saddled horses tethered to a tree and a pale unsaddled mount thats still lathered with sweat hovering nearby.

The horse tracks end here too as the remaining group seem to have taken off into the woods on foot. Just past the first tree there is another dead soldier-type. Again with a crossbow bolt in his forehead. Quite a shot.


Hawthorne nods some as they ride along, "Sounds like a plan." As they start to come across the bodies he shakes his head, "This can't be good." He looks over at Myrana he shakes his head, "I'm not liking this." He checks his sword and dagger to make sure they're freely moving in their sheathes before he dismounts tying off his horse to follow the tracks that have taken off into the woods on food, "They went this way on foot." He spots something and is squinting at it but hasn't quite figured out what it could be yet.


You round a turn in the path. The birds suspiciously quiet. When suddenly Myrana plummets out of sight.


"Oh-" Nightbird makes the sign of the One before her face when they ride past the first body. Upon seeing the second she bends a little over Sage's neck and brushing branches out of the way. "God, what a shot," she mutters later, rather pale under the mask. When they reach the five saddled horses and the one still dark and lathered, she goes 'aha' very quietly to herself and looks at Hawthorne.

When he dismounts she does too, almost too quickly with another silver jingle. "Whoever they are, they're getting hunted down very ardently." She too checks her weapons, but seems eager to get to the bottom of this.

…or maybe this pit.

Myrana drops with a startled scream through an explosion of leaves into what appears to be a beartrap in the woods. There's a thud and a horrid meaty squelch…!!!

Myrana finds herself at the bottom of something alright, and when she regains her wits she finds herself atop the body of a man who has been himself impaled on vicious pointed roots. Miraculously, she seems to have missed them (thanks to landing on the body).

"HAA!" She sits up on her knees, jerking her hand away from the grisly tip of a spike where it has thrust through further thanks to her added weight. "Kh!! H-Hawthorne??" She looks up. Oh thank god, the hole isn't too deep. She shakes the leaves off of herself. "Oh dear god."


Hawthorne walks over towards the pit and sighs, "That's what that shadowy thing was. Couldn't quite make it out in time to warn you about it sorry." He looks down in the pit before he lays down next to it and reaches down to offer Myrana a hand, "Need a hand up?"


Myrana accepts Hawthorne's hand up gratefully and brushes herself off, giving a shudder of revulsion but otherwise seeming none the worse for wear. "I'm alright," she says, raking dirt out of her hair and giving herself a shake. "I'll follow you this time."


A bit further down the path, past a crossbow hacked by a blade, and you finally find the endpoint of this pursuit.

Two men, similarly dressed, have come to blows here. Both seem to have lost. One has collapsed in a heap near the center of the clearing with a savage gash in his neck. He's still clutching his longsword as if it might actually matter. The other appears to have dragged himself over to the edge of the clearing before collapsing against a nearby tree. Blood soaks the bottom half of his tunic an he has a mostly empty crossbow quiver. Notably it looks like he was trying to scrape a hole with his dagger before being overwhelmed.


Hawthorne hmmms as he comes up towards the end of the pursuit and frowns a bit, "That looks like they fought each other… This is pretty odd." He points over towards the empty crossbow quiver, "Found our sharp shooter though I think. Doesn't look like he's going to be killing anybody else."


True to her word, Nightbird sticks behind Hawthorne this time till they get to the clearing and the nasty scene there.

"This was another sorcerer," she says. "That beartrap was made by magic, I'd almost bet my life on it…" as she starts to pass the dead man with his dagger fallen in the midst of trying to dig into the ground. THIS one clearly unsettles her, and she looks at it rather hard for a moment, a little crawl of frightened static crackling from her scalp down the length of her braid with a series of quietly violent fizzes and hisses before dying with a final SPAK at the copper beads of the fastening.

"Why was he digging?" She wonders, crossing her arms around herself with a shudder. "Or maybe one of these is the sorcerer?"


Hawthorne looks around at the bodies and shakes his head, "Not sure. I'm not one that's able to move dirt like that but I'd say that the sorcerer was trying to avoid capture or pursuit. Maybe the first one wasn't actually unconscious when he or she fled the campsite?"


As Myrana is moving past the 'dead' man he reaches to weakly grab at her Kirtle. Desperation in his barely audible words. "The Bailiff took the book."


Lots of people have called Myrana d'Armaz 'brave' and 'heroic' and other extremely flattering things.

But they also call her Black Cat, and its not just because of her terrible luck.

Upon her skirts suddenly being caught in the fingers of a deadman, Nightbird lets out an immediate startled screech and GRABS Hawthorne (who has been nothing but helpful) and tries to HURL him with all her might at the poor injured man like someone throwing a guard-dog at a robber who has broken into the house so they can run into the pantry.

This doesn't work. Hawthorne is very rudely too heavy to be budged. And Nightbird realizes, an instant into trying, that she has tried to do this at all, and has a moment of stark inner reflection as she tries to settle her very jangled and overwrought nerves. So what she ends up doing, in effect, is just grabbing onto Hawthorne's sleeves and yanking with no effect before freezing up, and appearing to Think About What She Did.


Hawthorne blinks at the sudden startled movement of Myrana… and the attempt to push him towards the danger when he wasn't moving in that direction… He stops and looks towards her then at the dying man, "Baliff… Book?" He looks towards Myrana, "This can't be a good thing. Nobody named the Baliff is a good person."


Myrana lets go of Hawthorne in considerable embarrassment and whirls around to immediately fumble around in her satchel for something, kneeling next to the injured man. "S-sorry," she says, pulling out a leather wallet of bandages and herbs, red in the face. "The Baliff? Here-" she tries to tend to his wounds, if she can find them first.


Its quickly apparant that the man is in no state to prevent Myrana's search and he's only lightly armored. It only takes moments to discern that his main injury is a sword slash across the abdomen thats killing him drop by drop of precious blood. He grunts at one point during the ministrations and then his eyes roll back and he falls unconscious. It seems likely he's done that a few times since his injury happened.

But now you are so close and personal to him you find a small coffer tucked into the interior of his things. Hugged close to his body where it would be easily missed - or protected. Its the sort of coffer used to store personal correspondence in. Small and prettily carved with a trio of foxes chasing each others tails. The image seems familiar somehow.


Hawthorne smiles a bit at the embarrassment of Myrana but he steps to the side to allow her to attempt to heal the man keeping an eye out around the area for any potential threats.


Blood soaks through everything Myrana tries to use to staunch the deadly wound in the man's belly. She's losing the fight and knows it, and finally in frustration accepts that she simply cannot save this man's life, though she uses every bit of her soft green clotmoss and clean bandaging. The man loses consciousness, and Myra sags in defeat, blowing out a frustrated growl.

"The Baliff of Lannenford," she says. "That's my guess. We should go there, and see what that book is." She gets up. "I have a feeling there's names in that book that the Inquisition would be interested in. Otherwise why go to this trouble? Can you go to Lannenford with me, Hawthorne?"


Hawthorne looks around at all the death around them and nods, "I can and I will. Do you want me to be on good behavior while we're in Lannenford or should I go ahead and be all kinds of Hawthorne for it?"


"Have I seen you on good behavior?" Nightbird asks wrily, and tries to open the coffer.

It refuses.

"Hey," she thrusts it at him as they are back at the horses and hurrying back to the road. "Can you break this open?"


Hawthorne takes the coffer as it's thrust towards him and starts to fiddle with it and shakes his head after a moment his hair pins aren't turning and he's looking at it like he's got no clue how to properly work a lock, "Well… This is a tough coffer." He hands it back, "And you've seen me on good behavior. I didn't burn down the academy."


It takes a good deal of drinking and an even greater deal of swearing, but EVENTUALLY, Hawthorne and Nightbird get the thing open later on at the Inn. Success! They open it up! Excitement! SUSPENSE!

"It's encoded," Nightbird moans. "The book stolen was a cypher." And puts her head down on top of the coffer and has herself a mournful drunk wail not much louder than the air being let out of a pair of Very Sad Bellows.


"I need another chicken," says the Very Sad Nightbird, who then sticks up her arm without lifting her face to summon the barmaid.

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