Banny squints upward, trying to spot whatever Alicia noticed.
"If it's that far up.... might be quicker to climb down to it than up to it..." she mutters, scanning for the reflective-wossit.
Her eyes are better in the dark, but not as keen as Alicia's by daylight, it seems.
With Alicia's guidance, Banny can pick out whatever it is that's reflecting the sunlight; until the sun had crested the hill, it was virtually invisible from the ground.
It's somewhere to the north of the projection that the footpath ran under; if it's along that pathway, it's almost certainly a shorter climb down than up. Then again, there'll be the trek back to the town gate and then up the switchback to the peak of the cliff before they can let themselves down onto the ledge.
"Assuming we could even see it from up there," Ali says, making for a path up from the base of the cliff.
Rubbing his arm as though taken by a slight chill, Vhailor appreciates the sign that might lead them away from the foot of the cliff. Collecting Carbonel back unto his shoulder, he looks to follow the agreed method of reaching the shiny... with the occasional furtive glance towards the empty landscape.
Banny's brows arch up at Alicia's determination to climb from the base. She cocks her head, seems about to say something, then shrugs and follows after her, rummaging in her pack as she does so. Rope an' that barbed hook she's been carrying-- a souvenir from the last time orcs had tried to come over the walls-- and the cliff face should offer a lotta places to fasten it...
Marikel's face has gone white as Alicia points out the cave high above them. His mouth moves several times, though no sound comes out. As the others begin to make their way up, Marikel closes his eyes and moves his way towards the path. The low path.
He braces himself against the rock face, and stares at the stones in front of him, before edging his way ever so slowly up after Alicia.
The dwarf follows behind Alicia, hoping to help discern which of the available footpaths may lead to the correct cave mouth, but the cliffside is a maze. The party tries one path, then another, but they all seem either to lead off in the wrong direction or simply peter out into a crumbling ledge after a while. They start to leave Marikel, clanking along gamely in his heavy armor, behind at the last junction until they're sure they're on the right track. In the full sun now, he is sweating despite the chill in the air, either from exertion or from fear.
The group has passed many of the abandoned mine shafts and peered in, just out of curiosity, Vhailor hoping to see the fabled ghost rats; if they exist, however, perhaps they avoid the sunlight. They see countless beetles and centipedes, a few rodents of the corporeal variety, and in one boarded-up entrance, a colorful spider swaying in the middle of a huge, gossamer web, but no ghost rats. A few of the mines still house abandoned bits of equipment: a rusty shovel, a pick-axe with a broken handle, an old lantern, burnt-down ends of torches and several waxy puddles that once were candles.
It's after lunchtime by the time the group finally hits on the right pathway. It leads them up and up higher, zigzagging back and forth across the cliff face. Turning around yet another sharp switchback, Alicia sees, with a sense of triumph, the sunlight glinting off the object they've been searching for just ahead of her. As they approach, it appears to be a blade of some kind, wedged into the dirt and rock to one side of the opening of one of the mineshafts.
Banny has her coiled rope around her shoulder, and thinks to herself that on another day-- maybe in late springtime, when the barren lands are the closest to being pleasant as they ever are, with a few determined wildfowers struggling in the rocks and the skies blue and the breezes stiff-- that this sort of hill tromping and poking into the cave mouths might be downright pleasant.
But it's not another day, and the grim reason for this hiking keeps lurking in her mind like a bad taste. She is mostly silent as they try path after path, and doesn't say anything about how maybe they mighta saved more time coming down from the top after all-- it's not the sort of thing that anyone wants to hear, a time like this.
When Alicia's eyes spot the blade ahead, Banny looks up from careful placement of her feet to see it. "I'll be damned, there it is. Wonder if it's Kerst's real knife? Let me go first-- peek in that tunnel, make sure nothin's lurkin'."
She moves forward on the ledge, keeping one hand on the rising cliff face for balance and stability. She tries to move quietly, and not send any more rocks than necessary rolling downhill to telegraph her approach. She plans to reach the mineshaft edge and peer around the edge.
Ali gives Banny a funny look behind her back and follows after her, being just about as quiet.
More than willing to let those more suited to both climbing, stealth and investigatoring make the ghost-rat lair safe... Vhailor hangs at the rear trying to catch a peek either through or around Marikel's legs.
With gritted teeth, Marikel has hugged the cliff face and inched after the others. On the bright side, by the time they figure each path is a dead end, Marikel hasn't travelled that far and has little retracing to do. He focuses on crab walking along the cliff face, always looking forwards, never looking down or to the sides. His eyes are closed much of the time.
Sweat rolls from his brow, and his breath comes in shallow gasps. At the news that they may have found their destination, Marikel heaves a great breath, suppresses an almighty urge to run, and continues to inch closer and closer to the blessed darkness that awaits him.
The two woman creep toward the cave at a cautious pace, trying simultaneously to watch where they place their feet so as not to kick loose any tumbling rocks and to keep an eye on the entrance to the tunnel they are approaching. Behind them, the priest continues to inch forward, paying far less attention to stealth.
Banny reaches the opening in the cliffside and very warily peers around the edge. Most of the mines they have already passed are short and straight, the work of desperate amateurs with limited resources; this one appears to open into a more sizeable cavern. The edges of the cave mouth are rounded and worn with age; this was undoubtedly one of the early attempts at striking ore, not long after the initial discovery. The main tunnel bores into the hillside some twenty feet before branching into side tunnels.
She sees nothing, but two smells are immediately distinguishable which set this tunnel apart from the others they have passed, which smelled only of rock and soil. One is a damp, fetid smell, like a marsh, very unusual for Belkzen before the spring floods; another is a smell of burnt wood and roasted meat, which seems to indicate that someone has been cooked food in this cave quite recently.
Alicia, a bare two steps behind Banny, sniffs the air experimentally. "That's an odd combination of smells...."
Marikel continues doggedly toward the opening in the rock and the chance of having more than three feet between himself and a thirty-foot drop.
Banny wrinkles her nose. "Yeah," she mutters over her shoulder. "If someone's been hidin' out in here, the fire an' cookin' makes sense, but... what's that other stink? Smells like some wet, rottin' thing..."
She studies the ground a few feet within the tunnel mouth.
The item glinting in the sun is, indeed, a hopeknife. Its blade is imbedded in the cliffside next to the mine entrance about as high as a man's arm could comfortably reach. (It would be a bit of a stretch for Banny or Alicia, but Marikel could easily retrieve it.)
Having ascertained that there is nothing threatening immediately inside, Banny turns her attention to the cavern floor. The night's chill still lingers inside where the sun has yet to penetrate. There are some shiny patches on the rock that first make her think of water seeping through the stone, perhaps from the source of the Hopespring, but that should be lower down in the hill. She glances up: no corresponding dampness on the ceiling that could be dripping, and the marks look unnaturally evenly spaced. After a moment, she realizes that she is seeing the remains of wet footprints still in the process of drying in the cold darkness.
There's something else, interspersed between the wet places: dark specks which could almost be natural flecks in the rock but aren't. Drops of blood, like the water, that haven't yet completely dried in the damp cave. She can trace the footprints back to one of the branches from the main tunnel further back in the grotto.
Vhailor follows Marikel as the priest inches toward the cave. As they get close enough to the women to smell the curious mixture of smells emanating from the cavity, the gnome's cat suddenly stiffens and yowls, its white fur standing on end and its back arching.
Banny squints inside, trying to make her dwarven eyes adjust to the dimness and note any details.
When she realizes what she sees, she sucks in a harsh breath. "There's blood in here," the dwarf rasps sharply. "Drops of it. And wet footprints-- not yet dried."
Perhaps ironically for a dwarf, Banny is no fan of tight places and cramped tunnels, at least, not these days. But she grabs the hip flask from her belt and knocks back a swig that empties all that remains off the applejack. Right. Little liquid courage never hurt anybody.
...maybe she shoulda offered some to the priest, she thinks, catching sight of his pale, sweat-sheened face. Oh wait, Iomedan-- he might not have drunk any anyhow...
Banny turns to Alicia, clasping her hands together at waist-height and nodding up at the knife. "I'll give you a boost to help grab it?"
Despite serving as a step-ladder, Banny doesn't take her eyes away from the cave mouth for long, gazing fixedly into as if her eyes could burn a hole through the stone and the dark.
Marikel enters the cave and sucks in a deep breath of the foul vapours. He pantsa little as he let's his eyes adjust to the dim light.
After a moment he mutters quietly, "Does anyone have some light?"
He looks about for a branch or half burnt piece of wood that could be turned into a torch.
Ali nods at Banny's suggestion and raises her foot into the dwarf's clasped-together hands. Retrieving the hopeknife with a yank, she sets herself down again and inspects the blade with one hand even while the other goes for a torch.
Carbonel's hiss gives Vhailor immediate pause as he holds his staff forward with one hand defensively while his other goes to shield his companion. Stammering he both attempts to calm Carb while also speaking "Bad smell... doesn't like it..." sshhing and getting the cat to relax from a painfully arched back to merely a heightened sense of anxiety. "Careful... whatever Carb smelled it can't be friendly... and I don't think it was a ghost rat."
Banny's curious as to the knife as well, taking her eyes off the cave to look over Alicia's shoulder at it. She answers Marikel absently. "No torch here. Don't usually need one, m'self."
Hearing the gnome's words, she again stares into the dark.
"It stinks like marsh," she says, "but that doesn't make much sense. Short of the Hopespring, this land's dry as bones this time of year. Somethin' in there left those wet prints, though. Maybe there's water back in there... some stagnant pool or somethin'... but I think you're right that whatever is ain't nice. Not with that blood. Soon as we look at this knife, I'm plannin' on goin' in after whoever or whatever it is."
Alicia retrieves the knife from the cliffside. Brushing the loose soil from the blade, she can clearly read the engraving: Kerst, may our light conquer darkness.
Alicia curses Councilor Sawyer softly under her breath and hands the hopeknife--Kerst's hopeknife--to Banny. She then lights the torch she's retrieved, and steps into the opening of the cave, the better to peer inside. "I think we're going to find a lot of answers we don't like in here," she says grimly, drawing her rapier.
Banny hisses audibly as she reads the text over around Alicia's shoulder. Yes, Kerst's knife, alright-- she takes it, almost reverently, and tucks it safely away in her things. Might be poor, cold comfort to Brinya but... she is pretty sure it's where her friend would have wanted the knife to wind up.
"Not enough they had to take it off him," she growls. "Stuck it juttin' out from the stones like a damn brag. D'we need any more proof of murderin' than that? If I find any sumb!&@@ in here, 'm gonna crack his skull, so help me..."
She pushes past Marikel, moving inside the small cave, her teeth bared and her scarred fist clenching. She may not like tight spaces much, but her anger's good and hot and she's got a gut full of applejack to quiet the fear down. She unhooks her axe from its belt loop, gripping it tightly.
"Let's just see who might be hidin' down where this blood trail leads," she says, stepping to follow the tunnel where the blood drops are still visible, looking black by the light of Alicia's torch.
Marikel lets Banny past him but follows close behind her using the light from Alicia's torch.
"I don't think they left it there. I think Kerst did."
Like the others Marikel's sword is out.
"If they knew it was there, why steal Ruby's knife? No, Kerst came down here to meet them. He probably promised to come unarmed, so shoved it there so that it wouldn't be found on him. And to mark the area for us to find. Not perfect, but good enough. They obviously never thought to check there when they dragged his body out."
Banny frowns, mulling over Marikel's words. She supposes it makes much more sense than the killers leaving a knife out for keen eyes to see... but... what the hell was Kerst doing down here, if he came of his free will?
She intends to find out.
Still maintaining a fair portion of his focus upon settling the unsettled feline upon his shoulder Vhailor doesn't add any words to the debate... instead settling to follow the others to wherever they might lead him. He offers "Alicia... I can hold the torch? Give me some purpose past merely following steps?"
Alicia thrusts the torch at Vhailor. "Or maybe he didn't promise anything, or agree to meet someone. Maybe he stumbled across our 'friend' and followed him to this mineshaft, and figured there'd be trouble. So he left the knife as a marker for that reason," she chimes in quietly.
The gnome takes the torch, attempting to hold it where it will neither scorch his clinging cat nor set afire the clothing of the others. It illuminates the tunnel bored into the cliffside and dimly lights the shadowy openings of side tunnels branching away after this point. The dwarf takes the lead, where her vision can penetrate what is darkness to Marikel and Alicia's eyes, and carefully moves deeper into the cave, deliberately stepping around the remains of the footprints and the drops of blood to preserve the trail.
She slows down cautiously as she approaches the first branch off to the side and peers around the corner. Inside is a homey cavern maybe fifteen feet wide and a little more than that deep, stacked with mining equipment and crates. Unlike the abandoned tools she saw in a few of the other cave openings, this gear is new and appears to have seen recent use; there are no cobwebs or signs of vermin nests among them.
The footprints aren't coming from this tunnel, however; they emerge from a deeper branch. The combined smells of damp and burnt wood are stronger than at the cavern entrance.
Marikel pokes around the items, partly from curiosity and partly looking for more torches or a lantern.
Oddly enough, while everything else necessary for mining seems to be present, Marikel sees no torches or lanterns.
Though Banny burns with the desire to keep following the trail, she pauses accordingly to let Marikel look through the barrels.
She leans against the rough wall by her, watching.
"Minin' supplies... someone might be widening an old tunnel, digging up under the city... creatin' paths in for an invadin' force," she says worriedly. "Oy-- keep that torch back from those big crates, eh?? If the diggers knew their business, there could well be blastin' powder in some of these. This ain't where I care to blow to smithereens.
"An' if they were orcs, or half-orcs," she adds on, "they'd be able to see as good as me without a light. Open flame can be dangerous underground, so a lot of diggers 'mine dark'. Sometimes you want light to see colors of gem or ore, but dark's safest."
Marikel nods at Banny's assessment.
"Any idea how big this operation might be then? One person, a dozen? If there was blasting, wouldn't we have heard something? Or are there ways to muffle the noise? What's this look like to you? Prospecting? Tunneling? Hiding? None seem like cause for murder. Unless, as you say, they're tunnelling for an invading force. But I'd expect a dozen or so at least to be trying that. How far can an orc tunnel in a day?"
Marikel shakes his head as if to clear it but does make sure Vhailor keeps the torch away.
In fact, he turns to the gnome. "Would you know anything about blast powder or chemicals? I'll hold the torch if you want a closer look."
Banny scratches at the scar that winds over her broad face, thinking. "If you're deep enough in the rock, the noise of a blast mightn't carry. Might just feel like a little tremor up above. Course, I guess there's magic ways to hide noises too... I dunno, 'm no expert on that stuff."
Dwarven curiosity now piqued, Banny goes to the largest of the crates, seeking to open them and verify if there is, indeed, blasting powder in them. She also counts the number of pickaxes-- that should give a reasonable number of hands using them, she'd hope...
"Can't rightly say as to the purpose," Banny says slowly. "Beyond suspicionin' on building tunnels into town. You might not need a big force to get in-- just, say, nine or ten orcs in the middle of the night, to run down to the gates... I dunno. Maybe it's for smugglin', not invading? Or-- or for escape from town? No, that don't make much sense, it'd just spit you out into the massed orcs if you did try and take it..."
Banny mutters her theories aloud to herself as she looks through the crates.
Banny judges that the operation is a small one, no more than a handful of men, but well-financed. Most of the prospectors who turn up to scratch into Bloodmarch Hill with second-hand equipment are desperate men on a get-rich-quick lark; they certainly couldn't afford blasting powder, nor would they be likely to know how to use it without killing themselves and perhaps part of the town in the process.
She moves deeper into the cave to the crates in the back. Some seem to contain sacks and blankets; others, rations and dried edibles; there are a few pitch-lined barrels which seem to have held water, though they are mostly empty. A couple of the smaller crates give a sound of shifting sand when they are moved. A few small drifts of the contents have sifted out through the cracks; from the grainy feel on her fingers and the dry, acrid smell, Banny feels fairly confident in identifying blasting powder, though it would seem from the fact that these boxes are still tightly nailed shut that none has yet been used.
None of the party know much about blasting powder or its use in Trunau, though there are certainly people in town who would. Omast Frum seems likely, or any of the Council of Defenders, or even Jess Meeson; her store supplies most of the prospectors who come to look for ore.
It occurs to you that the same supplies used to dig into the cliff could be employed to cut and widen a footpath up the cliff, like the one Banny discovered just below the promontory behind the Longhouse ... except for the blasting powder, at any rate.
"I don't think it's a single day. I think it's more likely a few months. That scrap of paper I found had multiple dates on it--months apart," Ali chimes in.
Marikel stands back in the doorway with Alicia.
"When was the earliest date? Maybe they're still exploring for a way in? Does the map make any more sense now that you've seen some of the tunnel entrances?"
"A bit. I think he was plotting out mine shafts. The first date was just a few months ago, though," Ali says.
Banny grunts to herself as she finds the crates that likely contain blasting powder. After fingering the trace specks of the gritty gray dust, she fishes inside her battered rucksack until she pulls out a foot-long iron crowbar, which she uses to pry up the nailed crate lid.
"Kinda tempted to dump water on alla this an' make sure it can't blow any tunnels wider," Banny says thoughtfully, "but I guess we ain't got enough water for that, handy... look, though, all this gear: it's new an' shiny, barely been used. It's good gear. This ain't some half-assed orc sneak-job... this is financed. By someone with money. An' you don't buy in this many supplies or bring 'em into town without passin' by some noses-- like Jess's, mayhap. I wanna ask her if anyone's bought a ton of dig-gear lately..."
"I think the council's gonna want to know that someone's got a passel of diggin' tools an' such leading into the hill from outside... but they're gonna want to know that even more if these tunnels kick out in town like I bet they do. Let's go find their other end. And whatever's makin' that wet."
"Water?" Marikel smirks. "Iomedae provides."
Marikel mutters a brief prayer to the Goddess of Valor and a couple of gallons of water rains down on the container Banny opened.
"I try to stay ready for battle or siege. I didn't expect to be exploring tunnels when I asked for Iomedae to grace me today."
His smile, slow to start, vanishes quickly.
"I can quench them all, if you wish."
The crude glyph painted on the side of the crate means nothing to anyone, but it's possible someone else in Trunau might recognize it.
Staying safely back once the announcement of blasting powder is made Vhailor keeps his quiet and holds the torch very very still during the discussion. Not disagreeing with any specifics of what comes after, he's instead drawn to ruminate on the crude glyph painted on the crate...
Linguistics:
...half-distractedly adding "The bad smell's not in there... but those tools look like they could dig up or down as easy as in. Like the footpath back up at the top of the cliff?"
On the topic of the map and dots and blasting powder "So the dotty dots are where he puts the powder or where he puts the tunnels? Either isn't good. If we could just triangulate where one of the dots is we could make a hazardous guess as to what the other ones sit under..."
Intelligence Check:
You rack your brains, trying to correlate the buildings of Trunau to the marks on the torn scrap of paper, but come up empty.
Musing on the glyph "Looks like some kind of horned cow... relieving it's bowels..." frowning before continuing "Whoever put it on had more of a workman's approach to precision though... see where the paint's dripped"
"Ha!" Banny says appreciatively at Marikel's water-producing prayers. "Guess the prayin's good for somethin'... sure, douse alla these, let's rain on the parade of whoever these bastards are."
Banny squints at the glyph at Vhailor's words but doesn't recognize it. "Well, we'll describe it to Jess. Let's keep movin' forward, aye? I wanna know where this tunnel comes out at..."
Tucking the fire-horn with its little sample of powder away again in her pack, Banny is ready to take the lead again.
Leaving behind the doused powder, Banny takes the lead in following the trail once more. The corridor branches to either side and goes straight ahead. It's immediately evident that this is the source of the scent of burnt wood and cooked meat; a pile of broken plants half-burned to charcoal lies in the middle of a hollowed-out cavern straight ahead, a matching black smudge of soot on the ceiling where the smoke must have risen. Between the party and the campsite, however, is a sticky, red-black puddle in the corridor; this must be where the fatal blow was struck, between the campfire and a tunnel branching to the left which smells strongly of rotten mud and damp.
The blood trail begins here; the wet footprints come from deeper down the left-hand tunnel. The branch to the right slants slightly down before it turns a corner, but there are no tracks leading that way.