Crytalis looks up from her clucking at the dead mites to frown at Colin and his well ment words. She climbs back on her horse, all on her own, and trails after them as they leave. She does indeed stay close to Colin, letting Joyous Storm lead her Bandit as she watches the mites exposed corpses, and the crows that resume feasting, slip out of view.
Guillame is able to follow the trail for five hours without trouble or distraction, save for the occasionally bird or small game.
The kobold tracks seem to be keeping a good pace, despite their short stride, because the group does not come upon the small scaled humanoids before spotting the place where they lead: a small hillock with a copse of gnarled trees on top and down the southern side. Still a mile or so away, there is little else around to where the tracks may lead. The grasslands stretch in all directions and the sky remains mostly obscured by clouds, with patches of blue rolling by slowly.
Colin reins in Joyous Storm and scans ahead at the gnarley hillock, lost in thought for a moment. "Well, that makes sense. Back in Restov, the posse had tailed the kobolds back to an old badger den under a rotten oak. I guess they must have widened it up a bit. Maybe this is the same kind of thing."
He takes off his helmet to wipe the sweat from his eyes and frowns at their destination. "They had a pack of good hunting dogs that day. Those hounds were really raring to get at those little monsters. They were barking so loud you could hear them clear away back home all across the fields."
"Well, the pack's master figured why should we go to all the trouble to try crawling down in there so he sent the dogs down. It was like telling them it was suppertime. Some of those dogs... well, I wouldn't have wanted them coming after me like that. I'm not sure what chance I'd have. Even in this armor."
He looks over at Crytalis and pats her hand on the saddle horn and continues, "Those dogs just scrabbled all over each other to be the first one down to get a taste of those kobolds. We heard them barking and growling and howling. I guess that hole must have gone deeper than we'd thought. Anyway, after a short bit, we didn't hear the dogs anymore."
He gives Guillame a meaningful glance, as weighty as a full wineskin.
"So Willy, their master, gets down by the entrance and starts calling their names one by one. You know he'd raised them all since they were pups. 'Uthar!' 'Pember!' 'Kaylee girl!' 'Come on back, now!'" He shakes his head. "Nothing."
"My dad told Willy to come away, that those dogs ain't coming back, but Willy then says he can hear one of them whining. He says, 'It's Kaylee. She's hurt!' and damn me if he didn't go scrambling down right then. All the men were shouting so I didn't hear anything but those dogs never came back out. Neither did Willy."
Colin takes a deep breath and lays a protective hand on Joyous Storm's neck, stroking her mane. "My dad sent me home then. The rest of them were going to wait but they sent one fellow back to town with me. They told him, 'Go to the tavern and look for three to five armed vagrants down on their luck. Maybe we can pay them to go down there.' And... I guess that's what they did."
He makes a half-hearted smile. "And, well... here we are."
"Oof! They eat the dogs and the kennel master too? The kobold is a fierce monster, e'? All three feet of him!" says Guillame, a little mocking twinkle in his eye. "But let them try to eat Sir Courneye, I think the armor, it will stick in their throats! Haha!"
Guillame chuckles a little, amused at himself, and assesses the hillock. His face turns thoughtful.
"Even so, Colin, you are right to sound the note of caution, e'? If they have a cave, they have the traps, the darkness. All advantage is to them. Out here, we have the room, the light, we move quicker than they. All advantage is to us. So, if we would retrieve the wedding ring, we must bring them out here. How to do this - is a puzzle, non?"
Guillame pulls out his pipe and absently sucks the stem of it, deep in thought. Then he smacks his hands together and holds up a forthright finger.
"Ha! I have it! We need .. the insult! A powerful insult brings out the nastiest in creatures, and brings the nastiest creatures out of their lairs and into the light. Lucky for us, I have some skill at crafting the insult... Now what do kobolds hate the most, hate with ... with ze passion?"
Guillame idles closer to the hillock, hands clasped behind is back, deep in thought, pondering what he knows of kobolds and their hatreds.
The trees on the hill are oak and the opening down into the earth, when Guillame finds it, looks man made, but long ago.
An outcropping of large boulders emerges from the weathered face of the hillock. A narrow opening in the rock leads into darkness below. A fallen sign leans against the side of the cave entrance, and a cage made of branches and sticks sits on the other side.
Colin says to Crytalis, "We shouldn't let him get too far away," and rides Joyous Storm to keep up with the ranger, bringing the pack horse along.
When he's able to see the entrance, he says to Guillame, stating the obvious, "They've probably gone in there."
He then digs out his everburning torch. "If you're not able to lure them out, we'll probably need this."
Crytalis is still content in following Colin who is following Guillame. As they reach the entrance she studies the cage, slipping from her horse to make her way over to the sign. This she crouches down to study closer, trying to make out what it says.
"So, we are just to shout challenges to them?" She asks over her shoulder from where she crouches. "How deep do you suppose it goes?"
Closing the distance to the cave entrance, the words on the sign come into focus. They read, in faded paint 'Oaktop Silver Mine'.
As the group eyes the cave, a figure emerges. Small with dark grey scales, the creature hobbles out and from his snout emits an excited 'yip'. His tail flicks anxiously. He notices your weapons and his snakelike eyes widen. Then he throws his clawed hands in the air and shouts in common. "Wait! Wait! I want to talk!"
Colin urges Joyous Storm to lurch forward to get between the kobold and Crytalis, drawing his lance.
"You can speak our language?" he asks, incredulously. "This had better not be a trick."
The kobold leaps back and covers his head with his hands, trembling. "No trick! No trick! Just talk! Sootscales need humans' help!"
Hm, probably for the best thinks Guillame to himself. Is hard think of a good insult for the kobold, e'?
"Sootscales?" calls Guillame, narrowing his eyes with suspicion. "Sootscales is your name? Well, Sootscales, we seek a wedding ring. The mites had it before you, we think. The little blue ones, with bulging eyes. Produce the ring, and perhaps we help, e'?"
"N-no! Sootscales is tribe! Chief talk to you, yes? Come inside, we will talk. Maybe we have the ring!" He turns to look at Guillame as he speaks, but he flinches sporadically whenever Colin or his stead move.
Colin looks at the kobold and then at Guillame. He gives Crytalis a longer glance, looking for some sign from her of her feelings about this.
He then speaks to the kobold. "Why can't your chief come out here to speak to us? Or at least to the mouth of the cave. If peace is what you want, let us speak it at the border of your domain not trapped in the middle of it."
He lowers his lance but stays mounted. "My name is Colin. My companions are Guillame and Crytalis. I know that kobolds often mean harm to humans but if you do not, then we shall treat fairly with you. You have my word we will not attack if you do not."
Crytals crosses her arms across her chest and gives Sootscales a look of avid disbelief. "What is this help you need? How many are in your tribe?" Despite her look she tried to get a feel for if the little creature is maliciously deceiving them.
The kobold cowers a bit at the barrage of demands. "T-the chief said to bring any humans inside, so he could ask them for help. He says we're cursed and humans might be our only help!"
"What is your name?" asks Colin. "I have taken a vow to help those who ask for it, no matter whom they might be. But if your intentions are foul, you will regret trying to trick us."
"If you can not answer our questions, please go and ask your chief to meet us here if he wants help so that neither he nor we will be placing ourselves at the mercy of the other. We will hear his plea."
"I'm Nakpik. Yip! There's ab-bout twenty of us. Most of us are out patrolling, He says and gestures away from the cave, towards the forest far to the west and the plains to the north. "Only maybe six are here. No match for you! And your big horse and all! B-but, I I'll go get the chief! He'll explain. Yip!" And he scrambles off into the darkness of the cave.
Guillame shoulders his bow. "As Colin say, we are the friendly travelers, non? We parley and negotiate. Unarmed, we make clear the pleasant intention." he says to the others, by way of explanation.
"And it takes but a moment to become unfriendly again..." he mutters to himself, with a small private smirk, slipping a dagger into his sleeve.
Guillame waits where he is until kobolds come out, but peers at the cage, trying to work out if there's anything in it.
Crytalis rolls her eyes dramatically and looks back in the direction of the bandits' camp, then to Colin. "Remind me again how we got caught up in helping the murderous lizards? No ring is worth this, Kressel might have died while we have been traipsing about, and with her all chance to...extract....information. Let's just kill the things and go bury those poor cute little bug-eyed creatures - then get back to the business in our charter. Bandits and exploring."
Probably some trap anyway." She mutters before sending Pim off to scout the area.
The cage is a rickety frame of wooden sticks tied together. It clearly held something, but could not have been something very big or very strong. Traces of blue hair cling to the cage in various places. The door of the cage is hanging lopsided and there are drag marks from the cage into the cave.
Colin takes in Crytalis's criticisms with a deeper and deeper furrowed brow. He watches Pim fly off and, with a tinge of regret, says, "I'm sorry, Cry. I know this isn't what we're supposed to be doing but I didn't know we would be so far off the path. We told Svetlana we'd try to get her ring back and it just seemed so close..."
He fidgets in the saddle, wrapping the reins around his hand and then unwrapping them. "I didn't expect the kobolds to ask us for help. It doesn't seem fair to me to just attack them now without talking to them. Maybe all kobolds aren't evil."
"In any case," he continues, "I don't think we'll be here all that long. If we fight, that will be over quickly. If they want something, we can tell them it can wait if we decide to help. I'm anxious about Muadhnait and the prisoners too."
He seems genuinely distressed as he concludes, "I didn't know you wanted to bury the mites, Cry. I would have done that for you. You know I would have!"
At first, Crytalis lets out a sigh of disgust, the kind only a teenage girl can produce. As his distress grows so does her look of guilt. "Oh Colin, it will be fine, I'm sure. It hasn't been that long. And for all we know they have some worthy task for us...far more worthy than my want to torture and torment Kressel. Why, just think of all the pain you saved her." She ends her reassuring words with a charming smile, that familiar flicker of hesitancy in her as she gauges his reaction.
A dim light grows in Colin's eyes as he realizes that everything will be all right, then his expression gets quizzical as she mentions torture. Finally he laughs as he realizes she's back to her regular, joking self. He reaches to take her hand and kisses each fingertip with a smile.
"I'm sure it will all be all right, Cry," he says to her and himself.
Then he straightens up and remembers that Guillame is right there, so he aims to look intimidating once more and keeps an eye on the mouth of the mine.
The sounds of yipping echo from the cave, growing closer to the entrance. As more kobolds emerge, their yipping quiets and Nakpik, followed by six other kobolds with scales of various shades of dark grey. They file out and spread to surround one kobold with a skull headdress, red and black feathers across the back, and a large thigh bone club in one hand and a staff decorated with skull bones in the other.
"I am Chief Sootscale," he says. "I bring you humans no harm if you would listen to our plight." His voice is sharp and scratchy, almost rough.
The kobolds around him hold spears at the ready, looking uneasy and ready to strike, but waiting for a response or an order.
Colin leans back in the saddle and looks at Crytalis, then at Guillame, then back towards the chief kobold.
He tries to ascertain the bones the kobold carries and wears, if they are human or not.
"We will listen, Chief Sootscale," he says, trying to sound authoritative. "We have been tasked to bring peace to this land. If it may be done so without bloodshed, all the better. If your cause is just and honestly presented, we will try to help if we can. In exchange, we would ask for peace between our peoples, information of dangers near here, and the return of a ring stolen by human bandits, stolen from them by fey mites, and lastly, taken by your warriors."
He holds out an open, gauntleted palm as he speaks to show he does not raise a weapon against Sootscale.
Guillame is impressed by the chief's outfit.
Quels accoutrements! he thinks to himself. The skulls, the feathers, the thigh bone, the shaman staff! Why, if he were on the stage, and did a mignonne petite kobold-shaman-dance, then the normal people would pay good coin to see that! With the music, the jungle rhythm? Fear and the laughter and the fascination, in equal measure!
Guillame squints and pulls the brim of his hat down as he sinks deep in thought. Now ... how to persuade a kobold chief to take up life on the stage, e'? Is harder than to break in a horse, that is sure!
As he ponders and listens to the conversation, Guillame's expression slowly changes into an enthusiastic, acquisitive grin. He twirls one end of his moustache between his fingers, and nods agreeably and encouragingly from Colin to the chief and back again.
"Colin suggest a reasonable trade, e'? he says to the chief. "And may I say, in all humility, that one dressed as you are: well, oof, is very impressive! For a poor traveler such as myself, I am overwhelmed. I feel that one so impressive must surely see the wisdom in what Colin say, non?"
The bone in the kobolds hand does not appear to be human, but rather a medium sized beast of some kind.
Chief Sootscale listens intently while Colin speaks, nodding all the while. When Guillame speaks, the kobold seems to stand taller and more proud.
"Well met. I agree to your peace. However, this ring you speak of, if it was with the spoils taken from the Mites, then it is now in the possession of our shaman." The kobold looks down at this and frowns. "Our shaman would not come out to treat with you. He is busy attempting to dispell a curse placed on our tribe."
As he mentions the curse, the other kobold's eyes widen and they shiver momentarily.
"A statue of our god, Old Sharptooth, was stolen from us by the Mites. We would ask you to retrieve it for you. For that, I will retrieve this ring from Tartuk, our shaman. We will also tell you what we know of the land."
Chief Sootscale is leaving something out, something that seems to be oppressing and haunting him.
Crytalis also studies the bone bearing chief, but for her it is with envy. Slim fingers slide into the pouch beside her to caress her own tiny sliver of bone. The image of the kobold's body, still with only the hush that death brings, passes like a wish through her mind.
The girl's golden eyes narrow upon the man, and in place of a smile she lets her looks chill, her head canting to one side as she stares at him.
"What is the thing you are leaving unsaid? What are you not telling us? What is this curse of which you speak? Why did the mites steal your statue and who was in that cage?"
She edges a bit closer to the chief and his party, out from behind the shield of Colin.
"I haven't the patience for games today. Lie to us and I will take from you your bones, both those within and those without. Tell us all and quickly." she smiles now, sweet and true. "And all will be well."
The chief looks at Crytalis, chilled by her attitude, he pause before responding. "Old Sharptooth is displeased with our losing his statue. And as punishment, when one of our tribe dies, their scales turn yellow and they are forever forgotten as a Sootscale." With that, he looks down and frowns. "A raven brings to us this portent. And I have seen it happen."
Then he clears his throat and returns his gaze to Crytalis, and looks at the others as well. "The mites are our enemies. They stole the idol to harm us. In the cage was one of their kind. We keep it just inside- imprisoned. And I hope that we can use him to get our idol returned to us."
A look of horror sweeps over the young witch's face, a depth of which goes beyond anything that she has felt before, "Your dead are rejected? Forgotten?" she breathes out. The horror giving way to compassion as she watches the chief. "I am so sorry, no wonder it weighs on you so heavy."
She turns to Guillame and Colin. There is a pleading behind her eyes, a faint misting of tears at such an abomination filling them.
Colin's gaze passes back and forth between Crytalis and Chief Sootscale, not completely registering what they are talking about.
"Um," he offers. "So you want us to get the idol back? From the mites? Do they live under an old sycamore tree?"
The kobold nods, a grim look on his face. "That is what I would like to ask you. Yes, they live beneath the tree. We don't have the numbers to face them ourselves, but if you do it for us, we will give you the ring and more."
Colin leans down to speak in a lower tone to Guillame and Crytalis, "I think we can help them? It doesn't seem fair to try to take the ring by force after they have asked for help."
"And this way, we know where the ring is. We can leave, go deal with the bandit prisoners before it is too late, and then come back to deal with the mites."
"Is a good plan, I think." mutters Guillame, stroking his moustache, and casting furtive glances back at the kobold chief. "I would like to be on good terms with these kobolds. Learn more of their ways. We do this task for them, they are grateful, e'? Welcoming? Is a good atmosphere for discussing the business and so on later."
Guillame daydreams of a grand sideshow. He hums quietly in contentment, imagining the crowds, the happy little kobold entertainers, and of course, the money...
The kobold chief nods in agreement, a tiny upwards curl on his lips. "Good! But do not take too long. This curse drains the soot from our scales and that is what makes us Sootscales! Without that we are just dead kobolds, a most terrible death."
The other kobolds shake in fear as Chief Sootscale describes their possible doom and then look expectantly at the group. An occasionally yip sounds from them.
The group heads back the way they came, over the grasslands. By the time they reach the place where they camped before, the horses begin to slow.
Pim, after flying wide to the north and south along the way, returns with a song:
all around a sea of grass
and plenty a bite to eat
away and north a tangled tree
and lo a mite beneath
Crytalis remains silent for the return trip, concern and unease still etched across her face. As they pass back by the slain Mites she simply turns her eyes from their bloated corpses and the carrion that feast on them.
Pim's song pulls her from her inner turmoil and she relays his message to the others, nuzzling against this soft feathers and feeding him bits and crumbs from her pouch.
Colin takes off his helmet and drinks a long draft from the waterskin. He listens and nods along as Crytalis recants Pim's song in Common.
"OK," he begins, "That's good. We know where there tree is. But I'm thinking we don't want to approach it now. Let's try to push hard and get back to the bandit camp as soon as we can."
He bites at his lower lip and starts to count off some tasks on his fingers, marking his thumb along with arriving at the camp.
Moving from his thumb, he ticks off his index finger and says, "Then we head back north in the morning. Maybe we even see if they'd be willing to help us harvest radishes. That might be a good way to see how willing to be of assistance in the future they'd be."
At his third finger, he adds, "After we've got them secured more permanently at the Trading Post, we come back down and deal with the mites." Playfully, he turns that finger to gesture to the north.
Then, pointing to where it might sit on his finger, he says, "We get the ring from the kobolds then."
He concludes upon his pinky with, "Then, we go find this base of operations of the Stag Lord perhaps with some assistance from the Sootscales."
Opening his hand, he says, "After that, we return the ring and some of the recovered goods. If we don't have more prisoners at that point, we can take our time and search the areas more thoroughly."
He looks to Guillame and asks what he thinks of that plan.
"Is a good plan, Colin. On y va!"
Guillame spurs Grognon, who snorts in protest.
When the horses can walk no further without risking harm to themselves, the group slows to a stop out on the grassy plains. Night falls and they make their camp between the grasses which grow tall with each day of increasing sunlight.
The night passes without incident.
In the morning, the group breaks down their camp, loads it back onto their horses and begins the trek out of the grasslands and back into the forest.
The trees are still in the late summer air, but the shade brings a coolness still lingering from winter. The forest floor is still a bit damp and full of dead branches and leaves, preserved by the snows all winter and now left to feed the new growth.
When the group returns to the bandit camp, they find the place empty of their prisoners. The ropes that were used to bind the defeated bandits look to have been slashed with a blade and lay about the tree stand and on the ground beneath it. None of the supplies that were left remain, either.
Muadhnait is nowhere to be found.
Crytalis wears her weariness in plain sight, but without complaint. She nods in acquiescence to Colin and Guillame as the party trudges on. Her slim body hunches over, a small ball of girl upon the back of Bandit.
As the horse begins to tire she coaxes him on with murmured words of praise and promises of sweet grass and rest. Despite those promises, when they finally stop for the night she slides from his back to seek rest, leaving the care of him to Colin as always. She does not bother with blanket, nor tent, and curls up on the ground. Her dreams find her right away, causing her body to twitch and twist in her nest of tall grass.
Her smile returns with the sun, the dawn light across the swaying grass bringing a smile to her lips once more. She sings as she nibbles on some elk meat, and jabbers away about the beauty of the land and the adventures they have seen.
When the grass gives way to forest her anticipation and excitement bubble over once more and she spend the remainder of the trip pointing out each and every flower of interesting tree to the others.
Oddly enough, it is not rage that flows through her at the sight of the empty bandit camp, but a rush of relief at the temporary loss of her prey and her decision. She peers helplessly at the tracks around the camp and turns to Guillame. "Can you tell what happened? Did they escape or did someone steal Kressel from me?"
"Hm. Let us see, mademoiselle, let us see.." says Guillame, squatting down to piece together the story told in the grass and mud.
Colin dismounts and, with mouth gaping, takes slow steps toward where the guard and prisoners had been left. A cold bile began to rise in his throat and the breakfast venison nauseates him upon its return to his taste buds.
Realizing that he is interfering with Guillame's work, he makes an attempt to assist, murmuring, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... Do you think Muadhnait is all right? They can't have gone far in their condition, right? Were there horses?"
Although the ground is mostly dry, Guillame finds the light foot prints of at least half a dozen humanoids, but no signs of horses of mounts of any kind. It is difficult to tell the tracks apart from what the group left behind two days prior, but it is clear there are more humanoid footprints than before. The tracks seem to move around the campsite and the tree stands, then make their way off to the south west.
"M$%de!" spits Guillame, obviously frustrated. "Is the bandit's friends I think. At least six altogether, no horses. They come, they free Kressel and the rest, they go that way, southwest. No sign if Mademoiselle Muadhnait escaped before then, or if she is the prisoner. Bah!"
Guillame kicks a stone and struts off the the side of the clearing, shaking his head in disgust and annoyance. He pulls out his pipe and bites hard on the stem, arms folded tight.
Colin kicks at some small rocks, looking down. "We can't take the chance that they don't have Muadhnait," he says, subdued. "We have to go after them and hope we can catch up to them before they hurt her any more or they get to their fortress."
He turns and looks back to Guillame and Crytalis. "I'm sorry. I wanted to give them a chance to be better. I was wrong."
Crytalis slides off Bandit and comes up behind Colin, slipping her arms around his waist and laying her head on his back. "No you were not, and it was not a decision made solely by you. Who can tell what path the choice set us upon - set them upon. Death is but a release from waking, save for the Soothscales whose god turns his back upon them. Their cause is more pressing than this, for what comes after is more important than this present."
Her words end, as another thought strikes her, adding. "We might have to see to them first, though, as you say. Or they might go after Happs, and he is mine."
Guillame is silent for a while, wrapped in on himself. Then he heaves a great sigh, and quietly tucks his pipe away. He plants his hands on his hips and saunters round the bandit camp as he thinks things through.
"Mademoiselle Crytalis, I think you have the right of it. Weighing up in the grande scheme, the Sootscales predicament, it has the gravité, non?"
Guillame nods ruefully, pondering the afterlife. He gets a shiver when an image of Crytalis cleaning bones comes to mind.
"But as Colin say," Guillame continues, wagging a cautionary finger in Colin's direction. "The bandits present the more immediate danger, e'? The mites, they are not going anywhere. They live under a tree! They are not the nomadic type, now in this place, now in that. Non, they are ugly, dirty little fey, who stay in the one place. So, if we are voting, Guillame votes to pursue the bandits."
Who knows? thinks Guillame to himself. Maybe this time the damsel needs a proper rescue, e'?
"I shall see where they go, and report back." says Guillame. He leads Grognon southwest, following the tracks as best he can.
Colin watches Guillame leave and takes the opportunity to turn into Crytalis' embrace, kissing her suddenly and passionately.
When he breaks away, he says, with a lopsided smile, "It has been so long since we were alone." He reaches a hand to scratch the back of his neck in an awkward shrug. "Maybe after we destroy these bandits?"
Guillame finds that the bandits were traveling slowly on account of the injured among them. However, there are tracks indicating that there are four more that came and were traveling at a regular place, scouting forward and returning to the others. About one hundred feet away from the camp, the tracks seem to stop and form a vague circle. Then four of the sets of foot prints branch off from the circle and head north and west with a short stride. Five other pairs of foot prints set off at a normal pace again to the south west.
Since they do not have horses and you do, it should be possible to catch either set of tracks even though the latter set seem to have a normal humanoid stride. How long it takes to catch them depends on how long ago they came and went. The tracks are no more than a day old.