Leaving the city provides a drastically different view than the one that you had seen before. Where there was once tall grass and weeds, smoldering ash and and almost level ground remain. In the sky a ways away, the circling of carrion birds fly low, with food plentiful after the fire. Nothing is in the immediate area that would be of any threat to either of you, all of the larger animals having relocated. Here and there, the charred bodies of what had once been living things that had not been picked over by the scavengers lay, the scent of death just under the strong smell of the land after the fire.
What was a travel of a few hours passes quickly, Ian's skill allowing him to lead the way, ending at an edge of what may have been the burn. It is somewhat difficult to tell with the expanse of land that has been burned, but some clues remain for the keen of eye.
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"I didn't think a single elemental could cause this much damage..." says Aska as she pokes around through the ash for any hint of a clue.
Ian takes a knee in the scorched earth, reaching a hand out to grabs handful and let it sift through his fingers. "Guess they were having a dry spell." The earth doesn't tell him much but the pixies had mentioned the animals had some clues hopefully he could speak to one himself and find out what happened.
In some places the ground is still smoldering, the view from where they came all blackened as far as they could see. Even the few trees that they did see were blackened and charred from the fire. The smell of ash is prevalent over any other smells, though when the wind shifts you are able to get hints of the land without ash and smoke from the border. Your shoes have accumulated a nice dusting, the ash reaching up to your mid-shin from your movement through it. Just the fact that there's a clear border where the fire starts is something out of the ordinary.
Aska, you notice a bit of a difference on the ground a slight ways off. In the ground, as if attached to the border, is a very faint series of indentations in the grass, as well as a near-circle of scorched and burned ground that is out of place.
Ian, you also notice the scorched circle that is connected to the larger burn area, as well as a fair number of animals around, though approaching close enough to speak would require an exercise of your skill.
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Black and grey. A lot of Black and grey. So much that Ian was starting to turn black and grey from the feet up as well. The elemental did a number on the plain. But Ian kept his eyes panning back and forth for something. And eventually he found something. And it brought back terrible memories. The circle on the ground reminded him of his teachers and their penchant for summoning actual demons for him to fight. He shuddered.
There were also several animals nearby. The pixies had said some of them saw something. Maybe he could get some answers. At first Ian approaches slowly and non-threateningly. He holds out a hand, palm up, as a gesture of trust. But as soon as one of the deer were drawing close, he let out a horrible sneeze, scattering the whole gang. "Wait. No... Auuughh," he groans. He casts the spell anyway and switches diplomatic tactics.
"No. You get back here right now. Quit being so damn skittish," he says in fluent deer.
Aska laments the destruction around them. How much of this could have been prevented if they had stood and fought the elemental?
She shakes her head to clear it of such thoughts. This is hardly the time and there's someone else with more fault than them. She turns to ask Ian about the circle, but sees him neighing angrily at a deer and decides to leave him alone. His ability to track was going to be their best bet. Whoever used this circle must have left tracks somewhere...
It is uncertain whether or not it is the curiosity of hearing a human speak their language, or the tone in his voice, but the deer do not scatter too far. One buck turns around and looks at him, his rack of antlers not huge, but definitely maturing. One eye on Ian, it started making sounds while the rest of the herd stays where they are. "You are not part of the herd, but we understand you." The deer seem curious, but only one is speaking is the buck.
Aska continues searching for any clues.
Ian sighs in relief. They didn't run away. "Long story," Ian says in response to their statement. "We are here to stop this from happening again," he says, waving his hand over the ashen earth. "So we need to know what you remember, what you saw. After that, we won't bother you again."
"Hot. Danger. Run. Safe. Watch. Return." The buck seems a bit unable to follow the entirety of Ian's communication, however. The rest of the deer, now that they are not running, watch for a few seconds more, before a couple lower their heads to graze. It is a bit of a jarring image: shorter grasses near the border, quickly rising to the high grass that they remember from before the fire, connected to a flat black plain of ash, where some fires still smolder. Here and there, some animals can be seen on the ash, a stark contrast to the color, that some birds of prey have taken advantage of.
Ian is about to elaborate but he catches himself before speaking. Right. Animals. Have to speak simply. "Yes. Watch. You see what? Here?" he asks pointing the possible summoning circle.
"Wrong. Danger. Hot. Danger. Run." There is a toss of the head that accompanies its words, and it is echoed by a couple of the herd that look up, startled. Some of the other deer in the small group look in the other direction, looking for something. Whether it is a danger or just part of the normal actions of the herd is hard to say.
To Aska, there is a fair amount of communication passing between Ian and one of the deer that you two managed to track down and coerce back to the location. You cannot make sense of any of it, however.
"Before that. What did you see before that?" he asks, trying to control his annoyance.
Aska waits patiently.
"Light. Food. Herd." The response is direct, seeming as if everything was fine. The other deer have lowered their heads again and are grazing in the grass once more.
"So Light, food, herd, then wrong, danger, hot, run?" Ian pinched the bridge of his nose trying to piece together whatever the deer was saying and formulate questions that it could understand. "Between. What was here between. Someone like me? Human in black? Wrong creature? Predator?"
"Wrong. Hot. Run." The rest of the herd looks up again at this point in the conversation, somewhat panicked. You are getting the feeling that distinguishing between "now" and "then" is barely grasped by the deer, but between "now" and "then" is a bit more of an abstract concept for their minds, and somewhat out of their reach.
Ian scratches his head. The only part of an animal he seemed to have was the hunger. Trying to think like them was extremely difficult. The conversation it was apparent they had little concept of time and most things were dangerous. Wrong was the only thing that stuck. Did wrong mean undead? He needed a second opinion. Ian looks among the trees for one of its more intelligent denizens, a crow or owl. "Can one of you make sense of this? What is wrong?"
To Aska in Common@ "This might not have been a great idea. How would ask a creature with no concept of time what happened yesterday? They just keep saying wrong, hot, and run."
One of the murder of nearby crows hears Ian's call, and cocks its head, though it has not left what it was eating. "Food for talk?" A couple of the other crows look up, certainly curious in what was going on. The potential for more food was always something that was worth investigating. "Food?", comes another inquiry.
"Hmmm, maybe they ARE answering the question. The guy was "wrong", then it was hot and they ran." Aska strokes her chin for a second. "But if that ISN'T what they meant, I'm not sure how else to ask them what they saw. Sorry."
Ian turns to Aska again and asks, "You happen to save any of that curd from this morning? Raven's might talk but they need bribe," he says pointing up at them.
"I've got some trail rations, not sure if that's enough..." Aska pulls out a trail ration and tosses it to Ian.
Ian picks out the dried bread form the rations and tosses it close to the crows. "Food for talk"
There's some fluttering as two of the crows flap over to the bread that was tossed from the carrion that they were picking over before, quickly consuming it to look at him more, tilting their heads as they see the rest in his hand. "Talk for more?"
"More for talk," he says holding up the rest.
The two ravens fly over, looking up at him and flapping slightly, expectant. "Talk about what?" The other ravens in the murder look up, but are too complacent in their picking at the carrion to be enticed by what was offered. A slight breeze brings the smell of smoke and death by, as the ashes at their feet are being stirred slightly.
Even the birds are...bird-brained. Ugh. "Here. What did you see here that as bad. Before the fire. Something wrong as well?"
Their responses alternate between one and the other, but you can make out what they are saying with a bit of thought. "Yes. Dead. Wrong. Magic. Fire. Food.?" The ravens flap expectantly.
Ian sighs and tosses the rest of the ration. That was probably the best they were getting. Turning back to Aska he says, "Well they added Magic and Dead. Put all those together and we have a situation we can't face, a lich. But seeing as all we had to deal with yesterday was a small elemental, I don't think that's it. If it was a lich we'd be dead. No question." Ian looks around the burnt field, expecting a bolt of lightning of rolling wall of fire to come incinerate them. But nothing happened. They were still alive even after something tried to kill them yesterday. Well it wasn't going to show itself, he'd try and find it. Ian begins moving around the circle, looking for signs of movement or tracks.
It is uncertain whether or not it was the weather or the time that have worked to obscure the tracks, however the result is that you are unable to find any sign beyond the indentations in the grass at the edge of the burn area. The ravens are making short work of the ration, and have attracted the attention of the others, so there is some squabbling going on over the ration, and a bit of a scene. The deer have wandered off a bit. To your senses, things are normal, and nothing out of the ordinary that can be detected.
"Mmm, well with no leads I guess all we can do is go back to what we were doing yesterday. Look for the burrow."
"We should find a safe place to camp nearby first. A reference point to start from."
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"You know better than I how much I suck with this stuff. Following your lead"
While the burn area had certainly cleared all of the wildlife from the area, it also left the area somewhat difficult to camp on. From a strategic viewpoint, they were in the open, and that was not a good place to be when something had tried and might still be trying to kill them. It took the remainder of the afternoon to find a reasonable place that was not utterly exposed. As the air started to cool for the evening, Ian was able to locate a very good location in which to camp. Now, the sun was setting and the mists were rising.
Everyone knew bits of the lore about the mists. As usual, fearful people say that the mists hide things, other people attributed an awareness to the mists, and yet more people claimed various other things. For Ian and Aska, they were familiar with the mists, and had not experienced anything odd in them that could not be attributed to their target at the time. In this case, the warmth of the small fire kept the chill of the mist at bay, and Ian could tell that the sounds of the night were nothing that need concern them.
"Yeah. Remember the time I was hit by a blindness spell and we had to wait three days for it wear off before we could get out of that forest? All because you couldn't find the village a half day's walk away?"
"Or hey, remember the time you didn't have a bed roll OR trail rations. Wait a minute..." Aska says snidely, rolling out her bedroll.
Changing tone Aska carries on, "We didn't use many of our abilities today. Quick rest and then move on?"
"I need neither," he says a little too petulantly. Which looks odd now that he had shifted to something akin to a bear. Lots of fur, extended mouth and nose. But perfectly comfortable on the ground without comfort. Granted he was a little hungry but he wasn't going to admit that. He hoped his stomach didn't either. He'd find something in the morning.
Perhaps due to the fire, and the recent memory of the fire that swept the area, your camp is unmolested through the night, and as the mists start to recede with the sun showing more and more on the horizon, the morning greets the two of you. Game is plentiful enough, and there is no trouble in finding sustenance for breakfast.
Aska stretches and groans. "Bed roll or no I am not made for sleeping outdoors. I'm exhausted."
Ian hands Aska his flask, supplied with fresh, and most importantly, cold, water from a stream not too far away. It wasn't coffee but cold water was the only thing they had on hand for tiredness. "Hopefully one day is all it takes to find something worth coming back to explore. Certainly don't want to stay out here another night."
Fatigued or not, they needed to come back with something after the fire they indirectly caused. Hopefully no one blamed them for it when they came back.
It took under an hour to break camp and return to what may have been the summoning circle at the edge of the burn. It was the last known place that confirmation was had for anything odd, but time and weather have erased any potential tracks that may have been found. Some scavengers remain that can be seen, near and far, but their numbers are significantly reduced from what had been seen the day before. In the taller grasses, some of the mist still lingers, making a slight haze over their tops.
As midday arrives, the two of you searching the area has turned up nothing that they can make out as something that can be used. The two of you have had to range further afield to look for anything significant. Finding anything would be good, as it would mean that you are at least on the right trail.
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So as not to waste the transformation and since no one was around, Ian stays looking like an armored version of bigfoot with a really big weapon. One that he used to sweep aside the tall grass ahead of him to scare away anything in the path and stir the mist clinging to the plant life. Half a day and nothing to show.
Aska has to leave any tricky searching to Ian, but she's still got a functional pair of eyes. She might notice something he doesn't.
Just after midday, Aska spots an irregularity, but that was only because they had ranged enough to encounter a small hill. With a different vantage point, there were slight differences in the grass that made no sense to her. A remark brought it to Ian's attention, and with her guidance, Ian is able to find what she was talking about.
It is a trail. Not an animal's trail, either. This is a trail of a humanoid.
"Finally. I was afraid we'd never find what we were looking for." Her face gets a sour look. "Now I just hope we aren't just picking up Vernon's trail or something." Aska starts following Ian, keeping her eyes open. They got a fire elemental the first time they followed this guy. Need to be ready for anything.
"We'll soon find out," Ian says looking at the tracks Aska spotted. They were certainly a human. Living or dead was always hard to tell just from tracks. "Let's find our summoner."
The trail is difficult to follow, but not impossible for the two hunters. Ian had little trouble following the tracks, but when there was any difficulty, Aska was able to point out small nuances that kept them going the right way, despite what may have been attempts to hide the trail. As the afternoon begins to fade into evening, a small group of buildings can be seen of what barely could be called a village. It is uncertain whether or not it is inhabited from their current position, but there is no smoke rising from any of the chimneys, and there were no other trails that intersected with the one that they had been following. Unfortunately, somewhere around there is where Ian loses the trail.
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Ian looks at Aska, clearly weary about approaching the village. The tracks seemed to end here so it might just be where their culprit lived. And that was more than enough reason to approach cautiously. Ian remains transformed and pulls his weapon into its longer form before approaching the village. If no one responds to their approach, he shifts his vision to auras, passing over each house, scanning for evil. He is smart enough to never lead them into the middle of the village. He skirts the outside so that they had a means of escape in case something happened.