The fleeing half-orc is keeping the gap open between him and the rest of the party, but so far is unable to widen it. If you had to guess, it looks like he's going to try to make for Trunau.
Dusk was a time for wolves, and it was time to howl.
"Guards! Shut the gates!" Svarog bellowed as he ran.
Svarog pelted after the half-orc like a hound from the hells, preparing to tackle him if he got close enough.
"You have nowhere to go! Stop and answer our questions!"
Kira's bags of reagents and extracts bounce along as she keeps up with the group in an attempt to catch the escaping man. Her hand reaches into one pouch in particular and grabs hold of a sunrod. Snapping it to let the light shine out as she breathes heavily as she starts to run flat out to catch the person.
"Thief! Thief! Stop him!" Jarrek does his best to summon assistance as he pelted behind Svarog after their quarry.
The sun is setting as you return to Trunau, battered and bloodied but bearing treasure and information. Kurst Grath left a message for you to meet him in the morning, so you return to the Longhouse. After dinner, Jarrek remembers that the Plague House can actually be seen from the upper floors of the boarding house and idly takes a look out the window at the spot where the party lately had fought for their lives. In the darkness his eyes pick out a faint blue glow to the far side of the ruined building, as though there was a blue flame in the firepit the party saw earlier.
"Hmph. That is an odd color for a fire, I'd say.
"We should check that out eh?" Kira looks between Jarrek and Haftor.
Haftor reluctantly agrees, though he grumbles about it.
Trianne, the passage across Belkzen was not an easy one, and more than once you counted yourself fortunate to be traveling with an experienced caravan crew. Only two of the guards had been killed by orc raiders, but the raiders never left with more than half their number still able to move. Even as the caravan approached Trunau's relative safety, no one relaxed. If anything, they grew tenser, and the sight of even lone orcs (or other, stranger creatures) drew a disproportionate alertness. This was sufficiently unlike your experience with settlements in your homeland that you asked one of the guards, a Varisian whose too-light blade (not a proper axe or greatsword) was still quite the orc-bane in his capable hands. "Ah, yes. In less dangerous lands, or when a town is strong, its people send out soldiers to keep the peace. Trunau is strong enough to survive in this place, but they have not the power to protect *us*. So cunning orcs will sometimes come here and wait for such as we to happen by, all laden with fine treasures and gold." (This does not fill you with confidence in your ability to travel from Trunau easily...at least not without rather more practice, and/or skilled allies.) Fortunately, the orcs of his tale do not materialize, and early in the afternoon the caravan crests a hill and you see your destination.
Your first impression of Trunau is one of defiant fragility, confirming the guard's words. The town's walls, though substantial enough, would clearly not withstand a determined assault by the full strength of Belkzen's hordes. The townsfolk must be clever people, indeed, to walk the tightrope between being perceived as dangerous enough not to attack lightly, but not so dangerous as to draw an attack in force. The town militia greet the caravan masters warmly. The militia sergeant, a middle-aged gentleman, knows them by name, offering embraces and clasped hands. "So, Barterstones are going now--I assume you'll be wanting to get there quickly, so I'll not keep you. Captain Rodrik will want to know, though. How was the trip?" You're close enough to hear the one merchant's low-voiced reply: "It's quiet out there. Too damned quiet by half. Usually we end up having to fight off at least one band of Twisted Nail's hotheads, but this time?" She makes a cutting motion with one hand. "Nothing. Something's not right. I think we'll have to be on the road again quickly, make for Lastwall, and damn the profits." She looks around at the other two merchants, who nod in agreement. The sergeant looks uneasy, then brightens. "We'll have to buy quickly then, too."
The caravan trundles past the gate, to a set of flat stones outside the wall. There's a small bazaar happening there, with people buying and selling. With practiced ease the merchants and their crew set up a small tent and tables and join the mercantile mob. You gather up your belongings, suddenly a little unsure now that it looks like the only people you know are going to be leaving much sooner than expected. A pair of young, dark-haired women step around you, pulling a handcart filled with small jars packed carefully in padded boxes. The older of the two gives you a sympathetic look. "New in town?" She stops by one of the flat stones and spreads out a colorful cloth from her handcart before unloading jars that you now recognize as containing alchemical substances. "I'm Kira."
Over the course of the afternoon, you learn that Kira is indeed an alchemist, and she and her younger sister Jeska are Trunau natives. Once the day's sales have concluded, the two of them walk you to the Longhouse, where most out-of-towners stay, and introduce you to Cham Larringfass, the halfling proprietress. The next couple of weeks are generally uneventful, belying the merchant's dire words. You follow up on clues, talk to people more familiar with the area, and generally settle in. Kira invites you to dinner a couple of times and you're able to talk at least some subset of shop with her. One night, though, the town's routine is broken in a pleasant way, and you finally learn why all the natives carry small daggers.
The party goes on into the night, even after you would prefer to be going off to bed. The next morning, though, brings tragedy: Rodrik Grath, the beloved militia captain, has apparently killed himself. The town hangs under a pall, and for some reason Kira isn't around at all that day. Jeska tells you that Kira is off doing something for the militia, but she doesn't know what.
Late the next day, Kira comes to see you at the Longhouse. She looks different--she's wearing leather armor, for one thing; her clothing carries fresh bloodstains, and she has a few scars you don't remember (likely signs of magical healing of otherwise-severe wounds). "Listen. I'm working with some others for Kurst Grath, Rodrik's brother, trying to find out what really happened to him. Can you help? It's all right if you say no."
“No,” Trianne replied. “It’s not alright if I say no. What kind of thanks would that be after how much you and Jeska have done since I arrived? I'd be tickled to lend a hand.”
She pulled lengths of ribbon into the two books she had been bouncing back and forth between and closed them with certainty. Standing, she moved closer to Kira with a scrutinizing wince.
“I’m hoping most of that blood isn’t yours?” She gathered up some of her belongings and walked with Kira toward the door. “You can tell me all about it on the way.”
Then Trianne paused, pointing at her crossbow hanging from a nearby hook. “Am I going to need that?”
Kira gives a nod, "Yes, definitely bring the crossbow."
Then, looking down at her leather armor and the blood stains she shrugs, [b]"Some mine... some the enemies. I'm still breathing and they aren't so it works for me in the end... anyway, we've got more work to do. Lets go."
Kira then leads Trianne to the rest of the party and makes some quick introductions, "Friends, this is Trianne. She's going to help us out, got some magic in her head and some knowledge I don't have."
“I like it,” Trianne said. “Sweet and to the point. Thanks for having me. I’ll shape your world as best I’m able.”
She hiked her slung crossbow a little snugger and leaned in to clasp hands and make bows as appropriate. The slight twist of a smile lit her face, and she paused when crossing gazes with Jarrek, letting slip a low whistle of appreciation.
“Well, you’ve got to be a salty one,” she said. “That's tough blood to carry in these streets.”
When the introductions and formalities had passed, she said, “Kira told me the gist of what’s afoot. What’s our next move?”
Haftor nods in welcome to Trianne and replies, "There's some shady activity at the Plague House. I don't mind admitting that I don't understand what's going on, but If we are to get to the bottom of this mystery, we need to go back there."
Jarrek nods. "We explored it a little but there's someone out there we didn't find. We'll need to go back."
“The Plague House? Sounds lovely,” Trianne said with a cocked eyebrow. Then recollection hit her. “Wait, that scorched ruin outside of town that everyone's yammering about?”
She glanced over at Kira and said, “Now the blood makes a bit more sense.”
“Someone specific we’re looking for in conjunction with the murder?” she asked. “Or just more of an anonymous lurker that needs to be questioned?”
"We didn't see him there, but someone told us there's an older half-orc using the Plague House. There was a fire- a blue fire- out there last night, telling us someone was out there. We'll need to go back and see if we can talk to this grey haired old man."
Svarog grunted agreement with Jarrek. He was still fuming a bit at having run from the ghosts in the Plague House, and that ire was printed on his face.
“Blue fire?” Trianne asked. “I presume that’s not something common to the Trunau way of life?”
She scanned the faces around her, and deducing her answer, she hiked her pack a little higher, thumbs tucked comfortably under the straps. She blew a stray hair away from her face and said, “Well then, shall we? More than likely he won’t be expecting us at night.”
Trianne assumed they were going on foot, so no need to fetch her horse, and as she neared the door she could sense her familiar nearby. The emotional grumbling was impossible to mistake after all these years…and regardless of how much he ate. That damn bird was always hungry.
With a word from Kurst, the militia guards at the gate open a sally port to let you out and give you a password for reentry. Jarrek and Haftor lead the group through the shadows cast by the palisade around the town.
The Plague House is a patch of deeper darkness against the starry sky. Making your way around to the far side, where the light seemed to originate, you find an absence of blue. However, the fire pit still contains smoldering coals, and Kira identifies the resinous smell hanging over the pit as the product of an alchemical preparation to produce the blue fire.
Jarrek grunts. "They moved on. But why build a fire out here when they could be inside?" He turns to look at the Plague House and the ground in between the campfire and the building. "Was it a signal?"
Svarog stalked the perimeter of the light the coals gave off, hunting for some sign of who had set the fire, or where they had gone. He squatted to get a better view of scuffs and possible prints in the dim light, feeling with his fingertips and sniffing the air like a wolf.
+2 vs. orcs
Jarrek and Svarog note signs that at least two creatures have been around the fire recently. Svarog thinks the boot prints are 1) from a half-orc, and 2) suspiciously similar to the prints he found in the haunted chamber inside. The other tracks are made by a humanoid that goes unshod and has claws on its feet.
Success!
"Whoever it is, they went inside," Svarog told the others, pointing to the entrance the tracks led to. "They look like tracks I found inside. Maybe the captor of that boy we found. And one of these things had clawed feet." He drew his sword, indicating what he thought of that.
“Clawed feet?” Trianne echoed. She had been circling the fire pit in thought, but when the details of the various tracks emerged, she said, “Seems as though a signal fire was right then.”
She then fiddled with her belongings a moment, repositioning a small, glowing torch into one of her pouches for ready access. Nodding that she was ready, she fell in behind the others as they made their way forward.
“What kind of claws?”
Trianne’s curiosity got the better of her. She had tried to hold her tongue and had lasted almost a full minute. She knew that she was overly inquisitive. It was one of the reasons she was chosen for this mission, after all. She had trouble not asking questions, but she also knew that in her line of work, information and preparation kept you alive.
“How many claws were there?” she clarified. “About how long were they?”
As she continued to collect tidbits, she skimmed her memory for possible fits to the details provided, bipedal, fairly intelligent, and now the claws.
Svarog traced the tracks in the dirt to make them more clear to Jarrek and Trianne. "Do these look familiar to you?"
Haftor grunted in surprise when he heard the assessments from the more woodsy members of the group. "Someone, and some-thing, have been skulking about here for some purpose. Do you suppose their activity has something to do with our mystery? If so, how?"
"Something smells off. I don't like it. I say we catch them and ask." Svarog headed towards the Plague House, sword held ready.
“Hrm. Those aren’t animal tracks,” Trianne said, glancing down at a particularly clear set of markings once they were pointed out. “Your natives in the area are…built a little differently.” The wry smirk on her face was a mix of displeasure and amusement.
Then she fell in line with ease once the group started moving again.
The tracks lead to the entrance closest to the party, which those of you who have been here before will remember opens onto a stairway down.
Svarog traced the tracks in the dirt to make them more clear to Jarrek and Trianne. "Do these look familiar to you?"
When Svarog traced the claw marks in the dirt, Jarrek nodded. "Looks like a flood troll. Smaller, weaker cousin of a regular troll." He grinned up at the others. "Now that's something to get excited about. Fighting orcs is nothing but work, but a troll- even a flood troll- will be some fun!"
“Hrm. Those aren’t animal tracks,” Trianne said, glancing down at a particularly clear set of markings once they were pointed out. “Your natives in the area are…built a little differently.” The wry smirk on her face was a mix of displeasure and amusement.
Then she fell in line with ease once the group started moving again.
Jarrek laughed. "They sure are! You've got to be a little different, growing up in a place like Trunau."