"Isn't really much in the way of defense but it's better than nothing," Cassandra comments. She grows pensive now that she had something to think on rather than the massive mission that was a kingdom. Just a name. Start there. "Hylia? Like highlands since it is really hilly. And River Run for the city? It would take a lot of rivers to make a lake that big. Or Erymanth?" she says snapping her fingers and looking up excitedly. "So there was this one hill back home that, from a certain perspective, looked like a massive boar," she says becoming animated, waving her hands around to aid in telling the story. "It even had two rock formations that looked like tusks and the trees on top were kind of sparse so they looked like the spines of a bristle boar. I don't remember why we called it that. Some legendary boar I think. But the lake is called the Tuskwater so a legendary boar sounds right."
I was thinking of keepin' the history of the place a bit more alive and maybe call the new Kingdom "The Emerald Lands" or somethin' Jenya puts her two bits of copper in.
"Hmmm. Yeah. From a certain angle the grass on the hills looked like Emeralds." Her train of thought is interrupted as another man enters the gathering. One she did not recognize.
A man poked his head in to the room and smiled. "I seem to have found the right place." He then stepped fully in. The man was dressed well, much better than the farmers and craftsmen outside. His hair and mustache were also well kept. The fact that most of it was silver attested to his advanced age along with the cane at his side. He carried several scroll cases in a sling and placed them on the table as he walked forward.
"Good day. My name is Bartholomew Baxter. Most have deigned to call me Bob though. If that is your preference that is fine." He smiled, showing he was genuinely fine with that. "A few years ago I was the personal aid to the current Lord Mayor of Restov. I retired to a quiet life in relative luxury and found that extremely boring. I tried to get my job back but found I had been replaced. Can't really blame the lord mayor, she was a lot prettier than I." He smiled again at his own joke trying to lighten the mood. "Hearing about the little venture down here, I thought I'd offer my services. Seems I arrived at the right time? Did I hear correctly that you are discussing a name?"
"Excellent names all. I did not, however, come to impede that process nor weigh in. That solely falls to you by what I read in the charter. I merely came to expedite and make efficient the process. I assume none of you are trained or experienced in the creation of nations or even cities?" he asks. Assuming no one speaks up to the contrary, he pulls open a scroll case and unravels several documents. "I am not an expert in creation but I have studied the process and helped run a major city for the better part of 30 years. I have taken the liberty of drafting a few mandates, basic laws, constitutions and other legal documents common among all cities of any size. I have included many options from which to add or subtract as you see fit. My expertise is yours to command. I am here only to help. So," he smiles winningly, "Shall we create a kingdom?"
Cassandra gave a swift prayer of thanks to Erastil for answering her other prayer so quickly. He mood soured as the number of documents increased quickly. "This is going to take a while isn't it?"
Some time passes, and the cold month of Calistril gives way to Pharast. You spend a great deal of time on organization and deployment of your resources, and in adjusting to having leadership roles. People come to you to settle issues and disputes both serious and petty. Eventually this settles into a routine: people come to Svetlana, and then she either delegates the task to someone competent to handle it, or she brings it to one of you for a decision.
Oleg finds himself dragooned into helping with the organization, a role that he does not relish but undertakes ably, with much complaint. Svetlana intercedes with him as much as with other people coming with their own issues.
You spend a few days establishing trail signs to create a track between Oleg's and the fort - better than nothing - and rejoin with the survivors there. Akiros is pleased to see that you've returned, and with the trail linking the fort to Oleg's it is now possible for regular shipments of supplies to arrive, which means that the former bandits are at no risk of starvation.
The settlers who've come to make new lives are a bit skeptical about the ex-bandits, but the hard work as everyone digs in to start improving the place under the watchful eyes of Vallen and his uncle Olin leave little room for disputes.
Shipments arrive from Restov, as people send away for goods from the big city and trade starts to trickle in.
The weather turns sour, going from cold but clear to rainy and overcast almost all of the time. Homes become mud, but this encourages the workers to convert their living spaces from tents and bedrolls into platform tents, and much focus goes into turning parts of the keep into more-habitable spaces.
People are going to need houses. Jenya comments as she comes back from supervising the drainage ditches that are occupying the attention of a lot of the new settlers. It's hard work trying to keep the ditches meant to carry effluence away from the lake and the settlement from getting mixed up with the ones meant to drain excess water into it. It's really rudimentary work though and a real investment would have to be made for a real sewer system. They don't like living in mud as a rule.
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For a while, Cassandra's world was a mountain of documents. It felt like more paper than should exist in the world. And oh so many words too. She had to learn a new language as all the legal jargon was horrendously complex. Thankfully Bob was there to explain things. Thankfully, she did not have to stick around for all of it. They had to get the people moving soon or they would get restless.
That's where her first big argument started. Cassandra was tasked with mapping out and traveling the easiest road to the site of their first settlement. Vallen wanted to have the trail veer towards the gold mine he discovered. That would have taken them over terrain Cassandra knew would be difficult this time of year without roads. Cooped up and forced to learn a lot stuff she really didn't want to, her mood was sufficiently sour. Then the "dwarf" starts telling her where to go. She was not going to have it. Bob, thankfully, intervened before they got loud enough to unsettle the townspeople. Like a patient teacher with unruly student, he talked her down and mediated a compromise. She would get as close as she felt was safe for the people and they would respect her expertise. Once she was out of Oleg's and on the road, she would feel a lot better.
But first, there was something these people needed to know. They day they announced what the rulership would look like, Cassandra stepped nervously front of the others. Despite writing it out and practicing it with the others, she nearly stumbled just getting it out. "I have announcement. As your Marshal, it will be my duty to protect the kingdom of Emeria's borders from outside threats. To make safe even the most remote village, farm, or hunting cabin. To make sure that everyone can live fairly and freely. If something threatens the kingdom then I will root out the truth." She paused and looked a little nervously at the others. Here it goes. "In the spirit of truth. I thought it should be known that I am not what I seem. I am a Skinwalker. My ancestry includes Lycan of some kind." Cassandra raises her voice over the increased noise of the audience. "To be clear, I am not a werewolf or any other were-creature and I am not contagious. I will not change into a monster on a full moon and slaughter livestock. I am not an animal. My heritage grants me certain abilities that will actually make me far more effective in my role as Marshal. A role I will take very seriously. But, should you be uncomfortable with me in that role, or any other for that matter, I will abdicate in favor of someone more trustworthy."
Cassandra made sure to keep her hands behind her back the entire time as they were shaking rather violently from fear. Would they ask her to step down? Would they banish here? Mob her? Acceptance, surprisingly, felt like too much hope for. Hiding was not an option. It would only take one misunderstanding to shatter everything they had worked for. The trust would be gone and the kingdom would fall to pieces. Maybe that was a little bit of an over-exaggeration but fear conjured powerful images.
The die had been cast.
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No more burning down cursed swamps. No more hunting Tatzylwyrms or killer boars. No more death and danger around every corner. Just a drafting table, a roof over his head, and piles upon piles of work to do.
Vallen was finally in his element.
He had taken over one of the least leaky rooms in the old fort and transformed it into his personal office. The priest's touch shone on every surface of the space. All gaps were smoothly sealed with his Uncle's trade-secret quick-acting mortar, the door opened silently and flawlessly on its once rusted hinges, and a rapidly breeding pile of scroll tubes were neatly stacked in a simple hand-crafted oak case. Various surveying tools hung on the walls on metal spikes, gleaming with polishing oil.
In one corner rested a shrine to Torag, the centerpiece consisting of an anvil that looked strangely out of place with the rest of the room. It was clearly well taken care of, with a black polished surface that gleamed in the oil lamp light suspended above it, but deep marks pocketed the facade in several places along its surface where it had clearly rusted out. Other marks cast a suspicious story over the anvil, and the face bore all the markings of a well-used, perhaps even abused, piece of blacksmithing equipment. It was one of the first items he ordered sent from Highhelm, and once it was loaded off of a cart Vallen personally carried the then-rusty workpiece to his office in a fuss.
The dwarf's drafting table was put together himself and the epitomy of minimalism; requiring everything he needed to draw or write and nothing more. There was no time to add anything fancy or luxurious with all the work to do, but the actual plans affixed to the table were insights into Vallen's glorious imagination and love for breath-taking, faux-natural, and ornate architecture.
A magnificient castle, viewed from the top, was laid on paper in immaculate detail, with nearly every stone accounted and documented. The plans were set up in phases, and each successive paper below it would strip more and more detail from the plans until only straight lines and tight dwarven script remained in the margins.
Hanging above the drafting table was a charcoal drawing that was clearly the spot the fort now stands, except in its place a towering, stylized castle of gleaming granite seems to spring from the earth as a volcano juts from the surrounding lands. Around it the city thrives, and imposing walls with flared bases block out a view of distant forests to the west.
He seems to spend all his time either in the office or supervising construction with his uncle, and was the happiest dwarf anyone had ever seen. Whenever the rains came and foiled digging the castle's foundation once again, he would simply retreat to his office and continue planning...
-----------------------
The meeting to proclaim their roles in the burgeoning kindom was more than an annoyance to Vallen- it was an interruption. He sat with a frustrated expression, arms crossed over his chest, staring off into space while people talked.
When Cassandra made her annoucement, the murmuring of the crowd jostled him out of the creative plane he had been occupying, causing him to look about with alarm and confusion.
It takes several moments for him to realize what is going on, and the dwarf begins to wring his hands nervously. He was supposed to be up after Cassandra.... but she was just standing there, hands shaking so hard they could bring down the fort from vibrations alone.
Sky-blue eyes whip from the crowd back to Cassandra, and he wonders what to do. Forge-father help me... I have to do something, anything!
The dwarf jumps up from his seat loudly, the stool flying back several feet with an awful noise. "Yes thank you Cassandra! There is no one more qualified to be our Marshal than you! Haha, because, yes, erm... your sense of smell is very keen. Very keen indeed." He says woodenly, hustling to take his place beside her and awkwardly shooing Cass off the stage.
Clearing his throat, he begins gesturing with his introduction. "I am Vallen Silverclasp, priest of Torag, mason, and the kingdom's chief architect. Oh, well, I suppose I'm also the Kingdom's Grand Diplomat for the time being. It really isn't my calling, you see, but as you humans say, we all have to wear more than one hat these days. Please direct any uh... diplomatic business to my office in the fort."
The talking had not really died down since Cassandra's annoucement, and the priest bites his lip. He nervously scans the room, and starts to fidget with the rings on his figners. "L-l-look. Hey! H-hey listen to me!" The dwarf stutters into a shout, his deep voice carrying over the crowd.
"Cassandra and I don't always see eye-to-eye... literally, yes, but also figuratively, but she's got a heart of gold. She brought down the Stag Lord that once haunted this camp and countryside with banditry so this region could be safe before all of you moved in. She risked her life then and she's risking it now to keep protecting all of you! So she might turn into a werewolf sometimes, and my horse treats her like she has leprosy, but so what? It doesn't effect us. What DOES effect us is that she can shoot out someone's eye at 100 yards while she's in her lycan form. Don't you want someone like patrolling your borders? Tracking down criminals? You have a real hero here, ready to lay down her life, her reputation, and her peace of mind for you! So treat her with the respect she deserves."
He swallows at the end of his passionate, impromptu, and blunt defense of Cassandra, scanning the room to gauge its reaction.
At "werewolf" Cassandra's eyes bugged out as she looked at Vallen. She had to fight an internal battle furiously to stop herself going up there and clapping a hand over his mouth. She was not a werewolf. She tried to drive that home to the populous. She was related to one, more closer than even the others knew, but she was not a werewolf. All werewolves were contagious, she was not.
All she managed to do was look even more nervous and hiss at the dwarf. "Vallen. Vallen! Stop talking."
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There's some alarmed mumuring from the crowd as the situation turns to a serious discussion of a subject that many people find threatening. Alexei quickly raises his hands and shouts, "Peace, good people! Peace. We have settled these lands in good faith, retaken them from bandits and monsters. We would not be so foolish as to have monsters in our midst while involved in such an undertaking."
Someone in the crowd says, "One of my sheep was slaughtered by a wolf just a few days ago! What if it's a werewolf?"
Someone else cries out, "One of my goats was mutilated last week!"
A third person shouts, "Hey, what about that maid? She disappeared just a couple nights ago, what if a werewolf got her too?"
That causes more concerned murmuring and babbling, and Alexei once again projects his voice and says, "Hold! What of this missing person? Why hasn't this been brought to our attention before now?" He points to the woman who first mentioned the disappearance. "Miss, please, tell me more."
Voices quiet and the woman in the crowd nervously says, "Well, m'lord... begging your pardon and all... Saki had worked as a maid in Restov, but she was eager to see something new and different, so she came here with several of us. She um... she said she wasn't used to all this camping and hard living but she loved the idea of making something, of living in a town where she got to see it built up, with her own hands in the work. She'd been carrying water and doing laundry for a lot of the workers 'ere, but she never came back to 'er tent last night."
Alexei says, "Why did you not mention this before?"
The woman shifts a bit and says, "Well... I thought maybe she got tired of the rain and decided to go home. Her business is her own, eh?"
Alexei says to the assembled crowd, "We'll get to the bottom of this problem. I promise you, Cassandra is no threat to any of you good townsfolk."
Alexei turns to Korinne and adds in a softer voice, "This could be a real crisis if it's not handled quickly - people will leave if they feel unsafe, and we don't want them trying to lynch Cassie. Please look into it. Take Akiros with you if you need the extra sword arm."
Jenya taps her pistol meaningfully and comes forward We'll find this Saki. Our jobs are to keep you all safe so you let us know if something is wrong, alright? As soon as you can.
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Vallen breathes a sigh of relief when Alexei steps in, calming the crowd. Just a bit longer and I can get back to the office... Was his first thought, until the revelation of a missing person came to light.
"Ah, a perfect job for our new Marshal, don't you think?" He says, smiling at Cassandra. The dwarf adruptly turns and begins to speed out of the area. "Well! I have a lot of work to do, can't be standing around here all day..." Is mumbled, until his conscience starts to get the better of him.
What are you doing? The Forge-Father always says to help those in need... "One hot coal, freely given, is the start of a warm home." With a sih he stops to look behind him. "A lot of work to get my stuff ready, of course. It's been a while since we were outside the fort!"
I know you love being outside the fort Vallen. Jenya grins at the dwarf Feeling the warm breeze, looking up at the stars...
Cassandra could see a misunderstanding was brewing and found the courage to step forward and try to take control before it spiraled further away. "As I said I am not a..." She didn't get to finish as the third person spoke and Alexei was forced to take charge. She listened to the woman and jumped off the raised platform well before Alexei suggested looking into this.
"Show me her tent and tell me where she went when you last saw here. Also anyone else that might know her and know where she went," she says earnestly to the woman. A disappearance already? And right as she decided to come forward? Perfect.
The woman who mentioned the maid by name takes you to the tent city on the outskirts of the keep. She points out a canvas tent atop a wooden platform. It's a humble structure, just like the domiciles of the other workers. You push aside the flap and look inside.
There's a worn, tattered bedroll, a combination of fur and thick layers of wool, spread across the floor. A small, flat rock placed to one side serves as a makeshift nightstand, with an empty cup on it and a nail file. A bag pushed onto the far side of the tent holds a rumpled change of clothing.
Since it's been raining, the ground around is all muddy. This makes following tracks somewhat difficult.
Despite the problems with the mud and the rain, Jenya kneels down and does her best to try and follow any relevant tracks.
The domicile was certainly spartan but their were still things in it someone wouldn't just leave behind. The warm clothes especially. She shifted to her probably subtlest form. Only her eyes really changed, becoming cat-like slits. Cassandra searched over the articles and sniffed every now and then, trying to acquire a decent scent. She turns back to the woman after a few minutes searching.
"Did anyone see her leave or know where she went when she disappeared?"
The woman who pointed out that Saki was missing says, "Well... there's a large tent over that way -" she points to the northeast - "where folks get drinks in the late afternoon and evening, a brewer set up there and is hoping that there'll be an inn or something in the near future. She usually helped out there with serving drinks and such, and got tips."
Jenya kneels by the wooden platform the tent is resting upon and examines it carefully. Well I see signs of her leaving, doesn't seem like she came back though. Which we knew already I figure
Vallen tries to ignore the mud slowly acculumating on his boots, and looks over the tent. "Hmmm.. Yep. She's not here." He states confidently, eyes falling on the tattered bedroll. "Goodness, this thing has seen better nights. Ah, the seam here is ripped... If I just..."
Pure, white light springs from the priest's fingertips, and the bag starts to grow new fabric and string. The materials leisurely sew themselves together under his watchful eye.
Cassandra follows the woman's line of sight towards the northeast. Considering people's reaction earlier, that was probably not the best place for her to be, especially in her current form. Thankfully, the Grand Diplomat was here. "Vallen? Can you go ask the people around that big tent if they saw where she went? Or like, if she looked uneasy?" She was no investigator so she had little experience in missing persons and why they went missing. She did have an excellent sense of smell though. "I'll see if I can't follow the tracks."
After fixing the bedroll, Vallen is happy to be given another task, if one out of his usual comfort zone. "Aye, I can ask. Though is this really Diplomat duties? Seems more like a job for the Councilor to me...." He grumbles, making his way to the big tent.
Touching his holy symbol, Vallen prays: Grundinnar, please bless me with your silver tongue and friendly demeanor, for humans are confusing.
Fallen steps into a lage tent, about twelve feet across by ten feet deep, where seven tree stumps have been placed as seats around a crude table. The inside boasts a rug on the floor and a wall hanging tapestry that might be a basilisk or might be a rooster with scabs. A skinny, black-haired man of ideterminate age is sitting with his long, lanky legs extended and feet on a small stool. He hastily stands when Vallen arrives and pulls on the edge of a sharp mustache,then says, "Master dwarf! What brings you here at this early hour? I can fetch you some ale or beer, of course. And I have fine black bread and..." He picks up a wheel of cheese from the table, scrutinizes it, then sets it back down. "Cheese of... some kind."
Vallen asks about Saki, and the fellow responds, "Ah, yes, delightful woman! I took her on as a maid and dishwasher. An act of kindness, I suppose. Usually she comes in around lunchtime to help with preparation and such. Uh, she's not in any trouble, is she? She left here around midnight last night. Maybe a little after."
Vallen enters the tent, and immediately adopts a skeptical stance. How do they live like this? A mud hut would be more erudite at this point.
He greets the black-haired man with a blessed, friendly smile, and feels the gentle divine nudging of Torag's brother, Grundinnar, push the scathing thoughts of poor interior design out of his head.
No amount of divinity could prevent him from casting an odious glance at the cheese, however. His stomach lurches upward, as if trying to escape to a better life before that moldy wheel touches it.
"Urp.. uh... excuse me, no thank you, I'm not hungry. Ah, I'm Vallen Silverclasp, Priest of Torag and..." The dwarf lets out a drawn-out sigh, shoulders slumping slightly. ...Grand Diplomat of River Run. Emeria. Whatever we're calling this place."
Clearing his throat, he asks about Saki, and shakes his head in concern at the response. A calloused hand strokes one of his immaculate beard-braids. "That's no good... no, no trouble. I don't think she'll be coming at lunch today. She's been missing since last night, we figure. No one's seen her. We can tell she's been home, and she left, but she never came back. There's a possibility she never made it back to her tent last night, eh?"
He stops stroking his beard and begins to gesture, suddenly getting into the mystery of it all- a problem to be solved. "Did she have any enemies? Friends with enemies? Enemies with friends? Scorned suitors? Skulking vagabonds threatening her? Anything she was worried about?" The dwarf tries to erratically cover all the bases.
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Vallen's mouth is slightly agape as he watches Korinne happily eating the moldy cheese.
The dwarf's mouth has gone dry, and he stares into her smiling face with a mixture of horror and wonder.
"Korrine." He croaks, attempting to swallow to relieve his tightening throat with no success. "That cheese is a color we dwarfs call "гниене". I thought it only existed in the darkvision spectrum and is typically associated with the pallor of a day-old corpse. Until this point I have never in my life seen that shade of grey under visible light." Not coincidentially, Vallen's ruddy face is starting to take on a tint of green.
"Please." His voice takes on a pleading tone, and the dwarf shakily points at the wretched cheese. "Please stop eating that, for both our sakes."
"A hobby... a hobby... hmm," says the bartender. "Why yes! She was quite a singer. Sometimes she would regale the patrons here with a few happy songs. Happy customers drink more, you know. But I gather you're looking for things to help find her, and I'm not sure what to tell you there. Her route home, unless she happened to take a fancy to someone recently - there was no shortage of handsy louts in here, but she hadn't found that 'special someone' just yet - typically took her along the smith's row, past the supply sheds and over to the western canopies, which is where her tent resides."
Vallen breathes a sigh of relief as Korrinne puts away the cheese, and definitely avoids looking at it. "Thank you...About half a decade ago I spent over a year purifying rotting food nearly every single morning, and that cheese triggered some terrible memories. Sometimes I still have nightmares about the some of the things I saw and smelled, especially the food that alrready had bites taken out of them..." He says before giving his head a shake to clear the haunting thoughts.
Getting back to the matter at hand, he nods to the mage. "Aye, let's relay this information to our Marshal."
Turning to face the bartender, the dwarf acknowledges his assistance before they leave. The priest grasps his silver holy symbol and the other extends to the bartender's hand in a traditional human handshake.
"Torag's blessings upon your establishment, barkeep. You have done us, and the lost girl, a great service today. May your ale froth to the edge of the mug and your fire glow with the Forge-father's eternal flame."
You meet back at Saki's tent with the news. Backtracking, Cassie finds that she did go past the smith, over by the supply tent, then something lunged out from behind the lumber pile. Because of the rain there's no blood, but Cassie finds a nasty gouge in one of the logs. Working across the back of the lumber pile, she eventually finds a severed hand - then, wedged under some of the softwood, the chewed-upon remains of a woman's torso and one leg. The muddied tracks near it are like a wolf's, but large and upright.
Not a good day.
Despite the rain and the smell of humanity, Cassandra feezes at the smell of death. It was something indescribable. Her human half felt disgusted. Death conjured images of blank stares, white eyes, gore, and blood. But her less civilized side felt the excitement of the hunt, smelled food, and generally delighted. As she rounded the corner though, humanity won out and she recoiled at the sight. Seeing a human shred to pieces wasn't a scene she was unfamiliar with. When you lived in a forest with dangerous creatures like bears and griffins, and no matter how well you prepared, sometimes things did not go well.
Cassandra reels in her disgust and forces herself to look over the carnage to figure out what happened. The woman appeared to have been grabbed by something hiding behind the lumber pile. The lack of blood made it hard to determine how the struggle went but obviously very poorly for the woman. The gouge in the wood suggested something powerful with large sharp claws. Hiding the body suggested a certain degree of intelligence. And the tracks...
"Oh no. This can't be happening. Not today." Cassandra collapses to her knees. All life and energy seem to flow out of her in a single breath of air.
Vallen's mild grumbling about the rain ceases when Cass finds evidence of claw marks in one of the lass' last seen locations. Instead, his demeaner turns nervous. The dwarf fidgets with the polished butt of his pistol- though he does not immediately load it due to the weather.
The dwarf dares in a deep, exasperated breath when they find the remains of the girl's body, and he rubs a thick hand over his face in thought. "By Droskar's foul navel... A monster loose in the camp. An intellgient one with a taste for sentient flesh it seems." He laments, coming to the same conclusions as Cass.
He gives her a strange look at her dramatic reaction, and rests a hand on her shoulder (which he could actually reach in her prone position). ["Aye, it's bad, but no reason to desp-" The priest trails off as he looks at the large pawprints in the mud, staring briefly.
"Those...are wolf tracks? Big ones. Oh, Torag... this is the work of some trickster faye, or... something... I mean we were just convincing everyone not to worry and now there is a werewolf preying on people?" He throws his arms into the air in exasperation.
"This looks bad, Cass... But... but... If you find and kill it, people will have no choice to respect you!" He grows more excited as he speaks, attepting to find a solution for the situation. "But we have to tell everyone what is going on. There's a killer shape-shifter in the camp... uh, other than you... and they need to travel with a companion at night. But our marshal is tracking it down and safety will soon be restored."
"They are not a monster!"Cassandra growls. She surges up from the ground and throws off Vallen's hand. Her face is a strange mixture of anger, fear, and sympathy. "They are cursed and scared and...don't know what is going on or what's happening to them. This was not there fault. It's completely uncontrollable." The other emotions fade away as she looks at the pieces left behind. Only anger is left. "But if this is a fey trick or is a monster I will ripe their thought out personally," she practically snarls.
She paces around the scene of the crime a few times, finger on her lip as she tries to think of what to do. "We hide the body and tell no one. Not until I've found who or what did this," she says, hoping it wasn't what they all thought. She was only a step away from pure panic at this point. "If it really is a...werewolf, then they'll be in human form right now. They'll be panicking if they figure out what happened. They'll be very unpredictable, afraid, and frantic and possibly violent if they think we are there to kill them. Especially after that gathering we just had. I know how to handle that. It's just... It's just..." Cassandra sits on the wood pile and cradle's her head in her hands. "It's just, I have no idea how to...to stop everyone else from trying kill them. Or how to convince them that they aren't to blame. They have no control over themselves. Not at first. And not in any meaning full way after." She looks up her eyes close to tears and pleading. "There options for living a normal life. They are just as much a victim as she was," she says, indicating the mangled corpse.
"You believe me right?"
Vallen responds in kind to Cassandra's outburst, huffing and stamping his feet. "No! Absolutely not. We cannot hide this from the people. They are in danger and deserve to know so they can protect themselves. If we hide this and another person dies, their blood is on our hands too."
He points to the mangled remains of the woman they had been tracking all day. "And Saki is recieving a proper burial, she will not be stuffed in some ravine to rise as a zombie or a ghoul because you were too afraid to tell the truth."
The dwarf is getting red in the face, and his gesturing is becoming so erratic could be mistaken for some kind of arcane spellcasting from a distance. "And the truth is this creature is a monster at night. You said it yourself- it can't control itself. It is a bloodthirsty, carnivorous, killer. The cursed person is not, and they're hiding somewhere throwing up this poor girl's hair and wondering why they're covered in mud. Look, I want to stop the monster, not the cursed person. At the very least they must be exiled far, far away, but first we have to find them."
"Look, I believe you, but we cannot hide this. We tell everyone there is a dangerous creature roaming the camp at night and to always travel in groups. We know this creature is posessing a person in the camp and the afflicted is not at fault. So if the afflicted comes forward we will do all we can to help them. If they don't, we'll have to go off people's reports of suspicious activities."
Not if it's hunting Jenya says to Korinne grimly It wouldn't be much of a predator if it made a lot of noise while going after it's prey. Those kind of animals only make a lot of noise if they're tryin' to scare something away. And if it got Saki by her throat at first leap then the gunslinger shurgs It could have gone as quiet as a pin drop
As a conflict erupts between Vallen and Cassandra Jenya grimaces We need to tell people somethin' of what's going on. We don't need to tell 'em everything. We tell everyone we found Saki and that she was killed by a monster at night. We tell everyone to walk in pairs while we find the monster. We don't need to tell 'em we think it's a were. But we can appeal to everyone to let us know anything that might help us find the monster. Give the cursed person a chance to come clean.
Jenya rubs her forehead as she addresses Cass Look, I get that you feel bad for the cursed person who's doing this, but far as I'm concerned by hiding that bad things happen around 'em when they black out at full moon means they're at least partly responsible fer this. Maybe they'll revel themselves to you.