The Lumber Mill, Outside
The lumber mill stands quiet and dripping in the warm afternoon air, dragonflies darting between the puddles left by last night's storm.
The area in front of you has been cleared of trees and stands as a stark island of evidence for Hawcroft's grand industrial venture, several hundred square feet of rough earth and compact buildings surrounded by mile after mile of dense forest. The main work area takes up most of the clearing – to your left are stacked tree-trunks, ready to meet the saw, and off to the right the sunlight shines off of the tin roofs of the mill-workers' dwellings.
The sawmill itself is to the north, a hundred feet or so in front of you, and consists of two large warehouses and a cutting-platform that straddles the river running down from the distant mountain peaks. There are no sounds except for the chirping of birds, the chittering of insects and the splashing creak of the mill's waterwheel.
If you didn't know better you wouldn't think that anything was out of place.
There should be thirty of them, your guide and contract-holder points out, and even if they were in the middle of a retrieval from upriver at least a few of them would have stayed behind to snag the produce as it arrived. Doesn't make a lick of sense.
The contract-holder is Clarence Atterleigh, a tall man with dark hair and a backpack of scrolls and ledgers. He is a company man, an employee of Hawcroft Logging, the very same company that keep you on retainer to investigate bandit attacks or workmen striking - anything that stops the fresh timber flowing down the mountainside and into the city to the south of you.
The cart that brought you here stands a little off to the side at the south edge of the clearing, its horses stamping occasionally. They were skittish as they approached the mill despite the ministrations of your driver, as if sensing ahead of time that something would be wrong with your destination. The driver, a young man with a whip wrapped around his waist like a belt, is trying to soothe them.
Atterleigh adjusts his spectacles nervously. He had been sat next to the driver on your way up the gentle slope of the hillside, barely acknowledging your presence when you were picked up one by one from your respective homes. Although you are all held on retainer by the same company this is the first time the five of you have met – these hills are reasonably safe during the day, at least when compared to the lowland forests and the higher mountain slopes. Lots of people around, lots of villages, small camps and friendly towns.
It's rare for thirty people to just disappear.
A sturdy wooden platform with an iron roof (suspended between the two warehouses) acts as a bridge over the fast-flowing river, with space enough for several people to work side by side. The water-driven saw suspended in the centre of the platform has no safety barriers around it, but is mercifully still. The serrated blade is an inch thick, and is only very lightly speckled with rust. It is driven by some sort of mechanical system half-concealed in the roofspace of the platform.
Two sets of wooden steps lead up to the platform, one on each side of the river, and a rudimentary crane and pulley system have been rigged up to deposit halved logs into the clearing. Nearby sturdy leather straps extend from a jutting beam at the top of the platform, allowing floating logs to be snared and lifted up from the river towards the saw. One such log sits half-cut, surrounded by sawdust and drying in the light of the afternoon sun.
The housing for the sawmill employees is cramped but cheery, five small shacks packed with iron-framed bunks, each bunk area plastered with personal effects. The wooden walls are covered with cheap play-bills advertising theatre shows from the city, sketches of what you assume are family members or sweethearts and faded Hawcroft safety notices. Each shack has a wood-burning stove at the end of the room, all of them sitting still and cold. Small chests without locks sit near each doorway. The silence of the place is unsettling – you can tell from the looks of it and the scuffed earth between the buildings that these shacks were a social hub for the workers, a place to wile away their off hours relaxing, boasting or reminiscing.
An iron-reinforced shack on thick strut-like legs, the watchtower stands at the northernmost point of the clearing. You estimate that it must be a least thirty feet tall, and you assume it would give you a commanding view of the camp and the rising hills to the north.
Unfortunately, assumptions are all you have – the wooden ladder that leads up to the shack's open doorway lies broken in the mud at the tower's base.
A stack of cut logs sits by the side of the river, in the shadow of a crane system sprouting from the nearby saw platform. There are large mounds of disturbed earth scattered around the stack that resemble oversized molehills, and a few of the logs look as though they've been gnawed upon by something.
The foreman's office is larger than the worker housing on the east side of the clearing, a two-storey building made of wood and reinforced with iron bands. A small antechamber leads into the main building, and you can see pegs and shelves through the doorway that usually serve as a place to keep the site tools. They sit empty, the axes and saws that should be stored there absent. The door to the main room is closed.
Several flat-bottomed barges are beached at the rear of the foreman's office, used to carry cut produce from the site downriver towards the city. The canvas covering them blows gently in the wind, only half-secure. It was one of these barges that failed to arrive at the city at its allotted time, prompting Atterleigh to ride up to the site alone for his initial investigation – that was two days ago.
The river flows fast and strong, and is the reason the logging site was created. Crowded on all sides by ancient trees and wide enough to safely float produce-laden barges down, the nameless river runs mostly parallel to the path your wagon took on your way to the site, stretching all the way down from the higher mountain slopes and flowing through the middle of Barrjka, half a day's travel back the way you came.
Several fishing poles and a few nets sit unattended on the far side of the bank, alongside a small wooden bench. A barrel with a spigot at its base lies on its side nearby, empty enough to rock back and forth whenever the wind picks up.
The forests around Barrjka are safe when compared to the lands higher up the mountains or down by the southern frontier, but they still hold their fair share of dangers for travellers that enter them unprepared. Everybody has heard of the rogue elves that live feral far from the trade routes, and the elk that protect their territories with proud viciousness... and there are other things, hinted at by drunken huntsmen, that most people are happy to stay clear of.
Silas turns his back to the sawmill, and his attention to the forest that surrounds them. For the last mile or so he'd had the strangest feeling, like something was watching him.
Of course with dense forest like this, something could well be watching.
Dismounting easily he leaves his medical gear in the cart, turning to the driver and barking out a curt "Wait here. I'll be back in a minute."
"Gentlemen - and lady. Let us begin."
Then, Crossbow cocked and held he proceeds to walk the Forest Fringes, looking at the ground for tracks, and the trees for watchers.
"Yes, let's not stand idly by when thirty people are missing. They could be in desperate need of our help with the minutes passing by..."
Feeling more at home with the natural, Kay walks around vaguely looking at things before heading towards the river.
to find tracks or
notice something unusual.
EDIT, I missed the word 'driver' in Silas' post.
Silas, you notice nothing out of the ordinary - or rather, nothing that strikes you as an immediate threat. The forest seems quieter than usual, although it could be your imagination - it is some time since you've been this far away from a settlement, and your medical training leaves you fully aware that the eerie stillness of the camp may well be altering your perception of the surroundings.
The driver ignores your call, still trying to calm his horse, but Atterleigh doesn't. Sidling up to you nervously he whispers "do you see anything out there?" It's obvious from both his style of dress and his nervousness that he isn't the type to venture past the tree-line very often.
Kay, you make your way to the other side of the river across the saw platform , traversing the wide wooden boards with at least a little consternation - the river below you is strong enough that there is a decent chance of you being carried away by the current if you fall in, and you're not ignorant of the fact.
You find no tracks of note as you make your way towards the fishing equipment on the river's far side - the ground is still wet from the hard rain of the previous day, and although you can see bootprints and furrows here and there none of them appear to be leading anywhere.
You find the rods in reasonable condition - they are half-buried in the mud and could do with a clean, but they seem strong and well-crafted. After a quick examination of the barrel (it smells of stale beer and rainwater) you almost turn to leave, but something about the nets catches your eye.
There are several fish in one of the nets, large trout that can often be seen fighting against the river's current and would normally signal a hearty impending meal... but these are rotten, their eyes gone and their scales blistered open. You've lived off the land before, watched your family catch and gut these very same trout - they're strong fish, resilient. It would take more than a day or two for them to get into this state of decay.
"No. No I don't. But it seems... quiet. I might go up the watchtower and see if I can get a better view."
Logically, if this place was overrun I would expect the Watchtower to have the most warning.
Turning away from Atterleigh, Silas heads to the watchtower.
You cross the saw platform on your way to the watchtower , treading carefully as you cross the river.
The watchtower rises above you, stark against the sky. Its ladder lies broken in the mud, but the damage isn't too bad...
Silas, while searching the base of the watchtower you find your first solid hint that something really is wrong.
A large wood-axe lies half-obscured by a bush at the base of the tower, the axe-head pitted and scarred in a way that doesn't quite seem natural (although there are no signs of blood). The wood of the haft reinforces your suspicions - at one end it is smooth and natural, looking no more than a few months old at the most, but where it meets the steel of the head the wood is blackened and rough.
The unsecured canvas flapping on the barges catches Caveth's attention. Keeping an eye out for tracks or anything else unusual along the way, he heads toward the foreman's office.
Caveth tries the door. The locked handle rattles in his hand to no effect so he cups his hands and presses his face close to the window for a better view inside the building.
Kay has a good look at the fish in the nets and calls out to the others,
"They just abandoned this place quick smart! Left these beautiful fish in these nets. Now they've just rotted in the nets. By the looks of the fish it's been more than a few days."
The halfling has a half-hearted look at the saw platform and how it works on her way back over the river.
She wanders over towards Silas,
"Something bad, very bad. They just left suddenly, all of them. It's strange. Worrying.
"Are you going up the watchtower?"
, your examination of the barges throw up a disturbing fact - they have been sabotaged, or at least appear to have been. The floor of each barge is a splintered mess, the holes punched through them ensuring that they would never be able to make the journey downstream holding a person, let alone a cargo of timber. You see no distinguishable tracks, but can tell that there was a lot of activity around this area at some point recently - six or seven people tracking back and forth, at least.
You wipe away some of the grime that covers the office window and peer inside. There are tables and chairs, several cabinets full of stacked paper and scrolls and a writing desk. Your eyes are first drawn to the desk - a mess of wax spreading across one corner betrays the remains of a candle, left burning unattended long enough for the candlestick to melt down to a stub.
Something else catches your eye too - several pieces of printed paper lie on the floor at the base of the stairs, fluttering slightly whenever the wind picks up. They are dyed light blue, and you recognise what they are instantly - those are Hawcroft Bearer-Bonds, the preferred method of payment for company workers (much lighter than gold and almost useless to thieves and bandits, Hawcroft Bearer-Bonds can only be exchanged for real coins at registered banks - and even then, only if you can prove your current employment status).
Atterleigh stands near you, staring at the uncovered broken barges with a worried frown. "This is new," he says quietly to nobody in particular, "these barges weren't in this state when I rode up here for the initial inspection."
, your examination of the fish reveals that the decay is natural, and hints that it has been around a week (maybe a little more) since they were hauled out of the river. There are enough fish in those nets to give the entire camp a decent meal - out here, away from the cities and towns, a catch like that would mean the difference between sleeping on a full or empty stomach. To leave it to rot without a good reason would be unthinkable.
The mechanism that should run the main saw is a little beyond you, all interlocking gears and dripping oil, but you can see from the spiderwebs that stretch across the gears that it hasn't run for a while. You make your way to the watchtower and find something that you most probably could help with - the broken ladder at the base of the watchtower looks salvageable, if you find some rope or similar materials from your surroundings.
Kay looks at the broken ladder on the ground, and slides her pack off.
"Hmmm, maybe..."
Taking her good rope from her pack she spends a few minutes lashing the pieces of ladder back together.
Skill 6 +4 rope = 20
Kay will clamber up, being the lightest party member (I assume)
A few minutes of work is all it takes to return the ladder to a serviceable state, although the wood still creaks alarmingly when you lean your weight on it. By jamming the lower end into the mud and propping the upper end against the tower it looks as though it almost reaches the watchtower door, maybe a foot or two shy.
You can't see very far into the room - although it's not particularly large it has been blocked by crates, wooden planks and an overturned desk. The debris looks very much like a makeshift barricade, designed to keep out anybody who managed to climb up to the doorway you're looking through.
"And that, is why I never drink dwarves ale on an empty stomach. Gods my head!" The Professor glances about and sees that his companions have all wandered off. Seeing the cozy worker's quarters he shuffles off towards them his curiosity thoroughly piqued. "Hmmmm"
Despite their present state these quarters stir many good memories for you - you have often wiled away your evenings in places like these, drinking and playing cards with the men and women of various sites during their off-hours. To many others employed by the company your status on the Hawcroft retainer is puzzling but that, sadly, is merely because they're thinking too small. An avuncular old gentleman with a silver tongue and a willingness to laugh can do a lot to ease the tensions around a place like this.
You know from drunken experience that many of the workers hide contraband products and personal effects under the hard mattresses of their bunks, where the various sire foremen (generously) never seem to check.
@Atterleigh "It looks like someone wasn't very happy," the half elf mulls over the condition of the barges, standing near the nervous supervisor. "Do you have a key to the foreman's office? There's a lot of paperwork in there. Might be helpful to look it over."
Hauling her wide hips up onto the threshold of the Watchtower, Kay carefully braces herself and calls to Silas, "Looks like it has been barricaded up here. A last line of defence perhaps. Look out, I've gotta toss stuff out here just to get in."
She begins pulling things towards her, crates, furniture, boxes, and drops them, away from the Silas and away from the ladder.
The halfling goes in for a better look.
, Atterleigh nods in response to your question and takes a set of several linked keyrings from his backpack that look almost as heavy as the wiry man holding them. “You’ll need to give me a few minutes,” he says apologetically, “I can’t remember which one it is, and no-one thought to label them. Why don’t you take a look around, and I’ll call out when I’ve found the right one?” He sinks to his knees in front of the doorway and sets to work – you can see there are at least a hundred keys of various sizes, if not more. He wasn’t lying when he said it might take some time to get the door open, but at least you won’t have to pick the lock.
the barricade takes some time to shift and you’re skin is covered in sweat by the time you’re finished, due more to the rising humidity of the afternoon than your physical effort. After about fifteen minutes of work you’ve cleared the majority of the makeshift barricade away, and when pushing aside the heavy desk your hands touch something soft. Steeling your nerves, you give the desk one final push and reveal the rest of the room.
The watchtower is mostly bare, all furnishings and shelving having been torn down in the creation of the barricade, and one of the windows of the north-facing wall is broken. A door on the eastern wall that leads to a set of outside running-boards around the edges of the watchtower is boarded up from the inside, but that’s not what draws your eye.
Slumped against the desk you pushed aside is a corpse, a human woman with dark skin and a strong jawline. You don’t recognize her, but can tell from her clothing that she wasn’t the site warden, although she is wearing Hawcroft slacks. It was her that your fingers brushed against, though you don’t know where – the movement of the desk must have toppled her onto her side, and she now lies motionless and cold with her face against the wall.
There is a pepperbox revolver clutched in one of her hands, and the right side of her face is a bloody mess. Moving her head ever so slightly you can see a small hole in her left temple. The situation points to an obvious, yet disturbing conclusion - whatever she had been hiding from, it was her own finger that pulled the trigger.
Kay puts her hand to her mouth in shock. Can this really be? she thinks to herself.
"Silas, there's a body up a here. A female, human. I think she, she... Let me have a proper look first."
She takes a good look over the body, looking both for identification and personal effects, as well as signs of other injury, illness and to determine how long ago she died.
When finished searching the body, Kay with then take a good look around; a proper search of the watchtower, inside and out, and a good look at the surrounding area from the outside.
If not pressed for time, Kay would also take a moment up in the Watchtower to look at the weather patterns forming.
Pausing to observe Kay pitch furniture and rubbish down from the watchtower for a minute or two while Atterleigh fumbles through the keys one by one, Caveth frowns slightly.
@Atterleigh "Ok, I'm going down to the wood pile to look around some more. Call me when you get the door open." Caveth sets off along the water, past the barges, toward the stack of cut logs. "Don't go into that office alone. Who knows what's in there, it might not be safe."
Circling the fresh lumber, Caveth approaches the nearby mounds of disturbed earth with care. Gently, using the head of his mace as an improvised shovel, he clears away soil until one of the enormous insects is revealed. The half elf's frown deepens. At least a week since anyone's been here...Where did they all go? And why? He covers the burrowing wasp, looking at the nearby river and further upstream, past the saw platform, for some indication of the missing workers.
“Bad sign, you know.” the driver remarks after a swig and gestures to the skittish horse, ”Old Charlie being spooked like that. He’s been trampin’ around these forests for years, knows them almost as well as a bloody deer. I’ve seen him fight, too – he kicked a wolf to death in the winter when we were on a strike-relief last year. He’s a brave one, usually. I’ve never seen him like this.” The man takes another mouthful of what you strongly suspect is alcohol, despite the rules of his working contract. “If it’s all the same to you, boss, I’d like to be away from here by the sink-hours, and safe in a tavern by true sun-down. I don’t want to meet whatever it is got him jumpin’ at shadows.”
He offers the hipflask over to you.
Truth being told, you know what he means. Your companions were mostly quiet on the way up to the camp, but the doctor-type with the crossbow (a man who made something prickle at the back of your neck whenever you stared too closely at his features) murmured that he sensed something watching. Although you didn’t mention it at the time, you felt it too – the forest around you grew markedly quieter when you drew close to the site, about the same time as the horse started to act out. It’s nothing magical that you can distinguish, nothing you can really pin down – merely a sense in the wet air, or in the space between the trees.
Silas stands silently, the strangely pitted axe in hand.
A large wood-axe lies half-obscured by a bush at the base of the tower, the axe-head pitted and scarred in a way that doesn't quite seem natural (although there are no signs of blood). The wood of the haft reinforces your suspicions - at one end it is smooth and natural, looking no more than a few months old at the most, but where it meets the steel of the head the wood is blackened and rough.
The axe head is rusted, the tip of the shaft rotted. If the axe was swung at something acidic it might leave marks like this, but this is decay, not acid burns.
While Kay repairs the ladder the doctor looks on intently.
When Kay ascends and warns of falling furniture he shakes himself from his reverie.
"Is it a deliberate barricade, do you think?"
Then, as a large chair nearly brains him the doctor walks to look at the lumber pile, moving around the enormous pile, stooping to look more closely.
Should there be an opportunity where he is out of the sight of his fellows for a moment, Silas will quickly perform a certain rite that unlocks one of those primal senses that most modern humanoids learn to block when young.
Kay's face is a little flustered as she speaks, and her eyes glisten with moisture.
@Silas: "Yes, a deliberate barricade. She pulled shelves off the walls and moved all the furniture over. Whatever it was that had her so frightened scared her to death, almost literally. It is really pretty horrific."
She sobs a little as she turns back to searching the Watchtower.
Your search of the young woman's body reveals her punchcard, a Hawcroft Logging personal ID tag that all workers are required to carry. Her name is listed as Tonbridge, D, followed by an identification number. You know from experience that the number includes her date of employment - four months ago, almost to the day. You can tell from looking at her as well that the pepperbox was not hers - the cast of such a weapon would be monumental to a simple logger, but you have seen several similar pieces carried by the site wardens of other Hawcroft encampments you've visited over the past few months.
You also find what looks like a plain wedding ring on a silver chain hidden inside her shirt, and several playing cards in one of the pockets of her slacks.
By your estimation she has been dead for about the same time as the netted fish, maybe a day or so less, and your search of the rest of the room reveals nothing more than a bloodstain on the wooden floor and slivers of lead embedded into the right-hand wall.
If her suicide was staged, it was a miraculous job.
You climb carefully back down the ladder, taking your time as you descend to get a good view of your surroundings. From your vantage point you can see the expanse of logged forest, areas of brown and fresh-white that spread up and out around the river to the north. You can also see the roof of the foreman's office; some of the iron is buckled and twisted, leaving a hole some 10 feet in diameter leading into what you assume is the attic.
Searching the base of the watchtower proves a fruitless exercise for the most part, although you do notice that some of the wood-and-iron struts that support it are slightly scratched - whether this is from wear and tear or a more recent trauma is difficult to distinguish.
you hear Atterleigh mutter something that might have been a response or a sign of frustration as you leave the antechamber of the foreman's office and head towards the woodpile.
You find no unusual tracks as you search, but can feel the mud around your feet tremble slightly as the disturbed wasps burrow deeper under the woodpile. The tracks you do find are the same as those around the rest of the camp - a confusion of booted feet, the impressions of resting logs and sawbenches and the hooves of a roughly horse-sized animal. Now you have a chance to take a better look at them you're reasonably sure they belong to a deer of some kind - you've found whilst traveling through this region that several of the animals that also exist in your homeland are represented here, although often a little larger or smaller than you are used to.
You round a stack of logs and come face to face with Doctor Bishop, stooping to inspect one of the hillocks of displaced earth left behind by the retreating lumberwasps. He is holding an axe loosely in one hand, and turns from his inspection to face you as you arrive.
Shaking your head in consternation you head to the woodpile, noticing the earthen nest of lumberwasps and stepping smartly around them. You have little time to test your theory before Caveth appears, but do manage to pickup a little information from the warped axe by channeling some base puissance.
The axe itself is not enchanted or inherently magical in any way, but there is a faint aura around the damage to the head and upper shaft that would suggest it came into contact with a source of magic at some point quite recently - you can't tell exactly when, but suffice it to say that if the axe has been lying next to the watchtower for as long as this camp seems to have been abandoned, the effect that left a 'smear' across the metal head would have been quite powerful.
, you return your focus to the world around you as you hear footsteps growing closer, and turn to see Caveth round the corner a few feet away from you. Atterleigh is no longer with him, and in the relative stillness of the camp you can hear the occasional jangle of keys from the direction of the foreman's office.
"Mind your step Mr Itxaro - there are signs of lumberwasps present."
More loudly he calls out
"Let us share our findings."
"At the base of the tower I found this axe" Silas presents an axe - pitted at the head, rotted at the end of the haft nearest the head, then clean. [/b]"I cannot think of anything natural that would cause such a difference in decay along the haft of an axe lying on the ground. I believe the axehead came into contact with some eldritch entropic force."[/b]
"Lumberwasps appear to have moved into the timber pile - that is something that would take some time. While not an entomologist I would expect perhaps a week."
"I had thought this was a recent event, but I do not remember definitively what evidence was presented. Does anyone?"
"Ms Kay - you indicated you found fish left in nets that have rotted. Something that would take more than a few days and indicates that the camp was abandoned in haste."
"The ladder to the watchtower has been damaged by crude blunt force - not the entropic effect upon the axe. A barricade has been errected. I suspect that the person above climbed the ladder, destroyed it, and then barricaded the entrance. This is something that would take some time. Did you examine the corpse, Ms Kay?"
"Anyone else?"
Kay carefully removes the pepperbox from Ms Tonbridge's hand, wondering where she got this from, as well as her I.D. and her ring, before respectfully closing the woman's eyes, and slowly descending the ladder.
"Yes I did, Silas. She... it's hard to fathom, she shot herself with this," holding out the pepperbox revolver flat in her broad hand. She looks up at her companions, looks them in the eye and says, "There is little doubt that she pulled the trigger herself.
Kay retrieves the ring and I.D. tag from her other pocket and reads, "Tonbridge, D. Employed almost exactly four months ago. And her wedding ring, kept on a chain so she didn't lose it to the sawmill perhaps."
She looks down at the ground as a few silent tears sneak out, "Her body and the decay on the fish are both about a week old, perhaps hers a little less. Perhaps she holed up in the Watchtower for a day. I shudder to think what she must have seen and heard, enough that drove her to use the pepperbox.
"If someone has some more rope I would like to rig up a harness to lower her body and return it to her family. The ladder is still unstable, so it is probably for the best that only I climb it." The halfling then wipes her cheeks with the back of her broad hand.
"It would be wise to be back in civilisation before nightfall, but it might serve the memory of these people more to stay here overnight, to seek out what did this to them."
Atterleigh curses quietly to himself as he tries key after key in the door of the Foreman's Office. He can hear the investigative team he'd rounded up the previous day talking outside, although their words are indistinct even when he pauses to listen. Something about a body, if he's not mistaken.
A shiver runs through him. He doesn't like the thought of being here for too long - evening is drawing ever closer, and although a night at one of the logging camps would hardly be an unusual experience for him there would normally be fires burning, laughs and shouts and the tumble of dice from the direction of the quarters. He never really joins in with revelry on those nights but it comforts him, the social aspect of it seeming to keep the night at bay.
There won't be any of that here, he knows. The absence of people is disturbing, almost as much as the absence of any discernible reason.
Pausing to clean his spectacles on the cuff of his shirt he takes stock of the key-ring in front of him - thirty more to check, maybe thirty five. It's not like he never had the time to label them - simply that he never really expected that he would need to use them. Not like this, at least.
Sighing, he returns to work.
Caveth nods in agreement with Silas' evaluation of the lumber wasps, "At least a week..." he reiterates, "but the barges have been sabotaged and Atterleigh reports they were in good shape when he rode up here last, less than a week ago. Something doesn't add up." He gestures in the direction of the ruined boats, "There are signs of activity all over the place, too much to be of any use really. I did notice some hoof prints that might be out of place. I don't think they belong to a horse; I can't say for sure though."
He touches Kay lightly on the shoulder, offering reassurance and commiseration while the plump Slip describes her grisly discovery in the watchtower. "I haven't got any rope but I bet we could find some around here if no one else has any either." He takes a step in the direction of the cart that brought them and still holds the remainder of Silas' kit as well as a few other miscellaneous items but stops short.
"All of the tools are missing out of the tool crib in the foreman's office. There's a bunch of papers spread around inside too. No telling what else is in there," the sidelong glance at Kay and grave look on his face indicate exactly what Caveth thinks might be in the locked building.
Crossing his wiry arms over his chest, the loosely-cuffed sleeves of his shirt riding up to reveal a hint of ink, Caveth gazes over Silas' shoulder, his eyes unfocused as if trying to solidify some vague notion that is nagging at him.
Looking through the window of the Foreman's Office you concentrated on what you could see of the room itself, but something you caught out of the corner of your eye has been nagging at you, and you finally realise what it is.
The main office door was locked, from the inside - and the key was still in the keyhole.
The doctor stands awkwardly as Caveth comforts Kay. While his surgical skill is exemplary and his papers on anatomy still cited to this day, Silas is all too keenly aware that his bedside manner is the weakest of his professional skills.
Then Caveth's words strike home
"Mr Itxaro. Let me be clear I understand you. After the tragic events leading to the lady's death something returned to this place and destroyed the only means of travel other than going back into the forest."
As if in in answer to those words a sound echoes around the clearing, a hollow, mournful lowing that bounces back and forth between the buildings. You hear the faint jingling of metal on metal cease from the doorway of the office, and the slight tremble of the ground beneath your feet betrays the fact that the lumberwasps are on the move, burrowing yet deeper into the earth.
The silence returns, heavier and more potent than before, and the first few drops of rain start to spatter into the mud around you.
Atterleigh freezes at the dreadful noise that seems to come from everywhere around him, dropping the keys from his fear-numbed fingers. Slowly and deliberately he straightens up and backs out of the porch of the office, catching sight of the investigative team standing around the lumber pile off to his left.
"What in the name of the gods," he asks quietly, "was that?"
@ Silas and Caveth "Perhaps that is the result of two seperate... things. Personally I can't figure out why the first thing would come back to destroy the boats, nor why a second would come to destroy the b..."
Kay's train of thought is interrupted by the hollow, mournful lowing. She cocks her head to one side a little, stony still and perhaps a little pale.
"I don't like the sounds of that."
Joseph takes the flask and takes a swig before offering it back.
"Hmm. I have heard of animals being more sensitive to this sort of thing than men," Joseph says. He then continues, "You know this place better than I, what's the place like? Any folk tales, places people don't go after dark, things like that?"
The Professor peers inside the nearest darkened quarters trying to spot a small lamp or candle to shed some light into the small dwelling.
He straightens up stiff at the sound of grating screech.
Wizard's beard! What was that?!
The driver looks you up and down, as you knew he would as soon as you opened your mouth. Whilst he may have suspected from your bearing that you were something of a nobleman, your voice has given you away without a shadow of a doubt. You can see a familiar look in his eyes, the look of one man weighing up another.
"Folk tales?" he lowers his voice and leans a little closer to you, although you're not sure how much of his demeanor is for effect rather than the product of actual discomfort on the subject. "I know my fair share, I suppose. No shortage of them around here, and more than a few of them have truth woven round the usual drunkard's cant.
"The loggers keep their fires burning through the night. Now some, say that it's to give them a little warmth, but these are proud men and women, strong. The could survive a chill if it kept the costs down, and gods know that Hawcroft would rather they did. But the fires aren't burning for the heat, you see - they blind the nyriskus, and that keeps 'em back away from the dwellings all through the dark hours. Same reason we travel with one of these," (he taps at a large shuttered lantern beside him, one of four hanging at the corners of the wagon) "even if we could ride these paths in our sleep."
Nyriskus. You've heard the name before, you're sure, but can't quite remember where.
"And that's the least of your worries, out here." The driver spits nonchalantly over the side of the wagon and eyes you to see whether you react. "Nyriskus tribes are a danger, but at least you can plan for them. There's worse the deeper in that you go - Durahjan guarding old monuments that no one's seen for years, lumberwasp queens bigger than Charlie there, and nymphs - if you believe the old stories - that can make a man forget his name, his home and his wife, and drown himself in a puddle of rainwater just to try and make 'em smile." He sips from the flask meditatively, reaching out with his free hand to pat the nose of his skittish carthorse. "So when I say that we shouldn't hang around this place too long, I think you know -"
He stops mid-sentence, freezing as a sound rolls over the pair of you, a bass moan from somewhere out in the forest that makes your skin crawl.
And then more sounds in quick succession, a high-pitched whinny, an angry cry and a sickening snap. Charlie drops to the ground like a cut puppet, slamming into the side of the wagon as he does so and sending both you and the driver sprawling into the mud.
You feel rain on your face - you must have blacked out for a few seconds, and there's a sharp pain running down your back from where you hit the ground. The driver is on his knees, crooning over the lifeless body of his horse.
"Gods, boy... what have you done? What have you done?" The driver turns his head towards you, not to check that you're okay but simply to find the nearest person to commiserate with. "His neck's broken. Charlie. Must have been the noise, and he tried to bolt... gods, he's snapped his own neck. He's snapped his own gods-damned neck!" The young man's face is a mask of shock, his grief honest and palpable. How could... god's teeth, what was that noise?"
, you find nothing of use in trying to make a light source or fire before you hear the noise from out in the forests, but you do stumble across what appears to be a diary open on one the small bunks. You may take it if you wish.
As for the noise, you've been around these parts for a long time, and heard enough tall tales and horror stories - and witnessed enough 'odd' happenings - to last any other man a lifetime. That being said, you still have to suppress a shiver at hearing that awful sound - it's not anything you recognise, although you're probably at least slightly relieved to hear that it sounds more animal than man.
you don't exactly recognise the sound but it brings with it a wave of memory, of listening to stags clashing and retreating in the spring-times you spent around the lower forests in your youth. Whatever it was you just heard carries the same kind of cadence, has the same kind of depth - but you've never heard a stag's call sound that hollow before, or last for so long.
Silas rising fear reaches a crescendo as the howl echoes through the forest, his analytic mind desperately trying to classify it as something harmless.
Then the horse panics, and Silas runs over to assist.
"What happened?" he asks Pilchard as he examines the horse.
The Professor quickly pockets the diary, tearing a button off of his waistcoat to save the page it was open to. From there he'll hustle back to Mr. Atterleigh to secure a lantern or torch.
The clamour echoing through the logging camp sets Caveth's teeth on edge and he winces, his eyes darting to the forest fringes warily. "I...don't know," he admits to his companions quietly when suddenly the horse thrashes wildly against his driver's hold. The half elf gapes in horror as the cart slaps into the apparently incurious Highborn who had been passing a flask with the young teamster rather than investigating.
Caveth dashes toward the fallen man, alongside Silas and arriving just in time to see Joseph blinking a few drops of the light rain out of his eyes. "Are you alright?" he asks, "Do you think you can sit up?"
, despite your various researches into the vagaries of both the physical and metaphysical realm you are left at a loss as to what could be making such a sound. At its most recognisable point it put you in mind of a common forest quadruped issuing some kind of challenge or warning call, but at a pitch so removed from the mundane that it sets your teeth on edge.
Arriving at the horse you realise that there is little you can do - it has stopped breathing, and its neck is twisted at an unnatural angle. From the looks of the situation it attempted to flee the scene and the tether holding it to the tree nearest the cart created some sort of whiplash effect. At least it is obvious to you that the beast died quickly, if not pleasantly.
, on your way over to Mr Atterleigh (still standing dead-still in front of the Foreman's Office) you catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of your eye.
The mud splashes around your boots as you reach Atterleigh and he jumps as you touch him on the shoulder - you can see from his open pack that he has no torch to give you, but seem to remember there being lanterns hanging around the edges of the now-overturned cart.
, Joseph seems to be fine apart from what will no doubt be an impressive bruise across his back. The driver looks to be the more pressing concern, as a quick glance in his direction reveals that one of his shirtsleeves is dripping blood into the mud at his side. Still running his hands back and forth across the dead horse's head and neck in a futile but understandable gesture, he doesn't seem to have noticed his own injury - or if he has noticed, he doesn't seem to care.
Joseph rises to his feet. "We're ok," he says, "though it looks like we're walking it to town later. There was a moaning sound, and then the horse panicked and broke his own neck. We were just discussing local folklore - the Nyriskus and Durahjan. There might not be anything in it, but local legends often start somewhere. Have you found anything?"
The doctor ascertains that the horse is dead and turns his attention to the next most wounded: the driver.
In shock. Calm quiet tones.
The doctor's tone is gentle, almost patronizing. Completely at odds with every other time he's interacted with the driver and whose name he does not even know.
"I am afraid the poor beast is dead, sir. Could I look at your arm? You appear to have been injured."
, the driver's left arm has a long gash running down it from the elbow to the wrist, although luckily on the outside and away from any major arteries. You clean the grime out of the wound as he sits impassively, still not quite seeming to feel the pain - until you douse it with an alcohol solution, which brings from him a sharp yelp of surprise.
As you finish bandaging his arm he finally speaks. "Don't call me sir. Sounds strange. Moffrey'll do. Just call me Moffrey."
Feeling more than a little shaken by these events, Kay works on the principle of safety in numbers, and joins the professor.
@the Professor: "It is probably best we stick together. It would be too easy to have us picked off one-by-one, perhaps that is what happened here."
@ Mr Atterleigh: "Have you found the right key yet, Mr Atterleigh? We might want to stay in here overnight, it might be the most defensible building, not that I know much about such things."
Caveth ponders bat-like goblins and metal-men for a moment before clearing his head of such fancies to focus on the situation at hand. Flipping up the hood of his cloak to keep the rain off, he admires the doctor's skill, far greater than his own, as Silas ministers to the wounded lad. When the bandaging is compete, the wounded lad identifies himself as Moffrey and the half elf turns his attention toward the camp again.
Atterleigh, Kay and the Professor are standing together over the company man's open backpack near the foreman's shack. Caveth approaches them, "The key is still in the lock on the other side. We need some other way to get the door open. Or some other way into the building."
At Mr. Atterleigh's recoil to his touch, the Professor grips his should to reassure him.
Steady on, my dear fellow. You nearly left your skin behind. I'm quite sure I won't bite.
"Alright Moffrey. You've got a nasty gash here. Nothing life-threatening, but I'd like to clean it out properly, check it, and sew it up. That'll require me to set up, and take about an hour. Till then keep it bandaged, keep it clean and don;t use it until you have to. If the bandages soak through or there is a sudden pain, come get me immediately."
"I'm reluctant to use strong anesthetic in our situation, but I do have some quite good tobacco in my pouch if you're a smoking man. You are also welcome to chew it, but it my research shows that the medicinal effects are lessened."
In a rare moment of humor the doctor smiles incongruously
"I've also been told this blend tastes terrible"
Turning to the others the strange half-smile on his face drops immediately, and his already wide eyes open wider. He gestures for them to come closer and talks quietly. Though his voice is calm and his cadence steady, it is the voice of a man holding onto calm with clawed fingers lest he drop into an abyss of maddened terror.
"We're here now. The cart is down. The rafts are down. To leave we will have to travel on foot through the forest, and I for one do not relish travelling through the sink hours, let alone at night. Especially given the noise we just heard."
"If we are to leave, let us leave now. If we are to stay then I suggest we follow Ms Towerweed's suggestion and consider fortifications."