You lay into the chuul with spell and sword and it quickly falls beneath the onslaught, body floating lazily away in the river.
Continuing on to the far shore, the acrid stench of a tannery wafts faintly from a modest building to your left. An outhouse stands across the yard in front of the building and a fenced enclosure in the back has three horse hides stretched upon it.
They seem strangely incomplete above the withers.
You think they are actually centaur hides missing the humanoid portion.
To your right, past a couple farmhouses, you find a large, two-story building partially overhanging the river bank. A wagon sits at the loading dock with a pair of barrels on its bed and another waiting atop the loading dock itself. A sign above the front entrance shows a barrel and a smiling dwarf.
The last building in town, though fairly new, is poorly built. The clapboard walls have large gaps and its roof sags alarmingly. Behind the cottage sprawl a mud-filled enclosure and a covered shed. The smell of decay and filth emanating from this dwelling is horrendous.
Kereek covers his poor nose as the smell hits him. "WHat am smelling so bad?"
"By the gods, what kind of sick soul would do that to centaurs. Maybe the town was a victim of revenge for this!" Orin says, cutting the hides down. Going over to windswift he draws his camp shovel from the saddlebags and begins digging a hole "They deserve better than than being hung out to dry."
Katerina nods at Orin, "Do centaurs bury their dead, or burn them?" Whatever is decided, Katerina helps without complaint.
* * *
Once the grisly task of delivering the centaur hides is done, Katerina offers to be first into the filthy den. "This is very out of place. Even the stables were better kept."
Prazil turns his nose at the smell even as Spike looses a low horn-like bellow expressing his own displeasure with the stink.
"Ugh. This am looking worse than it am smelling! Maybe centaur island god did all this? Centaurs asked for help and island agreed."
"Maybe. Or maybe there's an answer in the shack?"
The home is a mess, but the real reason for the stench comes from the back, where around a muddy pigpen are scattered the rotten, half-eaten corpses of a number of feral hogs, now covered in clouds of fat black flies.
blech Katerina turns away from the charnel mess and frowns. She searches the home with as little contact with the filth as she can.
This is how he chose to live? Ugh...
Katerina steps clear of the pig sty and back to the rest of the party. "Nothing to say, just a huge filthy mess."
Kereek takes one look at the pigs and shakes his head. "Nonono! Kereek am remembering dead things and birds and you am asking Kereek for fire! Kereek am pro-active!" Kereek fireballs the dead hogs.
After Orin's gruesome discovery, Agnar shakes his head sadly. "Skinning someone's people? I can see why the Nomen were enemies. Hopefully this was a random act and not sanctioned by their leaders, otherwise I'd say they may have got what was coming to them."
"Apparently no one told the owner that just because you raise pigs, it doesn't mean you have to live like one."
Shaking his head at the smell and filth in equeal measure, Prazil pulls Spike away from the charnal mess and over toward the large, riverside building and the laden wagon situated nearby.
He remarks to himself and his steed as the pair turn toward their next landmark, "Prazil am sure hoping we am not for finding more piles of rotting, dead things. This Varnhold am not a nice place."
"Let's get a closer look at the tannery. If those hides were a trigger to this, maybe the centaurs made their visit there personal." I know, I would.
Katerina walks off towards the tannery where they had already removed the remains.
The kobold finds a wagon and loading dock holding three sealed barrels of something labeled Cheerful Delver Stout. Another dozen barrels are inside.
Not wanting any more hidden dangers to catch them by surprise, Agnar will move after Prazil, motioning the others to follow.
If there's no sign of danger or clues, Agnar will look for a tap to open one of the kegs, trying a cup of the brew.
The earthy, dark beer is of decent quality, though lacking refinement. You think the barrels would probably sell quickly, though, if brought to market.
Prazil watches as Agnar sips from the liquid in one of the barrels. He asks eagerly after the bearded man wipes his lips with the back of his hand, "Well? Am it poisoned?"
"I certainly hope not. It's a decent brew. And another sign that what happened to the folk here is strange. All this beer just left here. Invaders would have taken it to celebrate, most likely, or at least to sell as plunder. Yet it just sits here, like everything else."
"I suggest you have a swallow, for medicinal purposes. It will help wash the taste of the pig farm out of the back of your throat, at least."
At the promise of banishing the taste and smell of rot from his mouth, Prazil eagerly accepts Agnar's invitation to drink and quickly quaffs a small mug.
"So they am leaving and am leaving beer and pigs and someone am killing cent-ares and skinning horse hides and gnome-giants am moving in?" Kereek shakes his head. "This am big mystery!"
Katerina suggests posting a guard overnight, "We really don't know anything more about what happened than when we started. Whatever it was could still be lurking about."
Kereek nods and agrees with the guard idea, but then brightens. "Kereek am having spell! Kereek am for making spell that am making noise if anyone who am not us am coming close! Or it am only making Kereek aware of intruder! So Kereek am sneaky sneak and surprise intruders with FIRE!"
"I'll take last watch, that way I can be up in time for morning prayer."
Prazil nods in agreement, patting Spike reassuringly as he does so.
The night passes uneventfully, despite the eerily empty village. In the morning, you begin heading east, hoping to find some sign of the centaurs. The first couple days, as you move into the grasslands, passes similarly uneventfully as you search for any sign.
Finally, after your search extends, you discovera number of strange furrows scaromg the grass in this area, disrupted here and there by sinkhole-like depressions and mounds of earth and soil.
You think the drifts and furrows are evidence of a bulette, which you will likely attract if you don't quickly leave the area.
Orin looks at the furrows and the disturbed earth, his brows furled in concern "Looks like there's a landshark, a bulette, in the area. If we dawdle we run the risk of drawing it's attention."
Prazil's eyes widen at Orin's words. "There am sharks... in the ground?!" He pats Spike's neck urgently, "Come on, Spike, we am should be for hurrying." As he and Spike follow Orin away from the bulette's hunting ground, he keeps his lance at the ready and his brow knitted in worry.
Kereek stares down at the ground, which his contented war sheep is currently munching without concern. "Landshark? Oh am this because we am killing giant lobster?!? Oh Kereek am KNOWING that fish am talking to eat other and am mad when Kereek eats them!"
"If you say we should hurry, then let's hurry." Katerina nods to Orin and spurs her horse forward, making an example in deed.
You flee the bulette hunting grounds as quickly as possible, traveling through the night. It is, unfortunately, the last sign of any significant life you see for a while. Days pass as you explore the Dunsward, traveling far to the east before eventually curving back to the south and finally around back toward the west. Agnar's spells and Orin's skill help ensure you have enough food, but you're beginning to despair of ever finding the centaurs as the plains turn to hills and you decide to turn back to the north.
The sun is high in the sky in the latest in a seemingly endless stretch of days when you see a cloud of dust quickly approaching your direction. All too soon it reveals itself to be 8 centaur women, who are not at all subtle in their approach —- a thunderous galloping charge accompanied by shrill howls.
Kereek leans forward in Porkchop's saddle... and promptly falls off. He picks himself up, stands tall and launches a series of snapdragon fireworks to explode over the heads of the charging centaurs!
Agnar murmurs a prayer and a thick mist roils up from the ground, hiding the group from the oncoming centaurs.
"Let's try not to get into a fight if we can help it," he says, turning his horse towards the rear of the group, moving to the edge of the fog furthest from the oncoming centaurs, then raising his voice.
"We do not come to you as enemies, Nomen! We seek to talk, not fight. Do not force our hand in this. By Erastil, I give you my word this is true."
Prazil draws his lance and pats Spike reassuringly on the nape of his neck, "They am not for being a match for you, Spike! If they am not slowing, we am for showing them how fast you can run, yeah?" Spike trumpets approvingly, pawing at the ground in front of him as Agnar's fog rolls in from behind. Prazil's banners, one of them the bright sigil of Thronehold, dance at the end of his lance as he holds it high and ready.
The centaurs disappear from sight as Agnar's mist envelops you, though you can still hear them beyond it, hooves pounding into the ground as they circle around and voices raised in laughter and a strange language.
You recognize their tongue as Sylvan. They appear to be laughing at you and how you hid: "They're like the giant sandbird, ducking their hand into the ground when there's a threat!" one calls. "Silly two-legs," several agree...
"What the heck are they saying? Are they laughing?"
"Stupid horse people am laughing?!? Kereek am giving them something to laugh about..." Kereek scowls and gets ready to apply his normal response: fire.
"Either they don't speak Common, or they don't want to speak it. Heard enough Sylvan from the fey to recognize it, but I barely know a word. Orin, want to take a try at talking to them, or should we just defend ourselves as best we can until they're hurting enough to run away?"
Orin steps out in front of the group, placing his blade point down in the dirt. Watching the centaurs circling around them he laughs "Cé hé an ceannaire bhabhta Merry dul beag ?" he asks in Sylvan.
"Who's the leader of this little merry go round?"
"Ó, féach, Labhraíonn sé seo ar cheann de teanga shibhialta!" one cries out in glee as Orin emerges from Agnar's obscuring mist to see the circle of centaurs.
"Is mian sé a fhios ag a eascraíonn dúinn," another calls, her flanks dappled.
"Tá mé Renasa, fear beag. Sa bhanna luaidhe cogadh," one finally replies, a fiece-looking female with a gray body with black hair pulled back into a long pony tail and shaved from the side of her head.
"Oh, look, this one speaks a civilized tongue!"
"He wants to know who leads us."
[b]"I am Renasa, little man. I lead this warband."
Katerina follows towards Orin's voice, not sure of where he is exactly. Damn, this fog is handy in a pinch, but it makes it tough to see our friends, too. As she gets close, she stays behind him, in the mist but ready to help, hopefully just to talk.