Farfadet studies the roots carefully, his irresistible thirst for knowledge taken over. However he does not touch them.
"I think that'... Well, I actually have no idea, sorry!"
”Curious as I am, I'm no grave robber," Vors offers as he mounts up again. "You may do as you wish, but I'm ready to press on to the south."
Asha looks over the cairn to see if there are any symbols she recognizes.
As long as it doesn't denote some foul faith she will take her club and work to clear the cairn of the blackberrys out of respect before moving out with the others.
After a moment's study, Ardainn shrugs his shoulders.
"I see no harm here," he says. "It is old."
He joins Asha clearing the brambles away.
The cleared cairn looks slightly forlorn out here by itself. Now that its easier to see, you think it looks more primitive than you'd expect the local trappers and woodsmen to use. You're not sure what other tool-using people or creatures wander these lands. Probably still man-sized given the sense of scale.
While the others are digging, Vors keeps a lookout on the horizon and asks Farfadet, "Say, I haven't seen you working on that dress for Asha in a while. How's it coming?"
Farfadet suddenly realizes about the dress and seems severely disappointed. "Oh right. With all that travelling, I haven't been able to progress much. I don't like sloppy job made on the march, but I won't have a choice if I want to finish it one day."
Turning his attention to the primitive stone, the gnome takes out his journal and makes a rough sketch of it to study it later.
After they clear the cairn Asha mounts up "Let's get moving then, I imagine there is still some exploration left before night fall."
Before leaving, Farfadet inspects the cairn a last time. On a whim, he decides to empower his sight with the gift of aura-seeing, and scrutinizes the cairn once more.
A faint aura issues from below the cairn.
"Hold on a second, I'm sensing a magical aura from below the cairn. Maybe we should investigate. In fact, can we? Please? Pretty please?" The irresistibly curious gnome begs Asha with his best smile.
Ardainn glances at Asha and then nods to the little gnome, shifting the stones carefully, so he can replace them when they've finished.
"Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
Helping the ranger in his task, he starts carefully removing stones to reach the source of the aura he has spotted.
Vors shakes his head, and keeps an eye on the horizon. "Figure we should head southeast before nightfall. Get us away from this cairn and ready to head out first thing in the morning. Looks like we're headed into trees next, and if we have to keep this sharp an eye out for traps, this'll take far longer than the requested two months."
You spend about 30 minutes shifting rocks before you find the source of the magical aura, a ring carved of green wood depicting a frog and an eel locked in a struggle.
Its a ring of swimming/
Asha squints as the two disturb the cairn but doesn't move to stop them knowing that the dead don't have need of items of magic where as they could still be put to good use in their work to explore and bolster the community of the wilds.
Before they leave however, she will ensure that the cairn is returned to it's original state if Ardainn and Farfadet don't do so themselves.
As the party is about to leave, Farfadet produces a ring of greenwod and offers it to Ardainn. "There it is! I think this ring will be perfect for you, Ardainn. Not only is its color matching your clothing, but it will also empower your ability to swim! A present most appropriate, one would think."
Farfadet then replaces the burial site like it was before, using his previously-made sketch to help in the task.
Ardainn looks indignant for a moment as he holds up the ring, but then he chortles and shakes his head.
"Very well, Farfadet," he says, still chuckling. "I'll hold it until we've had the chance to restore the region's bridges."
He lends his strength to the task of restoring the cairn.
Vors joins Ardainn in chuckling at Farfadet's comment. When the others finish putting the stones back, he turns his horse southeast. "Let's be off, while there is still light."
When reaching a good space to make camp, Vors sets up his crude alarm system, then offers to take first watch.
Asha wakes in the morning and notices that her belt pouch and money are good. Ardainn spots several extremely small footprinted in the area. However they are not trackable after a few feet.
Ardainn rubs his eyes and looks around.
"It would seem we had visitors in the night," he says, scowling. "I suppose we should keep an eye peeled for our small guests."
After a few minutes searching nearby, he returns to the camp.
"I see no sign of any tracks here."
"Uhh..." Vors rubs sleepy eyes when the news is delivered. "Can't say I saw anything, but then, I was rather tired last night. So sorry, Asha."
Farfadet's attention seems definitely acqired.
"Oh, a thief in the wild! It sounds like one of those romantic novels for young gnome girls. How exciting, let's try and chase him or her!"
When Ardainn points out the lack of tracks, the gnome adds. "... or maybe it is a squirrel? They love glittering things. Shall we look for a hollow tree and find a red-pawed squirrel inside?"
You spend another day scouting and exploring into the woods to the east of your current location . In the north of the woods you find a few more of the vicious bear traps you've seen before, but they appear less common in the southern area of this section of forest and Ardainn spots greater signs of foot traffic. You think you're getting close to the trapper's primary camp site.
Mid-day you find a pile of very large logs strewn every which way, covering the trail a little below a sloping hill.
Vors looks at the wood pile cautiously, and draws his throwing axe as he leads his horse and mule closer to investigate.
Farfadet's attention is immediately drawn to the logs. He inspects them from where he is, trying to guess if this is a cliché bandit ambush or not.
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Ardainn stays a healthy distance back, his bow at the ready. Moving slowly, he angles off the path, towards the top of the hill.
Searching through the logs, Vors finds the crushed remains of a human trapper. The corpse isn't just buried under the logs, but rather nested between layers of them. You're not sure, but you would have though if he was on the trail when hit by the logs he'd be under all of them. It seems like he was caught up in the log slide further up hill.
Tucking away his axe, Vors starts shifting logs to get the deceased trapper out of the pile. "Well, that' s a hell of a way to go. Looks like his own trap got him."
He looks at Asha. "Any way of telling how long he's been dead?"
Ardainn searches the area for tracks, hoping to find the way back to the trapper's camp.
"Interesting." ponders the gnome. "He got killed by his own trap! Is there a lesson to learn?"
Then shaking his head. "Nahhh. Let's find his camp!" he cries out with glee as he follows Ardainn.
Asha guesses the trappers been dead for a few days at most. There's no sign of predation by wild animals. Most other signs of decay have been slowed by the cold weather, making more accurate determination difficult.
Ardainn's tracking skill uncovers a few items of interest. The first, examining the site of the log trap shows a cut rope rather than a frayed or worn one The cuts are ragged suggesting a small blade that hacked and sawed at the rope.
You follow the the trapper's tracks back to his campsite, you find a bedroll, pile of furs, 4 bear traps (two broken), and a masterwork hatchet.
"So... a traitor among them? Or someone laying traps for the trappers? Either way, I think we'd best leave this place and be careful."
Farfadet helps packing the trapper's camp for later sale at Oleg's, unable to resist looking over his shoulder in the process as he's certain to be currently observed.
"Poor devil. Well, it's clearly not a safe life." Vors loads up his mule with the found gear, and leads the party on.
When making camp that night, Vors again sets his crude alarm perimiter, but now begins including the working bear traps into the setup.
Ardainn looks at the cut rope and frowns.
"A small blade did this," he says. "We had small visitors in our camp last night. we should be on alert tonight, perhaps doubling up on watches."
Another night passes without incident and no sign of small intruders. During the next day you proceed east, along the river and exploring the woods to the north and south. While you've been moving slowly you haven't found any of the traps in this section of the wood, and no older tracks. It appears that the trapper avoided this section of the forest.
Around noon you here the sounds of a child calling for help from the river. "Help me, help me!"
Ardainn moves quickly towards the voice.
Vors follows, grabbing a rope.
You both fall into a shallow pit filled with rotting berries. You're uninjured, but covered in a very garish multi-colored staining mush. The shouting stops and is replaced by a quiet laughing that cuts off.
Following the two brash scouts from a distance, Farfadet has a hard time suppressing a light giggle that echoes the one emanating from beyond. He immediately stops to rush and help his companions, tossing them a rope and attaching the other end to a nearby tree.
Ardainn climbs out, scowling, looking around for the source of the laughter.
Vors is thoroughly flustered, and wipes off the berries as best he can. He hauls up the rope that Farfadet tosses down. "Can't believe I fell for that, too." He joins Ardainn in looking around.
As you scrape off the multi-colored muck, you start to hear hints of the laughter again; however you're not able to locate the source and it seems to jump around and come from all sides. There's at least two different voices, maybe more.
Farfadet listens intently to the eerie laughter, trying to identify which fey (if any) could be the source of it.
Asha helps the two out of the pit before calling out to whomever may be in the woods.
"Why not come out? That was quite the good trap you had set. We are just exploring and mean no harm, perhaps you could guide us past any other such tricks?"