The whistle intrrupts Dramm's note taking. He grabs his gear and gives Selgaer a little time to move ahead quietly, then approaches once the Faun gives the all clear.
Blister is a surprise. Dramm watches him carefully.
"The Elder's keen attitude is concerning." Dramm growls. His eyes burn into the Goblin and his tattoos glow softly. "I don't think I like the idea of Zeke knowing anything just yet."
"Uh, yeah, yeah! He don't need to know just yet. Maybe you wanna throw me a few coppers for my cooperation?" Blister asks hopefully.
Sel rolls his eyes and tosses the goblin a few coppers. I hear any talk of it, I'm coming after you.
Blister snatches up the coins and, if allowed, scurries off back to town.
Before letting the goblin go, Tabog presses him about what he said earlier.
"Craven hasn't been seen for some time, if you already know they've been meeting here. Why did you come back to do more spying? Unless you knew he wasn't going to show up and had other plans..."
Tabog pulls the draw on his bow back a bit further, threateningly.
"I knew the broad had been coming out here. Didn't know she were meetin' somebody till I overheard ya talkin' tonight." Blister shrugs and picks his nose enthusiastically.
Dramm is satisfied with Blister's promises and the glow fades.
"You seem like someone who sees a lot without being seen, Blister. You might be able to make a little more coin if we find you useful. What do you know about the midwife and Merry? And what kind of life would Merry have with the Elder Zeke?"
"I don't remember anyone saying a damn thing about Craven or this meeting. What did I say about lying to me!?"
Blister winces a bit at Tabog's outburst. He turns to Dramm, though. "Merry's mom beats her any chance she gets. Probably jealous that her daughter got the looks she don't got. Zeke ain't no looker neither, and he's kinda a prick, but who ain't? He's rich at least, so the girl won't want for money."
"Old news goblin... Get out of here, we'll be watching you."
Tabog sighs and rubs his forehead.
"I guess we just keep waiting? Or should we scout around more and see what there is too see. Tracks from their past meetings perhaps?"
Tabog directs his last statement toward Selgaer.
I'm not sure we've got much more to go on until daylight. Snooping around in the dark isn't going to help us find what we need. Perhaps we call it a night and check out the farms in the morning. See what we see.
Imedren let the others talk throughout the exchange with the goblin, Blister. At TaBog's question, Imedren shakes his head.
"The reading I performed was specific, Craven won't be arriving here tonight.
I think the tracks would be fresher if we examined the farms tonight instead..." he bit his lip, thinking. "It also seems like whoever is burning the farms is getting bolder. This town could probably do with some extra eyes on the lookout tonight."
Tabog nods at Imedren.
"I agree, if we don't want to track Craven's whereabouts tonight then we should set up at a farm or two and do some preventative reconnaissance... How many farms are left, now?"
While he talks, he inspects the branches in the area looking for anything straight enough to make arrows from.
Joy says nothing while the goblin is near.
After Blister is gone, she says:
"I shouldn't have said anything. Now he knows things that could hurt Merry."
"Let's go to a farm."
It takes an hour or so to reach the latest farm to be attacked. Parts of the ruined barn still smolder from fires that ravaged it. The site has been ransacked of valuables, and crude graffiti in the Dark Speech adorn the walls.
Joy gulps but keeps her eyes open.
Imedren grimaced as he saw the graffiti. "Dark speech... this evidence certainly does seem to lend itself to Fomor attacking here. Does anyone know how to read this?" he asks to no one in particular before walking around to examine the rest of the grounds.
Imedren finds the tracks of about a half dozen humanoids that moved through here recently. An effort has been made to hide their trail, but he is able to see that it leads west towards the Old Wood. Curiously, the prints have been made by boots, not bare feet or hooves, suggesting something other than beastmen attacked the farm.
"Correction." Imedren said with surprise while looking back to the group. "It wasn't Fomor at all. This was done by otherwise civilized races. There are boot prints, partially obscured, but they are leading back into the Old Wood. We might be able to track them before they come back on their own."
"Let's find them before they hurt someone else."
If these are boot tracks, we could be looking at a fake beastmen conspiracy.
"I doubt its all fake. There's probably some truth to the fact that the Fomor are in the area, but it's easy enough to cover it up attacks by pretending to be what's already there."
"The harvesters, false beastmen attacks, and an agent of the Inquisition going missing all at the same time and place. Randolphus is frighteningly keen in anticipating gathering evil."
Dramm inspects the boot prints.
"This wasnt long ago. It will be difficult, but we may be able to locate their camp tonight. Or hideout in town. We may even catch them unaware.
You set off in pursuit of the tracks. Despite the gloom, Selgaer's tracking skills allow you to swiftly follow the trail, heading west by northwest through the forest. After traveling for 2 miles, Tabog, who is scouting ahead, spies faint lights shining in the darkness. Creeping closer, he can see the entrance to a cave. Four men in brigandine armor keep watch with crossbows at their sides, flickering torches providing faint illumination. The men haven't noticed the assassin watching them.
Hmmmm... Opportunity for some interesting shenanigans...
Tabog returns to the group and relays his findings as well as his most cunning plan!
"I suggest we set up an ambush. Well, more specifically some kind of murder trap and then we ambush the rest."
He yawns, gives them a curt thumbs up and looks at the the rest of the party. He gets the feeling they expected him to do more while out and about...
"Er...how do we do that?"
"There are options." Dramm chalecks his bag of parts and tools. "Dead drop, snap trap, whip trap, hook snares, ankle biters... Its harder to kill with a trap than youd think, but crippling is effective too. We just need them unable to run or effectively fight."
Dramm pulls out the parts for a bear trap and some heavy twine.
"Sharpen some sticks, about 6 inch points." Dramm says to no one in particular, already drawn into the habitual motions. "We will need to draw them to us. I'll place them along the paths. A net from above could catch reinforcements. Joy, you would do well hiding in the trees to drop it."
Having said his piece, Dramm starts to hum softly to himself as he works.
Joy looks a little uncomfortable, then nods.
"I'll do it. These people hurt others. We have to stop them."
It was late, Imedren was tired and his body was sore from the wounds he'd nearly died from earlier. He crossed his arms at TaBog's response. "Isn't that what you're best at, TaBog? Thank you for the information but did you bother scouting the rest of the area? You found an entrance to the cave but are there more ways in or out?" he sighed.
"Having traps is well and good... but what guarantee do we have that they'll even walk into our prepared field? TaBog said they were in front of a cave, what if they just decide to retreat inside and warn whoever else is there that there is trouble? Shouldn't we simply get as close as we can and hit them hard and fast?" He said this as he narrowed his eyes at TaBog, judging, and began tapping his arms impatiently.
Dramm's humming stops.
"Caution isn't a bad thing. Four on one doesn't seem like good odds to me, Imedren." He inspects the teeth of the trap. "We should focus on what's next. We have to be careful here. We can find a way to draw them out. I had an idea about that, and Tabog will have to hold up his part too. We can draw him with his voice. A song, something to charm their minds. Even if only one of them is drawn, others will follow their friend. When some don't come back, that turns to fear instead of preparedness in their defenses."
He glances about the group before resuming his humming and tinkering.
I can also send someone in to scout for us; let me see if I can find a small friend out here.
Sel will look for a night animal that can easily sneak past the guards and scout the cave, and then have it report back to us.
After a few minutes, Selgaer finds a mouse. The faun just so happens to speak mouse! He convinces the little critter to scout out the cave, and it nods before scurrying off to do just that.
The mouse returns soon thereafter, reporting that there appear to be another sixteen humans camped out inside the cave. About half of them are awake while the others are asleep. It appears the cave is a small one, with only one way in or out.
"Any who are bunched together, I could entangle.", Joy offers after hearing Sel's findings.
Good job, little friend, Sel tells the mouse, giving it some crumbs to nibble on. Could you tell if they were actually humans or if some of them were other types of people? Were any tied up?
To the group he says, Just because there's a dozen and a half people, doesn't mean they're all murderers and arsonists. Some of them could be prisoners. I think we should take out the guards first, and see how things go from there. I can do a run by and see if I can get them to take chase, leading them to the traps where you can ambush them. How's that sound?
"Suppose you're right. Doesn't seem worth the risk to us to fight them like that though. Town won't know the difference if we dont save them. They think the farmers are all dead already." Dramm tightens a rope around some stakes. "This isn't like in Verge proper. We dont have to maintain appearances. We should eliminate the threat for Randolphus, but we aren't obligated to save these people."
Exasperation creeps into Dramm's voice. He suddenly bites it back and Joy catches a guilty look on his face. He covers it from the rest of the group with a loud sigh
"Maybe we can still help if you want to. It would make Ezekia happy to hear it anyway, right? Anophth... Anophth kept me from dumping those Rude Boys in the lake. He'd probably say something about potential customers and how grateful the mayor would be to have these people returned."
"Tabog says they have crossbows. The trees should provide you some cover, Selgaer. Maybe Joy can draw them to us with her Witch's fire. They may think it is a lantern moving between the trees and they could come to investigate. Tabog could act as a lost villager looking for family members from the farm. They might think he's easy prey."
The mouse tells Selgaer they appeared to be nothing more than humans. There didn't seem to be any prisoners.
"Let's try to knock out when we can.", Joy offers.
"Witch fire lasts for a minute, then I'll appear next to where it last was. I normally keep it pretty close. But it'll be fine so long as I call back the fire to a safe spot in time."
Joy seems very certain that this won't be a problem.
Sound plan, Dramm. I like it.
So Joy will provide a cunning distraction. Urunna and I will set up the ambush. Imedren and Dramm will provide the magical support. TaBog will look lost. Everyone will be doing what they're best at.
You take up your positions to enact your plan. Selgaer and Uruuna crouch in the underbrush alongside the spot where you have crafted the traps. Tabog clambers up into a tree while Dramm and Imedren move further down the path, out of line of sight. Joy conjures her witch fire and begins to move it around as if it were a torch in distress, while Tabog uses ventriloquism to call down and pretend to be a lost traveler.
The ruse works. Two of the sentries break away from the cave entrance to investigate the light and sound. They don't see Selgaer, Tabog, or Uruuna until it is too late, and they blunder into the traps! Both men scream in pain as the snares trigger and sharpened spikes stab into their legs!
Sel focuses on his prey and fires an arrow from the foliage.
Selgaer's arrow catches one of the brigands in the neck, and he gurgles blood as he falls to the ground!
There is no better time to test it. Imedren thought to himself as he pulled the energies inward.
A field of vibrant silver light formed around himself, he reached for it and seemingly into the stream of time itself. In the next instant, he then called upon the rippling purple energies that seemed to make up the corners of the world itself.
"If I can move through space and time now... what else can I do?"
Imedren's limits were being tested but while it was difficult, it wasn't impossible to conjure and hold this much magic within himself.
Imedren didn't move, yet.
Tabog jumps into the trees before the bandits reach the trapped area, doing his best to keep himself from giggling at the killings about to commence.
He sees the men fumble into the taps laid by Dramm, aims his already drawn arrow and fires!
As Tabog's arrow strikes the other trapped man, Uruuna takes him down with her own arrow. She quickly shifts aim to one of the sentries in front of the cave, dropping him with two more swift shots!
Dramm levels his crossbow at the remaining guard.
"Hells!" he curses under his breath when the shot goes wide and sinks into a tree short of the sentry.
The sentry shouts an alarm and returns fire, but he fails to hit. Joy's witch fire swoops past him harmlessly as he dodges away.
Sel moves forward to find a good spot in the foliage, from which he can fire at the fourth sentry and Amy other bandits exiting the cave.
Hearing the man shout and expecting more men to come pouring from the cave, Tabog jumps down and rushes through the brush until he's perpendicular to the entrance.
He gets as close to the mouth of the cave as he can; retaining cover behind anything large enough to hide behind, at least while crouched, and waits with an arrow drawn.
Imedren was moving faster than he had ever been before. He called upon the swirling chaotic energies to strengthen his offensive magic, he felt the familiar charge of electric red energy swirl through him.
Once empowered, he rushed forward toward the lone guard in front of the the cave. Imedren then ignored him, opting instead to warp inside the cave to find the optimally destructive spot.