Oh, apologies. I think Odelai mentioned, but Please try to avoid directly revealing Threshold's presence. Make Up whatever plausible story you would like, be it deserters, trading adventurers, or what have you, but try to avoid giving out presence away. The Council has no record of Threshold in the histories, so they are operating on the assumption that we have minimal impact on the region. We are too do the same unless and until told otherwise.
Slip smiles and flashes a thumbs up at Council Representative Lillibet. lɪləbɛt. A little harder to see, but not too bad. "Thank you!"
As she leaves, Slip turns to the others, fixing his eyes on each in turn. "Yash. Senna. And...?" He indicates the lady with the hat, lingering on her for a moment. If they were to get to know each other--and it looked like the other three already did--he'd need all of their names at minimum.
Around this time Xing also says her goodbyes and disappears off to another assignment.
"Oh! Lady Sable. Pleased to meet you Slip."
Introductions made, Senna says, "Are we ready to head out?"
Yash nodded. "We go."
He then looked down at the newest member of the group, smiled, and waved a finger. "No die."
Your trip to the South gate is marked by people in the houses and businesses lining the streets. Some are standing in their windows or under overhangs to watch the Departing. They keep calling you that. Not scouts or foragers, but the Departing. Some give little trinkets or gifts to favored individuals. You suddenly get the feeling that volunteering for a first-wave scouting mission is a little bit of a bigger deal than you thought.
At South Gate you are met by several Council Representatives and a short line to depart. Just before you is a group of humans in wilderness clothing taking bets on who among them will run into trouble first. You hear one of them call a gruff, dark man "Sim".
Just behind you is a group of 21 heavily armed and armored folks including 6 obvious archers. They're leader, Arthur the Radiant you presume, is anything but. His old style half plate is worn and scratched (though well kept). His auburn hair is a tangled mess and he smells faintly of wood smoke. You only know he's a leader because of the obvious respect his people show for him.
At the gate you are each given five days of trail rations including jerky, smoked sausage, hard tack bread, cheese, and dried vegetables. You are then given one set of map making tools for the group by a wizened old man with ink stained hands.
You pass under the gate and into the crisp night air. As soon as you cross the threshold of Threshold the ground turns to mossy soil and heavy evergreen scents. The world seems to wrap you in a close embrace. The forest of tall pines and firs block much of the sky, a few of which are silhouetted against a low and setting moon. What isn't blocked by the trees or muffled by fallen needles is swallowed by the clammy, hanging fog. It clings to you, invading every and any crack in your clothing. You haven't gone two minutes before Threshold is effectively lost to you. It is swallowed in the pre-dawn gloom.
The wilderness group ahead of you disappears to your right as soon as you exit. The warriors tail you for longer, though they are quiet now in the gloom even with the clanking of their armor.
Senna chuckles at Yash's comment, including Slip in on the joke. "Yash is loosening up. You got four words and a smile from him on the first day. That's a record."
Outside the town walls and away from the other teams, she speaks quietly, "In a forest this dense, we'll need every sense to find a settlement: listen for noises, smell for smoke, maybe look for smoke above the treeline or lights among the trees."
Should we try to find some high ground? Maybe get a better lay of the land? We could miss a town just a stone's throw away wandering around in this thicket."
Pleased that the others had seemed to pick up on his communication needs without him having to make them explicit, Slip grins at Yash and Senna. "I'm honored," he responds. "And I'll do my best. Not to die, that is."
Outside the town, Slip grins at Senna's recommendation. "I'll leave the listening to you, if you don't mind. The rest though," he points to his eyes, glimmering in the moonset with a tapetum lucidum, "I can do."
The small man seems keen to demonstrate himself useful right away, both in not drawing unnecessary attention and at helping to find tracks.
Your lunar gift becomes much more powerful when the moon is full. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Stealth checks. On dates during and after the first quarter of a lunar phase but before end of the last quarter (the half of the lunar cycle where the moon is fuller), this bonus increases to +2. During the full moon, this bonus increases to +4.
In spite of his armor, he demonstrates himself as sneaky as Senna. But the true coup is when Slip seems to almost zone out and become like a dowsing rod. He draws out his scimitar and lets his feet carry him almost stumbling this way and that.
The psychic searcher can use Sense Motive instead of Perception or Survival to both find and follow tracks, using the same DCs listed under the Survival skill.
If there had been people in his path, he'd find them. Maybe.
The party sets off into the silence and the gloom. The pine needles muffle their steps and the undergrowth is relatively light, consisting mainly of taller shrubs and ferns that can escape the suffocating carpet of needles. The two hills Threshold settled between are obvious high points, but scaling them would take you far off of your assigned course, so you make due with a lesser rise not far off. Lady Sable has trouble just telling which direction is south (though she would never let on, of course), so it falls mainly to Slip to guide the party. He finds, or stumbles upon, a deer trail in short order and you follow its meandering track until the rising sun turns the fog into a glowing radiance all around you. It burns off minutes later and the world opens up at the top of the smaller hill.
Ustalav opens before you after three hours of walking. The morning sun burns bright to your left, punching it's way though obstinate cover. The fog and dew laid drops sparkle off of deep green and brown trees. A slight breeze wanders by over the bluff and with it lifts the heavy oppression of the fog. The world feels new.
Off to the right, though, heavy clouds meet the rejuvenating sun with determined, threatening gloom and a rumble that might be thunder, though it's miles away and quiet.
After a moment, you focus on your pursuits. You spot a break in the trees that might be a road running roughly NW to SE not far from you, and a slight haze that might be smoke, though it's hard to tell with the morning sun in that direction. There's also a small lake to the SW. That's a promising possibility. Directly south there isn't much but more trees and trees out to the horizon. To be fair the rolling forest makes the horizon much closer than on flat plain, but still.
Outside the town, Slip grins at Senna's recommendation. "I'll leave the listening to you, if you don't mind."
The Sorcerer considers this for a minute, before putting the pieces together. She rolls her eyes at her own denseness. She taps Slip on the shoulder to get his attention, and turns to speak to him directly. ”I apologize. I didn’t realise you have hearing issues. No offense meant.”
LATER…
”Pretty dawn.” Senna offers, while considering the tactical situation. ”Since we’re already heading that way, I think we should check if that’s a road. IF it is - and we choose to follow it - I’d suggest we stay off and parallel it. Armies tend to like using roads. I’m a bit more excited about scouting down towards that lake first. What do you folks think?” She translates her ideas into Orkish for Yash’s benefit.
With the tap, Slip turns. "Oh, don't worry, Ms. Senna," he responds. "No offense is taken." He mimics the tapping motion. "That's a good way to get my attention, by the by, though I prefer a wave in front of my face. Less chance I jump." He smiles. There were plenty of things in the world to jump at.
The deer tracks lead Slip to subconsciously mirror the hoofed stride of the gentle beast for more than a few paces before he catches himself about to rub himself on a tree and shakes his head to rouse himself from doing something embarrassing.
"Beautiful," Slip says of the dawn, not knowing that he had essentially repeated Senna's observation. He turns in time to see Senna discussing plans. "Lakes are good," he agrees. "People gather near waterways."
Once he realizes that Senna's words don't make much sense in Taldane, he figures that she must be talking in another language. To Yash? His eyes glaze over and he tries to maintain attention for when someone else joins the conversation.
You make your way back down the reverse slope of the hill and toward the lake. The rolling landscape directs your path to a certain degree. You are forced to leave the game trail after a while, but that's not a problem. As long as you're going down, you figure, you'll end up at the lake.
Another hour of rough trekking passes and the ground slowly levels out. The forest doesn't feel quite so close as it did this morning. The lack of fog and the light greatly increase your lines of sight the noise of birds and insects makes things feel... right. As you near the lake, you come to a clearing. Several horses graze here (six in total), and don't spook upon hearing or spotting you. their ungroomed manes, tails, and coats makes them seem wild until you spot bridles and saddles on four of them.
Erebus looks a little nervous at the sight of the horses. He crouches down, trying to stay just out of sight, and tries to whisper. It's a harsh, ragged sound, more throaty than necessary, but it is a whisper.
"I'm no good with animals. But saddles mean people. Probably."
”Yes, but are they from a town, an army, or something else? I’m not the stealthiest person but I can become invisible. Perhaps I should take a look?”
Arrows (46):
Blunts (33):
Perfect Strike (3):
Ki Pool (4):
1st Spells (6):
Blood Intensity (1):
Dancing Lights (3):
Inspired (1):
Before Senna disappears, Slip motions her over to him.
"Just in case," he says "This should protect you."
If she assents, Slip motions her to focus on his eyes. He takes a deep breath and maintains strong eye contact. One turquoise. One gold. His pupils grow so that very little of the iris is maintained, and then they suddenly snap back into their original small shape. If they're paying attention, Lady Sable and Yash might catch a glimpse of Senna's shadow flickering.
"There," he reiterates. "Go ahead."
Senna brown eyes stare into Slip's more exotic ones. As his eyes return to normal, she blinks and raises an amused eyebrow, "If you wanted to stare deeply into my eyes and try to make me melt, you could have just asked. You flirt." She gives Slip a wink and sneaks off.
Slip blushes furiously, his shoulders rising and his breath catching. He turns to look at Lady Sable and Yash. "I wasn't...I didn't..." He huffs and looks back down into the grass to wait.
In general they seem happy. They haven't been groomed in a long time, and it's showing. Tangled hair, burred coats, and dirty tails are the order of the day. You're concerned about the ones still sporting tack though. It can't be healthy to have a saddle on for a long time.
As one of them moves out from in front of one of the saddled ones, you notice a leg still in the stirrup leaning upright against the horse's side.
The sorceress pulls any fruits from her rations and slowly emerges from the trees, her bow held low. She doesn’t approach the horses immediately. Instead, she makes soothing sounds, and tries to keep them calm as she slowly approaches them. Unfortunately, she knows nothing about such animals so the best she can manage is soothing sounds, moving slowly, and offering them fruit and encouragement. ”Pretty horses. Good horses. How about you let Auntie Senna offer you some fruit and get those saddles and dismembered parts off you? Maybe you like a good curry comb?”
Arrows (46):
Blunts (33):
Perfect Strike (3):
Ki Pool (4):
1st Spells (6):
Blood Intensity (1):
Dancing Lights (3):
Inspired (1):
A few minutes after Senna leaves, a pair of the horses seem to notice something on the opposite side of the little clearing and make minor moves away from the noise. Soon after, Senna slowly emerges from the trees, her bow held low. She doesn’t approach the horses immediately. Instead, she makes soothing sounds, and tries to keep them calm as she slowly approaches them. Unfortunately, she knows nothing about such animals so the best she can manage is soothing sounds, moving slowly, and offering them fruit and encouragement. ”Pretty horses. Good horses. How about you let Auntie Senna offer you some fruit and get those saddles and dismembered parts off you? Maybe you like a good curry comb?”
The horses eye her suspiciously, but not threateningly. One of the smaller ones slowly approaches, lured by the smell of the fruit. It is lacking both tack and bridle. The rest stay nearby, but seem less willing to engage with Senna.
The little one sniffs her hand and the fruit disappears.
As Senna reappears, a bit too far for Slip to easily read her lips, Slip asks Yash and Lady Sable, "Did you hear what she said?"
It doesn't immediately look like she needs their help. But maybe.
Senna spends a few minutes stroking and speaking to the small horse while getting more fruit out of her rations. She's trying to show the other horses she's no threat while waiting for any of her allies who-know-anything-about-handling-these-skinny-cows emerges to help. She gives the small horse a good scratch while suggesting, "How about you take me over to meet your friends?" She holds some fruit in front of the horse's face trying to encourage it to walk towards the rest of the... flock. It's a flock of horses, right? A bevy of horses?
Yash looked down at the smaller man and muttered "pretty horses." He shrugged before standing up. He whistled, and started moving slowly towards the horses, "tck, tck" noises coming from his mouth.
Slip blinks a few times as Yash's words, unsure if they were repetition or commentary. "Oh," he says, shrugging. He follows several paces behind the half-orc, not wanting to get in between him and the herd.
Lady Sable also follows behind Yash, clearly trusting his skills.
The horses respond immediately to Yash. The little one makes sure to empty Senna's hand first, but all promptly approach and watch him intently. Here you are able to finally get a good accounting of them.
They are all war horses, most likely. Their reaction to Yash's call says as much. The second evidence is the gear. It's all well made and marked with a national crest.
The third and most obvious clue is the two unpaired legs from separate horses that you recover. They are both torn off at the hip and exude the sickly sweet odor of the dead.
"Taldor," Slip says as he sees the green and blue of the empire emblazoned with the lion. What was their mythical lion creature called? The Gris-something...oh well.
Contrary to popular belief, being deaf did not magically grant the deaf person supernaturally-enhanced senses. So the stench of death was not overwhelming. And unfortunately, for Slip, it was all too familiar.
"If I recall correctly," Slip begins, swatting away a fly that had risen to his face, "That's the crest of the Taldan Empire. Back when it was an Empire. Which is now, of course." Didn't they still consider themselves an Empire even after all of their former colonies and territories had seceded? Oh well. "Taldan forces are here fighting alongside the dwarves of the Kingdom of Kraggodan and the Knights of Ozem of the lands that will become Lastwall."
He wrinkles his nose in disgust. He knew that it was reasonable to expect the hungry dead, but it was still, well, gross to see rent limbs like this.
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"Taldan forces are here fighting alongside the dwarves of the Kingdom of Kraggodan and the Knights of Ozem of the lands that will become Lastwall."
Senna glares at the horse with a bit of pique after it foully betrays her in favor of Yash after she stuffed its belly. Putting that aside, she starts removing the severed limbs and examining them for any clue as to what killed the riders. She also removes the saddles to prevent further harm to the horses.
"It looks like we may have acquired some steeds. Since Taldor is one of the combatants here... we probably don't want to get caught leading horses with their livery. We might get mistaken for their enemies."
Secretly, Senna is already wondering if any Taldans they meet might leap to that conclusion about the party in any case... with a half-orc and a Kayal in their midst.
Lady Sable doesn't have too much to add to what's already been stated, but she does a little speculating.
If we strip the livery I doubt anyone would suspect a thing. It would hardly even occur to any Taldan troops that horse in such an unkept condition could be from the TAaldan Horse. I would border on the criminal. "
"It would also take some time for them to come to be in this condition I would think. My guess would be whatever befell the riders didn't happen very recently, or very close to where we are."
"The legs do make me wonder though, because the same odd thing happened twice. Is anyone knowledgable in anatomy or the nature of wounds? I would almost think they were attacked from above, bitten and then yanked upward off their horses."
Lady Sable takes a brief look at the legs, wondering how long they have been decomposing, and where they were severed by weapons or other means.
"Bury stuff?" Yash asked.
Slip has gingerly approached the horses, or rather strafed around them at a distance so that he could still see most of what the others were saying. An intrusive thought about the horses bubbles up from within him and he shakes it down. The sight of the leg had...no, not now. Shove it down.
Not being good with anatomy, Slip turns his attention once more to look for other clues of what had happened. Those wisps of latent memory left behind, less in foot or hoof prints and more in...
...energy.
"Or the livery might help us blend in," he offers. Surely the Whispering Tyrant had employed living among and within his armies of the dead, but why would this motley group be mistaken as such?
Senna offers, "We're here to scout and trade. I think we're better off not looking like either side in this war. we could be mistaken for deserters or combatants."
Senna heal: The saddles have been on the horses entirely to long, many days of not over a week. You remove the saddles gently to reveal sores and filthy blankets. It's a wonder some of them haven't died of infection.
Sable/yash heal: You can't tell what did this. Evidence of both slicing and ripping is present.
Slip: You catch latent wisps of surprise and sudden fear, but it is an old impression and hard to get anything certain. An ambush, maybe?
Examining the horses’ backs, Senna says, ”Whatever killed these soldiers, it was days ago. So, what to do?”
She considers for a moment, ”I think Yash is right. We bury or hide the gear. Then we take the horses with us and continue scouting. We can use them for barter or a quick escape, if needed. Thoughts?”
"I think that's a fine way to go about things. Should we double back and see about the possible road and smoke?"
Slip is too focused to pay attention to what the others are saying, but turns back in time to see Lady Sable talking about doubling back. Hopefully he wouldn't need to ride a horse. He had never been particularly good at that. He nods and tries to help out with the burying efforts.
Senna moves toward the water. Her eyes scan the coastline of the lake. "If we don't see any signs of a village by the lake, that sounds like a good next step."
It's easy enough to bury the remains once you get through the dense root layer of the meadow. It puts up a fight, but you manage to carve through in the end.
Senna takes a close look around the lake, or the part of it she can see and thinks there might be smoke haze around the west bank (that would be the one closer to the road and likely town). It might also be remnants of the morning fog. It's hard to tell.
Senna pulls out and updates the map, deliberately not marking Threshold's location and only generally noting the forest's boundary along the other side of the road to give the impression that Threshold's location is an area they have only scouted from afar.
She puts the mapping equipment away. "Everyone ready to go? Yash, can you handle a couple horses? You have a knack for it."
Lady Sable is ready to keep going.
Slip is happy to leave the horse-herding to someone who takes to it. He is careful to stay well out of hoof-kicking, head-smashing range. "Let's look at that smoke, or fog, or whatever it is," he offers.
The party makes their way around the lake. It's not as fast as the road and you have to pick your path to accommodate the horses, but the worst monster you see is a downright obese squirrel who chitters all kinds of abuse at you as you pass under his domain.
As you approach the vicinity of the smoke, yes it's for sure smoke now, it gets harder to follow. The musk of pine needles mixed with the wood smoke beautifully as the sun approaches noon and the temperature climbs. You track down a moderate camp site, six tents in a circle surrounding a smouldering, still smoking fire pit and spit (empty, unfortunately). The tents are black and heavy supported with fresh cut branches. You see nobody nearby (though you can't see the whole site) and no sentinel challenges you on approach.
You spot an elderly man with silvery-white hair sitting at the fire. Oh, and bodies piled in one of the tents facing the lake. Lots of bodies.
Slip encourages the circle around and points at the elderly man. "He looks too old to be a soldier," Slip says in his harsh whisper, beginning to mix in a few signs in case the others want to start picking some things up. "A local, perhaps, helping?"
Hopefully helping.
The kayal isn't eager to approach such an ominous scene, but he's ready to muster the courage if the others are.
Senna considers the odd scene for a moment. Given the time and place... maybe this fellow is a local or maybe he's some foul creature of the Whispering Tyrant that only looks like a nice old man. In the former case, Slip in his black armor could scare the old fellow to death. And, if the latter case was true, no one should face that alone. She hands off her horse's reins to one of the others. "Let's both go."
Lady Sable is quite suspicious of the old man considering he's the only living person they've come across while finding two groups of corpses. She's interested in circling around to a point where she can get a better look at the stacked bodies, wanting to know if they share uniforms or signs of dismemberment with the partial horsemen from earlier.
The man either doesn't detect you or doesn't react to you. He leans over the fire and starts trying to encourage it back to life.
Yash followed along, leading the horses as best he could. He took up Senna's reins as she made to scout the camp ahead. As the others made towards the camp, Yash began to lead the horses back aways, looking for a solid tree to tie them too, just in case.
Slip clears his throat to make sure his voice comes out the way he intends. He has little control over his tone or pitch, in spite of years of trying to understand what others in his life mean when they reference the concepts, so the old man gets what he gets.
"Hello there," he says, doing his best to sound friendly. "Pretty morning for a grim task," he offers.