"S@~*, if you want me shooting this bad girl in the dark where I can see f!*~ all, I'm in," Ethel almost grins as she spins her pistol.
When Dorgrum mentions searching the carriage, she shrugs.
"Might as well, I guess."
She kicks the coach door in and tries looking inside.
Dorgrum continues to search through the carriage while he listens to his companions. "Can you really not see anything at all in the dark?" he asks Ethel with earnest curiosity. "I always assumed humans must be able to see something, just poorly..."
You find nothing further of interest in the carriage.
"Only special humans can see in the dark. Most need torch or magic," Pickle said while poking through the carriage.
"Unfortunate," he grumbled after coming up empty handed.
He headed back toward the street. "This one would like to poke around a bit more for clues but, if it's getting too late, that is fine too."
"At my age? I can see jack s+$!. When I was younger it wasn't much better." She frowns. "Now I'm thinking, how does your sparkly night vision work with sleeping and stuff? Do you see the inside of your head when you close your eyes?"
Pickle stretch the top and bottom eyelid of one eye, revealing more of the eyeball. "This one just has big eyes," he said, grinning.
"Whatever we decide, this one is confident we should eat first." His stomach growled as if in confirmation.
Dorgrum stops dead in his tracks at the human's question, a befuddled look overtaking his face. "It's just... black when I close my eyes, as I assume it is for you... I don't see color in the darkness, only black and white, and shades of gray... I suppose, if there were some interesting pattern on the inside of my eyelids, I might be able to see it? Or maybe not... it would be so close I'd only see a tiny bit of it, and probably couldn't tell there was a pattern? I've never thought about it before..."
When Mr Pickles mentions dinner, the dwarf begins walking again, but he seems distracted and is winking and blinking a lot. "Yes, food sounds good... Let's get some food."
"The inn sounds good to this one," Pickle headed into the building and picked a table for the three of them. After a moment, he flagged down an employee so they could order.
As you await your partridge and fish and broad beans, you notice that that fellow, Quintus or Quentin, with the sweaty prophesying, is no longer in the common room.
Dorgrum approaches the barkeep while waiting for his food. "Excuse me," he says as politely as he's able, "do you know where the man who was rambling earlier got off to?"
The barkeep, a stocky human with callused hands, shrugs at the badger-dwarf. "Quen something? He disappeared. Paid his bill, for what it's worth. To be honest, he was making other lodgers nervous. We like to run a good, solid base for monster hunters here, and several other folks have been out and about..."
He sighs, pausing from rinsing mugs. "Ah, anyhow. Happy to put you all up for the night," he says with a tired smile. "I'm Callum. Callum Shay. I heard you were called in by Galia? She does a fine haircut, good amount of medicine as well. Although I'm more partial to our brews than hers," he says with a chuckle, indicating various barrels of ale and cider. "And I heard you met up with Goody Lyons. That's mighty kind of you," he says, his eyes bright.
Dorgrum, you can tell that Ser Shay is not incredibly happy with the situation in Shimmerford, which is unsurprising, but that he's sincere in wishing Galia and Mordha Lyons well...and it seems some other monster hunters have been through his establishment recently. From his reticence to say much more, you surmise that like many, they went out and did not return.
[ooc]nudge nudge! ;) I've been still convalescing/dealing with health stuff, but I can post, yay![ooc]
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"Monster hunters? You'd make more money running a pest control business. Anyway, what's your take on this whole thing? Cultists, the witch, all the bloody gods of the world telling you this place is nasty and you should leave?"
Ethel eyes a peanut miraculously mosquito free lying at the edge of the counter.
Pickle licked his lips as a steaming bowl was brought out for him.
All excitement for a hot meal left his body when the bowl was set before him. A few vegetables floated in the grayish brown broth. Pickle looked up and around the room as if expecting someone to shout "Gotcha!"
When no such thing happened, Pickle moved the vegetables around with his spoon. "Ethel," the Kholo scooped up one measly hunk of fat from the broth, "this one is ready to be done with this cursed town now." Pickle squeezed his eyes shut and began the arduous task of eating the "meal."
Shay blinks and sighs. "This town isn't cursed. Something has taken root in the woods, yeah, but it isn't the Witch. Aside from Miss Lyons, who must have done something impolite in her younger days, the Witch protects us. If you want to find the source of evil, look where it usually hides: in the hearts of humans."
He scans the lot of you. "So are you headed out to the woods, then? Or are you abandoning us? I wouldn't blame you either way. It's true--there may be very little reward for so much risk. I think one of those folks who headed out was here strictly for the chance of gold, based on their armor."
"No, no," Dorgrum assures the barkeep, "we're still planning to check out the woods. Our human... acquaintance can't see in the dark so we're going to wait until morning and then head out there. Do you have any idea where in the woods this evil has taken root? Or, maybe, where we could find the Witch? If she's been protecting the town, she might have some idea where to look for the true source of the troubles?"
"Everyone who has headed out to look hasn't come back, except maybe that Tian woman--you've seen her around. Some half-elf in golden armor, must have been one of those idiot Iomedeans or something, and a feller in all white, both disappeared. I think the Tian-Xiu was looking for one of them."
He shakes his head. "This can't be the Witch. The Witch protects us. Everyone knows that. This is a bunch of hollering down a tree trunk...I think it's, well, I dunno. Not the Ghlaunderites, that's for sure."
Pickle squeezed his eye shut and slurped up a bit of the broth before giving up on the meal entirely. He sighed and leaned towards the others. They seemed to be getting somewhere with the barkeep at least.
“Odd that everyone blames the witch when you say she is the town’s protector, this one thinks. The Ghlaunderites…they are the cultists we’ve heard about, no? And these two monster hunters, Galia mentioned seeing them as well. Did you happen to see which direction they went?”
Ethel, who has been eating her slop without even batting an eye, shoves a spoonful of broth in her mouth.
"Yeah, we'll go there tomorrow, guns blazing and all. Whatever moves'll get fat with lead." She looks at a greyish brown cube floating in the broth. "Perhaps it's one of the locals who's set up this whole racket. Having trouble finding food, get started raising some mosquitoes, set some traps, wait for the adventurers, and, boom, there's some variety for you right there. Suppose they could also be interested in equipment. Some of these hobos carry stuff you wouldn't believe."
Ethel seems largely unaware their host might take this theory the wrong way, or about the technical difficulties that might be involved with rearing mosquitoes.
"Oh? You have spare guns for us to use?" Pickle's tone implied a serious question but the twinkle in his eye gave away the joke.
Shay, to his credit, nods at Ethel. "It could be a local. Why they would drive out the entirety of their own town, their livelihood...that's something especially wicked. But nothing's impossible."
He rubs his chin and thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. "Well, it certainly isn't me," he says with a chuckle. "We're hurting for business. Speaking of which, you'll be staying the night?"
***
Pickle leaned in conspiratorially, "You are certain it is not the witch causing these...troubles. Is there, perhaps, a cave, or bog, or some other troublesome place that she is known to haunt?"
Shay peers at Pickle as if he hadn't seen the gnoll clearly before.
"The Witch is everywhere," he says enigmatically.
"No one can be everywhere," Pickle chuckled. When he realized Shay was not, in fact, joking, Pickle strangled his laughter. "Perhaps...a night's rest will do us all good, this one thinks. Hmm?" He glanced to Dorgrum and Ethel.
"I certainly recommend it," says Shay, chuckling. He leans his callused hands on the bar and gives the gnoll another lookover.
"Look, I don't mean to sound like a perpetrator of hoodoo here, but the Witch...it's not something that you just visit. It's not in a given place. It just appears. It touches people, here," he says, tapping his temple. "Sometimes for good, sometimes not so much for good. Most of the times people talk about it, they're lying and made something up or just got scared of their own behinds while out in the woods."
He pushes back and resumes working behind the bar. "You understand, friend?"
"I understand its time for some sleep," Dorgrum answers as he finishes his drink. "Maybe the witch will visit us in our dreams with some insights."
You all sleep well enough, although the whine of mosquitoes and midges troubles you through the evening, and one manages to get into Pickle's nose at an inopportune middle-of-the night hour.
The morning's washing water has been strained, but you do see a few insect legs floating on the surface, and none of you are eager to visit the privy, which by necessity has venting, through which you are pretty sure all number of vermin have flown through, based on the buzzing you hear behind the moon-marked door.
Shay greets you when you come downstairs with hearty helpings of poached quails' eggs, spiced fish, and fresh slices of dark bread laden with herbs and roasted onion. Incense drifts lazily by each window, keeping the hordes of winged things at bay, for the most part.
Shay looks outside at the misty, steaming streets. "It was just spitting dew last night, but I hear it may rain this afternoon. It'll blow down the skeeters for a bit while it falls, but they'll be right back the moment it stops."
"That sounds like the most welcome rain I've heard of in a very long time," Dorgrum says with a grin as he claims a plate of the delicious looking breakfast. He plops down on a bench next to his teammates and digs in with little regard for decorum.
He's more than halfway through eating before he looks up to inquire, "d'ya think we should head out right away so we get the rain while we're in th'woods, or should we wait 'til it starts to go and hope it lasts a good while?"
Pickle took a seat and smiled down at the breakfast. Now that was more like it! "This one would prefer to start before the rain hits," he said. before popping a piece of bread into his mouth. "Better to have the relief of rain later than to be swarmed while wearing wet clothes. Or so this one thinks."
Shay looks at Ethel, waiting for a retort, but the gunslinger is uncharacteristically quiet this morning.
"Ah...I was probably being too mysterious last night, friends." He collects plates and offers some mugs of tea on the house, spiced with, of course, citron and other bug-repelling spices.
"You'll want to look for ponds. And Witchtop Hill. There's a clear trail to the Hill. As for the various 'heroes' who stumbled into the woods, I'm sure they left tracks. Those are my suggestions. The Witch--people don't see her during the day much, and to be honest, no one besides Mordha has seen the Witch up on that hill in a long, long time, but it's...popular."
He shrugs and busies himself with other customers.
Pickle slurped on the tea, expecting something truly nightmarish but was pleasantly surprised. "That hill has already come up before," he mused. "This one thinks we should start there. If nothing else, to cross it off our list."
"Let's go," says Ethel, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "No time like the present to have the Witch turn our brains into #$%^^% mush." She twirls her dual barrelled pistol and reholsters it, then pats her frying pan. "Let's go make some f*&king flapjacks."