Puc-Lee gently lays the corpse of the other guardsman down on the chair being careful to make sure no other dirt or dust gather upon Tatsuki's body. As Sneakerz performs his rituals he stretches his vestigial wings out eager for a change to stretch his aching muscles.
Once Skaav motions to the corpse in a hoisting motion, Puc-Lee's eyes widen slightly. This one is eager to help...yet my muscles need time to recover...
"You do Tatsuki great honor Skaav. May his spirit return the favor." Puc-Lee replies as he steps aside to allow Skaav to take up the burden now.
While they are at it, Castor looks for signs of struggle in the house, thinking they might be attacked or something. He might also look for other clues that can help their investigation.
Pollux silently gets out and searches the outside area surrounding the house to look for clues as well.
Skaav waits until all is ready, then hoists Tatsuki’s body onto his shoulder and awaits to be directed which way to go…
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Amila follows the others to Ren's home and watches as Sneakerz lays the guard out on his bed. She takes a look around to see if she can tell which of the gods he and his family revered, then considers what she might know about funerary rites.
"If I may, I'll say a a little prayer for him," she asks after Petal has added the flower.
"Just as the soft rain fills the streams,
Pours into the rivers and joins together in the oceans,
So may the goodness and light of your spirit
Flow into the River of Souls
And gain the favor of those it meets there."
After a moment of silence, she suggests heading to Tatsuki's home next. Though she suspects they will find the same thing there. "It's across the river, so we'll certainly see more of the town and maybe find some clue as to what happened."
Sneakerz nods in appreciation for all the help, his dry tear ducts wishing they could be more expressive at the situation. "Thank you. Next home, for Tatsuki." He heads outside, nodding in thanks to Skaav for the help.
Noting that there don't seem to be any signs of a struggle having happened here, Castor and Pollux step outside to look around while the rest of you set about laying Ren's body to rest. Looking around for some signs of what his beliefs might have been, Amila has no trouble identifying a small personal shrine to both Shizuru and Kofusachi located just off of the sleeping quarters. She offers up a simple prayer while Sneakerz and Petal see to making sure that his body is carefully placed in his bed, with a single rose placed in his folded hands. While none of these rites specifically invoke the Empress of Heaven or the Laughing God those inside the home feel a brief touch of warmth, as though you've stepped into a beam of sunlight. It fades as quickly as it came, but there's a lingering feeling of assurance that you've done what needed to be done.
Meanwhile, Castor and his eerie sibling search around the exterior of the home and the immediate vicinity to try and get any leads on where the other occupant might have gone. While Pollux isn't able to discern much of anything in all the fog, Castor does manage to find a single set of humanoid footprints leading away from the home and back up the path towards the main road. Though not as experienced with woodcraft as perhaps Skaav might be, Castor has observed enough to note that the tracks are spaced further apart than what is typical for a walking pace. Whoever the footprints belong to seems to have left the home in a hurry...
"Look at these tracks. Someone might have run from here and back to the road," Castor, followed by Pollux behind him, gets back inside the house and tells the others after they have performed the rites for the dead.
"I think we should follow them," he suggests.
Skaav looks at the footprints.
”Yes. A running stride, definitely. But…” Skaav hefts the body on his shoulder to readjust the weight…”Why is there someone running from this house…particularly. From what you explained to me, he who lived here was not killed here, but at the watchtower, and killed with this…deceased. Why is someone, or something, interested in this house *before* the killing? And if they came *after* the killing, then, who, and why?”
Puc-Lee nods slowly in agreement with Skaav's assessment. "A riddle indeed. One answer is the wife of Ren fled the house for reasons known only to herself...then more questions are raised. I agree with Castor. The path we should follow is the the one the tracks have shown us."
"If these are the survivor's footprints, then let's find them." Petal Sakura pipes up. "If these are from someone malicious, then we should find them anyway. Before they cause more trouble."
She looks back at Skaav. "And we have another person to um... put on a bed?"
Sneakerz seems a bit torn on the next steps.. follow the still fresh trail or continue to the last home next. He looks to the others to decide.
Skaav blinks and nods, remembering the concept of wives and husbands.
”Puc-lee speaks well. The partner of the still one on the bed may have run from here. Perhaps many have run from their dwellings…”
”Skaav thinks perhaps we *will* find the owner of the footprints, but as Petal speaks, we have another dead one to lay down…so…which way?”
Amila follows the others outside to look at the tracks that the brothers found. She closes the door behind her with reverence before stepping carefully towards the others to avoid smearing any tracks. She tries to detect any magic on the tracks just to be safe.
"I think we should return Tatsuki next. He could become a burden if we have to fight something again. Or more so if we have to flee from something. His home is just across the river and through town, so we should pick up more clues along the way there anyway."
Though you're concerned about the tracks, you're also painfully aware that continuing to carry Tatsuki's body around poses its own share of risks. Since you know his home is on the north side of the river, you know that you can either take the longer route of making the crossing at the Dawnstep Bridge or you could try to use the Willowshore Dam as an improvised bridge. Alternatively, you could try to find a rowboat but with most of the boating infrastructure located on the northern side of the river, you suspect that finding one on the southern side might prove a challenge.
Considering the options for getting across the river, Amila suggests crossing at the Dawnstep Bridge. It will give them a chance to check on the Eternal Lantern that should always be lit there. Though she again shudders at the possibility of what it would mean if it's not lit now.
"A clear path has revealed itself to us," Puc-Lee nods in agreement with Amila. "Let us be away from here. Our friend's spirit awaits his rest."
Sakura doesn't get all of this ceremony stuff, but as long as they are moving...
Sneakerz nods, knowing of this important lantern, heads that way. His hands now free of burden he draws out his glaive while taking on the burden of being in the front.
Castor agrees on where they will go next.
Sneakerz picks the direction he thinks is correct but often looks back to see if anyone has a better idea. This odd fog doesn't help his iffy sense of direction. As he goes he constantly has to keep himself from stopping to pick up dead wood. The wood can wait. No one is burning wood right now.
He pauses to look at a chittering squirrel, they used to be afraid of him, but now he's just like the others, an intruder to their forest. "Am I going the right way?" He asks, speaking slowly, trying to recall what its like to speak a full sentence.
Desiring to be as efficient as possible, you opt to kill two birds with one stone and make your way back to the main road and further into towns towards Dawnstep Bridge. As before, all remains eerily quiet and there continues to be no sign of life...that is, until the bridge looms out of the fog, roughly 100 yards away. Blood smears the gray stone of Dawnstep Bridge, evidence of a recent fight. The flame of Willowshore's iconic stone lantern is - for the first time in memory - extinguished. A large humanoid figure sits on a throne made of stolen furniture heaped on the bridge. As he drinks from a brewing pot, several much smaller humanoids around him caper about, apparently mimicking and mocking death throes and reactions of recent victims.
You recognize the smaller humanoids as being more jinkin gremlins, like the two dead ones you found at the base of the eastern watchtower. The larger one, however...
This is a buso. Busos are tree-dwelling folk with a simmering desire to consume the flesh of others. They heavily supplement their food with leaves and root crops, possess significant knowledge of agriculture, and boast innate powers over plants and their growth. In regards to meat, however, busos reject the flesh of beasts; they instead consume other humanoids. Not only do they find the taste of other creatures repulsive, but their bodies reject non-humanoid meat since it provides them no nutritional value and consuming it leaves them sickened and weak.
Buso are fairly hardy creatures and possessed of a similarly strong will, but aren't exactly the most graceful of beings.
It looks like there's quite a large grouping here - probably 10 to 12 jinkins plus the humanoid on the throne - but luckily for all of you, their cavorting and other antics are loud enough that they have absolutely no idea that you're here.
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Skaav lays down his burden as reverently and quietly as he can…his nictitating membranes coursing across his eyes in anticipation…watching…
"That is a buso, that one-eyed one. Busos are tree-dwelling folk with a simmering desire to consume the flesh of others. They heavily supplement their food with leaves and root crops, possess significant knowledge of agriculture, and boast innate powers over plants and their growth. In regards to meat, however, busos reject the flesh of beasts; they instead consume other humanoids. Not only do they find the taste of other creatures repulsive, but their bodies reject non-humanoid meat since it provides them no nutritional value and consuming it leaves them sickened and weak. Buso are fairly hardy creatures and possessed of a similarly strong will, but aren't exactly the most graceful of beings. Castor copy-pasted whispers a fair share of his knowledge about the large humanoid.
"Given the situation, we are outnumbered, unwise to confront them at this point." he continues while thinking of what to do at the moment.
"What if we distract them? I will send Pollux on the other side of the bridge and let him call them out and follow them. Once far enough, I can unmanifest him. That might give us time to..." he pauses when he realizes that Pollux can only get far from him, like 100 ft, while they are like 100 yards out? He is not sure.
"Or Pollux can sneak close to them to hear their conversation, and with me scrying through him, if I understand their language." he shrugs.
"Hmm. Not good." Petal Sakura watches the Jinkins and the... Buso? Kind of looks like an elephant. "I don't want it eating any of you, or me..."
"Maybe we spend a few minutes here? What are they doing inside Willowshore?" She huffs. "After this we should check out the Willowshore Dam. Maybe it's not as busy."
Puc-Lee watches the cavorting of the jinkins intently, with his gaze shifting to the buso upon the makeshift throne, "A troubling, and yet, fascinating development here. Why does not the buso simply consume the flesh of the goblins? Why do the goblins not flee here? More questions to be answered." He then silently crouches low presenting a low profile here. "Answers to our questions will be answered with patience. Let us watch them for now."
Skaav listens, his gaze never wavering. He nods.
”Agreed: Curious. As a hunter, taking time to watch prey is beneficial. Let us not become prey.”
Amila watches the buso and gremlins, but is more focused on the lantern. Only half listening to Castor, she frets about the lantern. It's extinguished. But how? Did this buso do it? And why? And what does that mean for the town if the lantern is out - and stays out?
She shakes her head in the negative at his idea of distracting them, though. Or even of sending Pollux forward to listen. "It's probably best that they don't think there's anyone left. We don't want them out hunting for us only to find other survivors." She nods at Petal's and the others' suggestion to wait a bit to see what they can learn before moving to the dam.
Sneakerz stands there, a bit dumbfounded, and more than a bit angry at the obvious displays of disregard for life. Slowly though he does count them and then us. "Too many." He whispers, kneeling down with the others to watch and listen.
Castor silently nods at Amila. It will at least give them more time to explore the place without being hunted.
"Let's observe them for now." he agrees to them.