Mists of Winter, Chapter Two

[VAN]

Sara was half way to get her sword but when Benn and Dorgio recognize the elf she relaxes a bit. She is relieved that more help came, they will need it! Taking a step forward she introduces herself:

"I'm Sara and I'm currently living in Pont, glad to meet you Galandel. It's good to have someone join us and not want to kill us for a change! As about the cat, well I think my bullet got it."

Turning to face Raen she continues:

"So now that I got the familiar, Jenny will be less powerful right? If that is the case we should better hurry."

[alhoon]

"She can't spy on through the familiar, nor sense it. Familiars also enhance some property of their master through the bond. With the familiar dead, Jenny will find that she's less stealthy than she used to be and less alert."

[ewancummins]

SEARCHING FOR "JENNY"


The party walks on, down the shadowy tunnel passage, past the bloody remains of the dead kitten and to a short staircase that runs up to a wooden storm door.
Rain drums against the outer surface of the door, dripping down to form a pool at the bottom of the slick masonry steps.
Vlad ascends the steps with caution, steadying himself with his right hand on the wall.
He crouches and pushes open the door.

Through the leafless branches of a shrub, those coming up behind Vlad on the steps see dark clouds tumbling in the sky.

Rain beats down through the brush.


Topside, out from under the dead bush and the shadow of a low stone fence, the party finds a muddy field, laid over by a patchy fog. Turning round and looking back in the direction they had come, but over the land, they see the outskirts of the city only a short hike distant. Fields and woodlots spread before them in other directions. On the left, rather longer than a strong archer might fire an arrow, the land rolls down towards the swollen river.

Chilly rain pounds down on the party, slashing through their clothes.

Vlad looks around the ground. “Very hard to be tracking in this weather.” He stamps one foot in the mud, pulls up his spattered boot. Water refills the hole in a second, and in a few more seconds the rain has almost erased the print.

Kat, as one of the last ones up, notices that the pool of runoff at the bottom of the steps is growing bigger and bigger…

[kintire]

Kat pauses

"I hope no one has left anything behind because this tunnel is getting more than slightly moist..."

She climbs briskly up the ladder, looking around as if to fix the location in her mind, and scans the surroundings for any sign of "Jenny"

"I'm guessing she made for the river..."

[alhoon]

"We left the Jenny's victim down there" Raen says and shakes his head. "We will have to retrieve the body after the water recedes to give it to his family."

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

"If he had family. Benn, you were finding a Tarokka deck in his pockets, yes? Maybe you are right that he was Vistani."

"But you are right Kat, the river is likely our best bet."

[ewancummins]

"If he had family. Benn, you were finding a Tarokka deck in his pockets, yes? Maybe you are right that he was Vistani."

"But you are right Kat, the river is likely our best bet."

Vlad says, "Yes, let us be searching for her, rain or no.''

...

Combing through the misty fields and checking the riverbank, the party finds no footprints but the ones they have made-- and even those soon dissolve under the hard downpour.
The rain cuts through the river fog, clearing the mist to reveal more of the sodden landscape, some reeds, the swollen currents of the Musrade.
Vlad splashes near the river-reeds and checks the plants.
“Bent in places—but only by rain, from what I can tell, comrades.”


Galandel stalks the bank, his hood raised, turning his head in slow, steady arcs.
The elf finds a spear of familiar Sithican make mired in a growing pool of mud on the landward side of a big dead treelimb near the river; one of his people carried this when he brought them here along with the humans. But his party had not come so close to the Musarde. Looking about, he sees a muddy channel above the pool where he found the spear. Runoff flows down through the channel, feeding the mud pit that has formed where the tree limb tumbled down the bank and stopped.
While he’s looking up the bank, Gal hears something shift at his back, feels the soft bank quiver underfoot, and hears a big splash. Casting about, he sees that the fallen timber has rolled the rest of the way into the river. The deadwood tosses about like a boat in a storm, borne away upstream towards the city.
…


When the soaked investigators at last give up the fruitless search for Jenny’s tracks, they descend into the tunnel. Now the water covers the lower step.

Vlad taps the floor with his foot, splashing a little water.
“I am thinking that there are drains someplace, because this place is not under water yet. But just in case, let us hurry, no?”

Hastening back towards the Chamber of the Eyes, the party does not find the dead man where they left him.
They don’t find him AT ALL.
What they do discover, in the next room, is Golithos’s massive corpse propped up against the rear wall, head slumped on his chest, positioned not far from the open, uncovered hatchway that leads down the ramp to the tunnel they first came through. . The dead kitten’s severed head rests in the dead ogre's open right palm. A chalk marked slate tally board leans against his big feet, propped up.

Vlad walks over, looks down at the board and laughs, bitter and mirthless. He points out the words written there in chalk:

SARA, NICE SHOT.
GOLITHOS LOVED HIS KITTEN TOO MUCH TO EAT IT, RAEN.
LOVE TO HAVE YOU ALL FOR SUPPER TONIGHT, BUT MY HOUSE IS A MESS.

-YOUR OLD GRANNY JENNY




END OF CHAPTER TWO