Nelyna turns as Razi approaches and offers him a shy smile. "Good morning," she says. "I have not heard from the others yet. But that looks like Sleet over there."

As the exasperated shopkeeper refuses her request for a discount, she shakes her head sadly. "Well, it was worth a try," she says, somewhat to herself. She hands over the 9 gold and takes her supplies.

After a few minutes, Jim and Caine join them at the market stalls. Jim has a shifty air about him, and he doesn't even say good morning. Nelyna purses her lips. At least Razi is polite.

"Good morning, Jim. Caine," she says. "And you too, Sleet."

Caine gives Nelyna an exaggerated bow with his arm sweeping to the side.

"Anything good here?" Caine asks, taking in the market. "As guests of who ever this lord is of Barovia, I'm sure we'll need for nothing once we get there."

He then explains to the others what he's already told Jim about the message he got and the directive to head south until finding mist at dusk.

"Sorry, Sleet," Caine says. "No real pigeon. Just self burning paper."

Hearing Caine's news, Razi whispers to no one in particular, "Our 'path lies beyond the mists'...".

"If someone is a bit short, I have 10 GP to spare if you need some extra gear."

Jim quickly pockets the two bags in his pockets before anyone notices anything.

He then turns to the rest of the group, "Morning to you all."

There's a falseness to Jim's cheeriness this morning, but then he turns his attention to Sleet.

"That's a mighty kind offer of you. However, I should be just fine. As long as I've got my dagger and my wits. I shouldn't have any problems.

Anyway, once we've all done shopping here I think we should all get a move on. We don't want to keep our new friends waiting."

Caine looks around at the small market and where he'd normally see opportunity all he sees is its provincialism. A new land, and a cursed lord await and the pickings there have to be much better than this.

He turns to the others with a big smile on his face.

"We'll see if they're friends," Caine says. "But for now, yes, let's head out." 

"ah boy, trees, lots of them...lots of places for an ambush..."  

stops and looks around...

"My friends, I fear one of our companions is missing. Did anyone see where she went?"

Jim comes to a halt when notices that Nelyna has gone missing, "Now where did she go wandering off to?"

He looks around for any sign of which direction she might have gone. He looks for any broken branches, any footprint left in the leaves, or anything of a similar nature.

(Investigation: 12)

Caine stops when the others point out Nelyna is missing.

"Pretty sure it's not my fault. I was polite," Caine starts. "Didn't even try and see what she had in her coin purse."

He then joins the others in searching for her, offering help to Jim's investigation.

Caine shouts into the woods in elvish "Nelyna."

"Be cautious, friends."  Razi joins in the search, but spends most of his time trying to keep his eyes on the other three companions lest another disappear.

As soon as she steps into the mists, Nelyna feels a strange sensation, and suddenly she is alone. She whirls around, her eyes darting everywhere, but she sees no sign of the others. What is going on here? Her surroundings look strange too, not what she expected at all. She pulls her cloak tightly about herself and steps forward to one of the black pools of water, looking into it. How did she get here? Why is she alone?

"Hello?" she calls out nervously. "Razi? Caine? Anybody?" 

Figuring there is little else she can do for the moment, she begins to search around for any clue that could lead her back to the others or for anything that seems out of place in this strange dark version of the misty road.

Investigation - 20

"I will look around and see if I can find a potential way she may have went or tracks."  

Survival  12