Vin drops his invisibility now seeing that the place is clear of danger. He goes over to Gewyn and helps by taking the bag and peeking inside it. He also asks "Any kind of notebook or writing? I'm hopeful he had some kind of journal on what those fruit thing are. perhaps some musings or some idea of what has been going on up here."
There is shuffling and the sound of wood on wood as Gewyn continues to feel around in the space under the bed. Finally he starts to back out, bumping his head against the edge of the bed. "Ow, dammit," He rubs his head and holds up a small pencil and a stamp in the other hand. "Good instincts. There was no book under there, but I did find these, which indicates such a book does exist."He examines the stamp.
"Given this, I would say it's not unlikely that he has some kind of trade ledger, which may be on his person. Speaking of, any leads on where he may have gone?" Gewyn looks to Elthana and Vin with a hopeful expression.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Elthana watches impressed as Gewyn thoroughly checks the destroyed cabin. As he asks her about the ceiling, she grabs a chair and stands on it, trying to get a better look at the blood, seeing if she can tell if it was recent or not.
Investigation 10
"As for where he had gone? There was something big that looks like it trampled all his plants in back, but other than that? I have no idea. I'm guessing the cave. Whether or not on his own volition is definitely a question."
Looking over the blood stain Elthana can deduce that it occured more than a month ago, likely during the first stages of invasion, though the amount of blood here does not indicate a killing blow, she checks around some other places, the ruined furniture, the fireplace, before looking through the coin bag too.
Crawling out from under the bed, gewyn examines the charcoal pencil and the small wooden stamp, the pencil is ordinary and the stamp seems to have been homemade, whittled from wood to make bookkeeping easier, one side says 'Sent', though the wording is mirrored to be stamped onto paper, the other side says 'Received' in a similar manner, both are covered in a thin layer of dried charcoal. Once examined Gewyn shows Vin his findings.
"See what I mean?"Gewyn says to Vin. "This looks like it belongs with a ledger or shipping manifest or something. Could be an interesting read, but I'm not sure it will necessarily tell us much about the fruit itself. Either way whether Favian is there or not, looks to me like the cave is the next stop. Shall we return to the others?"
Sam, of course, would have happily led the way into the house and ensured it was empty. However, once doing so, he found it a bit cramped for someone of his size and girth and so stepped out again and allowed the more nimble to do the investigating.
Returning to the mouth of the cave Sam glances back at Neferox. "They'll be fine. And we're plenty close enough to get in there and rescue them if not..." Sam assures but the saying plants doubts within his own head...
"Ok, so the blood is old, probably more than a month? And definitely not enough for a killing blow by any means." Elthana gets down from checking the blood stain and starts really looking at the cabin and the state it is in. You hear her mumble hmmm several times as she walks around examining everything.
Finally she ends at the fireplace and finds a loose stone. Pulling it out, the hiding place behind it is empty. Dusting the area with her fingertips and then examining them closely, she says to no one in particular, "A charcoal pen you say you found? and no ledger? I would bet this is where he kept his ledger, charcoal dust."
"Ok, so here is how I see it. First, the front door was obviously ripped off by something strong and then whatever was attacking must have hit the back of the house where you can see there was quite an impact. And finally, something pushed through the thatched roof of the house.. looks to me that the giant was here and snatched Favian. Whether or not he was the giants first meal or still alive? I'm betting on the former."
"Leads the the question... who took his journal? That's a pretty well hidden spot to hide things. Who but him would know its there? Well, I guess there's nothing else to learn or find here. We should hurry on then. Thanks for the help." Vin then reunites with Nef and is ready to continue on. No need to linger here with questions if there are no answers to be found.
Nef was indeed quite worried about Vin and Sam voicing it seemed to annoy her but at the same time she seemed less anxious suddenly. She eyes Sam then goes back to watching the house until Vin comes out. The boy pets her behind the ear then says "Not much to find. We should hurry to whatever is being done in these caves."
With the house searched and more questions than answers the group meet back up at the mouth of the cave ready to descend into the mountain.
The tunnels are pitch black, the irregular formation of the natural stone walls jut out in odd directions making it confusing to look down for even those with dark vision. The footsteps of the Redcaps in the snow quickly disperse as the tunnel goes deeper, Vin, Nef and Elthana take their usual positions just ahead of the group, watching and listening for any potential threats, but for the first ten minutes, nothing of note happens.
The tunnel remains a steady 10-15 ft wide and tall enough for Sam to stand comfortably without the risk of head injury. The ground is mostly flat, the decline deeper into the mountain is steady and not wholly noticeable.
As they head into the dark tunnels, the stealth squad move forward, their eyes adjusting to the darkness easily. As they get to a fork, they pause for a moment. The way to the left has a soft breeze, not really cold, but just movement from that direction. The way to the right leads down further into the mountain. They start leading the group to the right.
The group reaches the fork where Vin and Elthana have been figuring out where to go, and as they receive their orders, the group follow along as the tunnel lists lazily to the right, It becomes quickly apparent that neither Gewyn or Muir can see in this darkness as they either are helped along or suffer some minor scrapes from the rocky walls. Another ten minutes and both the scout group and the main group find a stain on the floor, a dark liquid that has been dropped some time ago and dried, both Neferox and Muir can smell it before they see it, blood, likely dropped or spilled from the cauldron carrying redcaps, hopefully?
After the blood splash the tunnel naturally winds slightly left once more, and a half hour after the group first entered the cave, they reach the second fork in the tunnel system.
"We should light a torch," Sam suggests and starts digging into his pack. "It could warn anything ahead of us... But if there is something ahead of us to warn it'll do us no good to have these two fumblind in the dark to find a light when they really need a weapon..." Unless someone objects Sam finds a torch and pauses to light it and hand it off to one of the half blind members...
Sam would pause at the stain and look around it's edges for the runes that circled the blood pools in the city which maybe perhaps were what allowed for the Madcaps to emerge... Any sign of a possible such thing and Sam will be scuffing his feet around the edges to disrupt and break any kind of anything he can.
With no runes to be found around the old dried blood splatter, sam moves from the area, safe in the knowledge that this is wholly different from the demonic and shifting blood pools, this splatter more mundane for sure.
With the torch lit there is a sizzle over head as a few cobwebs ignite and recoil into a wisp of nothing under the strain of heat, the light reflects glints of crystal or glass like deposits in the walls of the tunnel, that shimmer for as far as the eye can see. The main body of the group catch up with the scouting pair, who seem to be stopped at a fork, undecided as to which way to go.
"Can we hurry up?" Sam asks Elthana. "We need to get going... There's spiders in these caves and... Eww."
Seriously, Sam thinks as he wipes a palm over his faces several times but still feels like he cannot clear the cobwebs off, the little buggers are gross. Four legs is plenty for any creature and all that skittering around is just creepy and ooky. A shiver runs through him just thinking about it.
"They can plant eggs in your eyes and a few months later you go blind when they hatch and burst out, eating your eyeballs from the inside out for sustenance!" Sam eyes the glints of crystal in the walls suspiciously and moves more to the center of the path.
She pauses as she is obviously intently listening. Then looking back to the group, "Odd groaning, deep that way." she points down the left fork. She starts heading that direction unless anyone stops her.
Another 15 minutes of walking and distant sounds of running water and dripping become audible even to those without keen a keen sense of hearing, the scouting group come upon yet another fork in the road, this one however is odd, the left branch has been blocked up with an assortment of junk, old broken crates, rocks, sticks, some bones, all covered in stone dust definitely having been there for some time.
The branch to the right seems open and as the scout group move into it they find something on the wall, about 20ft from the fork in the path. Along the walls, glistening with intermittent vanes of black glass and crystal there appears to be a carving of some sort, a word or phrase in a language that neither Vin nor Elthana understand, Etched with a heavy hand into the bare rockface of the tunnel wall. The runes or symbols are all presented along a vertical line, the characters distinguished by a series of hashes, lines, and crosses. (see initiative map channel)
Muir takes a look at the barricade and points out to the others that this barricade is not from the survivors back at Gore's cave. "Perhaps whoever put it up are survivors from town?"
Sam edges up to look at the carving, lightly tracing his fingers over it. "Familiar," he says quietly and then moves back to pull Gewyn and the torch closer so he can see it more clearly. "It's the writing of the Giants. Their runes, much like what I use on my armor... It says 'beautiful.' Just that, no idea what it is referring to or anything..." Sam drags Gewyn this way and that for a moment looking to see if there are other markings in the area but gives up shortly after finding none. (I assume...)
Then looking at the barricade Sam tries to determine if it's blocking access to that branch from here, or to here from that branch. Since it is all covered in dust and such it may be hard to tell but if any of it looks to be broken from being slammed against then wether it broke towards or away from the party should be interesting...
Sam does spot some more carvings further along the tunnel with his darkvision but they are far enough away that going to investigate would split the party fairly thinly up and down this particular stretch of tunnel.
Inspecting the blockage, it appears to have been placed there, intentionally blocking this tunnel off from the next.
Vin drops his invisibility now seeing that the place is clear of danger. He goes over to Gewyn and helps by taking the bag and peeking inside it. He also asks "Any kind of notebook or writing? I'm hopeful he had some kind of journal on what those fruit thing are. perhaps some musings or some idea of what has been going on up here."
There is shuffling and the sound of wood on wood as Gewyn continues to feel around in the space under the bed. Finally he starts to back out, bumping his head against the edge of the bed. "Ow, dammit," He rubs his head and holds up a small pencil and a stamp in the other hand. "Good instincts. There was no book under there, but I did find these, which indicates such a book does exist." He examines the stamp.
"Given this, I would say it's not unlikely that he has some kind of trade ledger, which may be on his person. Speaking of, any leads on where he may have gone?" Gewyn looks to Elthana and Vin with a hopeful expression.
Elthana watches impressed as Gewyn thoroughly checks the destroyed cabin. As he asks her about the ceiling, she grabs a chair and stands on it, trying to get a better look at the blood, seeing if she can tell if it was recent or not.
Investigation 10
"As for where he had gone? There was something big that looks like it trampled all his plants in back, but other than that? I have no idea. I'm guessing the cave. Whether or not on his own volition is definitely a question."
Looking over the blood stain Elthana can deduce that it occured more than a month ago, likely during the first stages of invasion, though the amount of blood here does not indicate a killing blow, she checks around some other places, the ruined furniture, the fireplace, before looking through the coin bag too.
Crawling out from under the bed, gewyn examines the charcoal pencil and the small wooden stamp, the pencil is ordinary and the stamp seems to have been homemade, whittled from wood to make bookkeeping easier, one side says 'Sent', though the wording is mirrored to be stamped onto paper, the other side says 'Received' in a similar manner, both are covered in a thin layer of dried charcoal. Once examined Gewyn shows Vin his findings.
"See what I mean?" Gewyn says to Vin. "This looks like it belongs with a ledger or shipping manifest or something. Could be an interesting read, but I'm not sure it will necessarily tell us much about the fruit itself. Either way whether Favian is there or not, looks to me like the cave is the next stop. Shall we return to the others?"
Sam, of course, would have happily led the way into the house and ensured it was empty. However, once doing so, he found it a bit cramped for someone of his size and girth and so stepped out again and allowed the more nimble to do the investigating.
Returning to the mouth of the cave Sam glances back at Neferox. "They'll be fine. And we're plenty close enough to get in there and rescue them if not..." Sam assures but the saying plants doubts within his own head...
"Ok, so the blood is old, probably more than a month? And definitely not enough for a killing blow by any means." Elthana gets down from checking the blood stain and starts really looking at the cabin and the state it is in. You hear her mumble hmmm several times as she walks around examining everything.
Finally she ends at the fireplace and finds a loose stone. Pulling it out, the hiding place behind it is empty. Dusting the area with her fingertips and then examining them closely, she says to no one in particular, "A charcoal pen you say you found? and no ledger? I would bet this is where he kept his ledger, charcoal dust."
"Ok, so here is how I see it. First, the front door was obviously ripped off by something strong and then whatever was attacking must have hit the back of the house where you can see there was quite an impact. And finally, something pushed through the thatched roof of the house.. looks to me that the giant was here and snatched Favian. Whether or not he was the giants first meal or still alive? I'm betting on the former."
"Leads the the question... who took his journal? That's a pretty well hidden spot to hide things. Who but him would know its there? Well, I guess there's nothing else to learn or find here. We should hurry on then. Thanks for the help." Vin then reunites with Nef and is ready to continue on. No need to linger here with questions if there are no answers to be found.
Nef was indeed quite worried about Vin and Sam voicing it seemed to annoy her but at the same time she seemed less anxious suddenly. She eyes Sam then goes back to watching the house until Vin comes out. The boy pets her behind the ear then says "Not much to find. We should hurry to whatever is being done in these caves."
With the house searched and more questions than answers the group meet back up at the mouth of the cave ready to descend into the mountain.
The tunnels are pitch black, the irregular formation of the natural stone walls jut out in odd directions making it confusing to look down for even those with dark vision. The footsteps of the Redcaps in the snow quickly disperse as the tunnel goes deeper, Vin, Nef and Elthana take their usual positions just ahead of the group, watching and listening for any potential threats, but for the first ten minutes, nothing of note happens.
The tunnel remains a steady 10-15 ft wide and tall enough for Sam to stand comfortably without the risk of head injury. The ground is mostly flat, the decline deeper into the mountain is steady and not wholly noticeable.
As they head into the dark tunnels, the stealth squad move forward, their eyes adjusting to the darkness easily. As they get to a fork, they pause for a moment. The way to the left has a soft breeze, not really cold, but just movement from that direction. The way to the right leads down further into the mountain. They start leading the group to the right.
The group reaches the fork where Vin and Elthana have been figuring out where to go, and as they receive their orders, the group follow along as the tunnel lists lazily to the right, It becomes quickly apparent that neither Gewyn or Muir can see in this darkness as they either are helped along or suffer some minor scrapes from the rocky walls.
Another ten minutes and both the scout group and the main group find a stain on the floor, a dark liquid that has been dropped some time ago and dried, both Neferox and Muir can smell it before they see it, blood, likely dropped or spilled from the cauldron carrying redcaps, hopefully?
After the blood splash the tunnel naturally winds slightly left once more, and a half hour after the group first entered the cave, they reach the second fork in the tunnel system.
"We should light a torch," Sam suggests and starts digging into his pack. "It could warn anything ahead of us... But if there is something ahead of us to warn it'll do us no good to have these two fumblind in the dark to find a light when they really need a weapon..." Unless someone objects Sam finds a torch and pauses to light it and hand it off to one of the half blind members...
Sam would pause at the stain and look around it's edges for the runes that circled the blood pools in the city which maybe perhaps were what allowed for the Madcaps to emerge... Any sign of a possible such thing and Sam will be scuffing his feet around the edges to disrupt and break any kind of anything he can.
"I might as well take that," Gewyn says, reaching for the torch, the light reflecting off of his carefully polished horns.
With no runes to be found around the old dried blood splatter, sam moves from the area, safe in the knowledge that this is wholly different from the demonic and shifting blood pools, this splatter more mundane for sure.
With the torch lit there is a sizzle over head as a few cobwebs ignite and recoil into a wisp of nothing under the strain of heat, the light reflects glints of crystal or glass like deposits in the walls of the tunnel, that shimmer for as far as the eye can see. The main body of the group catch up with the scouting pair, who seem to be stopped at a fork, undecided as to which way to go.
"Can we hurry up?" Sam asks Elthana. "We need to get going... There's spiders in these caves and... Eww."
Seriously, Sam thinks as he wipes a palm over his faces several times but still feels like he cannot clear the cobwebs off, the little buggers are gross. Four legs is plenty for any creature and all that skittering around is just creepy and ooky. A shiver runs through him just thinking about it.
"They can plant eggs in your eyes and a few months later you go blind when they hatch and burst out, eating your eyeballs from the inside out for sustenance!" Sam eyes the glints of crystal in the walls suspiciously and moves more to the center of the path.
Elthana glares at Sam, "Shhh!!"
She pauses as she is obviously intently listening. Then looking back to the group, "Odd groaning, deep that way." she points down the left fork. She starts heading that direction unless anyone stops her.
Another 15 minutes of walking and distant sounds of running water and dripping become audible even to those without keen a keen sense of hearing, the scouting group come upon yet another fork in the road, this one however is odd, the left branch has been blocked up with an assortment of junk, old broken crates, rocks, sticks, some bones, all covered in stone dust definitely having been there for some time.
The branch to the right seems open and as the scout group move into it they find something on the wall, about 20ft from the fork in the path. Along the walls, glistening with intermittent vanes of black glass and crystal there appears to be a carving of some sort, a word or phrase in a language that neither Vin nor Elthana understand, Etched with a heavy hand into the bare rockface of the tunnel wall. The runes or symbols are all presented along a vertical line, the characters distinguished by a series of hashes, lines, and crosses. (see initiative map channel)
Muir takes a look at the barricade and points out to the others that this barricade is not from the survivors back at Gore's cave. "Perhaps whoever put it up are survivors from town?"
Sam edges up to look at the carving, lightly tracing his fingers over it. "Familiar," he says quietly and then moves back to pull Gewyn and the torch closer so he can see it more clearly. "It's the writing of the Giants. Their runes, much like what I use on my armor... It says 'beautiful.' Just that, no idea what it is referring to or anything..." Sam drags Gewyn this way and that for a moment looking to see if there are other markings in the area but gives up shortly after finding none. (I assume...)
Then looking at the barricade Sam tries to determine if it's blocking access to that branch from here, or to here from that branch. Since it is all covered in dust and such it may be hard to tell but if any of it looks to be broken from being slammed against then wether it broke towards or away from the party should be interesting...
Sam does spot some more carvings further along the tunnel with his darkvision but they are far enough away that going to investigate would split the party fairly thinly up and down this particular stretch of tunnel.
Inspecting the blockage, it appears to have been placed there, intentionally blocking this tunnel off from the next.