Tine caught the coin when Zofsaadi tossed it, the metal warm from his hand. She turned it between her fingers, frowning at the warped engravings, the wave-like etchings, the rust-eaten edges, designs almost familiar but twisted as though seen through water. “It’s not local,” she murmured. “Mae’s never used anything but clean, stamped coin. This…this feels wrong.” Leif confirmed the lack of magic, which somehow unsettled her more. At least magic left patterns to follow, this was simply out of place, something foreign forced into their story. “Keep it,” she agreed softly. “And don’t let it out of your sight. Even if it’s not magical, it’s a clue. A breadcrumb.” A clue left behind by someone violent enough to splinter a bar and take Mae without a sound. Her jaw tightened.

While Leif studied the drawer and Aspen crunched through his biscuit, Tine returned her attention to Crumb and the dog, dropping into a low crouch beside them. Hearing only one half of the conversation made her relief and dread tangle messily together. “Crumb,” she said gently, “ask him, ask the dog, where they took her. Please.” She reached out and stroked her fingers through the air just above the canine’s head, not wanting to startle him. “Tell him Mae’s our friend too. We’re trying to help.” The dog backed away slightly, still wary, still barking words only Crumb could truly understand, but the fear in its body was unmistakable.

Tine swallowed hard, forcing steadiness into her voice despite the knot tightening beneath her ribs. “Mae didn’t deserve this,” she said quietly to the group. “She’s kind, she’s loved, and whoever took her knew she wouldn’t fight back.” She stood, her fingertips brushing the strings of her fiddle as if grounding herself. “We have a coin from a stranger’s pocket, a frightened witness, and a countdown on a cursed scroll.” Her eyes swept the ruined tavern, the toppled chairs, the broken wood, the smear of blood that had stopped being merely a sight and had become a promise. “Someone left us a trail,” she said, voice firming. “Let’s follow it before it goes cold.” Then she nodded to Crumb, eyes urgent. “Ask him where Mae went. Every second counts.”

OOC: Trying to provide help with the interaction with the dog by petting and trying to calm it.

Crumb, seeing the defensive nature of this dog calms his voice, “We’re her friends too, we want to find her but need your help.” 

While speaking to the dog he barley, but distinctively catches the word “Breadcrumb” from Tine and instinctually whips his head towards Tine, his eyes scan the floor by her feet quickly until he breaths in slowly, catching himself, and turns his attention to the dog once again. 

Tine now crouching beside him, crumb tries again for an answer, “Please, every second counts, we’ve got to track down who took our friend.” 

(OOC: Very nice rolls, lol. I feel like everyone except me's been having recent success with the die roller.)

Leif gets to his feet, annoyed by the lack of finding --- yet intrigued by the trail Mae's captors have lead. Shaking his head, he strides outside, hoping to catch some sign of these stealthy kidnappers. Tracking is nothing out of the normal for him, and slipping into the familiar routine is no more difficult than walking or breathing. Although, if he wishes to catch on to their trail, he must move quickly. A gentle yet pervasive wind sweeps the traces of sand off the streets, and threatens to make his work much more difficult --- or entirely impossible.

He walks the perimeter of the tavern, searching the front --- and finding naught --- before ducking back into the shadows of a side alleyway, his tread quieter than a mouse. Passing rotting piles of garbage, he...wait. What was...? He turns around. There it is --- in plain sight. He can't believe he almost missed it. The unmistakable sign of a foot --- imprinted in the dust, sharp claws evident. Whatever took Mae, it was monstrous. 

Following the trail --- every footstep growing fainter by the second as the sand blows away, you continue onwards. Behind the other buildings through the alley, he follows the trail --- until it's hidden from even his tracking eye as he stands at the edge of the cliff. Far away from the staircase, Leif has reason to wonder --- and wonder he does. Did they jump? What's happened? Mae, oh, Mae, what have they done to you? 

The dog stands up, now looking the kneeling Crumb in the eye. "They took her," it whispers quietly. "The creatures that should not dwell here...they stole her away, away!" Here, it lets out a long, loud wail, its grief evident. 

Only after a while does it calm itself, still gasping as it tries to speak. "It---it has been so long," it coughs out. "They---they have returned. Beware---" And suddenly, the spell ends. The dog is left yipping at Crumb, who feels a --- disconnection isn't the best word, but it's the only one that properly describes it. As if someone at the other end had pulled the cord. 

Crumb get to his feet and stands silently a moment. Pondering, “what’s going on here? What are these things?” He paces in the tavern a bit before telling his companions the news. 

Turning to the group, “The Dog saw what took Mae… described em as creatures that should not be here…. That they’ve returned… and to beware… but my spell cut out. Perhaps we could try asking again but I need a bit o’break first.” 

Crumb continues pacing again, thinking aloud, “creatures that shouldn’t be here.. a stabbing that came with a warning, and stories of a storm that where caused by some beast… aye, they gotta connect somehow…” 

As you stand upon the wooden floor you had known as peaceful so short a time ago, searching --- hoping, praying you will find your friend again, you feel a sense of pervading gloom descend upon your bodies. Mae --- perhaps not your best-known friend, yet...still, a kind soul --- gone, lost in the tumult. You have no true leads other than a coin and a dog that can't tell you its secret.

Eventually, as the dread begins to numb each and every bone inside your tired bodies, Leif returns, the Guard tumbling in after him. You're told you'll be subject to an investigation, perhaps brought in tomorrow. The night turns to a blur, and you eventually stumble upstairs, at least finding some solace in your warm beds. The clinking of mail still sounds from downstairs as the investigation continues --- and you tremble in your mutant-slayer bodies. What if they come back? 

You may appear as a true survivor. But, inside, you're feeling like a little kid.

You wake to a knock on the door, a shout. "Oi! Up and at it! You're going down for questioning!"

 Tine stayed crouched beside Crumb as he spoke with the dog, her hand braced lightly on the floorboards for balance, though she suspected it was truly to steady herself. When the spell abruptly snapped and the dog reverted to confused barking, Tine flinched as though a string had been cut inside her chest. “That wasn’t a spell ending,” she murmured, voice thin. “That was… something severing it from the other end.” She glanced toward the door, out into the night. “Someone didn’t want that message finished.” Crumb stood, pacing, and Tine rose with him. Her own steps were slower, quieter — as though she feared stepping on the wrong board might shatter the last echoes of Mae’s laughter still lingering in the room. When Crumb relayed the dog’s words, Tine’s eyes drifted again to the coin Leif had taken and the scroll she could still feel humming like a bruise in her mind. “Returned,” she echoed softly. “That word again. The scroll said the same, not just danger, but something coming back. A cycle starting over.”

She ran a hand through her hair and let it fall messily around her shoulders, exhaustion and fear finally showing through the cracks in her bard’s poise. “And creatures that ‘should not be here’…gods.” Her voice had gone almost to a whisper. “If they took Mae the same way they took that circus performer, then they’re not just killing, they’re choosing.” Her gaze flicked toward the broken lantern on the counter, untouched. “Why Mae?” she whispered. “Why her? She never harmed anyone. She gave strangers beds and filled their cups and treated this whole town like family.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

She swallowed hard, forcing her hands to still at her sides. “We’ll get her back,” she said, more firmly this time, though the tremor remained in her voice. “But we need to know what we’re up against.” When Leif returned, pale, shaken, and with nothing but clawed footprints leading to a cliff’s edge, Tine felt something inside her twist painfully. She didn’t speak at first. She just looked at him, reading the fear between the lines of his report even before the Guard stormed in. The questions, the demands, the accusations, they all blurred into background noise until the captain finally dismissed them to their rooms.

Tine climbed the stairs on unsteady legs. The inn felt wrong now…hollow, haunted by Mae’s absence. When she entered the small room she shared with Eve, she closed the door gently, as though afraid to wake something sleeping beneath the floorboards. She sat on the edge of her bed, fiddle case untouched beside her. Her hands trembled in her lap. “I should’ve stayed behind,” she whispered to no one. “I should’ve played longer. Or come back sooner. I should’ve…” Her voice broke. She curled forward, pressing her hands to her eyes until the darkness eclipsed everything, the overturned tables, the blood on the floor, the dog’s sorrowful wail, the scroll burning its single word behind her eyelids: BEWARE. Beneath her breath, maybe prayer, maybe plea, she murmured:

“Hold on, Mae. Please hold on.” Because though the town might’ve seen them as heroes, and though they had slain monsters on the beach…inside, Tine felt like a child again, small, helpless, and terrified of the dark just beyond the door with tears wetting her pillow as she fell asleep from the grief. As the pounding on the door wakes her up, she doesn’t remember when she fell asleep, just that she did sleep. She stands up fixing her clothes as she grabs her fiddle and goes to the door “Coming…” she says opening it ready to go with them.

Quote from Hambergler >>

“I should’ve stayed behind,” she whispered to no one. “I should’ve played longer. Or come back sooner. I should’ve…” Her voice broke. She curled forward, pressing her hands to her eyes

"It wasn't your duty to watch Mae as you are not her's or this town's guard. So rather than thinking of not your past mistakes, think of now and forward." Zofsaadi tries to get Tine out of her sorrow. Then he turns to guard(s)

"What exactly are we questioned for?"

The man, who'd almost gone by the time you thought to make a query, leans back, visor blocking his face that leans through the door. "Why, because you were at the scene," he says, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. "We need to question all suspects." With that, he continues, boots clamping down the stairs. 

You can't help but glare at the empty space left behind --- the injustice overwhelming you. Mae is gone, can't they see that? You need to find her, not waste time on questioning. As far as you know, she's getting farther and farther away each second that trickles down the hourglass. 

You eat quietly, the cold porridge you whipped up by yourselves sating only a small bit of your hunger. The soldiers wait outside, hemming and hawing and poking their heads in every now and then, but it's a better time to talk than any. 

*is there any way I can join in on this roleplay?*

OOC: of course

*How,, because I have no idea, sorry*