Jharee frowns. "...I just passed by it on my way here. I was probably in the area for a few days, maybe a week at most."

Caelius backs away and nods slowly.

Insight: 5

Caelius:

"Um-uh" Taran watches as Mr. Caelius walks away from Mr. Jharee. The Esteemed Vishal and Mr. Juhaan are still tense, and he assumes Miss River and Mr. Druhdaar are ready to jump out and engage in combat. And, that harsh voice from the cave is practically screaming, screaming to shoot first, to not take the risk. But...

He doesn't look towards young Shiazala, but he pictures her standing by Mr. Sulaan, back by the trees. Her eyes on him, the man who'd just convinced her to trust him. He might be wrong, she might have seen death before, but if he wasn't... was this hollow the place he wanted her to see in her dreams, once they reached Adar? He might protect her body by shooting now, but Sim would tell him that her soul was a more precious thing.

He wasn't hesitating, he was scouting.

"Mr.- Mr. Jharee... um, you can tell something isn't... what I mean is..." Taran holds his crossbow loosely in his hands, the bolt pointed at Mr. Jharee's feet. "The Esteemed Vishal realized... well, you are covered in illusion magic. You need to drop that illusion and explain- yeah, you need to explain why you kept it up. Hiding who you- who you are... it... um... it doesn't look good. You need to be hon-honest wi-with us. About everything."

(OOC: Welp, here goes either nothing, or all Khyber breaking loose :P )

Jharee frowns and looks down at himself. "I'm...covered in illusion magic? Why would I..." A look of realization appears on his face. "I got these clothes off the Thousand Eyes agent who came after me...is that maybe what you're sensing? Are they magical and I didn't realize?" He blinks, clearly confused.

"Take off the clothes." Vishal tells the farmer growing a little more serious. 

Juhaan

Intrigued with the reactions and seeing that Vivian is being serious, Juhaan reaches for his backpack.

"Here, I have this plain clothes you can exchange into, so we can better examine the source of magic." he says bringing up a simple trousers and shirts. "I even got this sun hat it matches with, perfectly", he says pulling a gray sun hat with the rest of the clothes and offering it to Jharee.

Juhaan now waits to see how Jharee reacts.

"W-w-wait," Taran says, shock skipping around his brain. "Y-you k-k-killed a Thousand Eyes? How? W-why d-d-didn't you tell us?"

This was potentially just as bad as Mr. Jharee being a spy, if he'd killed an agent they might have been devoting even more forces to tracking him than usual, and they'd have a solid lead to follow him.

Jharee shrugs. "I told you I ran into one, didn't I?" he says evenly. "Did you think we had a nice tea and bid each other a friendly goodbye? I ambushed him, stabbed him, and sprayed poison in his face. He wasn't deliberately hunting me, just spotted my tracks and followed me, so he wasn't fully prepared, was out of his element, and didn't expect me to have magic. And I still barely killed him, then took his stuff and pushed his body into a ravine. I didn't know his clothes had illusion magic on them, how would I? I don't exactly have an academic understanding of how this stuff works."

Jharee takes the clothes, then crosses his arms, giving Vishal a slightly annoyed look. "Do you mind if I change behind a bush at least?"

 Suddenly the group's attention is brought to a cacophony of breaking branches, various huffs and grunts and the disturbing sound of spraying soil, as the massive form of Druhdaar explodes out of the ground underneath one of the nearby trees. Without breaking stride he comes straight towards Jharee, giving the young farmer one of his trademark, dead-eye looks.

" Sure you can go wherever you wish, but I'm coming along. Now, either you do what we say - and I mean, exactly what we say - or I stick you back in that mudhole I just came out of and shove 50 pounds of earth on toppa yer farmer's face. Got it ? Now, shut yer gab and strip, boy. "

 Yet the ominously threatening look of the giant is somewhat undermined by the fact that a tiny, adorable sparrow keeps flying around his head, chirping happily, to finally land on the druid's left shoulder. The small bird then starts picking through the brambles in his beard, before taking an extraordinarily lenghty poop on Druhd's already filthy doublet of tanned hide and furs, achieving to ruin his clumsy attempt at intimidation.

** OOC: not exactly Druhd's specialty, but he'll have to live with it. Intimidation 13. Not sure if anyone wants to Help him, but I'll add another roll here in case he gets advantage: 10 **

Caelius returns, pointing at letters very quickly,

"The C-L-O-T-H-ES Are M-A-G-I-C. They Are Not C-H-A-N-G-ing His A-P-P-E-A-R-A-N-C-E."

(I rolled a nat 20 in my secret Discord channel on insight on Jharee's last statement.)

Taran feels his pulse pounding in his ears, dripping echoing around him as his breath grows a bit more ragged.

He raises his crossbow a fraction higher, eyes darting between his companions and the refugee. The potential spy. The harsh voice is saying that is too much of a risk, they should just kill him, bury the body in Druhdaar's hole. Take the others, march, leave this place before others show up.

His legs are trembling, tense with the need to move, to do. Killing him is the safest choice it is-

"N-n-no," Taran whispers, voice ragged with emotions that keep piling on top of each other, "N-not here, not in fron- in front of a ch-ch-child." His hands are steady, the bolt only moving where it needs to, ready to end the spie's life the instant he breaks cover and attacks them. "J-just listen, j-just do i-i-it, sh-she does-doesn't d-d-deserve b-b-blood. W-we c-c-can't r-risk everything, but she doesn't deserve it," his eyes are barely focused on the scene in front of him, voice going quieter "she doesn't deserve it, but we can't risk everything and everyone. We need to keep them safe."

Jharee starts slightly as Druhdaar rises out of the bushes, but quickly switches attention from the not-very-intimidating druid. Moving slowly and smoothly, he unslings his bag and sets it on floor of the clearing, keeping his hands in sight. "Trust me," he says evenly. "I don't want any bloodshed either. You guys are the ones who flipped out because my clothes had some illusion magic on them. Can we just...take a deep breath before anyone does something they regret?" He's clearly trying hard to control his breathing, which is growing harder and shallower with fear.

The other refugees quietly start to move back, away from the brewing conflict.

Caelius steps towards Jharee, gesturing at  his book calmly.

"Please Say Where You Go-T Those C-L-O-T-H-E-S. Did The 1-0-0-0 E-Y-E Give Them To You?"

"D-d-don't t-t-try an-anything." Taran begs, "P-please, j-just t-take off y-your sh-shirt." The crossbow continues to rise, steady as a rock, pointing at the man's knees. "I-if y-you ar-are in-inno-innocent th-then I-I'm s-s-sorry, b-but y-you h-have n-n-nothing t-to h-hide. If... if y-you ar-aren't......."

"I'm not going to try anything," Jharee says to Taran, keeping his voice level and reassuring. "I came to your organization for help. Just...don't shoot me, okay?" He slips off his shirt, holding it in his right hand, and watches those of you that he can see carefully, shoulders tense with nervousness.

Vishal:

Caelius repeats his question, stepping closer to Jharee.

"You Did Not Say The T-R-U-T-H. Please Say Where You Go-T Those C-L-O-T-H-E-S. Did The 1-0-0-0 E-Y-E Give Them To You?"

Jharee slips his shirt back on, crossing his arms. "Why would the Thousand Eyes give me clothes covered in illusion magic if they wanted me to infiltrate a refugee group? Seems a little obvious, doesn't it?" He shakes his head. "I'm done with this...word dance. I came to the Road because I heard you help people get out of Riedra. So if you're going to help, stop pointing the crossbow at me. And if you've got your hearts set on killing me, stop threatening me and do it already. Just...stop acting so...ominous. Do you think I'm a spy or not?" He gives all of you that he can see a hard stare, clearly frustrated by the oblique nature of the conversation.

Vishal sighs and says, "We don't know. And we'd rather be safe. Give us the shirt back its radiating magic. You can have one of our own. And tell us. How did you get the clothes? Plain and simple. Did you take it from their body?"

Insight on his Answer: 13

I don't know what of these two would be appropiate for noticing ware and tear/sign of a struggle on this shirt. So I'm rolling for both and hoping you choose the higher number. 

Investigation: 17

Perception: 13

 Druhdaar sighs and shakes his head. With everyone still glaring at each-other, he goes a few steps to the side and grabs a fistfull of wet grass and does his best to clean the fresh bird poop dribbling down his shoulder, mostly managing to cover the buck skin with a green stain.

 Walking back to adress the group he says calmly:

" The farmboy is right, this is getting too tangled up and we'll never be certain he tells the truth... "

 He then faces Jhareen squarely as he completes his sentence:

" ... There's one way to do this that will settle it for good: lay the Truth of The Forest on him. Then we'll know for certain and we can get on our way. Time is ticking. We better do this now. "

** OOC: what Druhdaar is proposing is to have Jhareen willingly submit himself to the druid casting Charm Person, which would function like a truth serum of sorts. **