Hurmfar is about to answer the woman at the door when he hears Erbert’s message in his head. What does that mean, he thinks to himself. Shout like what?

”Hullo mum. Me mates and I are in the area checking on this sodding mess of farms being turned in to bonfires. Going house to house to have a bit of a wee gab as introduction and see if you’ve seen any strange goings on.”

Erbert holds his head in the darkness, hears what Hurmfar said and sends another message to him “Should... I ....speak.... slower?   Act like we are coming around the side of the house and then point to your companions!  They heard us back here!”  Erbert shakes his head and holds it again.

Hurmfar hears the second message while he waits for a response from the woman. I’ll stuff that little gob shite down a jobby filled lav if he plays like that with me again, Hurmfar says to himself.

”One of me dobber associates is rummaging around on the side of your house. Wee bit dim that one. If you haven’t smelled him yet, I’m sure you will. Stink of shite all about him. I think I hear him coming back around now.” Hurmfar says in a very loud voice to make sure Erbert hears him.

Screw it, this isn’t going to work.  He doesn’t know how to respond to my message! Erbert says to himself.  His companions are not up to the skullduggery and tricksy investigation that he was hoping to do.  Staying quiet, he sneaks back around the right side of the house, coming to the front.

“Hello, Erbert Jenkins is my name.  I got turned around briefly, we were just attacked by a Scarecrow!  I was just checking to make sure there wasn’t another one lurking about.  Pleased to meet you and sorry to call on you at this hour.”  He glowers up at Hurmfar and then smiles.  

Owin stands a bit of the way back, holding the torch still, and leaning against the white fence as the others assess what is happening at the Jaltrim place. He scans the road as Hurmfar talks with the lady... 

Perception:  12

Jaltrim Perception: 17

Noachi -- you see the big farmer stalk around angrily, before his eyes key in on your position. He begins to creep slowly towards you. "You might as well come out, whoever you are. You took everything from me and mine, but I ain't letting you try and take me or my wife without a good fight first. Show yourself! Thom, Wilber! Get yer lazy arses out here. We have company." He says loudly back to the house.

Before anyone else can join him though he hears the woman's voice from the front of the farmhouse. "Deke Jaltrim! There will be no brawling tonight! These folks are here about the fires. Get back inside, ya drunk. They're like as not to put ya down on yer arse with as much as ye had to drink."

Jaltrim grumbles, but he looks directly at Noachi and points at her with the club. "Ya got lucky this time, stranger. Get around front with your mates." He stands and watches to make sure she listens.

Meanwhile at the front door, the half-elf turns back to Hurmfar, Valhik, and Erbert and sighs. "Ah sure'n you're the people from the Assembly. I've been expecting ye, especially since Deke can't seem to keep his damn mouth shut.  I'm his wife, Selecha. Come in." As she opens the door and stands aside she hears Erbert mentions a scarecrow and her eyebrows rise in alarm. "Oh, Ioun preserve us. These bonfires, wolves, and now bloody dark magic? Maybe Felderwin really is cursed. Are any of ye hurt? I'm a doctor, I can help ye." She peers at Owin back towards the fence. "Is that one with you, too? Tell him to come in too. I don't want my daughter waking up and getting scared we're going to be burnt out of house and home this time."

Owin, as Selecha Jaltrim opens the farmhouse door and you see inside, you see what is mostly a modest, comfortable little home that seems utterly unremarkable. There are two other men, tall and broad, looking at those they could handle themselves in a fight inside sitting at a table, but that's about it.

You notice that Deke Jaltrim seem drunker now than he was at the tavern earlier in the night. His eyes are bloodshot and he's swaying on his feet as he watches you angrily. The smell of wine wafts off of him very conspicuously as well You get the feeling he's itching for a fight and had his wife not stepped in, it might have gone a lot different.

Erbert regards Selecha and her mannerisms, she seems...overly friendly?  Hiding something?  Afraid of the Assembly?

“Ma’am, you were expecting us, you were saying...?”

Insight :  15

Valhik douses his torch and enters inside with the group. Knowing his friends will be scanning the house and its environs he focuses his attention on the individuals present inside the house. Standing off to the side he tries to stand nonchalantly, cultivating an air of indifference to the conversation being had. All the while watching Selecha, her husband and the hired hands for reactions and impressions.

Hurmfar bows to Selecha.

”Thank you, mum. Getting inside by a nice warm fire would be just right. Hearth and forge are the center of every good home.”

He then enters the home.

”We won’t be staying long.”

Owin douses his torch as well, as he makes his way to the door of the home.

"Thank you , miss. Any help would be kindly repaid, of course. " And he lifts his arm for her to inspect the wound at his ribs. 

Erbert -- studying Selencha, its hard to really get a read on the half-elf, her irritation towards her husband seemingly overriding any other emotion you might read in her.

Valhik -- you can perceive a sort of tension in the air between Deke, his wife, with the two farmhands in between. The farmhands in particular seem abashed and very uncomfortable.

The house itself is comfortable, if smallish, and contained entirely on one floor. There is a tiny entry hall that opens up into a kitchen on one side and a sitting room on the other, centered around a small hearth. There is a hall way leading back from the entry way to what appears to be a pair of bedrooms.

Selencha pulls out her healer's kit and takes a look at Owin's ribs. "Ah, that is a nasty gash. We can get that fixed up right good if ye just hold still. It may sting a bit."

Medicine check: 10

After a little effort, she sighs in frustration. "Sorry, it's a bit late....I can stitch you up, but I don't think much more than a good night's rest will help you. Just...pour a bit of alcohol on it and change the dressing before you go to sleep."

While Selencha stitches up Owin's wounds, Jaltrim looks at each of you mistrustfully. "Now that you're infringing on my wife's ability and my hospitality, can you kindly explain what in the nine hells agents of the Cereberus bleedin' Assembly are doing sneaking about in my fields. Don't you have enough to do with the bloody war?"

His wife shoots him an angry look, but he doesn't seem to notice.

After the stitches, Owin will thank Selencha: "Thank you, very much. I'm sure some sleep will aid in the healing. Please take this in payment... " He then hands her 5 silver pieces... 

To Jaltrim, Owin adds "I apologize for the need for secrecy. After the run in with the scarecrow, we weren't sure what lay ahead of us. We've been sent to investigate the fires..."

Hurmfar looks down at Jaltrim.

"You're a crabbit drunk, ain't you," he says to Jaltrim. "Might want to simmer down a wee bit before someone boxes you about the noggin."

Hurmfar then turns to Selencha and smiles.

"Apologies again, mum. We're trying to make sense of this mess quick like, which is why we're out roaming at night. Did you or these louts see anything odd before the fires?"

Selencha refuses the silver with a grimace. "I didn't do nought for ye. Keep yer silver."

Jaltrim stares at Hurmfar intently and and slowly takes a long swig from a bottle of whiskey sitting on the table. "Oh ho, you're welcome to try boyo." He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks at his wife, and then the two farmhands in the room. "I've been told by everyone I know not to say what I really think of the lot o' you. So, I'll just say that these fires wouldn't be happening if bigger men than me actually cared about the little people in the Empire."

Selencha sighs and speaks in a stern voice. "Deke, Wilber, Thom. One of the lot of you ought to tell 'em what you saw so we can be done with this."

The farmhands look at one another, then Deke, who finally speaks. "The night of the first fire at the Stump place across the way. Me and the boys were working late, trying to get enough of the apples in so we could make another batch of cider for the winter. Since the Empire seizes about ninety of every hundred apples we grow, we gotta work harder. I see the young lad, Quentin, with a torch near about an hour before their fields go ablaze." He grins. "The kid's alright. I know some of the folk in town think he's an idiot, but he sees through the Empire sure'n enough. Knows all this war shite is propaganda."

He looks at Thom and Wilber, who nod. "I speak to the kid. He denies it, naturally, but won't tell me where he's been. I don't care. But then Vallante's place goes up a few days later and she's telling everyone I was there. The old bat's sick, and me wife's been taking care of her, so that's gratitude for her. She swears to everyone, including the Starosta, that I'm involved. I wasn't. These two can vouch for it. We was holed up in a little distillery back of the property. Making some corn whiskey. Good stuff."

Selencha nods and looks at her husband then at the rest of you. "Aye. I can speak to that. I found the three of 'em, drunk as you like out there." She sighs, and her look softens as she looks at her sullen husband. " Ye have to understand, he didn't used to be like this. Our family, we used to live out in Alfield. Big farm, much bigger than we have...had here. Gnolls attacked the place about a year ago, right when the war started. Killed our oldest. A boy. Deke ain't been the same ever since. Our daughter Almeah is all we got left now. She's asleep in the back." She looks away, blinking a few times.

The big farmer sniffles, and juts out his chin dramatically. "So, when I tell you lot I don't take kindly to strangers on my property. I mean it. Do you have anything else? Or will the lot of you sod off now?"

Hurmfar listens as carefully as he can to what they're saying.

"So, Stump goes first and you see this Quentin kid with a torch. Then Vallante next and some old gran claims to see you. Which plot was next?" Hurmfar asks. "And when your place here got the business, did you see anyone about?"