Usul sits silently at the table, slowly chewing the rest of breakfast, just blinking his eyes watching the two discuss things he doesn't quite understand. Almost like watching mom and dad argue.

Silthras is silent a moment, his eyes narrowing as they lock with Sybil's. Finally, he slaps his leg and bursts into laughter, "You, madam, remind me of my mother -- and I mean that with the utmost respect!"

he nods his head and continues more soberly, "You are of course correct -- any information is better than none."

"My help -- and my thanks -- you shall have, wherever the trail shall lead."

Sybil runs her hand down her face in exasperation, shaking her head. "Must be an admirable woman to have survived you."

--

Finishing up with your morning meal, the soldier bids you good luck, and leaves on an errand of her own. Fauna never shows herself that morning, and after a brief investigation, you find that she had stolen away in the dead of night. After making final preparations and grabbing any last minute supplies, your party heads out of Silverfair on the northern road. Just a few miles outside of town the worn road splits off into two, with Feycrest as your destination, you take the western path. The road quickly narrows, allowing the dense woods of fir and spruce trees to close in on both sides. 

You encounter a few undead on the road as you travel, though never enough at once to constitute a serious threat to your group. As you get further away from Silverfair, the encounters become more rare. The sun make it's short trip through the sky overhead as the day wears on, and before long the sky has turned a burned orange. On the road ahead, you notice an object in the middle of the path. As you walk closer, you are greeted by a gruesome sight. A man's torso lay in the road, blood, bones, and guts hanging out from his torn apart body. Belongings are strewn out across the road; a bag thrown over to the treeline, long dagger near his body, and from his rigid closed fist you can see a small silver chain hanging. His lower half is no where to be seen, but there is a trail of blood leading down the road in the direction of your travel.

((you have been traveling for about six hours at this point. The sun is beginning to set, and you have another two hours of travel before you start rolling con saves for points of exhaustion.))

"I told you I was here to help so if there is work to be done here that will help out and then lead to more work in the future I shall do what I can." Urgoth says as he seemed to merely listen tongue conversation.

Usul looks ahead and gasps at the site. He then leans up a bit on his mount to get a better look. Not wanting to get close, but seeing something shiny, he casts a visible mage hand and floats it over to the chain to see if he can pry it from the fist and bring it back to investigate.

The mage hand tugs once on the chain, then twice, and it comes loose. It floats back to you, dropping the object in the palm of your hand. Sitting in your hand now is a silver locket, inside of which is a dried up violet. Engraved into the back of the locket is 'S. Narowen.'

Kal glances at the gnome with a look of disdain. "Is your first instinct when you see a corpse to loot it?" The knight questions, shaking his head disapprovingly. Drawing his sword as a precaution, he moves forward towards the body. Upon reaching it[if nothing tries to kill him in the process], he'll look it over to see if he can determine how long ago the man was killed.

"Now we know who this was" Usul replies simply, reading the name aloud, before pocketing the locket.

As you approach the body, you are hit with a putrid stench that stings your nostrils. The man is well and truly dead, not one of the walking corpses you've become accustomed to seeing. His skin is wrinkled and dried out, with almost no muscle beneath them. He was emaciated to such a degree that you wonder how he was able to walk at all. Stranger still, his eyes appear to have been burned out, leaving nothing but blackened sockets. The blood trail is dried, which tells you its been perhaps a few days at minimum, but beyond that, you can't tell how fresh this is.

Silthras approaches the body, and as he does so produces his kerchief, now heavily scented (Prestidigitation), from his sleeve to mask the odour. Crouching down to cautiously examine the body he tries to determine any of the wounds were post-mortem (were scavengers involved, what most likely killed them -- being cut in half is clearly a good candidate!)

As he does so, asks the wizard, Urgoth, what he makes of the scene, providing Help to any investigation he cares to make.

"You're a person of fine sensibilities, it seems...what do you make of this?"

Usul gets down off his mount, and heads over to the mans pack, which had been strewn over to the side. He starts going through it as well, looking specifically for things that might give hints on from where this person was from, or to where they were going ((investigation 18)). (he's also setting valuable things quietly aside)

Conducting a careful examination of the body, Silthras finds himself slightly confused by the state its in. The obvious conclusion would be that the trauma of being ripped in two was the killer, and yet...By the coagulation of the blood in some of the entrails falling out, you can tell that he was long dead before being ripped in half - what's more, the emaciation does not appear to be natural. He was likely a reasonably healthy person before his deadly encounter. Something supernatural or magical killed this man, draining his very vitality from him, not merely some undead or beast.

Searching through the man's pack, Usul would find many expected items for a traveler. A water canteen, rations, various survival tools, blankets, etc...You find a small coin purse with 9 gold pieces in it, but aside from that there's nothing else of notable value. You do find a stack of papers wrapped up, with a sealed envelope at the front. Going through the papers, you find that they are written messages between one Paten Elway, and the Baroness Anet Sholte herself. Quickly reading over them, you sumrise that Elway is a leading councilman of Feycrest, who for weeks had been pleading with the Baroness to send for help. In return, she sent back short messages, assuring him that her forces were controlling the situation. Elway's messages became angrier, accusing the Baroness of failing her charge. A final letter from her threatened to have the man hung for treason, and no further reply was sent. Looking back to the sealed envelope, you see written on the front 'His Majesty the King Lidae.'

On his ring finger, you would find a silver wedding band worth 10 gold pieces.

Pocketing the coins ((25)), Usul brings walks back over to his dog, keeping some general distance from the smell of the rotting corpse, and shares the contents of the letters with the group.

Urgoth can only shrug at it as looks over the body close for a bit before he looks back to the others.  "Most of my magical training was in combat in order to be able to sync with the Bladesong. As we did before I suggest that the body be burned. It is not wise to give more corpses for the undead that roam this place."

Kal moves out of the way as Silthras steps forward to look over the body, more than happy to let someone more knowledgeable try to figure it out. Upon learning of the letters, the knight's features turn angry. "That arrogant fool. She would see all of her people die before asking for help." He looks back to the fallen man, "he must have been a messenger, on his way to the King to appeal directly for assistance."

"Were the letters dated?"

OOC Question

The letters were in fact dated, with the Baronness' final message to Elway being written eight days ago. The only writing on the sealed envelope is the king's name.

OoC Answers:

"It  does seem that she is rather incompetent at her job but it was like be best to keep such thoughts to ourselves." Urgoth says as he moves to look and see if he can find something to use to build a fire before pausing. " "Should we give the remains to his family?"

"When we're finished here, I would not be opposed to making sure that letter reaches King Lidae." Kal will move over to the corpse, slipping off the wedding ring and any other similar items he might have had. "We can bring them the ashes. And any personal effects he might have had, such as a locket." He says, glancing over at Usul. 

Frowning at the wizards perfunctory investigation, Silthras glances around the group in general. "Is anyone perhaps skilled at tracking? This man was killed by having the life force sucked out of him, the the obvious damage may have been an opportunistic scavenger, or perhaps to cover up the real cause."

(( Silthras will offer Help to anyone skilled in tracking ))

"The blood stains clearly lead this way...but that too may be mis-direction..." he says.

(( OOC: Do we know if the effects of a vampire attack amounts to removal of life force? ))