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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CanadienneBacon" data-source="post: 2837340" data-attributes="member: 11146">With naught but an appraising eyebrow raised in greeting to Korgrave and Karl, Mistress Hucrele thanks the old man who brought the pair from the back gate.  "Thank you, Octavius.  Please, return to your normal duties.  I assure you, we're all quite safe here in the kitchen."  A slight shaking to Mistress Hucrele's right hand belies this statement.  Oswald, with a final harumph and a shake of his head, quits the kitchen via the back door.Electing to address the priest, Mistress Hucrele replies.  "You have come in summons to my posted notice seeking help finding my sister's children?"   The woman casts a look about the table in wonderment.  Silent a moment while sipping at her tea, and her hand shaking all the while, Mistress Hucrele continues.  "Very well.  I've had no other offers.  Your service shall be acceptable.  Two weeks past, Talgen and Sharwyn went for their usual weekly forage into the wood to our north.  Talgen favored the hunt and Sharwyn...well, I don't pretend to rightfully know why that child favors wandering the wood...nuts and berries for her pouch, I presume.  She's of marrying age, just past ripe to be wed, and ought to have been at home preparing her dowry trunk."   Mistress Hucrele sighs in obvious irritation.  "Octavius has been kind enough to inform me after the fact that Talgen mentioned to him in the stable the morning of their departure that the pair intended to foray toward the Ashen Plain if time permitted.  It seems," and here Mistress Hucrele's voice raises in incredulity, "Talgen fancied the recent tales of goblins, rats, wereboars, and dragons comming from the tongues of Oakhurst's less..." Mistress Hucrele pauses, considering her word choice, "...well-educated citizens.  I think the boy may have had an overblown opinion of himself; he made a fine hunter of boars but had yet to prove himself of any worth at all.  I consider him a drifter."  Mistress Hucrele pours more tea for herself, offering the tea pot 'round the table in Elyan's direction.  "The youngsters' exploits are quite enough this time.  Just when I've need of capable hands to manage the shop, the two of them have proven quite a disappointment.  My sister, bless her, is likely turning over in her grave with the thought of what that pair of ill-wrought childen have been up to of late.  If word of their disappearance reaches the Free City or Furyondy, our business associates will likely take an interest in the accompanying tales of overblown goblin besiegement.  Quite bad for business, and a nuisance besides."  Mistress Hucrele's voice demonstrates little love for the missing pair.  "If found, I intend to find a husband in short order for Sharwyn, and have already arranged a commission in Urnst for Talgen."   Mistress Hucrele casts an eye at Kiaphas and Elyan, then reluctantly around the table at Karl, Korgrave, and finally at Grotz.  Looking away in apparent disgust as Grotz belches bread crumbs on his plate of ham, Mistress Hucrele pauses before continuing.  "As it's been two weeks, I'm assuming they've either run off or have been guttered in the forest by a wild boar.   Still, they must be found.  My offer is precisely as stated in the notice Octavius posted at the Oakhurst Inn.  You may of course avail yourselves of the right to salvage whatever you recover on your journey, save for the signet ring of either Talgen or Sharwyn.  I shall need one or both rings and offer 125 gold crowns per ring returned to each of you as a token of my thanks.  If at all possible, I do prefer that the pair be returned to the manor alive and of sound mind and body.  If you're able to rescue Talgen and Sharwyn, and I pray that you are, I shall double the reward to 250 crowns per child rescued, to be paid to each of you.  And the thanks of the Hucrele family along with it, of course.  Taking Octavius's advice into consideration, I suppose you might go out on a limb and search along the ravine west of town.  Though, in my opinion, you're far more likely to find them in the forest north of Oakhurst, nearer the Yatils."</blockquote>

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