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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 440575" data-attributes="member: 96">The room is small - barely big enough for the three straw mattresses that inhabit it - but clean and neat. The beds are hardly the height of comfort, but compared to the cold, hard ground of the past weeks of travel - or the slightly softer dirt of Othic's home - they are luxurious indeed. Thick blankets are piled on top of the bed, almost as good as dogs at warding off the winter chill.Entering the room, Sen-Jyu takes the bed, reclining in its feathery softness. Piece by piece, he removes his armor, finishing with the scabbards at his sides.Ahoke, too, removes her bone armor. "It's been a long day," she says wearily. "I wonder if it's going to be a long night, too?" She shrugs, stretching out on one of the straw mattresses, stone axe on the floor beside the bed, great club in bed beside her.Keeping one sword on either side of his mattress, Sen-Jyu lies back, swaddling himself in blankets as he prepares for sleep.Ahoke promptly starts snoring, something that her travelling companions have probably grown accustomed to.Harvester takes the final bed and lays down to rest, after divesting himself of uncomfortable equipment. He tosses and turns, just as Tokket predicted. His eyes fly open, finally, with a sigh, and he rises, shortly before midnight and dresses. He moves to the door, sliding the bolt back, and exits, closing it as silently as is possible. He locks it from the outside and descends the stairs to the empty tavern.There he remains in supplication, in the center of the floor, for an hour or so before rising, and returning to bed.Ahoke sits up in her bed, rubbing at her neck. "Makes me wonder why these dreams hate my neck so much," she grumbles, looking over at her companions to see if they are asleep.The white of Sen-Jyu's wide eyes is enough to inform the dwarf that he is not. He looks, in a word, terrified, though he has not so much as made a peep.Ahoke strokes the side of her great club. "You too, Sen? I don't think that my heart is going to stop racing for a week."Harvester rises with the dawn, appearing tired, having slept but fitfully. Despite the hard night, he smiles, as if he possesses a secret. His clothes are donned as his stomach rumbles. He looks at his companions thoughtfully. "Eh...? Your neck? What's with your ne...." A closer look at Sen-Jyu, "Sen? What's wrong? Look like you've seen a ghost...""... I had hoped," Sen-Jyu says, his voice cracked and parched, "... that Tokket was wrong, would be wrong." He doesn't close his eyes, his tone flat and bereft of the vitality that is always woven into it. He draws a careful breath, as if in such a movement, whatever remains seared into his eyes from the dream would come alive.Ahoke draws a deep breath, and then says, "Did the nightmare take place in the mines?"Harvester sits back on the edge of his mattress, elbows on knees so that his hands dangle. "My, my.... It looks to've been quite fearsome, your dreams have..." He doesn't appear to have been so terribly afflicted with nightmares, though there's no disguising his own weariness."Not in the mines, no. Home," Sen-Jyu says, and starts to peel off the sweat-saturated blankets like layers from an onion. "How close to dawn is it?" His eyes have not yet relaxed from their dinner-plate sized staring.The window reveals a dim red line to the east, where the sun lurks somewhere below the horizon."Okay," says the dwarf. "I say that we start where the kid disappeared, just like we said we would. The kids disappeared from there, and so did the local heroes, so it seems like we'll probably disappear from the same area." She shrugs. "Let's get it done as soon as we can. I don't like this place."Harvester peers at Sen-Jyu for a long moment before commenting, "Close to dawn, looks like.... Remember, Sen," a glance encompasses Ahoke as well, "that these nightmares are probably designed to frighten you, as they have... to weaken your resolve... That's my guess..." He appears almost perky as he hops up - at least, compared to his friends.In resignation, Sen-Jyu stands, moving to the door and disappearing out of it, returning some few minutes later with a shallow basin of water.Ahoke scowls at Harvester. "Did you not have a dream, then?" She starts putting on her armor, slowly and methodically.Sen-Jyu sniffs at his clothing, wrinkling his nose. "I wish I hadn't inherited the human odor," he mutters to himself.Harvester gives a secretive little smile, "Oh, i dreamed... I dreamed of _Him_...." He fondles his holy symbol absently.Ahoke wrinkles her nose, and then finger combs out her hair. She starts attaching weapons to herself, and then looks at the others. "I'm ready when you are."The spirit-blood taps the pane of ice on the basin a few times until it fractures, allowing him to pluck thin shards of it from the surface of the water. Once that's done, he splashes the water across his face, savoring the coolness as it runs down his chin and neck. A handful is poured directly onto his scalp and massaged into his hair, a couple more applied under his arms and along his sides. Gooseflesh rises at the chilly touch of the water, but he enjoys it, rejuvenating himself in the memory of life and living.Harvester stamps his foot more firmly into his boot. "I'll go on down, see if breakfast's ready..."Breakfast warm in your stomachs, the three of you head to the forest where the children vanished. White plumes hang in front of your faces as you breathe, and the icy air stabs at your brains when you inhale - doing nothing for the throbbing sensation in your temples. The sun has crept a fingersbreadth over the horizon, and your early morning shadows precede you like an escort of giants.Harvester follows his companions through the town, towards the river. His scythe dangles carelessly over a shoulder. "Hope you know what you're doin in these woods, 'cause I sure don't..."Ahoke tramps through the forest, seeming quite at home in the natural setting and, truth be told, seeming to be unfazed by the bitter cold.Sen-Jyu is likewise content with the environment, and the further from town the group is, the more he seems to enjoy it. His eyes are kept low toward the ground, looking for evidence of tracks, especially ones made by little people.The cold snap was recent - that much is clear. Even as short a time as a few days ago, the ground by the river was much softer - as evidenced by the wide variety of tracks that now exist, preserved in frost-rimed earth, along its banks. Deer, rabbits, foxes...the signs of all of their passage are here to see.Ahoke hmms, frowning. "I see lots of tracks," she says, as she walks along the river. "Animal tracks."Sen-Jyu slows down, taking to all fours as he peers close to the ground. Some portions he runs his fingers across as he squats over them, tracing shapes in intricate whorls. "... not these," he says, his voice not quite lost upon the wind."Yeah," agrees Harvester. "But none of the two-legged var...." He falls silent and approaches Sen-Jyu, to see what he's found.Ahoke breathes out. "Oh, good. I was hoping that one of us would see something..."Ahoke leans over to look at the tracks. She hisses suddenly, a vicious sound indeed coming from a dwarf. "Those are not the tracks of children. We're going to have to hunt them down and kill them. All of them. They might even have the children. Little cannibalistic bastards."Harvester blinks at Ahoke, "Eh? What is it? Who is it?"Sen-Jyu blinks, "I'm... not sure," he replies to the Harvester, though he's clearly deferring to the dwarf, lest her rage find outlet on him.Ahoke snarls in wordless rage, then takes in a couple of deep breaths, her fingers clenching and unclenching. "Thanork. I hate thanork. Many of my people have devoted their entire lives to destroying them. And it's a life well spent, one spent removing that menace. They stand about up to here," she says, holding a hand at chest level. Big pointy ears. Nothing is beneath them. They'll stoop to any evil."Harvester pulls back as Ahoke explodes, "Er.... Who, or what is ' thanork'??"Ahoke shakes her head rapidly. "They're a type of... creature. I guess you could say that they're sentient. We're constantly at war with them. They eat children. I wouldn't doubt that these dreams are their fault, somehow, if they're in the area."Sen-Jyu looks up at Harvester, "... she just said," he mentions, though quietly. "I'll trust her opinion of them."Harvester nods to Sen-Jyu, "As will I..." A look to Ahoke, "How fresh are these tracks? And can you follow them?"Ahoke sighs, sounding disgusted. "I can't tell... they go that way and fade away, and these others go into the forest and fade away... I've never been good at following this sort of thing.""I can follow them," Sen-Jyu says confidently. "This is something that I've done for quite a few... well, for a while." He smiles at his companions, "Now, just to determine which way."Ahoke hmms. "Well, we can try to follow these on the river first, and then backtrack and follow the other set into the woods..."Sen-Jyu nods in agreement. Losing no time, he returns to his crouch, eyeing the tracks that run with the river, carefully avoiding stepping upon them lest he mar some sort of evidence.Harvester shrugs, leaving the woodsy decisions to those who know such things. While his companions study and trail the tracks, he looks off into the surrounding forest.It's not long before the trail ends abruptly over a patch of rocks and stones. Sen-Jyu pauses, looking about the vicinity, but soon tosses his shoulders. "Crafty little thanork, aren't they," he mutters.Harvester murmurs, "Try the other way, then?"Ahoke mutters something about thanork and deviousness, and then sighs. "Well, let's try the track into the woods." She nods in agreement to Harvester.Sen-Jyu returns to the place where the tracks were originally discovered, seeking to follow the trail into the forest.Sen-Jyu sighs, after having gone not too far. "... these creatures must have anticipated being tracked..." he says, no small amount of frustration heard under the tranquility."Wait a minute," says Ahoke, who has long since given up looking at tracks and has been looking straight ahead. "Right up ahead is a clearing. The tracks seem to end right before it... let's just go in and take a look around."Looking up rather than down, Sen-Jyu shrugs. With a clearer goal in sight, he attempts to fade into the treeline, approaching with due caution and stealth.Harvester just shakes his head, muttering, "Don't see how you guys can see the forest for all these trees... I don't see nothin..." A gesture, "Lead on, Kay...."Ahoke walks into the clearing, brandishing her axe, just in case.The clearing has obviously been the site of a struggle - even the Harvester's untutored eyes can see that. The leaves have been kicked up and disturbed, and in the once-soft ground underneath are yet more of the footprints of the crafty thanork.Harvester holds up a hand to his friends, "Uh.... hang on a sec, guys... Look at that...." He points to a pile of red dirt that seems to be curiously shaped like the Steeple - the mountain overshadowing Bellhold.Ahoke nods, grimly. "I was right. The little bastards have the children. Or had them, anyway." She walks to a spot in the clearing. "You can tell, here." She looks around, growling in frustration. She glances over at Harvester, and then to the mountain. "What..?"Harvester walks towards the spire-shaped pile of dirt and goes to one knee beside it. His had traces its contours without quite touching. "See... here... and here... and here..." He points off towards the mountain in comparison.Sen-Jyu nods at both of the points noticed by his companions, unsurprised, but frowning as he thinks about their implications. "So these thanork have the children. Then we must follow them to their lair, and see what we can do to save the survivors, or avenge their deaths. Or both."Ahoke nods to Sen-Jyu in agreement, and then crosses over to the mountain. "Do you think that one of the children made this, to try to show us where they were being taken? Or is that too wild of a guess?"Harvester raises a hand in a gesture of 'I don't know'. "Beats hell outa me... Seems certain SOMEONE made it though.... And seems like alot of fight here for a few kids...""Perhaps the previous heroes made it this far..." Sen-Jyu breathes. "But no way to tell for certain."Harvester gestures around the clearing, "Can you see any tracks leading from here?"Sen-Jyu nods. "Yes. I believe I can follow the trail from here.""Their trail begins..." Sen-Jyu follows, from the spot that Ahoke found to the edge of the clearing, "here. I'll begin on it; this may take a while if I'm to be absolutely certain."The sun crawls across the sky as Sen-Jyu makes his painstaking way along the path. Nothing is left unexamined - the slightest disturbance of fallen leaf, the tiniest bend in a blade of grass, the slight looseness of a displaced pebble - all are noted and analyzed.The hours crawl along as the strange warrior moves along the path at a snail's pace. Have you really only come a hundred yards? It seems like forever.Gradually, though, one thing becomes apparent - as another set of tracks join the ones you follow (possibly the same ones you lost at the river?), it is clear that their destination lies somewhere on the Steeple.It is late afternoon by the time you come to the Old Mine Road. Somewhere ahead, the old abandoned mine dives into the roots of the mountain - but the tracks merely cross the road, and continue on. An hour or so later, you stand at the foot of the mountain itself, where the footprints peter out on the rocks. The light is beginning to fail, and the mountainside ahead seems to lack a ready means of ascent.Ahoke looks up the side of the mountain. "They... climbed it here? I don't see where one could climb this thing, especially with children.""That's what it seems, though," says Sen-Jyu, and he stands resolute in the judgment he has made.Ahoke steps closer to the mountain, reaching her hand out to touch the stone. "I'm good at climbing, and I don't think it's possible to scale this, even with the right equipment. If not impossible, close to it. I wonder... if there's a secret passage into the mountain somewhere?"Harvester nods slowly, thoughtfully. "It appears as we suspected... the mines." He looks to Ahoke and Sen-Jyu, "Or perhaps we merely do not see the path they climbed, hidden among these rocks? Or perhaps there is an ascent within the mines...""I'm not much as far as it comes to mountains," admits Sen-Jyu, "so I believe you. Maybe we should spend the last hours of daylight seeking out a possible passage?" Hot on the trail, he doesn't want it to die quite so sudden a death at the hands of an insurmountable rock wall.Harvester takes a seat on a handy boulder and sets his scythe at his feet. Elbows rest on knees, and fingers tent into a steeple. Softly he speaks, a frown creasing his forehead, "There is something... that I cannot quite recall...."Ahoke ers, looking at Harvester. "Something about the mountain?" She starts poking around the rock at the base of the mountain, not inconvenienced by the fading light in the least.Sen-Jyu also gets to work, exploring the base of the mountain in the whereabouts of the ending of the tracks.Harvester's glares at the mountain thoughtfully and nods to Ahoke, "Yes... I think so... Have we learned anything regarding passages within the mines? Perhaps where the dragon resided?" He rises, and begins looking across the landscape.Ahoke shudders. "I know that I chose the wrong passage in my dream last night. Something ate my leg and tried to twist my head off."Harvester blinks and stops, to look at Ahoke. "Ate your leg and tried to twist your head off? Errr... that sounds rather unpleasant..."Ahoke nods. "You're telling me. It makes one wonder why I'm poking around the very mountain that I had such an awful dream about."Sen-Jyu looks at Ahoke in the same manner that Harvester does: abruptly and quizzically, borderline surprised. He whispers something to himself before he continues searching.Harvester's voice trails off as his eyes center on something, and he points, hand drawing down to the base, "There.... is that..." He walks some yards away, "Yes... a trail. Sort of.... it will still prove difficult, I think..."Ahoke walks over, peering at the trail.Sen-Jyu pauses in his searching, moving to examine what it is that Harvester has found. One hand rests on the hilt of Ichido-sama, finding reassurance in its presence.The trail is...well...not much. The difficulty which you had in finding it is proof of that. It winds its way up the steep side of the mountain, a narrow space barely wide enough for a single foot, a space that is not so much flat as only slightly less steep than the rest of the mountainside.Harvester looks back to where he was sitting moments ago and sighs. He walks back, towards the scythe laying on the ground.Ahoke considers for a moment. "Did either of you bring torches? Lanterns of some kind? I can see in pitch black, and am not worried about myself... but you guys might have trouble."Sen-Jyu says, "Actually," Sen-Jyu says, brightening a bit, then frowns. "No."Harvester removes his pack and sets it upon the rock. "I have both... I think I'll use a torch for now, though... or I'll drop the lamp on one of your heads and set you afire." He removes a torch from within, and reaches into his pouch for flint and steel. He sets to lighting the wood.Ahoke nods, waiting for Harvester to prepare.Harvester hears Sen-Jyu's words, and once he has the first torch lit, draws another and sets it alight before handing it to the spirit-kin. The pack is slung and scythe taken up to be placed across his back.Sen-Jyu shakes his head, deterring the offer of the torch. "It'd be better to have two weapons and one light than two lights and one weapon, yes?"Harvester shrugs, "Alright. Then douse it and keep it. Never know when we might be spearated and you left in the dark." He smiles.Ahoke smiles grimly. "You could always hit one with your torch. It's fun to set them on fire."Sen-Jyu accepts the torch, lowering it to the ground and snuffing it with his foot. "I lack flint -- somehow I doubt that the comfort of a torch in my hands would be of any help." The torch is handed back.Harvester shakes his head and takes the snuffed torch. After a few moments of letting it cool, it is stowed in his pack. "We need to get you some basic supplies, Sen..." He grins."I live off the land. I don't often find myself under it." Sen-Jyu grins back at the Harvester, then turns his focus back to the bleak stone pinnacle rising before them. "Any thoughts on whether there's a passage here or not?"Harvester looks up at the arduous climb ahead. "Should we climb with ropes tied to each other, or...?" He looks to Ahoke, the most experienced climber for guidance.Ahoke grimaces. "I don't know, guys. I don't think that you can make it up in the dark, carrying a torch... we /might/ be able to do it in the morning light, but even then, it's going to be an interesting climb."Harvester grunts. "Back to town, then? I'm not to sure about sleeping out here, with your friends lurking about..."Ahoke sighs, looking back to the general direction of the village. "Seems like such a long walk...granted we came the long way around. We could do that, if you want. We could also sleep here, and have one of us watching at all times throughout the night."Harvester heaves a large sigh, "Arright, well.. least I still have my blankets... No fire, I'm betting... or can we?" He looks hopeful.Ahoke makes a face. "Well... I suppose it might draw them out into the open, if we lit a fire. We might get the opportunity to kill some of them."Harvester frowns after a moment and removes his pack again. He holds the lit torch out to the others, "Someone... hold this a moment please?" He extracts his journal with one hand.Ahoke holds the torch aloft so that the human has light to look at the little scribbles by.Harvester begins to sift through his journal - an odd collection of notes and passable pictures. Towards the end he slows, glancing at each page. "Ahh...." he murmurs. "Here... I made a note of something from Thrommel's diary... It seems he was contemplating confrontation of Copperdeath either through the mines, or up the mountainside..."Ahoke hmms. "Did he say anything else?"Harvester shakes his head at Ahoke, "Merely that the mountain seemed more dangerous and open... It was his last entry.""There was more," states Sen-Jyu flatly, looking up to meet the priest's eyes. "Something else. May I?" One hand extends toward the journal.Harvester looks at Sen-Jyu for a long moment, then at his journal. He hands it over thoughtfully. Perhaps nearly reluctantly. A nod.Ahoke looks from Harvester to Sen-Jyu and back, shrugging a bit, waiting for them to reach some sort of consensus.Sen-Jyu glances over the pages, then shakes his head. "I need to see the actual journal again," he says while handing Harvester's back.Ahoke thinks a moment. "Do you think it important enough for us to walk back to the village tonight, and look at it? Because we can... it'll just mean more walking."Harvester accepts the journal, then hikes his thumb over his shoulder, towards town. "Then we'll need to see Tokket again..."Ahoke nods, once. "Let's go back to the village then... actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that I don't want to sleep out here with those murderous little bastards crawling around the mountain."Harvester nods, apparently a little pleased with the prospect of not sleeping out here. "Very well. Maybe we shouldn't tell anyone what we've found, little that it is... In case someone's not exactly on our side..." He glances at his companions as he stows the journal and wears the pack. "How old're these tracks, anyway?""It wouldn't be right not to tell them," Sen-Jyu says gently. "These people have given us their hopes. They are waiting for us to bring them results."Ahoke hesitates for a moment. "I don't know, Sen," she says. "Maybe we can tell them that we think we're on to something, but that we want to be sure before telling them. Telling these people that their children have fallen into the hands of monsters might be the last thing they need to hear right now...Harvester shakes his head as he blows out a plume of white air. "Fine. Then let's just tell Tokket. He can tell the others if we disappear. I don't trust everyone to have our best interests at heart."Sen-Jyu murmurs to Ahoke, "We don't know one way or another about the fate of the children. I'm not suggesting that we tell them that there's no hope. I would rather be honest and forthright to their questions than evasive -- it is easy to sense when someone is avoiding the truth."Ahoke shrugs. "Alright, do what you want. Since it's late, and we'll probably be leaving right after we wake up from our nightmares, we might not see any of them anyway. Shall we?" She gestures towards the village.Harvester says, "Then don't lie, Sen. Just say we don't want to say just yet." He laughs softly. "Or say nothing and let us.... I won't lie, but won't jeopardize our pursuit, either."Ahoke says, "Let's discuss it as we walk."Harvester nods to Ahoke and begins walking. "Good idea. Besides... i'm HUNGRY..."Ahoke nods, rapidly. "And thirsty..." she mutters.Sen-Jyu frowns, looking back up the slope of the Steeple. Already, his hands have started to fidget with a tear in his clothing from the long trip over the mountains. "If I am asked a question, I will answer it in my own way. Please do not ask me to do otherwise."The walk back to the village takes far less time than the tracking did - it is perhaps half an hour before you see the outskirts, and ten minutes more before you are safely ensconced in the Bell and Clapper. As before, the streets are all but deserted after dark, as is the inn. A yawning Tokket - perhaps a bit surprised to see you - turns the diary over into to Sen-Jyu's possession for the evening, and taps a small keg of beer which he leaves for you to use as you wish, as he staggers off to attempt to sleep. The days of restlessness are taking their toll on him.</blockquote>

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