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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 2178728" data-attributes="member: 18280">As the group left, it was mostly children who followed them.  Children being fickle, they were ready to jeer (from a safe distance) as the wagon and horses went by.  The adults were different.  Although certainly not all of the adults had come to beg the group to stay, most of those who had come running when they heard of the group's departure had done so for just that purpose.  "Don't leave us!" an old woman cried.  A tall man and his wife stood by with a stunned child and watched them go grimly.  Brother Elidor turned his head away, for the boy was Eoth, whose parents had been killed by the manticore, and the others were Broadhain Tallstone and his wife, Eoma.The lay brother flinched as Horsom singled Broadhain out for a jaunty "Good luck to you!"  The tall man frowned and spit upon the ground.  They could hear him mutter a curse beneath his breath, though not what he said.  Brother Elidor flinched, but said nothing.  That comment, and that reaction, both rang with the truth of the situation.  The adventurers seemed bitter, and those that they should have best protected had made it known that they believed the ruse.  Who then could doubt that the group had left for good?Meanwhile, at the mill, Salwerk Miller's cronies had arrived, and the man began to reveal his plan as though it had come from the gods themselves.  "For surely," he said, "as I prayed, a voice came to me, and told me what to do."  What followed was, very much, Norbert's plan.  Salwerk intended to tie the harpoon by rope to a tree, harpoon the manticore, and give archers hiding nearby a chance to shoot it.  He seemed to recognize the dangers that Norbert did not, for he expected the archers to hide in nearby cottages.  Of course, he would likely die doing this.It was about then that word came of the group's departure.  The miller's face grew sour.  Who knows?  Perhaps without the threat of his own death that the group provided, he would have had the victim determined by lots.  Or perhaps he had hoped -- despite his vocal remonstrations the other way -- that he would be spared the need to do what he proposed.  In any event, he shook it off, and prepared to do what he had to.  One thing he sought was whatever makeshift armor the village could provide.  For the miller's hevy frame, they had nothing better than leather.  Some thought a few metal plates might be sewn onto this.</blockquote>

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