Sir Uthen of Sadley:
"I'm willing to help with any tasks around here, although I may not be much use at anything other than fetching and carrying."
Deise:
Garam, when you say that best wait here. What are your plans if the slaughter visits your holdfast, how can my friends help?
OOC: Deise will happily (pretend) to do whatever to help thatch roofs. He will be eager to glean whatever information he can, such as (1) other than eviceration and laughter, are there any other signs such as a trail, sightings, eagles etc. (2) he is a it perturbed by how normal things appear to be in the face of such a threat to lilihood, (3) does the village have a plan. Desise will not want to venture outside without information, a strategy, and plenty of stronger fighting men.
Sir Uthen and Deise spend the rest of the day until sunset learning the finer arts of thatching with the local varieties of sedge.
Holt and Garam are quite garrulous as they work and Deise finds he does not need to probe very hard at all to get the answers he seeks.
He learns that when the attacks first happened many of the herdsmen and folk at the scattered holdings went out looking for tracks or signs and nothing was found, some of those men being experience hunters and woodsmen. No one, no matter how careful a watch is kept has caught so much as a glimpse of the perpetrators.
Garam nods at mention of a plan, making clear that no one will venture out into the open after dark, there has been scattered talk of all gathering at one holding, this one as the largest, but some of the holdings are so distant that they would not be able to move their animals all the way here before dark.
When Deise mentions his disquiet with the way daily life is proceeding under this threat and receives sudden and loud laughter from both Holt and Garram.
" Begging yer pardon, Stranger. But this is fooking Ereworn! These last near two years is the first time since I was born that we've not been beaten half to death and had all our savings taken in taxes, that we've not lost most of the flock to disease, that we've had lambs born whole and healthy, that we've not had a child taken to the Castle as a servant and ne'er heard of again....its a bad spot....but I cannae complain about it compared to the past."
" We've not had an attack here for a week or more, thats why I advise ye wait here for them...it...whatever...to come to us. I'm no coward, but I'm no trained for fighting unless its a ram that don't want rooing."