Henry felt himself shudder, his neck twitch unbidden as his brow darkened at the incomprehensible votive. He'd lingered long enough and with grim determination plucked a pencil and pad from his pocket to dutifully transcribe the words of the sermon.

Non of this made sense, but it had something to do with the Cleary's. He'd relay them the words and then wipe the whole thing from his worry.

"Come on Tom. We've spent long enough here. I dont like it. YOU dont like it.". He shivered, trying not to look back at the haunting depictions. "The longer we linger, the longer Janey has to get lost.".

Unless his companion objected Henry would finish his scribbling to take one final look at the disconcerting scene, then scramble back down to join James.

"Janey went that way.".

Thomas finishes his sketching to the best of his ability.  Once he is done he hears Henry state that he is also finished with whatever he was doing also.  Turning from his work Thomas looks over his notebook once again before joining Henry.  "I agree Henry, if we are both done with this foul place let us go down and join James.  Maybe he can decipher these or at least he might know someone who does."
Thomas looks over the area once more before heading down the hill to rejoin James.  "James quick question for you.  How familiar are you with the locals and their customs?  Henry and I found some sketches and other items up the hill.  Neither of us can figure out what it means."

The two scramble their way back down the rock, the raven leaving the pot to perch across from its former spot, its harsh calls like laughter in the shrieking insect-haunted bush. The pot, dislodged, falls to the ground, leaving a splatter of whatever was in it down the rock face. Henry passes it after Tom and notes the other piece of wood, though filthy, also has those slashed lines and maybe a name.

Flies harass the pair until they're well clear and crashing their way through the undergrowth to where James has managed to catch their horses in a small hollow a little way away. The experienced ranch hand just gives them their mounts back and glances at the notebook waved at him by Daniels, his thoughts clearly elsewhere, with a simpleton girl who might need him.

"Don't know about any of that," he says, which seems to be the end of it, until he's mounted up. He scans the slopes above and the trees around as though expecting movement. "...the black folk don't have written language of any sort, nor cloth nor cook-pots. Mostly if you give 'em a thing they leaves it on the ground. No, drunken bushrangers or hands from another outfit, that's all. You found anything human up there, we can tell the boss once we have Janey back."

Henry's fingers keep the smell of death from where they touched the ring; Mulberry is not pleased with that and tries to avoid all direct touch, requiring Tom to hold her head while Henry gets himself on her back. He keeps catching the scent himself as they head off on Janey's trail, as though something of the dead things and strangeness scrawled across the rock stayed with them.

They ride, watching carefully all the while. The landscape flattens, the trees growing closer. The heat gives the air a taste of hot earth.


[[Anything you'd like to discuss on the road, set it here, otherwise, some more Spot Hiddens, please.]]

[[edit: bump to give you guys a chance to heed this  otherwise I'll do those rolls myself and post tomorrow night, time permitting. I hope you haven't all buggered off at once...]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:10, Mon 09 Mar 2020.

Thomas looks around the area as the group remounts their horses and heads back toward the way that it is guessed that Janey had taken.  The images of what he had seen still haunt Thomas, that and the strange items that Henry discovered in the pot.  Maybe that is why Thomas was not at his most observant.

OOC
20:04, Today: Thomas Daniels rolled 83 using 1d100.  Spot Hidden (75)

The cicadas scree-saw in the bush around them, drowning out the sounds of wind and any close and quiet footsteps. The trail gets more ambiguous and harder to follow as they move from plain dirt to dry leaf litter. Only Henry, still counting snakes, catches a glimpse of something odd.

"Hey! Over there!" Henry almost throws himself sideways off Mulberry's back in pointing left and clings uneasily to the saddle until he's sure he's steady.

"Up under that thicket there was something big, and white, too, not moving like a sheep..." Henry pauses at a thought, confused. "...there aren't any panthers in New South Wales, are there?"

"Nah," Gill responds, searching for that same indication of movement. "All right, you two go on ahead a length or two in case she takes it into her head to bolt. Janey!" James projects his voice rather than raise it, though Henry still sits up and looks onward to their right, seeming spooked.

"I think there's something...someone way out in the bush there, too," he adds, squinting to try and re-catch the movement that had seemed human. He looks back to James, who isn't paying him much heed due to having dismounted to head towards the thicket, and then to Tom, his expression asking quite what they should do. "Do you think it's a bushranger?"

Thomas startles at the sudden stop of Henry, having been thinking about the strange sketches and other strange findings up the hill.  "What did you find over there Henry?"  Thomas dismounts and heads over to where Henry is looking.  Getting down on his hands and knees to get a better look at the area Thomas looks over the area careful using his skills as a police detective to the best of uses.

OCC:
11:09, Today: Thomas Daniels rolled 11 using 1d100.  Spot Hidden (75).

Creeping up to the thicket at right angles to James and crouching to peer inside, Thomas finds wide brown eyes in a pale tan face staring back at him. Janey shows all her teeth like a dog, not trusting the flanking manoeuvre, a weird expression on a human face. All she's wearing is a shift, her limbs stained up past ankles and wrists with dust.

Then James makes some murmur of reassurance and Janey bolts to the Cornishman, throwing herself into his arms with enough force to knock him seated. "Gill!"

"Just so, Janey, it's all right. What'd you go and run off for, eh?" James pats the girl on the back and strokes her head a bit as though she were a small child, arranging the shift where it's scrunched up to give her some dignity. Thomas had heard James had had children, back in the old world, and the man's voice is gentle enough.

Janey thumps her head against James' shoulder and stays like that as though it helps. "Hnnnn...ma-Maggee, sh-droppa jug...I dnn scare'n everonn do, do strange 'gnn. I n't want. I n't want iiiit..." the last word trails off to a wail, the thought clearly upsetting the girl.

"I won't do strange, Janey. Tom won't do strange, either, you see? You know Tom, he's your friend," James adds as Janey raises her head and gives Tom a blank, almost hostile stare through the branches. "Will you come home, now?"

Janey considers. The thought of people at home "doing strange" obviously makes her wary, but staring at Gill seems to calm her a bit. She tightens her arms around his neck. "Carry," she agrees.

Henry flinched, startled as the pale clad quarry whirled in a flurry toward James. Relief flooded his veins a moment later as Gill's calming embrace reassured matters.
"Tom, thank god, it's Janey!". He stood, making less effort to conceal his presence, being careful not to approach the startled girl as James reassured her.

Hearing Janey's words Henry felt himself frown. It was difficult to follow what she said, and the young lad hadn't spent enough time with the girl to learn her rhythm...instead he glanced to where she had been lurking incase she'd left anything there, a toy or some such.

He felt an itch on neck and peered back the other way, deeper into the bush.

Nothing presents itself under the thicket - Thomas would have a better view, but all seems natural under there, if a bit pushed around and nested-in. As James shifts about to pick Janey up the others can see her knees are smudged dark with charcoal.

The bush tells Henry nothing, seemingly empty since the dawn of Creation for all that he still feels watched. Mulberry is watching that general area, too, her ears pointed that way and nostrils flared. Wary, not yet afraid.

At least Mulberry seemed fine. That was reassuring.

Flicking away some bug that had fallen on his leg Henry walked back over to the horses, reaching for his pack. Rustling through it's contents he tugged out a flask and took a moment to pat Mulberry's flank gently.

"I'll try not to do strange too.". He smiled encouragingly at the girl, not approaching too close. "Do you want something to drink?". Trying to be as nonthreatening as possible he placed the flask on a rock a few yards away from the horses, somewhere Gill might set her down.

Thomas continues to keep a weary eye out for trouble and attempts to understand what Janey is talking about.

Watching Henry offer Jamey something to drink Thomas looks over the area that seems to have Mulberry attention

OOC
09:38, Today: Thomas Daniels rolled 81using 1d100.  Spot Hidden 75.

Tom stares into the distance, seeing the gentle sway of various foliage. Perhaps, he considers, there was nothing there to see. The cicadas rasp their constant sawing and somewhere a forest bird rings out a note like a chime.

Janey looks at Henry's hand. James, who had been considering simply lifting her onto his horse, pauses at the good idea and consults with his armful of teenager: "Good idea to drink something," he encourages her.

Janey's staring at the rock the flask is on with great interest. "Snnake," she observes, now distracted. James squints over her.

"Ah, well, it's just moving off - young Henry, shoo it off with a stick if it gets near the horses. C'mon now, girl, are you going to walk over there yourself?"

Janey makes a vaguely assenting noise but drops to a crouch when put down, inclined, it seems, to scuttle over there on all fours. She jumps onto the rock, still crouched, watches the departing lethal curves of brown muscle, and examines the flask, testing the precise nature of its angles and composition with her teeth and lips and tongue.

"Janey, don't lick that. What do you say to Master Cotton, who's been so good as to lend it you?"

Henry gets one of those opaque stares, one that remains unbroken as Janey tests out the flask by the feel against her fingers now and drinks. "Thanky."

"-and how'd you get your knees all black?" James tries, not really expecting a reply though one comes, Janey touching one charcoal-smeared knee and staring at the darkness on her hand as though straight into however she held memory:

"I go backnn, nnn...muv shael, make it...so he n't come back," she manages, swallowing but not looking at anyone now.

"Snake!?".
Henry flinched, yanking his hand away from the rock as sure enough the 'stick' that had been lying on it slithered away to the shadows. He suppressed the urge to swear.

---

Holding himself back a few paces Cotton watched Janey carefully, doing his best not to spook her as she poked and toyed with the flask like it was some toy. He smiled encouragingly as she tested the top the container and lifted it to her dry lips.
"Muv shael? Who is he?".

"A...I muv'd et," Janey confirms. "'way frrm...the hAeds." The thought of 'him' seems to make her tense and anxious, rubbing at her arms.

She drinks twice from the flask and looks at it until Henry is almost sure she won't answer until she takes and holds a big breath, clearly forcing together some difficult words in the depths of herself. "He...he a bad..bad fella...I..I gowin fort, hh...hide, nn nnn evrun do strange, on the floor ana cnn make'm wake up a, ann I'nt like etttt..."

Janey crosses her arms across her middle as though to hold the fear and upset in and rocks back and forth a bit on her rock. "HnnnNNNNNnnnNNnn..."

Thomas' understanding of Janey is still horrible, looking at the others to translate what she said Thomas asks both Henry or James.  "What is she saying?  For the life of me I cannot really understand what she is saying.  I get the part about snakes and she has a bad feeling about something else but is it a person or place?"

James nods like he's heard what Tom has to say but crouches down, his attention on Janey. "Janey girl, Janey..."

Janey's upset humming quiets a bit, though she doesn't look at any of the men.

"This bad man, did he hurt you?"

Sensing something different to normal in the deathly seriousness of Gill's tone, Janey looks over and makes sure he sees she's shaking her head, worried she's done something bad. "I...I hide."

James relaxes, just a fraction, though for a moment the others had remembered far more easily than usual that the quiet Cornishman was a murderer. "Good girl, Janey. You did right. Did the man hurt someone else?"

Janey nods, encouraged to have done right. "Aa...a th'..sheeps. Nn...nn he...he...choap, he chop smmn up, I saw id..."

Henry's brow furrowed and he nodded to Tom quietly. The girl was obviously spooked and her words were hard to follow.
"I think she's saying she moved something...away from the haeds? What are the haeds Janey?".

"Then the bad man came so Janey hid in her fort while everyone did something strange on the floor. Then the bad man chopped up the sheep...

Janey, where was the bad man? Was he over there on the rocks? Was he outside?". Henry pointed back where they had come from and fumbled in his pocket. A moment later he tugged out the carved piece of wood with the Cleary's name on. "Did the bad man put things in a pot and draw on the rocks? Have you seen the bad man before? Do you know his name?".

Janey puts her free hand flat against her forehead. "Haed."

"Nn.." she seems to have some objection to Henry's sequencing of events, but not the words to express it, instead making a whirling gesture in the air. "Oth' way..."

Her face goes slack with concentration at all the questions, but then she visibly brightens, glad to have found someone who's clearly smart and good at knowing what she means. "Aauh, uh-huh, yauh," she says, nodding enthusiastically to all of that. "Hh-here b'fore..."

She frowns hard at the last question. "I...I...I n't sayit," she finishes.

"Oh, he came first, then you moved it away from heads?". Henry smiled encouragingly, excited that he seemed to be understanding her better. Seeing her expression darken at the mention of him he raised his palms gently to calm her. "It's ok, we don't need to talk about him now.". Whatever had spooked the girl was gone now and what mattered was to reassure her.
"Everyone has been worrying about you! But you are safe with us now. We're here to protect you. We'll get you home in one piece". The lad gestured to his companions. "Right?".

After a moment he hesitated and looked at her again. "I'm sorry, I'm a bit slow sometimes. Never can think straight when there are snakes around.
When you went back...what was it you actually moved?".
Maybe there was something they had missed at the other site, something she had hidden.

Janey nods some more. "Mmh."

She watches his hands while he gestures like a dog, then at James when the older hand nods assent to the notion that they'll get her home safe. "Mmm...theyn't do strange there?" she asks.

"No, they weren't doing anything strange when we left," Gill assures her, though Janey's attention is quickly back on Henry. She gives him a few moments of somewhat blank look, apparently confused by some part of his statement.

"Allwus snakes," she observes, possibly of the entire continent.

More confident she'd understood the last question, she gestures a vague dome in the air. "A, a shael, orra stone, in th' pot...it...hurt yuh haed nnside, hurt all nnside, bad-bad: I got a stiik. I muv'd et out'a way and put a...put a warn'n."

"A warning?" James asks, though for those that went up onto that rocky outcrop Janey's blackened knees and the heap of brush collected to push and pile on something and keep it jailed behind that charcoal scrawl has probably answered well enough.

Janey mimes scribbling. "I make't black. Like angry, 'cause, 'cause it bad. Bad in yrr...yrr thinken."

Thomas looks the group over.  "So let me get this straight.  Janey states that there is a scary man, who she hid from.  Then once he, the scary man leaves Janey goes up the hill and looks around where she sees the drawings that Henry and I saw."

"'n a rock, like...like a shael, I hide't," Janey adds to the summary, having the ability to tell when she's being talked about.

"Surely." He smiled again. "Whatever you hid, it's gone now, and so has the bad man. We should get you back home."

Standing he started to move toward the horses, looking to Gill for approval. "Will Janey ride with you?". He imagined the small slip of a girl would be safest beside the experienced hand, but would gladly share Mulberry if needed.

With a glance toward the sky he felt his belly rumble. "The Cleary's will be so glad to hear you are safe. Maybe you could show us where you hid the Shael on the way back, so we know to stay away from it.".

Their mission accomplished, Henry would be glad to get back to the farm. It had been a good day, apart from the snakes.


[[GM edit: saw the anachronism, compulsively fixed it.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:43, Mon 30 Mar 2020.

Gill nods to Henry's question with an affirmative noise, and tells Janey to give Henry his canteen back. The young woman does actually manage bipedal movement to do so, but Henry gets the impression that he's being offered something by a wary animal - something more like a deer or a wild cat he's not sure. Her fingers are a little rougher than he'd expect, like eucalyptus bark, eyes dark and hard to read.

"Nn...don' go back," she tells him, and just as abruptly runs over to James to be helped up on Kaiser's back.

Once everyone's in the saddle James takes a moment to work out where they are and plot the best course, then turns his horse'd head to take the lead.

"All right then...home," he says.