"Do as you will, I would however, not be so keen to poke my nose or otherwise disturb their bath if I were you." Milly advised her peers, she didn't know about the customs of the two foreigners or the dwarf, but she didn't picture them being too happy to have the two men bothering them. "With some luck all that troll business will be the most eventful episode on this journey."

Arkamir quickly and skillfully called up wisps of Ulgu out of he shadows in which he hid, enfolding even the very act of his spellcasting in their secrets.  If anyone were actually watching him, they would see him sit back quietly, cover his face with his hat and drift off to sleep.  In reality, he was moving across the way and slipping into the town hall after Ernst, looking to see and hear what was really going on.  Once inside, in addition to following Ernst, he kept an eye out for somewhere to conceal himself for when his current illusion of not being here... inevitably concluded.

23:43, Yesterday: Arkamir Ran-Helethel rolled 49 -- 2 degrees of success using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 76.  Channeling.
23:49, Yesterday: Arkamir Ran-Helethel rolled 19 using 3d10+3 with rolls of 8,7,1.  Cloak Activity (TN 12).
00:14, Today: Arkamir Ran-Helethel rolled 5 using 1d10 with rolls of 5.  Cloak Activity Duration (rounds).

Gille followed Jareik to the bathroom, content that the man would humor Gille's own superstition.
He did a short knock on the door. "Everything okay in there?" he asked.
"The water must be cold by now." he added to mask any concern, only realizing to late, when the words were already drifting through the air, that concerned had probably been a better choice then foolish.

With slow steps Arkamir followed into the large reception room of the town hall. On the left two separate offices with closed doors, one depicting the name of Ersnt the other resembling an open office, stood, but on the right, a large door led into a storage hall, with a staircase down just before it.

With quick steps, as no one was around he moved closer and eyed down the long staircase, being able to see two double doors and a long hallway.
Humming, chanting, and curiously, draped blankets and gobelins of artful display hung along the long hallway.
The depictions were...curious. Carnal, imagery of lust and desire for the flesh of others. Not what one would expect.
From the end he heard Ersnt bark in a more stern tone.
"Go..now! I fear the newcomers are curious, too curious to our means. Sacrifice the woman beneath, in the light of her grace, just shy of the statue of our lord and make her suffer - I will keep them at bay for now. We need two up top, NOW!"
What it was they hid he had no time to check, as two guards began to run up towards Arkamirs location and if he were to get away in time, he had but a small window.

"I'd imagine so." replied Jareik to Gille's small talk with the total indifference of a man who just wanted to go to sleep.

Which motivated him in doing a louder more insistent knock of his own since he didn't hear any response and he didn't want to wait all night.
"Yeah just making sure you lot didn't fall in or something."

"Allright that does it. No answer so if all three of them are there butt naked it's their fault for being deaf. And yours for talking me into it." declared Jareik after waiting a good few minutes and a few more increasingly insistant knocks.

He opened the door, if necessary by force.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:30, Thu 08 Feb.

Arkamir quickly removed himself from the area, finding an open window or door and slipping out before his illusion ended.

He checked the street then the inn's common room looking for a member of the party he had been tracking.

Etain walks off towards the stables where they kept their gear and animals, she wanted a shield between herself and whatever was coming and for Éimear & Roan to be loose, and she was sure Marie wanted Josette, a mighty Bretonnian Destrier would do wonders in closer quarters where the hooves can really get in. Keeping her axe ready but held low at her side she moves to the stables.

Etain Seanait rolled 64 -- 2 degrees of failure using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 44.  perception

Gille did not argued with Jareik when he blamed him for dragging him into this situation.
Yet still it was odd that no answer came from the inside.
He released his axe just in case and added his weight into getting the door open, one way or another.

The Dwarf followed after the other woman with cautious care, a hand not straying far from the axe at her hip with every step and eyes peeled for any semblance of trouble. The problem was there were far too many sources for trouble it seemed along every stop on this Ancestors' cursed path they had set themselves on. Not that it wasn't worth doing but even the most stubborn of her kin wanted a break now and then. Not that she'd ever give too much voice to that beyond some grumbling in the rocky languages of the mountain holds.



13:59, Today: Cecla Crownshield rolled 45 -- a simple success using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 48.  Perception. –

The group gathered outside - hearing some clanging of metal from the Townhall and two voices bickering as it drew closer to the entrance of it.
Calmly two guards appeared and nodded to those outside as if nothing had happened. Obviously by sound alone, they were beneath the town hall and perhaps further in a second ago, but proving that was the trick.

With the town at rest, including those who hired you to traverse the wilds to your desired location, and with designated rooms, you found yourself standing, idle, waiting for next steps - noticing that aside the guards at the townhall, few eyes rested on any of you. The town was for lack of a better term, calm and silent as the nighttime enclosed.

Etain nods back to the guards as she continues on her way to the wagon for her gear, looking to see if they were relaxed and at ease or if they were on edge. Looking about she asks "Should we get the others?"

The elf ran quickly over to the members of the party he saw from the street.  He spoke quickly and quietly. "You don't know me, but I've been tracking you since well before the Trolls, and am the reason that the Trolls did not continue to track you down even to today.  You seem a trustworthy lot, judging by your deeds with the Trolls and before, so I tell you this: Ernst is a goblin-venerating cultist and just entered that building and ordered a woman sacrificed to his patron by two of his guards.  I've no idea what dark magic it will bring down, but it must be stopped."

After a good few minutes of searching and Jareik rushingly inspecting the grounds around the bath house, Jareik returned to Gille and Milly completely baffled.

"Not a trace, if i didn't know better it's like all three just up and left. Morr's teeth, what's going on here?" He thought of the urban myths of ratmen coming from below ground to kidnap people but dismissed those silly fisher wives tales, this was no time for nonsense.

"Well so much for getting a bit of shut eye. Allright i'm assuming the worst. Didn't see any blood or signs of a scuffle, so either they didn't put up much of a fight, got surprised, or decided we are no longer good travel companions. Until we know which, we stick together, no one else disappears tonight." he said, eyeing them both in turn.

He wasn't sure how much he could trust the innfolk and was debating internally whether to kick down some doors and start beating people up for answers.

"That's... Disappointing. Leave it to foreigners to ditch you in the middle of the night without a word, next thing you'll tell me is they took our coin too." Milly glanced at Gille and nodded reassuringly to him. "Present company excluded, of course. I must say, if what you guess is true, I did expect better of the dwarf, this would be very unbecoming of her kin." Repeatedly tapping her lips with a finger as she stared down at her boots, Milly almost hopped on the spot before she exclaimed. "Let's look for Marie's horse! I can not picture her leaving town without it, then we'll know."

The Dwarf eyed the Elf with more than a little mistrust, the old grudges were worked into the bone of her stubborn people and up and out of no where talk of goblin venerating cultists. As if anyone ought to be daft enough to venerate the by-blown runts of green-skin kind. Not to say she wouldn't believe it if presented with the proper evidence of it but it was comically absurd in a dark sort of way.

"Right, then suppose we ought to be bracing to talk on the whole of this bloody place? Best get our lot sorted and catch up with the rest of ours. Long night and an ugly bit of work ahead. Again." the Dwarf offered with a setting of her jaw as she glanced towards Etain and Marie. "And this ain't because I'm buying it but that it'd just be our lot and luck so far. The Ancestors aren't laying out an easy road." the copper haired dwarf added with a jab of one forge toughened finger towards the Elf. All the while, she was working to keep her voice quiet and putting all the disquieting pieces together from what she'd already seen and heard. The memory of her trials to join Clan Crownshield pricking at the back of her mind and keeping her a little too focused on the details, if nothing else.

Jareik scratched his beard. He wouldn't think twice of a northerner, even a civilised one, acting in such a manner, but would be very undwarven like behavior indeed, and he was pretty sure the chivalric code might have something to say here too.

"Yeah, you're right, they wouldn't leave without the animals. Let's check the stables then, if the horse are missing and we can't find a single barking dog then that will confirm things one way or another."

As they were starting to leave, Jareik thought he saw the missing women at the far end of the street turning the road.

"THERE! Pretty sure that was them, and looking fine and dandy to me. Allright hands on your sword hilts, metaphorically speaking, let's get to the bottom of this."

With that he jogged after them, Milly and Gille hopefully not far behind.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:28, Thu 29 Feb.

Gille was glad Jareik had taken lead, for he knew little of the habits of the group he had joined.
Following him to first the stables as suggested by Milly but then taking the turn towards group further down the stream, he picked up the jog as well.

Two guards appeared at the townhall, calmly and composed, but obviously enthralled by something and somewhat inattentive to you as a whole.
In a fluke of luck or chance, you are all gathered, having met the mysterious man(Arkamir) with a word of warning.
Somewhat hidden, but unaware of prying eyes you have learned some.

That the townhall leads below.
Something is down there and someone is being dragged and kept there. For what use is uncertain.
Ernst and the spearheads of town are involved and are below as you speak.
The two guards, wearing standard guardsman attire, chain and weaponry and in charge of protecting the entrance and will notice entrance.

Choices are to be made; The new face seems attentive to much and likely a viable resource regardless.
You all recall, in lack of better, that you have a row of adjacent rooms above the inn room, a story up, allowing for more private talks.
You do have the man and woman power to also do a frontal assault, or completely ignore and leave the next morning.
You do notice that your employers and their men have been missing for some time...

"We could go and conspire about how to save that woman from being sacrificed to Chaos, or I could arrange for all of us to gain entry, hopefully without even fighting the exterior guards at this point, or you all could ignore it and pretend it's not happening while I go try to stop it alone and likely die."  The elf whispered tersely.

To help expedite the expected upcoming conversation, he made a quiet back-and forth between himself.

In a lower-pitched quiet voice he whispered, "I don't know if we can trust this strange Elf."

In a higher-pitched quiet voice, "But how could he know of our travels for the past several months."  He added a few location details from the group's trip.

Lower-pitched, "Just proves he knows stuff, not that he's not a good-for-nothing hustler."

Higher pitched, "But isn't it odd that we were neither harassed by bandits nor tracked down by the trolls after the puking incident?"

Lower-pitched, "Proves nothing."

In his natural voice, he concluded, "If you need further proof later, and I survive the night, I'll take you to where I distracted the trolls and led them aside to crash into a camp of bandits instead of continuing down your path all the way here - if they didn't overtake you first.  Now though, you need to decide if you're helping tonight."

"Of course we are going to help save a woman from being sacrificed to the Dark Powers, don't be a fool. A lot has happened to us recently, outside of our meeting with you. Strangers have been...unkind to our group, as of late, so forgive a small amount of caution, Maître Elfe," Marie hissed back to Arkamir.

Turning her attention to the others, she raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Is there any reason that we should not play this rescue loud and fast? I doubt there will be legal repercussions for us doing so..." the knight asked, continuing her whisper.

Etain grabs the head of her axe but doesn't raise it but both dogs come up behind her, ears up and hackles raised but otherwise quiet "Yes, lets find out how to get in there, the quieter the better." she says to the elf before looking to Marie [Language unknown: "Nc thathuave p ble o at a ill reek, ni nteyinlar mi ssti...losaliel... werwi Ca rea moss romen ilanhe romtrarom"]

"Get too loud and liable to bring the whole place down on us. So much as I'd like to be blunt as a good hammer about it, not stirring the whole hornet's nest is worthwhile." the Dwarf agreed with a glance towards the rest of their company as they approached for some affirmation. The elf's impressions earning a perpetual side eye of consideration despite any inclination to believe them on the matter. Let alone that further proof was coming after the deed. Not the best grounds of an initial working relationship but she'd had worse all things considered. So she pushed back against that gut instinct to dig in and let the momentum carry her in the direction of the rest of their lot.

Gille had raised an eyebrown when the Elf had his moment in internal reflection. There had been folk tales and hag wisdom in his home country of men and women gone mad from the fume of the swamps of Moussillon. He had never seen one, led alone heard, but Gille was sure Arkamir came pretty close.

However there was not much time to ponder upon it, for when Marie suggested to charge in, swords and shields raised, he was baffled. Was it bravery of foolishness that drove the knight he did not know but both Etain and Cecla raised their concerns. Gille nodded in agreement with both.

Inside was not his favorite place, but he had made an oath to aid the helpless and about to be sacrificed to some foul god surely fitted that definition.