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Main Kitchen space, Withringhold Farm, ~8:40am Monday May 6th, 1771


"Hey...hey-op, an' set'r down," Hugh Dobble directs Sam and Harry as they set a still-unconscious Anne Smith on the table, watched by Lady Fox and her mother. The skinny woman is scarcely a burden but the raw wounds on her arm, shoulder and belly need careful placement.

Sam had met the two men carrying the casualty whilst going to help John Ragge put up the horses once Janet was safely with her mother and learning what was going on. It seemed here was the safest and cleanest place to put her, though Sam doesn't recognise the cause of the injuries. They look half-burnt, half-scored, like a red-hot wool carder had been hauled down the flesh.

[[INT roll to recall wher Sam has seen similar injuries before, if wanted.]]

As he sets her down, Sam can smell traces of that damp-rotten smell. Mrs. Criddle says nothing, but takes the pan of water she'd been boiling with a holy shilling off the stovetop, ready for use.

Sam was glad he had managed to avoid most of the danger with Janet. However, as that earthy, rotten scent filled his nose, he glances down to look at the girl's wounds.

"Does anyone else notice that... rotten smell?" he asks.



11:19, Yesterday: Samuel Hartman rolled 32 using 1d100 with rolls of 32.  INT 75.

"It's from the thing that got 'er, according to folks was there," Harry replies. "One of some strangers got his head bashed in as they were strugglen, I heard, an' then all these withies, like, come grew out of the corpse an' moved it about 'til Toby Aching shot it through with the Vicar's fowler. Even then they said bits was still moving...didn't see it m'self, but y'can ask just about anyone was there."

"We were going down around the back, in case whatever Wood-thing was in the house escaped into the rye field," Hugh explains, backing away as his mistress approaches with a bowl of hot water and a towel.

Sam frowns as he hears the creature got away. Damned thing had certainly been elusive so far, but at least Toby had managed to actually hurt the thing.

"At least he managed to get a shot off on the damned thing - which way did it head after being shot?" he asks. "Given the commotion happening at the church as I passed it with Janet, do you think this is related?"

"Thing as hurt Anne here was shot to pieces. As for what caused the alarm in the first place, that's not so clear - didn't pass us, at any rate."

"Think I heard as Long Tom got that? Or it might have gone in the Wood. There's a mazy stranger caught, though: maybe the Vicar can do somethen for him," Harry adds.

"Was there anything at the church?" Janet asks. "I didn't think there was anyone in the actual building, though there were a lot of folk outside come to see what the matter was."

"No, ma'am, I think you have the right of it, or at least everyone I know to have stayed there overnight and not been a child or without legs was come down to the vicarage to help." Hugh leans on the table, watching his mistress take small scissors from her daughter to cut away the edges of clothing near wounds wherever it was pressed in. "...Hester was doing a good job at sending others down, too."


[[Do you want to help give First Aid to Anne, or let the ladies deal with it?]]

Sam nods as Hugh and Harry talk about the creature and what had happened. He turns to Janet, saying, "Aye, many were outside the church. I don't know what happened, but I simply hope everything is alright." He has never been great at first aid, and lets those more skilled in it take the lead.

[[GM edit: sense.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:46, Sat 11 Nov 2023.

"We can but pray, I think," Janet responds, trying to pillow Mrs. Smith's head neatly on a towel but startling away as the woman gives a groan. Her mother frowns at her on hearing the dull thunk of skull on table.

Seeing that Sam seems inclined to stay and watch, Harry gives a wave to the company and goes to see to the farm horses and see how John Ragge's doing with those borrowed from the Hall. Hugh fetches a dishcloth and sets to warming another bowl over the pan, ready to be dipped for clean water at need.

Having propped the casualty to her satisfaction with the towel, Mrs. Criddle cleans the wounds methodically with a linen kerchief in her left hand and the tweezers from her apron in her right, washing crusted blood and traces of dark stuff out of the weird injuries. Sam stays out of the way and looks on.

Sam nods to Janet as she continues to aid the woman. He hears the thud and groan from the woman, and silently prays that she will be alright from whatever it is that affected her, despite his general thoughts on faith. He does his best to stay out of the way, before looking to Hugh. "Anything I can help with in the meantime?" he asks.

[[GM edit: who's where?]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:39, Sat 18 Nov 2023.

"Likely Harry's seen to what you were about with the horses," Hugh observes. "Ye might go back into the village afoot an' make sure Sam Smith knows his wife's here, an' gather up any of ours who're but hanging about."

Sam nods to Hugh. "I will certainly do that. Thank you for letting me know." Sam heads back to the village to try and find Sam.

11:41, Today: Samuel Hartman rolled 72 using 1d100.  INT 75.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:57, Sat 25 Nov 2023.

Sam recalls seeing downed tools at the forge as he rode through the village, suggesting the smith had been working when the alarm went up: evidently he'd have gone to the church at the alarm later than his wife, having to bank down the flames rather than start a second emergency should something spit or catch. He finds his namesake going anxiously between knots of people stood about in the broad way between the church and vicarage and informs him of Anne's whereabouts. The smith claps him on the shoulder with no further word, pale at the news of such injury, and pushes away to set off towards Withringhold at a run.

---

Finding stray farmhands proves a bit harder: folk near the church have seen his colleagues, but they were mostly sent to patrol the back, enough villagers having packed into the house by then that more would hinder rather than help. Wading out into the fields on the possible trail of Dan Arton, he's actually the first to find both twins sitting on an older stranger near the top of the barley field nearest the Wood. The brothers wave to him and explain their predicament, having caught this fellow escaping from the mess at the vicarage and heading for the Wyzenwood, but having also discovered that it takes both their weight to keep him down, and even that's with as much leverage as they can manage.

Looking at their prisoner, Sam has the stomach-turning notion that the man was like a mole, seeming blind and out of his element yet with a sense of dull danger about him, like a beast prepared to bite. The man does not open his eyes, just 'swims' against the earth whenever his captors shift enough for him to sense some chance to throw them off. He promises the Artons help and hies back into the village to procure it, briefly getting held up by a relieved Edwin on the way.

---

Help organised, friend assured that he is hale and various villagers informed about the outcome of the duel, Sam returns to the farm at the later part of midmorning, broken sleep and many things to see to making it feel far later in the day. When the sun breaks through, it's almost dazzling. Swallows slice through the air above him, heading to the barn, and Sam follows as though drawn in their wake, smoothly and dazedly around to the back shed.

Hugh hails him from the doorway with a raised hand, having won free of trouble himself, and steps back into the gloom. When Sam joins his foreman, the only word he gets is "Token" spoken close to his throat. Once that is shown, Sam gets the key to turn in the lock as Hugh's heavy hand slips into his pocket for the tin of grease.

The shed smells of earth and tarred wood and slightly of rust. The ledger for the inventories lies open on a barrel, but it is a long time - quiet and deliberate and good - before either man ever gets round to taking it up.