2.0 - Lure of the Lost

The man nods to Dagger, "I suppose it wouldn't be remiss to see if you had anything to trade that we might value. We lead a simple life here, so we're not likely to have fancy equipment like the kind you all seem to have. What is this blight, or taint that you speak of. The land doesn't look any different to us."

At Kaveri's attempt to add to Dagger's overture, the man frowns. "I don't know. We don't get many of your type around here. And you came from the Temple, and that's nothing but trouble and has been trouble for years now." There's a slight rumble of approval at that observation. "How do we know you're not here to take what little we have from us -- with your fancy equipment and all?"

The man steps forward and takes the proffered items from Dagger. "Thank you," he says. He looks at you a little oddly, "I'm not sure there's much enlightenment to be had in our... force. We're just a village of a few hundred souls, not much of a force." He's about to add more when Heyop chimes in. The man listens and nods, "Everyone is a little on edge right now, and we were hoping to see some of our friends returning instead of total strangers arriving. After how strange things have been lately, we don't have a lot of room for trust just now."

He pauses to consider, "Still, these tools will come in handy. Please feel free to come in. We can get you some food and Borgath -- our lead hunter can talk to you about the animal behavior in the area. He'll know the answers to your questions." The man steps out of the way and you have free passage into the village.

The hunter, Borgath, is easy enough to find. The villagers are wary, but polite. The village itself is small, so finding your way is not terribly difficult, other than the fact there are no road signs, no lighted indicators, and nothing of use to the urban-aware Dagger to navigate by. Still, after enough of "third house, then take a left -- look for the pothole and skip over the large rock..." you find yourself at a sort of longhouse/gathering area. Borgath is inside and eyes you carefully -- like everyone else in the village.

When you ask about animal behaviors he nods. "It sounds like you're talking about the old caves up north. They're a bad place to go, to be frank. The nastiest, most ill-tempered pack of icewolves you'll ever see hides out in them, and that's not the worst of it." His voice lowers, conspiratorially, "There's stranger things than animals there, if you believe what people say."

"Well," Borgath begins, "since you ask. Not a soul in the village hasn't heard a ghost story about the caves, and some folks standing within our walls today have lived through one. Folks see visions of terrible things there, or get lured into deadfalls or icewolf ambushes by illusions." He shakes his head, a little ashamed to be retelling ghost stories, but continues. "Some say it's gotten even worse over the last couple years, as well."

Seeing the resolution on Dagger's face he adds, "Still, if you're determined to go and explore them, I can tell you how to get there. As to supplies, we probably have some stimpacks we could spare. I think Rory is due to head into Reles later this week, and we can resupply there." His face crinkles, "Of course, there'd be a bit of a markup. That'll help us turn the stimpacks into additional supplies we can use." He turns to one of the villagers who has been listening in asks them to seek out some stimpacks. "I suspect we could perhaps figure out how to give you a shy dozen or so... perhaps 40 credits apiece?"

OOC: Since you have the power -- let's roll a Force die and see what that shows?

Borgath happily exchanges the stimpacks for the credits. It's a pretty significant markup -- but it's a good compromise between supplies you need and some charity and goodwill for the village, as those credits will get turned into additional supplies.

OOC: I'll leave it up to all y'all to mark up your character sheets appropriately.

Kaveri senses that there's a general level of unease around the village around recent events -- she can also sense that the villagers are waiting for people like the hunters the party previously encountered. She doesn't sense strong emotions about them, mostly a little concern and a lot of curiosity about what befell them.