Chapter Seven: The Stalemate At Loton's Cove

How do you want to search the valley? Gethro is supposed to be here somewhere. Do you want to circle around the perimeter, head straight down the middle...?

Probably no updates until 6/18, in the meantime everybody please make TWO ability checks from the following list:

History, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, Survival

The party slowly works their way around the perimeter of the valley, circling up northward. Zangua picks up a broken sandal strap and flicks it away. Leth sees the discontinuities in the grass growing in the middle of the valley, consistent with claws rending the earth and feet trampling it: evidence of nothing on its own, but consistent with the story of the dragon attack. Domarc startles a pair of rabbits as he ranges ahead, finding himself drawn toward the vultures.

It's not long before the entire party finds themselves standing before the carrion birds' feast: two orcs, both their throats cut, with some other, nonfatal cuts and puncture wounds decorating their bodies. They don't look to have been dead for more than half a day or so. One vulture, bolder than the rest, stands on the ground, ignoring the party while it tears sinewy strips of neck muscle out of the wound that felled its meal.

The freshest bootprints Zangua can find are a single set that head to the east a ways before running into stony ground and disappearing.

The haphazard way in which the orcs have been killed, and the state of their bodies, does not seem suggestive of a ritual sacrifice.

Everybody roll a Perception check.

Felor looks eastward. High up on the steep rocky hills enclosing the valley, he sees a square of canvas pegged to cover the scant shelter of a shallow ridge.

These orcs are gray.