Chapter 5: Pleased to Meet You

The remainder of the night passes without incident, and the next day dawns hopeful: bright spring sunshine sparkling off the morning dew that coats the area. It is by no means warm yet, but the clouds have departed overnight and it promises to be a pleasant day. Evidence of last night's battle seems to have mostly been erased -- bloodstains on the weeds and hard-packed earth between the cabins where the manticore met its end, and a few tracks that suggest the manticore came to the cabin from the nearby forest, but that's about it on a cursory examination.

All in all, it seems like a perfectly normal morning.

I'll help, although I can'tsearch the high shelves.

The cabins prove to be nearly as empty as expected. Under one of the beds in another cabin is a dusty locket on a thin metal chain. It might have once been silver, but it's tarnished beyond recognition now. Inside the locket is a tiny drawing of a smiling young boy, so remarkably intricate that you can almost count the hairs on his endearingly scruffy head. There's no other indication of who the owner might have been, or who's pictured inside.

The central building undoubtedly once had an impressively stocked kitchen. The evidence is now strewn all over the floors, the remains of rodents and insects tearing into sacks of flour and so forth. Even the pests are long gone, however; no giant rats waiting in the cellar in this building. There is a collection of rather fine kitchen knives, solidly constructed stoneware baking pans and sheets, and imposing iron pots for the taking if any of the party feels the need to expand their cooking repertoire.

It is the manticore's haphazardly constructed lair that is of the most interest in the end. Perhaps 100 feet into the trees is a collection of deadfall trees, brambles and scrub brush that from a distance resembles nothing so much as a very messy head of hair after a long night's sleep. A closer look, however, shows a passage through the mess into the interior where the manticore likely slept. Tufts of fur on brambles, claw and bite marks on the trees, and the remains of several unfortunate souls who did not have the benefit of a party of seven battle-trained comrades litter the area.

While the remains have wasted away to rickety skeletons, the gear they were carrying seems to be in reasonable shape. This gear includes:

A rapier of excellent workmanship and balance, only slightly bloodstained by some long-ago battle (masterwork quality, +1 to attack rolls).

A small box containing eight wax-sealed vials of what appear to be spices or dye powders.

A letter of credit in a scroll case from a prominent bank in Hara -- Coreene and Swan would know it as one of the only remaining financial institutions open in the city, though it is now under the control of the Guard like so many things. If it could be cashed in, it would be worth the equivalent of 1000 gold pieces.

A quiver of 17 blunt-tipped arrows (cause bludgeoning damage rather than piercing).

A hastily scrawled map tucked inside a pocket of a rotting cloak about one skeleton's shoulders. It's impossible to tell exactly what it's a map to, though. It shows a waterfall, a house or other building at its base, and a broad lake at the bottom of the waterfall. Whatever the map is trying to lead the way to, a large arrow indicates it's behind the waterfall.