The Approaching Storm

"We are not scared, and we are not turning back,"Aolita says to the goblin, even as she strides forward and silently communicates with Vargos. Her staff thumps on the ground as she goes, like that of an old crone several times her age.

Keep our eyes on this one, we should, the man hears inside his skull. The witch’s voice is hard to describe in these moments, typically landing somewhere between an intimate whisper and a gutteral shout.

"We shouldn’t linger here." Orlan looks at the guards dragging away the bound elf, then hefts his pack securely on his shoulders. "Lead the way, Modek."

You trudge through the forest along a wide trail, but it quickly narrows as if being swallowed by the dark press of trees. Wide branches scrape your arms, threaten to sweep your hats away. Surely the forest is more used that this? Modek presses on, his small stature giving him a bit more space.

He stops suddenly, holding a hand up and looking at you in fear. He holds a hand to his mouth and points at the first person, then looks around, listening. You hear a crashing far away, but it seems to be going farther. Modek nods and then hurries off on his increasingly invisible trail, but he's increasingly making less noise than he had been, downright creeping along, as he leads you over roots and fallen trees on some game path.

He stops at points at some hanging humanoid figures. "Elfs no want us go further."

Vaila obviously hasn't seen the bodies, but she knows something's dead somewhere; her owl is softly hopping on her shoulder, barely restraining itself from partaking of a free meal. "The elves don't want us anywhere. But it's definitely not the first time I've disappointed an elf, and it probably won't be the last. Let's keep moving. They're almost certainly going to be watching us soon, though, if they're not already."

Aolita’s eyes, wide and white behind her mask, are on the hanging bodies as they come upon them. Her footfalls are soft as she approaches the grim scene.

"Guide," she says to Modek quietly, as though she is trying to not wake the forest itself, "if these unfortunate wayfarers could talk, what would you have them tell you? What bit of knowledge will help us on this journey?"

As his ward speaks, Vargos groans. He knew where this was heading, and he hated it. What Aolita was capable of made him sick to his stomach, and he worried about what the talents were doing to her. Sure, the power was useful, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

The goblin guide turns top you, eyes suspicious with all the superstitions he was raised with. He mutters under his breath, "Don't ask the dead nothing. They might answer. "

He chews on that for a long moment. "Which way did elfs go, I would ask."

When she comes to stand beneath the unfortunate, hanging souls, Aolita looks up at them and their creaking ropes.

"Vargos," she says precisely, pronouncing his name in a way that no one else with them can, "if you cut one down I can have a word with him. Ask him about the elves and other dangers."

Orlan glances at Aolita with one raised eyebrow. "Does anyone else find that a little bit creepy? Talking to the dead and all?"

As he has done many times before, the grizzled warrior moves to the lightest-looking corpse and cuts it down. He lays it on the ground face up, and begins the small tasks of leaving palms up and open, straightening legs, and ensuring the face was prepared. It was not his favorite task, but it needed to be done. If he agrees with Orlan, he doesn't show it.

Ignoring Orlan -- though not really -- Aolita paces around as Vargos prepares the body, then she comes to its side. Ritual components are in her hands and the chant is in her head... but she sniffs the air briefly and discovers there is something she does not care for here. Some scent, some ill-intention she cannot grasp. She kneels and places two fingers on the man's slack lips, then raises and inspects them.

"Too far gone," she announces. "We do not have the time it would take to coax answers from him."

Turning to look at the rest of the group, and then their goblin guide, she rises, saying, "we should proceed."

"Agreed," says Vargos stiffly, his eyes farting back and forth through the forest canopy. If the elves knew they were here, the group was likely being watched. "Guide the way, goblin."

Aolita’s eyes, behind her mask, linger on the dead a few seconds long — but then she turns and hurries along as well.

Onward, along paths faint and illused. The forest grows more and more oppressive the farther you get from Thistle Hold. Strange sounds, creaking, clicking, breathing, just behind the next tree, or the bush you look at. Nothing there, at least that what you can see in the full dark. No sky, no stars above.

Modek stops and gathers you all, and fingers a broken branch on the side of the 'trail'. "A root cave, dry." He points in the direction of the branch. "Must see if anything else camps inside first, before goes crawlings in and --" he claps his hands loudly together and giggles. "Bad day."

He gestures, clearly wanting one of the armored people to go check. You can see where the bush has been moved aside by someone passing. Not a trail, but not unmarked either.