Missing in Modesto - One Shot story area

Calvin slings his rifle and clambers up the tree to get a better vantage point

Jackson reviews the information they've heard so far mentally trying to stitch together what is going on.

Jackson figures out where the likely location to search would be and leads the party in a mostly straight line towards the destination. Walking down a path in a canyon the sound of running water in the distance lets you know you're getting closer as you start to see several shadows start showing up above you. You all look up to see several people standing after various outcrops looking down at you. Several seem bunched together show up later guiding someone close. You see the shadow of someone small and frail in a hood looking down who is guided closer to the edge to look at you all the other people looking down look towards her before she speaks.

"We have heard word of you all in these woods... I have an idea but why do you come to see us and stand before me, the False Matriarch of the Gypsies. Gia Gallo." she asks in a raspy voice. You see her pull away a hood to reveal a face and body that seemed to have been burned several times and disfigured by it her hair is gone in places and although she looks frail of body her eyes pierce down at the group of you with an authority you didn't expect.

She raises what is left of one eyebrow at your words and stares at you.

"We both know those children aren't lost. They've been told the truth. But if you want to know the truth as well you may do so in our village, on a condition." She states waving a hand. Rough cloth and large sacks are tossed down from several meters up.

"To ensure the people's safety you will wrap your weapons and be watched. Since you have a tendency to mask the truth you might be attempting to mask your intents. I can't have you accidentally injury my family or my niece and nephew. If you do not like this option that's fine... we will just take your possessions from you by force." she states moving to leave. Several others watch you from above ready to react to your actions.

Calvin slides his rifle into the burlap sack along with the rest, hopeful this is going to get them closer to the goal.

You find yourselves guided before Gia answers the question away from the craggy standoff canyon to for lack of a better scene a village, seldom do you see a large area for people to congregate that is flat most shelters are built into the natural areas. There are several people crowded behind the four of you as Gia moves to enter a shelter a bit bigger than the rest. She grunts as she sits down and sighs waving a hand as you are brought wooden bowls of some kind of soup it seems and water as well. Once your are all settled and sitting on the ground.

"I'm not so sure they truly think I'm dead. But I'll get to them soon enough... I was kidnapped and told the truth of my Grandfather's sins... They were never made some foolish kid trying to run away from home with his lover let some lady burn to death when he couldn't do anything. They're made that after she was beaten and they went to find something to burn her body what he did... He went to her and stole her possessions later selling what he could for extra money... Over the years I had doubts in this but my new uncles and aunts had proof... Since they were there. Can you imagine being around the age I was kidnapped watching a parent die in front of you while you're hiding and seeing someone you think might help only to watch them steal from your dying parent? The plea to help rushing out only to be meet by a violent backhand, clinging on only to be blinded in an eye?" she laments not really looking at anyone, "If I was taken as an adult I probably would have dismissed this as a scam or an act to get money. But as a child as old as them they told me of these things, they weren't as graphic but Uncle Teiro's blind eye, a family ring taken after biting my grandfather's hand, and the horror of reading one of my Grandmother's journals concreted my mind. I sent back my hair I grew out for a few years letting them know I was alive. I was never sure my parents were never told. A missing persons report was never filed for me... It wasn't till I was older I ventured out to find out what had happened to my former family. I'm under the impression my brothers figured something out. You've been to their house, We've come a long way from the four bedroom house we grew up in but I need to ask who in the wine making industry have as much security as my brothers that you know of? Unless they've run back and made deals with people from the old country and relatives long since talked to." she states waiting to see what you all have to say or ask.