Chapter 7: The Adventurers Reach the Town of Redmarsh!
The Fourth of Greentide, D.Y. 500
-----As the dawn begins lightening the sky behind the clouds, the light air moves with a chilliness through the camp. The trees and hills in the distance look somewhat foreboding in the early morning grayness. Overall the surrounding countryside looks unremarkable except for the litter of humanoid bodies from the battle during the night.
-----Sarah spends the morning hunched over her book with a quill and ink nearby. She is memorizing her spells for the day, but also is taking notes and writing down magical runes on blank pages of her books. If anyone knew about magic other than Sarah they would realize she is working on creating her own unique spells. But nobody does so Sarah works uninterrupted until Sol waves his hand in front of her face and tells her it is time to leave.
-----Raven helps break camp and then gives each member of the party, including the guards, a stack of coins. Raven says, "I found these on the bugbears. They must of been robbing travelers for some time for them to get this much wealth. Only the Hunter knows how many people those monsters killed."
-----With that a somber Raven starts to pickup the thieves' trail and then begins to follow it.
-----"Well, at least that pack won't be killing anymore." Sol certifies as he wanders over to Sarah and waves his hand in front of her eyes. "Come on, love...we're off." The warrior announces with enthusiasm. He helps Sarah onto Marlexana, mounts up on Thunder and follows Raven.
-----"Hmmm? What?" Sarah looks up startled. "Oh, right." She gets up and gracefully accepts Sol's help onto Marlexana. She beckons him closer and leans down to kiss his cheek after she is on her horse. "Thanks," She whispers.
-----The adventurers and the guards all start off from where they camped and head out onto the trail road. Garrison casts a wary glance toward the wooded hill and the projecting stone structure there. Seeing no movement in the distance, he turns and follows the rest of the party.
-----Raven occasionally dismounts and checks the tracks on the road. Each time he quickly mounts up and urges everyone onward.
-----After riding across an open plain for a mile, the land begins to feature scrub vegetation. In the distance about two miles to the south, they catch sight of a large concentric castle structure in the middle of an open plain. Just at the edge of the bushes and briars before them, there looks to be the slain bodies of men. Their blood darkly stains the grass and vegetation near them.
-----Sol starts heading towards the bodies, but he waves the others on, "Keep going, friends. Bradley an' I will just check fer survivors. Don't expect t'find any, but ye never know. Come on, Bradley." He says to the guard.
-----Raven says, "I'll come with. I want to look over the battle ground to see what happened." Raven readies his bow and then follows Sol.
-----The entire company ends up coming to a halt as Raven and then Garrison follows Sol and Bradley. Romney and Abram hang back to guard the wounded Shema, Sarah and Rinda.
-----After a few moments of looking over the dead bodies, which they count four of, Garrison's voice is heard saying, "Aye, I would say these men were slain last night by the bugbears that attacked us."
-----"You can see the wounds from the spears that the bugbears had, mainly on the backs of these men," the woodsman continues to explain, "I would guess the bugbears used their net on these men and then stabbed them to death while they were caught."
-----The appearance of the bodies identifies the men as being gruff and somewhat haggard in their living days. The bodies are clothed with padded leather armor though in spots their armor appears worn and ripped. Their bearded faces appear greasy and caked with dirt. They had carried short swords at their sides.
-----"Chances are these poor men never stood a chance," Garrison says as he watches Raven search the ground.
-----Sol looks somewhat guilty as he admits, "An' I thought it might ha' been a conflict wi' the ones we hunt now. Oh well. We ready t'move on, Raven?"
-----Raven simply nods and then heads back towards the rest of the group.
-----The trail now leads the adventurers through the field of scrub vegetation. As they emerge from the field, the trail leads them to the west of the large castle structure. The castle seems foreboding and disturbingly quiet in the distance. No activity is seen about the walls.
-----An hour's time has passed since they left their camp and the trail leads them between a large patch of forest and a large swampy area. Just beyond this point, the trail road turns more to the west across flat plains and meadows.