[CLOSED] OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS

[katabasis]

WHO: Marcus, Julius, Tsenka, Silver, Matthias
WHAT: Hunting apostates
WHEN: Sometime in Harvestmere
WHERE: Somewhere in Wildervale
NOTES: OOC Info

Despite what the words 'isolationist mages' might imply, it's difficult for any group of people to completely fall off the map—particularly, when they've arranged to leave behind a forwarding address. Returning to the abandoned homestead the group once occupied reveals a concealed cipher, a message written in some old field code from the days of the Mage-Templar war, which points them roughly in the right direction. With that context in mind, little rumors picked up on the road or in public houses while moving in it take on new life.

A woman traveling with children who neither look like her or one another could be refugees from anywhere, or it could be a mage passing through with a number of young charges. A stranger who owns no land appears with a set of tools for repair, stays for two days until the job is done, and then disappears again. A ghost story about screams heard coming out of some dark wood, recounted in a tiny tavern by a shepherd fresh from fields which lie at the edge of the trees, might be a particularly over-embellished tale of an animal's wail or it might be someone's clever idea of discouraging anyone from traveling certain wooded paths.

Indeed, given a few hours travel through that dark wood during daylight hours and the group will eventually catch sight of a cluster of scraggly buildings in various states of salvage through the trees.

Comments

[hornswoggle]

Ambitious is a good descriptor.

Is it not so different than what he and Flint imagined once? Nascere, whole and unfettered. Governing itself while they wrought change from its shores.

"I'm trying to decide if it's sustainable," John says, which is a roundabout answer. "But I don't see a way of asking them without insulting someone in the process."

Tsenka and Marcus are welcomed, and Matthias is very clearly a mage, but John comes to them as a normal man. A cripple, even. There is a way to ask questions, surely, but he'd need more time to garner good will in the process. To be clear that he asks out of genuine interest, and not out of some manner of suspicion or accusation.

But Marcus, for better or worse, knows John well enough to see the reasoning behind the question.