Avatar of Shoe Thief

Status

Recent Statuses

3 yrs ago
Current Cleaning day! Made a ton of progress and even found my long lost DS and my missing laundry card that still has a lot of credits on it. Found it in my winter coat of all places go figure.
2 likes
3 yrs ago
Finally got into D&D. Now I feel trapped and I am in love. Should I ask for help or ask where I can get more dice?
2 likes
3 yrs ago
Breaks ups are weird. Not sure how to feel about the other person, or about yourself. It hurts for sure, but it's weird and uncomfortable just how different things seem now.
2 likes
3 yrs ago
I get that dude. Could be one of those days, in the smae boat myself. Hope you're doing better soon though!
1 like
3 yrs ago
It's an ass kick ass world out there. And all we can do about it is keep kicking ass .

Bio

Welcome to my profile! I decided I needed to update this, and I don't have much for updating... Only in a single role-play right now, so far it's going really well!

Most Recent Posts

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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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Kathryn was glad Kosara seemed to be excited for her new abilities! Even if they didn't always work right... And even if that smile Kosara held may have meant Kosara was already figuring out how to make use of Kathryn's new abilities. She wondered what sort of ideas the small tiefling held. Though, the smaller woman seemed absolutely obsessed with Kathryn's muscles. If she had to guess, it was something along those lines. And if it was anyone but Kosara, Kathryn would have assumed it was something totally perverted. And Kathryn wasn't sure if Kosara had a single perverted bone in her body. Unless... she expressed it differently than most people. Kathryn supposed that could be something, but she was also not that sort of doctor. Nor any doctor really. As well as lacking an education past some rather standard stuff. "I'll show ya some of the cool tricks when we get somewhere I can pass out." Kathryn chuckled, simply happy someone else was as excited as she was. Sure, runic magic was... crude compared to arcane magic. But it didn't change just how simply awesome it was. She hoped when Kosara got to see her new tricks, she was still just as impressed. She was also glad to see Kosara still being her own caring self. Since the.... communication... with Cavendish's patron, she's been acting off. Kathryn found herself beginning to worry for the woman. But she has probably been through a ton at this point, and found herself caught off guard. Kathryn wished she knew how to help more, but she didn't... So she would just do what she could do to be available to her friend.

Kathryn with her gathered up supplies began to make her way following the halfings to the likely attack site. Well, she assumed it was an attack site. Somewhere to learn more of whats going on, and to face off against whatever had been attacking the locals homes and cattle. Though Blackberry called out to her, to offer to drop her gear back into the wagon. Kathryn changed her pace so she was walking to the side of the wagon and so she didn't have to shout to be heard. "Thank ya for the offer. But a few too many almost ambushes the last week if ya catch my drift. We've been lucky in those regards so far, but I don't want to find myself getting shot in the back without some means of retaliation ya know?" Kathryn said optimistically. Not expecting to be ambushed. But she thought of the times Cavendish had tried to lure them into a side alleyway to pick off. And how the party themselves were almost ambushed by goblins, only for Lizbeth's grandfather to take the hit for them. A part of her was almost certain that the trap was set just for them. But unless she found out more, she had nothing to base that off. And nowhere to go with that line of thought. "If a fight breaks out, I'd rather have to drop a pack instead of run back to the wagon to grab my gear. But thank ya very much for the offer. It's a kind gesture." She smiled kindheartedly to the dragonborn. And still found herself comically amazed by him. In the last week she had met more creatures and people she would have deemed as... well magical, than in the last ten years. Maybe that wasn't the case, but few adventurers wanted to talk to a 13 year old who had stolen someone's beer, drank half of it, climbed up onto a table, and shouted that she was now the queen and that all should "BOW BEFORE MY WRAITH! AND YOU MAY BE SPARED MY MIGHT!".

Looking back, Kathryn could be a difficult child at times. This was made worse by the fact that by 13 she was about as strong as Ser Lucas. Albeit, not as skilled. In some of her less behaved years, she had attempted to use her size and strength to assert her opinions and thoughts on people. Sometimes for good, sometimes for rather selfish matters. And there had been a time or two where Ser Lucas would have to come in, tell her to stop acting like a brat, and Kathryn would respond in kind by trying to forcefully sit him down. Only to be sent flat on her own ass instead. Stubbornly, she would try this a few more times, never succeeding in over powering her guardian. Looking back, Kathryn is glad she grew up, and had learned how to settle conflicts with words rather than force. She still struggled at times. She also didn't want to be some selfish brute, who pushed around the powerless to get what she wanted. She was however, far more comfortable pushing around the brutes who expected nobody to push back. She guessed Ser Lucas was much the same, stopping some selfish brute from believing she could do whatever she wanted and no one would push back.

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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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It seemed Kosara was so far the only one excited for Kathryn's new and slightly broken abilities that mostly sometimes worked. Which was a shame as she was mostly kinda sure they would work next time! But she didn't really wanna risk things going wrong out in the middle of nowhere where some poor sod would have to drag her back to bed... "Oh please, I'm not going to eat our lovely mule. I much more prefer chicken." Kathryn jested as Blackberry attempted to comfort the creature. Though... The pork in V's cart was ever so tempting... She'd make sure to snag some as soon as she could. It smelled pretty decent, and Kathryn realized she may have been ever so slightly drooling from thinking of such a tasty snack. Hopefully once she got the Rune Magic to work properly, everything else would start working right and she wouldn't feel like her whole body was operating three steps behind of where it needed to be.

"I don't think there is a lot of worry for that. I think they're far more likely to recognize his hammer. Though I suppose if someone knew him well they may also recognize the sword..." Kathryn said pondering. "But short weapons are weird like that. Most aren't custom, and the ones that are, generally aren't recognized except by people who were close to the owner or the maker." Then again, they were in small town country lands. Lots of people knew each other out here. So, it is not out of the realm of possibility. "But I think you should be fine." Kathryn said with a reassuring tone that spoke of blind optimism.

Kathryn did have to stifle a laugh at laugh at the halfing's comment about the potential hostage situation. Thankfully, Cecily L'Rose was able to explain things away in a manner that the band of halfings seemed to accept. "Bloody hell that almost turned to shite." She said her laughter turning more nervous than anything at this point. Little Lizbeth also added in her own additions to their adventure which was rather sweet. Most of the group would continue on their way, with a pair of halflings staying behind to either explain things, or make sure the party's lovely hosts were being taken care of and not in any harm. Now that the tension was faded, Kathryn felt more comfortable stepping forward. At this stage of her life, she knew her size could be intimidating, especially in tense situations.

Opting to leave her helm in the wagon so she may be able to present a friendly face, Kathryn stepped forward while introductions took place. When Tarace and Barbal were introduced Kathryn waited for a good chance to introduce herself as well. "Lady Kathryn Pyke, at yer service." And with it, gave a curt bow. Yes, she had other titles. She could have thrown a Ser, or a Lord if she really wanted too. Though that last title would be a stretch as her family didn't own any land anymore. Or have legal rights in their home lands... As well, Lady gave a softer, safer vibe during introductions. And given how tense things were a moment ago, safer seemed better. "It's nice too meet you both." She made sure to give a friendly wave to the others as they left. Trying her best to not give any impressions of being hostile. She even slouched a little to give herself a more weaker, and smaller posture. The drawback, she was taller than the last time she had to try and pull this off. So that may not have the same effect it did before. As well, she couldn't slouch much without making it obvious she was trying to make herself seem smaller, and it wasn't comfortable for her.

Kathryn's soft smile lessened hearing the story of what was happening to the sheep. She didn't like the sounds of it one bit. And Blackberry's suggestion that it could be the other town guards only made that feeling worse. Kathryn worried on this a lot. She was rather emotionally soft. She wanted to see the best in everyone. Even the most cruel and evil of people. She wanted everyone to be redeemable. Ser Lucas would remind her often, that having such a mentality only got those killed who couldn't save themselves from those cruel and evil people who got spared. She had hoped there was some sort of middle ground, someway to be merciful without jeopardizing the innocent, but she was struggling to find it. And she was the one who insisted on sparing the one guard. Who was... left in a barrel... fuck. And who let the others get away. Sure, it made fighting Cavendish far easier, but at what cost? What if it was the guards? And they got bolder and went after more than just cattle?

"We'd be glad to help." Kathryn said straining her posture a bit. But they already seemed to be on the road again. Kathryn booked it to the party's wagon, grabbing the belt that held some of her weapons, her helm, and her pack. Following on foot preparing to give it her all. She needed to know if she was the cause of their troubles, and make things right. And if she wasn't, she still swore and oath to protect the innocent.
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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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As she held out the bottle of wine, Kosara was able to do... Magic way beyond Kathryn's understanding, and chill it to rather damn cold. Sure, Kathryn probably didn't need it cold in the current temperatures, but she really wanted to see this trick. Curiously and a little cautiously, Kathryn took a sip from the bottle before a smile spread on her face. "Holy shit that's cold." Kathryn blurted out after swallowing the wine. "Taste like someone's stored it in a block of ice for a few years holy shit." Kathryn spoke like a giddy child being told that yes, the magic candy bunny had in fact come and they are your best friend forever. Arcane like magic would always amuse the half giant of a woman. She wondered if in another life she could have learned some of this sort of magic? Maybe if Kathryn had continued to grow up in noble society she could have pick up a few skills, but that was a rough maybe. And only if her prospected husband would allow such forms of magic in the household. She didn't know for sure how accepted arcane magic was. And Runic magic was very hit or miss.

From what she remembered, even the runic magic she was trying to continue her current teaching in wasn't practiced in most houses. Generally only those with more recent ties to the old clans. And even then, many of those houses either stopped practice to fit in better with existing noble houses, or have just forgotten any measurable context of it within recent generations. She had assumed her family fit into one of those categories. Her father's side of the family had been landed knights for many generations, an old traditional family who wanted to rise the ranks, while keeping to traditional Arcanaple cultures. A family of landed knights who less then 100 years prior had become lesser lords. Her Mother's side was far more mixed, clan chieftains marrying in as recent as two generations back, but having noble ties back hundreds of years. Tie ins ranging from mercenary landless knights, to lesser lords who wanted to improve relations with the clans that would come by mountain or sea. Her mother's family would have been the likely ones to practice runic magic. But by the time they married into her Father's family, they were closer to a household of knights. Some landed with small tower forts, some serving as household guard on the frontiers. All very popular choices for war campaigns. Even the last clan to marry into her Mother's family were closer to mercenary knights with their own retinue of servants, and lesser landed knights, than they were to the old clans. Kathryn Couldn't be sure if the old clans were nearly completely phased out, living only in memory and forgotten practices, or if they were just not prominent where she used to live. She did remember not seeing any clans in the high king's courts. Except maybe some of the knights and lesser lords.

It appeared the reception to Kathryn learning new magical abilities, was as a whole, a good one. She hoped... At least Kosara seemed to get a kick out of it. Which, she should have expected. The woman had a weird fascination with her muscles that coming from anyone else, Kathryn would assume had less than the most holy of intents. In Kosara's case it seemed to be mostly unfiltered curiosity. Kathryn did attempt to follow Kosara's gaze as she looked above Kathryn, but when she saw nothing she assumed the smaller woman was just trying to imagine Kathryn as a 40 foot tall walking building who was trying to not level other buildings. Kathryn had to pause a moment when Kosara asked about proportions, and she found herself struggling to process what she could mean. But figured she would take a shot in the dark at it. "I think everything stays proportional? I hope..." She wasn't really excited on the idea of holding up a huge giant form with miniature feet, breaking her ankle, and forcing herself into an early retirement as a chair bound blacksmith's apprentice. "But I didn't really get a good chance to look it over. Made myself sick last time and I wasn't able to get too far. Haven't really been able to try it since. Maybe when we got a bit more time and can risk me being unmovable for a few minutes." Though, there was probably an arcane spell for that too!

The group thankfully was not one to really worried about. Annoyed, and mildly pissed off locals. Kathryn had figured, or more hoped... that it was the case. Kathryn's relief was reinforced when they turned out to know the L'Rose's! Things were going good!! Until the talk of the constable came up. Fuuuuuuuuuck. She should have figured that it would take a while for people to be updated. News traveled slow, but romors could only travel as fast as the person who carried them. Sure the party stayed in town a few more days, but its not like those who did leave town were going door to door to update the country side on the in and outs of townlife going on in Avonshire. Kathryn was tempted to speak up and clarify the situation, particularly in a way where the party wouldn't be seen as little more than thugs or bandits. Kosara, had gotten there first. She was surprised that it wasn't as damning as it could have been. Could have been better, but... could have been so much worse. V was quick to jump in to lend assistance as well. SO! Things should hopefully be okay. But she had worries none the less.
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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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Kathryn had won. Now that the mission was over, she was allowed to drink as much as she wanted as long as she could still move under her own power. Or at least had a spot she could collapse too. Or until she did something comically regrettable... But as that was not now! It was a win. Kathryn watched as V carefully and deliberately picked out a bottle. Kathryn figured with the smaller woman being so well versed in that style of life she must have a good enough understanding of the drink to pick one for any occasion! She wondered what the thought process could be under that hat. Kathryn gracefully accepted the wine, and made a mental note that if she were to ever return to a noble life style she should probably go to V for some refreshers on the best dos and don'ts. As Kathryn was very much out of practice in that matter. "Thank you so much Victoria." Kathryn said with a smile as she delicately took the bottle. Gave it a brief pondering look, before removing the seal around the cork, taking off her glove and pinching the end of the cork with her fingers to get a grip. Slowly pulling the cork out little by little, the ends of it splitting as she tugged. And once it was out enough for a little more than a finger to grip it, she took it in her fist and yanked the cork off. "There we go. Fucker put up a fight." She had never had such problems like with with a beer bottle, so she wasn't totally sure why people preferred the stuff to it. Or whiskey, bourbon, ale, or other liquor. Buuuut she didn't hate the stuff, and going to a winery, might as well get comfortable with the taste.

Kathryn took a swig from the bottle like she would a tankerd of ale, or from a water from a water skin. When Kosara offered to cool it Kathryn perked up. "Can you do that?" Kathryn asked almost bewildered. She knew her tiefling friend could do a lot with magic, but she had no idea what extent she could do. "I mean if it's no bother, I would love that!" Kathryn would hold the wine bottle out to see whatever trick Kosara had up her... Lack of sleeves. Despite Kathryn's lack of understanding of most things arcane, she found herself extraordinarily fascinated with it. Even the tricks she had picked up recently were far from anything as fancy as she had read about from old adventuring stories. She wasn't even sure it was considered the same kind of magic as the rest of the party was capable of practicing. Speaking of which, Blackberry had asked about some of the tricks Kathryn had picked up. Kathryn lit up with glee, like that of an excited child about to show off their school project. "Okay. Okay okay okay." she spoke up trying to hide just how excited she was, and failing. "So, in some of the books Victoria has had her face glued too for the last few days, she found some notes on Runic Magic. Not too different from the old clan magic from my homeland. She claims it's written in Giant, but as it still makes no sense even when translated, I have doubts. But she's the expert so I think her word is better than mine..." Kathryn said a little defeated, but that quickly burned off. "Buuuuuuuut! Some of my schooling from before I left home covered old clan runes. And thought my understanding is flawed, and my schooling was incomplete, I was able to make sense of some of the runes, and have been practicing their abilities! Like uh...." She looked around for something she could show her entry level runic magic against, but much of it was rather destructive, or so passive it really couldn't be made into a show.

"Okay so I can't do all the cool flashy things here without causing some major problems..." She said, sounding defeated yet again. But perked up. "One I tried to do was one that could essentially turn me into a giant! At least... for a moment. If... I could get it to work right." She said disappointed, but not defeated. "Last time I made it to nearly ten feet! Then uh... puked my guts out all over the road way... where it sat glowing for a bit before I fell into a deep sleep inside the barn... I think I messed up a few things there because I don't think I returned to my original height either. My tunic I wear under my armor hasn't fit right since... And door ways have been so much more of a pain since as well... BUT! I think I am getting closer! And if I can get it to work right once, I think it should return me to my original height as well." Kathryn said optimistically, though she had no basis for this theory. She was just tired or door ways meant for people a lot shorter than she was battling for the same space as her forehead. "I'm not gonna try it again here unless I gotta. Last time made me sick as hell, and I don't also wanna find myself stuck at like... 40 feet tall. I also have been hungry as hell since then. Swear to the gods I could eat a fucking horse right now. Then there is still a lot of guess work as I try to sort out all of this stuff. But sooner or later! I will get it down!" Then there was the question of why the goblins had such magic in their camp. Even if in it's current form at the time it was little more than just notes.

Kathryn watched as V sent her new raven up. And Kathryn had to admit, it was great seeing the small woman get so excited. Even if it confused Kathryn watching V act as if she were the bird. Or... was she? Kathryn looked up at the raven, and back down to V. "Holy shite that's cool." Kathryn mumbled as the raven began to explore around. Kathryn found herself listening intently as she spoke about what she could see. Even mentioning the travelers that were approaching them! Such a super useful skill. Kathryn wasn't sure how she felt about the description V gave. Could mean anything from travelers down on luck, to needing to prepare to defend themselves. Realistically, the first was more likely. Seemed her party was also split on what to do in the coming situation. Kosara wanted to feed them, and Blackberry wanted to prepare for the worst. "I worry about acting as if we are preparing for the worst. If they're already in a poor mood, or on the verge of being hostile, we don't want to provoke or exasperate them. Though He's right, Cecily and Lizbeth, you both should probably get out of the way. I don't much, but I think outright hiding may put them on edge too." Turning to the rest of her party she attempted to list a game plan. "If things to go to a head, I don't think we should focus on fighting. We should try to deescalate, and if need be shock and awe. Give them a spook, and let them either back down or calm down. But I want that option to only be used if we have too. Chances are they are just having a really bad day. But with so many of them, and fairly well armed, I'd rather be prepared too." Kathryn wasn't worried. It didn't show in her posture, nor in her voice. "We're all gonna be friends here." But after how things went a few days ago, she could understand why anyone acting in even a remotely aggressive fashion would put them on edge.

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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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Kathryn wasn't defeated persay. But it was clear Lizbeth wasn't in the best of mindsets to be talking about such things just yet. She doesn't seem to be completely shutting down either. So that was a plus. "If now's not a good time, I'll be close by." Kathryn spoke with a soft smile. She reached out briefly as if to squeeze the small girl's shoulder, only to hesitate and stop. "It's gonna be okay Lizbeth. I'm going to give you some space, but please come get me if you need anything. In the meantime, enjoy that pie, and let me know if it's good. I may have to snag some later on." Kathryn joked before passing the smaller girl some salted potatoes. Stepping away, she let out a quiet sigh once her face was out of sight of the small lass. She was never good with dealing with grief. Even Ser Lucas she didn't know how to handle it other than feel guilty for not doing more to help him, and dulling her negative emotions with booze. She wished she knew the things to say, or the things to do to make this small girl feel better.

Kathryn made her way over to the rest of the party who seemed to be debating meal prep as a whole. Everyone had much more detailed ideas of how the food should be made, and Kathryn realized should she want to improve her own skills maybe asking her fellow traveling companions on how that should go would be the best way to go about it. "I would also like to vote against broth soup. My appetite has been absolutely fucked since I attempted that little magic trick on the street a few days ago, and I think trying to quell it with broth will just make it worse." What might also make it worse, but Kathryn was determined to risk, was alcohol. Nothing but Kathryn's own guilt could stop the steel clad woman from obtaining booze. "Hey V, mind if I snag one of those bottles of wine? I can trade you some salted potatoes and some veggies if you'd like?" Some easy wine to wash down the mostly dry food diet Kathryn was used too.

"What are y'all up to over here? Making anything something good for your lunch?" Kathryn did give Kosara a glance at that. Kosara held this really odd notion of a sandwich did not need bread to be a sandwich, and presented a pile of bacon and cheese. It looked tasty enough. Maybe with some eggs or sausage? But there was no way any sensible person could call that a sandwich. Kosara though was over the top though in the best ways. Except the sandwich thing.

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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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Kathryn had been so excited Kosara loved her ring. AND! She was also excited to hear a bit about Kosara's home and her sisters. The way Kosara had been acting recently... it reminded Kathryn of her own moments of fear and doubt. The feeling of never truly being safe. She supposed that she still struggled with that. Kathryn still couldn't remember the last time she was comfortable going outside without near full body armor. A long time ago. It was good to see her friend smile now. "I'd love to go south! See what your home is like." Kathryn said enthusiastically! Though, with brief hesitation. Her own home was southbound. It was much less likely they would be close, but it took a lifetime to get out of the reaches of those who'd want to harm her. She wasn't keen on getting close to them again. But she was sure she could do something to make things work to see Kosara's home. It wasn't like Kathryn had anywhere to go after the winter anyways. On a more positive note, Kosara was already starting to show off the fancy ring! She was pretty sure she was over charged for it, but it was a rather pretty ring, and one that she was glad Made Kosara happy. Having a matching set? Fucking score!

Kathryn heard the talks of setting a fire for lunch, but didn't think that would be as helpful. Yes, roasted meats were far better than dried meats, but the daytime air wasn't harsh by any standards Kathryn knew, and she didn't really see the need. Maybe if someone could set up things relatively quickly it could be useful. Kathryn lacked that sort of magic, and though she had some survival skills, she was far from concerned about such a task. Especially looking about, and not seeing a ton of viable fuel options. So food faster would win for Kathryn. The tall warrior found herself a little under skilled when it came to taking care of the animals here. She mostly tried to do what Lizbeth did, and then tried to help the smaller girl as best as she could. She preformed everything like a rhythmic machine, doing it's day to day tasks. She was struggling, gravely so.

She knew the feeling. And how that sort of pain would make someone stronger, or break them down until they couldn't function at all anymore. Kathryn found herself dangerously close to the latter on more than on occasion. "Hey Lizbeth?" Kathryn attempted to speak up. But she found herself fumbling for a followup once the initial sentence was spoken. Kathryn found that when she needed the words to come out, she was far from the best at them. "I was... pretty close to your age when I had a close loss in the family." She wouldn't get into specifics. She didn't want to give the smaller girl the impression that she was trying to show her up. Trying to claim that her own tragedy was worse than Lizbeth's. "It's going to be hard for a while. Really hard. But ya got people who are here for you. To help you while you mourn." Kathryn wasn't really the best at consoling people in pain. Kathryn faced much of her own problems with beer, wine, whiskey, and and if it was really bad, cake. "In my culture, when a loved one passes, we try to focus on the amazing aspect of their life. How they made us happy, and made the world better for being apart of it. And less so on how sad their passing makes us. It... doesn't always work. We still get sad, the bloke who came up with that concept was clearly far too optimistic on the human ability to be sad." Kathryn joked trying to break the tension. And realized she may not be helping. Tonight would be a drinking night for sure... "Why don't you tell me somethin' about your grandfather? Some of the good he did. Could be anything."

Kathryn would attempt to lead the smaller girl to the food. She wanted to make sure she didn't completely shut down. After making sure Lizbeth got what she needed food wise, Kathryn realized she had failed to prepare much of her own food stock. She had used some of her own stock while in town, and had been surviving off festival food and beer while in town. So she would be okay for a bit, but she would need to restock pretty soon. For herself, it would be some tasty salted potatoes, dried beef, carrots, a roll, and some leaves she was pretty sure were cabbage... Or lettuce... Her lack of food skills were apparent. Something she wouldn't mind working on. She had water in her water skin, but she did wonder if she could bum a bottle of wine of V. Nothing went good with lunch like a good bottle of wine. Combined with some of the pork she brought along, rest in pieces Morty, twas looking like a good meal. Plus, Kathryn could save some of her own goodies for a bit later.

Kathryn was about to call out to V to ask for a bottle, and if needed, negotiate, when she spotted the other travelers. She kept a close eye on Lizbeth. Chances are they were just like herself, traveling from one place to another. But that fearful part of Kathryn's brain made her uneasy... She was armed, so if it came to a fight, she would be ready. She was always armed. Her helmet was back in the wagon. She shook her head in disbelief. She would never get over this fear if she suspected every passerby to be a mercenary, assassin, or thug looking for a good pay day. Especially this far out. Late traders for the festival maybe? Trying to get in some last minute goods that could have run out during the week?
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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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Kathryn found herself excited and extraordinarily gleeful when Kosara seemed to have fallen in love with the ring Kathryn gave her. For Kathryn, it was like she was living a piece of her childhood that she wasn't allowed to have. Kathryn had to be well educated, so when she married she wouldn't be a dim witted trophy wife to some lord looking to snag up lands from her family. To her father's annoyance, but her mother's encouragement, she was allowed to learn to fight. Albeit, in limited capacity, and with the understanding that she would never be allowed to ride off to war like her uncle had. And by the time of becoming a preteen, she had to grow up, and become the voice of her family. Forced soon after to travel on the road as fast as possible, fending off bounty hunters, mercenaries, and goons loyal to those who'd benefit from removing a potential claim to recently acquired lands. Even if weakened through years of lies and misconceptions. But having a friend now? One she could be giddy with, laugh with, have arguments with no stakes to them, and comfort each other when they were down, was something that Kathryn was glad to have. Even if they hadn't known each other for long. It's like a piece of her life that was taken from her is being finally returned.

"I'm glad you love it!" Kathryn blurted out, unable to withstand the anticipation. "AND! It matches mine!" Kathryn exclaimed with glee as she opened her own box with her own ring in it. A perfect match to the one she gave Kosara. "I saw them and thought it would be a cool way to show our friendship with each other." Kathryn said trying to hide her excitement on her face, but clearly failing. "OOoooh I'd love to see their rings too at some point!" Kosara clearly lived a very different than Kathryn. From vastly different cultures, vastly different people, and vastly different life styles. Kathryn, wanted to learn so much about it all. Kathryn wondered about the holdings her family had gained, she had no clue where those lands were, but she did remember her uncle complaining about how hot the desert and plans near it were. Well, he used more colorful words. Words that even her mother wouldn't tolerate. Apart of Kathryn wondered if the land those holdings were apart of would have been like Kosara's home. The way her uncle described it, it sounded like a resource rich hell. The way she hears Kosara describe her home? It sounds like paradise. Kathryn was definitely curious on seeing Kosara's home someday to form her own thoughts.

Speaking of exploring new lands, Kathryn was finally able to see more of what the greater Avonshire region held! She found Avonshire to be an odd place as a whole. In many ways, it held a lot of similarities to Arcanaple. But in so many other ways, it was a totally different world. Kathryn wondered if settlers from both lands held common ancestors? And if so how far back? Or if the somewhat comparable climates set up the two distant cultures to develop with a few comparable foundations? Kathryn did know that Arcanaple was a far different place hundreds of years ago than it is now. Hundreds of years of wars and trade with neighbors, joining empires and splitting up. With the most recent big influence being the raiding clans. Some sea based, most mountain based. But in the last couple hundred years have become relatively melted into Arconaple culture. Kathryn wondered if Avonshire had a history like that too! She would need to follow up on some of this at some point. maybe the L'rose's had books? She should ask at some point...

Kathryn wanted to ask some questions about the lands now, and watching little Lizbeth go on about her home was an adorable sight! Until her grandfather came up. Kathryn found herself lost for words, being far from good at comforting people when they mourned. She could barely care for herself while she was mourning, and spent most of her time drinking when Ser Lucas passed on. Which annoyingly took an expensive amount of booze. And she doubted that Cecily would approve of Kathryn sharing her mourning habits with little Lizbeth. "I think Lunch is a very good idea. Can I help set up at all? Stopping to rest may be the best thing to do. A chance to set down our packs, and for us riding to walk around a bit." Kathryn approached the small human girl. Trying to help her find something else to focus on instead of her recent loses. "Hey, since you're our local expert of the lay of the land, wanna help me find a good spot to sit and enjoy our lunch?" Kathryn asked Lizbeth hoping she would agree. "I could help ya secure your wagon if you'd like?" She offered, having no clue how to do such a thing.

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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05
HP: 49 / 49 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A
Location: Avonshire
Action: N/A
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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The worst was finally over. Cavendish was defeated, and his goons scattered to the wind. His patron had backed off for the time being, and the party was finally allowed to breath. Though the battle was a disorganized mess at points the party came together and saved the day. The rest of the morning was a blur for Kathryn. She spent a lot of the morning getting herself cleaned up, and keeping the answers to those who asked her questions vague. She gave a wave to the silver smith Jacques Mallard as he moved on to take care of his family. She gave him a friendly smile and wave as he left. She found it funny how their relationship started at the tip of a crossbow bolt, where she became the tart that stole his ring, to now rather solid allies. He had given them tools to help fend off the monsters, and they had been able to finish the job. And finally given the town a little hope to get through the night. Robert still had a ways to go before things would improve for him. Kathryn wouldn't pry him on it. But she hoped the man would finally get the break he needed soon enough.

Kathryn would find herself in the public house a lot over the coming days. Firstly, to check on Robert as he worked through his problems. But as a whole, he still seemed a bit closed off. Sheriff Gregory had also arrived with some reinforcements. Granted, Kathryn had hoped for more. But maybe that was all they had to spare. The region didn't seem like it needed a huge military presence to maintain peace, or conquer lands. That is when they were all gifted their rewards. Apart of Kathryn wanted to refuse it. She hated accepting gifts from people who needed help. Even if they were rewards for her work. Then she saw the set of chain mail and held it up in front of herself. There were more pieces to it, but the main coat was something that excited Kathryn in ways she didn't expect. At a quick glance, it was clean, well maintained, well made, and most of it, it looked like it would fit. And fit comfortably at that. The set she wore now was also older, but it had also likely passed through a dozen other owners before it got to her. It was battered, beaten, chipped and patched in countless areas, and far from fit comfortably on her person. Though it did protect her enough to prevent normally fatal blows from being as such. What made things even better, she didn't watch the previous owner get brutally killed in it before she had to wear it herself. She fell in love with the new armor instantly. "Thank you." She would mutter to the Sheriff as she collected herself, and set the armor so the side to change into it once the meeting was over.

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As things began returning to normal, or as normal as they could after such events take place, Kathryn attempted to make the most of her time in town. She would continue to work on her physical training to help keep herself at her peak potential. At one point tying ropes around a bunch of hay bales in the barn, working on dead lifting them, and adding more to lift via rope over the rafters. As she found the tasks easier than they were a couple months ago, she hoped that meant she was getting stronger. At one point she had laden the party's new wagon with as many heavy objects and any volunteers who wanted a ride and would begin to regularly pull that across town in an attempt to find a more physically demanding workout routine. Strength training aside, Kathryn would take time to enjoy herself too. Enjoying the various meat products, games, and avoiding questions about what had gone on inside the municipal building when people approached her on it. Though some games she would get banned from due to most being designed for people of smaller stature, and who had more average physical strength, Kathryn still had a fun time.

At one point while going about she crossed a jewelry stand made of mostly things imported from up river! Working quickly to finish her current turkey leg she began to ogle over the shiny materials when she noticed a rather ornate pair of rings. A set of rings clearly meant to be worn by a pair of people. "Got someone special you're looking for?" The kind jeweler asked while Kathryn eyed the rings. "Yeah, I have this friend who has really helped me be more... Well she's... It's hard to explain." Kathryn said sheepishly. Struggling to describe the friendship she had with Kosara. "She makes me feel more... Like I can be myself ya know?" The jeweler clearly seeing a chance for a good sale pressed on. "Oh is that right? How long have you been with this lucky lady?" Kathryn picked up the rings and looked them over. No way in hell these would be cheap. But!! She thought it would be a great way to really kick off the friendship she had going with Kosara. Kathryn didn't really have a lot of friends when she left home. Just Ser Lucas, and people she worked with. So she wanted more than anything to keep this friendship going strong. "About a week or so. But I have such a good feeling on her ya know?" Kathryn said giddy as a child. The jeweler clearly had thoughts on the matter according to their flabbergasted face. But as he likely wanted to keep the sale, nothing came out of his agape mouth. "How much for the rings?" Kathryn asked as if she were a giddy school girl preparing for a date. "Uh... Three gold... each." Kathryn was a bit startled at the cost, but the rings were rather fancy, pretty, and she was sure Kosara would love to enjoy this matching set with her. Fishing out six gold from her pouch, she handed it over to the jeweler hoping she wasn't getting ripped off. And hoped she would be able to make some of that money back soon enough... She would be given a box for the rings, and move on her marry day to explore more of the festival.

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Kathryn enjoyed her breakfast beer with her new found friends when V had walked in. Kathryn stood up to meet her new bard friend and gave her papers a good once over as she talked about them. What really got Kathryn going, is she was familiar with the writings. "You said the goblins had this?" She asked, mild concern in her voice as she spoke and looked over the papers V had brought to the public house. Kathryn did role her eyes at the part giant comment. "My dude, that was a joke. I was honestly surprised anyone took that seriously when I said it." Kathryn chuckled surprised that the joke was still being brought up. But as she read it... "Huh... I don't know about Giant speak. But the untranslated words are oddly close to an old tongue popular with the mountain clans of Arconaple. You can still find traces of it in their villages and keeps. My uncle had a ton of that sort of thing back home. It's... definitely familiar..." Kathryn eyed the paper closely, and debated about filling in a lot of potential pieces of her training. Though, now she was regretting not studying the old tongues more when she had the chance.

She wouldn't sleep much that night. Attempting to write down whatever she could remember of her rune training and her speech lessons on the old tongue she could remember. Though if memory served she wouldn't need to vocalize commands once she had things down. By morning, she looked like she had slept maybe 2 hours, held a whole kettle filled with hot tea, and held a plank of wood with the crudest looking runes carved into them. Collecting anyone from the party she could, and any passerby who may wanna see what cool tricks she was about to pull off, she would attempt to show off just how great this form of alternate magic would be!

Had it worked. As she began her trick, she spoke a string of vocal commands, and the crudely carved runes on the plank began to glow. Flickering as if they were a candle threatening to burn out before it could really kick off. Kathryn instantly began looking woozy, but the effects were immediately visible. First only a couple inches, then soon enough a whole foot. The half giant of a woman would grow to a height of nearly 9 feet by the time the rune burnt out, explosively cracked the board, and shrinking Kathryn close back to her normal height. Not before last nights dinner, beer, and breakfast came back up. Glowing as if it were still possessed by what was left of the rune's magic. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna go back to bed..." She would mutter before stumbling back into the barn, limping as if she had just suffered some sort of grave wound. The glow from the contents she left behind soon fading away as well.

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When she woke, Kathryn decided she needed answers. Firstly, she needed to know why the runes didn't work. Was it her craftsmanship? Her skill with the runes? Their summoning? Maybe she wasn't properly trained with it yet? She would need to practice more to know for sure. One thing for sure was, that was a miserable experience, leaving her so unwell she felt like she was fighting off the worst hangover of her life. Annoyingly ontop of that, she was pretty sure she was taller than she was before trying out the runic magic. Like any sane person who just had their body violently reject a magical injection, the first thing Kathryn did when she was dressed and cleaned up was prepare to travel. Not to the vineyard yet. No, she wanted answers. Kathryn now dressed in the armor given to her by Gregory, and the hammer she got from Cavendish, she returned to the goblin attack site. Now it had been cleared of goblins, corpses, and much of anything else she left behind. She needed to know where the creatures had gotten such notes. And if they had more. Maybe whoever supplied them had known more about this? When Kathryn remembered they had found something akin to a deer trail leading away from the camp, and she was determined to find it again. But when she looked now, she couldn't find it again. "Fuck me life." She uttered. So they may never get more information on the goblins, or who had sent them here. Apart of her was still convinced of that. That someone had wanted the party to face off against the goblins. And that Mr. L'rose just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Even with Marita's reassurances, she couldn't help but wonder about them. Shame none of the goblins could tell them more on who hired them, and how the hell they got Runes from the old tongue of Arcanaple all the way out here in Avonshire. Ideal as far from Arcanaple one could get while still being attached to civilization.

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In the remaining days before leaving for the vineyard Kathryn would wrap up some smaller loose ends. Practice with the runes more, make herself sick at least once more, enjoy some more festivals, spend time with her new drinking buddies and giving them all a good farewell before preparing to leave herself. She would wish Marita a good fair well before heading out. Thank Sheriff Gregory again for the armor she now wore proudly, and let him know to reach out if ever he needed assistance again. Not looking for another chance to earn more coin, but to genuinely try and assist the good people here in such uncertain times.

Kathryn would help load any party supplies that no individual had claimed into the wagon. Things including short bows, spare daggers and short swords, and some food stocks that they may have had left over. As well as any packs the party didn't want to carry. Kathryn did eventually end up with the whip the constable recently possessed in her pack. Not open or at the ready, but close enough that if she wanted too she could look it over some more. Still working on strength training, she would keep her pack well loaded up. Not that it was heavy enough to actually weigh her down. But she thought it was the idea that counted.

Walking on foot besides the wagons, helping them navigate for the road as needed, and in one case helping them pull out of mud tracks. "Southmoor. Interesting name for a town." she spoke up as the party and wagons passed the road sign. At that moment! She remembered the rings in her pouch! Making sure to return the wave to the fisher as they passed, Kathryn ran over to find Kosara. Her poor friend seemed to have been struggling a bit since... well... everything. But the constable's patron really seemed to push her over an edge of some kind. Kathryn hoped she could help, but she worried the most she could do would be to just let her friend know she would be there for her should she need or want the help.

Kathryn found Kosara 'lazying' in a wagon, snapping head around in almost paranoid and nervous manner every now and then as if hearing or seeing things at the edge of her vision and her attempts to write in her journal turning in a lot more jagged lines than her usual writing style (Thanks Riv for the description). "Hey Kosara." Kathryn spoke calmly with the biggest smile she could muster. "I got something for ya, thought it would be really cool to get us something cool like this." Kathryn said excitedly, trying to approach without spooking her friend. Then! handing her the box with the ring in it. A giddy smile across her face as she did so, and also reached into her pocket to pull out a matching box.

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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Battle Master, Level 03
HP: 15 / 31 Armor Class: 19
Conditions: N/A
Location: Town Square --> Municipal building
Action: Regretful Corpse Looting
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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Kosara's ignorance of her own breakdown was concerning to say the least. She worried about her good friend, and worried what would happen to her should she keep having these breakdowns. She was clearly not doing well, and Kathryn hoped to help her friend. But she was unsure how to. Was Kosara's behavior a result of trying to keep a positive tone when things were not well? She wished she know, or understood these sorts of topics more. "Kosara..." She hesitated, and eventually dropped it. "I uh... Nevermind." That seemed to work best for now. Kathryn was in no position to help her friend other than be available to her. Plus, she seemed rather amused with the... Evil and cursed artifact that Cavendish had in his possession before being turned into the pile of cloth and bone bits. Thankfully, Kosara was a lot more on top of the fire situation than Kathryn was. Using a magical booming voice to call out for aid and help with the fire. And to Kathryn's surprise, many showed up to their aid. Many armed with whatever could be mustered up. She saw spears, mallets, knives and an assortment of tools. Not soldiers, nor guards, nor a fire brigade. Just people who wanted to see their home make it to daylight hours. Kathryn turned to the rest of the party as they discussed the plan. "Marita's right. We need answers, and we still need the fire brigade. Too many of the guards got away. If we wait, they could destroy what leads and information we may still have to discover." The ability to disengage was also appealing. Kathryn was in rough shape, but there were those in the party in far worse shape. Kosara and Blackberry were near death more time than her liking would allow. Victoria was far from a front line fighter and had taken some blows already. Marita was hard to gauge, but she seemed like if she was struggling she wouldn't let it show for as long as possible.

"We're on the final leg of this people." Kathryn called out, looking a bit worse for wear herself. Blood soaked through several points between the rusted links of her armor, bits have been chipped away from blunt force and sharp blades. And what felt like a potential bruise on her face from where the constable attempted to take a cheap shot on her, but her helm deflected the blow well enough. "We're going inside to find answers, and to find the fire brigade. The rat man have been defeated. Those not killed running as far as they can from here. We will be back as quick as we can." Kathryn wondered how many realized that those beasts used to be their friends and neighbors. Kathryn wondered just how bad the damage would be. How many wererats there were, and just how many people have gone missing. She hoped they would find them.

Kathryn turned to the remains of the constable. He had now been picked rather clean by the party, but she wasn't here for loot. She wanted to make their mission go as smoothly as possible. She had no idea what to expect once inside, but she figured it was a safe bet that the constable had some keys. She figured it was an even safer bet to assume he had all the keys, or some sort of master key to the building. She found the key ring fast enough. Six comparable keys, that to her best knowledge, were definitely keys. She hoped these were all they needed to get about. It would seem odd if the constable locked himself out of places to his own building. Then again, he clearly wasn't thinking in the best of ways leading up to his demise. Then that is when she started to get sick with herself. Much of her gear was run down, ruined, and the best gear she owned she had pulled off corpses. It wasn't so bad when it was just a nice blade or some coin here or there, but when she had to start wearing armor from those killed in rather gruesome fashion, the idea of looting a body had left a sour taste in her mouth. But Ser Lucas and herself could never afford anything that would fit her. So when she saw the dagger, her first thought was how pretty it was. Blades and weapons were like Jewlery to Kathryn. The really nice ones held her attention, and she wanted it. It even came with a nice sheath. She slowly pulled the dagger and sheath doing her best to ignore the remains of the constable, having a look of either panic, or trying to resist puking, before getting the sheath and Dagger out and tossing it into her bag. Letting out a deep breath she was glad it was over. In another comparable series of events, the belt that could comfortably hold the hammer also looked nice. And also soon found a place in Kathryn's bag.

Then she caught it. The pouch of gold. Her eyes widened, and she opened it to see what had to be roughly 50 gold. This was more than Ser Lucas's entire savings. Between that, and what she had on her person, she may be able to properly replace her gear. Her armor at least! She could finally have a nice set of armor that was hers and hers alone. No corpse thoughts, something she felt not only protected in but safe! She wanted badly to keep it to herself. It could solve so many of her problems having this sort of money. But then she thought of the other party members. How much they have fought, how much this fight had quest had cost them, and how many of their own problems could be addressed with this sort of money. No... she couldn't keep it to herself. Even if she really wanted too. She prepared to stand, before taking note of the constable's badge. Her face soured as she looked at it, took it, and threw it across the town square. "Bastard." She mumbled to the remains of the corpse as she held the gold in one hand and turned. "Blackberry, there's a sheath for that blade. May come in handy for ya." Kathryn said trying to get her mind off of just rifling through a corpse for loot.

Kathryn walked up to Marita. She seemed rather responsible herself, and seemed like an honest woman. Even if a bit blunt at times. She seemed like the best person to give this task. "Marita, I have a favor to ask." She gave the Cleric the bag of gold, not wanting to hold onto it for herself. In big part, for her shame in wanting to keep it for herself. "The constable had this on him. I think we need to talk about what we're going to do with it. But I don't think now is the time. But I think you're the most qualified to hold onto it until the time is right." Kathryn didn't risk saying it out loud what the contents of the bag were. Though she held respect for her party members, some were louder than others, and others were a bit more self serving than others. Now was not the time to talk gold. Once the Cleric took the gold, Kathryn would wait and listen if she had more to add or ask, otherwise, Kathryn would make her way to the gate.

Reattaching her helm to her head, and attaching her shield to her arm, she walked past the hammer she set down and strode towards the gate. Her posture was relaxed, though much of it was keeping limber, ready to react should the need arise. Kosara was in the lead a bit more than Kathryn would have liked, but the tiefling could take care of herself rather well. The place looked almost... abandoned. That was somehow more unsettling than anything Kathryn expected to find. The only signs of life being a pair of horses that Kathryn took note to stop and take care of on the way back out. Right now, they needed to get inside. Though she felt pity for the poor beasts. Stepping into the open doors, the glow of the hammer lit up the room just enough to see. She wondered what she could do in this situation should she not have the hammer. A torch maybe? Always an option. But she'd have to forgo a weapon, or her shield. The hammer that she now cared for would server her well. Inside was worse, but closer to what she expected. The place looked like it had been ravaged by wild animals. Doors and furniture destroyed, was this all those two beasts they fought? She feared what else may be present here. And to her surprise, nothing but rats. Maybe this all was finally over?

The smell stuck out the most. She wished she could do something about it, but with how much of a challenge it could be to breath with a steel helmet on, it was rather hard to block airflow even more to lessen a smell. As Kathryn walked through the armory to look about, she saw the leather armor, and did briefly think of taking it. It would be cheaper to replace, and she wasn't bad with fighting with lighter weapons. But she wasn't that good either. What did catch her attention, was the crossbow sitting off to the side. She opted for it, being much more comfortable looting from an armory than a corpse, and decided she was carrying a lot. And when she had the chance, she would reorganize her gear some, and likely offer off the crossbow to someone else int he party should they be better suited for it. The more she thought on it, the more she realized that maybe she wasn't the best pick for it. But like the gold, this could be brought up later. With a quiver of bolts on her back with the cross bow, she set off for the back.

The horrors that set upon her made her want to heave and hurl. She had to agree with Kosara, the best thing they could do would be to burn this place down. She may have had a point on getting experts, but Kathryn was beginning to regret not going with the plan from earlier in the day, and just burning this place to the ground. She dropped the shield to the ground, and put the hammer back on her belt. Her steps were full of intent and purpose as she stepped towards the third table. The table with the third and she hoped final beast. The incomplete pile of parts. She wasn't sure if it was a need to make sure the incomplete beast could never rise, or to make sure it was infact not alive, but as she pulled the newly acquired crossbow off of her back and loaded a bolt into it, she stepped within ten feet of the creature, and fired a single bolt into the side of it's rat beast head. Nothing happened. She set the crossbow onto her back, and walked back over to her shield. In this moment of shock, she was unsure just how successful they actually were. She just hoped that it was over.

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Kathryn Pyke
Human, Battle Master, Level 03
HP: 15 / 31 Armor Class: 19
Conditions: N/A
Location: Town Square
Action: Investigation Check
Bonus Action: N/A
Reaction: N/A

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They all seemed to be trying to process what happened in their own ways. Some did so by passing over the remains of the constable for loot, others by trying to take control of the situation. There was still caution, the other guards were still about. Blackberry had asked if she was okay, Kathryn took a moment to catch her breath before answering. Trying to figure out where she had seen the beast before. Parts were... uncomfortably familiar. "I'll... I'll be okay. I don't suppose you can place where these two came from?" She asked before looking over to the second one, burning to a crisp. "Well... this one at least." This was a moment she really wished her mentor was present. He had life experience that she simply lacked. Maybe he could figure this out faster than herself? Maybe he wouldn't have let things get as bad as they went. Less casualties, better focus, and maybe he would have confronted the constable sooner. Before he could enact his plans. Would he have avoided Cavendish when he casually threatened them? Or taken him up on his offer to face him out of sight. Could he have won? There was no way to tell. But now, she was here, and both Ser Lucas and Cavendish were dead.

Marita had brought up organizing people into a fire brigade. There was solid reasoning there. Though the fire wasn't spreading yet, there was no promise things would stay that way. Checking on Cecily was also a good idea. After the night the party has had, they needed to make sure everything and everyone that was left was holding up okay. Kathryn pulled the strange looking stone from her belt pouch and held it up. "We could let Mallard know things are better. That Cavendish is dead, and his goons have fled. And that a fire brigade needs to be organized. I think we have other things we should be focused on." She turned back to the municipal building. She hoped it had answers. Maybe that is where the guards fled too? Maybe that is where the rest of the missing people are? She didn't know for sure. But it seemed to be Cavendish's place of operation. So it was worth checking out. "I don't think this is over just yet. But I think we're getting close." She tried to say confidently. But the longer this went on, the more she felt out of her league. She held few skills outside of her ability to fight, and to muscle through situations. She was gaining experience here, but Cavendish was clearly a few tiers above her. She'd need to improve herself.

In that moment, dots began to connect. She looked down at the partially burned remains of one of the beasts. She paused as all of the dominoes began to fall into place, the clues beginning to make sense. She recognized scars of workers of those who do hard labor. Tools, supplies, trade skills, the whole thing seemed odd. But it wasn't until she saw the marking on the forearm that pieces began to really sink in. "Uafás na n-ifreann thíos." She mumbled in her clan's old tongue. She didn't remember the exact translation, but she remembered it being associated with atrocities, abominations, and horrors that should never be brought to light.

"They're people..." She followed up with after taking a moment to catch her breath. "They are made from pieces of... people." She was reminded of the screams at the beginning of the night, and wondered if these were those attacked. And why no more were needed. She wondered just how many people these creatures were made from. She turned back to the constable's remains, and decided the fate he got was not harsh enough. And he would never have to face those he betrayed with his merciful death. She was angry, disgusted, and wondered what could turn a person into something so evil. She realized, they still had time to figure that out. She figured there was more than just corruption from the patron that spoke to the party. What drove this man of the law to do such vile things.
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