The battle had ended. Though not completely according to plan, things went well. Then the coffin shook. Kathryn still had her sword in hand and was ready for anything that may come. Undead maybe? Marita got to the coffin first, Kathryn found herself on standby for whatever came of it. As the lid was pried open Kathryn was honestly surprised it wasn't an undead or some other creature of that nature. But another fucking goblin. A short battle ensured. If it could be called that. Kathryn turned to intercept only to have things kick off again. The tree above her rang to life as an arrow struck Victoria. Kathryn reached for her axes in retaliation only to find they were not present. They were still in the remains of the goblins she first struck. She briefly considered throwing her sword before realizing how foolish that was. But they were lost to sight again. The recent events took place fast, it felt like only seconds between the new hostiles appearing, and being wiped out by Victoria's and Kosara's magic. Watching what the powerful magic did to the creatures, Kathryn told herself not to find herself on the bad side of a caster unless she was prepared for the fight of her life.

Taking another look around, things seemed to have calmed down. Kosara was setting up to work on Victoria, and the area appeared to be clear of enemies. "Fuckin' 'ell." She forgot just how tedious goblins can be. Though unskilled in traditional combat, they were persistent and annoying. They were difficult for anyone caught out alone or surprised. Ironic the party did just that to them. The gear the goblins had was suspiciously new. Who had they robbed? Surely they didn't have this kind of money if they had to grave rob for food. Looking about she figured they should probably try to clean up the place. No need to leave this kind of mess for some kid to find. Looking at the wagon she guessed it was still in pretty decent shape? And might be large enough to put the cargo back in. As well as maybe the remains of the goblins and their suspicious gear. She wondered if maybe Hugh could piece together some of the suspicious gear? Where it came from and how they got it?

She took a look at the rest of her party. Outside of Victoria it seemed the rest of the party got out unharmed. Kosara was already making her way to assist their bard, Marita and Hugh as far as she knew were okay. "That... did not go to plan. But shy of a couple issues it looks like things went well." She looked at Marita with this thought. She would have with Hugh too if he was easier to spot. "Good work. Uh... sorry I fell behind there." She wasn't sure if it was poor timing or coordination on her part, or maybe she misunderstood a step along the way. Marita ended up filling out a lot of Kathryn's roll instead. "That won't happen again." She spoke a bit shameful. She attempted to make up for falling behind on her own tasks by hitting the enemy harder, and Victoria took an arrow while Kathryn was supposed to be by her. She needed to keep a better mind about her roll in the party.

Kathryn took her helmet off and set it down on top of one of the barrels. She attempted at first to tip the wagon back on it's wheels, but loaded up with the tied down cargo, she stood no chance. She attempted to gauge the weight of the barrels by gently lifting it a bit to confirm that she likely could move it, though it would take a lot of effort. Kathryn got herself into a squat position to start lowering the loaded barrels one at a time. After the first couple she found herself starting to tired out from under the hard work and heat. Then she realized, it's fall. If she is over heating she is wearing at least two layers of armor, and that surely would help. She debated it for a moment, but considering this was a recently active combat zone, and she was still getting to know the rest of the party, she figured being unarmored was not the best choice. She did start taking off some of the metal plates across her arms and shoulders. She briefly considered the chain mail again, but figured this was enough. She returned setting down the barrels one after another, much easier now that she wasn't as loaded down with her gear. Once the wagon was unloaded Kathryn looked at the tipped over wagon debating the best way to deal with it.

Bending down to get leverage Kathryn braced attempting to tip the wagon back on it's wheels now that it was unloaded. It creaked and groaned as Kathryn lifted it back towards all fours, her knees starting to buckle under it's weight and her exhaustion of the previous battle and labor. The wagon crashed down on all fours with a loud grunt from Kathryn as it fell into place. "Wow that was.... heavier then it looked..." She spoke between breaths with some strain. "We can use... the..." She stopped for a moment to take a deep breath and regain her thoughts. How heavy were those damn barrels? Heavy enough. "We can use the other wagon to return the cargo to it's owner. And to remove the goblins from sight for some passerby to stumble on." She thought of their own wagon, it should be able to be loaded up with whatever couldn't fit into this wagon. Then the thought crossed her mind, how were they going to pull two wagons with one mule? Could they be tied together somehow? She briefly thought back to her joke about pulling the wagon herself. Kathryn pushed this thought to the back of her mind, they still needed to load this back up and get to town before it got too late. Kathryn grabbed one of the barrels wrapping her arms around it knowing it was heavy enough that a controlled fall was difficult. Once she got it into the air it was easy to tell that the thing was at least as heavy as herself, maybe even twice over. She dropped it down into the wagon catching her breath again. They had their work cut out for them.

There was a lot to process in the span of not much time. First there was a sudden shove against her and the shield, this much she expected. If anything it was a lot less severe than she had anticipated. A push from a creature of small stature whereas she expected an out and out attack. She was off-balance for a bit but kept her eyes trained on the goblin as it fled the scene. That was cut short by the sound of arrow fire from above and behind, immediately followed by sudden impact on her back. In the back of her mind she was thankful for Pholtus' protection, which saved her from a potentially debilitating attack; however, her immediate attention turned towards the source of the ambush, a couple of goblins who had remained hidden in the treetop, and then Victoria who Marita noticed had also been struck in her peripheral vision. Unfortunately the bard did not have the armor Marita had to deflect the blow and her injury seemed rather severe, although a bit shy of incapacitating.

From there however, anything she would have set her mind towards doing was dealt with before she had a chance to do anything as far as handling the remains of battle went. Even if it was nice to have someone who was both able and willing to heal others so that she was not chained to the task the way the mule was expected to pull the wagon, in that moment Marita couldn't help but feel a tad powerless, that there was nothing for her to do that would be helpful to others. That unwelcome feeling was pushed aside when Kathryn spoke up.

"You should be apologizing to Victoria. Because you were behind, she's the one who had to take your position and ended up getting wounded. Even trashed armor like yours does much better at handling arrows than leather." The cleric's next words were addressed to the party as a whole, "Don't loosen your guard too much yet. There might still be more goblins that we haven't found." Marita's eyes scanned the area for any more potential foes, and in doing so saw the caskets of wine that Kathryn was unloading.

She recognized Rose River from better days, and she never would have thought the vineyard would be in a backwater like this. In fact, if she had wanted an additional reward from Sheriff Gregory, she likely would have requested a couple bottles of Rose River wine. If she was a woman of fewer scruples and a profit-driven mind, she would have thought to keep the caskets of wine as spoils and resell it for a great profit.

Looking elsewhere, Marita gave the goblins a real good look for the first time since the encounter began. They certainly didn't have the gear of small time bandits and raiders. She looked to see if there was anything on them that would tie them to something or someone else that they could use for the investigation. Fate decided that things would not be so easy, the only identification she could see was a simple pack mark, no different than a gang sign one would run into in the cities.

"Before we try to return anything we need to anyone we'd need to determine who actually owns this shipment. Regardless, I think there's more we can learn from this site that would aid us in our mission before we clean up and leave. Furthermore, it might do good to not go directly to Avonshire just yet. When that coffin goblin tried to run from us, it went West. When one flees they attempt to head towards safety. So there's a pretty good chance that their home base is Westwards."

As quickly as things had gone right, they went wrong all the more abruptly. Even as he lined up a shot on the fleeing coffin goblin, a shout of pain and then scream of rage from Victoria drew Hugh’s attention to an apparently occupied treetop.

Cursing under his breath his own carelessness and for allowing himself to be swept overmuch into the rest of the group’s reckless momentum, Hugh readjusted his priorities to the new archers, only for the Bard’s scream to take up a new and enchanted pitch, the tree quaking under the force of her magic before depositing its far less alive occupants to the ground with a twinned set of meaty crunches.

Also on lines of thought he had overlooked, it occurred to him that taking a hostage to interrogate would be most expedient… only for the pale Tieling to core them through the back with another eye-searing golden beam. To say the least, they were quite dead.

Gritting his teeth, Hugh’s eyes darted around in search of any more hidden hostiles, but as the team began to squabble somewhat and panic over Victoria’s injury, he could see no others ready to take advantage of their distraction. Letting out a long-suffering sigh, Hugh returned his arrow to his quiver and left his cover to approach the camp. To be sure, however, he felt no need to release Pass Without Trace. After all, it would last an hour with the Ki he typically was forced to devote to it, and if anything significant occurred shortly, it would be all the better to have it still up, just in case.

As the current blame-game washed over him, Hugh couldn’t help rolling his eyes, as he strode over to his first target. “Wrong,” he addressed both Kathryn and Marita, taking hold of the arrow in the goblin’s chest. “Kathryn has no fault here. If anything, the only ones to blame are Victoria, herself… and perhaps me. As a magically inclined Bard, and one of her particular magical proclivities…” He shot a look at Morty, before giving a grunt and tugging the arrow free with a small squelch, grimacing at the bent tip and tossing it away. Useless. “I assumed she would be a more long-range combatant, especially considering her far less impressive armor. I had assumed -as she seemed originally amicable to going with me- that she would have ranged magic to apply, and…” He looked at the damaged tree, as he strode past it and inspected his other victim. “She did. What I want to know is what exactly possessed her to lunge forward past her armored comrades into melee when magic would have suited her just fine.”

Hugh sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I will admit; as far as culpability goes, when I suggested the change in battle formation, I made assumptions about her combat proclivities, and assumptions can be dangerous things. But make no mistake, our frontline was near flawless in their execution. The blame -if such must indeed be assigned- does not lie there.”

His piece said, Hugh finally reached for his other arrow and far more gingerly tugged it free from the prone corpse, nodding in satisfaction and the wholeness of it. A little cleaning and he could reuse this one just fine. On that note… he was never one to turn down new gear he didn’t have to pay for, and he turned his attention back to the first goblin he’d shot.

Rifling through the goblin’s effects, he frowned, unstrapping the quiver and holding it up to the light that streamed through the forest canopy.

This was…

“Good quality…” he muttered to himself, drawing an arrow from the quiver and inspecting it, as his brows furrowed further. “Good craftsmanship… Actual craftsmanship.” It looked professionally made, a stark contrast to the far more… barbaric make of the goblin’s leather armor. Both the arrows and the quiver were of a make that he’d not see shunned in the military or well-made mercenary companies.

Standing up with a pensive frown, he made his way around the camp and found a similar story.

Good quality weapons. Homemade armor.

If it were just one or two of them, it would be one thing, but the entire group of goblins was professionally equipped in weaponry. More tellingly, the only weapons they had were bows, shortswords and daggers, and all of them were in good enough condition that they could honestly be resold with just a little cleanup. The weapons had no identifying marking or branding that he could determine. One and all down to the hilts, they were perfectly identical and made to last, with none of the flourishes a public blacksmith might employ for the sake of appealing to casual buyers.

On the one hand, one could assume that the goblins had raided their weaponry from a mercenary band. On the other, any mercenary band that was professional and strict enough to have completely matching weaponry was quite unlikely to be the type to fall victim to goblins that weren’t so well equipped before ambushing them. However, if the goblins had stolen their weapons from guards, they would likely be wielding a greater variety of things.

Crossbows, nets, spears and full on longswords. A properly equipped guard group had far more to offer than mere shortswords and daggers, and though small, goblins were perfectly capable of handling weaponry that wasn’t obnoxiously heavy, like a greatsword. It beggared belief that the goblins would take any larger weaponry and have dick-measuring contests over their weapon sizes.

No, unfortunately, Hugh was more inclined to believe that some greedy piece of shit had willingly sold weaponry to these little assholes. That or in the worse scenario, someone was actively collaborating with the region’s goblin raiders to obtain greater profits and perhaps receive tribute through the goblins’ “spoils of war”. Or maybe they were even trying to destabilize the region.

It was too soon to tell, but this was too strange to ignore.

“We can sell these,” Hugh voiced aloud, as he finished gathering the weaponry into a pile near the cart that Kathryn was busy getting back on its metaphorical feet. “They’re uniform, unmarked, and of the same style, the sort you’d expect from the military and the like. Give them a good shine-up, and I’m sure we could get someone to take them off our hands. Well, whatever it is that you don’t decide to keep. On that note…” Hugh tucked away a dagger, quiver, shortbow and an additional thirty arrows. “And whatever you don’t plan on using, we might be best keeping around for the sake of the investigation. Something’s not right here. These goblins were far too well equipped for simple raiders… yet not so well as one would expect if they had killed their weapons’ previous owners.”

And they were voraciously hungry to have eaten nearly a full humanoid.

Despite burning corpses being nothing unfamiliar, Hugh grimaced lightly at the sight and smell of the remains of the goblins’ meal, as he looked over the scorched bones and lightly kicked some dirt over to snuff the still burning fire.

Taking a bit of a closer look, he found himself frowning for different reasons. There weren’t enough bones here to make more than a single body, which implied… that the coffin was being transported empty? Perhaps. Between that and the wine in transport, it was clear that this delivery was intended for someone of relative means.

Perhaps the driver got away from the pack of likely far faster creatures, which was… not unfeasible, considering the lack of a beast of burden corpse. Perhaps the driver had managed to mount it and take off. Then again, given that any corpse in a coffin would have likely already started to undergo rigor mortis or otherwise be exposed to the tender mercies of preservatory techniques, Hugh couldn’t imagine it being palatable even to goblins… unless it had been preserved for burial by a Cleric or the like, which was fully possible considering the wealth hinted at by this cart.

Then again, he could hear the sounds of a herd animal echoing in the distance. And if he could hear it, certainly the goblins would have had no trouble. They just hadn’t had any need to care. A cursory glance around gave him a general heading for the raided cart’s missing animal, but he had somewhat more important things to look at.

Namely, if these goblins were so well equipped, perhaps they were cocky enough to still be carrying some manner of written conveyance regarding how such had come to be… And if turning out their pockets also made him back some of the exorbitant amount of coin he’d been put in a position to need to spend, well, that was just a bonus.

Victoria wore annoyance well. Granted, she wore everything well, being blessed in that regard, but even something as minor as being annoyed seemed to suit her. In this instance, it was a combination of pain from the arrow wound, the need to have her garment repaired, and the words that her esteemed colleagues were using at or about her, without actually speaking to her about the issue at hand. That was another thing - the issue at hand. Gritted teeth held her tongue behind them like prison bars, lest she actually say what was on her mind. It was a feat, considering acts of will of this nature were not her forte.

Instead, she tried to focus on the aftermath of the battle, and how best to utilize this situation. First, Victoria removed her cloak and, as best she could without fully removing her armor, slid her damaged and bloodied slim-fitting jacket from her torso and inspected her wound more closely. The black silks she wore beneath her more robust clothing and her light armor kept Victoria modest, though one could note her svelte and graceful form were one so inclined. She hardly seemed to notice herself, instead putting pressure on the wound to help slow the bleeding. A sigh escaped her lips, along with a shake of her head. Kosara had volunteered to handle her healing and she was going to just deal with things until the Tiefling lady did so. Victoria herself might have expended some energy to do so herself, though the offer meant that she wouldn't have to tax her pull on the strings of The Weave any more than she had to, so long as she could wait until her healer-to-be dismounted the big rock. In the meantime, she could keep herself occupied.

The sturdy rapier was replaced by her dagger; a far more utilitarian tool for the job to be done, and the bloodied Half-Elf strode to the nearest Goblin corpse, even as the others made their rounds. "Hmm," she pondered aloud, "Is it the right, the left, or both?" A smile and a shrug came next as as Victoria reached down with her free hand and grabbed the dead Goblin's ear. "Left it is," she crooned, her blade deftly slicing off the pointy projection.

After a couple of ears were collected, Victoria heard Hugh's assessment of the situation, which she disagreed with just enough to lose the hold on her mouth for a moment. "Really? What exactly possessed me?" She motioned with her handful of ears at the rest of the party, her wound starting to bleed afresh, and asked a question of her own. "What happened to the plan? You know, the plan we were all supposed to follow? The one where I accompany you, Bounty Hunter," She spat the term out, remembering their introductory conversation from the previous evening, "over there and provide support while Kosara backed up the two heavies while they took point? Somehow that got turned around, and that's fine. It happens." They had never worked together before and sometimes plans got jumbled. Victoria understood this as well as anyone. "But there was no way in whichever Hell takes note of these things that I was going to leave Marita to get swarmed by herself because no one had her flank."

She did not outright mention Kathryn's name in the course of this rant, though she did spare a glance in the powerful lady's direction. The object was not to pick a fight with someone who could maneuver full barrels of ...really good wine, she finally noticed... completely by herself. Continuing, "And if you didn't notice, I WAS our frontline today. It was that, or make the Cleric our only frontliner at the start." She removed another ear, adding it to the growing collection, "But don't you mind me. This isn't the first time I've bled. Gods know it took some serious getting used to..." Her voice trailed off, as if an unrelated thought came to mind at that moment. Snapping back to the present, she intoned, "What possessed me was loyalty to my group, even if not all of them have earned it yet."

Upon immediate reflection, Victoria was puzzled to realize that, despite the clear and plain differences in ethic and points of morality to the point that they would certainly never socialize were they not thrown together by those letters from the Sheriff, she gave the most trust to Marita. Especially after this battle. Another ear joined the collection with a wet slicing sound, followed by a glance up the road, back in their wagon's direction. More softly, she mentioned, "Don't worry about my proclivities. I play many roles and wear many hats. I am what my party needs, when we need it. Today we needed another body watching the front's flank. It's not everyone who can look good doing it, but here I am."

A quick mental command saw Morty coming to Victoria's aid, in this case beginning to drag the bodies to one spot, in a line, that they may be more easily searched by their companions. Her work completed, Victoria looked over to the bones in and around the campfire. "Whomever this is, they deserve a proper burial. I'm taking the remains with us." It was spoken with finality. Now she had to locate a more or less respectful yet practical means of transport, and that coffin probably wasn't it. It looked nice, though. Comfy even, in a macabre sort of way.

Alright, getting off the rock was a bit more trickier than getting on top of it. Well not really, as soon as Kosara was comfortably high she hopped off, testing the marvelous soles of her new boots! The conclusion of the said field practical testing was that they were good shoes, she didn’t feel any pebbles or branches underneath her feet. Which was not something her usual slipper styled shoes would have accomplished! V deserved even more healing!

The white tiefling studied the group that was now doing their thing between examining the scene and looting bodies for goodies. She might join up with them later, but for now she had other stuff to do. Important stuff though she did halt mid stride for a moment when she saw Kathryn take off part of the armor, not enough to even enough skin! Still THAT was some impressive display of physical prowess. Turning over a wagon by one’s self wasn’t something just anybody could do. With that impressive display over with, Kosara happily dashed over to V, haling a step away, watching the woman with a knife in her hand cutting off ears from goblins. The pale tiefling was a good girl and her adoptive family back home taught her to never disturb a person who had a knife and was cutting things. It was a recipe for disasters and wounds.

“Hey, V, can you halt for just a bit, I need to heal you.” Kosara asked when she saw the woman done with the ear she was currently cutting. Once she was sure she had the bard’s attention and it wasn’t going to be a surprise she moved closer and then gave the bard a careful hug, closing her eyes and focusing her energy, channeling it through herself and into the musician. As the golden light flowed into V, the wounds would begin healing rapidly. It was one of Kosara’s more favorite abilities she had learned/gained. Using the regular spells was all fine and dandy, but the healing hugs were the best! After the celestial energy finally stopped, Kosara pulled away, studying V’s wound, before looking at the knife and the ears.” Why are you taking the ears anyways? Wouldn’t the heads be a better thing to show? Could mount them on spikes and everything.” She asked with innocent curiosity.” Not like we lack the space to carry them with the wagons. I can help! Just need to find an axe!”

Though cleanup was going well there was still a lot to do. Mistakes were made and Victoria paid the consequences. Marita bit back towards Kathryn as she apologized. Though the cleric was right. She was out of position and things fell apart from there. Hugh came to her defense and though she respected the man for it, Marita and Victoria were still right in the end. "Thank you Hugh but I do hold fault here. I was out of position and tried to make up for it by being more aggressive in hopes of finishing the fight faster." She sighed gathering the rest of her gear and loading it up back on her person. "Obviously that didn't work. And Victoria took a hit for it." Turning to Victoria she locked eyes with their bard who while things have gone on she went... collecting ears. That's when she noticed several members of the party looting the goblins. It's not something she could bring herself to do, it felt immoral and wrong to her. But she lacked the context and backgrounds many in her party had, so maybe it was more of a way of life to them. In a way it felt like no better then being a raider should she participate. She pulled her thoughts away from those thoughts to take a look back towards Victoria who was being Hugged by Kosara? Healed? Magic was something Kathryn knew little of. "I'm sorry you took the hit for my mistakes. It won't happen again. You have my word on it." She hoped the damage wasn't too bad and that Kosara could fix her up cleanly.

Kathryn did turn back to Marita. "You're still owed an apology. I left you exposed in a situation where you didn't need to be. So my word carries for you too. It wont happen again." She was ashamed of her mistake, and her attempts to compensate for it had not panned out in her favor at all. But at least the injuries were minor, and were able to be fixed. Though things could have been worse. The damage could have been more then their party could have healed, and the party could have been facing a longer battle preventing any healing from being done yet. Mistakes were made, prices were paid. Kathryn was thankful that the price was manageable this time but it easily could have not been. Then again, she figured she didn't really get a say in how reasonable the price was since she wasn't the one to pay it.

Kathryn turned to the goblins that took her axes from her after she lobbed them at the raiders. Walking up to them one at a time placing her foot to keep the bodies pinned before yanking out the axes and cleaning them off on what clothes the goblins wore. Kathryn listened to Hugh as he spoke of the gear the goblins used. And looking at it she saw the same thing. They were good condition weapons. But only the weapons? Had Kathryn been more open towards looting herself she may have snagged herself a spare dagger or short sword. They'd be in better shape then her gear, but it still didn't sit right with Kathryn. She was tempted though, and in her efforts to help load up the unlooted gear into the wagon she held one of the daggers in her hand and examined the blade. It was really nice blade, though seemed uncommon. The more she thought about it, she wasn't sure she's seen any blades made like these since she arrived to the region. Her finances have limited her ability to buy new gear, but that didn't stop her from looking. "'Ey Hugh." She wasn't sure why she called to him specifically, maybe she felt the man was most qualified to follow up her examination or maybe it was because he backed her up when she wasn't willing to even justify her actions. Maybe a mix of both? "Do you have any idea where the blades could have been from? As far as I can tell, they're not mass produced anywhere locally." She was wondering if these had anything to do with their current mission? She briefly wondered if someone wanted to create some chaos, some problems maybe? That would be odd but it was an effective tactic, supplying raiders to create problems to divert resources. She wondered if there was a hint of truth to the cover the Sheriff gave them. "Do you think these could have been gifted to them?" It was a big accusation, but even by Hugh's logic there wasn't a lot of options. The rest of their gear was sub par, they clearly lacked the funds to buy it themselves, and the chances of being able to raid a group that well equipped was unlikely. And again, it was only their weapons.

It's a beautiful setting, really. All one might have to do is take up a rake and cover over the corpses of eleven Goblins with the glorious fallen foliage, and this might just be an excellent spot for a picnic! Maybe do something with the humanoid leg which is now charring over the fire, venting ever darkening smoke that only burning skin can produce. That kind of picnic was valued by no one who still drew breath along that stretch of road. Well, we hope. I honestly have no idea what horrible things lurk in the hearts and minds of the average adventurer anymore. In any case, without the potato salad and cucumber sandwiches, can a group of stalwart adventuring types really put on a decent picnic in the midday autumn hours? I shouldn't risk it, myself.

While some inspect equipment and others look for tracks, others admire wine, and of course, there was the obligatory argumentative back-and-forth that came with the territory of a new group. A fly on the wall might extrapolate that this would not be last similarly tense conversation between these people, and I personally wouldn't bet against the fly.

Things to note: The baying animal sound from somewhere in the distance has not been addressed directly as of yet, though it has not sounded since. Two hogsheads of unopened wine lay unclaimed upon the field of battle. Another one lay opened and thoroughly pilfered, obviously the founder of the Goblin's drunkenness. While the weapons have been looked over and a few claimed (including all of the remaining arrows, though two bows and quivers remain), the bodies of the fallen have not been thoroughly ransacked as of yet. They are, however, being dragged into a neat row by the Bard's hickory-smoked beast of burden for comparative ease of stated ransacking. The party's lent wagon and mule are still back up the way you came. No sound nor sight of it has been detected since this skirmish began. Remains of what is left of the (we assume human) body are yet untouched. And I am positive that there is another issue or two which could be addressed by an observant and/or inquisitive soul.

Avonshire Township lays to the north along the road about another hour or so, the group's wagon was left to the south just past the rise, and the whole region seems to hold more mysteries than most agricultural areas have a right to. It's a hell of a day to be alive.

Morty was doing an effective if mechanical job of dragging the bodies to a central location between the campfire and the cart. Some of them doggedly clutched their weapons in dead hands, while others limply let their metal stabby-tools slip to the ground; those and the remaining dropped ones had to be collected by the animated, smoky hog soon after, also to be organized in a central location alongside the corpses. Were the animal to have the manual dexterity (or "manuals" whatsoever) and cunning necessary, Victoria might have had it roll the Goblins for loose change.

In any case, she had her hands full. Literally. One hand carried a dagger while the other kept up with the growing number of pointy, green, left ears. The sudden gust of wind got her feeling a little uncomfortable as well. She was still bleeding evenly. Between that and her exposed skin now that she had to shed her damaged outer garment, it was getting chilly. This was the last thought that passed through her head before she saw Kosara, blessedly offering magical healing to her. "Oh, um, sure. Thank you," she responded, somewhat grateful for the warning first as well as the actual healing. Victoria tucked her dagger into an underhanded grasp and held her arm up so that the optimistic Tiefling could get a good view of the wound.

But it was all some sort of ruse! Some deranged plot to hug her again, as if she was some pretty piece of Half-Elven candy there for snuggles at the drop of a hat! The sheer and utter audacity of this woman to ...to... Okay, that was starting to tingle some. Healing energy and warmth flowed into Victoria, knitting her wound shut and restoring her vitality. Soon a light smile graced her features and she brought her arms in to return the hug. The knife and ears were still carefully in her grasp, but aside from that unfortunate business it was actually a touching moment. Until one of the ears slipped from Victoria's hand, that was, hitting the ground with a quiet plop. The Bard pulled out of the embrace with a little more red in her cheeks than she might have liked, apparently still unaccustomed to spontaneous physical contact. "Thank you," she said again at a whisper, imparting gratitude before getting back to her labors, now with renewed vigor since she wasn't nursing a damaged arm.

At least she might have, but for the strange question offered up by her healer. "Our cover story is that we're Goblin hunters. Not psychopaths. The ears are elegant enough proof of a kill if anyone asks questions. Ooh! Or if there's a bounty offered!" The idea of extra coin for their efforts wasn't a bad one.

"Hey," Victoria spoke, as if remembering something suddenly, "Kosara, sweetie? Would you feel comfortable trying to solo our wagon down here?" She nodded her head reassuringly, adding, "I've seen how well you took to the reins. I'm sure you can manage." This was intended to impart two things - knowledge that they were capable as a group of utilizing two wagons, however temporarily, and building Kosara's confidence in her goal of acquiring a new skill. Of course, if she would rather take it slower, Victoria looked ready to handle it herself or give assistance if desired.

Getting back to business, Victoria looked over the weapons. Not bad quality. As good or better than many an adventuring type had to start their careers. And having backup equipment just in case might be a prudent move. As much as she liked her rapier, a slim bladed shortsword as a backup couldn't hurt. From the pile, the purple-garbed lady selected a small sword and two daggers, determined to stash them in her traveling chest when the opportunity presented itself. The origin of the weapons eluded her completely, upon inspection. But she gave the sword a test swing, decided that she liked it, and tucked the sheathed weapon under her belt for the meantime.

Past this, the apology from Kathryn was appreciated, and really she couldn't stay too horribly mad at her, circumstances being as they were. "Come now," Victoria started, a charismatic smile forming on her lips, "This is the first time we fought together, and I daresay it shan't be the last, Lady Half-Giant." A quick wink let on that she meant the title kindly, and not as an insult. "Missteps, muddled plans; these are to be expected until we have better understanding of one another. I am feeling much better now, and I greatly hope that we can be friends after this." Ever the theatrical one, Victoria gave a quick bow, flourishing with her ear-hand in the process. Before the rose back up from said bow, she took the opportunity to slice off yet another one. Waste not, want not.

Morty... just kind of stared.

“No worries, I like healing people!” Kosara reassured the bard with a smile. It was true, healing people was nice. That and it allowed her to practice both her magic skills and her hugging skill. It was an overall win-win in all manner of ways. In fact it was the first thing her grandpa taught her.

“Hmmm… I see?” She answered, not really seeing it.” I mean… I suppose ears are easier to carry, but heads of the enemy is not the true way to show you defeated them?” She mumbled, trying to warp her own head around the idea. All of her childhood perception and understanding were being contradicted here and she was trying to make sense of it. But she KNEW people wanted heads at times… something about hunting bounties and proof… Were the ears enough for goblins?’ Well… it’s not like they need the specific goblin…?’ Maybe that was the situation. They didn’t need the heads since having the ears was a proof of it enough since they weren’t hunting down specific one. But wasn’t this leaving it open for abuse if you could regrow parts...” Hmmmmmmm...”

The tiefling’s ponders on the topic of breaking the goblin ears market and the possible long term effects on the economy were brought to an end by V’s lovely voice that called out to her in a very friendly and pleasant way and Kosara right away pay attention like a child being called out.” Yes?” She blinked and began nodding enthusiastically” I will! Thank you~!” She nodded and then skipped away, jumping over goblin bodies before making a skipping dash through the area and around trees to the point where they dropped off their wagon.

Wagon and the mule where where they left them. Kosara threw a glance around… carefully. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary by the looks of it. Thus she gleefully hopped back onto her seat and took in the reigns to prepare to gloriously lead the mule forward.” Yah!” She tried and after what might to others appear an embarrassingly long moment of nothing happened and silence, the tiefling was not affected, nor irritated. She just looked at the reigns in her hand and back at the mule.” Ooookey… maybe I got the word wrong? Hmmm…. Or do you really want ot finish eating whatever it is you are eating right now, Mule?” She asked the animal in complete seriousness.

Victoria took her apology rather well. She hoped Marita would as well but she would understand if she didn't. Kathryn's mess could have ended much worse then it did. Something about the bard's calming voice though reassured her that despite how things went everything would be okay. Even replied with a quip of her own. "Aye. I'd say we cahn be friends aftar this. I look farward to the next fouight." Kathryn replied to Victoria's gimmick by replying in a rather exaggerated version of her own accent to attempt to keep the positive tone of the conversation. Though she did wonder if anyone in the party legitimately believe she was a half giant. She said it with a rather serious tone as apart of a joke, and at least one person seemed to have believed it. She hoped that wouldn't come back to bite her in the ass.

Though she would respond accordingly to Hugh once given the chance, her attention was pulled away from the strange animal noise. As Victoria and Kosara seemed busy, and the heaviest of the haul had been loaded up, she figured she could spare a moment to check out the noises. "I'll be... right back." Kathryn started to walk off towards the sound of the animals. Upon arrival she saw two oxen still loaded up within their hauling equipment. Disconnected from their wagon maybe? A driver's last ditch effort to preserve the animals from the goblin's harm? It seemed to have worked. She thought about how to handle the beasts, her experience was rather minimal, but she remembered bits and pieces from the amount of caravan guarding she's done and figured she'd try a calming voice that maybe would convince the animal to follow her. "Hello there, fellow beasts." She spoke in the deepest voice she could muster in attempts to sound more in tune with a creature of their size. Though afterwards she wondered if she was just making herself look silly and decided to continue as normal. "Hey there, are you two alright?" She stepped forward with one hand out, eventually petting the heads and horns of the mighty tug beasts.

As far as she could tell the tugging equipment was starting to take it's toll on the mighty beasts. She hated to have to ask them to do more, but they were on their last leg off this trip. "I'm going to need you're help for just a bit longer. Then we can take all of this off of you. Sounds good right?" She tried to keep a calm and soothing voice, but she was still new to this. She pulled ever so lightly on their gear in an attempt to coarse movement from the animals. They refused to budge, and she was pretty sure that one of them gave her a look that read along the lines of "Really?" She narrowed her eyes at the oxen. "Come on, town isn't much further, you can do it." She pulled again, this time planting her steel plated feet into the dirt and mud and bracing herself giving the gear a heavy frontal pull. With a heavy grunt she pulled herself a bit deeper into the mud having to readjust her footing, but eventually convincing the creatures to start moving. "Wonderful work lads." She said in both a respective tone, and with a sigh of relief. Though she was rather strong, she had little reason to believe she could take on the strength of the two beasts.

She led the beasts back towards the goblin camp speaking a few calming and soothing phrases to them as she walked. "That a boys. You're doing great.""Come on, we're almost there.""After this we'll find you two somewhere comfortable to rest." Once back she could see the others finishing about their business with little problem. Though Kathryn was willing to help however she could she was getting tired, her gear was heavy, she fought a lot more aggressive then she probably should have, and it took a lot of effort to get the oxen to move then she would have liked. Plus, those damn wine barrels were heavy as hell. "Look who I found? Think they'd be willing to help?" She spoke with the biggest smile before turning the creatures around. Thankfully once motivated they were rather obedient making it rather easy to hook them up to the wagon. So that was that taken care of, Kosara was gone so she was likely grabbing the other wagon, and most of the supplies were loaded up shy of some wine barrels, and the coffin. All work that had to be done.

Marita listened to Hugh's assessment of the situation and couldn't really believe what she was hearing. Yeah technically if Victoria hadn't moved onto the frontlines she would have been less likely to have been targeted by the hidden archers, but it was pretty obvious to her that she'd done it to cover up the hole in their positioning left by Kathryn. She couldn't understand why he'd assert that it wasn't the fighter's fault unless he was being willfully daft or contrarian just to argue against her. Either way it wouldn't be worth responding to that statement, especially since Victoria herself did a fine job of stating the obvious to him.

"And as I said you needn't apologize to me; nothing that happened to me was likely to change with your presence." Although her words were reassuring, her tone was anything but. It was stern as iron and sharp as flint. It was then that something Victoria said struck a chord in her. They deserve a proper burial.

"Wait," Marita spoke aloud to herself, but she couldn't stop the words from flowing out. "What exactly is a filled coffin doing in a wagon with that much wine?" Marita knelt down to the ground and pored over the coffin.

"This amount of wine is something that you would expect for a commercial shipment. I can't see even a noble house purchasing so much for their own consumption or a single occasion. So why is a cadaver here along with it? Even for a major ball I doubt they would go through more than one of these casks. Who was this?" The cleric found the coffin, although dirty and a bit scuffed from its poor treatment at the hands of goblins was in good condition, as if only made weeks ago at the latest. It was clearly made not as a mass produced commodity but for this particular individual. Frustratingly there was nothing else she could find that would illuminate the owner's identity, even after she cast a Guidance spell to reveal its secrets.

"Why is it that the more we learn or discover about this place, the less sense it makes?" This question's lack of an answer was cut off by the return of Kathryn with a pair of oxen, presumably the beasts that were pulling this cart before it was attacked. Marita ran her fingers through her hair before she stood once more and addressed her companions.

"Alright, it's probably about time we decide what we're to do from here. If there's nothing else anybody has noticed for us to discover here, we should probably start making preparations to depart again. Now we can continue to Avonshire as planned, or we could try heading West to see if indeed that's where the goblins' base of operations is. This new wagon situation demands that we split up a bit, if only to have a driver on each vehicle. However, we can also choose to investigate both at the same time by having one group go West and the other North. If we do decide to do simultaneous inquisitions I'd suggest that Victoria drive the cart with the wine and cadaver since she possesses proof that the goods were attacked by goblins rather than it looking like we stole the cargo ourselves. Any thoughts?"

Hugh snorted at the Bard’s anger. Not a single word of that was an excuse. “Yes, because the solution to the frontline being slightly inconvenienced is for the spellslinger to hurl themselves out into the open. Flawless logic. Truly. The fact that there were more archers aside, as far as we knew, we had the momentum. Not a single one of the initial opponents got the chance to attack at all. We absolutely dominated that exchange, and even without Kathryn helping her, Marita would have been in no danger whatsoever… Again, ignoring the archers.” Shrugging, he shook his head. “This isn’t a difficult concept. She has armor. You don’t. That’s all there is to it. Comradery is one thing, but all that did was put you in unnecessary danger.”

His expression was dry. “Personal feelings aside, you are my comrade in arms. I don’t actually want you to die, and that was a rookie mistake.” He sighed. “I’m not even joking. Maybe it’s the pain or you being too close to the issue to take notice, but from my position in the back, it was plain to see that Kathryn did her job and established the frontline just fine. Your injuries are entirely on you for ignoring that line in the heat of the moment.”

Hugh pinched the bridge of his nose. “We had a plan, yes. The plan changed, also yes. The core of the plan was splitting up two assumedly ranged spellcasters for a crossfire. The only reasonable assumption to make about you agreeing to accompany me in the initial plan was that you had ranged magic, which you did. So, if you were unable or unwilling to perform the role that any reasonable person would assume you were taking, why in the world would you not say so directly? Why would you jump into melee? Glowering, he scowled. “Let’s not mince words, this was your screw up from start to finish, and luckily, you only got bloodied from it. But I’m not going to hear any nonsense about foisting responsibility off on others. That goes for everyone. If I make a mistake that hurts our efforts, I expect to be criticized and advised, and I will be doing the same in turn.”

Turning to Kathryn, he rolled his jaw and hummed. “Your guess is about as good as mine. I’m fairly new to the region as it is, so I only have suspicions. As far as I could tell when I inspected them, there were no identifying markings, and they seen new-ish, well-forged and uniform. They could be a gift… but who’s to say one way or the other? My gut instinct here is that they certainly didn’t get these weapons from the unwilling, but all I can say for sure is that something doesn’t sit right with me about how well-armed a bunch of common raiders were.”

That said, Hugh stepped away from the group to do a bit of investigation. Doing a circle of the camp,eventually, he stumbled across what seemed to be tracks. It was a bit difficult to tell, given the size, light weight and stealth of goblins, but he did appear to have found their prior trail. Striding away from the campsite, he followed the tracks, an ambling pace set in a general north-eastern direction. Humming, Hugh drew out his map, sitting down and unrolling it across his folded legs so he could trail a finger up the main trade road.

His finger pausing over the group’s approximate position, he made some educated guesstimates and nodded to himself. Returning the map to its case, he jogged back to the camp to find the sight of the bodies being gathered and… Kathryn handling a pair of oxen, which could be… useful perhaps.

At Marita’s presentation of options for moving forward, Hugh cleared his throat and interjected. “The direction the goblin was choosing to flee honestly has no real bearing, considering that they were only running West because every other direction lead towards us. That aside, I did actually look around for their trail, and the goblins appear to come here from the northeast, practically the exact opposite direction. My map indicates other lesser trade roads in that direction that head towards more northern countries. Getting to those routes is… Well, frankly a day or two off traveling overland… not in any way time we have to spare.” Clapping his hands, he concluded. “That aside, this does indicate that these particular goblins aren’t local, more-so than normal. What we can do with that information currently I really couldn’t say, but I’ll toss it in the pile of potential leads.”

Well of all things curious, this is NOT one she expected to experience today. The mule was stubbornly refusing to move from it’s spot, despite her varying words of encouragement and general friendly persona! She waited for a bit to see if it will respond, but it seemed more interested in the ground and grass than her! No can do! She needed it fed and ready to move now! The party had to continue onwards and if she kept spending time here, somebody would come and it will be awkward. So Kosara merrily hopped off her seat and pulled her bag, rummaging through what she had brought.

“Ink… no… book… no… chalk? What’s the chalk doing with the soap? It shouldn’t be here...” She mumbled, relocating the weirdly arranged stuff in her travel bag back to their rightly places! For example the Caltrops had somehow ended up neatly hidden inside and under the coils of the rope she kept in her bag. Weird… It surely had NOTHING to do with her moving erratically to climb a boulder, making her bag rock at odd angles and thus messing up the neat order inside it. Surely… no way at all.

Finally after a bit of searching she reached into the ration packs.” AHA!” She proudly proclaimed and pulled some of the dried fruits from her available rations. It was varied tree fruits that went with her rations. Kosara also pulled one of the mostly fresh apples. They were surprisingly lasting and she had one from her travels and resupplying in the past. She made sure to select the bigger ones and walked over to the mule.” So, seeing how you are so hungry that refuse to move, how about we make a deal? I will give you these sweets and with the brief burst of sweet energy, we will move towards the others? What do you say? Deal?” The mule predictably didn’t reply to her as she showed the fruits she held in her palm to the animal that started eating them. She used her other hand to pet and rub it’s head. Mule it may be, but it was soft in it’s own way. After that she gave it the apple and once everything was eaten, which took surprisingly little time, she grinned and quickly hopped back into the driving seat of the wagon, taking the reigns.

“Trot on!” She called and pulled the reigns in the manner V taught her earlier. It didn’t work right away, but after a few moments of patience the wagon slowly began moving onwards! The white teifling’s face was filled with absolute glee at it. Seems like food was the way into the mule’s good graces. She was down most of the sweets from her rations, but it didn't matter too much. She will find a way to get more at a later date.

A tiny smile grew on Victoria's face. It was slight at first, prompting her to maneuver her dagger elsewhere for a moment that she might politely cover her mouth with a free hand. But as the sideways counterpoint to the answer she gave about what possessed her continued, the signs of secondhand embarrassment for her fellow Half-Elf began to show around her eyes, until the quiet covering of her mouth turned into a full facepalm. She closed her eyes as to avoid the overt showing of a eyeroll so profound it might have been confused for a coming seizure. The young Bard tried as best she could not to let her frame shimmy from the giggle she held back, in hopes of maintaining her composure while there was still serious work to be done. There was simply too much that was off about the statements given, yet they were issued with such steadfast conviction; and so she wasn't sure where to begin. Perhaps it was best not to.

When the lengthy condescension concluded, Victoria could only shake her head a little, and propose an alternate course of action. "Maybe..." She had to pause, her tone bearing just a little too much mirth to be taken with the decorum for which she was aiming. Clearing her throat, she tried again, this time with enough diplomacy and compassion in her delivery that it at least sounded sincere, "Maybe we shouldn't speak to each other for a while." She nodded slowly as she spoke, eyes on Hugh, "Yes, that would be best."

Another smile, this one with more genuine cheer involved, showed itself when Kathryn returned with the oxen. Victoria waved to her as she came closer, and moved to speak to her once more. Being as she was the one involved, and they seemed to have already come to a settled understanding prior to this latest dredge of patronizing chatter, Victoria wanted to make sure that the open declaration of peace and friendship that was issued very publicly just before still held, despite other factors. Getting along with one's party was preferable to not, in her opinion. "Oh, Kat!" she called, bouncing up on her toes a couple of times as she waved. "Hey girl, look... I want to make sure we're okay. Okay? Like, are we okay? If you don't say we're okay, I'm going to keep saying 'okay', okay?" Her burgeoning use of the word which bordered on humored annoyance was punctuated by a charismatic smile that seemed to warm her whole outward appearance despite the fact that she was still bearing a loaded handful of severed Goblin ears.

"We're good," responded Kathryn, still seeing to her task with the oxen. With an affirming nod, she summarized plainly, "Yeah." It was honest enough, and was received as such.

"Okay!" came the bubbly musings of a relieved Bard. "First drink is on me when we get to town!" This rectified mishap settled once and for all, she hoped, Victoria moved on to other business. Her demeanor shifted from personable to dead professional in the second it took to turn around.

The first thing she did was visit the wine merchant's wagon. There was good canvas there, thin and strong, with cordage to tie it down if necessary. She took a length of the cord and used it to string up her prize of eleven Goblin ears; all lefties. These remained with the wagon, hung in an obvious place to the casual observer. She inspected the wagon and the oxen attached to it, giving a satisfied "Hmm." The suggestion from Marita about splitting up wagon detail seemed as good as any. Downright logical, even. And keeping Kosara with their lent vehicle made sense for her, as she was learning - driving behind another wagon gave the mule a logical stopping and starting point, especially as it was trained to pull an army wagon. This would help a lot. "Good idea!" she called to the Cleric, her mind already preparing for what she might tell Kosara about being in a wagon train. "I'll take this one!" she announced, laying her claim.

There was one other task which drew her attention. More than this, one of the few things that inspired a sense of duty from the woman. Victoria acquired the canvas from the back of the wine merchant's wagon and solemnly made her way over to the campfire. The bones of the departed remained, along with the blackened skin and now very well done flesh of the foot roasting above. She delicately gathered each bone that was possible to gather, some of the smaller bones notwithstanding as they were consumed by the fire. They were placed in the piece of canvas as respectfully as she was able. Many had obvious marks from small, pointed teeth scraping across them to remove all of the tender, human-y flesh. The remains of the leg were another ordeal. It was a far more fleshy affair than the rest, and needed a little more time to store properly. A stroke of gruesome luck emerged when the lion's share of soft tissue parted from the bones as it was raised away from the fire. It plopped into the coals with a squelching hisssss, leaving a small amount of steaming meat left to cling upon the osseous tissue, which was quickly shaken off. These creatures had cooked it low, slow, and well done.

Victoria took a moment to pick up and give regard to a few finger bones of the deceased individual, poring over them in a seemingly studious manner before pouring them back with the rest. mental notes on the state of them were taken, very little ascertained about their nature. Her hand retreated to a pouch at her side briefly and then she made a sprinkling motion above the assembled skeleton. There wasn't much else to do. Slowly, she rolled the canvas around her new bundle and tucked it into the merchant wagon. "Can anyone help me get this coffin loaded up, please?" Morty, ever present as he was, did not have the height nor thumbs which might have been useful in this endeavor. They needed to get moving soon.

The argument about who was at fault continued. At this point it was more upsetting then anything, Kathryn knew she was at fault and dragging it on only seemed to have to hammer in that point more. Though it seemed things were calming down Victoria and Hugh still had some words to finish things off with. Marita was adamant that she need not be apologized towards which Kathryn understood her thought process there. But Kathryn still left her exposed. It was a mistake that should not happen again. "Hugh, I get what you're trying to do. But at the end of the day I feel behind and my attempts to make up for it didn't pan out the way I hoped. Thank you for coming to my side, it's much appreciated." She spoke to him with a smile on her face. She was sincere on both points, but what had happened happened, and Kathryn was the first domino in that line to lead them to their events. "I'm a big girl, I can handle my own. But the help is appreciated. It's not needed this time though." Hugh's intentions were in the right place, but like Kathryn they were both out of their elements. Hugh was more of a lone adventurer, and Kathryn was used to parties of people armed and equipped like herself. There was still a lot to learn.

It seemed the additional incite on the goblin's weapons wasn't able to yield much. Though a gift was seeming more and more likely as they went. If that was the case,w ho would intentionally arm a goblin raiding party? To cause chaos? Or to target this specific wagon? "They seem human made. Though I'm not sure how much that helps us. Especially since they don't seem like local weapons." She finally replied to Hugh's inquiries. She had to agree, it was unlikely that the weapons came from the unwilling. If she wanted to stretch an area's resources and manpower thin organizing parties like these were a great way to do so. They were hard to pin down, could cause a lot of damage, and were a lot harder to trace back towards whoever hired them. Shame none were taken alive. Looking back at the goblin who's head had a new cavity in the side of his head she figured she herself might be a pretty big part of that issue.

Kathryn was approached by Victoria and asked in a rather cute and awkward way to clear up if they were good while in a more private conversation from the rest of the party. "We're good." Finishing up the oxen to make sure that it would move with minimal problems she faced Victoria. "Yeah." Simple, sweet. It felt odd her asking that of her when Kathryn had the misstep. "You're the one who got shot?!" Kathryn spoke in an almost hysterical laughter. "Why are you buying the first round? If anything it should be me." Thinking about it though, Kathryn would never turn down free booze. "You think the owners will give us a discount on the wine for recovering it?" Kathryn wasn't the biggest fan of expensive wine, but cheap booze was cheap booze.

Planning came soon afterwards. And given the information at their disposal the plans made sense. Kathryn worried about splitting up the party with how specialized they were, and with the likelihood that whoever went after the goblins may face combat but without support of at least half the party. Kosara returned making splitting up seeming easier. She seemed to be having the time of her life as she arrived with their new mule friend. Kathryn took note of Hugh's comment about the trail. Figuring she could help in some way, Kathryn made her way towards the coffin and briefly wondered if the body over the fire was from the coffin or the driver? She bent down to take a look, but couldn't figure out anything after the carnage the goblins inside had done towards it. She hoped that the body burning was one in the coffin, though she was starting to see that as less and less likely.

Both went North, even if off a bit. "I'm up for checking out where the goblins came from. I am weary about splitting the party. Especially since whoever goes after the goblin's there is a high chance of facing more of the creatures. Only that time the party wont be at full strength." She thought about it for a moment then. "The goblin camp would likely be in an identical state though. But both trails go north. Ish. If it stops prior to Avonshire we could stop there on the way, if it goes past we could stop there after we sort out affairs there. Though the goblins are the cover job, we still have our main tasks to consider." Her main concern was splitting the party. Though they were all skilled individuals there was no telling what may arise once they left. Victoria asked about assistance with the coffin, Kathryn figured while there she might as well do what she can to help with it. "Here let me help with that." Kathryn got on one side while Victoria took the other, thankfully this was considerably lighter then the wine barrels. Dear gods was it lighter. Once it was loaded up with the win barrels, the party's look, and other odds and ends, Victoria piped up with a very cheerful "Thank you!" Though they had chatted earlier about it, it was nice to see that there wasn't too much lasting damage. "No problem. It's considerably better then the wine barrels." She spoke with a relieved sigh. If she never had to move another one of those things she'd live happily ever after.

A brisk wind whipped up, but only for a moment. Half a moment, really. This weather seemed a little temperamental now that the sun was high in the bright, azure sky. The day had warmed decently, maybe even to the point of being comfortable in comparison to the frost-bearing night previous, though that wind cut through thinner clothing like a muffled gust of glacial breath. So long as the air kept still, it was actually a rather pleasant afternoon. Past the dip in the road, trees began to thin out, granting better view of the lands around which began to take their more expected view of broad, rolling rises with shallow clefts, dotted with the occasional copse of deciduous trees with an odd evergreen or two reminding them of days more verdant, and promising for its return after the months to come.

After a short while, cresting a higher hill brought with it the first signs of non-agrarian civilization - a boundary wall made of rough-hewn logs reaching skyward, set to nestle together as a fortification capable of keeping out wildlife and give security to those within. Three great roads intersect at this town; the one you travel upon from the south, one from the east, and one from the west. A great wooded area as far as the eye can see stretches behind the Township, to the north. Cutting through the town to one side is a running river. The walls are built to accommodate its flow, working with it rather than struggling against, as if the river had a part to play in the town's operation. It pauses briefly to form a small lake just outside of town before meandering elsewhere in the region.

Notable upon your approach is a fortified sign of black iron and rich wood which labeled this place as The Township of Avonshire. This place stood as the true start to your adventures in the region, beckoning with its quaint rural charm mixed with a bustle of an active settlement.

Though it has been said before, it bears repeating: Welcome to Avonshire.



Let's get a little business out of the way first, shall we? 126 silver coins were looted from the Goblin's corpses. A total of 11 daggers, 4 shortswords, 2 shortbows, and three empty quivers were also recovered (minus that which was already claimed by characters), so far as weapons went. Also on the bodies but not taken were sets of leather armor that were best left with the corpses. Curiously, there was also a long letter written upon several sheets of coarse vellum, wrapped in leather. The language is not familiar to anyone in the party. Also found among and around the ashes of the fire were a handful of metal coat buttons, likely from the clothing of the deceased.

Farms, both large and small, are more common along the road and visible among the hills surrounding the Township. They become more closely packed the nearer one gets to the town proper, but none directly adjacent or connecting to Avonshire. This clear but unutilized land, probably originally a protective feature, has become host to many tents and organized campsites in the interim. Wagons appear to be used as temporary lodging for a number of people. Families hung laundry on hastily improvised lines, merchants sold fruit, bread, potatoes, etc. to the masses, and teamsters established roped boundaries for their animals in these places. The smell of cookfires and stews mixed with upturned earth and horseflesh in this area, establishing all of the sensations common to human habitation with the exception of the more acrid aromas of industry. There was the overall feel of a great event gearing up in the near future - one which could draw a crowd from all over the region.

Just to the east of the Township and near the forested area to the north stood a graveyard, likely the largest one in the area. It featured a few scattered trees, mausoleums of fitted stone, and the ubiquitous rows of granite or marble gravemarkers, down to simple wooden affairs. A wrought-iron fence surrounded the whole of it.

A huge banner reached across the southern gate into the Township, clearly printed letters standing out so that it can be read easily from a great distance. It read, "Harvestide", and it was a safe bet that similar ones were hung across the other gates. This was a word the party had heard mentioned in snatched of conversation among the tent-dwellers they passed by, and was actually mentioned with some importance by official folk back in Darenby. The other gates had a moderate amount of traffic entering and exiting, laden with goods in the form of crates, bushels, and no small amount of barrels. The road from the south (your road) seems blessedly empty. No traffic coming from the same direction as yourself, and no traffic exiting Avonshire headed south.

The approach to the southern gate was relatively open. A few permament buildings stood outside of the walls, technically part of the town and likely for specific prupose. The gate itself was flung open wide to admit whomever wished entry, with two guards were stationed there as a token presence to sort out the extremely obvious in the way of troublemakers. Naturally, a group of mismatched, combat ready persons in a caravan of two, bearing Goblin ears on a string no less, did draw attention.

As an example of the unexpected but apparently benign, a man wearing common clothing, simple sandals, and a wide brim hat of natural fibers approaches from the area near the lake. He has a few smallish to medium sized fish on a line carried in one hand, and a stout fishing pole slung over one shoulder. Cheery of disposition, he walks right by the wagons, pausing only long enough to issue a salutation: "G'mornin! Nice day for fishing, ain't it?" followed immediately by a chuckle of, "Huah huh!" He does not stop for response, but continues merrily on his way into town.

Just inside of the gate, a bustle of activity which had nothing to do with merchant traffic nor the upcoming Harvestide could be witnessed. A group of maybe twenty men, mostly commoners from the look of them, stood boasting and reassuring one another of their solid masculinity, despite the nervous looks of many. Their presence blocked off any more forward movement from the wagons, forcing a full stop. They were armed with simple spears and the like, except for three of them who actually appeared to be professional fighting men of some sort. Leading them was a lean fellow possessing a hard set to his eyes, grey sharply influencing the once sandy brown hair of the man. He wore a shortsword at his side, and carried a noteworthy, well crafted warhammer that he held with familiar reverence. Speaking to this man were two women, one a woman of maturity with a worried, shocked expression and the other no more than thirteen or fourteen of age. The older of the two suddenly looked to the group and pointed, calling out, "There it is! Constable Cavendish, there it is! Oh, praise be to the Light!"

Just as relieved but a little more pragmatic, the younger asked aloud, "Is Grandpa with them, Auntie? Can you see him?" Relief appeared to be contagious, as many of the men huffed out great sighs and muttered not-so-silent platitudes to whomever was listening above that they didn't have to go out looking for diminutive green bandits, armed with whatever cheap militia weapons were issued to them.

The Auntie of the pair opened her mouth to answer the young lady, but was instead cut off by the man in charge. "Don't you worry, child. I already told you everything will be alright, so, I am going to see for myself. Don't you move." Constable Cavendish sauntered up to the wagons with a practiced swagger, patting the head of his very spiffy hammer with the palm of his hand for emphasis of his air of authority.

Whereas the younger lady did not move, the older followed along behind Cavendish. Eyes went to all of those visible in the party, hovering briefly over the string of Goblin ears. He paused, letting any wrong impression that might have crept up do so, then cleared his throat and began, "I'm Cavendish, Constable of the Avonshire Township. I want all of you to please step out in the open and tell me what happened. 'Cause, it looks like we got us some heroes here. Now, heroes are welcome in my Township, but I got to make sure. So..." He leaned his hammer over his shoulder and cocked his head to one side, "You good, law abiding folk who did a good turn, or did you just kill some bandits and take their plunder for yourselves? Speak up now. What's your business here?"

Trying to give some softness to the otherwise scratchy situation, the lady behind Mr. Cavendish spoke up, saying, "I'm sure they're just lovely people, sir." and then to the group, "Hello there, um, I'm Cecily L'Rose. That's my niece Lizbeth back there, and, if you're okay with it, I would like to talk to you after the Constable. We're so happy to see you, really." Nervous and uncertain smiles came from both Cecily and Lizbeth, unsure themselves if they were talking to good folk or bloodthirsty mercenary types, yet willing to give the benefit of the doubt - to an extent.

Cavendish shot a look back at her, but soon returned his attention to the group. His eyebrow raise was practically insisting on answers.

From the place where the evil goblins had killed the wagon crew and likely eaten some of them the group had departed after settling their positions and loot and other things around. As it turned out, they now had TWO WAGONS to move, so Kosara found herself in the curious for her chance to solo lead their first one after V who was controling the merchant one. It honestly seemed like the mule had decided that since she fed it stuff it was going to comply with her orders for the time being so it wasn’t making any fuss and calmly following the other wagon. It could also be the fact it was trained to do so, but Kosara was honestly enjoying the journey even if there wasn’t actually much for her to do aside holding the reigns, looking around and on occasion pull them about if she really had to. At some point she began humming a tune from the deserts, though the surroundings were anything, but that. Still it was some marvelous jolly time!

“It is indeed!” Kosara greeted back a fisherman who passed by them with his catch for the day as he was returning to the city. She had never fished before, there wasn’t anywhere to do so in the oasis, but thinking about it it was probably a thing she had to try out since she was out here to the north and there were opportunities to. She had to put it on her list of things she had to do. Along with making a man of snow and learning to make snow balls. Which were apparently NOT a spell despite the similarities in the name with the spell ‘Fireball’. Which raised a question if there was a spell that created a massive snowball that explodes in ice and frost out there somewhere. Sadly in all her years of asking travelers in the oasis she never got an answer to that. Maybe she had to ask V if she knew. The bard seemed more versed on the topic of magic than herself.

Moving towards the gate, something pulled her attention out to the front of V’s wagon. A man, woman and a younger woman/girl were there. There were guards and the man in armor and hammer was moving towards them. Hearing them speak, Kosara realized that they probably were possibly aware to whom the wagon belonged. The man who looked like a guard… rather more guardly than the other guards, a Constable as he called himself! He sounded not quite as possibly pleased by their presence. The woman was more friendly! At the suggestion to step out, Kosara made sure everything was fine and the wagon was stopped then she proceeded to turn to the side of the seat and jumped doing a somersault from the wagon and landing next to it.

“Hello Sir Constable, Madam Cecily and Miss Lizbeth!” Kosara cheerfully greeted them.” My name’s Kosara! Pleasure to meet you all!” She added, smiling before looking at the serious looking Constable,practically skipping a few steps closer.” Well you see, there were some goblins making a camp just side the road and there was a wagon and we figured to attack them. And then we did, there was this tall rock that we used as cover, and I shot at the goblins, and the others attacked, and then there was a coffin goblin, and he ran and I killed him with a spell, but there were more in the trees and then they shattered when V hit them with a spell and then I healed her because she was wounded by the tree goblins...” She fired all that in a veritable single breath before finally then stopping. Kosara made a thinking expression, looking at the others if she was missing anything. She felt like there was something missing from the retelling… something about the campfire. Then she recalled the leg. “ Ooohhhh...” She threw V, Marita and surprisingly even Hugh - The Sneaky Fancy Monk, a pleading look for help with retelling the rest.

Hugh could only cluck his tongue in unrestrained disdain for the Bard. Useless. For someone who had professed to be such a socialite, she seemed remarkably incapable of self-reflection. Worse still, her uselessness was now being enabled by the rest of the party.

He couldn’t quite understand what was so hard about being open about her combat capabilities. On reflection, it was apparent that she’d said the least of any of them in that regard, and she continued to remain as frustratingly vague as possible at every opportunity. Being a necromancer was one thing; for not a single member of the party truly begrudged her that occupation, and it was obvious to anyone with eyes and a functional brain. Hugh, himself, might have been wary as a matter of course, but he wasn’t prejudiced by any stretch of the word.

Being a socialite and, ironically, quite private about her personal info was just as fine too. Hugh would be a hypocrite of the highest order to begrudge her that either, and so he did not.

However, to be as spectacularly vague as she’d been in regards to her effective combat capabilities? That was utterly unacceptable. In fact, it was actively a threat to the entire party, all of whom -even himself- had been far more forthcoming about exactly what they brought to the table. She presented herself one way, and then took completely contrary actions, sabotaging her own effectiveness and then getting angry at others for her own mistakes? Absolute absurdity. And now, she wanted to try and shut down this line of discussion before she could be made to confront her own fault? What cowardice. What arrogance.

For a martial artist like him, arrogance was the enemy. To assume you were the best, the greatest, was to court certain death. There was always more to learn, always room to grow, always a fresh flaw to overcome and smooth out. You were not invincible. You were not indomitable. To lack the capacity to reflect upon your own mistakes was to be a blade pointed at yourself and your allies as much as any enemy, and Hugh would have to be mindful of this with Victoria going forward. He’d been willing to give her the benefit of a doubt to a certain degree, but this egregious misstep was a glimpse at something altogether more immediately destructive for the team.

Snorting disdainfully at Victoria’s silver-tongued deescalation, he made it perfectly clear exactly how little he was willing to humor her attempts to dismiss the issue. “You would be best served speaking up more clearly from now on, lest more dangerous assumptions occur.” That said, he would allow things to cool off for now, but his position was clear. He would not abide by this proposed pact of silence going forward. Her actions were a threat so long as she refused to address them, and he would treat them as such.

(/._./)

Despite the bodies having been gathered, it seemed his comrades had yet to engage in the tried and true act of “field compensation”. That being the case, Hugh set about emptying the pockets of the enemy, uncovering a number of small coin pouches and -far more critically- a rather startlingly well-made letter, written in a language he didn’t know… that was unnervingly familiar. Also glimmering in the dirt and filth were a number of what appeared to be coat buttons that once belonged to the victimized cadaver. He would inspect both later. For now, a far more important matter beckoned:

Payment.

Walking over to the party’s newly acquired cart, Hugh gently emptied the pouches one at a time into one hand, partitioning the coinage within out into small stacks of ten atop the wood of the back. As the party got underway towards Avonshire again and he tallied up the total, something strange occurred to him. “Why… is all of this silver?” Indeed, not a single other coin that one might have expected a group of prolific raiders to possess could be found amongst the bounty. “Not even a single copper or gold… Gold is one thing, but no copper? Surely, they would have at least one?” he voiced his thoughts aloud. Frowning, he nodded firmly, running his fingers over the course velum note he’d retrieved. “This supports my current conclusion. I’d hoped it was mere coincidence, but I now believe these goblins were on someone’s payroll. The weapons… The silver… It makes more sense by the moment.”

Pursing his lips tightly, Hugh collected the coinage together and set about distributing it as evenly as he could manage, allocating 25 silver pieces to every member of the group. A single silver piece remained, but after a moment’s thought, Hugh shrugged, pocketed it, retrieved eight copper pieces from his current funds, and gave two to each of his allies.

That done, the bounty hunter cracked his knuckles and settled down to inspect the other items of note. The buttons appeared to have come from a coat and were made of a silvery-white material that looked not dissimilar to anything from steel to platinum. Hugh was hardly a smith, so he really couldn’t say more than that. Of note, one of the buttons bore a mark similar to the one emblazoned upon the liberated casks in the cart. “Unknown metal, but it doesn’t seem to be standard fare. These are obviously the buttons of the wealthy. At least one has markings similar to the casks, so they definitely belonged to a servant or employee of some kind.” At Kathryn’s noise of interest, Hugh shrugged and handed off the buttons to her, turning his attention to the final object of note:

The Letter.

As it turned out, upon liberating it fully from its leather confines, the letter was not limited to a single sheet, but several, which Hugh sifted through quietly for several minutes with a frown etched upon his face and brow furrowed in concentration. The language was nothing he could read, not with anything even approaching fluently… but it was familiar. And after painstakingly dragging his vision through the word soup, line by line, word by word, a couple jumped out to him.

“Mreakt. Hfresdt.” He made gutteral noise in his throat, as he voiced the words in turn, his pronunciation mangled and abysmal, but likely comprehensible to a native speaker. “Means…” He tasted the words. “Something like flesh or meat… and? Food? Feast? Consume?” Grimacing, Hugh shook his head. “This is… the goblin tongue I believe. I’ve encountered their writings on occasion during my hunts of their raiding parties in the past, but I’ve never gotten more than a cursory comprehension of scattered concepts, just a word or two. It’s not an easy language to find a teacher for.” Sighing, Hugh carefully rolled the sheets back up and replaced them in their leather home. “This is turning out to be a potentially much greater lead than I first thought. We’ll need to find a translator.”

Luckily, in a place like the Avonshire Township proper, such a thing should be far from unfeasible.

(/._./)

The approach to and through the southern entrance went without overt remark or reaction from Hugh. He wasn’t typically one for lively festivities, after all, and the pungent scent of civilization -even with drifting undertones of good food- after returning from the fresh-aired general outdoors had done nothing for either his enthusiasm or budding appetite. The ruckus beyond was far from welcoming to his eyes and ears.

Frowning mildly, Hugh gathered that the cart they had retrieved had belonged to some relative of the troubled civilians, someone who was apparently important enough to have a sizable armed search party prepared to set out to find them. That was rather unfortunate; it seemed a reasonable assumption that they wouldn’t be able to retain the cargo for themselves. Perhaps if they were in luck, some impromptu compensation would be offered. Would seem a waste to go to all this trouble otherwise. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the swaggering man who claimed to be the Constable Cavendash they’d heard about.

Hopping lightly out of the cart at the man’s prompting, Hugh planted his staff gently and leaned against it, answering the Constable’s question. “The former, or near enough to it. I like to think that if we were mere plunderers, we’d be a little too competent to bring obviously marked cargo straight into town.” He gave a wry, genuinely amused grin. Anything else he might have said was drowned out by the Tiefling’s interjection and barrage of words, and Hugh frowned lightly before metaphorically taking a step back from the conversation for the time being.

After all, the socialite position was not one he relished, and this was a good chance to see if the other members of the party could do their part in this area. He’d stay out of it for now unless he was addressed inquiries… or the others started bungling things too badly.

At the Tiefling’s sudden silent glance for aid, Hugh found his poker face restraining a note of incredulity. After everything he’d seen from her, he’d not once thought her the type to run dry of words so quickly. Moreover, however, whether intentional or not, her retelling was delightfully vague of actually important details, like what they had looted off the goblins, and Hugh had every intention of leaving things that way. There was no way he was going to give up the letter they’d found, and mentioning it would only be a great way to see it confiscated.

That said… this was a great opportunity to deploy the party’s cover.

Given that he had been prompted… if all too much sooner than he’d expected or personally desired, Hugh elaborated, “Given the early winter and, thus, the early encroachment of goblin raiders and the like, the Sheriff of Darenby has apparently been stretched a bit thin. He has seen fit to hire us to handle some of the problems he doesn’t have the time or resources to spare his personal attention.” Hugh nodded his head leadingly at the collection of goblin ears. “Personally, I hadn’t expected we’d be earning our pay quite so quickly, but given how the goblins were actually camping otherwise unopposed on the main trade road, itself…? Well, I’d say Mr. Arbalest’s intuition is panning out.” There, that should explain the party’s presence without saying anything that would compromise the informational security of their mission… any worse than it already was.

The party started packing up their gear and the others their loot. Kathryn still felt uncomfortable looting from the dead, but she wouldn't stop the others. She knew it was common for soldiers on the battlefield to loot corpses of the dead to supplement their pay from time to time. Even others she had worked with in the past have done so. Ser Lucas would as well from time to time. But even when he did so it was rarely. She figured if any situation allowed for looting it would be a situation like this where their enemies were not professional fighters but raiders who got most of their valuables by stealing and killing those who were not able to stop them. So when Hugh came over to give Kathryn her share of silver and copper. She gave the biggest and most awkward smile when she spoke in return. "Thank you..." She was trying to be sincere, but looting even in this situation where there wasn't exactly a next of kin or where those that were being looted had any legitimate claim to their own goods it still felt wrong to her.

She did take note of some of the things that Hugh was looting, and she took interest in the buttons in particular. "I know some bits on smithing and metals, mind of I take a look?" Hugh once he was done passed it over for the battle master to pear at. It was a neat but no longer shiny button. "It could be silver? Or maybe polished steel?" Both seemed probable. But something seemed off. "Or maybe... Painted bronze? Or really well made iron..." She paused, and realized she had no clue in this moment. She didn't know if it was the post battle fatigue, the condition of the button itself, or if she was just a little too out of practice to know for sure. "I am not so sure actually... I'll take another look later, see what I can figure out then." She was disappointed in herself. She still lacked in the non combat skills a bit and she had messed up her part in combat as well. She pocketed the button with intentions of taking another look later. Hugh was taking a look at a letter, but it seemed to only be adding concern to their situation. "Not too many humans know goblinish. But Avonshire does likely have a translator." Hopefully they don't charge too much, or maybe they can do a favor in return for a translation.

Upon moving out Kathryn found herself climbing into the party's original wagon. Kosara had made some progress in learning how to steer and operate it, which was nice as the harder to control wagon was now being led by Victoria. Kathryn wondered how hard it would be to find the owner, and if they should take steps to verify the ownership of said products. Arriving towards town was pleasant, a few friendly faces, some nice smells from today's cooking, and overall much of that same pleasant atmosphere from before the battle with the goblins. If it could be called a battle. In town it looked like a militia of some kind had formed. Though a few were better armed then others one man in particular stood out. The man that they would all learn to be Constable Cavenish. Upon orders to climb out Kathryn did so with a metallic thud as her boots struck the road. Kosara took most of the group explanation in hand rather well, explaining their deeds as if they were story book characters on a magic quest. It was rather cute. Hugh filled in a bit more of the specific details as things continued, and worked to help build their cover a bit more. Now if anyone asked, they had proof to their cover story. Kathryn found a moment to reply towards Cecily while the party wrapped things up with the constable. "We'll find some time to talk, no worries. I don't imagine this conversation will take too long." Kathryn gave the woman a reassuring smile, though she figured the woman wanted to talk about the missing grandfather, the owner of the buttons in her pocket.

As Hugh and Kosara finished up their topic points with the constable Kathryn turned and spoke in a hushed tone as to not let too many of those in the crowd overhear. "Sir, I do feel it's important to say. We do have at least one casualty. Though the goblin's didn't leave a lot left to identify with." Specifically, she wanted to avoid letting Lizbeth and Cecily hear too much before the news could be properly broken to them. Kathryn held out her hand towards the constable with one of the buttons in it, but out of sight from those not in the immediate conversation.

A sigh, sad smile, and shake of the head was all that Victoria had left to dedicate to the current intra-party drama. She had enough drama in her personal life and the job at hand to wish to deal with more. She kept to her words and quietly, but by zero means meekly, walked away with her new shinys and salvaged weapons.

As she was going to be leading this wagon train of two, it stood to reason that she might want to stash her recently acquired items in her chest, located within Morty's small pull-cart in the party's wagon. The hickory smoked animal itself would stay with her, seeing as she was under no illusions concerning the looks it was given by certain members of her present adventuring group. So Victoria stowed her belongings, piled her backpack back on top of the chest, and gave Kosara a quick pep talk to elaborate her faith in the Tiefling's ability to drive the wagon before returning to her own appropriated conveyance.

A quick cantrip make short work of the blood on her favorite slim coat, which she quickly replaced over her black, silk underclothes and layered her reinforced leathers over this. Simple Prestidigitation had to have been her favorite utility magic, hands down. Did it make one lazy? Maybe. Did it solve numerous daily difficulties at a thought? Definitely. But the hole that remained in her sleeve could not so easily be repaired by her - yet. Any decent enough place of lodging which catered to travelers would have someone capable of such a repair, and if not, she was perfectly capable of taking up a needle and thread for the job. Victoria just didn't want to if she could avoid it. At least she was able to get her big, jaunty, bard-y hat back upon her head. She liked that hat. It matched her charcoal grey cloak (which paired well with just about everything) and had a lovely bit of bright aubergine plumage as accent.

As soon as everyone else was ready to go, Victoria prompted the already beleaguered oxen to strain against their yokes and pull the slightly lighter wagon onward toward their original destination. The journey itself was uneventful, yet the sudden change in atmosphere as Avonshire Township came into view in the distance filled Victoria with a sense of excited wonder. Just a couple short days ago she was fully prepared to bypass all of this hubbub on her travels west, to the sea. Even if there wasn't an adventure afoot she might have wanted to see what this local Harvestide festival was all about. Just for a day or two. Until the silver in the form of tips started to slow and the best wines flowed less rapidly. That was ever the difficulty with festivals in unfamiliar lands; one never knew when the peak day were.

Passing by the stretching dots of tents and merchants, Victoria was keen enough of sight to pick out a fruit seller a ways in front of them. She fished out a copper coin from her belt pouch and called to the vendor, "Hi! Hey, may I get a pear from you? No, not... The one with the blush. Oh, thank you!" her coin sailed through the air, almost to be caught but smartly recovered after he tossed a pale green and red-purple oblong fruit up to the cheerful Half-Elf. She bit into it as the wagon lumbered by, issuing a sound and expression indicating a positive, yummy experience. "This is so good. Thank you!" It was finished off, damn near core and all, long before they made it to the gates proper. One thing she did notice during this time was the large burial ground near the woods and just outside of the city walls. She had a feeling that she would be visiting there before they departed. There was lore to be found in great graveyards of a region. This one might prove fruitful, in exchange for a few songs for the deceased. Victoria glanced back to the unmoving form of Morty in the back of the wagon, silently recalling the uncovered secret which led to its initial reanimation. What else might she discover from within hallowed grounds?

This thought served a minor distraction as they almost entered into the Township proper. The game was certainly afoot now, as a trio of new and seemingly important faces met theirs with introduction, the most important-seeming being that of the Constable. As the rather haughty man spoke, Victoria risked a warm smile and a wave at Cecily and Lizbeth, hoping that her nonthreatening demeanor might smooth some feathers while the others in the group made their statements to the Constable.

Unfortunately, the first rollout of information from Kosara served to reveal to the guy in charge, this Cavendish, that Victoria was capable of using magic. Or he would be just as soon as it was revealed that she was "V". Not that it wouldn't be revealed eventually, given her proclivities for showing off, but the fact that any information about her was spilled gave her a touch of annoyance. It wasn't anything that could be helped now, so went to her to press on and attempt to salvage any advantage she might from this situation.

The first thing Victoria did was put on the most open, personable demeanor that she could, making every effort to comply with the orders requests of the Constable. She looked the man over, trying to figure out something of his motives or intentions, only to come away with nothing. Nothing at all. Outside of his swaggering attitude in front of what she could only assume was a couple of town guards and a barely organized militia, he didn't give away a thing about himself to Victoria's perception. As there was no soft spot recognizable to apply social pressure, she resolved to move on the situation cold, utilizing pure charisma. When there was a clear opening to speak, she took to it comfortably. "Oh! Our apologies, Constable, sir! Please allow me a short introduction, if you would?" She paused for a half-second, then spoke, "I am called Victoria Belmont, of the Ashhaven Belmonts." The last part was stressed to see if he was familiar with the region or the family mentioned, fully not expecting him to be. But it gave an impression of someone with connections. Or at least financial influence.

"I had first heard word of you back at Fort Darenby; had I but known you were moving to handle this personally with a force of fine, brave men, we might have extended hearty cooperation. You must believe that we had no intention of stepping on anyone's toes. However, as my colleagues rightly stated, the good Sheriff did put us to this task. And..." Victoria leaned a little closer, lowering the volume of her voice, "...there are certain personal aspects with which I shouldn't want to trouble a man of your importance, especially with the festival making things more hectic for you and your very important duties." A knowing nod, and she continued, "With your permission, Constable, may I please speak with the bereaved and give them a little peace of mind before we continue?"

Yes, Victoria was fully aware that she was sucking up to an authority figure. Yes, it was a little shameless. Also yes, it worked. Cavendish stared at the purple-clad Bard, attempting to figure her out but (apparently) learning less about her than she did about him. Without word, he breathed a sigh and motioned his head behind him, in the direction of Cecily and little Lizbeth L'Rose. "Thank you, Constable," said Victoria warmly. In truth, she didn't give a rat's pickled hindparts about this Constable aside from the hassle he might provide her, given a long enough timeline. The other two, though? They deserved to know about the dead guy they found first, and from a compassionate voice. That aside, their acquaintanceship and being in their good graces could prove beneficial to their actual task here in town. Now was a good time to give them comfort, and to a lesser extent, secure that grace. Prioritizing them over the local law enforcement seemed like a good place to start.

Behind Cavendish a few paces, Victoria doffed her hat and took a knee, putting her eyes a bit lower than young Lizbeth as she got their attention and opened a dialogue. Her words were kept quiet and direct, evocative of reaction from the both of them. While the elder Cecily put her hands up to cover her face, Lizbeth reached out to Victoria to catch her in a hug. Not exactly what she was going for, but when in Avonshire, and whatnot.