With the enormous mercenary lowering himself, Tyaethe wasted no time in grabbing onto the nearby arm and clambering up to the shoulder. Not that it could really be considered a comfortable seat by any stretch of the imagination, given that she was now seated upon a curved piece of steel. On the flip side, it was broad enough for her that it may as well have been any other uncomfortable bench in existence and a far cry better than just standing around.

"Me, resemble your daughter?" she wondered, head tilting and looking at Bors again, "I can't see it. Surely there ought to be a notable size difference between us? Unless she's only five years old..."

Tyaethe, after all, was short even for her apparent age. Even a quarter giant should easily eclipse her in height.

Renar had no reason to look at the back of his cloak for the moment, and so he didn't. He did, however, feel that something was off. Though being prepared for betrayal on a moment's notice did tend to do things to one's sixth sense.

That all said, Alette's explanation was...curious. He had little doubt that she was telling him the truth, lying about the matter would be nonsensical when he could just get Fionn's side of the story later. Moreover, she seemed too genuinely amused for him to have not been off the mark.

"The mother hen routine, then?" Renar remarked easily to Alette as he continued walking a pace behind her and to the side. "I'm not unfamiliar with it from him by any means. Though it doesn't quite come across the same when he does it to the rest of us. All he does when that happens is moralize at me, not try to bite my head off. It was rather different when it happened to you."

Renar shifted his cloak, and a string of color caught his eye. What...? Dunce? He narrowed his eyes from behind the visor of his full helm, bringing a hand up to...pass through the lettering. Well. That narrowed the list of culprits down significantly. Seemed their newest recruit had some measure of backbone after all, if she decided to retaliate, even if indirectly. Nonetheless, he scoffed at the choice of method, removing his mantle and turning it inside out before wrapping it around himself once again so that the DUNCE lettering was concealed behind his armor now.

With that done, he resumed following after wherever the mercenary captain was going. Someone among the knights had to keep her within their sight.

@VitaVitaAR @6slyboy6

---

It took a little while to go through everybody, but aside from that Boar member in disguise, every bodies in the barrack appeared to just be normal soldiers, no sign of the shards nor any additional Boar insignia.

"There's nothing else." Said Steffen as he returned to Fanilly, Amy and the mercenary lad. "Feel free to double check, however. A black shard is easy to miss."

@VitaVitaAR@6slyboy6

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@VahkiDane

The search through the halls of the fortress was slow going, the Boars having disseminated their number in sparse quantities through the ranks of good and Goddess-fearing king's men. As the unlikely pair marched down the spartan corridors (at some point peeling off the main cohort for better coverage of the area, already well aware of the brand they sought), they'd turned up a few of the saboteurs' corpses here and there, but little in the way of conclusive evidence— and, naturally, no shards of entropy made manifest.

Orodunn's was a savage tale, but it was no stranger to the ears of those that clamored for Romance and Chivalry as boys. He had no scholarly breadth of interpretation to work his way through the myth as it still lived, and truthfully hadn't read the text firsthand— but he knew enough that the revelation of this Shard being that of Angoron had flipped the game on its head. That blade was so cursed it ruined countrysides— little wonder they'd gone mad to a man here.

He was tight-lipped as he rifled through the surcoat of one such mercenary, hoping to dig up answers, at least. Sir Sergio, not far off, had done much the same. A blessing they'd both gone all but nose-blind to bloodshed long before they'd found their way here— Gerard half believed they risked any missives uncovered to run the risk of being too mangled and stained to make anything out.

"You feel anything? So far I don't."

Certainly, an oncoming rush of fury would be a warning sign.

Fleuri Jodeau

This looks promising, Fleuri thought as he found the captain's journal in the desk. Unfortunately, it looked like whoever had murdered the man had also taken steps to cover their tracks- many of the journal's pages had been ripped out.

Even so, they hadn't been quite thorough enough when covering their tracks, because he did find one relevant passage still intact. It didn't tell much, but it did confirm that the fort captain knew about the shard, and was in contact with someone other than the crown. Whoever it was, the captain didn't believe that their correspondence- whatever it was- went against his duties to the crown. Clearly, his faith must have been misplaced, because somehow it had led to the deaths of himself and and everyone entrusted to his command.

"I found something, Sir Fionn," Fleuri informed his knight-brother. "It looks like the fort captain's journal. A lot of it has been ripped out, but they didn't get everything- there's still one passage of relevance." Fleuri offered the journal to Fionn. He wasn't sure if the former mercenary would be able to get anything more out of it, but it was worth letting him look at it.

@VitaVitaAR@The Otter

---

@VitaVitaAR @Crimson Paladin

---

Turning the corpse over revealed nothing; prying open the fingers, nothing, even prying open the jaw to make sure nobody had tried that foolish old trick again revealed nothing. Nothing to note secreted away beneath pillow or mattress. He'd quickly gone to combing through some of the papers and such strewn about the desk, before Fleuri held an open journal in front of him. He glanced up, skimming quickly over the words. Then he grunted, shaking his head. "Figures they'd at least manage to tear out something important. We'll take that back to the captain. I take it you've found nothing, Abigail?"

The lack of anything out of her beforehand made him think it unlikely.

"Let's make our way back out, do a quick check on any bodies we might pass along the way. I'll get the one back in the hallway." Not that it had really seemed anything worthy of note on the way in, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a look. As the others gathered up anything else they had to take care of, he stepped out into the hall, turning the corpse over.

"Huh. Another clean one." Cleaner even than the dead captain, it looked like. He turned the head and pulled back the collar, eyes narrowing. "Not a boar, either. What do you make of this one, Abigail?"

It was around that moment that Alette came to a stop, at Clarice's side. The mage was focused, having inscribed a chalk circle on the nearest wall. Her feet were still drifting off the ground, as she watched a light traveling steadily around the edge of the circle, her eyes narrowed.

"Nothing yet?" Alette questioned, tilting her head.

"Can't you tell? It's going to take a little bit... haaah, and this bloody scent is so distracting, you know? I'm going to lay a curse on whoever's responsible for all this, it's so unpleasant."

Rather then dismay at the deaths themselves, the mage seemed more annoyed at how unpleasant the fort was given it was filled with corpses.

With the barracks lacking any further information, Fanilly took the piece of paper with her as she lead her knights back to the surface. It offered little information that they didn't already know at the time, but at least it was something. It confirmed why the Boars were hiding there, but not how they had learned about this in the first place or how they'd infiltrated the for-

Wait, there was something on the back?

Turning the paper over in her hands, Fanilly examined it again. Those were... stones? It was a sketch of a pair of stones, ones that looked oddly familiar. Perfectly smooth, standing erect...

"Ah! There!"

The scrying circle had come alight, the light changing shape and growing larger until it resembled a clear pool of water. From within, a grassy clearing with a pair of white stones standing erect could be seen.

"They were going here!" declared Clarice, "... Wherever here is. I don't recognize it at all."

But Fanilly did.

Immediately the Knight-Captain approached, glancing between the paper and the scrying circle.

"That's Cae Mayl," she said as she approached, "They must have been meeting there! But... why?"

Cae Mayl was the first shrine to Mayon in all of Thaln. The white standing stones were accompanied by a clear pool of water from deep within the earth. While it was a holy site, the deep pool was also dangerous given how far down it went.

Fanilly had been there once before, years ago.

Regardless, it was their best lead.

Meanwhile, Bors let out a chuckle. It sounded something like a roll of thunder across the sky during a storm.

"You would be surprised," he commented, cheerfully, "My daughter hasn't a scrap of giant's blood, but she is my daughter all the same."

He glanced out over the horizon before continuing, still keeping watch for any potential enemies.

"And she enjoys this view just as much as you do."

---

"Hmmm..."

Abigail knelt beside the body, frowning slightly.

"These wounds weren't made by a blade," she commented, "Ah, so elegant... but terrible, too."

She ran her fingertips over the injuries as she spoke.

"Extremely precise and swift, and inflicted by magic... a curse? Perhaps Clarice should take a look, she loves curses~!" she observed as she continued examining the injuries, "... They cut the veins leading to the heart."

The precision, and the use of magic, implied that whoever had been responsible for the captain's death and the death of this soldier was not among those driven mad. Additionally, the fact the journal had been defaced implied an attempt to throw someone off the trail.

It wasn't impossible whoever did this was tied to the boars. But just what had gone wrong to trigger the massacre?

The fact that the perpetrator could use curses, and potentially had possession of such an inherently wicked object, could have been the answer.

@Rune_Alchemist@HereComesTheSnow@Raineh Daze@ERode@PigeonOfAstora@Conscripts@Crimson Paladin@Creative Chaos@The Otter@Krayzikk@Psyker Landshark@6slyboy6

---

@VitaVitaAR @Crimson Paladin

---

"Cut the return flow? Means they didn't want him to go too quickly. More cruel than we'd normally expect." He looked back up, over to Fleuri. "Help me carry him back?"

Lein

---

Location: Get Me Out Of Here
Interactions:

---

Lein yawned, idly staring at the battlements as wind blew sour from within the fort.

Join the Knights, she said. Do something meaningful for once, she said.

His eyes watered from scouring the surrounding landscape, picking off the last remaining bits of originality he could scavenge. 567 bricks along this particular section of the wall. 45 of them cracked. And then there was this one that was cracked pretty neatly in half, with jagged edges that looked kinda like Chauntressy -

Hell. It had barely taken a candle's worth of 'lookout duty' to make the Hundi start losing his marbles.

Lein sat backwards on the wall and glanced enviously back at the fort. Others were hunting down this rogue blasphemy from an ancient hellscape that the Church butter-fingered into the lap of a lunatic mercenary group. And here was Lein, worldly traveler, elite knight of whatever-rose, and champion of counting bricks. Gouging his eyes out with boredom.

I hate this job.

Leaving behind the others to handle the barracks, the two knights descended into the depths of the fort. Shadows grew longer at the advance of Nicomede’s lantern, while Serenity’s torch cast a warm hue upon the corners and recesses of the bloodstained hallways. The massacre grew banal over the short walk; corpses no longer sparked any particular notice from her as she passed. Only a flicker of disgust as she passed over the contorted bodies of those who couldn’t even truly give their lives for the kingdom’s sake. It was tragic, to end like this. To end at the whims of an ancient artifact that even she hardly understood.

Whatever that artifact was, however, it was likely not here.

The fighting was subdued here, more suicides than anything else, as Thaln soldiers fled to escape the madness, only to be gripped by that same thing. Blood mixed with spilled wine here, conflict shattering barrels of drink and food and rendering them inedible. She picked through the corpses quietly, her exposed mien as unreadable as if it was hidden beneath the visor.

“Ah, this one.”

She set her foot against the neck of one of the corpses, and applied pressure. A moment later, the cracking of the spine could be heard. For good measure, presumably. “Shall we carry it back? Or does your magic include acids too, Sir Nicomede?”

Finally, a damned lead to go on. And about time, at that. The Iron Rose were the swords of the crown, not magical investigators or fix-all handymen. Frankly, it was fortunate that the mercenaries were present at all. The presence of the mage alone paid dividends in terms of results from all of this. Renar doubted the knights would have gotten quite so far in as short of a time without her aid. But it served little to dwell on what-ifs.

Cae Mayl, then. "A day's ride away." Renar commented as he followed after the Knight-Captain, his voice carrying. "Half if we run our horses to the brink of death." He stepped over a corpse in the way, not sparing it a second glance. "But judging by how long ago this happened, it's doubtful we'll actually find the perpetrator there. Only a fool would even remain in the country at this point, and they've at least a few days' lead on us by now. At best, we'll hopefully find another clue similar to this one." His gaze shifted in Fanilly's direction.

"Orders, Knight-Captain? Are we to regroup and pursue with all haste? And will our present company be joining us?" An incline of his helmet towards Alette. As much as he'd prefer to not be constantly on guard against them at this point, one couldn't deny their usefulness. Mostly the mage. Of course, that was presuming they were even willing to accompany the Iron Rose any further. He could hardly blame them if they decided to simply return to their employer, now that their curiosity over this whole situation was answered. Doing so would be the smart option, at least.

@VitaVitaAR

"Nothing useful." I mumble, about as usefully. This is one of the many facets of our job that some skive away from - having to sift through the carnage you or anyone else might have caused for a tangible clue. Of course, those who skirt those duties will later find themselves floored when the answers aren't handed to them on a silver platter.

"...Did you do much of this before, Ser Gerard? The investigations." I speak a little lighter, not intending to distract but at least to illuminate the mood a little. Even hard case mercenaries are slaves to morale.

@VitaVitaAR @HereComesTheSnow

"Oh, I see," she said, looking ahead at the view, "It's not really the view, it's the feeling, sitting somewhere pretty high off the ground and talking normally. I used to do this a lot..."

It also seemed that nobody had come outside with the shard yet. That didn't bode well for the thing still being here, with everyone split up and searching for it in particular, this fortification wasn't nearly so big enough that it should be difficult to find. When she found out what complete moron had kept a deadly artefact outside of safe and tracked storage...

"Say, how did you get your armour? Even if mercenary work pays well, getting something like this...," Tyaethe wondered, tapping at the thick metal. The number of smiths who would even dare to try and make a piece of this size, let alone be able to pull it off? The cost and difficulty could only increase exponentially. "I don't even think our smith could pull it off with the tools and space Candaeln has on-site, though I'm sure he could maintain or enchant it."

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@VahkiDane

"No." he grunted evenly, fingers closing on a fragment of paper, almost unfelt beneath the leather and steel. "I learned a lot from my past life, but mercenary work doesn't lend itself to asking too many questions. If it did, I may have turned out smarter."

Pulling it free, he turned the crumpled mass over in his hand to reveal plain text in smudged, faded ink. Smeared by travel? Sweat from the exertion once the calamity hit? Hard to say, but the contents were, more or less, legible. Their unclarity wasn't rooted in physical tampering.

"Got something." he breathed, rising to his feet to bring it over to the light, where his partner stood. "Some kind of symbology here. Looks like a gate, almost— couple of standing stones."

Those last two words rung familiar, somehow. Gerard's brow furrowed. Standing Stones, Standing Stones, Standing Stones...

"Has to be a landmark. And not too far, if they're meaning to squirrel it away with all that risk and subterfuge."

He leaned on his memory, scouring his mind for what matched those twin pillars, smooth as though thrown in a great river.

At the thought of "water", something he didn't care for clicked. His companion was more of a Mayonite than he— if he could verify the thought, this was a lead.

"Isn't there a shrine around here like this?"

Fleuri Jodeau

"Certainly, Sir Fionn," Fleuri replied to his fellow knight's request. He'd help to lift the corpse up. "What an atrocity this was," he lamented.

The conspiracy against the princess seemed minor compared to what they were facing. A shard of Orodrunn, an entire fort driven mad and wiped out, this was nothing like he had expected to face in the Iron Roses. It was nothing like he had expected Thaln to face in his lifetime. This could be even worse of a threat to the kingdom than the War of the Red Flag.

"The fact that they used magic should narrow down our culprit a bit," Fleuri remarked to Fionn and Abigail. "I don't know much about curses, but I'm pretty sure that the average hired blade or cutthroat wouldn't be able to do this to someone. Let's hope those outside were able to find more clues."

@The Otter

The decision came quickly and easily. Even if the perpetrators were no longer there, which was almost certain, at the very least heading to the site of the meeting was the best way to obtain further leads.

And aside from that, given that Cay Mayl was a holy site, there was the matter of discerning if there had been any attempts to defile it. Bringing something as dark as a Shard of Angroron there... it didn't guarantee that was their intention, but it was at least a concerning possibility.

Fanilly didn't want anyone else to suffer like the soldiers at the fort had.

The mercenaries had, under Alette's command, largely parted ways(though not before the blue-haired spear-wielder had informed Fionn of the amusing misinterpretation on Sir Renar's part). Except...

"Why am I still here?"

Clarice, her parasol blocking out the sunlight, had asked that question more than a few times since Alette had sent the mage to accompany the Iron Rose Knights to to Cay Mayl. She quite clearly wasn't happy about any of it, and appeared to be anxious around horses on top of that. In spite of the magical power it surely required, she elected instead to float alongside them, refusing to get closer to any of the horses then absolutely necessary.

"I'd rather be carried by Bors," she'd said, during attempts to convince her to ride on horseback.

Fanilly could see she was a difficult person, but at the same time her knowledge of curses could be invaluable. They were dealing with an opponent to inflicted curses on others, that much was certain. The man whose heart had been severed from his arteries with a curse told them that much.

What this indicated, at least to Fanilly, was that a mage of some description, and one capable with curses at that, was working alongside the Golden Boars. It didn't answer how the madness had blanketed the fort as it had, but at least it was certain that someone capable of curses was there and was likely the one who had obtained the shard.

... For that matter, who had the Fort's captain trusted enough to hold the shard for...? Fanilly had to guess it was the same person who had employed Alette's mercenary band.

It had been nearly a day since they set out, by now. Aside from complaining about her situation, Clarice hadn't said very much.

There it was, the clearing at the edge of Brennan Forest.

Cae Mayl.

The pristine white standing stones, the green grass, the shorter ring of stones surrounding the incredibly deep pool of water, the wild-grown roses in bloom, it was exactly as Fanilly remembered it from the last time she had been there, years ago.

She wasn't counting on finding anyone here to begin with, but at least some evidence, something, that could lead them in the right direction.

"We have no choice but to search the area. Stay clear of the Moon Pool, it's deeper than it appears," Fanilly ordered as she dismounted her mare.

Clarice, of course, responded by immediately drifting to the edge of the pool and peering right into it. Given the fact her feet still weren't touching the ground, presumably she was at less risk of finding herself in the water.

And perhaps she had a reason beyond curiosity.

@Rune_Alchemist@HereComesTheSnow@Raineh Daze@ERode@PigeonOfAstora@Conscripts@Crimson Paladin@Creative Chaos@The Otter@Krayzikk@Psyker Landshark@6slyboy6

Night, day, and now night once more.

Cae Mayl loomed. It was a beautiful place during day, but it was at night that the old shrine truly manifested its sense of divinity and holiness. Long shadows were cast by the setting sun, the wild roses set aflame by amber light. Serenity’s eyes settled naturally upon the Moon Pool, that brilliant surface a mirror-reflection of the sky.

She murmured a prayer, then dismounted from her steed.

“Lein. Come.” the knight called, finding the gaze of the Hundi that looked just about to lose his mind from the tedium of the task ahead. “If the Boars left by natural means, there’s a chance of tracks leading out. We’ll look for that, while there’s still some daylight. Dame Amy, keep with the Captain. Yours is the finest magic we have to confound the subterfuge of ambushers, both natural and supernatural.”

It was a shame that Bors was such a loyal fellow. Someone like that, armoured... well, there would always be something someone like that could offer that the knights were lacking, even if he turned out otherwise unremarkable. But it seemed that he was more than satisfied with Alette as an employer, and Tyaethe wasn't even going to try pestering a mercenary into making an attempt to sign up. Someone like that would never lower herself to being under some other's command, for one.

And people would probably be annoyed if the captain just brought people in because they were good at the knights' entire purpose and not sufficiently 'distinguished' or from Thaeln, as if that wasn't how they'd just found people to start with...

But with the information that the mercenaries were headed to a holy site, the vampire's cast darkened, and her demeanour for the entire journey had been frighteningly tense. Both in how tightly she held herself and the occasional dim haze of red whenever something off the path made too much noise as it fled from the travelling knights, even if it was just another rabbit or some particularly bold deer. Or a sheep.

By the time they reached Cae Mayl, a few of their group were distinctly woozy and not to take the lead if any fighting broke out, and the paladin sat gleaming in armour, the late afternoon sun catching on the gilding fetchingly while the blued steel kept to a dull gleam. It was quite the sight for something that didn't really exist. Abruptly, much of Tyaethe's tension drained out, even if she didn't allow the armour to dissipate. It hasn't been used. Not here.

"The shrine is the same as ever," she stated, armour making the voice a little less dissonant with her appearance, "It remains uncorrupted."

"Would you stop laughing already?" Renar groused at Fionn as they both dismounted on arrival at Cae Mayl, the bastard having gotten no small amount of mockery from his friend for his misunderstanding regarding Alette. "How was I to know that was what passes for concern with you? You certainly don't do the same with the rest of us."

Unlike some of their number, a hard day's ride left Renar still able to fight. He'd trained to be a knight practically since his father, may he burn, took custody of him, and it was all but expected of a Brias warrior. By no means was he fresh as a daisy, but if it came down to a fight, he would be more than ready.

Dame Tyaethe's remarks were at least somewhat helpful. The shrine itself being untouched was better than the alternative. Though anyone even halfway intelligent wouldn't have bothered to taint it if they wanted to conceal their presence here. That meant it still came down to a search.

"Come on then, Fionn. Let's be about this. Perhaps we may even get to actually perform our role this time."

@The Otter

---

Steffen, let the others decide amongst themselves which tails to chase next. Having a very limited number of leads made the decision quite obvious for everyone. Cae Mayl this time. Once again a boring ride, but if he could stand the boredom of paperwork, this was nothing but an opportunity to practice a little bit of melody. He had no flute here, but his lips would suffice to create the delicate air dance in the form of a Veltian folk song. His whistling was no louder than any hooves clomping on the trampled roads, but was enough to keep some knights company for the journey.

Cae Mayl appeared around the same time they were at the fort the day before. A breathtaking scenic that gave him no surprise this was chosen as the first shrine to Mayon. The water seemed completely still, a pretty mirror for the goddesses to take good look at themselves, if they needed that vanity. Supposedly, it was deeper than anticipated, but it was the more magical nature of this place that got the message through to Steffen more than the water depth.

With the information that the shrine appeared untainted from Tyaethe, he would be reassured that there wouldn't be anything yet, not at least until the knights were fully disembarked. It still wasn't clear to what degree the Boar's presence here were like. Had they already left, finishing whatever nefarious task they were up to here already without touching a finger on the shrine? Or had they not even arrived yet? Are they around here somewhere, intentionally? That last question bugged him the time he was at the fort, and it would bug him again now.

Seeing Dame Serenity took off with Lein to search for any tracks out of the shrine, the watchdog duty had to be taken up by someone.

"Sir Gerard, Sir Nicomede, if you two don't mind." Steffen raised his hand to attract the two knights. "Let's keep watch on the treelines. Form a patrol to check if there's any Boars there." He figured the knights had enough hands checking the shrine as is.

@Krayzikk@HereComesTheSnow