Location: North of the crossroads, 6 km from Stritzel's Estate, Western Kindeance.
Inclining her head at Lord Thernous's prompt, Veronica straightened up, tucking her scroll case under one hand and withdrawing a leatherbound book from her bag. Flipping it open, she paged to some of the more recent entries and nodded, glancing around to check that the entire party seemed to be gathered. There was a lot to go through, and she'd prefer to only say this once.
"I realize the hour is late and most of us surely weary, so I shall try to pursue brevity as far as it doesn't compromise what's critical," she started, patting the cover of her logbook.
"A more detailed hourly report is contained here, of course, for those that are interested."Clearing her throat, she glanced at the pages of her logbook and nodded.
"Our recon team was initially sent to scout out the premises of Lady Stritzel's mansion. One of our secondary goals was to plant a magical geolocator." She sent an appreciative nod to Charles and Farris.
"Unfortunately, the latter did not end up succeeding, partially due to an anti-scrying barrier presently encompassing the entire Stritzel estate. The same barrier limited our investigations further, and it is almost certainly the reason why the target of this recovery mission -Cedar- has been unable to be located magically." Her expression turned graver.
"I should mention also that this magical barrier shares a great similarity -if not identical function- to the one utilized by Asever in Fanghorn's devastation four months ago. Out of concern for being detected, I chose not to test its upper limits prior to now, but I'm confident in my analysis."She flipped a page, lips pursing, as she organized her thoughts. So far, her attempts to keep things less verbose didn't seem to be working, and unfortunately, she still had much more to say.
"The King's blockade was thankfully largely successful in isolating the area, so our team had very little trouble making note of any suspicious comings and goings. Of particular note, three days ago, we logged the coming and going of a wagon, guarded by Delving Usuals." She paused, glancing at the bears and then elaborating.
"Which is a... I suppose general term for professional 'thugs' employed by the noble family. For context for those of you who are new here, the Delvings were involved in some instrumental capacity four months ago with the conflict that eventually devastated Fanghorn and set us on the path of political and societal unrest we are walking today. That they are involved yet again is worrisome but not as unexpected as it might be."Shaking her head, she pulled away from that topic.
"We can discuss how to handle them a bit later, but suffice to say, what you need to know to at least have a basic idea what to watch out for is that they are wealthy, control much of this nation's navy and are famed for their barrier and anti-magic spells. It's something of a callsign of theirs, and it would easily explain the powerful barrier's presence. Moving on..." She reorganized her thoughts and continued her prior thought.
"So, three days ago, Delving Usuals were spotted coming and going with a wagon that emanated warding magic. That was the last time anyone left the premises of the estate. On the inverse, the last time anyone arrived was a day ago, a small convoy of two wagons and several horsemen. Which brings us to the mansion itself..."Closing her logbook, she tucked it under one arm and unscrewed the map case that was held beneath the other, sliding out a roll of parchment which she soon unfurled.
"What we have here is a-" She paused, frowning, as she considered the current near nonexistent lighting conditions and that not everyone here was as nocturnally inclined as herself.
"Jazdia, if I could possibly trouble you for a light?"The elf nodded and drew forth an arrow, which soon flared into a fresh billow of purple light. "Don't touch the arrowhead," she advised simply, to which Veronica nodded, taking the arrow shaft in one hand and using it to illuminate the map she let unfurl fully to hang freely from her other hand.
"As I was saying, this is a map we've sketched of the grounds of our target." The glowing arrowhead passed over the area, as she described each detail in turn.
"The main building is a three-story manor directly facing the south, protected on all sides by a rectangular stone wall that looks nearly older than the house itself and will henceforth be referred to as the 'outer wall'. The outer wall has a number of towers, one for each of the four corners. A large river runs along the northernmost wall, which in turn is roughly 40-50 meters from the mansion. Conversely, the southernmost wall resides roughly 100 meters from the manor. The western wall resides roughly 30-40 meters from the mansion and the eastern wall closer to 50 meters."The arrowhead traced down the far closer perimeter sketched around the mansion.
"This is the 'inner wall', a clearly far newer construct. At its furthest from the compound -the southern segment, it sits roughly 25 meters away with the closer segments being as near as 10-15 meters. This provides ample space for the presently hottest threat zone to our knowledge. The greatest concentration of enemy forces -largely Delving Usuals- is here in this inner wall zone, and it remains the primary barrier to entry to the mansion. The manor also has yet another tower, a much larger one built directly atop it and situated ever so slightly more towards the eastern portion of the mansion, providing excellent sightlines in nearly every direction due to both the elevation and wide-open surrounding space, not just between the inner and outer walls but around the space outside the outer wall as well."She paused for a moment to allow the group to digest the flow of information for a bit, a serious expression on her face.
"Perhaps it goes without saying, but for a group this large, especially with the certainty that many of us are less than specialized in matters of stealth-" She shot a telling look in the direction of the more heavily armored members of the group.
"-infiltrating this perimeter unseen, without things devolving into a full-on brawl, is a tall order." Loosing a short exhale, she rolled the battlefield map back up and slipped it into her map case, drawing forth a second drawing, which unrolled into what looked like an itemized floorplan of the actual building's internals.
"Thankfully, it's not all doom and gloom, at least ostensibly. Once we get past the inner wall defenses, the actual premises of the manor are just about entirely abandoned, managed by a skeleton crew at best. It's almost frightening how much free reign you have once you get inside; it's the actually getting there that's the issue. Of course, I doubt any of us will be complaining about the convenience; I certainly won't."Tapping a final section of the map, her levity drained away.
"And now, we reach the crux of the mission. Our actual goal -as I'm sure you're well aware- is to rescue Cedar and assassinate the traitorous Lady Stritzel for her crimes. In all the time we have observed this estate, our team hasn't managed to catch sight of either of our targets even once... But by following the trail of goods and personnel unloaded from the convoys that came through here, we have uncovered their likely location, a final underground layer." She tapped the map again, clicking her tongue in frustration.
"Unfortunately, yet again, I couldn't risk pushing deeper without compromising our presence, if not threatening both the security of our mission and our lives. So, I cannot offer a map of the complex beyond, only the knowledge of its existence and location of the entrance. By process of elimination, there is nowhere else our targets may be."After a moment of silence, she rolled the map back up and slid it into the map case with its fellow. Screwing the lid back on, she reached over to hand the glowing arrow back to Jazdia, who took it and extinguished the lingering magic. Straightening up again, Veronica nodded definitively.
"This officially concludes the main body of the recon team's report." A sheepish smile crawled across her lips, as she scratched the back of her neck.
"Even summarized, it turned out longer than it sounded in my head." 
