Shoe Thief

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: Inspired N/A Location: C12 Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

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.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: Inspired N/A Location: B12 --> C12 Action: Putting things back together Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

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.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 (-2 without shield) Conditions: Inspired N/A Location: F11 --> B12 Action: Poking G1 Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Chaos began. The goblins Kathryn realized stood no chance to their party. Though they had little experience working together so far they had destroyed the goblins in a single moment, leaving the remaining goblins with a surprising amount of courage to finish the fight. Hugh once Kathryn had kicked things off had taken out the lookout who appeared to have the only ranged weapon. Good, they'd have to get up close to Kathryn if they wanted to deal with her. Marita opened up with her own attacks, as if she commanded the goblins to perish with her words as a spectral blade dropped one, and she finished another. Which Victoria finished off rather smoothly, with assistance from Morty. The many magical lights that came from Kosara as she unleashed hell and fury onto a bunch of the goblins was something Kathryn couldn't even comprehend. And with Hugh still picking off stragglers from his position, these goblins really stood no chance. Any creature with an ounce of wit would know the battle was lost. But these creatures were either too dumb, or too drunk. Either way, Kathryn would oblige.

Kathryn quickly found herself out of position as the battle went on. Instead of being upfront and making sure combat stayed contained she found herself fallen behind. Looking at Marita and Victoria it seemed they held that flank down rather well. TO help wrap things up Kathryn decided she would close in from the other direction. As Kathryn made her way towards her next target she passed over the coffin, briefly wondering what the story around this caravan was before the goblins had attacked it. If any survived she'd ask about.

From the point of view of Kathryn's target, the goblin would get a split moment to see his buddy blasted from a blast of all blasts, and brief moment of smoke and debris as the sound of heavy metal and chains rattled towards him, getting only the briefest chances to see the armored half giant bring her large sword down from above and struck him down. Kathryn stood over last target. There couldn't be many left now could there?

Tag Note:@Sigil(Says DM next but if I need to tag for Marita I can change it)

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: Inspired N/A Location: O13 --> F11 Action: Axing off G8 Bonus Action: Axing off G6 Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

And so it began. Though Kathryn wanted a chance to let the cruel and inhuman creatures get a chance at surrender, the others made it clear how in this case, it wasn't a feasible option. Some points on the goblins themselves, some on the logistics, and some points on how bringing them to justice how Kathryn proposed would have the same end result anyways. At least by blade it was fast, and they would hold their respective advantages. The half giant of a woman was glad that Marita expressed some sympathy towards Kathryn's proposal. Even if for Kathryn sake it was more so she could say to her own morals that she at least tried. As Marita, Victoria, and Morty the pig moved into position Kathryn debated her approach. She knew she could take a beating, and dish one out. But numbers of bodies and hands were not in their favor. So that was her current priority. Cripple their numbers as fast as possible to limit the goblins main advantage.

Passing Victoria Kathryn let her shield rest into place on her back. Though her chain mail made a decent chunk of noise the pass without a trace held long enough despite some close calls on her part. In her mind she was struggling, this is her first combat encounter with this new party who would clearly operate very differently then those she fought with in the past. She would have to not fight as aggressively as she had done in the past, she would need to keep in mind that as a pure martial she was alone. Though Marita could hold her own in situations like Kathryn was used too, being aggressive held a lot more risks then before. And without her former mentor her judgement in this fight would have to be hers and hers alone. And without a clear party leader there would also be little room to change the plans should things come up. Mentally she was scared, and she was anxious. Mentally she felt like she was unsure of her own abilities and was uncertain of her other party members. And now it was her turn to draw the bulk of the attention from these killers.

Physically her actions played out as one smooth movement. Though the professional killers of unarmed peasants and under armed civilians had won their battle, they were about to face off against a professional killer of killers. As the armored giant took her steps, she rotated her steps to fluidly change into a right handed throwing position sending her hand axe into into the first drunken fool. The axe collided with the target's head sending them to the dirt before he even knew what hit him. Within the same fluid motion Kathryn rotated briefly turning her back to change into a left handed throwing position sending her other hand axe into the chest of a second goblin who had only the split second of watching his friend across the camp fire get lobbed to react before dropping to the same fate.

Starting off her fight with two downed enemies boosted the wavering confidence of Kathryn Pyke. Now she was ready to fight and ready to bring her own former fears upon her enemies. Drawing her long sword with both hands Kathryn let out a blood curdling scream of rage and fury. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" As if daring the next poor bastard to come and face her.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: Inspired N/A Location: O13 Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Goblins. A pest in most lands, a great danger in others. She and Ser Lucas had faced off against the vile creatures plenty enough, but they fought dirty. In many cases they were even more cruel then those who had stolen her home from her. This case wasn't so different. There was not only evidence of foul play, but of casualties. She wanted to take her axes and send them into the creatures who would commit acts such as these. A rage in her wanted to be unleashed and give out justice in it's most pure and violent form against the murderous creatures. Kathryn was visibly upset thinking ahead, but her expression changed as she calmed down. Unlikely that others could notice through her helmet her posture showed that of someone who was ready for a fight. Hugh was the first to come up with a workable plan. It seemed strait forward enough and simple enough it would be hard for anyone with an ounce of discipline to mess up.

Kathryn and Marita would be their frontliners while the rest of the party went off to the flank to cause as many problems as possible for the poor bastards. And if there were hostages or survivors it would be a chance for the others to save them before things got too far out of control. Kathryn had some experience in pitched battles and knew from experience that once fighting broke out to it's fullest it was hard to keep control of a battle, let alone regain it once lost. Hence, the simple plan held much more validity to it. Kosara as well listed her versatility in combat as well. Kathryn was glad to see the now fluffy covered tiefling was able to hold her own in combat, though Kathryn worried about how safe she would be. "It may be better if Marita and I get their attention first before any magic spells are thrown on them to make the most of our surprise advantage. Maybe we can surprise them multiple times and cause a panic amongst them?" A well organized enemy could put up a deadly fight. An unorganized enemy was easy pickings. Seemed the party also agreed leaving the mule and wagon behind was a good idea. Was there risk of theft or loss? Yes, but considering the enemy in front the risk was minimal.

Marita brought up a mild revision to Hugh's plan where one of their spell casters would join the two heavy fighters to provide a more hands on support. Kathryn saw the logic there, though had a minimal understanding of a caster's ability in combat, but figured it was best to not underestimate it. Most of her fighting style consisted of swords, shields, axes, and pikes. "The plan sounds pretty effective to me." Marita seemed to have a better understanding with the arcane and how it could be applied to a combat situation. Kathryn hesitated another response, motioned as if to speak up and then stopping herself. Hearing Victoria explain that she could use their dead pig friend as support Kathryn wasn't sure if she was relieved to have another ally or a bit terrified that her backup would normally be considered dinner. She figured a bit of both, but in her mind that was a good thing as her enemies would likely be having identical thoughts, though they would be the dinner's enemies too.

Kathryn appreciated Victoria's words of inspiration. She hadn't participated in a real fight like this since Ser Lucas passed. She had worries her abilities in her mind did not match what they were in reality. She felt a little better about them in the moment though. More thoughts did continue to press her mind in some regards. Regards that wouldn't let themselves go unless Kathryn acted on them, or she would be left wondering for ages about them. "I know it's unlikely, but I think we should give them a chance to peacefully surrender. Face justice in the modern civilized way." Where they would likely face execution for their crimes. "I know it's unlikely, but it seems wrong to not at least give them the chance?" Not only did Kathryn know it was unlikely they would surrender, she was hopeful they wouldn't. She wanted a fight. She wanted a fight to not only show her skills to the party, to show she could be apart of the team without being a drag, but she wanted a chance to prove to herself that even without Ser Lucas in the picture she could hold her own. And finally, she missed the rush of it. She missed the adrenaline of extreme fighting. The risk, the rewards, the organized chaos of it. She loved it, she craved it. And despite her wishes to be as honorable as possible, her wishes to strike fear into the hearts of the vile beasts was stronger.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A Location: Road to Avonshire Township Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn could hear odds and ends of Kosara's and Victoria's conversation as they went but not enough to make out the whole thing. She heard bits of something about a walking food supply and a camel with people water, but she was a bit too deep into her own conversation with Marita to pick up the rest. Looking at Morty the dead/undead pig Kathryn figured it had something to do with that. "Oh... I see." She spoke upon realization. She did find Kosara's summery of Kathryn's story quite enjoyable. "I think I would still be considered a princess in a way. Though I lack any claims to lands or castles at this point in my life. But a heroic princess has a nice ring to it!" But at the end of the day, she was a Pyke now. And while she carried that name she held little royal privilege, no claims to lands or titles, and with a considerably smaller target on her back.

Kathryn was a bit surprised by Marita's confusion to her own reaction to the description of the caves. "Do you not think so?" She supposed there could be caves that didn't look so good. Or maybe it had to do with the Cleric's past, one that she tried her best to separate from in hopes of avoiding all connection towards. "Maybe it was just your words and what you chose to share. Though I haven't seen it with my own eyes, so maybe I filled in a little too many blanks there? My bad." Kathryn spoke with a bit of a smile of embarrassment.

Then there was the laughing. It gave Kathryn a bad feeling, but she couldn't tell much about it. But it made her uneasy. The others noticed it too. Victoria said something about an unknown language, green arm. A downed wagon to join it. Sounded like trouble. Marita jumped to a conclusion faster then Kathryn, but a likely one. Goblins. Kathryn stood up with that in mind. Marita spoke what Kathryn presumed was another spell and prepared to organize the party for a fight. "On it." Kathryn spoke coldly fixing her helmet on her head. Kathryn once armed up and ready for a fight climbed out of the cart with her boots and armor making a solid Thud as she landed. Hand axe drawn she then stepped her way in front of the party ready to intercept the first sign of trouble that arises. Marita seemed to be taking the main control of the situation deciding to act cautiously and carefully until they knew for sure that there was malicious intent afoot. "Shouldn't we get a better look? If there's malice it may be better to cut off the intent of it before it gets worse." Though this was the kind of area Kathryn thrived in more, she's never held a leadership roll of any kind. And most situations like this she was in she fought alongside others armed and armored in identical means as herself. She had no idea how a party like this would function, especially considering that if this did turn into a fight no one in this party have ever faced an enemy together before.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A Location: Infamous Pear --> Road to Avonshire Township Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn listened closely as Marita spoke of her past, of her home. Though she tried to pick up some of Victoria's lessons on how to manage a wagon and those that pull one Marita's story was a lot more relatable. As the Clerical woman explained in detail about a home she would likely not see again for a long time Kathryn couldn't help but see some relations. Though their former lifestyles were drastically different, there was that want to go home. Kathryn listened closely as the woman spoke about her mountain home and how she and her people used to live. It sounded like a sight to be seen, something Kathryn couldn't even dream up of in her wildest dreams. She felt her own life was rather standard by comparison. Kathryn took note of Hugh deciding not to join them in the wagon. She couldn't blame him. It was getting crammed and there was a body of a dead pig in the back. Kathryn would see about making sure he got the chance to on their return trip. A ride back after some hard work is a nice comfort.

Kathryn shifted to sit next to Marita. She said nothing for a moment, just waiting in silence as she tried to process what the woman had explained. "It sounds like a beautiful place. Unlike anything I've ever seen!" She tried to picture more of what Marita's home looked like but in her mind it was something incomparable to anything she had seen. Her glee calmed a bit thinking what got them to this point in the conversation. "I miss mine too. Though I didn't live in a place quite as beautiful as yours." A fortress. Even the parts that were designed to be livable and comfortable it was easy to tell they were secondary purposes. Every doorway able to be bared and sealed, every window placed in a way for an archer to shoot safely from, and so many layers of defense that any battle against such a for would be a pyrrhic victory at best.

Kathryn figured since Marita was so forth coming Kathryn could share a bit too. "I never saw much of caves. I grew up in a Fortress with my family there until, well... I didn't." Kathryn was quickly realizing she wasn't a great story teller. "For a fortress though it was pretty. The inner wall was old and looked like it was ready to collapse, but the outer walls were apart of the newest additions to the fortress. The stone was much cleaner cut, they almost seemed polished when compared to the inner defensive wall. The view from my room was..." She trailed off reminiscing. "I think the view was the best part. You could see the whole world from up there. The passing carts much like the one we're in now, the entire fortress, I could see the soldiers and workers at their daily tasks below! I could see my brothers being trained by my uncle in the yards below with bows and swords. I could see the stables and their horses, I could even see the kennels and the dogs. Hmm... wasn't as big of a fan of them. You could see people approaching from every direction. When I was little whenever I spotted a band of noblemen or traders I would run off to find my father and tell him they were coming! It was exciting." She chuckled a bit. "Under one of the oldest buildings in the fortress there was this huge stone bath. No one used it for that anymore. It was mostly used as a store room once the fortress started seeing it's many reconstructions. But it was a fun place to sneak off to with some of the other kids just to have a spot to ourselves."

Kathryn seemed rather gleeful thinking through her old life. "There were these cute villages that were around too. The kids didn't really want to play with me too much then, looking back I see why. Made a few later on but it took a while. Unfortunately we were a rather young noble house, our lands were given to my family after helping put down a rebellion. The original owners didn't like that, and about a dozen years took matters into their own hands. Learned later that they weren't the only ones too, but in that moment I only cared about what they were doing to my home. The view from the window wasn't as pretty after that. Ser Lucas got me out and we've been on the road since. The hills and lands here remind me a bit of home. Though home had woods that were a bit more dense, less farms... And a bit more forts..." She sat their contemplating the differences. "Oh well, those days are gone. And now I am making my own adventures." She spoke rather proudly, excited to be taking on bigger roles on her own without someone overseeing her actions as directly.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A Location: Infamous Pear Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Naivara made some good points on why she would be a good choice to investigate local farms and such. She had tracking skills, nature skills, unique skills that no one else in the party could match. It appeared other then managing horses this party could cover nearly all skill sets needed. "That's good to know! Glad you can cover that area for us!" Kathryn took a moment to listen to Kosara's explanation on her journal. It was a cool idea, taking notes of her life and adventures so that others that knew her could learn of them. It made Kathryn wonder if she should do something like it? She decided against it for now but it didn't change her overall interest. "I'd love a chance to read this when you decide to share it. Sounds like it will be really nice!" It made Kathryn happy to see Victoria and Kosara getting along. The small bard had given Kosara a nice set of warmth gear to help stave off the chilling air which the area seemed to be struggling more and more with. Should the party be forced to stay out during the night it would have been rough for the tiefling.

Kathryn got some good news on her part though. Hugh had a map! Though Lynette isn't able to provide much in terms of spare maps Hugh came prepared meaning it would be a lot easier to get a visual reference of the area and see if there were noticeable patterns with those who have gone missing. "I do suppose the township proper is a good idea yeah..." She had less then a bare bones understanding of local towns, borders, and location of things. Another moment she was thankful to Hugh. Then, he pulled out the piece of parchment that Kathryn oh so desired. "Oh my... what a lovely map you go there." She leaned over the table as Hugh shared his view of the map. There was apart of her that wanted to reach out, stroke her hand across the nicely drawn description of their area. Kathryn nodded to what Hugh was saying, taking in the information he was explaining on the map. "Sounds like a fair plan to me. It will be easier to make a plan too once we see what things are like locally to the investigation." She thought so at least. Kathryn hoped her lack of skills and experience wouldn't hold her back too much. Maybe she'd get a chance to show some of her actual skills to show she was more then dead weight? T'was the hope at least.

Once Kathryn was done drooling over Hugh's map she took notice of Kosara's reaction to the coat and set that she got from Victoria and their pleasantly shared hug. Their interactions were pretty cute together, Kathryn wondered if there was more to that shy smile then met the eye? Or maybe she was just looking a little too much into it. It was cute none the less. When Victoria left to board the wagon inviting Kosara to ride with her up front. Kathryn climbed into the back of the wagon as she had no skills in controlling said wagon.

Once on the go Kathryn watched the country side is awe and amusement like a child entering a colorful meadow. "Reminds me of home. The fields, the wide open air, even the gentle chill in the air. It's nice." Though she knew it wasn't home, it was similar. If you were from Arcanaple it was easy to spot the differences. The roads were better quality, the people talked with an accent that would sound almost silly in her own home, there wasn't anywhere near the same amount of Halflings, though actual half giants were not unheard of at home either. Kathryn waved at what seemed like every person they passed as the party traveled. "Hello. Hi there! Hello!" Every passerby got a bit of her attention. Should home never be an option for her, maybe here would be a good place to settle down? The dread some of the people held under their brows was hard to miss though. It also reminded Kathryn of home in some of the worse ways. "I hope we can figure out what's going on soon. Before it takes to much of a toll on these people."

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A Location: Infamous Pear Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The planning as well as breakfast continued with Kathryn's lack of experience in matters such as these showing. It did seem the final consensus was that the party would split up into groups of 2 to investigate what they could and return with their collective information. Seemed simple enough. Though it appeared no one in the party knew how to handle an animal and wagon. Kathryn was feeling some regret towards never picking up the skills despite riding along with several caravans and wagons in her time. Hitching rides from one country to another, sometimes continent to continent. She decided when this was over she would learn how to ride and handle an animal. She listened to Kosara's justification to her lack of bread before speaking. "I don't think yer understandin' me though. Ya can't have a sandwich without bread. Though... I do think I would be interested in trying some of them southern breads. We'll get back to that when time isn't as pressing."

Kathryn listened intently as the party spoke and planned. Seemed mostly like a lot of back and forth between Hugh and Marita though. The Sheriff's aid Lynette offered some information but it did seem there was a lot to figure out still. "Yeah.... I guess we are the investigators." Kathryn spoke with an awkward laugh a little concerned she was way over her head. She wondered how Ser Lucas would handle the situation at hand. Was he a proper investigator? She knew he had a lot of fighting experience, but the more she thought about it the more she realized she had little understanding of what Ser Lucas did in her Father's castle before they fled. She never asked him, and had just assumed he was a guard of the fortress. Who never hung out with the other guards. And who a few of her relatives eyed disdain towards the man. But he was a solid fighter, and someone thought he needed the letter. It could have been the Sheriff, or someone else along the line. But now she was here to fill his shoes. Apart of her wished she stuck to pulling guard duty for cities, caravans, and shops.

Owen's sweetness pulled her out of her self loathing trance. She needed to be careful to not let herself fall down that rabbit whole. She had skills, and she was still learning. "Thank you Owen very much." Kathryn took the offer of free food to go with high enthusiasm. Putting bread and sausages into her bag for later. Then cramming as many of the breakfast foods onto a single piece of bread as she could before downing that finishing it off by cramming a couple sausages into her mouth. "Cool, let's get to it then!" She poke still chewing and swallowing her meal. Then turned to Kosara after finishing her own breakfast mash pile. "See? Bread holds the whole thing together. Experimenting is nice and all but if something isn't broke, don't fix it ya know?" Kathryn was mostly pulling at Kosara's strings at this point with a big grin on her face.

Kathryn figuring the situation decided this was her last good chance to stock up on gear (Other then free food) before the adventure kicked off. "I'll be back in a jiffy. Then we can split up however we need to and start figuring this stuff out!" She spoke to the party in general with enthusiasm that resembled that of a young child excited to go to the local fair. Kathryn went off in a hurry to avoid holding up the party as best as she could. She had a fair collection of gear but as a whole had decided she seemed pretty well equipped to handle most situations. While browsing some of the shops near the fort she found a decent assortment of goods and wears for her selection. Her budget was limited at the moment but she had some wiggle room to work with. Though she found a few trinkets she eventually settled on some nets within the shop to help diversify her options in the heat of the moment. She may be good at hacking, slashing, and stomping, but her skills and abilities started getting limited after that. Going up to the shop keep she set down the nets and pulled her coin purse. "Will that be all for you young lady?" Kathryn pulled out the coins needed and gave them to the man. "Aye, I think so. Three gold yeah?" The man gave a polite nod before accepting the coinage. "Thank you very much uh..." SHe paused, realizing she hadn't gotten the man's name yet. "Jarvey's the name. Do you mind me asking what a woman of your stature would be doing with things like these?" Kathryn shrugged. "Seemed like it could be useful for some jobs. Worst case, a nice utility to keep on hand." She thanked the man again before realizing she had been away for quite some time. "Gotta go, thanks for the nets!" And she rushed off chain mail and heavy footing announcing every step she took along the way.

She returned to the Infamous Pear to greet those who had returned and stayed. She noted Kosara in her journal. "Looks like you're having fun." She noticed Marita had changed into her armor as well. Though both of them didn't expect a fight, in their line of work they needed to be prepared for one. Victoria had also returned by this point with some supplies and a new coat for Kosara. The poor small woman would need it in these temperatures. "So how are we splitting up? And who's covering what today? We have a few places to check out including maybe some of the farms people went missing from, or maybe those who returned? We should probably make sure each group has the right skills for whatever task is needed of them." She was mostly worried about herself in this case. Though a wall of muscle and mass with some social skills to her name she was still inexperienced.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kathryn Pyke Human, Battle Master, Level 03 HP: 31 / 31 Armor Class: 19 Conditions: N/A Location: Infamous Pear Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was clear Kathryn lack of experience was extremely noticeable within the collection of her new party. Hugh and Marita explained rather well why Kathryn's many off handed suggestions were not practical and then started listing off much more practical options for them to try out. It was strange to see the two indirectly agreeing to anything after how the previous night went. She wondered if as a whole the two would make rather decent partners should they be able to work past their issues. They had a functional mindset of professionals, between the two they seemed to have a rather solid skill set to them, and they both had a rather aggressive ability to control a room. Kathryn listened intently as the two spoke enjoying her breakfast with every bite as they spoke. She wondered if school was like this? People with experience talking about their experiences over breakfast? That sounded like the life. Hugh did take the time to collect everyone's letters which Kathryn was not surprised she left her last night. She remembered a lot of beer the night before... "Thank you." She spoke with a tone that could be mistaken for a light musical hum. She took her letter before folding it back up and putting it into one of her belt pouches, deciding that it is not worth putting back into her marginally hidden pocket within her armor.

Victoria seemed overall much more relaxed this morning, but continued with the concern about the letters bringing up that if there was a trap it's already sprung. So it's either worked and they are already in rough shape or it failed and they could be safe to continue. "Not sure I would go as far to say exciting, but more of... confusing. But I don't know much about the assassining world." Kathryn shrugged to Victoria's response. Kathryn continued eating the rather amazing breakfast stopping after taking a bite of a sausage link when Victoria mentioned about "Necrotic Manipulation". "If we could not bring my food back from the dead I would greatly appreciate it..." She spoke a little uncertain if the small necromancer was serious about utilizing their meal for a great many purposes.

Naivara came down and seemed rather well rested herself. Kathryn did agree with her to about their rather generous meals so far. "I know right? I don't think I've had meals like this in years! Most Th'a meals I get nowadays tend to be grit or pahtatoes or some suspicious mystery meat...." she trailed off on the last one. She didn't like to think about what could be in that meat. And was even more thankful for the recent meals. "Suppose I should go a wee bit more easy on the meals huh. Or I'm gonnah really need that newer armor." She chuckled as she spoke. It wasn't a real concern of hers, she figured she'd either cut back or use the extra calories in combat or when she got a chance to exercise. It was the topic of food that finally drew Kathryn's late attention towards Kosara's sandwich. If one could call it that. "...Kosara.... Wha... Where's the bread... Ya can't have a sandwich without bread..." There was a genuian look of concern on Kathryn's face. As if Kathryn was a holy woman who followed a strict religion and Kosara has single-handedly attempted to disprove the whole thing and was making uncomfortable headway. "Don't get me wrong Kosara... it looks good but... The bread." The actions of their once lost Alastor pulled Kathryn out of her mortified state. She watched as the tiefling barged out of the restroom and then ran out of the tavern. "Hope he's doing alright..."

She took note of Kosara's comment about splitting up into pairs. "Uhuh?" Kathryn was beginning to suspect that Kosara had ulterior motives of some kind. But she couldn't be sure if they were in malice, perversion, or some other fashion. Kathryn is sure she'd figure it out one way or another. "Pairs seem a wee bit light if you ask me. But I am open to options."

As events started to take off more a human woman dressed as a local guard approached the table. Marita specifically it seemed.
Their help had arrived and she included a mule drawn carriage. Kathryn almost considered it romantic. Kathryn wanted a chance to prove she could be more then inexperienced muscle for the party and tried to think of something useful to ask their new helper. "Well I'm Kathryn. Do you mind if I ask your name?" She asked their new guide. "As well, do you think we could get the rough locations of where these missing person's cases happened? Or un-happened? See if maybe we could pick up a pattern or two?" She wasn't sure if that would be helpful or not thinking about it. "Maybe a map would be better? A visual reference that we could work with in hopes of uncovering something?" Victoria had asked about those who could manage a wagon. "'Fraid I don't got much experience myself. I ride a lot though? And I could probably pull a wagon if needed? But that may prove redundant in our case." She thought about it some more. If they did split up she hoped she got set up with someone who had a bit more experience in matters such as these. Kathryn was good at lifting heavy objects, crushing other objects, and fighting. Outside of that she could hold her own if paired with someone who knew what they were doing, but she lacked the skills and experience to do much on her own.