Date: Twenty-eighth of May, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: Carrion Road, forty eight and a half days to Chedal.

Job Aresoth sniffed in the direction of the 'Ug Ug Ug' sound. He decides that It's probably a bad idea to investigate... but boredom and the call of the unknown make for powerful lures.

“We should probably investigate... cautiously! Anyone have any more idea what that sound is?"

“Kodaav Synau Ol Zorox Voth Jul. Arogleuon Med Aan Monah Ahrk Kiir.”

“She says that it's a human making those noises by the smell. Let's walk carefully. Helych Niin.”

Candle dismounted and let Daughter of the Night stalk off into the trees.

Job rolled his shoulders, “Druid do you think?”

Blue shook her head, “no, something else. I don't know what.How and why would a human be making bear noises?"

“Uhh, with their mouth to sound like a bear for some reason. You have me there.”

“Apologies, I misspoke. Not bear noises as in imitating a bear, but bear noises as in the sounds that you would need the anatomy of a bear to make: mouth, tongue, vocal cords, lungs, and all the rest. So what creature smells like a human but possesses the anatomy of a bear?”

Job rolled his eyes and followed Daughter of Night into the trees, “Druids when they shape-shift?”

Blue nodded, conceding the point, “yes, but also were-bears, and they tend to be rather irritated by default... when they aren't stark raving mad.”

Candle snorted in laughter, “well, we can be fairly sure that it's not an angry mother bear, right? Daughter of Night would have let us know if that was the case.”

Job led the way into a clearing and found a human woman dressed only in mud and dirt staring up a tree at an equally 'dressed' and grubby child. The 'Ug Ug Ug' sound echoed form her throat, the child clearly ignoring it's mother to bat at a leaf. Job stood still, unsure what to make of this woman and the inhuman sounds emerging from her body. The child grabbed the leaf, took a huge bite, and then spat it out as un-tasty. The mother gave a particularly commanding 'Ug!', to which the child sighed and tumble-climbed down the tree. The mother turned, saw Job, and squinted with suspicion. Job took a half step backwards as the sound of snapping bones filled the clearing. Between one heartbeat and the next the mother was gone and in her place stood a large and irritated brown bear. Job held his hands out palms up and started to back away slowly. The mother bear fell to all fours and 'chuffed' grumpily, watching Job and the others back away without any words needing to be spoken.

Back on the road and back on their way, Job let out a breath, “ok, what in the nine hells was that? A werebear would have attacked us on sight probably.”

Blue shrugged, “not a clue to be honest. Never seen anyone so... savage, even among what used to be called the 'lesser' races.”

Candle stroked her Mount's head as she rode, “I think that was a bearwere, not a werebear. Something of the same idea, but in reverse: a bear that can take on the characteristics of another race, usually human, and soforth. That individual, and her child in all likelihood, also appear to exhibit a human-level of threat assessment and temperament. She spotted us, gave a threat display, saw that were were retreating and let us go.”

Job pantomimed wiping sweat from his brow “So we got lucky twice over: we met a rare creature and we didn't have to kill it. Nice.”

. . . - - - . . .

Date: Second of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: Carrion Road, forty three days to Chedal.

Job Arseoth felt someone watching him from the trees alongside the road, but every time he turned to look, he saw only trees, leaves, and the occasional shrub. He shrugged off the notion, determined to ignore the sensation until the watcher made itself known.

Blue drifted over to walk beside him, “you sense something watching us too.”

“Yes. Nothing to do about it until they show themselves though.”

“Candle, daughter of Night, you sense it too?”

“Um... Daughter of Night?”

“Zu'u Arogli Nid.”

“No, we don't see or smell anyone nearby.”

Job frowned, “I trust Daughter of Night's nose, it's a fair bit sharper then mine. Let's keep moving.”

. . . - - - . . .

Date: Fourth of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: Carrion Road, forty one days to Chedal.

Job Arseoth almost tripped over the skull wedged into a gap in the roadbed.

“Hold up, I think I found something.”

He crouched down to examine the skull. It was old, faded yellow form the sun and heavily pitted by the rain. At first glance it appeared human, but a closer examination revealed that to not be the case. The openings where the ears would be were higher up and elongated, the few teeth left in the upper skull were pointed, and the incisors were elongated to the point of becoming short fangs.

“Skull, non-human. I'd call it elven from the ear-holes, but those teeth...?”

Candle dismounted, squatted down, and ran a finger along the teeth, “good eye Job. The auditory meatus are in the right location for pointed elf ears, but the wrong shape: elongated, not round. The teeth are also completely wrong. The orbits are quite deep-set, as I would expect from a dark-sight capable elf, but again not shaped quite the same. Slightly larger in both width and height... It reminds me of elf skull quite strongly, but I can think of nothing outside of the post-seminal war fallout that could change a being to such a large extent.”

Blue shook her head, “there is one thing that I know of that would produce exactly this result, and you know full well what it is Candle. Fortunately that methodology is long-lost along with Alexandria”

Job frowned, poking at the skull, “ the bone is old but not as old as you are suggesting. Either the methodology survived or was reverse-engineered in the past few decades.”

Job stood and crushed the skull beneath his boot. “Whatever that skull belonged to, it's long-dead now. If we find the methodology we can evaluate it then; now on half-remembered inaccuracies and speculation. The same goes for the creator or re-discoverer of that methodology. I'm more interested in who placed the skull on the road. Look around, this is the only missing cobble I can see for quite a ways, and it just happens to have a skull in it? Carrion Road or not, that's a tad suspect to me.”

Candle shrugged it off and started to speak, but Blue held up a hand.

“You mean that it was placed here for us to find.”

“For one of us at least. Impossible to know who or why, and therefore what the message was and who among us the message was meant for. Let's keep moving and see if whoever it was, and I think they were watching us two days ago, tries to contact us again.”

. . . - - - . . .

Date: Fifth of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: Carrion Road, forty days to Chedal.

Job Arseoth felt the first drops of rain hit his head. He looked up and saw the stormclouds overhead through the road-wide gap in the trees.

“Uhh, do we have a tent? Or just our bedrolls...?”

Blue and Candle looked at each other then back at Job.

“Right, dumb question, we'd have used it by now they way we've been camping out. I think we need to call it for the day and find shelter before this storm really starts pouring.”

Candle shrugged, unperturbed, “Thaumaturgy and Prestidigitation both work well to keep oneself clean and dry. You've done that more than once Job. Why this urge to stop?”

Job nodded to Blue and Daughter of Night, “because you and I might be able to but they can't. Not on the move. And because slick cobbles will slow us down anyway.”

Blue nodded in agreement. Candle paused scratching her Mount's ears and thinking. Daughter of Night voiced her own opinion in growled primordial.

“Nid Fonaar. Nid Rheswm Wah Cerdded Ahst Fin Nhymestl Fod Mu Fai Cyntun Amgylch Yr Faad Tan Gwersyll.”

Candle sighed, “Alright, I'll admit I like the feeling of wet fur on skin as little as you Daughter of Night. Shelter it is.”

Job led the way down the road, looking for a break in the trees alongside the road, a deer trail, anything that could be or might lead to shelter form the coming storm. Finally he spotted one: a gap between two trees marked with a small cairn of stones. Job led the party down it without much thought, finding a well-beaten path leading to the ruins of a one-room house. It was not much more then a broken doorway leading to a five by fifteen foot room covered with a leaky wood shingle roof. A stone fireplace stood at the end of one narrow wall, the chimney clearly battered from the water dripping into the bed of ashes. A rickety wooden staircase lead to a stone-walled basement the same size as the room above, decorated only by a worn-down bookshelf propped against the wall. Neither room had anything else in the way of furnishings, just the rotted remains of some logs by the fireplace and a crude sleeping pallet in the basement.

Job dried himself with a quick Prestidigitation spell, “at least the basement is dry despite the leaking roof. Wish we had some firewood though.”

Candle set her pack down with a sigh, “I do know Create Bonfire, you know. All we need is semi-dry wood and we'll have a fire. That bookshelf should do once we break it down.”

Breaking the bookshelf turned out to be as easy as tipping it over and letting it smash on the ground. Doing so revealed a tunnel dug deeper into the rock, turning steadily to the left and descending at a steady rate without any signs of sitars or handholds.

Job groaned when he saw the tunnel, “great, just wonderful. We're camped on top of a bandit hidey-hole.”

Blue shook her head, “no, there's no stairs in the tunnel. This wasn't build by or for humanoids. No telling how deep it goes, or what we might find within.”