Prologue: The Barony of Harkenwold

Hunter: Insight ???:

"I'm in his band...was in his band. I saw him almost everyday. Spoke to him almost as often, but mostly about work." She wipes away a tear. "We'd have fights every so often, though things were better lately. I thought we were getting on more."

Kathryn is deeply absorbed in thought and has been since Salihn confirmed that she has never seen Reptar wear that necklace. And then, her eyes widen and her mouth hangs open. She walks up to Carlos and whispers in his ear, "I'll be just a little while. Keep asking her questions."

She then searches for Folan and walks up to him. With a serious look on her face, she whispers to the elf, "Tell your men to be on guard. Symania brought back a necklace which had a tracking spell on it; if it's still active, the Drow might know where we are. Now tell me where Symania's tent is."

"I'll do one better Ser Elwin and take you there myself," says Folan before issuing orders to his men. "Galathar, you are in command until I return. Cailu and Ylyndar, stay here. The rest of you fall in." And then Folan escorts Kathryn away with the bulk of his force to the northeast across the glade, towards Ara's tent. What crowd there is mostly follows after the Fey Knight.

"Where is Ser Elwin going?" asks Salihn.

Zoe shrugs and says, "I don't rightly know but I'm sure it'll be good. But I do have a question of my own for you. Earlier you said you didn't have the courage to give Reptar your charm. That means you have one right?"

"...yes, I got him one."

"Can we see it then?"

"Oh sure, it's in my tent. Follow me."

With the remaining party and their escort in tow, Salihn leads you guys to the northwestern periphery of the glade where Salihn's tent has been set up with several others. "I'll just go inside and get it."

Salihn enters the tent and the moments pass and pass, until finally the sound of someone moving things around can be heard from within.

"Um, is everything okay?" asks John through the tent flap.

Salihn pokes her head out from the lower portion of the flap, indicating she is currently on her hands and knees, and says, "I can't seem to find the charm."

Hunter gawks at Kathryn when she departs with Folan. His tail twitches.

Later, outside Salihn's tent, he asks, "What does it look like?"

Salihn pulls her head back in the tent and a moment later emerges again. She says, "You know, a love charm. A necklace with a white quartz stone set into carved beech wood, about this big." She cups her hands together into a rounded shape, about the size of the charm that Symania found.

A lightning bolt hits Hunter. Someone is trying to implicate Salihn with conspiracy or even betrayal. He just hopes it's a drow, maybe one who was already killed by the rangers.

"Salihn...this isn't a good look. I'm on your side, but this is worrying."

"Oi oi, what if the necklace was meant to be found? I'm thinkin' we need to see that Drowess kinda nowish."

"I don't know what you mean? Why would my charm being missing look bad? Is this why you were asking me about gifts and necklaces? Just what did you find on Reptar?" She's scared and starting to get angry.

"Oi Hunter, don' scare the girl." - Then to Sahlin - "Oi, don' worry. Thing we found on Reptar was... a bit like what you're describing, but different. We'll figure it out."

Hunter lowers his voice. "Carlos, it's fine. Salihn, I told you that the tree stone charm necklace was found on Reptar, remember? Now, have you shown your charm necklace to anyone else?"

Diplomacy 17 (just Cha)

Between Carlos and Hunter's words, you guys do succeed at calming Salihn. She says, "I only showed it to Imizael. She tried to talk me into giving it to Reptar right before the hunt. I traded a few rabbit pelts for it when we were trading for hunting supplies with the humans."

Hunter exchanges a look with Carlos, and writes something down.

"I see... I think we'll interview her next. In the meantime, please don't tell anyone else about it, okay?"

"I promise. I just hope you'll tell me what's going on soon. I've got enough on my plate without worrying about this too." She sounds even more tired than when you guys started.

"Oh no, I'm good. You guys already asked any questions I had," says John, "Thank you for your time Salihn."

Salihn nods, and says, "Yup."

"We should catch up with Ser Elwin then," says Zoe. She raises her voice a little and does her best dwarf impression, "Oi, you three!"

Galathar, Cailu, and Ylyndar are not used to being addressed in this manner and don't quite know what to make of it. Galathar silently puts his finger on his own chest, silently asking "Who, me?"

Zoe continues, "Yeah you!" She then switches to elven and says,

Elven:

She points off in the vague direction she watched Kathryn and Folan take.

"This way, priestess," manages Galathar in thick Nerathi.

Zoe nods at him and you guys follow the three back across the clearing and just west of Ara's camp. You guys don't see Shandalar but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. She might be hiding in a tree or something and Hunter looks for her there for good measure. If she is there, he can't see her, which makes him even more disconcerted about the woman.

After walking past Ara's tent, Galathar leads you lot further north, to a clearing surrounded by oak trees. The place is blanketed by a sense of calm and peace, giving all of you the distinct impression that it is a holy place. Symania's band have put up their tents in no particular order all around, except for the rather large tent in the middle of it all. Symania's hunters stand guard around it and as you draw closer, you can see that the tent itself is covered in arcane symbols and elvish writing all in gold.

Just outside of it is a little furnace and a table with magical testing equipment. Jojo, Symania, and Kathryn are all quietly conversing there.

Cailu and Ylyndar aren't the only ones confused by Zoe suddenly putting on an accent. Hunter gives her a dumb look too.

When they arrive at Symania's tent, Hunter can't shake the feeling of being watched. His tail remains still, but frozen, and he's not sure what to do with it. Were they being eavesdropped as well? And for how long?

When he catches sight of Kathryn with Jojo and his grandmother, he makes a beeline for the three of them.

"Excuse me. I hope we're interrupting something important," he says to Kathryn, putting an edge on.

"Not really," Kat says. "I was worried the necklace was still active and that the Drow were on their way here, but it looks like the spells were turned off by a magic word or something. And if the necklace was working, these symbols should prevent it from being detected."

She points at the writing on Symania's tent.

"Oh, but we learned that it was indeed made by the drow," she adds. "Show them Symania."

Just outside of the tent is a little furnace and a table with magical testing equipment. Jojo and Symania are there, both wearing thick gloves and wearing leather goggles. The green flame in the furnace has caused the binding of the enchantments to show, all in the spidery elven of the drow.

Symanian carefully points out the parts that do that.

Hunter closes his eyes and breathes out. "Well I doubt they would attack while everyone's awake and on alert."

Then he continues quietly so that only their group can hear.

"Salihn told us she had a charm necklace she was planning to give to Reptar. Only Imizael has seen it, and she urged Salin to give it to Reptar on the morning before the hunters went out hunting, but she didn't. Now, Salihn can't find her charm. She promised not to tell anyone about it, which should buy us time to preemptively exonerate her, but she doesn't know what's going on. All she knows is that there could be trouble for her. I want to make sure that nothing happens to her and that no one else tries to talk to her about it. To that end, I'd like some of Folans people," he then looks directly to his grandmother, "or yours, to watch her and protect her. In the meantime, I think we should question Imizael next."

"Well, I may have some insight into that missing charm necklace. Look here and here," says Symania, talking in an equally quiet tone. She holds up the necklace again and points to two concentric patterns running through the inscribed binding. "With Jo's help I was able to determine that this one is indeed a tracking spell but this one right here is actually three illusion effects for sound, feel, and weight. I believe that when activated no one would be able to tell the difference between a normal charm and this fake."

Jo nods along to Symania's findings before quietly saying, "Did Salihn ever say where she got her charm from?"

"From some Humes, out when they were huntin' for supplies. Traded it for a few rabbit pelts." - Carlos responds before starting to pensively stroke his beard - "Still, oi... if this is that same necklace, makes sense they'd want to take out one of the leaders first. But even if that was it, we talkin' about them knowin' Sahlin was sweet on him, getting that necklace to her hands - knowin' she'd give it to Reptar, then having some way to put it on him regardless when she got cold feet."

He pauses for a bit before continuing - "A lot easier to think Sahlin was in on it, if we hadn't actually talked to 'er. Girl didn't strike me as two faced in the sligh'est."

"All excellent points Carlos. But if I may, Reptar might have only been a target of opportunity. The real target might have been the entire hunting party itself. If that's the case, then you wouldn't want to have just one point of failure like this charm. You'd want to use multiple tracking enchantments.

So, out of the people you've talked to so far, who was buying supplies for this trip?"

Hunter looks at his notes. "Aymar said he traded with Rennis from Harken. If he has feelings for someone, he had the opportunity to buy something like that. He did say that he was speaking to someone called Merlara on second watch, just before the attack."

His face falls a little. "Is she... I mean, did she survive?"

"She lives, though barely. Her spine was badly damaged by a drow quarrel and Ara's still working on her. In the meantime she's staying with her cousin in that tent there." She points to a tent 20 yards away to the west. "That's why we are camping here. The holy nature of the Oak Glade has healing properties."