From the Journals of Torgun Deepbronze Neumani, Swordmaster
A cart full of books coming to Throal from a recently-opened kaer has been stolen en route by bandits. At least, so we were told! The truth turned out to be somewhat.... not that.
We set out to investigate. Myself, Rose the nethermancer, Garen the sky raider, our thief S'Tillantre, and the shaman Reyis. We could still see traces of the battle and cart ruts on the road, which we followed into the mountains. We had to make camp for the evening, during which we were bothered by a large bird. We investigated in the morning, curious what the bird had been up to. We found nothing on that front, but I did find evidence that someone had been trying to clear up their tracks by brushing them away. We continued on the path whereupon we were beset by bandits! ....it goes a bit black for me at that point. I may have overestimated my abilities, but luckily the rest of the group were more than capable. When I awoke several of the bandits were dead, one escaped, and the others were interrogated; we were told that the bandits were in service of a wizard who wanted the books. We took a few hours to rest and then continued on to the bandit's camp.
We spent quite a bit of time reconnoitering the camp. It was another dilapidated town, much like Wolf Ridge, but this was something older and long-abandoned. We could find no trace of anyone and expected an ambush. S'Tilantre found a likely location of the cart; I went off to set a fire to cause a distraction while the others prepared to enter the barn. My distraction was unnecessary however. I rejoined the group only to find that our quarry, the wizard, had been dead for hours with a dagger in his gut. The cart had been irreparably damaged, the ponies torn apart, and the cargo torn open. We found two lockboxes filled with herbs, en route to a restaurant in Throal, and all of the books save one--a tome called Worlds of Arcana. The other books were all erotica that Librarian Jurisman had intended to sell. We hauled back what we could. The Librarian had already been fired for his moonlighting by the time we arrived, but thankfully the restaurant gave us a reward for finding their cargo.
Nasty work, though. Worlds of Arcana must be quite valuable, seeing the lengths someone was willing to go through to get it.Statistics:Posted by MadJaymilton — Thu May 07, 2020 12:24 am
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