The Wilds - Scat!

The party has discovered an old tower / fort ruin along the abandoned roadway, with weird mats of twigs and branches sticking off the roof. There are mixed feelings about checking it out, but Ingvild, Mordikarr, and Raúguey are gung-ho, so they investigate...


Start Date: September 9, afternoon
Start Status: You go first. No you!
Start Location: The Wilds

The Turn

"If you want to poke your nose in there, go ahead. I'm for moving on. We don't have that much in the way of supplies, and we need to keep moving if we want to reach the Maze on foot." Durego, along with Ohwatoo, Tesso, Gorvil, and Jonquil, start to move the mules forward, circling wide and west around the tower. Meanwhile Mordikarr has awakened Ava, and after a brief hooted conversation, the owl takes off and begins to circle, cautiously approaching the tower.

Ingvild, Raúguey and Mordikarr move closer to the ruin, with Rawon and Dagmarten trailing. By the time the mule train is halfway around the site, with Durego grumbling about cutting through brush, Ava has returned to the beastmaster. "She say nothing alive on roof. Big hole to inside stone place. Big nests too. Think maybe things here go hunting."

Ingvild glances at the afternoon sun, still fairly high in the sky. "Maybe they, whatever they are, will be back at nightfall. We should definitely check this now." The thief moves toward the door, and Raúguey follows a few paces back. Maro and Mordikarr spread to either side, Dagmarten still trails behind. Ingvild peers through the open doorway, wrinkling his nose at the stench. "Pheww. That stinks." After a careful scan of the shadowy interior, he moves inside. There are two windows on each wall, and those, plus the gaping holes in the roof provide dim, but sufficient light. The interior once had a cellar, two interior stories, and a roof, but the interior floors and roof have mostly collapsed. At some point in the distant past a fire gutted the place.

Debris forms a partial ramp to the cellar. A crude fire pit has been built in the center of the basement floor, with a crude (and big) spit built across it. Bones of all sorts, small game, humanoid, bear, deer, are scattered around the room, and twisted black and gray feathers and down are scattered amid the remains.

"What a mess," says Raúguey, who has followed the thief inside. It's pretty clear there is nothing here, except a couple rats gnawing on a few fresher bones. He looks up at the roof. "Gonna be hard to get up there." The old stone roof is partially intact, creating a barrier of sorts to anyone attempting to climb the walls. Some of the old support beams stick out into the hole in the roof, perhaps a rope could be slung on one of those.

"I can try the outside wall. We should search here first though."

Mordikarr moves to the doorway, still keeping watch on the skies overhead. When Suren catches a whiff of the stench inside, he growls his dislike. "Bad thing live here. Suren no like, but not know what it is."

"I don't see anything out here," calls Maro.

Ingvild, Mordikarr, and Raúguey spend a few minutes doing a hasty search of the debris and bones in the cellar. It's a horrific mess, with the bones of at least two humans, a dwarf, and several kobold mixed in with those of assorted animals, torn and scattered bits of gear, and mounds of filth and scat. All the bones (some old, some fresh, very fresh) have been scraped and gnawed, and some have been split apart for their marrow. They find scattered gear, backpacks torn apart, rusted weapons, and broken arrows. There are also several javelin-like weapons, crudely made, but with razor-sharp flint heads and rough gray and black fletchings. They find a few coins scattered among the remains, and Ingvild spots a tiny glittering gem in a crack in the floor.

"I'll bet there's more above," says Raúguey. "This is the trash heap. What kind of creature builds fires and cooks their food, but lives in nests? Could it be something that rides giant birds?"

Meanwhile, the mule train has reached the trail about 100 yards past the tower. Durego and Ohwatoo drift back a bit toward the tower while the others organize the beasts and Tesso scouts forward a bit along the abandoned roadway.

OOC

You've done a quick search of the lower area. A more thorough search is going to involve digging through bones and other nasty stuff. Getting to the roof will be a challenge, the stairs have collapsed, but the edges of the roof are still intact, forming a barrier to wall-climbers. A few beams jut across the open spaces, and ropes could be attached to these, though they may not be stable. Of course you could climb the exterior too. From inside you can see there are several separate twig and debris mats or nests on the roof.

End Date: September 9, afternoon
End Status: Insert Ludo quote here.
End Location: The Wilds

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