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"I will accompany you, of course." Amgel says with a glance over at Wheels. "Could you take Master Frasos items back? I will returm his money later."

"Then we follow, Bastian, Eldon, Papa? Are you with us?" She asks, waiting by Praesul, watching the reaction.

[OOC] AMgel appears to have developed a slight speech impedimeMt.
I'll blame the tiny wireless device keyboard. [/OOC]

(OOC: Blame the HTC Desire S..... And where is the Leg man? We have Wheels....!!)

(Papa offers a blessing to those going forward to scout out the creatures)

Octos, after pondering a bit, says: "Wheels, I expect we shall be out here overnight. So take Grouch with you. Have him lead the platoon back here soon as they are ready. You come directly back, and bring two tents and food enough for two meals for us all.
Wheels gives a little salute and collects the strongbox. He places it in a sachel which he ties shut and slings across his back. "I'll be back tonight," he says, then mounts up and heads out at a walk, Grouch following him.

Maughus walks into the clearing, leading his pony. "Are we going? Good.
"The trail is so easy a blind green grocer could follow it. So look sharp. There might be an ambush waiting. It is what I would do."

The trail is obvious, at least near the edge of the wood. Once under the trees, however, it becomes less so. But even without the benefit of churned-up leaf litter, someone not adept at tracking can see occasional trail markers, in the form of grotdier corpses, none of which appear to have died of natural causes.

Some of the grotdier appear to have died fighting. Others were cut down on the run, as is evident from their wounds and the position of the bodies. There are perhaps a two dozen on the trail, spaced at random intervals spread out over several miles.

After several miles the woods turn hilly. There, in a small ravine, is a greater concentration of bodies.

Two more of the ogre-things are here, dead, and about a dozen grotdier.

"It seems that we were fortunate to have not been assaulted by the full force!" Bastian half-heatedly exclaims at the sight of so many dead. The sheer quantity disturbs him a bit considering how difficult a time they had dealing with the few that invaded the camp.

Looking to Octos, Bastian inquires, "Where could a force of so great a number hide in this area? Granted your men can't be everywhere at once, but surely SOME sign of their presence was noticed?"

Liri looks slighly nauseated. "What a carnage" she murmurs. Her keen elven ears had picked up Bastian's remark, and she nods. "Yes, unless they have fallen out of the sky or another dimension, they must have fed themselves" she says.

"Ohh.... Frak." Eldon says with a massive gasp, "Ok, I get it now Blondie, these things are dangerous, and something more dangerous decimated them." He kicks one of the Ogre like creatures, looking for a weapon, "How can we hope to fight these things?" He asks.

"Ok those Elves must have gone somewhere, the Orc things chased them, and this is what happened, so the body must have meant something to them too.." Hand resting on her sword hilt she checks a few of the dead, how did they appear to have died?

Octos looks at the carnage before him and shrugs. “We have seen perhaps four dozen dead uglies. That would be about half a century. More than a typical bandit gang, but not big for a war band.
“Granted, these are not legion infantry,” Octos pauses, spits, and continues, “but I could move a half century a hundred fifty miles in a week and be ready to attack upon arrival.
“Ash, you hunt. How has it been over the past few weeks.”

“Typical. Maybe a few more deer than usual, even. Not especially spooky, either,” Ash replies.

“So the war band hasn’t been camped on our doorstep. They have been mobile.”

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Angel and Bastian, having seen a battlefield or twenty in their legion days, can make a fair guess as to what killed the dead grotdier. Most of them have been cut down with weapons – not the gladii of the legions, but longer slashing swords or pole arms.

More than a few of the ones along the trail had been skillfully cut down from behind. Others appear to have stood and fought. And lost.

Here, where the grotdier made their stand, it is much the same.

It is noteworthy that all the wounds were made with hand weapons – no missile weapons had been employed.

The two ogre-things are a slightly different story. One of them is lying on its back with a twisting burn mark about a hand’s breadth wide on its front, starting on its left forearm, running across its torso and down its right leg. The flesh in the burned area is charred black and split open, exposing the muscle and bone beneath. The other ogre-thing has had one of its legs hamstrung, and shows hand-sized burnt craters across its front and side, as well as several large wounds from a broad blade.

Hearing Angel, Maughus speaks up: “I think you have that back to front, Goldilocks. It was a rout. Elves chased the grotdier, cutting them down as they ran.”

=================================================

Off to one side of the trail, Little calls out: “Barber, look here.”

Barber makes his way over, and Little asks: “Is it an ape?”

At Little’s feet is a smaller corpse, three to four feet tall, with long arms and big hands and short legs. Its nose is wide, with big flaring nostrils. Its ears and large and rounded, sticking out from a tangled mat of hair, and its eyes are small and beady. Its skin is pale yellow and mottled beneath a thick coating of filth. It wears a belt from which hang several pouches and rags, and a sheathed knife. It has a cut at the top of its shoulder, deep enough that its arm is nearly severed.

“The cut killed him, but somebody shot him first,” Barber says, looking at a broken arrow protruding from its back.

"The only ranged weapon so far" Liri observes, bending down. Has she seen, heard or read about any creature that fits the description?

"Indeed, you are correct." Angel agrees. "As for the ape, it is probably the one we shot..."

"This was a bloodbath, nothing was supposed to survive. But where are the attackers? Where is the body?" Hand still on her blade she shakes her head.

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"And this is the mess you got me into." Eldon says with a dark kook, leaning down to the ape thing he carefully lifts off the pouches with one of his long blades.

Although the creature superficially resembles an ape, in that it has long arms and had a knuckle-walking gait when it was observed last night, it is clearly something else.
Barber grips its ankle and lifts its foot. "It's no ape. An ape would have fingers and a thumb on each foot. These feet are large, like a halfling's. Besides, apes don't carry knives, or wear clothes."

Eldon pulls a pouch from the thing's belt and carefully opens it with his knife. It contains a thick, greasy, rancid-smelling paste with various chunks of vegetable matter, meat and nuts mixed in. Another pouch contains a closed bottle. Another contains a handful of sweet-smelling leaves and berries.

"Well it eats like an animal." Eldon says with a disgusted glance to the others, "Slop."
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"Yes this was the creature we saw." Angel comments

Bastian's forehead creases with concern. For once he has no witty comeback. This whole thing is very troubling. Unconsciously he starts to play with the glowing coin that he was given before he left for the journey.