Arc 1 - Beast of a Thousand Knives (Completed)

[Alzzak]

Never being the kind to jump at a shadow; Adrik turned his gaze up toward Kuori, using his shield to protect his eyes, "What do you suspect, lass?" He responded in dwarven.

"There is a fine line between fairing well in a fight and surviving the next, Emma. A survivor doesn't subtract the value of trusted shield-mates." He smiled and nodded to the two boys, in understanding of their attempt. Before turning back to Kouri.  

[PupSage]

Kuori responded in Dwarven, "I hail from the Underdark, and down there we have something known as a Drider. Spider from the waist down, Drow from the waist up and an arsenal of magic that could easily take down a ten man team. Worst of all, they don't travel alone, they are usually the forefront of a larger assault team of drow." She would switch to common, "What I know thus far is that we have a highly intelligent, eight legged, creature that has incredible night vision. The kind of night vision that you develop from living underground all of your life. Very few things fit that description. None of them are anything the farmer's, no matter how much fight they have in them, stand a chance against."  

[Kowsauni]

Old Man Hopkins

Mr. Hopkins seemed startled by Kuori's announcement. "R-really? Can y'all fight it then? This creature sounds mighty dangerous, and it seems like you have an idea as to what it is." Mr. Hopkins then scratches his beard. "Why's it only takin' cattle? ...And only the middle of the night, as I've heard. For a creature as powerful as you say, it seems to be goin' out of its way to not be seen."

Mr. Hopkin turns around and begins walk toward Duke's pen. "Come, I think it's about time y'all come and look at this. Me and my kin haven't even gone inside the pen area yet for fear of disturbin' some sort of evidence. All we know is when we looked inside this mornin', Ol' Duke was gone."  

[Alzzak]

"Would this, Drider was it, be able to carry a bull alone?" Adrik continued the conversation in dwarven with Kouri, as he waited for her to climb down.  

[I Drink Blue Moon]

"Sure thing." Gloom broke from the group and went to the arrow. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.  

[Onlin3 Gam3r]

Kowsauni

Thava sees nothing new about the marks on the barn wall, but as she glances around she notices some faint marks in the dirt on the ground that look similar to the ones on the barn's wall. They seem to head in the direction of Duke's pen.

Thava will follow them as far as she can.  

[Kowsauni]

As Kuori's arrow embeds itself in the ground, Thava realizes the tracks she saw in the dirt were the same ones spotted by Kuori from the roof. They end as quickly as they begin in a soft patch of dirt not as well trampled by the day to day work of the ranchers as the rest of the ground around it. The only clue they yield is that the creature obviously either went to or came from Ol' Duke's pen. Mr Hopkins continues to towards the pen motioning to the party to follow him.  

[Rain Yupa]

Revenge has no objections to heading towards the pen, and follows Old Man Hopkins there.  

[PupSage]

Seeing that the trail was marked and lead to Duke's pen, Kuori would decend the ladder. She would continue her Dwarven conversation. "They are normally magic users. Maybe levitated it out." She switched mack to common, "Can any of you check for evidence of magic use?"  

[Kowsauni]

Old Man Hopkins

As Revenge and Mr. Hopkins reach the pen the old rancher unlocks the gate and swings it wide open for everyone to see. The pen is indeed as empty as he said. The inside area of the pen bare of all grass and and quite well tramped. Foot prints of the large bovine are everywhere, it is obvious he liked to run around inside his pen. The white fence surrounding the pen is 5feet high and is a little worn, with several scratches and grooves. All and all, with just a simple glance nothing looks out of place in the pen.

Mr. Hopkins would speak up. "This is how we found it in the mornin. No sign of nothin. No blood, no sign of a fight. Hell, if something was to attack Ol' Duke I'm sure we would have at least heard it. He was one powerful ornery bovine. He would have put up one hell of ah fight. Yet he vanished with out a trace just like rest of the missing cattle. It just makes no darn sense!"  

[Rain Yupa]

Revenge would move towards the gate, but stop at it, instead examining things from there for now, his tale adjusting once.

"... Mr. Hopkins, I'm sorry for what I'm about to imply, but..." He would turn towards Kuori, Thava, and the rest.

"Do you think the bull could have been killed here, perhaps in its sleep, before being removed? That would solve a lot of the questions of 'why didn't he make noise'." Truth be told, he was not confident on his ability to tell that, and he didn't want to go trampling on any signs proving or disproving his hypothesis, especially not in full plate.

"And no, Kuori, I personally cannot." A response to her earlier question on the walk over.  

[Kowsauni]

Old Man Hopkins

Mr. Hopkins would sigh at Revenge's comment. It seems he did not like the mentioning that his bull might be dead. Nonetheless he would answer. "Anythin is a possibility at this point. But I don't know what could kill him that quickly and that silently, without shedding as much as a drop of blood in his pen, that I could see anyways."  

[PupSage]

+11 perception = 30

Kuori began to walk around the pen, looking for clues. She would check the gate as well.  

[Alzzak]

"I remember once, years ago, I was in this raiding party..." Adrik started to say, but stopped himself. "um... I mean to say, it could be that Duke was poisoned. Then no blood would be needed. A poison could of been slipped into his food or water, with no one the wiser."

(+4 Perception clue searching)  

[Kowsauni]

Old Man Hopkins

As Adrik and Kuori search the pen for clues, not much stands out to them. However, as they look along the fence line bordering the forest, they notice some all too familiar marks. They blend in well with the already scarred up fence posts and were much fainter than what had been seen on the barn, but there was no mistaking it--the fence bore the marks of the creature. It had obviously crawled over the fence at this point, most likely into the forest just beyond.

Kuori's eagle eyes spotted something even further. Directly behind the portion of the fence that was crawled over by the creature, there was a strangely broken branch hanging off a bush. On it there was stuck a tuft of coarse brown fur.

Mr. Hopkins scratched his head at Adrik's suggestion. "Hmm I hadn't thought of that. Though that doesn't sound like somethin' no monster would do. His water trough is right over there, if you have sort of way to detect that sort of thing, but now that you mention in, I think I'll probably dump it just in case."