Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-28718853-20180307023000/@comment-28718853-20180501110848

For the time being, there is no strange movement in the forest and the area is deathly quiet save for the blowing wind.

"I have no idea," Despoina answers honestly, she herself confused with the seemingly random kidnapping. She points to the corpses and whispers, "I'm going to go check on those bodies, I'll be right back."

She flies down to the nearest corpse and rolls it onto its back. The first thing that she notices is the Order symbol on its armor. Some of the victims of the alleged fire attack also bore the icon of the Order. The mosquito prepares to rejoin Sif in the tree when she detects a partly burned satchel lying a few feet away with a rolled up piece of paper sticking out.

Despoina strolls over to the satchel and takes the paper. She then rejoins Sif in her perched position and whispers, "Those guys were Order troops. Bloody hell, whoever was responsible for this clearly hated the Order."

Her gaze shifts to the paper in her hand and she unfurls it. It's a brief letter that reads:

''Father, I am glad to be writing to you again from the front lines. I heard that you and Steve's fishing business is doing well. That is good luck compared to the hardships that my platoon and I had faced thus far. We were ambushed by a group of Werewolves during one of our nightly travels and several of the men were taken. Thankfully, the wizard in our group was able to ward them off with his wand of lightning, but we were unable to recapture our men. We had to press on. A few days later poor Finnigan caught the flu and it rendered him unable to lift his sword. Our only hope is that we reach the next town before our situation gets worse.

Love, Your Son Nevel. ''

Despoina shakes her head in silent depression at the contents of the letter.

___

"Finally! Come on, the faster we get there the faster we can rescue my husband!" Rix says as she moves through the forest at a high rate of speed, but not fast enough that she leaves the other members of her group in the dust.

The trip is quite uneventful, though Riza and Ikuna do attempt to make some small talk with the others. As Sieglinde said, the path taken was indeed shorter than the other path, and they eventually find themselves approach the scorched clearing where both Despoina and Sif hide in an elevated position.