Subject: Matt?

I kind of need a turn from Rennik.

Subject: Re: The Farm

OOC: Sorry, that last turn got lost amidst junk mail.

IC: Rennik's nose wrinkles at the smell. There was no hope for these people. They were dead long before the threat was ever made. It was a lie, a threat to a man to force him to act, when they were going to kill him anyway. Like a hunter using the skin of a dead rabbit as a decoy for another.

Would there be any left alive? Would they have kept any to watch the others suffer? Or would they even still be in the farmhouse?

He paused a moment to wonder whether it was worth committing the lives of these men for what was essentially a trap, or a massacre scene, when they would be better served catching up with the main group and defending their entry into the woods.

Whatever they were to do, they had to do it quickly and get back to the retreating procession.

Rennik pulls back to the corn field and tells the others what he discovered, and what his apprehensions are. It is possible that the smell is just some undead themselves, waiting as they were in the tunnel back at the mountain, but the rot smelled fresher, more recent. It is even possible that the family itself has been killed and recently raised by the dark god.

Whatever the case, it is important that they deal with the farm and get back to the main group.

Rennik will outline a strategy to have a couple archers positioned at the edge of the corn, with enough of a spread so as they would not be taken unawares. Then he would suggest that Pensive and himself creep forward to the cellar to get a closer look.

Subject: Re: The Farm

Pensive feels a coldness at Rennick's words. A sly little whisper from the east, a chuckle of madness . . . Pensive shudders.

He says to Rennick, "This may be a trap-- or at least, a show of power to drive hope out of our hearts. But if we leave this farm without witnessing what has been done here, without knowledge by sight of a massacre, our enemy will afflict us with doubt. He will tease us that he left a child, or a woman alive, alone, and give us visions of their starvation. The Path is not straight, nor is it soft. I will not chance walking along it, vulnerable to such a doubt."

He sets off toward the farm, unraveling the stonesash.

OOC: Pensive will do as Rennick suggests.