December 1st – 14th, 973
Dolven’s Hollow — The Days Between
Getting the soldiers out from under the Nareen’s Hill chapel without leaving the intensely curious and talkative villagers with more information than they could be trusted with had not been simple. Fortunately, both the party and Warg Squad acted as the professionals that they were, and were soon on their way.
Close to Dolven’s Hollow, Warg Squad made camp in a quiet place some distance off the road—far enough to avoid attention, close enough that a message might still reach them. There, beneath a stand of thin, wind-bent trees, the party left them to broker an introduction to the Ebon Blades.
It was an uneasy arrangement as trust, in such matters, is not given. It is assembled—piece by careful piece, and always with the understanding that it may yet fail.
Back in Dolven’s Hollow, Barin listened.
He did not interrupt as the party laid it out—their investigation, their initial clash with Warg Squad, Shamus’ parley, and the slow, unwelcome realization that Colonel Varnes had deceived them in service of something far darker than they had been promised. He asked a question here and there, not to challenge, but to clarify. When they finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
“Well,” he said at last, “that’s a fine mess.”
There was no anger in it. No surprise, either. Just a kind of weary recognition.
“They’re still committed to overthrowing the government,” Cassyndra said. “That could make them useful allies. But they’re cautious. They don’t want to be burned again.”
Barin nodded once. “Aye. That much is clear.” He leaned back slightly, considering. “The question is whether they’re the sort we can afford to work with.”
“They walked away from Varnes,” Laveleen said. “That counts for something.”
“It does,” Barin agreed. “Doesn’t count for everything.”
The matter was settled, for now, in the only way it could be. No in person meetings, no names, no risks that couldn’t be undone.
Messages would be left—carefully, deliberately—at agreed-upon points between the Hollow and the soldiers’ camp. Written in a cipher, one both sides could learn quickly and discard just as easily. Nothing sensitive. Nothing actionable. Just enough to begin the slow work of deciding whether cooperation was possible.
The first message was drafted with care. The second, more so. By the third, the tone had shifted—slightly less guarded, though no less cautious.
It was not trust. But it was a beginning.
Time passed in this manner. Long enough for ink to dry, for replies to be read and considered, for tension to settle into something more manageable. Long enough, too, for the party to take their rest.
For the first time in some days, sleep came without interruption.
When at last they made ready to depart, Barin found them again—this time not at the forge, but just beyond it, where the road bent northward and the Hollow began to give way to open country.
“You’ll be heading for Hollowmere,” he said, as much a statement as a question.
A few nods.
“Before you get there,” he continued, “I’d ask a small detour.”
He gestured vaguely toward the north-west, where the land rose into darker green.
“Briarfall Forest. There’s a forestry cooperative there—druids. Call themselves the Circle of the Second Growth.”
He glanced at each of them in turn. “Good people. Quiet. They’ve done us favors in the past—nothing they’d ever admit to, and nothing I’d ever put to paper—but they’ve earned a measure of trust and more than a simple measure of respect and affection.”
A brief pause. “Enough so that if something’s wrong there, I take it seriously.” He shifted his weight slightly, folding his arms. “And I’ve been hearing things that worry me.”
“Mostly from teamsters passing through to and from Manchester. The road from there to the forest runs through here, so you hear things if you listen.” A faint, self-aware smile. “And I tend to listen.”
He ticked off the points, one by one.
“They say that the river up there has been behaving strangely. Levels rising and falling when they shouldn’t. Canals running oddly. Logs not arriving where they’re meant to.”
A small shrug.
“That could be weather. Or poor management. Happens.”
Another finger.
“Animals acting up. Druid elk refusing certain paths. Teamster draft teams stopping dead on roads they’ve worked for years.”
His expression tightened slightly.
“That’s less common.”
Another finger.
“A shipment’s gone missing. Not delayed—gone. Marked timber from Briarfall. That sort of thing tends to attract attention, especially from people who’d rather the druids weren’t in business at all.”
He let that sit.
“And then there’s the part I don’t like.”
A beat.
“The druids haven’t said a word about it.”
“They’re not the sort to panic,” Barin went on. “If it were pests, or weather, or some small trouble, they’d handle it. If they needed help, they’d ask.”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“Silence means either they think they’ve got it under control… or they don’t want anyone looking too closely.”
“Couple more things,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
“Some hunters claim they’ve seen movement deeper in the forest. Not animals. Could be nothing. Could be people keeping to the shadows.”
A glance, brief but deliberate. “Wouldn’t be the first time something like that’s been… overlooked.”
He straightened. “Go there. Tell them I sent you. Look around—and listen more than you speak. It could be rivals causing trouble. Could be something natural. Could be something else entirely.”
A faint exhale.
“Could be nothing at all. Manchester’s got plenty of troubles these days. Makes people jumpy.”
“If I had to guess, however” he said, more quietly, “I’d say you’re walking into a place where several stories are being told at once.”
His eyes moved from one to the next.
“Your job is to figure out which ones are true.”
A pause.
“And which of those ought to stay quiet.”