Searching for Signs (Tor'ree)

[Tei'serin Nji'ryn]

Continued from Signs of Trouble


19th Ymiden, 719


They didn't have to wait long for help to arrive. Juel'rie returned several bits later with a group of people. Some of them seemed to know what they were doing, because they began looking around. Tei'serin wasn't certain what they would find in the mess that was once a supply room, but they were definitely looking for something.

"Was anything stolen? Or did whoever did this just come in and trash the place?"

"I...I don't know. I haven't looked yet. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before since I've been in Desnind, so I wasn't sure if I should touch anything until someone came to examine the...the crime scene."

And didn't that sound strange and out of place? In the time Tei'serin had spent here in Desnind, she had decided that it must be the safest place in the world when it came to crime. Even Treth had more crime than Desnind did...until now, at least.

"Please do so now, then."

Tei'serin watched as Rue picked through the remains of her supplies gingerly. She would have offered to help, but she wouldn't be of much use in the task. She didn't know what supplies Rue had had in the first place, so she wouldn't be able to tell if anything had been stolen or not. Juel'rie stepped in to help, and after a while, they paused and spoke quietly to each other for a few bits, clearly comparing notes. Then Rue turned back to the woman who seemed to be in charge.

"Half of the bandages that we had in here are gone, as are an assortment of herbs, and medicines."

Rue went on to list exactly which remedies had been stolen. Tei'serin paid close attention to see if she could figure out why the outpost had been robbed. Could someone be injured, or sick? Normally, they would just come seeking aid, if that were the case...but what if they couldn't for some reason? Her aunt, Dae'sara had told her that sometimes people were exiled from Desnind for committing crimes repeatedly. It was a rare thing, but it did happen. Could some of those exiles have done this? No...that didn't seem likely. From what her aunt had said, being exiled was a very rare thing. So what were the chances that fifteen exiles would have gotten together, and pulled this off? Not high.

"Was anyone injured in the attack?"

Tei'serin was about to say no, but she hesitated when Rue stiffened, and paled.

"We're fine...but we have patients staying here for treatment! Excuse me, I have to go check on my patients!"

Rue all but fled the supply room. Juel'rie and Tei'serin were hot on her heels. Tei'serin could hear sounds that indicated that they were being followed, so she assumed that some of the people that had come to investigate the crime were following them.

There were five patients staying in the large room that had been designed for patients who needed to stay overnight. None of them were injured, thankfully, but all of them had heard the destruction of the supply room, and all of them were worried. Tei'serin did what she could to help Rue and Juel'rie reassure them that they were safe, and that they were dealing with the theft that had taken place.

When they made their way back into the first building, more people were waiting for them. One of them identified themselves as being a messenger from the Medicine House. The young girl brought word that they had been attacked too, and that they also had been robbed. Worse, three of the elders they had been treating had been injured in the attack. One of them had been badly injured, and wasn't likely to survive their injuries.

Rue immediately offered to help, and when her offer was accepted, she paused only long enough to grab what supplies she had available, and then she was gone, as was the messenger from the Medicine House. Juel'rie took over answering the questions that were being asked, and Tei'serin pitched in when she could.

Tei'serin felt helpless. She hadn't seen what had happened, so she didn't know enough to be much help as a witness. And while she had seen the thieves as they fled, she hadn't gotten a good look at any of them. She certainly couldn't describe any of them clearly enough to be much good in identifying who they were. But as she looked around the reception area, she noticed footprints near the door leading out of the building. The thieves had left the supply room a disaster as they had rummaged through it, and taken what they wanted. Some of them must have stepped in some of the remedies they had knocked over as they left.

"Maybe we can follow these, and see if they lead us to the thieves?" she asked hopefully as she pointed the trail out.

"We could ask people we see along the way if they've seen anything, too?"

She didn't know much about investigating a crime, and that was all she could think of to do. But the woman who seemed to be in charge of the people who had come to help them seemed to like her ideas, and she quickly asked for volunteers and began organizing a search. Tei'serin wanted to help, and she didn't know what else she could do, so she was one of the first to volunteer to help try and track the thieves.

[Tor'ree]

Title and date

Tor’ree walked around the city as she heard the news about several of the medical areas being robbed. Nothing about the situation made any sense in her mind. There was no city or village anywhere close to Desnind in order to sell them quickly. Which means the robbers would be in the city or hiding in the forest close by. Taking a deep breath, the woman went to see where the newest robbery had taken place.

She did not doubt that there was someone there trying to organize some kind of aide. It would all depend on how fast that they could catch up to where the people had disappeared. Checking around, the woman made sure to have her daggers in place along with her bow around her shoulders with the quiver attached to her hip. A part of her hoped that they would not be going far because she did not have any kind of mount.

For being a Sev’ryn the woman had never really ridden on a horse even as a child. It had never interested her even though it would do well for her to learn how. It was not long before she had finally made it to the building. The crowd had grown from what the woman had seen from her position at her house. It was definitely the talk of the city that was for certain. The days leading up had not really left her with much hope for what was going on.

Approaching the building, she began to ease her way up to the front of the group. There was no way that the woman could help from the back of the group. It would also not help if she was not able to see little parts of the inside or hear what the workers said was missing. Tor’ree knew nothing about medical supplies, but there was still entirely too many pieces of the puzzle still missing. The woman instantly stepped up to help search for the people that had done the transgression.

She barely moved out of the in time to keep from getting ran into when one of the healers followed a little messenger boy. Turning around, she approached who appeared to be one of the workers in order to try and get more information to work from. Focusing on her connections with Kae’leen the woman asked her familiar to take a look around and listen closely for anything around them. There had to be some kind of leads that someone does not know they know.

“Hello, I am Tor’ree. Can I ask what all kind of medications were taken?” She asked looking at the woman in front of her.

The young woman seemed nervous, almost appearing to be unsure of herself. That cast some doubt in the Sev’ryn’s mind about how much help she would be. But it was not her call to make, surely the type of medication would help in telling the searchers what kind of people they were looking for. Tor’ree hoped that there was no medication which could be used on both animals and humans. She had heard of herbs found in the wild that would help ease the pain of humans and their companions.

[Tei'serin Nji'ryn]

A woman approached Tei'serin and introduced herself before asking what supplies the thieves had taken.

"My name is Tei'serin Nji'ryn." she offered since the other woman had introduced herself.

She didn't know, and she was about to tell her as much, but Juel'rie returned before she could.

"They took most of our bandages, and destroyed most of what they left behind while they were grabbing everything else. They took all of our slippery elm bark, willow bark, chamomile, lavender, plantain, and mint. They also grabbed some of our bloodroot, ginger, and elderberry, most of our aloe, and lion's mane mushrooms, and a little of our yarrow, and wood sorrel." she told Tei'serin breathlessly.

Tei'serin ran through the uses of each herb, trying to figure out what they might be trying to treat with the herbs they had stolen. But the herbs that had been stolen could be used for too many things.

"If they needed bandages, they they have injured as well as sick people. And plantain can be used as a poultice." she said, thinking out loud.

"It can also be used to treat animals as well as people. Aloe is good for burns, and willow bark is good for pain...elderberry, slippery elm bark, chamomile, and lavender are safe to use on children, and slippery elm bark can be used to make a porridge that even the elderly, and those who are too ill to keep anything else down can eat...but there are too many things those herbs can be used to treat to guess what they might be needed for. It might even be that the people who took them don't know anything about herbs. They might have been after causing destruction instead. But if so...why steal anything?"

It really didn't make any sense to Tei'serin. But did it really matter? Wasn't it more important to get the herbs back if they could?

[Tor'ree]

Title and date

Tor’ree turned to face the woman that ran up to them. She mentally cursed hearing all the ingredients that had been taken. While it would not be hard for most of the herbs to be harvested again. It was the sheer quantity that would be hard to replenish. The thieves would have to be caught if there was any hope for the city to stay healthy. Nodding her mind started to try to decide what kind of group could be using that much supplies or where they could be headed.

“Such a wide variety of uses. Perhaps a feral hunting party that have injured? Or even a group of hermits that saw the healers as easy targets before returning to the depths of the forest?” Tor’ree asked looking at them.

She was one of the only hunters to call lost hunting parties feral. It was as if they would lose their minds when it came to being a Sev’ryn or any race for that matter. Taking a deep breath, the woman tried to center herself there was no reason to jump to conclusions until the group had been found. As far as anyone knew, it could have been a group of kids just trying to play a prank on the healers. Though it would be one costly prank that was for sure. There were people already at the healers who needed that medicine and now it was gone.

With nothing to help the pain the wails and moans of those in pain would begin to get louder within the city. The group had to figure out where the supplies had been taken or get to moving to replace it all. She looked at the pair that stood before her. Two healers and a hunter would not make much of a search party, but that was all she could see they had to work with.

“Shall we see if there are any kinds of tracks that have not already been destroyed by all the commotion?” Tor’ree asked them, “we may not can go after them on our own. But there is no way to get anyone to help if we have no answers. A search party will want to know where they are going from the beginning. Or at least have a general direction to go in. Without one of those two things, it may just be us going to get the supplies back.”

[Tei'serin Nji'ryn]

Tei'serin listened to Tor'ree's suggestions as to who might have taken the herbs, but one of the words the other woman had chosen gave her pause.

"Feral hunting party?" she questioned in confusion.

Her mind was going over the definition of the word "feral" even as she asked the other woman to clarify what she meant. Perhaps it was the teacher in her, or perhaps it was her love of languages, but she was always quick to pick up on word choice when people spoke. Word choice was important because if one wasn't careful, it was easy to make the listener think you meant one thing when you were trying to say something entirely different.

But while it was a curious choice of words, that wasn't the important thing here and now. Tor'ree suggested that they look for tracks, and Tei'serin pointed out the ones she had seen leading out of the building earlier.

"We could try following those?" she asked softly.

"I'm not sure how much help I will be, though. I've never done anything like this before."

Tei'serin glanced at what she thought might be a trail more closely. Was it something they could actually follow? While she could see distinct foot prints, there were a lot of them, and she couldn't tell how many people had made them. Nor could she be certain it really was a trail because the footprints were going in more than one direction.

"Is that even a real trail?" she asked hesitantly.

"I'm not really sure what to look for." she added a few trills later.

[Tor'ree]

Title and date

Tor’ree looked over at the woman when she seemed confused with the woman’s terminology. She was sure to most that it would be unusual to call people feral. But many mostly those with higher “education” in her mind truly knew it was a real thing. Nearly all of the animals that were used in the city by hunters, gatherers, or farm workers had once been feral. So why could Sev’ryn or other humanoid races be the same way? Popping her neck, Tor’ree focused on how she could say it without upsetting the woman or seeming brash.

“Are animals not feral? If they start out feral and can be tamed. Why can a sev’ryn or other humanoid not become feral?” Tor’ree asked her quietly, “I have heard of children being lost on the way to another town and being found later as an adult just as feral as the animals that took them in.”

Tor’ree looked over when a set a trail of prints was found. Walking over, the woman knelt down and poked at the sides of the imprint. She was trying to see if the sun had time to harden it. Or was it still fresh enough to be tampered with? That would give her a better time frame in her mind as to how far the people would have made it. A chill ran down her spine as she lifted her eyes following the tracks for as far as she could see into the distance.

“We will need to go after them. If possible, we will not engage them. Simply slip in get the supplies and get out. Surely they will be out moving away from wherever their camp is located,” Tor’ree stated.

The huntress didn’t not want to seem harsh in any way, but there came a time when it would be necessary. This was one of those times in her mind at least. The woman was not much of a fighter herself, but there came a time when none of that mattered. People, humans, Sev’ryn did what they needed to do no matter skill levels or training. It was the very nature of all creatures to survive no matter what happened. Standing tall, she motioned for anyone willing to follow her. The young huntress kept her eyes trained on the tracks that were leading towards the edge of the city.