More pieces to the puzzle it seemed.

Rick strode on over to the object laying on the ground. Closer now he could identify it as a gun, Edmondo's gun to be precise. He was fortunate that Edmondo had affixed the silencer prior to his sudden and unexplained disappearance. Noting the equipment discarded like so his attention was drawn back to his own gear. Rick checked his belongings, both the saber and the pack with his scrolls and some miscellanea tucked within.

[i]Good. Nothing appears to be missing.[/i]

Noting that he checked the area surrounding the gun for any potential traps before picking it up. He checked to make sure the safety was on and quickly looked at the ammo remaining. Seeing as how they've had scant resistance the clip appeared to be full. He set the gun away inside his satchel for the time being before turning his focus over to the picture he had found.

[i]There's the motive.[/i]

He silently noted just why Edmondo had taken up this particular job. While he wouldn't have questioned it if he were assigned a higher ranking agent to supervise his performance between the dangerous nature of this particular mission and the evidence before him he had his doubts that was all this was.

[i]But then why me specifically? Other agents have been sent in prior to investigate this case before. Surely he didn't need this particular case to take up a job investigating this disturbance.[/i]

The picture was still incomplete. Not wanting to linger on mere speculation Rick turned his eyes to the surroundings. The surroundings held a strange air about them. He considered the possibility that he may be inside a giant ward of some kind. An even worse possibility was that it was something's barrier, a concept he'd only heard in mention and read in select passages. If that were the case then he was in grave danger indeed since only casters of a particularly high caliber can manifest one.

Not dwelling too much longer on this he looked to the smoke. He recalled the direction where he saw the sky laser last night and positioned himself between the plume of smoke and the laser's approximate direction. Using the smoke as an informal compass Rick pressed forward into the woods. He made sure to keep wary of his surroundings for any lurking dangers, pausing for a few seconds every two or three minutes so he could pick up sounds that would continue when all of his have stopped such as the sound of other footsteps.