[center][h2]Amalril Forest[/h2][/center]

At first, it seemed that the monastery-hunting group would have the easiest time of it, the instructions clearly placing the location of the site north-east of Everett but "sufficiently far" from potential elven habitation that conflict from that angle should be unlikely. The local church was helpful, one of the priestesses of Reon helping to point out the hunter that had come back with an idea of the location, a small bauble of the appropriate age--and absolutely no desire to return to help clean it out himself.

A combination that left the little group situated on a hunting trail, a stiff breeze blowing through the looming trees around them and the occasional sound of distant birds. In all directions, there was nothing to be seen but trees themselves. If there was one blessing, it would be that the branches were far enough above to give a relatively uncluttered view: the gentle rise of the ground as it headed eastwards, a carpet of moss and lichen, and the ever-present abundant of pine.

Somewhere north of their location, there was a monastery.

[hider][img]https://i.imgur.com/UrYejCr.jpg[/img]
[url=https://youtu.be/2dljZWZQLFQ]If you want audio.[/url][/hider]

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[center][h2]Royal Road to Walverrest[/h2][/center]

For those on the orc hunt, the journey had been somewhat less peaceful--not that anyone suspected them of being orcs, that was quite impossible, but there existed some military presence on the main road itself, soldiers displaying am extreme lack of interest in their posting and a desire to flag down anyone interesting that passed simply to break the monotony. In the case of a group of adventurers, this meant being asked if they were out to kill the orcs, if they [i]had[/i] killed the orcs, and once in a while a soldier suggesting that there were orcs in this area.

So far that had been correct exactly once, and it was a grand total of one orc that seemed about as confused to meet anyone else as the soldier was when he was told there [i]was[/i] something there.

Perhaps, then, it was the [i]actual[/i] surprising monotony one day that was the biggest clue that something had gone wrong here--not a single glimpse of soldiers for hours, no sound of any wildlife. On a casual glance, this stretch of road didn't hold anything particularly out of the ordinary; like some the bushes seemed to be encroaching closer, but there really should have been some patrols or signs of life by now...

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[center][h2]Road to Haesting[/h2][/center]

Unlike the far more economically-important road to Walverrest--and even then, despite the ease of traversing the river--there was no heavy military presence on the road northwards, the disappearances sparse enough and seemingly unlikely to escalate that no official response had been made. Enquiries at some villages along the way, even though off the beaten track, showed that adventurers had come north, crossed into the dry slopes of the barrens... and then the next few villages, even accounting for the possible forks if you left the main road in this region, had seen only some of them.

Which placed the disappearances somewhere quite close to the border, where the plains around Venne started to give way to more uneven terrain, increasingly hilly if one tried to cut westwards towards Keelgravv, yet highly uneven and full of vales and hills to hide behind and upon.

Either way, it seemed that their predecessors had come at least to this crossroads, forking twice as it headed north. A few scraggly bushes amounted to all the local vegetation beyond the thin grass, and the entirety of animal life not hiding from birds circling overhead amounted to some spiders.