The initial burst of excitement turned to frustration as Jocasta and Beren poked around the basis of various trees. The overnight dusting of snow hadn’t done them any favors, and figuring out which tree was ‘the third tree’ and what it referenced wasn’t easy. After twenty minutes of fruitless searching Jocasta called a halt and poked around until she found a forked yew branch.

“What are  you going to do with that?” Beren asked.

“Watch and learn,” Jocasta told him and then plucked two hairs from Beren’s head.

“Ow!” he complained, rubbing at his scalp. Jocasta made a dismissive gesture and produced the assassins not, carefully wrapping it around the base of the branch and tying it in place with the hairs before inscribing several sigils on the bark with the tip of her thumb.

“There,” she said proudly, holding the stick out horizontal. Before Beren could ask what the stick was for the end began to twitch slightly to the left. Jocasta turned and allowed the soft, almost imperceptible tug to guide her to the base of a gnarled ash tree close to the statue. The tip of the twig pulled down hard and touched the soft packed snow. Jocasta crouched down and began to scrape away the icy cover to reveal loosely packed dirt beneath one humped root. She crowed in excitement.

“Enjoying  yourself?” Beren asked with a smile. Jocasta nodded vigorously and dug at the dirt with her hand until she struck something solid. It was a few minutes work to reveal a simple wooden box wrapped in oiled cloth. She sat it on the snow and unwrapped it, examining the box carefully for any traps, arcane or otherwise. Unable to find any but unwilling to think that meant there were none to find, she drew her shortsword and used the tip to open the box from arms length. Inside was a bundle of red silk. She exchanged glances with Beren and then reached in and tugged at the fabric. Coins clinked inside and she lifted it free, spilling a handful of gold coins into the bottom half of the box. Her hand tingled against the silk as she shifted it to reveal a sarong.


“Our assassin would have looked just darling in this,” Jocasta observed dryly, “I bet…” She vanished from existence with a pop of inrushing air, only to rematerialise on a tree branch ten feet above. She let out a squawk of shock, overbalanced and then fell into a snowbank with a thump that shook enough snow from the tree above to fall  and cover the hole she had made.


“Owww,” her muffled voice came from beneath the snow, unconsciously initiating Beren’s complaint of a few minutes before.