[center][h3]??? — Ruined Inn[/h3][/center]
In the midst of the group's exploration of the cellar, the presence of a pair of objects that most certainly did [i]not[/i] belong in the cellar would eventually be uncovered next to one of the barrels of alcohol. A simple leather journal, bound and left untouched since the room had been sealed, and a nearby burnt-out lantern would seldom have been kept in a place to store goods like these, which meant that the undead here had to have brought them down before becoming what they were now.

Or, well, what they [i]had[/i] been. It was hard to call them undead when they were most certainly little more than a dried-out corpse now.

Perusing the journal, however, would at least provide some more interesting information. Though the entries, penned by someone by the name of Byron Tere, provided mostly mundane accounts of life as an innkeeper's son, the steady progression of the events that followed were... Less than pleasant.

[hider=Journal Entries (Abridged)][hider=----, Day 13][quote]Something's not quite right. Call it instinct, but there've been less traveling merchants hawking their wares here these days. The streets feel emptier than usual, but...[/quote][/hider]

[hider=----, Day 21][quote]All the adventurers have left; our only guests now are the knights. One of them told us to pack our bags and go, but dad wouldn't have it. Started going on about how his dad and granddad had run the place, and that giving it up wouldn't ever happen.[/quote][/hider]

[hider=-------, Day 5][quote]All hell has broken loose. Whatever's outside is killing anyone and everyone that it so much as catches a whiff of. I saw it through the window last night, but just barely. Dad was being dragged away by it as he tried to open the door. I can't take this much longer.[/quote][/hider]

[hider=-------, Day 7][quote]That knight who told us to leave-she came back. I let her inside, but I saw how much blood was dripping down her body. She thanked me for giving her a peaceful place to die, but...[/quote][/hider]

[hider=-------, Day --][quote][The page is blank, save for what seems to be a few faint scribbles on the paper.[/quote][/hider][/hider]

[@VitaVitaAR][@RolePlayerRoxas][@Aku the Samurai][@SilverPaw]
[hr][center][h3]Neir — Slums[/h3][/center]
With the matter of the [i]very[/i] unconscious attacker handed off to the odd young man, Meira began to bound off back towards where she had left Cassius. It took less than a minute for her to close the distance, and less than [i]that[/i] to understand what had transpired.

It had been a mistake, in a sense, to expect that only [i]one[/i] person would try to attack her and [i]only[/i] her. By some miracle, the elf had survived—and slain his own assailant besides—but that didn't mean that they were out of the woods quite yet.

"Sorry, that was my mistake," the catgirl apologized as she approached, only to see that the elf had passed out next to the corpse of the one he had just killed. With a grimace, the young woman knelt down for a moment before slinging Cassius' unconscious body over one shoulder and grabbing the now-damaged packace with her sword.

The bad feeling she had been getting from it had only seemed to intensify now that [i]someone's[/i] blood was on it, but that was all the more reason to get it checked out than not.

Assuming that the other man had followed her instructions, she would meet him either at the guard station or en route to it; ultimately, where they met mattered less than the fact that he was listening to begin with.
[hr]
At the guard station, Meira wasted no time in making sure the guards—who seemed rather taken aback by the trio walking in—had the incapacitated assailant bound up and tossed into a musty cell for later questioning before securing somewhere for Cassius to get examined and rest. One of the guards had run off to call for a healer to attend to the elf's wounds (and to make sure that their suspect didn't die before they would squeeze any information out of him), but that meant that the group was [i]also[/i] very much stuck here until the guards had received their account of the situation.

The package, of course, was placed into a box and left off to the side for further examination. The contents were unstated and Meira had essentially brought it in without so much as a glance inside, after all, but mentions of "cultist activity" and "smuggling" would make it clear to any who happened to overhear the discussion that whatever was inside was [i]not[/i] something to be trifled with on a whim.

Of course, this situation meant that Connor was free to stay and ask questions of his own... Or leave as soon as the interrogation was done. None of the guards would stop him if he left, nor would anyone really wish to given where they presumed he was from.

[@ERode][@Zeroth][@TheMushroomLord]
[hr][center][h3]??? — ??? Forest[/h3][/center]
Traveling alongside the cliff face would lead to much of the same scenery that the group had seen—or, well, so it would be for a decent while. The route that they had chosen to take seemed to curve around, leading the group out of view of the path they had taken to leave the cavern from earlier and away from the forest that only now seemed to thin.

Around the bend, however, the group would find in front of them rather rugged plains that seemed to slope upwards at a gentle incline. Compared to where they had emerged, the area seemed to be far more open.

That alone would make it nearly impossible to miss the river that was feeding into what seemed to be a lake that had been [i]just[/i] out of the group's vision earlier.

Before the group could make any hasty decisions, though, a [i]massive[/i] shadow seemed to pass overhead, crossing the skies overhead before the source of it—a large bird whose body seemed to be plated in metal—slowly settled on the ground near the lake. It had not yet noticed the ragtag group of explorers at this point, of course, but whether or not that was the truth or if it was simply ignoring their presence for the moment remained to be seen.

[@Crusader Lord][@Thunder999999][@Crimson Paladin][@Expendable]