[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h2][color=598527][i][b]Kathryn Pyke[/b][/i][/color][/h2][i][b][color=598527]Human, Fighter (Rune Knight), Level 05[/color][/b][/i] [color=598527][i][b]HP:[/b][/i][/color] 49 / 49 [color=598527][i][b]Armor Class:[/b][/i][/color] 21 [color=598527][i][b]Conditions:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=598527][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] Study [color=598527][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=598527][i][b]Bonus Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=598527][i][b]Reaction:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/7884b36a-e3f0-48fb-9689-1a8fd4af7f5a.png[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] One word was on Kathryn mind when she finished digging through the potential grave. [i]Ew[/i]. She had issues already with touching dead people. Issues with looting the dead. This was... a necessary compromise. And by the gods was it something that she struggled to handle. Over the last few months she had gotten far better about p0hysical contact with other people. At least to a limited degree. But the gem seemed to be important. SO hopefully it was worth it. Hopefully... What concerned Kathryn was how fixated Lizbeth was on this rather strange rock. Though it glowed slightly, it really seemed to shine on Lizbeth the way she looked at it. Kathryn worried this may be tied into what Cecily had told her the night before. Was this a placebo effect? What Kathryn looking for things that were wrong that just were not there? She was revealed when she finally found somewhere to put it away. In an attempt to snap herself out of it, and to maybe get some sort of different reaction from Lizbeth, Kathryn spoke up. "[color=598527]I don't suppose by some chance you know anything about this? It's strange none the less.[/color]" Kathryn said trying her best to hold a warm smile. Lizbeth had taken a moment to explore more of the office, and after Kathryn had bagged up the gem she walked over to the glass cabinet the would be squire was exploring. "[color=598527]Find anything interesting?[/color]" Kathryn asked trying to lighten the mood before deciding to join in. Hoping to see if there was anything left worth noting before she decided to call it. She wanted to see what was hidden in the Coach house. She needed to see what was there. To her surprise, she did find something. Partially hidden underneath the cabinet. "[color=598527]Yippy Kai Aye. What have we got here?[/color]" Kathryn mused looking over what was easy to determine as a map of the area, with plans for expansion. But there was more. Wondering if maybe ol' grand dad knew something, Kathryn attempted to trace the map to see if the hidden brewery was there, and to her surprise, it was. So not as long and forgotten as once thought. Someone knew. "[color=598527]Hey Lizbeth, this seems to be a map of the area, can I get your help seeing if anything stands out as off? Out of place?[/color]" Kathryn asked, kneeling down so the two of them could see the map and look it over. But cartography wasn't a strong suit for the half giant. Not that she was bad at it, she could read a map as well as anybody, but she was still not an expert. Despite their efforts, they were unable to find much of note. "[color=598527]We'll show this to the others too. See what we can find. Then, we shall get things sorted.[/color]" "[color=598527]Let's get going. I want some answers, and I think it would do us both some good if we got them.[/color]" Kathryn said confidently before striding off to leave the estate house. Before they got too far Kathryn spoke up again. "[color=598527]We're getting into a lot of things Lizbeth, if at any point you feel we are overstepping, or you need me to back off, speak up. This is your home and memories we're digging through, and I hold a lot of respect for you. Though I want to figure out what is going on, I want to minimize any harm or pain along the way should it come to ends.[/color]" Kathryn said before they got outside. Then, Kathryn was reminded of the rather deep snow again. Ah, just like home. Enough snow that tunnels would have to be dug between buildings. Some towns and larger castles would have underground tunnels that made winter travel easier, and doubled as storage during parts of the year. Good times. "[color=598527]If we want to make good time, I may have to carry you again.[/color]" Kathryn said. And getting no resistance, she lifted her squire onto her shoulders and strutted through the snow doing her best to not trip herself. A task not too hard when one was over 7 foot tall in full kit with boots, helm, and everything else. 4 feet of snow? Trivial. Passing the stables, Kathryn saw BB just leaving, seeming prepared to move on to his next task. "[color=598527]Ah, perfect. We could use more hands.[/color]" To make Lizbeth feel less embarrassed about having to be carried through the deep snow, and because it was a bit funny, Kathryn lifted BB up and hoisted him under her arm as if he were some sort of spare bag to be set aside once she reached her destination. "[color=598527]Got a lot to share, but we gotta get inside first.[/color]" At the comment of pretending to weigh anything, Kathryn simply chuckled, gave BB a good toss up to make it easier to carry him and then gave the fakest complaining a woman could muster. "[color=598527]Oh, Blackberry, you're so heavy. I don't think I can go on, I may be forced to leave you behind! Please oh please forgive me.[/color]" She uttered in her best damsel in distress tone. Before picking up the pace, returning to the coach house, and dropping BB on his feet as easy as if she was setting up a folding chair. "[color=598527]Now off to bacon storage.[/color]"