3. The Meeting

Danika will take a brief moment to whisper a quick blessing to the child's father, and pray that he will find peace. As well as Tracy will find her peace in grief. "I can not promise we will find your mother. But I can promise we will do our very best."

And with that, and her quick introductions to the others...
"Well met. I am Danika, a servant of the Morninglord. Here to assist on the Burgermeister's request."
... (she doesn't think much of the looks of the others, but wonders what Florina would think)...
... she is ready to move on.

Florina reigns in her natural loquaciousness, given the atmosphere of grief in the group.
"Florina, I'm here to help too."

Glad that the child is now safe Davros nods to himself. If he wants to become the forester. He might as well start doing it now and finding missing people is one of his direct tasks.

Getting lost in his thoughts for a bit the forester attempts to remember any landmarks like mountains or badger trails or fresh tree stumps, ect that he might have seen in the woods from the roadside that could be used as bandit lairs.... Maybe the lost woman was there. While he knew well that it might be a shot in the dark, he was ready to take the chances if needed, since it's only logical for them to be using natural shelter and local materials for the stay.... And that obviously leaves a large footprint, especially for those who are used to living in the woods.... And if there's a whole group of humanoids the other fallen branches and twigs are definitely not enough to accommodate them.

Danikas and Florinas voices snap Davros out of his thoughts he slightly jumps and blinks a couple of times trying to orient himself in the current situation. Ah, yes. Well met. My name is Davros, the situation is indeed quite an ordeal, so let's do our best to solve it. he gives the two girls an earnest smile, happy to have any help he can get, even more from a member of the clergy, hopefully she knows some healing magic.

Selbi bids Tracy and the others farewell, then sits down on the floating disk, putting the gnome at an even shorter height than the remainder of the group. After walking all morning, she welcomed an opportunity to briefly rest her legs.

Selbi introduces herself to Danika and Florina as well. "Do you two have any suggestions on how to approach the raiders or cultist groups, now that you're caught up?"

Garrosh sizes up the newcomers, "The name's Garrosh, and a question from my side as well, has there been updates or new info from the Burgermeister? I assume not, but might as well ask."

"While I can be persuasive, I doubt that the sort of people that would massacre the folk on this wagon like this will give me chance to talk them into anything, and the Burgomeister gave scant enough information - two groups, orcs and humans, humans may be in a cult? But I'll happily lend blade and spell to the cause."

"That is fair... and who knows what the cultists' aims are. Spraint had suggested finding out what the cult is about, to convince the humans to turn against the orcs. Haven't seen obvious signs of the humans yet though."

The floating disk had disappeared, and Selbi was back to walking at a brisk pace by her own standards in order to keep up with the others. She points out the wagon as they approach it. "This was from the orcs, going by the broken weapon that was left behind."

"Not to mention, the girl said they where chased by orcs as well.", points out Garrosh.

"It sounds like we should have a serious meeting with these orcs most of all. Still, that doesn't say they attacked this wagon, does it? Anyone could have placed a broken weapon there. We need to keep options open, but the orcs chasing innocent girls is not acceptable."

Davros listens in to the conversation. Well, when we get there we should look around if its a frequent ambush spot they should leave a trail behind.... cut trees, campsites, berry bushes without fruit, ect.. The forester stretches, hoping that there will be no unwanted encounters ahead.

As the party neatly closes in on the crashed wagon, it hasn't been altered since last time viewed. It is still tipped up to its side easily allowing poor Tracy to be tugged out of her destroyed crate that was trapped by the earlier tipping of the now broken wagon. There is quite a bit of lose discarded cloth about that is fairly ruined due to a previous short shower of destructive rain. Your best of assumption is that the how incident may have occurred during that short rain.

Scouting Darvos examines the mess and quickly managed to locate beneath some stray cloth that protected the prints of left by Orcs from the brief rain. And with further investigation, he surmises that they came from further down the road in pursuit of the wagon. Raided it here after it crashed. Probably made horse meat of those that pulled it. And by appearance the scum Orcs headed south from here.

He also notices the path that Tracy's dying father made. His final guess there were four or five scouting Orcs involved in this vicious attack. The Orc randomly tossed around the useless to them cloth to mostly spoil it. He believes the Orcs have taken Tracy's mother alive as there are no dragging indications.

(DM loves his new avatar. You might have noted.)

The ranger scratches his head while speaking out loud Well, these definitely were orcs, and most likely they have taken a live hostage, most likely Tracy's mother. So... he looks around hoping to find the direction towards the orc's camp or living grounds. How are we doing this? Are we going to rush in or attempt to take them out one by one? he turns towards the rest, looking for some opinions.

"We're in your element here master Davros. I'm reasonably stealthy if one or two of us want to sneak ahead and see what the situation is?" Florina queries.

"Maybe it would be best if you two would scout then," Danika says and nods. "Our top priority is to get the hostages out unharmed. It would be best we know where they are held. If we charge in the orcs might have time to harm them. We would need to know if there are one or more hostages, where they are and how they are guarded."

"I think stealth, at least to start is a good idea, although I myself at not great at it. Depending on what's found we could even wait until night to attack, when they are likely to be asleep."

"Would an illusory sound as a distraction be helpful, while you sneak in from elsewhere?"

"A few of those who guard the place suddenly falling asleep for a minute would be less suspicious during nighttime as well." Selbi twirls her wand. "Have to find out where the bandits are in the first place, of course..."