Silence Broken & Words Unspoken

## **Synopsis**

In Chapter 52: Silence Broken & Words Unspoken, the party was forced to shift tactics as the Dolgaunts continued their staggered onslaught in the barn.  With additional reinforcements and a seemingly endless supply of nourishment to siphon life from, we tore through the remaining hay bales until Safira unearthed a key to the cellar hatch.  It was down there that we confirmed what we assumed to be true – that the infected goats were dead, and that something unnatural about their remains kept bringing the Dolgaunts back to feed.

Access to the underground storage meant cutting off their means of evading us, but the cramped quarters made it difficult to engage them with caution – and Erland came one swinging tentacle away from being thrown to the floor.  Threading the needle with her Animus bow, Safira felled the final beast and the task was done – but before calling upon Raz Pugh, Graven took the opportunity to examine the slaughtered goats, finding that he recognized some of the signs from a creature he'd been tracking some time ago.

Raz delivered on his promise and presented Beezaura with her newly earned chess piece – and having gotten what we came for, we made plans to return to Crespo's for a conversation about the manner of our departure and the routes that made the most sense for us.

Erland and Safira made a brief detour to the area around Stoddard Farms, but thought better of breaking onto the property when they spotted men on horseback surveying the perimeter.  During this time, Deputy Daalman of the Broken Crown tracked down Graven with an off-the-record proposition – the lockdown had put a stop to the issuing of official contracts, but a family friend had been pestering Daalman for help and Graven had a proven track record of successful bounty work.

The stubborn Arzu Bokori was in need of some assistance regarding his inheritance.  Apparently his late father was a high-ranking member of a wannabe social club, and though he had left everything to his son in his will, the other heads of "The Stalwart" were laying claim to a number of his valuable possessions because they were stored in the club's private vault.  Before Graven would commit to anything, he wanted to consult the rest of the group – so Arzu shuffled off, hoping to see us later at his father's home.

Deputy Daalman had one other stop before returning to his post – flagging down Erland for a few extra details regarding the healer Ja Haughten.  Mr. Haughten was permitted supervised travel between the precincts for medical examinations, and the Broken Crown was willing to send for him if someone was presenting concerning symptoms.  It just so happened that Erland's "friend" was "sick", and the Deputy said he'd do his best to hail the doctor for a late evening (or early-next-morning) check up.

With the group back together and our to-do list getting shorter, it was time to look beyond the scope of Tuktu.  Each of the four routes north had their merits, but taking into consideration a sense of urgency and a desire to avoid Gentle Void hotspots narrowed things down considerably.  All in all, it seemed the Acqly Grove Road struck the right balance between speed and safety – and for the first time we had concrete plans for making our way to Navika-Pura.

There was one more bit of business to address now that the five of us had a private moment – a solemn explanation of what exactly Graven was looking for in the grander scheme of things.  It was his clerical duty to hunt down a very specific Chimera – a three-headed beast who exhibited signs not unlike the goats at Raz Pugh's barn; possibly a sign of Myconid poisoning.  His only concrete clue of its whereabouts had come from Jillian, who believed it to be chained up in Finlock Forest under the watchful eye of the Shade Assembly, but who otherwise had no advice for gaining access to it.  There was only so much Graven could reveal but some of us expressed an interest in helping, while others were simply satisfied that for now our goals aligned in leading us north.

As the sun had not yet set, we had a couple of hours to kill before Erland might be getting his visit from Ja Haughten – so we meandered over to the Bokori household to see about earning some extra coin breaking into Arzu's vault.  The storage room had a curious mechanism keeping it closed – but thanks to some rummaging through his father's study, Arzu was able to clue us in on how it might be opened.  Each of five small tomes needed to have their pages turned in the correct order, but any use of sound or verbal communication would result in failure – meaning that determining who would turn their page needed to be conveyed through gesture alone.

There were a couple of close calls as certain gesticulations were unclear to others, but we got through the lock without incident.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: two natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 each by John and Riley.