Fire and Rain

[Bjorn]

Bjorn nods slowly.  "I... see."

[Brian]

"At any rate," Lammermore says dismissively.  "Good luck to you."  With that, he strides into the keep.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn bows after Lammermore, and then turns around, seeing what needs to be done.

[Brian]

There's not a whole lot to do, except for oversee the men who're standing down ... unless one wants to sit in and watch the first game of Hunter-Hunted, which Jeff is setting up an arena for to one side of the keep right at the moment.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn turns his attention to overseeing the men standing down, moving among them and providing assistance where needed.

[Brian]

After about an hour of this, Bjorn runs out of things that need doing.

[Bjorn]

Thinking for a second, Bjorn finds a quiet spot out of the way, closes his eyes, and once again feels through the mindboard to both the Lindsey and Durant smudges.

[Brian]

Lindsey remains blocked off ... and Bjorn gets the uncomfortable sensation that Durant may actually be dead.  There's a difference between being blocked off and someone just not BEING there anymore.  The smuge remains, it's just like it doesn't connect to anyone.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn lets the mindboard vanish, letting himself concentrate instead on his surroundings.

Opening his eyes, he considers.  All right.  Everything's done up here, so...   Squaring his shoulders, he makes his way down to the prison.

[Brian]

Bjorn makes his way down to the prison.  There's guards around it, most of them running with messages and eyeing every hallway suspicously.  The prison room itself is a mess -- the men weren't just killed, they were brutally slaughtered.

The wounds appear consistant with a knife, but all of the guards are hacked open, sliced apart, and in general, brutalized.  All of them have completely unblemished faces (frozen in expressions of shock and surprise), save the executioner, who had both eyes stabbed out by a knife long enough to leave exit wounds on the back of his head.

It's pretty grisly.  Kevin is standing in a corner, speaking with four very angry looking Blackguards, and Lammermore is standing nearby, watching uncomfortably.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn studies the corpses dispassionately for a second, trying to determine if they were taken by surprise (were there weapons out?  blood on the weapons?) before heading closer to Lammemore.

[Brian]

Their weapons are neatly stacked in a corner, as far as Bjorn can tell untouched since the attack.  The executioner's axe was out, but there's no real guarantee he was either holding it, or even knew how to use it as a weapon.  The dead guards' spears are unbloodied.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn nods at Lammermore as he gets closer.  "Sir Lammemore," he says, quietly, by way of greeting.  "The standing down is finished.  How goes it here?"

[Brian]

"Poorly," Lammermore says, shaking his head.  "The evident suggestion is that Verrik escaped, killed the guards, and then left.  But that seems unlikely to me.  My trap for Lindsey failed.  There was no knife in the room I expected her to run to ... and my guards did not see any doors open, invisibility or otherwise.

"The Blackguard aren't able to discern what's going on any better than we are, and they're upset at being pulled from their standard watch.  For what it's worth, entry guards saw Linsdsey came here, straight away from the meeting, to speak with Verrik.  I can't ask these guards what happened," he adds, gesturing to the corpses, "but the entry guards also passed a servant through with food for the prisoners.

"This food was evidently delivered without any problems -- unless this servant delivered the knife.  Unfortunately, she's nowhere to be found....  The kitchens don't recall anyone being sent down today with food.  Usually a guard brings food down.  And when he arrived, he found this.

"That servant did leave, but we don't have a good description.  Lord Kevin is trying to put everything together and find out what's going on."  Lammermore shrugs.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn grimaces.  "Perhaps I am biased," he says, quietly, "but I still feel that it is dangerous to assume without question that Durant was truly Verrik.  In the end, we only have the word of a proven traitor for that -- but then, that's beside the point, at the moment.  We have to find both Durant and whoever helped him escape -- or whoever took him."

He looks at Lammermore.  "You spoke of the servant bringing the knife," he points out.  "Do you mean Verrik's knife, in particular?"