Re: Scouting Group
Steps slowing, but not stopping, he looked at Pavak with wide eyes before they crinkled up in amusement and a light wisp of laughter escaped him. As the elf went on her schooled his face into a more serious expression and listened carefully for his answer. Then, question unanswered, he watched as the man suddenly flew through the air and up a wall to stand on a thatched roof. Einarr stood still for a moment with his arms crossed, looking up at the elf with both a curious and impressed air, before he shrugged and turned his attention to the village before them.
Beneath his feet the village’s main road was shining like a beacon, cobblestone glowing in the remnants of the sun’s light. The village itself stood abandoned; the streets were deserted of people and the houses seemingly empty if the lack of light and smoke meant anything. Yet it was not lifeless. No the village of Norloth was alive for draped across the windowsills and from old barrels grew flowers, thriving flowers. Whatever had left the fields so dry, so dead, wasn’t affecting the plants the people had been growing around their houses. Still, he thought grimly as one gloved hand slid over a fragile petal, these flowers were doing little to brighten the atmosphere now.
Stepping past the flowers he kept to his self-assigned position and drifted to the first home on the left. It wasn’t a large home by any means and it certainly wasn’t ornate but it looked like it might have been a cozy little place to live. The windows were tightly shuttered, with a bar across them, as if trying to wait out a storm. Frowning he twisted to look down the road to the other buildings but it was all the same as far as he could see. The few windows he could see all seemed to be covered in the same manner. Why would the villagers take the time to shutter their windows so securely when they couldn’t even be bothered to water their fields?
Shaking his head he turned back around and stepped in closer to the house, peering through the small crack between the shutters to find little more than shadows. Rapping his knuckles across the firm wood he waited breathless for an answer that never came. Swallowing he moved on to the next house to repeat the process while he listened to Pavak speak from somewhere above him.
There didn’t seem to be anyone here, not in this part of town at least he amended as he tried to hold on to the hope of survivors. And the presence of darkspawn… Even with his senses strained he could not feel a single darkspawn, could not hear any echo of them. There was no sign that the wretched things had come through Norloth, there was no damage to the buildings that he had seen or any signs of fighting to be found in the streets.
As Matthew’s voice rang out, closer than Einarr had been expecting, he turned to look at the man before he glanced toward the west. He could not see the building the elf spoke of yet but the main road they stood on seemed like it would curve around that way eventually if they continued forward. While he was not as confident as Matthew seemed to be that the stone building, Chantry or otherwise, would hold anything he would not ignore its presence. Still he did not want to rush to the building and ignore what stood between them and it.
“If we continue on as we have been we should come upon it soon enough. Or,” he paused to look at the members of the scouting party he could see, “would you prefer we head there now? The light is dying faster than we can search, we don’t have much longer until darkness settles.” It seemed as if there was barely any time left to them and less of it with each moment. There were twenty minutes of light left and that was a generous estimate on Einarr’s part; it was more likely that the light would be gone in half that time.