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Val

Walking from the castle to the outer edges, where the caravan was assaulted, took almost fourty minutes to get there. Val was interested in the fact that neither Rengar or Tobi seemed to be that troubled by the walk. Their criminal activities certainly must have involved a lot of effort, or so he assumed. Eventually, they got to the scene of the crime, in a stretch of the path surrounded by woods, and Val rubbed his hands together nervously. It would be very bad for him if his first strategy out in the real world went bad for him, that'd be such a bad sign for the success of this mission. He spoke up, "Alright, this is my part, as a tracker, you guys, uh, rest for a moment, keep your strength up while I search." Tobi went and sat on a tree branch, while Rengar took his battle ax and started practicing, throwing swipes that, while lacking grace, had all the power those massives arms, legs, and hips could put into it. Those hips though... He sat there for a moment imagining just what all might be under that loincloth, before a voice brought him out of his stupor, "Hey, hotshot, you going to stare all day, or are you going to actually do any tracking? If you want to stare, I could make it a bit easier..." the ursari said with a lewd grin, hooking one massive claw into the loincloth, scratching at some itch. Val quickly turned away, trying to hide the fierce blush that came to his face as he looked around for any clues that could lead to the direction of the thieves. Tobi broke down laughing, falling off the tree branch. "Well well well, I didn't know Mr. Bear was such a charmer! He had the looks, but that grumpy personality-" "-I found something!" Val yelled excitedly, tail wagging. Tobi, bear charming forgotten, ran over to kneel next to Val, trying to see what he found. He spoke excitedly, "I knew you would! What did you find? I can't even tell anything's different..." Val pointed, showing off a broken branch, then pointing to where it came from, a bit above his head. "Well, as they were leaving, one of them clipped his head on a branch. You might wonder if it was an animal, except for these crushed leaves here, if you know the signs you can tell these were done about the same time, he clipped his head then staggered to the side, landing here." Val stood up, slowly moving forward, before letting out an exclamation, pulling out barely a scrap of red cloth from a tree. "I thought these guys were supposed to be good at this!" Tobi clapped, complimenting Val again, "Your training must have been intense, if you're this good!" Val smiled, about to respond before Rengar grumbled, "Can we just keep following the tracks? The wizard did warn us not to take more than 30 days, and I can feel myself getting old." Val started to apology before Tobi cut in, "Old? No way, you don't even look as old as my dad! It's impossible, you look way too good for that." The bear stared at him. "Are you trying to get yourself killed? That's what's going to happen. Shut up, and let's get moving." Val nodded along, before remembering he had to be the leader of the group. "Y-Yes, let's keep moving! We're at least 6 hours behind them, though it took a while, or so I assume, to get everything from the caravan." They followed the tracks for a while, before realizing they were circling back, following them until they crossed the paths of several groups of people entering back through the main gate into the city. "W-Wait, that can't be right," Val put one hand to his forehead, trying to think, "Why would they circle around through the forest before heading back to the inner edge of the kingdom? How were they not noticed, then reported? How did they disguise themselves? How are we going to find them now?" he started pacing back and forth, upset his plan failed.

Rengar

He watched the wulf pace back and forth for a few seconds. This boy really had four years of training? He got distracted easily, freaked out when his plan failed... Things just weren't adding up, and it wasn't because Rengar didn't have any fancy schooling. The kid had some strength, so there was definitely some training involved, but four years? No way. Rengar gave a huff of exasperation, about to stomp over and knock some sense into the wulf, but the fox quickly moved over to the wulf as he approached. "Don't worry, Val, I'm sure you'll figure it out! You're right, that sounds really difficult to take everything from the caravan, and somehow get back into the city. Is there another thing they could have done?" Val pondered for a moment, before looking back the way they had come, then back to the group. "Well... There is another option, but we will have to go back the way we came, if you guys-" he paused for a second, before clearing his throat, the boy puffing out his chest a bit, "Ehem, I mean, we're going to go back and check the path out again." Rengar chuckled, walking past him, "Yes, glorious leader, sir." forcing the pup to awkwardly run a little bit to get back in the front of the group where he wanted to be, the sun more than past its zenith, but not quite sunset yet. Better find it quick.

_ Tobias _

Unbeknownst to Rengar, Tobi had been thinking along similar lines, questioning the trainee's quick emotions. He seemed to have quick ideas, but an equally quick reaction to things not going the way he wanted. However, he didn't care what happened, what was strange with this, all he wanted was that full pardon, so he would give however much praise and encouragement it took to get Val moving again, so this could be taken care of. They moved back down the path, Val moving quickly back and forth, looking for something. Tobi assumed he meant that the path circling back to the main gate was a bait, and the thieves were clever enough to leave a false trail, so all the trainee had to do was find the real one. However, that could be anywhere along the trail, and they didn't have too much time before sunset, walking from nearly the center to the gate took around fourty minutes, and while the caravan wasn't too much farther from there, the path through the woods winded a ways, and while Val was looking for smaller, less obvious clues, it slowed their travel time by a lot. Val was muttering to himself, something Tobi couldn't quite catch, but he was okay with letting him focus.

Eventually, with the sun just above the horizon, Val gasped, then darted off the current trail, Tobi following close behind, and Rengar taking up the rear. "What is it? You found the-" "Shhh," Val hissed, "Let me focus, this is hard." he pointed things out as they moved, a small boot imprint in the dirt that whoever left it tried to sweep away, but swept it away with their foot, and almost made it natural, but the shape of the imprint was still strange enough. A few broken twigs here and there that could have been mistaken for an animal, but the mostly cleaned ground helped give it away, and, the penultimate thing to give away that they were on the right track, so focused on the tracks, Val, seeing a semi obvious scrape on the tree ahead, ran forwards, snapping a vine carefully stretched between two trees, from Tobi's perspective, Val started running, a small whistle, then a sharpened stake was buried in Val's shoulder as he gave a cry of shock and pain, stepping backwards while clutching his shoulder. Tobi ran forward, checking on Val, who was looking at himself, his face going pale at the sight of blood, but luckily he wasn't seriously injured. Rengar rushed forward, looking around for where the attack came from, and gave a disgusted snort, noting a small contraption where a stake was pushed down a tube, firing it at the poor soul who tripped the trap. Val spoke up, stuttering a bit, "R-Rengar? Could you please pull out the s-shaft? I know a bit of medicine, though I've never actually put it into practice before, and I think I might faint if I tried to pull it out." the ursari sighed, before walking over and jerking the stake out of his shoulder, causing a small spurt of blood. Val tried to get his pack from around his shoulder with one arm, trying to keep the bleeding shoulder still, but couldn't quite maneuver it, so Tobi grabbed it, "What do you need?" Val giving instructions, he grabbed a small spool of cloth, wrapping the shoulder up tightly, stopping the bleeding. Luckily it was not deep at all, just painful, and surprising, a clear warning. Val moved his arm experimentally, wincing a bit, groaning a little. "I-I'm fine, just a bit alarmed... Anyways, that means we're for sure on the right track, just... It's getting harder to see, and I'm worried about more traps. We could, I mean, I think we should camp here for the night, and resume at dawn tomorrow." Rengar growled, standing intimidatingly over the wulf, "You do realize that night is the best time for an ambush, correct? If we wait for dawn, who knows, we might get there when the bandits are most active, and have to struggle our way in. Besides, the thieves' guild is supposed to be inside the city! What are we even doing out here?" Tobi, seeing the wulf hesitate, piped up, "Isn't it obvious? As our leader clearly knows, the bandits can't be too far off the path, or they'd have struggled to carry the caravans goods that far, so they've probably found a cave or something. We start at dawn tomorrow, we can find their residence quickly, and maybe even deal with them before they've fully awoken. Also, they may not be the guild itself, but surely they know how to get to the guild, and of course, one look at your face, Rengar, and they'll be telling us everything we need to get there and deal with this quest, and get our full pardons." Val looked surprised for a moment, before quickly agreeing, and, with a grunt, Rengar agreed, actually helping start a fire, which Tobi lit with his magic. They all appreciated the warmth, getting out bedrolls they had acquired back at the castle, rolling them out by the fire, and going to sleep. Unfortunately, they had forgotten about two simple things... If they were close to the bandit encampment as they suspected, wouldn't there be sentries posted? And... Didn't they have a beacon that could lead them right to them, with the fire? It would be a rude wakeup for the company.