A growing cemetery

Jp with Lucian, Winteroak and Bandorchu

Carver laughed at Alexis question. "Oh the bastard let me go alright. Got my piece of land a month or so ago." She started bitterly. "Recall me to service a few weeks ago." She shrugged and listened to Tarmen's question.
"The young lording?" She asked remembering this lot had been close. For a heartbeat she almost asked about Voah. Now that was bounty worth collecting. But she thought better of it. Afterall she had sold out two others of their companions to that bastard Alcuin. Or whatever he was calling himself now. He was holed up in the Keep with the high ups had no idea if he had killed the redhead girl and the assassin. She shrugged again not missing a heartbeat.
"Poisoned at his own wedding. Some native assassin that tore through the city a few months ago." She replied.

“‘Tore‘? You mean there was even more? Was that assassin responsible for the Friar’s death as well?“

Alexis inquired.

The Garrahn was genuinely speechless for a moment. Nicolaus. And Melandra, too? How on earth had all this crap gone down while they had been gone? She felt like years of tragedy had passed when it only had been months they had been away from Ostiarium. It was nearly inconceivable.

Apothecary? Cagliostro was killed as well, just another fallen member of their shrinking group.
Tarmen felt like ordering something to help, by Kru’ll he would even consider a drop of Felfar at this point.
Hearing of the fencer, he remembered her from their “diplomacy” trip to Fang. He could only be sad that her skills were lost, though she would have been a potent ally.

“They catch him? Death of a noble, that does demand a high price, no?”

Carver shook her head. "He got away. We lost him in the Plains." She explained. "Heard he killed someone in Aquilo to but by then I was retired..." She sighed. The land, the gold and she would have no opportunity to spend it with this blood war in horizon.
"What about you two? What has the Duke have you up too?"

Damn it all. The mention of Aquilo made Tarmen immediately think of Markus and he gave a hollow prayer that the man hadn’t been a target. He had a gut feeling though that it was a wasted effort.
Any semblance of contentment was drained from Tarmen, leaving his speech cold and distant.

“Had us on recon near Fang. Heard rumors of a force marchin’ and wanted to know the validity of it.”

He kept it vague enough, not knowing who here he should trust with knowledge of the hammer.

Carver shrugged. The city had an alliance with the mountain clans but who knew what schemes the Duke was plotting.

It took Alexis some effort to digest yet another influx of dire news. Leaving the explanations to Tarmen, who was definitely doing a better job with keeping things under wraps than she would be, she tried to focus back on the task at hand. It was a bitter, to have to push away all the grief and the anxiety, just to be able to keep functioning. Knowing it would only ever get worse. That there was just no end to death and desperation.

She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of all those that she had lost along the way.

“Biodh eòlas agaibh air sìth.” She spoke under her breath. May you know peace. It was all she could ask for them. For the living, peace was far out of reach.

She looked up again.

“… How are things at the Keep? With all this chac going on?”