Knight and Boredom

Gavin wasn’t happy with the situation at all, they had been dispatched to hunt high-profile bandits and everyone could see that the carriage was knocked over and the rear doors were torn right off during the attempt to take control of the vehicle. Sir Galthias and his fellow squires all assumed, and were pointlessly confident, that the carriage had been knocked over then had its doors torn off, said doors were a good 40 feet down the roadway. Gavin wasn’t as convinced as them all, something about how the carriage was positioned, and how the door’s hinges indicated a sort of damage that couldn’t be fully explained with magical augmentation, told him that it was best not to jump to conclusions.

As expected, the carriage was completely cleaned out, but this wasn’t a treasure carriage, so its security features weren’t as encompassing as one would expect for a valuable shipment. But the thing about this carriage is that its entire cargo manifest, which Gavin had found thanks to actual detective work on his part, only showed foodstuffs, mostly perishables like meats, which the carriage had been enchanted to better preserve.

“Um, Sir Galthias,” said Gavin, knowing fully well he would be most have whatever he said dismissed out of hand, so he decided to keep to a brief summary, “I found the cargo manifest for the carriage.”

“Ah yes, nice to see you’re good for more than keeping things in tip-top shape,” said Sir Galthias as he strode over with an arrogant gait, “anything of note we should be made aware of?”

“It seems to just be dietary provisions,” said Gavin as he handed the manifest book to the pompous knight.

Sir Galithias took the book from Gavin while muttering something about peasants not being taught proper reading and writing, even though Sir Galthias was mostly to blame for that one, and even then Gavin has quickly picked up on proper grammar with a quick look through a book on beginning grammar on one of the few days Sir Galthias let him actually have more than 2 minutes to himself.

After looking over the entire manifest, Sir Galthias did concede it was just food being carried but said food seemed to be the kind on the pricier side of things, the kinds of meats most butchers only heard rumors of and never actually got to work with on their own accord. Some of the items on the manifest were actually things Sir Galthias had dined on just a week prior, he was more concerned about what something like this would do to his banquets and dinner parties than what it could mean for the populace as a whole.

If the bandits were raiding food carriages that usually meant their supply chains were compromised to the point they were ****, or they miscalculated on their provisions and were **** into raiding food shipments that passed nearby. Nobody knew much about the second in command of the bandits, or even if there was an official second in command, but they did know there was more organization to these bandits than most other bands of criminals. Chances were some of their members were military defectors, given how some reports made it sound like quite a few of the bandits looked like they had some sort of military training.

They still didn’t have any clues to where the hideout was, Sir Galthias wasn’t too concerned. In his opinion, all they had to do was watch the road and see when the next set of bandits made their move. Gavin had to admit, that plan wasn’t terrible, but he would still rather see if he could find a few clues on his own. While Sir Galthias and his favored squires lounged by the remains of the attack, clearly not taking the situation as serious as they should have, Gavin continued to searching about to see what he could find.

After a few minutes of looking about, Gavin found more evidence about the attack, the kind that contradicted the belief of Sir Galthias and his fellow squires, so he said nothing about his findings. From what he could tell, the evidence said the 5 guards for the carriage and only one assailant had a scuffle, the singular assailant appeared to be a large beast of some kind, the battle site was so overturned Gavin couldn’t make out exactly what the creature was, but the thing must have been massive and pretty powerful. The only question Gavin had was why the carriage had stopped in the first place, this wasn’t a designated resting point. Someone, or something, and caused them to stop where they did. The doors were literally thrown in a feat of strength to where they were seen now, which meant what party was responsible was capable of tremendous feats of strength, even the so-called wraith wasn’t that strong.

Gavin’s search also yielded faint footprints, like the people involved were being careful how they walked and weren’t in too much of a hurry. Instead of saying he found a clue and being promptly ignored, Gavin made his way following the faint tracks, taking great care to not do anything to compromise them. When he was a good fifty or so feet away from Sir Galthias and the others they finally noticed and inquired, in a manner that implied they really didn’t care but were doing so out of boredom or some inkling of an obligation they vaguely recalled, Gavin seemed to be the only one to take the code and obligations with the level of seriousness that was expected.

Knowing they would dismiss his discoveries, Gavin just followed the footprints for quite some time before coming to a cavern. Gavin spotted a pair of guards just around the corner, since he wasn’t in any armor beyond his everyday clothes, Gavin made his way back to the rest of the group. His best bet would be to just direct them without being overly obvious. Given how lazy all seemed to be, that usually wasn’t too hard