Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2022 0:22:28 GMT -5
As he turned from the kitchen and moved toward Whitby and Woodwick, who were both silhouetted in the light that filtered in from the front of the building, Ber watched as the former lunged forward and headbutted the latter. The sound made him wince, but it was the murderer who fell backward, stumbling over the sack on the floor while the younger soldier approached. He kept his gaze fixed on Whitby while Woodwick issued his warning, recognizing the desperation written all over the other man’s frame: Whitby was not going to make this easy for them.
That was fine. Ber wouldn’t say no to a fight, especially one that he was confident they could win. Bringing his hands up in front of him, Ber braced himself for an attack, but the murderer ran for the other side of Woodwick. Even as the Lieutenant moved to the side to stop him, the soldier lunged around the back of the officer, but he needn’t have bothered. Whitby fell unceremoniously to the ground as his ankle gave way, leaving Ber to straighten up and stare down at him. All in all, this felt like a rather anticlimactic end to the entire affair, but he accepted it with a shrug. It could have gone a lot worse. At the sound of the lieutenant’s voice, he glanced over at Woodwick and nodded, offering a “Yes, sir,” before turning away to do just that.
Squinting in the low light, Ber surveyed the room to the sound of Whitby screaming at the officer. Bending over, he lifted a corner of the tattered blanket to find nothing under it, but as he lifted the satchel from the ground, the sound of a fist breaking someone’s nose had him pausing to look back over at the pair of men, eyebrows raised slightly. Given the whimpering that followed and Woodwick’s distinctly not-nasally observation, he could piece together what had happened, though the knowledge didn’t make it any less surprising. Ber went back to digging through the sack. It didn’t take long before his hand hit the tin. He lifted it out from among the clothing to show Woodwick. “Found the tin.” Then he dropped the sack, pocketed the container, and moved on.
As would be expected of an abandoned home that had only recently acquired its newest occupant, the kitchen was empty but for a thick layer of dust and a few pieces of hard tack in a paper wrapper sitting on the far end of the table. Ber walked back out to the main room, noting the empty shelves, before making his way back over to the hearth. An initial, cursory inspection of it had revealed nothing of interest, but the sight of the fallen stone in the middle of the room had him wondering if Whitby had made any other modifications to the feature. Kneeling down, he felt around for any other rocks that might have been loosened and was reconsidering the merit of this particular idea when one gave way. “Oh.” Reaching into the small space carved out behind it, Ber discovered some folded up papers that had been protected from the damp. “There are some pages of something here. Looks like something’s written on it?” He replaced the stone and stepped around Whitby and Woodwick in the direction of the window, and when he unfolded the parchment in the narrow beam of light, he saw random letters written across the page. The soldier looked over at the lieutenant. “It looks like the ones I found in the inn, sir.”