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The grizzled old cat before him nods and starts off to the village. "You and me both, Kerobian... you and me both."

The enter the village from the east. It really isn't much of a village, little more than a collection of houses, no more than twenty or so, gathered around a handful of ramshackle shops. There is one true road, though it is not paved, that runs through the middle of the collection. Near the center of the village is a communal well and it is here, that the local farmers have all gathered to see their goods. Lyssan leads Kero there, after admonishing him to stay as quiet as he can.

"Seemings are concealment spells, and as such if you call too much attention to yourself, they'll snap like dry twigs." she warns him just before they walk into the village proper.

Lyssan makes a display of examining the goods of all the farmers there, but he lingers at the wagon of one plump farm wife and her two small boys.

"Hey now, Granddad... ye have the look of one long on the road. Come from afar ha' ye?" says the farmwife after watching Lyssan for a bit as she carefully examines and selects a few root vegetables and several plump apples.

Lyssan lifts her head and nods, "Aye... been tracking down me kin, I have... a pair of ne'er do well minstrels who missed thar father's funeral... I promised thar ma I'd drag em back by ta ear." She sighs dramatically. "Five year now I've been trackin em down. I'm beginnin to think they have walked off ta earth."

"Ack! Young uns.... they ne'er think to wha may be happenin a' home..." says the woman kindly. "Wha' makes ye think they mite ha' come this a way?" She looks over Lyssan's selection, takes two of the apples and puts them back, finding two better ones to replace the ones she removed.

Lyssan gives a dramatic sigh and shakes her head. "Bain followin their inten... intenerary... dang tha word I neva ge' it right... anyway... I ha bain followin the paths tha they had sat down wid their guild master. Took me years to fin' him and months of arguing to ge him to agree... Mayhaps ye saw 'em?"

"Fur'd ones liken ye? Aye, we had some come a'tru some years back... abou tha time..." She looks up and calls to a small skinny man working with something on the other side of the wagon. "Jacob come har, wil' ye..."

The man bobs his head and scurries around a leggy grey spotted mare and walks up to where Lyssan stood with Kero, wiping his hands on his pants. "Ye wan' me, Marda" he asks with a soft slow drawl, eying Lyssan with a touch of curiosity.

"Granddad here is a lookin fer his grandkids.... says tha they were tuners on tha road up from... where did ye come from, Granddad?"

Lyssan panics inwardsly. "Kero, probe a bit and find out what towns are around the area and the probable one that yer friends would have come from... and be quick... I can only stall for so long..."

Outwardly though she merely scratches her head and sighs. "I rightly don' remembar... it was a fairly biggin tho... I've been to so many of late.... It had this..." she pauses as if to remember exactly what she's trying to recall correctly.

"Anything big in that place... something famous or the like?" she sends back just as quick as he replies.

She shrugsthe two a wan grin. "It ha this statue of a fine lawrd it did... a nice un too, but I canna remember its name."

The woman grins at him. "Tha's ol' Laird Baoch, best pigeon roost in tha hill country.... Anyways... my man hewr he ha' a part in tha mess. I'll be lettin him a tell ye wha wen down."

Tha man looks at her funny like, then a light slowly dawns in his eyes. "Ahhh.... yer kin to tha singers, then.... turribul wha happen... jus turribul... wha with the pretty missy being kilt and all..."

Lysaan puts on the appropriate shocked expression and begs him to tell her what he's talking about. "Here's yer chance, Kero, scan him, her and any who edge near to hear him speak... mayhaps they wil know something... I suspect he's only going to tell us what we do know..."

The man begins to tell Lyssan of how a priest of the sunlord was coming to the village to perform a christening when he stumbled upon a young male kittyman, just like yerself, granddad.... half dead in the middle of the road. The priest, not knowing a great deal about healing picked the lad up and carried him to the village, where the local herb woman saw to his injuries. Everyone was worried as the lad had just performed in the tavern the night before and almost the entire town had been there to hear them sing, and they all went out with the priest to look for the lad's partner, only to find her dead from a horrendous beating and knifing. Apparently a large group of men had come upon them and thought to have sport with the two. The men's trail had been tracked for quite some distance, but they had lost it's trace on the main road out of town where it crossed a rather large stream. The girl's body had been buried in the forest, beneath a tree near the stream, because the priest said that the kitty people were great lovers of nature and that she'd be more at rest there than in the town's graveyard. The lad had left with the priest, who decided to take him to his temple for he had several serious injuries which were not healing properly and he wished to see him wel, as he had already lost something more dear to him than life itself... not only the love of his sister... but his trust in his fellow man.

The man seems quite knowledgeable on the subject and as Kero probes a bit further he sees why. Jacob was one of the men who helped track the dead neko's killers and he also helped dig the grave for her at the priest's command. As a new father, at the time, he felt a need to help the younglings in anyway he could, knowing that somewhere there was a parent who would soon be grieving.

But he has no knowledge of her killers outside of the fact that there was at least four, maybe more involved. He assumes they were men, it only seems to him a crime a man would do, but in reality he doesn't even know for sure if they were all men or not.

AS for the people around, several have theories, some based more in fact than fiction, but none know for certain. All feel sorry for the old neko and want to see him safely back on his journey home.

Lyssan thanks the farmer and his wife for the information, gathers up her tiny bag of supplies and pays for it with bits of copper and iron coinage. As she walks away, she tells Kero in send. "They may get a bit of a shock tonight when they open that egg jar of theirs to count the day's earnings... I've put a spell on those pebbles to turn them into something a bit more rewarding than the coin bits I gave them. They are a good couple and deserve a bit of something for going out of their way as they did. Before we head down to the stream, let's go to the tavern.... we might get a bit more information there. I'm sure some people have a notion about who they think might have done it.... iffin they weren't villagers, and I'm beginning to doubt they were, they had to have passed through town. And I'm sure that the tavern keeper may have seen them.... whether or not he's put two and two togewther remains to be seen."

Lyssan nods. "Hope yer hungry, kiddo... of course yer always hungry so that shouldn't be a problem. I'm going to order us quite a bit to put him into a good mood. Trouble is... I'm kind of full... in more ways than one and someone has got to eat all that food." She leads the way into the darkened tavern, which even though it has it's large shuttered windows open to tha air and light is far dimmer than the outside.

She walks up to a tabke, gets the ok nod from the barkeep to sit down and eases onto a stoll with the care an older man would use. "Is it alright fer me cat to join me?" She asks in a quiet voice.

The man nods and finishes his task before joining them. "No problem, sirra... iffin it was crowded it would have to stay out, but we're fairly empty at the moment. We've stew still hot from the lunching and I think Mabel has some hot bread just from the oven... not much else at this hour though, unless yer looking for a bit o' pie. Mabel makes a fine pie she does... and the apples were sweet this year."

Lyssan orders a large bowl of stew and a small dish fer to put some in fer the cat. "Pie sounds good... tho' afta' wha' I jes learned... I don' kno iffin I'll be wanting any... bad news it t'was... bad news..."

The barkeep lifts an eyebrow and goes back to the kitchen to give the cook his order. Then he returns and pours a flagon of ale for Lyssan, bringing it over with an encouraging smile. "Here... this will help it go down a bit easier, sirra... want to talk about it? Kind of goes with me job description. Everyone tells me their problems... canna say I ken help, but... sometimes just sharing is what ye need."

So Lyssan shares her news with the man, hoping Kero finds something from his memories.