James
*Richard walked through the forest, slashing branches out of the way with his knife. The ranger walked unnaturally quiet, using his Illusion magic to muffle the sound out of habit more than anything. He turned the corner, and there before them stood an overgrown wooden palisade, several timbers falling down, others would have holes. The gate hung broken from it's hinges.*

*In front of the gate several rows of wooden markers were layed out, marking several dozen mounds of earth. As they walked into the city, several more graves would be laid out. Burned down buildings, still black from the fire. Arrows and broken weapons. All overgrown. The signs of a slaughter where everywhere. Richard stood in silence.*
Chad
"I did not doubt your word on this, my friend. I shall have one of my rangers mark this location for further study. They do not become lost in forests such as these." *Astalios remarked quietly as he observed the marks of a clear massacre. He summoned an arrowhead out of the earth, inspecting the rusted over point as it raced to his hand like a hawk recalled from flight.*

*It was clearly castle-make. Astalios could feel the inner creases in the steel, the quality that could only be found when a good armorer was contracted. This evidence supported the word of the ranger in the forest. It was seen with his own eyes, and sensed within that there was much old and rusted metal in the scene before him. Chain mail. No sigils of metal... Perhaps...*

"I wonder if any of the fallen dropped a signet ring?" *He spoke aloud, searching through the ruins with his senses. There was not much that a good operation would include in the way of identification, but a lord's signet was his personal property, and was meant to be on him at all times.*
Jesse
Taking in the sight before them, Roesia let out a gentle gasp. She had never seen such destruction before, and didn't actually know this place was here. She lived in the Greenheart Woods, and did when this attack happened and never noticed it? Would she have stepped in if she did? Many questions popped into the half-elf's mind as she took in the scene, but her heart dropped as her eyes fell upon the dozens of graves that Richard himself must have dug. She couldn't imagine his pain, and understood a bit more why he was so harsh toward who he had assumed did this to him, his family and his community. Roesia's eyes were filled with sadness and grief for the lives lost, and without another moment she gave a silent prayer to the Goddess of Life Viviana, and hoped each of the individual lives lost here were safe and sound in the afterlife.

Hearing Astalios speak, Roesia peered over at the arrow in his hands. She didn't understand the magic he used, nor did she really want to even try given it seemed so complex, but when he mentioned a ring she nearly jumped off her horse ready to look for one. However, she stayed planted on Angus, unsure if it was even her place to go digging through remains. "Why would they do this, whoever it was? This village seemed- I don't know, this village doesn't strike me as a place of wealth. It just seems like a strange target for bandits. There had to have been more here they were interested in." Roesia's mind flickered back to her mention of slavery, but even then, burning a whole village down to only take a fraction of its people to sell? It seemed off. *Really* Off.
Chad
"It's true. I sense no valuable ore deposits, no wealth of gold. But that is not likely to be left behind when a village is ransacked. Steel is left, iron horseshoes... There are many leftovers from the people, but I cannot sense them there. No suits of armor nor anything but old rusted gates..." *He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out with his other senses - smell, the sight of his eyes. It smelled like black charcoal even now, ready to be used in steel. Fires had raged hot.*

*The arrows were likely from the attackers. But there was no stamp of identification he could glean from them. None of their pieces of armor had been distinctive. No knights left their coats of arms here. But it had to be found. Iron gall ink had long been dispersed, documents left decayed and gone.*

*Perhaps he looked upon them a bit casually, but there was a hardness to Astalios's eyes revealed when he viewed the piles of long-dead corpses. He had seen mounds like that before, hated their appearance. Every soldier he could identify was given an honored burial. And those that were lost were in the end given steel statues, commemorating their sacrifice for the ages to come.*

"Tell me, Richard. What is best representative of your village? What image can you describe to me of them?"
James
*Richard walked off, surprisingly his footsteps were actually audible. His mind was filled with painful thoughts of the attack. Of his parents, of his friends, the terrible. He sat down by one of the houses in particular. A two story building that looked well made. The door had been broken in, but the fire had not damaged it much. He didn't step inside though. The memories would be to painful. He was sure. He sat in silence.*
Jesse
"I think he may need a moment." Roesia answered for Richard as she looked over to the prince. After all, this was the remains of his home and she was sure his mourning was far from over. Finally, Roesia dismounted and left Angus at the edge of the destruction. Waking carefully toward the remains of the village, her eyes saddened more and more the closer she got. Her senses were heightened, more so than anyone else in the vicinity given her lycanthropy. She could smell the remains beneath the earth, even if they were nearly completely gone down to the bone. The scent of long burned wood and fresh overgrowth combined to give a sense of life anew, but the destruction from the past remained.

Walking down what must have been a small dirt road years ago, Roesia stopped in front of the remains of a burned down house. The doorway was still intact by some miracle, and as she approached it she peered within only to have her heart sink at what was left. What little furniture those who lived here had was burned to ash, and the remains of a small family home was now nothing more than fuel for plants to feed and grow from. While in a dark way, plants growing over such a travesty was beautiful, but it didn't take away from the fact that what happened here was terrible.

Roesia pulled herself away and walked back down the small road to where the prince was, her eyes turning back to simply look at the village. It was terrible, and now all Roesia wanted was to help Richard and the prince bring justice to whomever had done this.
Chad
"Just so." *He murmured, sliding down off of Tempest easily as he approached further to inspect the village ruins. Arrows hadn't been removed. No one had disturbed the village's peace since its destruction, and the crunching footsteps of steel on charcoal from his sabatons against the ash were perhaps the only sound besides that of the forest that stuck out. It was clear that the boots of knights hadn't been here in quite some time, and the village wouldn't like them to return, anyway.*

*Coins slowly tarnishing away, a few coppers left buried in the dirt. An anvil to the left. Not everything had been taken, and bolts that held houses together had simply rusted and dropped to the ground after their wooden backings had rotted. The people left below the ground sometimes had scraps with them - a fishhook or two, a silver piece hidden in the robes, now tarnished. Each grave was not rich, and barely any wore metal armor in their mounds of earth. Perhaps one or two wore simple hauberks - town watchmen?

At any rate, the gears of a mill were absent, and there were no rivers flowing through the town. It was devoid of anything people would have needed so much as to kill for it, especially now that the village had been left abandoned and fallow, weeds overgrowing the houses and ivy reclaiming the landscape. He shook his head to Roesia, placed a steady arm on her shoulder, and left for the ranger, approaching cautiously and quietly to wait beside him. The iron of a long-abandoned fence post quietly disintegrated behind him. Bolts and coins amalgamated themselves into long tendrils of metal that burrowed underground, waited in silence for Richard's memory of the place to be told.*

*Astalios knelt behind him.*
James
*Richard would gather his thoughts for a bit. Why the prince cared so much about this crime he didn't know. It was a comforting thought, that his parents wouldn't be forgotten. But at the same time, there was more corruption inherent in any government system. He spoke of law and was assured, but the lawyers and the other officials were almost certainly as corrupt. Especially several of the nobles he had already come across had been similarly corrupt. He had no desire to be mired in a court battle, where all forms of tricks could deny his parents the justice they deserved.*

"See what I've gone through? This is the worst, but it isn't everything. I've seen corrupt nobles burn a home because they couldn't pay extravagant taxes, I've seen bandits burn a farm because the farmers didn't let them hide in their barn. I've seen solders take a family's entire supply of food in the middle of the winter. If you really want to clean up the banditry, clean up your government first. Many of your officials show no desire for justice and will provide no aid unless directly aiding them. I can't help with prosecuting other crimes, but keep a closer eye on your subordinates. They are not all saints."
Chad
"This *Is* The effort to clean up my government." *He responded simply.* "I care a great deal about having my subordinates be honest men. Your stories are quite concerning, and what has occurred here is doubly so. Here, even the normal town and city guards are well loved by Alynthi's people. This has been our promise to them for years. Your experiences are not the norm, and the reason they are not widespread is what we are doing now. The care to tie up loose ends, make sure people know we *Will* Protect our subjects from harm."

"I cannot prevent terrible people from being born into families with power, but I *Can* Take that power away if they abuse it. This is *Why* Alynthi has enjoyed peace and prosperity these past years - my father, my mother, and I have tried to keep our places clean of corruption. Largely, we have succeeded, but no man has eyes in every place at once. Nor should I constantly surveil my subjects and invade their privacy with scrying upon all of them at all times."

"I do not intend to *Say* They are all saints. But I can at least bring them closer to that standard with your help..." *The iron tendrils rose from the ground, pooled in his outstretched hand as he pulled the metal towards him.*

"What was the name of this town?"
James
*He sat in silence, as more painful memories, mostly happy ones involving his old family, and his next words were barely more than a whisper.* "Heartford" *He said. He hadn't said that name in years, and full of stress, he stood up.*

*The village was burned, but there was one last thing the prince would want to see. The only thing that gave him comfort during the attack. He stood and gestured to the Prince for him to follow. A short distance away where two unmarked graves lay, different from the rest. The two individuals buried within were unwise members of the assault, who had been killed by Richard as they had tried to carry him off as well. He rummaged in a bush for a while nearby, and pulled out a faded shield bearing the king's emblem.*
Chad
*There was mail, well made, and weapons, too. A sword, well made. But nothing to identify, no signet and no seal beyond livery that had long since decayed under the earth, leaving nothing behind but maggots that then became flies and then the soil that fed the overgrown weeds in the village left behind...

The metal pooling in his hand clenched and compressed, then drew itself out into a longsword, long and sharp, useful and sturdy. It was made of steel now freed from rust, iron from the town reconstituted into the weapon he now held. Upon its blade appeared the letters H-E-A-R-T-F-O-R-D, as if pressed into the metal, and he let it fly from his grip. The sword hovered in front of Richard for a moment before turning itself around, the hilt towards him, and placing itself steadily in his hand as the shield bearing the king's emblem floated from his arms, the steel rim letting Astalios maneuver it. He clenched his fist.

The rim imploded, the king's emblem crushed.*

"The sword I have given you is yours to carry should you use it for the purposes of justice and the law. It signified that my trust is in you now to do what is right." *He inhaled and exhaled.* "Whoever is using the royal coat of arms will be killed swiftly. It's better than they deserve, but it's what the world deserves. To be rid of such creatures of deception."