"Then it is decided." Albali glanced up at Lyla, curious but uneager to discern what was passing unsaid between the mixling and the Mayor. There would be time enough for that later - perhaps at the next feastday she could finally convince the redhead to buy a bauble, and drop the price to cost over a long, verbose, possibly drunken evening. She turned her eyes then back over the others in the group, sizing them up. "We take the logging road -this- far," she said, reaching across Xarithe as though she'd never heard a thing about personal space, or was completely familiar with his, even if they only met just now. "The stream approaches the road here; it will be easy for Master Xarithe and myself to slip into the woods here and circle around, to cut off messengers and flank those watching the road. Those of you less inclined to the winding pathways of the woods-" her eyes found Gorun "-or more likely to illuminate a shadow than disappear into it-" her glance flicked over to pick out the fairy and oracle "-might be better remaining on the road to spring the trap more deliberately. Unless we worry that there will be a more magical method of communicating with the main temple, in which case any attack on the group at the road might have disastrous results for the children..."  It was said more as a matter of fact than a worry.<br/><br/>"Ain will fly ahead of us when we are near, and let us know what we are facing." When the bird pecked at the shape of her ear beneath her cowl at the sound of his name, she repeated in Elven, at which the bird bristled.<br/><br/>"What if they have arrows?"<br/><br/>"Then fly above the range of the arrows, silly thing. You are a raven, not a squirrel. Fly as a bird does in the rain: eager to be from here to there, and when you spot them fly past and circle wide around.  It is an expected thing for a raven to look down on the land as he flies, but those who gawk at the sky during a storm are likely to drown."<br/><br/>Lifting her head again, the witch said more definitively in common, "Ain will scout ahead for us before we split, so we have some idea of what we will find between our teeth." Lifting the map, she folded it without looking, with years of familiarity, and slipped it back beneath her robes.  "Now, if there those in the town who would report to the cultists, then we should assume that posters along the roads and the arrival of a caravan including the likes of ...you-" she gestured broadly "-would be trigger enough... but that is no reason to avoid discretion. One other question: Who among you can see in the dark?"<br/><br/>[[Sansuki - I realized that I don't have a pouch of components; I've never actually given those a thought in the past. Do you want me to purchase that now, or just assume that the scraps she needs are in her satchel?]]