Ambrose frowned, crossing his arms over his cuirass, the vambraces clinking. "Let me see...," he said squatting at a difficult to see spot in the trail. The last footprint was pointed in this direction, but he couldn't see the next mark in the trail. He ranged his eyes over the surrounding area, but there were too many loose rocks. The rise had gotten rid of most of the grass and they were approaching the point where there would be no more trees. Perhaps the trail was best seen from the air?
"Finola!" the mercenary called up to the pegasus knight, standing from his squat. "I've lost the trail down here! What can you see from up there?"
The somewhat old mercenary took a sidelong glance at his other companion. He looked like an Eliminean friar... back when the Church of St. Elimine was still... well, around. He was also a man that seemed to be very happy, yet both angry and determined... but perhaps he was reading too much into it.
He hoped that either a path or a trail was visible from Finola's vantage. In any case, the stragglers had run into the mountains.
These bandits were certainly a tough group to track precisely, ya know? Whether they were good at hiding their trail in this environment or if nature was simply against them, Ambrose called up to Finola that they had lost the trail where they were. Luckily, the pegasus rider was flying lower than usual so that she might be able to see something on the ground. She waved to Ambrose to indicate "Got it!", and went off to see if she could get a better angle.
Finola slowly wheeled overhead, trying to spot anything that didn't seem natural below. While she definitely wasn't going to find anything distinct like a footprint or such, something like an out of place line clear of vegetation or a place where the ground was clearly beaten down by lots of people going through. The pegasus rider didn't have much success, and was about to give up when she finally spotted what she was looking for.
"Over there!" Finola called, pointing her lance where she saw it. "There's a trail that shows up leading that way."
Sergius was never the mind for tracking, and he honestly had little real idea how he had gotten into this. It wasn't God's work, but there was little of that left in these parts. Still, it was work, and the pay was decent, and he couldn't complain. The heathens must be shown justice, and crimes like these must not go unpunished. And it now looked like the trail had been found, and the group would be nearing wherever those thugs had ended up.
"Good job!" he called up to the pegasus rider. Sergius clapped the grizzled mercenary on the back. "No time to be wasting! Lead the way!"
Ambrose nodded to the monk, grim determination settling over his features. He followed Finola's pointing spear, finding the trail fairly easily. Once again they set off. The path was newly worn into the side of the mountain. Feet had been passing over it for a while, but only just enough for it to be noticable. The sword-for-hire followed it further, and was not surprised to find that the trees were gone.
They'd been following the trail of the bandits for two days. They'd been gaining rapidly, and were now, he judged, less than an hour behind them.
Problem was, in the mountains between Sacae, Etruria, and Lycia, if you weren't on a well-traveled road, ten minutes could be all you needed to lose a pursuer. They were running out of time.
The pegasus rider felt quite a bit proud of her success. The band of hunters couldn't have been too far behind their quarry, Finola judged - chances are they had long reached wherever their hideout was in these mountains. Or not - perhaps the going had been slow for the criminals, and they had only just arrived at their destination. Whatever the case, the pegasus rider wasn't the best judge of such a situation.
"I hope we catch 'em soon, ya know?" she called to Ambrose and Sergius. They had been at this for days now, and it would be nice to get this over with and head back to civilization, or whatever passed for it in these parts. Finola decided to ride a bit higher to see how the path ahead looked.
The trees had started to thin some time ago, but it now looked as if there were no trees ahead at all. If the pegasus rider remembered correctly, that meant they were quite some distance above... what was it again? Rockline? Timberkill? Bah, focus, girl! She scanned the surrounding area and saw what looked to be some sort of structure - what it was made of or exact layout, Finola couldn't tell, but it was clearly man-made and in an obviously defensible spot.
Practically dive-bombing down lower, she said to her companions; "Hey! I think I might have, like, found the bandit's hideout! It's just over that ridge to the northeast!" At least, she thought it was northeast. Regardless, the pegasus rider was absolutely sunny, as it seemed their efforts were about to pay off.
"Hah, I knew you'd be handy!" he called up to Finola. Truly amazing to be able to have one of Ilia's own with them. Sergius remembered seeing how effective they could be when he was a child, and remembered seeing the dive bomb maneuver on the plains near his home. He half-ran to where she had hovered above, and looked to where he assumed the ridge was.
Squinting his eyes, Sergius tried to look around the area, but to no avail. Looked perfectly normal to him. But there was no time to waste looking. Unclasping his staff from the holster on his back, he took off running towards the ridge with a wild curiosity.
"Let's move, then!" he called back to the group, casting a quick, weak barrier spell over himself as he beat out a new trail in search. He kept running up the ridge, coming to a screeching halt when the path took a sharp dive downward into what could only be described as a gaping pit. Underneath, he could hear a river or stream, but it was too far down to tell. Quickly swirling his staff to form a small ball of light, he waved to the group.
"Come quickly, but not too quickly!" he called out. The ball of light descended into the chasm, illuminating the length of the way down. It would be a long fall.
((OOC: I am so sorry for the lack of being here. Call it a zone out I guess.))
Sergius was fleeter of foot than he had seemed. He scaled the path graceful as a goat on the face of a cliff. Ambrose was glad of the warning, too. The path had opened quite suddenly into a chasm that the man was kind enough to show the depth of. Like I needed a reason to hate heights, the mercenary grumbled in his private thoughts.
He looked around, trying to find something that might've been used by the bandits to go down or around.
"Hm... Is it possible that there's a path below this cliff? Or did they have some sort of bridge here?"
Hah! Obviously this mercenary was not an Ilian. Sergius scoffed at the idea of a path around, it would only waste time. With a wave of his hand, snuffed out the light he was using to see the length of the cliff. "No need for a bridge," he smiled. "Watch how easy this will be."
He waved his staff up to signal to their winged escort.
"Finola! How much can your pegasus carry? We need to get across!"
Finola searched around for anything that wasn't immediately obvious in terms of clearing the chasm. Before she managed to spot anything, however, Sergius called up to her and asked how much she could carry. She thought a moment, as she hadn't considered it. She the flew down and carefully landed nearby her companions and answered;
"Well, I think my pegasus could, like, handle carrying two people fine. Three might be tricky though. If the bandits managed to ambush us or something, we'd be sitting ducks, ya know?"
"In that case, take Sergius with you and let me know what you find," Ambrose answered, nodding and crossing his arms. He didn't like it, but it was the better solution. Sergius was not wearing any armor, so he would be lighter on the pegasus. "Once you do, I'll find a way down to where you are."