In the week following Rootswayne’s retreat beneath his root, Thom grows quieter—restless in the mornings, distant by evening. He can often be seen often sitting under one of the grand trees in the Oak Circle, thinking, often talking to himself. Not all answers lie in poetry and riddles; some require effort, asking questions, and putting to the wing.
To any that gather at an evening meal that week, Thom shares his plan. "I'm going to find us a beekeeper. We need honey, wax, and we should make mead. I'm going to fly about and see if I can spot anyone. I won't be gone too long."
Thom begins his search by taking to the skies in his vulture form. He glides along the ridgelines and valleys of the land surrounding the Oak Circle, wings catching the updrafts, eyes sharp for flowering gardens, quiet cottages, and the signs of someone living simply, closely, and perhaps reverently.
Thom makes these trips as day trips away from the Oak Circle. A vulture has a rather significant flight range and the furthest Thom would go from the Oak Circle would be at most 20 miles away.
Thom follows the folds of the River Cover Valley to the south of Cauldron Falls, flying down the valley to Coverham and beyond. He's looking for signs of abandoned holdings that may still house recluses or old herbwives with memory of bees. He circles over the lands around Jervaulx Abbey, still humble in 1015, on the outside chance that a lay brother or two may have drifted into the woods or found themselves down on their luck, subsisting nearby.
Thom follows the River Swale Valley, north of Aysgarth, down along its way out toward Richmond to the hamlets of Marske and Downholme, always a hunt for sign of beekeepers. And he lingers near Wensley and Leyburn, searching for sign of those who remember older ways with bees.
All throughout, he's got an eye out for clusters of skeps or the beefolk who may be carrying them to the fields for the flowering season.
Thom isn’t terribly discriminating in who he's looking for, but he is trying to look for a "type" or two. He’s hoping to find someone with memory in their hands and patience in their voice. An herbwife, perhaps, who still mixes beeswax with salves and hums to her garden as she works. A lay brother who once kept hives for candle wax and ritual, now down on his luck or choosing to serve the land in a humbler way. A widow, tending a small plot alone, with a skep hidden behind her cottage under the eaves. Or an older farmer who, though his fields grow wild, still remembers how to guide a swarm with smoke and kind words. Perhaps those displaced by the troubles and war.
From the air, Thom watches for signs—a line of skeps nestled against a sun-warmed wall, gardens in bloom, smoke rising gently from cottages or the ruins of cottages tucked into the land. When he finds a promising place, he lands quietly and lets his Second Sight guide him. He looks for household spirits: brownies, nisse, field fae. If he sees one, he offers a few kind words and a token gift—a petal, a bit of ribbon, a flake of wax. He speaks softly and asks if they know of anyone who tends the bees.
Before he heads out on his search in vulture form, Thom casts two spells:
The Scent of Nearby Vis (InVi 5) [Roll: 18/2 9. Success, Sun duration]
The Scent of the Hive Revealed (InAn 10) [Roll: 29, Success, Moon duration]
Second Sight [Roll 8:]