I don't think Wishbone would have left for any particular reason, though if he's playerless he'll drop out whenever you head back to base.
That's a reasonable supposition, and no, no loot.
Your central problem, really, is that there's a huge area to cover.
Scott
[OOC: Sorry for the delays in posting - am struggling a bit with our next move.
Wishbone being around still is definitely good.
So. There are definitelty more Amazons around, and if they were coming together to attack villages they can't have been travelling too far away from each other. One possibility is that they were scattering to scout out potential targets, then coming together when a suitable one had been found.
Gregorius will try to work out the sort of distances that would imply. (Int 1 + Profession Soldier 1?)
The next question is what they'll have done when one of their number didn't report in. Reporting to a homebase is one option, as is searching for them, or waiting for one of the later message drops. Are some of those still in the future? And how far away are they?
I assume if they'd been searching the area they'd be in, we'd probably have spotted them.
How far does Gregorius reckon they'd have got if they'd turned round and headed back roughly towards where he thinks their homeland is?]
As a general rule of thumb, lightly equipped people on horseback are not likely to move more than about 20 miles (30 km, 3 leagues) a day, give or take--I've seen faster numbers quoted, but remember, medieval roads are seldom great, and in any case these women may well be avoiding the roads. That's for a small group, BTW--if you start marshaling entire armies, "traffic" dramatically slows the rate of advance down a road of limited width.
That gives you an idea how much they could have moved over a given period of time. How far apart they operate will depend on how much centralized control their commanders want to exercise, and how often they want to receive reports--assuming, of course, that they don't have magic means for either of those.
The bottom line is that it's hard to say. Do keep in mind that though the Amazons are obviously aware of the parameters of Hermetic magic, and have to this point operated accordingly.
Scott
[OOC: Alright, I think we're into "let's do something rather than hanging around and agonising about it" territory. I'm admittedly still a bit fuzzy about timescales.]
Gregorius will ask Fray to do a sweep of the local area, and then also of a corridor between where we are now and the covenant. If that throws up any Amazons, we'll intercept them.
If it doesn't throw up any Amazons (which to be honest, is what he's more or less expecting at this point), he will release the local cavalry back to the village with his thanks, but a warning that he's not confident that all of the danger has passed yet, and they should remain vigilant. He'll also send a letter Hopefully the sweep of the corridor between here and the covenant should mean that they don't get attacked on their way back. If they still do...well, it more or less settles the "are they scrying on us in some way?" question?
Once the cavalry have left (which I believe should leave us with some shield grogs from the covenant, as well as Wishbone, Asena and Timaios), we'll start heading towards where we believe the Amazon homeland to be. Gregorius will ask Fray to scout our path, but also to occasionally Leap back to Nova Castra and do another sweep of the local area there, just to check the covenant isn't about to be attacked. He'll also pay attention to his Premonitions.
One other thing that Gregorius will do whilst Fray is doing his initial sweeps is to send men to some of the local villages to check that there aren't any new reports of the Amazons.
Fray agrees with the plan to scout both the corridor back to the covenant and the forward path - he will use the same caution as before by flying high up so that he is away from most threats; only getting lower when he sees something interesting or odd.
"Yes, agreed. If these attacks remain staggered and unpredictable then we may need to invest more in physical defenses."
That depends on which direction the men are heading. There are no reports of further progress in the direction of the covenant, and activity has definitely dropped off, but the Amazons aren't totally inactive, either.
As for Gregorius's premonitions...he doesn't sense immediately impending danger...but something tickles at the back of his neck.
Scott
Gregorius is essentially aiming his men in any direction he thinks there's a settlement they can get there and back to in the time it takes Fray to do his scouting. He's interested in any recent attacks that could help them materially narrow down the current location of some of the remaining active Amazons.
As to the Premonitions...they'll probably get stronger as the danger gets closer. Hopefully that won't be too late...
As the party moves closer and closer to what must be the source of the Amazons, the story remains largely the same: sacked villages, telling the same stories you've seen before. The Amazons have made themselves scarce at this point, though.
Scott
We've been told previously that the Amazons live on an island in the Caspian sea, so Gregorius' immediate goal at this point is to find the sea, and after that the island. Given that the sea is presumably fairly large, finding the island may be challenging - but he's hoping that by tracking back the trail of destruction he can at least work out roughly where the Amazons came to shore.
The Caspian Sea being a major geographical feature, it won't difficult to find it--this being the Middle Ages, there aren't accurate maps that give longitudes and latitudes, but people will absolutely be able to point to the right road to follow, with more detail the closer you get.
Scott
Are we continuing to find raided villages as we get close to the shores of the Sea? Also, is Theodoric still able to talk to the locals or are we starting to have language problems? How near are we to where we previously found Tasia (if it's possible to correlate the geography)?
Gregorius will comment to Fray:
"I have the nasty feeling getting to the sea will prove the easy part. Now we have to find the island in what looks to be a significant body of water. Are you able to scout from the air whilst we see if we can find any additional information from the local inhabitants?"
Yes, the pattern of raided villages remains largely the same. As for language, the difference isn't that great, at least not great enough to pose a barrier to communicating basic concepts.
Scott
"That feeling - well isn't that just because ..." slightly trailing off. "well we are wasting time here. Sure, I will look for an island." Fray looks from Gregorius to the grogs nearby, then to the distance. "I wish they would communicate. Then we could stop and do something productive."
Without more ado, Fray will start searching.
Given that, Gregorius will focus the search on the areas of the Sea closest to where there where villages being raided.
Do any of the (remaining) locals know / have any interesting legends about exactly where the raiders come from?
Gregorius sighs. "I wish I could promise you we're not...but I'm not sure we are, either. These Amazons have got to have come from somewhere - with luck we may find it."
He'll watch Fray depart, murmurring to himself "Fly safe, my friend."
[My apologies--the whole family has been sick, and a bit dramatic.]
First, I want to clear up a little confusion: which sea are you referring to? At the moment, you're close to the Black Sea (Euxine to the Greeks), but the stories about the Amazons suggest their island lies in a different sea, to the east.
As for the locals, some of them are firmly convinced that the Amazons use magic and materialize from thin air: their raids are that sudden, with no warning at all, and even if they're raiding a string of villages, the usually move faster than the survivors who can tell the tale. Thus, there's not much beyond what you've heard already, though their direction of progress can be seen from where they hit.
Scott
I was intending that we'd travelled to the Caspian Sea - you'd said it shouldn't be hard to find.
At the moment, you're still near the northern (well, northeastern) shore of the Black Sea, some distant still from the Caspian. You are still finding raided villages, but they're becoming less and less frequent--in the beginning, nearly every village had been hit, but now, it's just a handful.
Scott
Ah - I thought we'd finished the journey.
What are the timescales for the villages' destruction? Gregorius will try to find out where the attacks started.
Villages destroyed a day apart tend to be a couple of leagues from one another. That doesn't quite tell you how fast the Amazons were moving, since they could have moved in multiple parallel columns.
Scott