After a few brief rounds of introductions, they all went inside Merella's cabin. The situation was as Valygar said. The place was in complete disarray: the simple, stout table and chair were overturned, lamp oil was spilled upon the ground, and several clay jars of herbs had tipped over onto the counter, filling the room with their sharp, grassy scent.

And yet these were the only signs of struggle. There was no trace of Merella herself. Her leather pack, filled with all the necessities for the road and never opened, was even sitting by the door next to her well-oiled boots.

Lidia closed her eyes for a moment and focused on the room. A slight shiver ran through her left arm, but it soon passed, leaving her only with a renewed watchfulness.

"There are no signs that someone left a trap here, if that's what you're wondering," Yoshimo said.

"Good to hear," Lidia said, "though I wonder…" She didn't finish the thought aloud, but she was concerned about traps of a different kind. "Could some of you guard the entrance here?" she said. "Those shadows might have their eye on this place."

Anomen, Minsc, and Yoshimo headed back out the door, and as they did so, she said to Aerie, "Can you sense anything here?"

The elf turned her hands in a complicated motion and pronounced in her high voice: "Scio, didici, pecto."

Nothing happened.

"I…I think we're all right," Aerie said, somewhat nervously, as Valygar gave her a brief look of irritation.

"All right," Lidia said. "So what else do we know?"

Wordlessly, Valygar set a large, leather-bound book on the table, then flipped it open to a page.

Lidia started reading. This journal had been Merella's, and she'd written, in a fine, thin hand:

"'Tarsakh 6
Several townspeople have been slain by some unknown predator. The strangest thing is that the bodies are disappearing in the morning. This leaves me baffled, for most signs point to a pack of wolves that have been in the area for a long time. Wolves don't steal bodies.'"

Lidia thought back to the wolf that had dragged her from the cabin during the fight against the Sythillisians. No doubt this had been what the creature had in mind, and after the peril had passed, that part of her tale had struck her as strange. She continued reading:

"'Tarsakh 7
Or perhaps I should say wolf-like creatures. At night while I've been patrolling I've often caught shadowy glimpses of these 'wolves' running alongside me. I've tried to attract their attention but they ignore me. I find this most strange, as if the pack is being controlled by someone else. Years ago I spoke with the pack leaders and they were cordial. Now they either flee from me, or, and I fear to say this, they stalk me.'"

From there, the handwriting changed: sloppier, wilder, darker, as though the author was more agitated.

"'Tarsakh 8
It is near noon and still the wood outside my cabin seems full of shadows. I've been hard pressed to hear birds and most of the larger animals have long fled. I plan to find the wolf's den this afternoon. All signs point to them as being the culprits, but what wolves act like these? They are wolves with the cunning of men.
"'And there is something else, a whispering in my mind. It is faint now, in the waking hours, but while I sleep I dream only of this voice and the face behind it. Whether it is connected to the voices, I do not know. I suspect by the time that the sun sets tonight I'll have answers to my questions.'"

"What do you think?" Valygar said, after she'd finished reading the last entry.

"It's a decent start," Lidia said. "I sensed some kind of evil emanation here, and I'd like to try to find its source."

"That, I can't help you with," Valygar said, shrugging his broad shoulders. "But if you pick up on something, let me know."

The only other room in the house was the bedroom, and by process of elimination, she thought, it was probably coming from here. It didn't take her long to understand why.

Upon the bed was the mangled figure of a man, his innards brought into the light of day through torn flesh, and the expression of his face told of horror.

Lidia's nose wrinkled at the stench of decay. This man had been dead for at least a couple of days, the warming weather speeding his decomposition.

She stood at the foot of the bed, bowed her head, and briefly murmured a prayer for the man's soul. When she opened her eyes, she noticed several papers scattered upon the floor at her feet. They ought to have been mangled, but they were untouched: no tears, no footmarks, no creases, as though they had only gently floated down during this man's final struggle.

She started to gather the papers up. Most of them were blank, and seemed to have fallen from a nearby table. Kneeling down, she checked under the bed, warming the light gem in her hand and shining it forth.

Four sheets had floated under the bed, and she retrieved them with some effort. But when she brought them out again to the light of day, she noticed that one of them had some kind of drawing on it. She picked the paper up and briefly examined it.

From the way the lines lay, this was a crude map of the surrounding area, with a small box in the corner indicating the cabin in which she now stood.

She heard a noise, and nearly bolted upward, but it was only Valygar, who had stepped in and was now looking around the room. "Wonder who that poor bastard was," he said.

Lidia got to her feet, holding the papers in her hand. Against the white of the blank sheets, it was clear that the map had drawings on both sides of the sheet, and so she flipped it over.

She glanced at it, then said, "He was probably meant to receive this."

The note read:

"Wallag,
We travel this day to search out the wolf lair. My own scouting of the region has confirmed Merella's suspicions that there is a large pack of wolves acting in this area. On the map included I have indicated where I believe the wolf den to be located. Follow us if you can, but be cautious. We can ill-afford another mysterious disappearance.
Until we meet again,
Mazzy."

"This is the leader of the troupe that Minister Lloyd hired," she said.

"I'd heard about them," Valygar said. "They were a capable group, or so I heard." He studied the map further. "This may prove helpful — if you think we can succeed where they failed."

"We can," she said. "All we have to do is figure out how."

Lidia finally took out her own journal, one of the few things she'd brought along today, and started taking notes of all the relevant details they'd discovered. She worked as quickly as she could. Though the evil emanation had been near where the dead man lay in the bedroom, she hadn't found its source, and knowing that it was out there somewhere made her feel uneasy.

Still, spending a little more time here was far better than taking Merella's massive journal along — or having to return back here. After about an hour or so, she was finished, having discovered and noted everything here that she needed to.

She went back out to the others, and, with perhaps some relief, they started preparing to leave.

But as they were ready to start walking, Aerie pointed towards the north, saying, "What…what is that?"

Around a high branch of a nearby ash tree was wound a long, three-stranded braid. Closer inspection revealed the composition of three strands: tattered, faded red poplin, cut as though with a knife; a thin, roughly-hewn leather lace; a section of black and silver hair.

But Lidia had already opened her journal again to the next blank page, then approached the small braid. "Nobody touch that," she said, glancing between the branch and the page as she started making a rough sketch. Intently focused on her work, she didn't even notice that Boo had left his usual spot on Minsc's shoulder.

The hamster's small, tiny-clawed feet crunched through last autumn's leaves on the forest floor, and with ease the small creature scaled this tree trunk, his feet and hands skillfully negotiating the grey fissures in the bark. Boo climbed out towards the branch where the braid was strung, standing just above it. With his teeth, he chewed on the braid until it fell to the ground, landing among the budding undergrowth with barely a whisper.

"Well," Valygar said. "I haven't seen anything like this braid here before. Your rat had best be kept under control," he said to Minsc.

"Boo is no rat! But because you are a fellow brother of the woods, he will let the slight pass," Minsc said. He knelt to the ground and looked up, as though he were patiently waiting for something.

Boo did an about-face and retraced his steps along the branch, bole, and ground, returning to his caretaker's massive hand.

"Besides," Minsc continued, as Boo returned to his shoulder, "it is Boo who tells Minsc what to do, not the other way around! This arrangement suits us, and Boo would be positively miffed if I were to renege on it now. See how he fluffs up at the very suggestion!"

"Ah…certainly," Valygar said, though the way he said it was anything but. He glanced down towards the braid again. "Still, this thing came out of nowhere and we disturbed it. It may be nothing, but there's too much darkness outside to discount it."

Lidia studied her drawing and notes, tucked Mazzy's letter and map inside the next page, and then closed her journal shut. "Then the sooner we figure out our next move, the better," she said. She glanced towards the cabin one last time. "But let's not do that here."