As vacations go, this one could be better.

[channe]

Witnesses inside the Dagger last night saw unpredicable Braddock, his twin brother Bryce, and the irrepressible Agnieszka Kaczmarek exchange heated words and stalk outside, their intentions, no doubt, to begin a fight; yelling followed, and a dangerous silence, and a few strange noises no-one could really pin down while hunched over their drinks. Rushing noises, strange ones, perhaps? A fight? The sound of a body hitting the dirt?

The girl neither checks in at the town barracks that night nor shows up for muster the next morning, although the young healer has, most likely, been seen in town.

Some distance from the tavern, on the tree-line over the woods, a student's rapier -- bloodied and used -- is lodged in a few mid-level branches, as if it were thrown there from some distance.