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The trek down to the mercenary camp was a fairly standard affair; the white oversmocks helped concealed their form above the snowline, and their dark green clothing and headscarves enabled them to hide amongst the coniferous trees. The Vanir camp was the first competent outpost the Strike Team had encountered; the guard towers were cleared of obstructions for 50 yards and had overlapping lines of fire, there were several strong points built in the area to provide a safe place to fall back to, and the patrols extended a short way into the forest and always had two people. It was a very well put together system. About the only things going for Red were the facts that the guards had predictable paths through the forests and a few of the guard towers containing inattentive guards. After the Strike Team split apart to cover more ground, Red took sketches of the campsite from several vantage points, adding notes about general Vanir construction, details about the defences, and other observations that Red believed would be of use to the resistance.
After the sketches were complete, Red played the long wait, slowly crawling to the best point to infiltrate into the inner camp. It took hours of patient waiting, but the tedium was eventually paid off as the nearby guards took their collective eyes off of Red's chosen infiltration spot. When that moment came, Red calmly walked into the inner compound and smoothly disappeared into the shadows of the camp. With the Sun low in the sky, the deep shadows provided enough cover for Red to sneak around the edges of the camp, taking mental notes of every interesting detail for later recording. The camp was unusually active for the time of evening, with mercenaries running about, hastily erecting barricades to connect the guard towers together, seemingly in an attempt to construct a wall to surround the entire compound. Others were rushing around with handcarts containing foul smelling remains, all converging to an already strongly burning bonfire, spewing forth thick, black smoke into the sky, giving the setting Sun a dull red tinge. Most of the corpses wore traditional Khitain garb, and covered the spectrum of age, with both men and women represented. It was probable that these corpses were the former citizens of the decimated village. There was ample evidence here to prove that the Northerners were committing large scale massacres. Red couldn't figure out why the Northmen would commit such an atrocity. Red figured that the Strike Team's main mission now was to figure out why the mercenaries were carrying out such widespread slaughter. It seemed that the Strike Team now needed to figure out why this massacre was happening. Red would investigate the campsite for a few more hours before meeting up with the Strike Team at their predawn rendezvous.