Ambush on the Bramble Trail

The party surprised a lone human scout who'd been skirting the edge of a marshy bramble line. He'd sent eight stirges into the party as a distraction; after the flutter and the squelch, the bodies and the scout lay low. The scout's gear is modest and well-used — a shortbow with a patched leather breastpiece, a damp map fragment showing a nearby hunting blind, and a small coin pouch. The stirges themselves offer only odd bits useful to alchemists, tanners, or a crafty thief: hooked proboscises, dried blood in tiny vials, and chitin flakes with a faint oily sheen. Nothing here screams 'treasure hoard', but there's useful gear, a little coin, and components a low-level party could sell or use for simple crafting and potion experiments.