Eleasis 2, 1373 DR, the Evermoors

Areon and I went with Tyan and Beowulf to the Bright Blade Brandished to “regroup.” Deitricha arrived shortly and hadn’t managed to find her brother, nor had she gone looking in dark alleys, and Rosorc made an appearance as well, so we got everyone caught up with our discoveries that morning at the College. We agreed to grab some supplies and head back there to have the mage teleport us to the town the caravan was heading towards, planning to meet them from that direction rather than suddenly appearing by their wagons. Areon had made me enough bolts to last for quite some time, so all I needed to do was fill a few flasks with ale for the trip. I noticed Rosorc purchased what he called a “bag of snakes” but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

Moments after meeting with Toombs again, he had safely delivered us all to Yartar, a small town (more of a small keep or trading post, really!) on the Evermoor Way. I was in favor of letting the caravan come to us while we waited in whatever passed as a tavern, but my comrades were impatient to get moving, so we started walking back east along the road. Beowulf decided to fly ahead to see how far away they were.

A large bird soon came swooping down in front of us on the road, turning back into our druid companion. He said the ten-wagon caravan was a few hours’ walk ahead of us, and was about to be attacked by ten trolls when he left (but not to worry, he’d swooped down and warned them). He couldn’t know that caravans were prepared for such encounters, as the Evermoor Way is constantly harassed by bands of marauding trolls, but I did wonder why he didn’t offer to help them!

We decided to force ourselves to pick up the pace (poor Rosorc was practically running in his heavy armor) and about an hour later we met three wagons barreling towards Yartar. Areon and I would have liked to stop them to see if they had any wounded to tend to, for it was quite obvious that they were all that was left of the attacked caravan. Rosorc offered to stop them, and then threw his “bag of snakes” into the first wagon. Turns out his bag of snakes, was in fact, a bag with snakes in it! The men from that wagon all jumped out and grabbed on to the next wagon as it raced past; the first wagon continued on without a driver.

We were left standing in the road, no silver tiger, and possibly wanted by the law for terrorizing a caravan. Or part of one, at least, for the remaining seven wagons never appeared. We continued to hurry east, soon seeing a plume of black smoke rising from the road. We found the remains of the other seven wagons, blood-spattered and clawed apart; nothing left alive anywhere. The bodies of two burnt trolls were all that was left to show us what had happened.

It seemed odd to me that the skirmish had gone so badly for the caravan. After all, Beowulf insisted that he gave them some extra early warning, and usually each wagon would be driven and protected by two people. And, although it appeared all of value had been stripped from the wagons, I found a secret cache of alchemist’s fire, longswords, crossbows and nearly 100 bolts. Areon put the alchemist’s fire vials in his pack and we followed a swath of prints leading into the Evermoors, hoping to find some survivors to help.

We did soon find two trolls! I was able to hit one with a bolt, but it immediately healed around the projectile. I fired again, and poor Shadow, jumping up to bite the throat of the same troll, got hit instead. Areon and Rosorc were making short work of that troll with just massive amounts of damage. I saw Tyan fall in front of the other troll, which he must have used a fire spell on, as it had char marks that were not regenerating. Beowulf and Deitricha were trying to keep Tyan safe from a killing blow while fighting the troll, so I grabbed the vials of alchemist’s fire from Areon’s pack and threw one. It landed perfectly on top of the troll’s head, breaking and spilling the fiery liquid over its skin. Enraged, the burning troll ran straight at me, but I was fortunate that it had been so badly burned that it just fell over dead before it reached me. We used that troll to light the other troll, which Rosorc and Areon had brought down.

We continued to follow that same path of destruction through the moor, until we came to a cave entrance….