Descent to the depths...

Theona and I returned to the Bright Blade Brandished. We found that everyone had had congregated there, so we got our last-minute supplies and headed back to the mage college to be teleported to Yartar, which we believed the caravan had not yet passed through.
After we teleported we headed out of town, because I wanted to meet the caravan outside of town, so that hopefully we wouldn’t attract to much attention.
Beowulf turned himself into an eagle and headed out to scout ahead. I stayed with the party; I did not think that I would need to range ahead on a main road.
After a couple hours Beowulf returned, saying that he had just warned a caravan of a troll attack. We quickened our pace so that maybe we would be able to help. About an hour later, three wagons came into view moving at a full clip. As they passed by Rosorc threw a bag filled with snakes into the wagon! The two riders jumped out, yelling “Bandits,” and Rosorc issued a battle challenge to them. They grabbed onto the next wagon, letting its momentum pull them into it. Had Theona not been there to stop me, I probably put an arrow in him on the spot.
I have no idea what he was thinking. The only thing that did was get us on a wanted list for bandits. Now on top of trying to find the Red Tiger’s Statue, there is a possibility of us having to deal with bounty hunters on top of everything we encounter in the wilderness. Not to mention we won’t be allowed in a town.
We continued on, hoping that maybe we could help the wagons that had not made it away from the troll attack. We did come upon the wagons, thought there was not much to find. Theona did find some crossbows, bolts and a few bottles of alchemists’ fire, which I took.
Tyan headed out after the path the trolls had taken away from the path. I followed, knowing that we wouldn’t be getting back into civilization without proof of us being well-meaning.
We did encounter to two trolls, which we were able to kill without to much trouble, though it did really hurt Tyan. If not for Beowulf’s healing spells, he surely would have died. Fortunately Beowulf was able to heal him so that he had no major wounds. We traveled on and the path led to a troll cave…..

Not Trolls Again...

After searching a few hours for my brother, I gave up and returned to the tavern. Sure enough, the others had gathered there already! Rosorc didn’t say much about where he’d been, but the rest had gone to a scryer about the whereabouts of the silver tiger statue.

The statue was found, moving away from us as part of a caravan’s cargo. It was two hundred miles away already. So, we’re going to pay for a teleport to the next town the caravan should pass through. After that, we’d either try to barter for it, try to explain its significance and ask for it, or else just steal or take it. Hopefully in that order. Everyone picked up some last-minute supplies, and we were off.

The teleport landed us right in the middle of Yartar’s market. The place turned out to be a small fortified town, with a keep across the river. For some reason, Tyan made a point of pulling his hood up, and kept it that way the whole time we were there...

We started by finding the gate that the Silverymoon caravans would enter by, and I expected to wait there and speak to the traders when they were set up in town to trade like everyone else. The others wanted to go and meet the caravan; I guess Areon’s impatience infected them? Since the scryer said there were ten wagons in the caravan, Beowulf took the form of an eagle and scouted ahead.

We hadn’t walked for very long when Beowulf returned, saying that a ten-wagon caravan was a few hours away - being attacked by trolls! He had stopped to give them warning, but we hustled to reach them and perhaps help, anyway. A little while later, we saw three wagons bearing the marks of battle coming up the road at top speed.

While the rest of us either prudently got out of their way, or waved arms in an attempt to stop them and ask after their party, Rosorc suddenly went mad. On one of his trips into a shop, he’d found and purchased a real bag of snakes. He just smiled when I said it was cruel to keep them penned up like that, and said they might come in handy. He now flung them into the lead wagon in a vain attempt to slow or stop it!

As I turned to holler at the dwarf, two humans jumped out of the wagon, yelling about bandits. I was appalled. Tyan and Beowulf immediately took off running - that looked really bad! Rosorc took offense at being called a bandit, pulling down his helmet’s visor and grabbing his weapon. (He ignored me yelling “Idiot!!” at him, though). Since the snake-infested wagon kept going, the two humans grabbed ahold of the last wagon to pass by and made their escape.

In the silence that ensued, Areon pointed out that we might as well go on and check the other wagons for survivors. Theona had pulled out a bottle and was quietly getting very drunk, while I trudged along wishing I’d thought to bring a drink, too. We all look like criminals now! We were pretty well tired out by the time we reached the site of the battle.

It was awful. There were two charred troll bodies, burning wagons, blood everywhere. The wagons were well-looted, and no sign of any bodies at all - not human or horse. Without much hope, we set out along the trolls’ trail and into the Evermoors, praying that someone may still be alive. Perhaps the statue was among the loot taken from the wagons, but without knowing how many trolls we’ll encounter, it was low on my list of things to worry about!

I was remembering how we’d lost Antonio to a single troll, when two loomed up from each side of the trail and attacked! The battle was long and painful to many, but we did destroy them both in the end. Healed up, we followed the trail to its end; the mouth of a cave. Tymora bless us, we need all the luck we can get!