Destination Unknown

It is a cold and foggy dawn as we find themselves rather the worse for wear following the previous night’s skirmish with rabid wolves. Being surrounded by potential wolf soup and wolf pie aplenty, Jarl decides to put his heat food power to good use in order to start off the wounded on the road to recovery.
Asti is the worst off and Elessar concentrates his powers on the unfortunate cook – much to everyone’s relief, Asti recovers consciousness thanks to Elessar’s spell, although he remains badly wounded and out of action. As Jarl temporarily takes over creative cooking duties until Asti recovers, the merry band of adventurers remove all evidence of the canine carnage in order that Omaron’s group might stop and regain their strengths.
But it’s not long before the alarm is sounded yet again: a caravan, headed by a proud-looking elf named Jaa’ll, is heading our way. As the caravan approaches, we realise that there are two wounded soldiers and an unconscious troll adept in the group. It is immediately obvious that there are no hostile intentions and Elessar tends to the unconscious troll as the other four exchange information with Jaa’ll. The news the caravan brings with it is worrying indeed – orc scorchers were responsible for the wounding of the soldiers and troll adept, anti-troll warriors who believe that orcs are the rightful leaders and who seem to be gathering substantial support.
Would Omaron’s group be facing peril if they proceeded with their planned route? Although Jarl and Ivor seem to think that it would be more prudent to take a longer route than planned, the other three adventurers spit in the face of danger and persuade everyone else to continue as planned. Luckily, the rest of the day passes without much incident and towards dusk the whole group stops and sets up camp for the night.
It is Elessar’s and Ajisha’s turn to offer night duty services. Just when everyone else has gone to sleep Elessar hears a whisper in the darkness:
“Pssst. Can I come out? I’m not armed.”
But after the previous night’s unfortunate experience Elessar is taking no chances. He raises the alarm and his four companions immediately take a defensive stance, surrounding the stranger – one lone man and his mutt, a beautiful beast with particularly expressive eyes. The two appear harmless enough and, after taking the appropriate precautions, the five offer the man food and shelter. Lex, as the man is called, accepts with pleasure while Ajisha relaxes from guard duties long enough to tease the poor mutt to distraction.
The following day Lex leaves camp and the whole group proceeds to destination. By mid-afternoon they reach Ardagnan. The town has a big merchant outpost near the river and is protected by a drawbridge. The watchmen give the whole group a quick once-over before allowing them across. The town offers basic facilities – there is one big main road with houses and shops on either side. Omaron seeks out an inn and eventually the group stop at the Mother’s Inn, where they are offered accommodation and three square meals a day by Omaron.
We all decided to spend some time exploring the town – Ajisha enjoys a quick chat with a fellow windling and some musicians at one of the more popular taverns. Ivor visits the town’s wizard – a windling named Antar The Great. Antar makes up with attitude what he lacks for in height and, although Ivor does his best to convince Antar to teach him how to read tarot cards the two can’t agree on a decent price. Jarl, who later visits Antar with the aim of obtaining some Keesris as a surprise for Ajisha, does not meet with better luck! Elessar spends his time researching local burial customs while Ivor crosses swords in a friendly duel with another swordsmith, hoping to learn from the experience.
Throughout our stay at Ardagnan each one of us picks a particular talent and raise it to Circle 2 – most notably, Ahmok does the requisite 8-hour meditation session during a night-time swim. The last evening in Ardagnan is spent in a pleasant fashion, with our heroes enjoying some specialised muffins courtesy of Jarl – but the group’s suspicions with regards to Vistosh haven’t diminished and Ajisha attempts a spot of shadowing at night to see if Vistosh is up to anything fishy (with apologies to Ahmok). Unfortunately, she meets with scarce success as the enveloping darkness prevent her from putting her lip-reading talent to good use.
The following morning the whole group packs up their bags and embark on The Ugly Duck, which is captained by a human named Drummond. There are few other passengers on the same trip and the vessel seems to be suffering by the wily t’skrang community who are monopolising all the sea-faring business. Bad weather hits soon after the vessel sets sail and it’s a sorry bunch of decidedly unheroic-looking namegivers who scramble for shelter and attempt to keep the river-sickness at bay. All except for the t’skrang of course, who finds joy feeling the drops of fresh rain batter down on his face.
The vessel glides slowly down the river to its destination….