Scorchers, The Espagra & Lake Ban

29th of Veltum

After an uneventful night, the caravan packs up and we make way towards Lake Ban. For once it's not raining but the humidity in the air and moisture in the soggy ground make our going miserable. It was early in the afternoon when a human rider, who later introduces himself as Ban, meets us on his way to scout for his family who are riding behind him. His unique salute marks him as a dancer. It turns out his family is headed to Deranis from their native village, Igburg, in search of a new start.
Later in the evening, Zaphon, the ork scout, returned from a hunting trip with a young boar on his muscular shoulders. That night Asti cooked one of his best meals. We all enjoyed it and ate heartily. The following night everyone slept soundly with full stomachs, high spirits and ignoring the soggy ground beneath their sleeping bags.

30th Veltum

The weather held but the trail was still muddy and soggy. A dwarven rider raced past us and upon observing us better doubled back to speak with us in an urgent tone. His name was Aarox and he warned us that a large band of ork scorchers were but a day away from us. At that he turned and left saying that he needed to warn the surrounding villages.
We had choices to make and not much time to take them. We could try to double our pace and reach Lake Ban but that would have made it tight and the caravan was slow going while the orks were galloping fast. The only other viable option was to break off the trodden path and circumvent the orks through the underbrush. We decided on the latter.
Soon many people start lagging behind, Omaron, Jarl, a dwarf servant and Ajisha all get tired pretty soon and slow down the caravan. Zaphon offers to divert the orks to another direction by leaving a set of different trails for the orks to follow while the rest of us try to remove our traces as best as possible. Eventually we find a group of high hills and a good hiding place in between. We take watch post on the summits and wait; no fires were lit for fear of being discovered.
During the night we were attacked by a large winged creature known as an Espagra. It slammed into Ivor, pinning him down and raking him with its vicious claws. Elissar, Ivor and I manage to wound the beast but not before Ivor is seriously wounded. Eventually I managed to drop it unconscious after one of the Nethermancer's icy grips. Elissar and Jarl point out the fact that the scales of this creature are used for magic ingredients and they manage to scrape off a few off the carcass of the motionless Espagra.

1st of Charassa

The following day, during our journey, we start to see the first signs of civilization. We encounter a group of humanoid cavalrymen who were intent on burning a mound of corpses. Unsire if they are scorchers or friendlies, Ivor rides ahead to check. They turn out to be orks but not the scorcher type. They are infact employed by Throal to patrol the lands and were in the process of burning the corpses of some scorchers they encountered the previous night.
We come across a small hamlet called Tanner's Crossing and we know that the T'Skrang settlements we need to reach are but 2 hours away from that place. We reached Lake Ban at nightfall. Lake Ban is huge but activity on it is low. There is only one pier and a few ships where people were to board the following morning. we also find out that there is also a T'Skrang floating city. Lots of people are camped on the lake bank; all of them are waiting to board a ship. An artist offers to paint our group symbol on the tents which we had just purchased after trading the Espagra scales for 110 pieces of silver.

2nd of Charissa

We board a ship called 'Yvette'. It is crewed by T'Skrang and its captain is a T'Skrang by the name of P'Tenza. The weather is nice, there were no storm clouds visible and we were thankful after last weeks deluge. The ship should take us directly to Urupa.
During the voyage someone tells us that the gruff troll, who had occupied his space and bunk through sheer intimidation, was asking for us. Jarl and me approached him but he denied the claim and dismissed us claiming no such thing. This troll is someone we should keep an eye on during this long trip to Urupa; trouble may be brewing.