Road Reconnaissance – Day 1

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**Road Reconnaissance – Day 1**

Gathering up the selected equipment, the party has to wait about half an hour whilst some of their specific requests are scrounged from within the village. Eliser escorts you to the village SW gate and sees you through with a wave and wishes of good fortune. Then the gates are closed behind you and the party spreads out into their planned marching formation and sets off down the track.

The weather is at least dry for the moment and the early morning frost has cleared, it is still somewhat cold and does not look like improving for today at least. The track still bears the indentations from the wagon train that arrived a while back, and it is pretty easy to determine that there have been no other travellers down this track over the past week.

For the first few miles down the track you have clear views out over the fields to the sides, close to Braerk these are mainly arable fields surrounded by ditches, with the occasional farmers hut dotted around. About three miles out, set back from the road there is a small farmhouse with a number of outbuildings. There is no sign of life from the farmhouse surrounds and a quick recce reveals that the doors and windows are all boarded up on the house and the barns are all empty – obviously a livestock farm.

Passing the farm the track is bounded by what is obviously grazing lands, some areas have been bounded with wicker fences but the partys view of the lands still extends out for over a mile.

About 6 miles and a few hours out of Braerk, the track crosses a large stream at a well maintained ford. The water is bitterly cold, and apart from the Ariel everyone spends the next couple of hours complaining a numb feet. The land itself is now a little rougher, still relatively flat, but uncultivated – patches of gorse and the odd copse of trees break up visibility and whilst there are no obvious ambush points – the party naturally begins to move more cautiously with stealthier characters scouting out these places of cover well ahead.

By late afternoon, the party has travelled nearly 10 miles and begins to look for a suitable site to hole up for the evening. The clouds have broken up, and for the first time that day you can see the sun – unfortunately slightly in your eyes. As evening begins to fall, a reasonable spot for camping is found, a slightly elevated area, lightly wooded and with good views over the surrounding countryside. Investigations reveal nothing untowards and the party makes preparations for staying the night.

Generally during the day you have seen little wildlife, the odd fox, some presumably escaped sheep and the usual collection of birds and small mammals etc.

Camp is made carefully, obscured from the road, with the skies now clearing – it is obviously going to be a cold night and so you establish a fire pit to provide some warmth. There is a reasonable amount of dry tinder available in the woods, and allows you to eke out the wood you brought with you. Some hot food and drink later, everyone settles down for the night – establishing a perimeter watch.

**Road Reconnaissance – Day 2**

The night passes uneventfully, as suspected there is a fairly hard frost in the morning. The day dawns clear and still, not a cloud in the sky and so the frost soon melts where the sun can reach it.

Whilst people pack up camp and look to obscure any evidence of them having been here, Quercius sends out Khurak the falcon on a reconnaissance. On the track back towards Braerk there is no sign of any suspicious activity. Further on up the road there are a number of small copses near the track and the ground, whilst still relatively flat becomes wilder with larger patches of gorse or bramble providing low cover.

The third stand of trees flown over, a slightly larger copse, about 2-3 miles from the parties current position, has something in it. Or as Khurak senses it “shit, piss, burn, flock big things”. It is difficult to Quercius to form a coherent picture of what the falcon is sensing but her best guess would be between 6 and 12 beings of Umar size or smaller. They have a small fire going generating very little smoke, if any they also have a latrine pit set up. There is some movement and at least two of the beings are patrolling the woods.

By now it is late morning, camp has been broken – but the fire is still going if you want to have a hot lunch! From the aerial perspective you believe that you could get to within half a mile of the large copse without any possibility of being sighted – simply due to intervening trees etc. Although you would have to stay off the track and this would take at least a couple of hours – possibly more.

ANY PLAN UPDATES PLEASE?

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