Traveling to the Capital

## Norbury to Esterfast

### On the Road

* The party rides with Barnus and Brandon's caravan from Norbury to Esterfast. Other passengers include a botanist named Vernali from the Felm Institute of Science, a half-elf teenager leaving his aunt because she can't support him anymore, and an anti-Orc veteran.
* During the journey, the caravan encounters a monsoon that almost sweeps them away. To save everyone, Soleste activates her Radiant Soul wings, revealing her Aasimar heritage. Afterwards, Vernali will not stop asking Soleste about her Aasimar heritage.
* At some point, the road that the group is traveling is closed by a Protectorate Division under General Kursk. In order to continue their journey in a timely manner, the group must briefly detour into Orc territory.
	+ That night, Eli breaks into the Protectorate camp and finds that the soldiers are going to attack an Orc settlement near the border. There is a drafted press release that talks about tension on the border and makes it sound like it was the Orc who attacked first and that the Protectorate were acting defensively
* The next day, the group travels through Orc territory and comes across a town that has a relatively peaceful working relationship with the local Orc tribes. They warn the townspeople about the Protectorate soldiers at the border. As the group makes it back to Protectorate territory, they see Protectorate soldiers hauling piles of dead Orcs.

### Arriving in Esterfast

* Barnus’s cousin Tharnus and his wife Girten run the route from Esterfast to Sirex.
* Outerlanders in Esterfast are protesting the Protectorate government. They do not feel adequately represented and believe that the government is treating them like second class citizens. They complain that the troops walk all over them, and they don't think the Protectorate does a good job of protecting them from the Orcs.
	+ Ivan sees an old Half-Orc acquaintance roughing up protestors on behalf of the Protectorate army.
* Grog takes part in an eating contest at the Esterfast festival. He also frees and rides a pig at the petting zoo.

## Esterfast to Ren's Fork

* The party leaves Esterfast with Tharnus and Girten. Other notable passengers include Commodore Theodore Norrington, a Protectorate leader who is managing a small unit in the center of the Outerlands, and an artificer gnome named Lianne Thorpe. The party tells the other passengers all about their adventures in Norbury
* The group reaches Ren's Fork, the border between Outerlands to Sirex. In order to enter Sirex, they must make it past border control. Lianne goes through a side door with the guard and bypasses the border.
* Yazmin does not have a passport and uses her magic to bewitch one of the border guards to start attacking his fellow guards, attaking people, hoping that in the chaos she could sneak to the other side. It does not work and she is taken to the security office and interrogated. Yazmin then uses her magic to incapacitate her interrogator and disguises herself as him in order to escape. She turns herself invisible and goes to catch up with the rest of the party.

## Ren's Fork to Oakheart

* As the group is traveling from Ren's Fork to Oakheart, Yazmin catches up with them and drops her invisibility, making it look like she appeared out of thin air. She claims that her totem opened a portal and dropped her onto the road in front of them. The party is disturbed by the totem (which looks like a preserved dead rat), and all vote to burn it.
* Just then, an actual portal opens and a metal panther appears and attacks them. The party manages to hold their ground and after a lot of damage to both sides, the metal panther leaves via portal. The party suspects that Yazmin or her totem was the one who summoned the metal panther to attack them and begin interrogating her.
	+ Yazmin reveals herself to be Yazmin Vans. She was a Sirex guard who went MIA 24 years ago after a mission that occurred before the war went haywire. She used to be a normal human, but then somehow got magical powers through her pendant and was used by the Protectorate to take out terrorists as part of a magic users hit squad. She doesn't know much about the people she was working for other than that her Superior was a "priest"
	+ She was assigned to assassinate Inazorwyn 18 years ago, but didn't end up doing it and then Shahd came into power. 6 years ago, she was told to go after Ina again.
	+ She bought the totem from Farus Frost, a magic arms dealer.
	+ Soleste was hiding Yazmin from the Protectorate for 6 years.
* The party agrees to turn Yazmin and Soleste to the military once they reach the nearest town Oakheart. Grog is also very sick, and the group believes that it's because the werewolf bit and infected him somehow.
* At Oakheart, Yazmin is jailed and Commodore Norrington calls General Sterlisk, telling him that he "encountered an interesting fugitive" and that he's requesting backup, preferably someone even very high-ranking in the military to make a call on what to do. Colonel Ercer Baz comes to collect Yazmin.
* Ivan takes Yazmin's dodecahedron and Yazmin's patron attempts to convince him to work with him. Ivan refuses and attempts to destroy the dodecahedron. He fails and causes an explosion instead. Grog gets medical attention, but does not fully recover.
* On the way to Sirex, the party encounters an extremist Dol Arrah Sect. These followers are making a pilgrimage to Sirex naked, on foot, and refusing aid in order to show their dedication to Dol Arrah.