Days 72-75: Back Towards White Beach

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## Day 72 Evening 26th April

Having spotted the large contingent of Far Haven heavy cavalry up ahead, the party decides to make its way back to the White Beach road cross country and so heads off in a Northerly direction onto the plains. Scouting is provided by Kherak flying overhead and Francis ranging out ahead, visibility is extremely good and the party can see for miles in all directions.

After couple of miles the party settles on a reasonable campsite (124.037), in a slight dell, so less visible across the plains. Camp is erected and a quick stocktake is carried out.

The four horses appropriated from your would be ambushers are found to be each carrying 5 days of military grade iron rations plus enough corn to supplement grazing for a similar amount of time. Brokef and Quercius will both observe that these horses are fine for on road and grassland, but if the going gets any rougher they will have problems with extended journeys. (or as Brokef puts it – “soft as shite these horses, fine for prancing around on a city street.”). You would surmise that your would be muggers, were not planning long cross country trips.

The evening passes reasonably quietly with no alarm, although occasionally distant noises can be heard that imply some activity out on the plains.

## Day 73 (27th April)

Breaking camp the party resumes its journey, the day opens fine enough, but by mid morning the wind has picked up and the skies are overcast. Lunch is a quick affair, although Brokef manages to bring down a few rabbits for the evening meal whilst the party has halted.

By mid afternoon, these is a steady drizzle, almost horizontal because of the wind and it is difficult for Kherak to fly, visibility has dropped significantly and Francis has had to curtail his ranging too far ahead in order to avoid getting separated. It is hard to tell when evening really begins but the party finds a reasonable campsite, with a small spring and a couple of trees to provide shelter and so settles there. (124.035).

It takes a while to get a fire lit, but eventually the party is settling down to some rabbit stew. The drizzle just keeps on falling throughout the early evening, and everyone gets damp and miserable.

## Day 74 (28th April)

There is no dawn as such, just a gradual lightening of the sky, the drizzle has turned into rain and whilst visibility has slightly improved, the ground is now slick and the going a lot tougher. The parties mules are pretty much unfazed, plodding on with heads down – but the four horses are obviously finding the going a lot harder.

There seems to be no point in stopping for a formal lunch break, and so the party continues through the day. You would guess it is mid afternoon when Francis comes across what was looks to have been a recent campsite, with multiple campfires – long extinguished by the raid. The real giveaway is the large number of dead Goblins – well over 100, probably close to 200 – scattered around the camp. The rains have washed much of the evidence away but the Goblins wounds are similar to before, large puncture wounds – sometimes with lance tips still embedded. Whatever is going on in the area is beginning to feel similar to when the Kobolds made an appearance back down South. Not so much a war or series of battles, more like a series of massacres.

A brief examination of the area finds little of note, a couple more of the purportedly holy symbols, as many darts and shortswords as you wish to carry and not much else. You do realise that on these goblins, and come to think of it all the goblin corpses you have examined, there is no coinage of any form, similarly apart from some odd scraps of dubious looking dried meats there are no foodstuffs being carried by the beasts.

About an hours journey onwards and, if anything, the rain seems to be even heavier. Brokef seems remarkably unperturbed and will volunteer that this could continue for a few days easily. He will point out that the chances of the bridge to White Beach still being up by the time you get there are dropping rapidly. When the edges of the forest do appear out of the rain if is with some relief that the party can at last find a little shelter (123.033)

Despite having no obvious skills in foraging, Brokef manages to source a number of large birds whilst the party is making camp, and with plentiful firewood around you are able to have a decent dinner. Again, the night is uneventful, the rain muffling any distant noises there might or might not have been.

## Day 75 (29th April)

The next days opens with the same constant rain, as the party is breaking camp a guttural voice from inside the forest shouts: “Hail the camp”

Striding through the trees the party is approached by a group of twelve humanoids, all wearing hooded ponchos, as they get closer the party naturally looks guarded and so the group stops. Two of the figures remove their hoods and hold their empty hands out. One is a Maratasen with a bright scarlet mane, the other a human.

Human: “We would like to share the hospitality of your fire, before you put it out – since you are obviously planning to depart.”

Cautiously you ascede to their request and the group enter your campsite, Two of them rebuild the fire quickly, whilst another expertly skins a small deer that looks recently killed. The group turns out to be 11 humans and the one Maratasen. Once the fire has been built, Brokef visibly relaxes and returns to preparing the horses for the days travel. Most of the other clansmen settle down the sharpen weapons and repair armour, from the notches and staining, you would guess that this group has seen a fair bit of combat in the past few hours.

As is perhaps obvious, the Maratasen is of the Redmane tribe – a scout, the humans are all warriors from a small Human clan known as Fleetfoot. The party decides that it would be worth investing an hour to chat to these clansfolk and so unload the horses and mules and settle down for a second breakfast.

Broken explains that the Fleetfoot clan are primarily found in this forest and the one to the south. Unlike most of the clans they do not rely on mounts other than the occasional beast of burden. They are known for their scouting and covert skills, sometimes being called the Forest Ghosts.

The party introduce themselves and settle down around the campfire to exchange news and gossip.

Eli Nightshade (the leader of the humans): “Yes we got news last night that Roubank had been hit by these so called Goblins, we had problems of our own though. A large number of them simply appeared out of nowhere on the edge of one of our camps a couple of days ago, caused fucking chaos.”

Eli: “We have been hunting them down ever since, before they can cause too much more damage. They are pretty weedy things but seem to come in large numbers.Criose..”, Eli nods towards the Maratasen, “..tells us that it is pretty much the same across the plains East of the North River.”

Criose: “The Goblins just seem to appear, form up into bands of varying size and then head out to cause mayhem. They do not seem to have any strategy other than banding together and setting off to kill things. Our shamans have interrogated a number of prisoners and get no sense out of them, they babble on about the void and wanting to return to it – which we are happy to oblige.”

Thorn Shadowsoul (another human): “They arrive with no supplies, do not seem particularly to have strong leadership, there is the occasional shaman type that they congregate around but even then their ability for cohesive action is limited. What you encountered at Roubank is typical, they can act ordered for a while but just cannot maintain it.”

There follows a discussion around the Goblins, where they have come from, what their goals are and so on and so forth, but it is obvious that the clansmen know nothing more than the party. Other than the fact that the Goblins are dying in huge numbers out on the plains and in the woods.

Eli: “Yeah and of course Saratak has moved to protect his roads, seemed to know something was coming but didn’t see fit to warn the clans.”

Croise: “He must have his reasons.”

Eli: “Of course he does, but it is all about protecting his stone house – I think he has lost faith with the clans personally, and I know others who feel the same.”

Croise looks extremely annoyed, but does not rise to an argument, instead concentrates on tearing apart the haunch of deer he has in his hands.

Thorn: “So you folks are planning to try to get to White Beach?”

Caradoc: “Yeah”

Thorn: “Well if this rain holds up, and I think it will, I would lay good odds that the bridge will be down before you get there. So, you had better plan on crossing elsewhere.”

Eli: “And those horses you have won’t do well on the journey neither”

Croise: “Mobile rations……”

Eli: “Since you folks got involved with helping the Blue Witch, I think we could possibly help you get through to the North River, we are heading back West anyhow, and Croise has business on the other side. You ok with that Croise.”

Croise: “Yeah guess so, shit weather for travellin’ alone anyhow.”

Thorn seems to be about to say something, but then thinks better of it.

Eli: “So if you want to come with us, give us a few hours to get some sleep and we will move out about noon.”

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