Road Reconnaissance – Day 6: The Bridge

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**Road Reconnaissance – Day 6**

After a hurried conference, the party opts to push towards the Bridge as rapidly as possible. Wun busies himself with administering some basic first aid to the boy to try and clean out his wounds and then leads the construction of a reasonably solid travois.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party clear up camp. Caradoc quickly checks the brooch, which has not decayed any further – and then carefully packs it back away.

Then the party sets off, with Umar carrying the boy and the others taking it turns to pull the travois. Both druidic totems are sent ranging out to provide additional scouting capability, whilst Caradoc (muttering under his breath about plumb stupidity) also sweeps out in front.

After a few hours of rapid march, the party stops for a quick break and to catch their breath. They then proceed forward still at pace but slightly more cautiously – not wanting to overly surprise the bridge garrison, or be surprised in turn. The road here is surrounded by grassland, with the odd bush, visibility is extremely good and the river is visible in the distance on the left of the party.

The party has just caught sight of what is probably the bridge in the distance – about 2 miles away when circumstances change rapidly.

Two groups rise up, seemingly out of the ground to about 50 yards either side of the party. On the left three humans, a dwarf and a halfling, on the right two humans, two ariel and a dwarf. At the same time a voice out of thin air, somewhere ahead on the track demands that the party “Halt in the name of the King”.

Most of your ambushers are armed with composite bows, none appear to be wearing armour but are uniformly clad in brown shirt and leggings, with a heavy dark brown cloak fastened at the neck with a silver brooch in the form of some bird. Even as the party comes to a halt there is the sound of running feet behind you and a voice calls out “Nobody following Sir!”.

The disembodied voice speaks again, “OK, my name is Lieutenant Gohde, would you fine people please explain what you are doing on this road, heading in this direction and why a couple of you are obviously wounded?”

There seems to be little choice but to accept that you are caught here, and so Quercius begins to explain the situation. This takes a good twenty minutes since Gohde keeps interrupting with questions to try and validate your story, for example asking what Ellisers familiar is. About halfway through this discussion, Gohde’s invisibility fades and he appears in front of you. Gohde is another Dwarf, dressed identically to his company, but armed with a shortsword. Once Quercius presents the token from Cagrun, Gohde becomes a lot less hostile, and says that he and a couple of his soldiers will accompany you to the bridge “Just to avoid any accidents”.

So, the party accompanied by Lieutenant Gohde plus three of his soldiers continue moving down the road, along the way Gohde continues to quiz Quercius. He explains that unfortunately none of his troop have the Cure Disease spell memorised, but that this will be available at the bridge. Along the way, you do notice that Gohde occasionally makes strange signals with his left hand, as if to alert hidden observers.

Along the march you gather that he and his soldiers form part of the 4th Company of Pearlstone Pathfinders and have been sent here to form the tripwire defence for the bridge. Given their role in the Alveran military, he is very surprised to hear your description of the large humanoids. Apparently they were certainly not Trolls, and when he hears about your keeping one of the heads, he sends one of his troop back to retrieve said object. He is not surprised by your description of the human group though, apparently Solara has long had a program of recruiting disparate groups from amongst the poor in his kingdom. These groups are sent out on basic missions, usually reconnaissance or the like, in the full expectations that most will not survive. Those that do, are gathered into a more elite group of Solaran “troubleshooters”, and used in a variety of roles.

When talking about your wounded, Gohde is again somewhat surprised. He is not aware of any creature that uses darts as its’ primary weapon, and he explains that from looking at the boys wounds these are obviously darts – not arrows. Ariel occasionally use them as a light and quick missile weapon, but they would never deliberately poison or dirty their weapons in order to cause a lingering death.

The track from Braerk joins the main highway almost at the bridge, the bridge itself is of solid stone construction and looks solid. Bazin and Wun do notice that there have obviously been some engineering works carried out on the bridge recently and so you would surmise that the Alveran force has some means of rapidly destroying the construction if required. On the far side, the bank slopes up steeply and is topped with a 15 foot high wooden palisade extending out around 200 yards to either side of the highway. At least 4 ballistae can be seen mounted on the walls. As the party crosses the bridge, Gohde makes another signal with his hands to the sentries on the walls.

On the far side of the river, there are a number of stone filled wagons, obviously intended to roll into place as a barricade, if or when needed. At a guess, it would seem that the bridge garrison has been expanded somewhat, to around 600-800 soldiers. Already, tents have been supplemented with hastily built houses, forming a shanty town of camp followers and hangers on, possibly with a few refugees sprinkled into the mix.

Gohde leads your group towards a larger tent flying the Alveran banner, guarded by 2 giant halberdiers, as you approach a human emerges from the tent and waves. The party is asked to remain about 20’ from the tent whilst Gohde briefs the commander, whilst you wait, the woman and boy are carried off for treatment. Gohde accompanies the human inside the tent, and after about 15 minutes they both emerge. The party is called forward and asked to show again the tokens that you were provided by Cagrun. At this point Gohde announces that he will leave you with Colonel Ranlarke and whilst Gohde trots back towards the bridge accompanied by his troops, the party is escorted into the tent.

Inside, there are three others, another human who is introduced as Colonel Ranlarke, an Ariel and a Dwarf. Ranlarke and the Ariel are standing by a map table deep in conversation, whilst the Dwarf appears to be fast asleep in a chair near a small stove. For the next hour or so, the party is quizzed at length by Ranlarke, with the Ariel interjecting the odd question. The initial questions are about the state of affairs as Braerk, then shifting to the parties journey – with particular focus on the large humanoids encountered. Upon request the party presents both the shamans head-dress and the brooch for inspection, the Ariel then quizzes the party about how they felt when they first found the brooch. The Ariel then takes off from around his neck a small chain with a pendant, the pendant has a sun motif on it. He asks the party what they make of the pendant….. pretty much everyone simply sees it as a pendant, although Wun somehow finds it comforting and warm whilst Bazin has a slight discomfort. On describing these sensations to the Ariel, the Ariel nods.

Ariel: “So it is, or rather was, a holy symbol with an Avatar bound into it. But what religion? Certainly not Hashandara, we have seen their symbols. More importantly, why did the Druids amongst you feel uncomfortable as well? Is the slight resemblance to Wyldwood important??”

Ariel: “Colonel, I believe these items need to go to Starport, we should wait for Gohde’s troops to retrieve the skull and then despatch them with the next courier.”

Ranlarke: “Agreed, Wynagh. Okay you folks, I suggest you get some decent food and grab a quick rest. I will be writing up orders for Cagrun that I will need you to take back up the road. Vinmira over there will take you to the food tent, if he can be bothered to get off his fat arse.”

At this comment, the Dwarf stretches, yawns and gets up, he is quite young for a dwarf and dressed in a motley collection of mismatched clothing, even to the point of having a boot on one foot and a sandal on the other.

Vinmira: “Sure Colonel, err sorry I didn’t get all of your names, but anyhow follow me and I am sure we can make some introductions over food. It must be time for breakfast by now, or possibly even lunch.”

….and the party follows Vinmira out of the tent……

CLOCK WILL START TICKING ON MONDAY

WILL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER QUESTIONS YOU PUT TO ME/VINMIRA IN THE INTERIM.

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