Mission To Find Out and Retrieve Starts

Following the instructions the blacksmith had given, the party made their way toward the trail the caravan was supposed to take. They all knew it would probably take a few days, and it took most of the day on the road to get to the point where the forest was in view. The party set up for the night, nothing of particular note happened that night, and the following morning was basically more walking. After several hours, it was around noon, the best anyone could figure out when the party finally arrived at the forest.

Keldan decided to don his armor and weapons before entering the forest; a few hours of discomfort in metal armor was preferable to the alternative of being taken out by something that generally wanted you harmed, maimed, or dead. After getting his armor on, Keldan prepped his war hammer in a place that was easy to access and just loose enough to have a firm hold but come out with a slight tug. Rikimsha decided to throw on and check her armor and gear as well; as a sorceress, Devallia really didn’t have to worry about armor; her sort usually tended to disregard physical armor in favor of their magic making up the difference, and all Helen had to do to prepare was get her weapon of choice at the ready, primal warriors tended to disregard armor in favor of unencumbered mobility.

After looking around for the path for a few minutes, the party finally found the one that looked like the one they should be following. From the looks of things, that route was big enough for most carts to pass through the area with minimal difficulty, but it also looked like it wasn’t used all that often outside of the carts that passed through every few months or so. The four of them weren’t all that familiar with wilderness areas, especially forests, but even they could pick up on something being off about the place.

“I’m pretty sure forests aren’t supposed to be this quiet,” said Devallia with a bit of unease.

“They usually aren’t,” said Rilkimsha, “at least, not in my experience. Then again, I’m usually trying to explore ancient ruins and the like.”

“Any of them in an actual forest,” inquired Helen.

“Yeah,” said Rilkimsha, “but I have little to no experience with those sorts of ruins, currently. I’ve made plans for going to them, but there was too much for me to deal with alone; I suppose we could try going to check them out later.”

As twilight approached, and things got harder to see for some of the members of the party, the four chose a space off to the side of the road and set up camp for the night. After a quick game to decide the order of watch for the night, which resulted in Keldan being the first on watch, the trio started setting up camp for the evening. Devallia started thinking about what she could do about her attire later, she wanted an extensive wardrobe to express herself, as she set the bedding out in the tent, but she knew that would be a way out.

*************************************************************************

The night passed without incident, so Keldan and the girls were back down the forest path. In the morning light, it was possible to make out the faint tracks, but just barely. Despite this, Helen and Keldan were able to follow the tracks with surprising ease, Keldan basically got lucky when he tried, seeing as he had only recently learned those sorts of skills, but this was something that fell into the survival training Helen had in her skillset; Rilkimsha also had survival as part of her skillset but didn’t quite catch as much as Keldan this time around. Devallia was annoyed she wasn’t able to pick on the tracks enough to reasonably follow them, and adorably pouted about it for half an hour or so.

“Well, the smith was right,” said Helen as she led the party down the tracks, “these are the kind of grooves in the earth are the sort you would expect from a caravan that passes through every two to three weeks.”

“But these tracks are a bit older than that,” said Keldan as he leaned in with his knee to inspect some tracks for a moment before continuing the trek, “at best, I would say the current tracks are around a month old, which means whatever is holding everything up is considerably deeper down the path.”

“I guess that means we won’t be catching a cart ride to rest our sore soles,” said Devallia in annoyance.

“With a little time and estimations,” said Rilkimsha, “we can at least estimate the time it takes to pass through this area and make some reasonable guesses about how long it could take to find it deeper in.”

“How long until the estimate,” inquired Devallia; she was very much trying to distract from her feet as they walked.

“Not too long,” said Rilkimsha, “just a small handful of minutes, maybe less if I somehow have a breakthrough. I may not be the smartest person out there, but I’m still reasonably intellectual.”

“Well,” said Keldan, “I hope it’s sooner rather than later.”

A minute or two later, Rilkimsha said, “I have it; it usually takes the caravan three or four days to pass through this area; we should reach their point of entry if we keep going this way for another for as long,” the sound of Devallia giving an annoyed groan, “but if we luck out and see what the hold up is in a day or two.”

***************************************************************************

After the party had been walking for around five hours or so, they stopped for a short rest. Devallia was unused to extended walking, so she complained a bit about the trek as she took a seat to remove her footwear to massage her feet. Rilkimsha opted to look over some texts she had on her as she took a seat by the road, Helen decided to inspect her equipment, and Keldan opted to check his own inventory.