In a hurry to leave Opal before getting caught by Kyle’s rescue party and the commotion that will surely cause, the troupe makes a beeline through town to hole up in the North Hills – a cluster of hills at the north end of town that overlooks the main road into town. The thinking here is to wait and watch until they spot the rescue party’s entrance, at which point they will skirt the hills and slink away into the Mulpara basin.
It is a cloudy day turning freezing cold and overcast when the troupe settles into the hills to wait out the rescue. Magnus climbs to the military crest to watch and wait while Mar’Khabazza and Ravenna remain below with Feldspar. As the hours tick by Ravenna spots a flash of white streaking across the ground from the north. As it approaches, they can make it out as a ghost leopard that is approaching directly to them. Fearing attack, Mar’Khabazza draws his weapons, but Ravenna is more curious then anxious. As they waych, the snow leopard climbs up on a perch and watches them, looking pretty as you please.
Ravenna tries to approach it, but the cat simply trots away.
Eventually, Magnus sees a large group approaching. It seems the rescue party has linked up with the second merchant caravan of the season. The incoming group stops at the small chapel to speak with the Opalites there before heading south into town and, presumably, healing for Kyle who sits bundled in Mar’Khabazza’s rug in one of the wagons.
Watching the arrival from a distance, the troupe deems it time to go and they head north, staying clear of the road and traveling over the broken landscape until well clear of the outskirts of Opal.
May 17, 7761
After several days travel along the south fork of the Great Road, reaching and passing through the crossroads and crossing the mountainous pass through the Mulpara Barrier, the troupe leaves the mountains behind and follow the road west into the unnamed forest. The ambush site has been cleared up slightly, with the broken and burned wagons from Merchant Salanar’s ill-fated caravan pushed off the road. The recent caravan had apparently taken the time to bury the slain caravaners and burn the sudaar corpses on a pyre, but most of the debris is scattered much as they left it several weeks ago.
With minimal trouble they find and follow the path of the orcs as they trampled and slashed their way north into the forest. Three times they come across the decaying bodies of red orcs and deduce that the band of orcs that attacked the caravan were potentially of rival groups that banded together for the raid and were now fighting among themselves.
As they travel deeper into the forest, Ravenna begins to recognize landmarks and recognizes the region as the land she grew up on. The troupe decides to take a detour to her tower and after a half day’s march they arrive at the forest meadow containing the burnt ruins of the Old Man’s tower.
They approach the tower and come across the site of the cook fire that Ravenna and the Old Man would use when the weather permitted. In the ashes they find the blackened remains of a human skeleton.
“I think we have a better sense of who Kyle really is,” mutters Mar’Khabazza as Ravenna stands silently.
She hefts her climbing baw and begins the laborious task of digging a hole in the frozen tundra. With the trio working at it, they eventually get a grave deep enough to bury the bones.
The grim task completed, they set about exploring the destruction and salvaging what they can. Mar’Khabazza opts for discretion and decides to tread lightly around Ravenna’s frozen home taking only some salvaged provisions, but Revanna grabs what gear she can as well as the Old Man’s diary and a footlocker full of books, notes and papers that she transfers into a weatherproof sack and ties to Feldspar.
May 18, 7761
After a brief and fitful sleep in the gloom of the arctic spring that never truly grows dark, the troupe retraces their steps to the orc trail and resume their journey north into the unnamed woods. Two more days of travel finds them in a small clearing next to a rushing river that flows from a sinkhole in the ground northwards into a river valley.
