11 Doddul, 1506 TH

Thistle,

If I remember correctly I last wrote you just before we went shopping in Axalacail. I must apologize for not having written sooner to tell you what happened after that, but things have been a little busy.

In Axalacail, Kavros, Elias, Argen, and I were the first to rise. We ate a hearty breakfast and discussed our plans. It was quickly decided that Kavros and I would go out and see to purchasing the additional supplies we would need for the journey while the other two took care of some errands of their own. John and Gorian were still sleeping so we left without talking to them. As we shopped Kavros and I found the healing potions and arrows we needed to replace the supplies we had used as well as provisions and additional equipment for the road. We also found a few items that were not strictly necessary (such as some lavender bath oil) which we decided to get as well. When the first merchant asked if we would like to take our purchases with us or have them sent back to the inn, Kavros got an idea. He told the merchant to have our purchases sent to the room Gorian was sleeping in and to have the boy who delivered the things ask for Gorian. We said that Gorian would pay for the goods and give the boy a generous tip.

When the boy knocked on Gorian's door, a sleepy eyed Gorian not only payed for the goods, but gave a VERY generous tip (I can only assume he was too sleepy and confused to tell silver from gold.) Anyway, after a few boys got large tips from him, they started telling the story of this generous tipper. Apparently random people then decided to get into the act by knocking on the room's door and saying they had a delivery for Gorian. People brought flawed arrows and vinegar disguised as wine to his door, and Gorian overpaid for all of it. Finally a lady brought tattered old red traveling cloaks to Gorian and Gorian decided that he had had enough of the whole mess. So he told the lady that Gorian was not there and that she wanted the next room over. The lady knocked on that door quite insistently. When John finally woke up, he answered the door with his war hammer in hand. When he opened the door and bellowed "What!" the lady was so frightened that she dropped the cloaks and ran. This was the end of "deliveries".

Meanwhile, Kavros and I were still wandering the town and we ran into the first delivery boy. He told us that he had made the delivery just as we had asked and that Gorian had given us a very generous tip. However, he said he didn't like the look of our T'skrang companion who was coming out of the room next to Gorian's right after Gorian closed the door. Kavros and I both became alarmed and asked the boy for a description. He gave us one and we asked him to come find us if he saw that T'skrang again, and that if he did so we would reward him generously again. The boy nodded and went off on his way and we hurried back to the inn. When we got there we headed straight for John's room. John was standing in his doorway looking at a handful of pink-red cloth and looking quite grouchy. We told him that a T'skrang was reported to have left his room in the past hour and asked him if he still had the scroll. He looked and discovered that the scroll was missing. John was kind of angry and decided to take his anger out on the room. While he was demolishing the furniture, the delivery boy reappeared with news. So, Kavros, Gorian and Elias took him to the main room to here what the boy had to say while Windy watched John make a new passage joining Gorian's and John's rooms.

When John finished demolishing the wall. Windy pointed out that they might have a lead on the T'skrang waiting downstairs and John decided that he would rather go try to find the T'skrang and dismember him then destroy another wall. We paid the innkeeper for the damages and then the boy led us to the building he had seen the T'skrang go in.

He called it a House of Pleasure, but from what I saw it didn't look like anyone was truly enjoying themselves. The group ALMOST made a plan, but John decided to charge in without thinking (he was still a bit miffed) so the others followed while I flew around the building to make sure that the T'skrang did not head out a back door while we were heading in the front. I soon discovered that the drop on the back side of the building could only allow exit by a windling from that side, so I flew up the side of the building and came in through the window when I saw the rest of the group in a room with a naked T'skrang. The T'skrang had apparently be laying on a table in the middle of the room while women wearing much less clothing than is normal for humans sat around him. They all appeared to have been inhaling smoke from some burning plants on purpose. Based on how he looked and where he was clutching his body I think John (who was standing over the T'skrang with a bloody war hammer) had just done the maneuver he calls the "bob-it" to the T'skrang. Anyway, Gorian found the T'skrang's clothing in the corner and the scroll was among the clothes. John reclaimed it. Kavros and Elias said they were starting to feel dizzy from the smoke so they decided to leave. Elias decided that they needed a distraction on the way out so he chased the nearly naked women from the room and drove them down the stairs ahead of the rest of the party by applying the flat of his sword to their bottoms. It worked. the men at the foot of the stairs who were coming up to investigate were nearly trampled by the women and had to get out of their way, which let everyone leave the building safely.

We decided to continue leaving and headed for the small traveler's station at the entrance of Axalacail. There we got a mule (Kavros paid for it) and the rest of the needed supplies. Kavros wanted to named the mule "Hey you", John wanted to name the mule "Lunch" I told them both names were inappropriate for a lady and named the mule "Buttercup". (She is very sweet mule.)

About three days out we got to see an Espagra. Argen had gone to relieve himself in the woods and the Espagra decided he looked like a good breakfast. It tried to grab Argen, but missed and just tore up his back with its claws. Everybody but John attacked the beast, Argen got in the best blow despite his injury, and the Espagra took to flight to escape. I decided that the poor thing should just be let go and didn't fly after it to finish it off.

The next day we ran into a caravan just as we were settling down for the night. They had seen sign of people wandering by the road but not on the road which was very suspicious and made them think there might be bandits around. We decided to camp near each other for protection, which turned out to be a very lucky thing. We woke up in the middle of the night when John bellowed "HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE BEFORE I DELIVER THIS THING??!!" Kavros and I came to John's aid in subduing the woman who had apparently been trying to steal the scroll from his belt pouch. She cried out and two men appeared out of the woods. One tried to rush us and the other drew a bow. Elias and Argen took care of the rusher while Gorian shot the bow string finger of the archer off of his hand. (Gorian claims this was planned - I think it was an incredible stroke of luck.) Anyway, the rusher was subdued and the woman was knocked out. The guards from the caravan heard the noise and called out asking what was happening. I explained that we had just caught a thief and that things looked to be relatively secure at the moment. The guards returned to their post and we started questioning the man. He was from Urupa and didn't know much. The woman had hired him to provide back up and muscle while she stole "something." He didn't even know what they were there to steal, much less who had hired the woman or where and when the goods were to be delivered.

We let him go and when the woman woke up John implied that we had already killed him for not giving us enough information. It took a while before she was willing to talk, but eventually she told us that she had been hired by a big mean looking troll in Urupa who was going to pay her handsomely if she got the scroll to him. Based on everything she said we were starting to believe that a trap had definitely been set for us on the road to Urupa. So, in the morning, we turned her over to the caravan to be taken to Axalacail to answer for her crimes. (Which had the added benefit of her not being free to give her employers any more information.)

The next morning I was making one of my regular flights to look for anything suspicious (like signs of an ambush) when we ran into a flight of dark birds. I could see they had some magic to them, so I said "Hello". They were quite friendly and flew down to talk with us a while. They called themselves Chakta. We shared our lunch with them and they told us of the road ahead. Of particular interest was their warning about a bunch of evil men with bows who were on both sides of the road on two hills three days journey ahead. We thanked them for the warning and felt a little better knowing that the anticipated ambush was real and approximately when and where it would occur.

When we got to the hills I flew in to determine numbers and positions and report back to the others. Unfortunately, two of the men saw me and decided to shoot me with their cross bows. Fortunately, they seemed to have learned archery from the same teacher as Argen and Elias and they shot each other instead of me. Since they had spotted me, we were unable to avoid the fight, but at least we were able to pick our ground. We attacked from the left of the left hand group figuring that that would give us extra time to get past them before the right hand group found out what was going on and got over there.

As we attacked we left Elias in the rear with Buttercup because he was still badly injured from the fight with the thief. Kavros and Argen both took nasty shots from the archers before we managed to close with them, but Kavros, Argen, John, and I all quickly dispatched our first opponents (I killed mine with a single blow - Berrybriar must be the finest sword every made by windling hands. I wish Brighteyes could have seen what she did!) Then Kavros got hit by a spear of ice. He and I quickly raced up the hill and found the dwarven elementalist who had cast the spell. He was trying to form another spell, but Kavros and I knocked him down, then John knocked him out with a kick to the head. We all met up at the summit of the hill where the elementalist had set himself up. It was a reasonably defensible position but many in our party were badly injured. We saw four cross bow men coming up the front of the hill and two more coming up the right side of the hill in a flanking motion. Just then we heard noise behind us. I flew down the back of the hill and reported what I had seen - a large group of men in matching outfits on horseback sending a flanking party up the left side of the hill. We quickly decided that the best plan would be to try to break out on the right side of the hill where there were only two opponents. Kavros and I went first to establish the escape route while Gorian and John covered the wounded on the hill. Kavros engaged one cross bowman while I fought the other. No sooner had Berrybriar and I attacked then a MASSIVE vicious horse with teeth big enough to eat me in one bite came charging up and started biting and trampling my opponent (nearly trampling me). Then the rider on the horses back cut the bandit's head off. I flew up and hid in tree and didn't come back down until the awful things were gone. I have been told that the horsemen were Urupan guards and they were protecting us as they would any honest traveler. I'm not so sure about that, but I will say that the bandits were killed by the men and their horses (mostly the horses) then their heads were cut off and piled by the road as a warning - except for the elementalist. He was taken back for questioning.

We headed on our way to Urupa. We were in pretty sorry shape when we arrived and I was glad Elias was familiar with the city. He knew all about the proper taxes to pay and where to find the best traveler's inns. We got a couple of rooms and then started inquiring about the inn we had been told to deliver the scroll to. We found it in the orc part of town and went their as soon as possible to deliver the scroll. When we got their, we found Farstrider waiting for us. He looked pretty beaten up, apparently he had had almost as bad of a time getting to Urupa as we had had. He thanked us for our work and told us that if we needed him, he could be found at that inn for the next few weeks as he recovered from his injuries.

So, that pretty much brings you up to date. I am training for third circle and singing my songs in local inns. I am also avoiding the horror-stalker that is staying at our inn. His name is Minnyar and he is very creepy. His pattern is all discolored and I don't like being near it. Kavros has made an orc friend and keeps going out to drink Hurlg. He also visited the Blue Rose and put everyone else's fears to rest by proving he isn't horror tainted (I knew he wasn't all along). Gorian is teaching a couple of spoiled human children archery, and we are all recovering from our injuries and the hardships of the road. I have no idea what your great-grandmother will be doing next, but I will attempt to be a better correspondent in the future.

Fair winds and sunshine,

Windy