Chapter Seven: The Stalemate At Loton's Cove

Also ready.

With little left to do in Solyhill town, the party ventures northward, picking up the trail the soldiers took not so long ago.

The day is chilly but clear, with gusty winds blowing from the west. The vegetation here is mostly brown grasses and scrub, with scattered oak trees that are naked of their leaves reaching up from the ground like twisted, skinny claws. To the east, the distant slopes of the mountains and their foothills are more densely covered with varied trees, and to the west you can see great stands of copperwood stretching up into the sky, but all around you here is gray rock and brown earth.

Somebody give me a Nature check.

The path winds to follow level ground for several hours' ride. You pass a goat farm and a squat tower made of brown stone from which the smoke from a cookfire rises, but settlements are few and far between, and you meet no travelers on the road.

As the sun begins to sink lower in the sky, the hills to either side of you rise up steeper. You pass a farmstead razed to its foundations, likely a casualty of the orc raids of years past.

Somebody else give me a Perception check.

Leth occupies himself by becoming slightly fixated on the idea of bringing down a deer for the party's evening meal, but there are none to be seen grazing the slopes nearby.

As the shadows grow longer, the party sees another group of travelers approaching them from the other direction. There are five of them, on foot, with a single pack mule laden with supplies. From this distance, you cannot perceive any other details, but it won't be long before your paths meet.

Do our surroundings lend themselves to easily concealing ourselves, or can we assume they have already seen us as well?

I knew I liked you, notinventedhere.

There is no cover here. They have surely seen you.

I guess we do that awkward thing of recognizing someone's presence when you are too far away and then you have to continue to make eye contact the whole time you are walking towards one another, or pretend to be distracted by your phone or a thread on your sleeve or something until you are close enough to properly nod or say hi... I may have some social anxiety, yes.

Mordred attempts to discern their intentions from afar.

As the two parties draw closer to each other, you can better make out the other's composition. It looks to be two men, two women, and a young girl. You can see now that one of the women carries a sixth person, another small child, on her back. You can see that the adults have short swords hanging from their belts.

At shouting distance, one of the men waves to you. The group appears to be a family -- the children all have the same black haired, heavy-browed look of their mother. The waving man, likely the father, is short with a ruddy complexion. In addition to the swords, the father and the two older children have bows and quivers slung across their backs. They seem wary of you, but not outwardly fearful.

In a moment or two, you will be close enough to converse with them.

Annganne can put on her illusionsuit before the approaching party notices.

Once you are close enough that it would be strange not to exchange greetings, the eldest male steps forward and speaks. "Well met, travelers. We are the Hodwils of Bearshir. We have little. No gold, only provisions enough for our journey. We'll gladly share with you if you're in need."

Somebody give me an Insight or Perception check.

Everything looks A-OK to Zangua!

The husband and wife exchange a look.

"Do you come from Solyhill?" the man asks. "We plan to spend the night there. If there are dangers on the road between here and there, we would be grateful for warnings."

"We come from Akker's Well," the man says. "We camped there last night with the intention of reaching the Valley of the Dragon today, but we were forced to turn back. The orcs have returned. We saw their scouts in the hills about five miles past Akker's Well, and the hermit who dwells in the holy house at Saudru says that they occupy Old Hilltown now."

The elder daughter is staring at Annganne. "You shouldn't be riding that donkey," she says. "You're too heavy for him in that mail. You'll break his back."