Oscar

Go to Threshold, they said. Bring your wagon, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.

Nope.

So far, we have been rained on by blood, cursed at by peasants, solicited by naked elven ladies and a golden dragon, and had a very expensive mule eaten by hyenas that were, apparently, better armored than most humans.

We ended our trip at a ford guarded by 6 heavily armored bandits… err, knights, until proven to be bandits, which is likely to be shortly. Stria and u-Heury are hiding in case things go badly.

At least I made a small profit hauling wood from Eastdale to Kirkleston.

The kid had a watery visitation from the frog prince, and apparently received a map. It looks like it might match some of the local terrain. We’ll check it out if we survive the bandits.

Stria

We started off for Threshold with Oscar’s wagon loaded with lumber he hoped to sell up north. The peasants at Kirkleston were annoying. The barmaid mentioned the murder they’d had a while back that was still unsolved. I bit my tongue, looked innocent, and promised to let the authorities know if we heard anything. Since it happened when I was with Feverborne, the other two don’t know anything about it, so there isn’t anyone to tell on me. She also mentioned awful roads further north and a someone that repaired wagons and had wagon parts. It seemed a good idea to get some parts just in case, even though she was absolutely taking a cut of the referrals, no matter how much she tried to deny it. Oscar only got a spare wagon wheel, though. He’s awful penny pinching for a cleric of a god of commerce. Concerned about the weight putting pressure on the wagon over rough roads, he sold his lumber for a small profit, and bought bags of fodder to sell north instead.

We traveled through the weirdest forest of white trees with blood red leaves. It was disturbing. Even more disturbing was when it started raining blood. We made it to the next village, Raven something, where the peasants were even more annoying and condescending. Luckily for them, it stopped raining blood after a few hours and we were able to leave before I killed the entire lot of them. At one point, we were attacked by two giant dogs after our mules. We fought valiantly, but we could not do any damage to the beasts. The kid even jumped on one and tried to stab it while astride, but he missed and it threw him off. Luckily for us, given our ineptitude, they were more interested in the mules than in us. One of the mules got free of the traces, and they killed it and began eating, ignoring us. So we got away with the remaining three mules.

Further on, we saw a gold dragon lying across the tree tops, and two naked female elves dancing and laughing. They beckoned us to come speak to them. I sternly ordered Oscar to keep driving, do not stop. The situation screamed trap. Elves don’t run around naked, and they absolutely don’t want to speak to humans. The kid gave me a heart attack when he dove off the side of the wagon, but he was hiding from the dragon, not going after the naked elves. Good lad. The dragon did not attack us, and the elves went back to dancing once we were past. The kid jumped back in the wagon once it was safe. We had an interesting discussion about … initiating him into manhood. Once he’s a little older.

We escaped the creepy trees and encountered a river. There were men in armor, three on each side of the ford. We’re pretty sure they are bandits, no matter how much they look like knights. The kid and I dropped off into the underbrush to sneak up on the knights, should Oscar not be able to talk his way through.