Yarthmon 4, AC 1000
Rhys, Aquar and Anohir spend the day tracking down information on the orcish attackers. It appears that they have struck an additional three times since the initial attack. Only on the second attack was the caravan utterly destroyed; the guards were successful in driving off the orcs the other three times, though not without loss of life or destruction of property. Of the caravans attacked, only one originated from Threshold; the others were traveling south from Darokin.
The companions run into the Ranger, Ronrol, who tells them that the Baron sends out semi-regular patrols up and down the Duke's Road, but they have never encountered an orcish ambush. Likewise, they have taken to accompanying the odd caravan some distance north in the hopes of intercepting a raid, without luck. Ronrol opines that it is unlikely the Baron will agree to spare any of his troops. "You didn't hear it from me," he says, "but me and a bunch of the boys are getting ready to head east, see what we can find out about this cleric Elwyn." He does admit to having done a bit of poking around himself, back when the first caravan was attacked, and seemed convinced the orcs don't actually live that close to the Duke's Road. "There's no good caves nearby -- not within a few miles, nohow -- and there's no way a tribe or orcs that size can live somewhere without despoiling a good bit of land around their lair. It's just in their nature. There's some hills north of Lake Windrush, pretty barren and empty, mostly. My guess is they lair in there, somewhere, and have started ranging east for some reason. I haven't been up there in a while, but there's a trail leads from the Duke's Road to some Elven village, passes through those hills. There some more settlements in the mountains up there, too. Those boys you used to adventure with opened up the trail north for us, so we've been doing some pretty good trade with them. Could be the caravans stopped going west through the hills, and the orcs have had to expand their range.
The companions also find that the merchant heading the latest caravan to be attacked is still in town. He is a dour man of Darokin origin, with fat, beringed fingers and an oiled mustache. He asks what information the adventurers desire of him.
