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It is now the Morning of April 12th. The Sun Rising at 6:47am.

The Adventures have their breakfasts, do their exercises, hide the leather barding & any signs that a camp was recently set here.

They now focus on heading southward to were Durgan had scoped out the Caves Valley....

Strombrow "If nobody has anything else to do lets head to the caves. Boc and Durgan lead on as you scouted ahead fo us and know the way better than the rest of us."

Dizlexus wrote:Gus

Gus snatches up a Stirge corpse and tosses it at the feet of Linos. Gus says:
Breakfast.

Linos gives Gus a humorless, unappreciative look, but he takes the Stirge.

Boc tells everyone the rim of the Caves of Chaos is roughly 250 yards due south from the campsite.

Luna, in a semi-hushed voice: "Say, good fellows Boc and Durgan, what more can you disclose about those caves ? Any pesky dwellers we need to be wary of?"

Strombrow "Yes in your prolonged stay since someone forgot to get you when I had asked did you see anything?"

As the group travels onwards towards the ridge of the canyon, Boc takes the lead, not needing to speak unless directly spoken to as they progress. He does however give a sideways glance towards Stormbrow, obviously not needing to remark on how the direction to retrieve the druid must have happened while the knight was sleeping.

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Durgan replies to Luna's words as they travel, "I saw nothing, which is good and bad. The canyon was empty of any type of life, whatever is in that cave is home to nothing but evil."

Linos strips the stirge, rubs salt on the fillets, wraps them in cotton, and tucks them into a saddle bag.

Did Linos recover is one hp of damage overnight?

Luna, pondering: "Nothing but evil? Hmmmm.... Instead of changing the thing, change the world around it. That's what the wise Eeknow would surely say."

Durgan nods his head, "A sentiment that I would agree, one cannot change the flow of the river, but by changing the path of the land one can achieve one's goal. Sadly that is not the mind set of those that rule, and so we do these things, Mere bandages over an already open wound."

Linos: "Bah! The course of rivers is changed by spade and mattock and the backs of the Righteous bent in ceaseless toil. Lead me to this river. I shall wade in. Watch the current break before the Holy Star of the Saint."

Strombrow "Eh knock it off. Rivers change with the floods, so does everything around the river. Lets just continue on shall we? Perhaps before the siege engines at the tower head to the keep, so that we might warn those at the keep. But first we have a task to attend to."

Luna: "Then....to the task at hand. Onward!"

Gus and Clem

Gus is still reeling from his nightmare and is in no mood for idle chatter about the natural courses of rivers.
Common! Ya bunch of dim wit philosophers. Gus says, obviously grumpy as hell.

Gus turns his horse in the direction of the caves and moves out (a unilateral decision to move)-- Clem follows his grumpy brother close.

Gus waves to Durgan (come over) and says,

"Hey, nature boy! Won't you show me where this damn place is? We have work to do. I don't know about you, Durgan, but I need to be occupied. "

Gus is out of sorts and appears angry. He had a profound psychological experience. He does not mean to offend (not much). He could use a mead.

Garbonzo is surprisingly alert for a man that didn't sleep much after being attacked. He is a little grumpy though, so he is keeping a low profile.

Trindon is happy to be back on the move. He is highly alert and ready for anything. He takes a few minutes to practice his horse tricks before heading to the caves.

Yes, Linos is now healed!

Ok, after the Party cleans up the camp site & tries to remove all traces of it, they proceed southward bringing the 5 horses with them, though without the leather barding worn.

They make it without any incident, though they find they will have to leave the horses now, about 100 yards away from the rim of the Caves Valley as the foliage is just way to dense here.

Strombrow: "Hmm, the trees really do tighten up around here must be deeper in the woods than I anticipated."

The Adventurers follow Boc & Durgan single file through the dense forestry, where they had previous hacked their way through, yet going to the trouble to disguise passage they leave behind.

Finally the party gets close to the rim of the Caves Valley & it is here that Boc & Durgan tells everyone to get down & crawl out on their bellies to the edge to have a look & this is what they see...

Continued in Chapter 4: Into The Fire!