The caravan stops unexpectedly again, the third time today, but this time the vague mutterings and curses that signify a relatively minor inconvenience and as such an equally minor delay are not forthcoming. Instead comes a cry of utter frustration from the caravan master and owner, a rather excitable and unpleasant merchant named Vilis.
You have been riding with Vilis for nearly five weeks, and as per your original agreement, that is already one week too many. At the urging of a friend that called in a favor you reluctantly agreed to escort the ill tempered Vilis to New Sarnath. Your friend knew of your plans to seek your fortunes in the new, future "crown city" of the kingdom and assured you that with this job you would not only be even, but that he would be in your debt.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, even after you met the caravan master, though red flags soon began appearing and the regret soon followed. Perhaps your friend does not like you as much as you had thought.
The caravan carries various luxury items meant for the desperate nobles of the New Sarnath who are finding the "frontier" life less comfortable than they had imagined, and such items are expensive.
So why are there so few guards besides you and associates? As you begin North, the whispers of others in the caravan solves that mystery: Vilis is not the rich entrepreneur he pretends to be and this caravan currently holds all he owns in the world.
His gambling habits and debts have seen to that. So now, being a gambler at heart, he heads North laden with the kind of score that could solve his troubles, at least temporarily, or let one lucky group of bandits retire as rich men.
Apparently your employer has a contact lined up in New Sarnath that will pay above premium prices for the goods, but only if they can arrive by a certain date. That date is fast approaching and Vilis grows more desperate by the day.
The time frame given for the delivery should have been easy, trivial even. That is, if one were heading up the King's Road, the recently restored, well maintained, and well protected way to New Sarnath.
Unfortunately those that protect the way, free company men under commission by the crown, are also tasked with collecting tolls, and as such men have minimal oversight, the tolls can sometimes be rather larger than expected.
And so you take the roads less traveled, the dangerous and slow roads, but still with the rather generous time for delivery they should have been suitable as long as the weather held. Shockingly, you have found your way clear of danger. Now if only the weather holds everything will have gone according to plan.
But of course the weather did not hold. In fact, the rain has haunted your step for a week and a half now, turning the already neglected dirt roads into barely passable mud pits. Progress has slowed considerably, with broken wheels and axles becoming nearly an epidemic and the search for alternate routes to escape the sea of mud a constant.
What should have been at most a three to four week trip on the back roads is now edging toward five with perhaps another week to go.
Again you wonder if your "friend" had any notion of how much of a nightmare this trip would be when he passed it on to you. You get the feeling he might have and is perhaps having a good laugh in some tavern somewhere even at this moment at your expense. Some friend he is.
A yell from Vilis for you to "get your ass down here" shakes you from your reveries and you move out to investigate the latest source of your misery. This time it turns out to be an overly full river. No, make that an overly full river that should have an old weathered wooden bridge spanning it, but doesn't.
You begin to see the problem.
With much cursing and yelling Vilis explains that there is supposedly another bridge 10 miles to the North and politely requests that you and associates confirm its existence as it would be quite unfortunate if they had to wrangle the caravan all that way just to find that bridge too destroyed by the recent turn in weather.
In the mean time, the merchant continues, he will hold down the fort and curse the all the gods that have forsaken him. You get the feeling that would be a rather lengthy list. As to not waste any more time, you do as you are bid if only so you can get a brief respite from the horrid man's company.
You make the trek North through the incessant rain and miraculously find a bridge intact. Truly your mission was a great success. As you begin to congratulate yourselves on a job well done and head back to share the good news, you see shapes in the mud on the other side of the bridge.
You recognize one of them as a corpse and investigate to find the man is not alone in death. A massacre. Five horses and four men total lay dead in the mud, riddled with arrows, clearly ambushed just before the bridge. They seem fresh, not dead more than a few hours.
The corpses wear nondescript travel clothing and worn leather armor, yet a closer look into the torn and looted saddle bags reveals the now mud and blood stained livery of the crown. A group of soldiers traveling incognito on the back roads?
Five horses, four men. The numbers as well as other details don't add up. In the fresh mud you find tracks, presumably of the ambushers, leading deeper into the woods, heading West.
What do?
