Outpost and ill tidings

Raifer set out to organize his new command manning the northern pass outpost. The post was established to guard the southern tip of a narrow gap in the mountains north of the Dwarven kingdom of Al-Alin. He was given a complement of 40 army volunteers to perform scouting, reconnaissance and when possible minor offensive maneuvers. He also found that his position was somewhat precarious in its possibilities for defense.

On a previous patrol, Raifer came across a wandering Xvart. The patrol captured him and questioned him. His name was Gliksnar. He was not overly scared and was somewhat willing to talk about the Xvart peoples in the area, but not where or how many they were. They let him go and eventually came across a Drow scout leading a crew of wolves.

The Drow was caught and most of the wolves killed. The scout patrol brought the Drow back to the outpost. With the original intention of returning this prisoner to the Dwarves for further questioning, Raifer attempted some interrogation first with the assistance of Nord and his torture techniques. The drow let on nothing of use other than that they would all die soon. It was decided to do a little more area scouting to get a better lay of the land and maybe find out more about the drow in the area, if they were.

Raifer took a party including Indigo Jones, Duther McCullen, Magenta Nightshade and Kunder Broadfoot in search of information. They crossed the pass and began investigating the northern mountain face. As they scanned around they came to a very craggy section of the cliffs. Indigo was sent up to have a look around. Raifer's first thought was that this would be a good spot for a northern cliff lookout post. Magenta also spotted what she thought were Xvart tracks around the base of the cliffs.

As he climbed, Indigo began to notice some perches that looked to good to be natural. The higher he went, the more he saw, He climbed back down, losing his grip at one point and falling some 25 feet, but was only mildly hurt. Raifer went back up. He scaled the cliff face higher up and found what could only be an arrangement of archer points carved in to the side of the mountain. As he went up beyond where Indigo had stopped, he found a perch wide enough for three humans, comfortable and equipped with arrow slits. Up higher he found an oil vat site complete with oil cauldrons and scorch marks from long ago fires. It was then he sighted the wolves coming towrds them off in the distance.

He had the crew climb up in to the various perches and waited. As the pack of about a half dozen wolves approached within 100 yards, a hail of crossbow bolts from the scouting parties right rained down, killing them almost instantly. To their surprise, there was a small party of about 10 to 15 Xvarts in another section of perches no more than 50 yards away. They all climbed down to find that none were aware of the others. After a brief exchange, during which the Xvart leader confided that the perches were of dwarven carving, the Xvarts took off with their prize.

Raifer decided to follow them the next morning. Their tracks led to a section of the cliff along the northern wall containing four distinct cave entrances. Kunder was able to identify 2 as being carved by dwarves, one was natural and one was hewn by something that did not know what it was doing. Being the end of the day and not wanting to start in to something like this just yet, the group headed back to the outpost for rest and restocking. They found that the Drow prisoner had started talking somewhat and now wanted out. This, along with news from one of the patrols that an orc camp had been sighted that day on the outskirts of the patrol area led to the decision to hunker down and defend the post.

5 scout parties were sent out to find the oncoming force. Marci Whiskerbiscuit sighted the large force of orcs coming in military column fashion and counted them at between 75 and 200. The scouts all reported back in and the orcs moved forward. When they were about 5 miles off, they camped for the night. The outpost prepared for the coming battle.

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