August 14, Year 3488 (SE 118)
The party travel along with the caravan for the entire day. Flossaria, Zedlyn, and Iriellis are hiding inside the wagons because their heavily armed and armored appearance might scare off any attackers. Adokas is also inside, because he's worried that attackers might recognize him. This leaves P'hla and Sharla riding outside, sharing the same horse. However, the caravan is not ambushed during the day.
August 15, Year 3488 (SE 118)
The first half of this day is uneventful, as the caravan continues on. In the afternoon, the wagons are making their way through a hilly section of the route, when suddenly five lizardfolk archers rise out of concealment, 100 feet from the road, and let fly with arrows. P'hla and one of the caravan guards are hit and injured badly. As they hear the sound of battle, the rest of the party leap out of the wagons to join in.
As the lizardfolk continue to pelt them with arrows, the party take action. Flossaria gets one lizard-man in the throat with a crossbow bolt, instantly killing it, and Iriellis stands next to her and attacks with her sling. Zedlyn and Adokas advance, Zedlyn throwing a javelin and Adokas attacking with his sling. The wounded caravan guard retreats, while the other charges into battle on his horse, rapidly closing the distance and engaging two of the lizardfolk. Sharla attempts to heal P'hla, while P'hla casts a sleeping spell into the middle of the fray. It catches the guardsman and the two lizardfolk he was fighting, and all three drop to the ground.
Adokas closes the distance and attacks one of the two remaining lizardfolk, while Zedlyn moves back to keep an eye on the caravan. Iriellis and Flossaria continue firing, and P'hla and Sharla ride forward to wake the sleeping guardsman. Flossaria drops another lizardfolk with her crossbow and Adokas injures his foe while taking some injuries himself. After Sharla finishes waking the guardsman, she approaches the last lizard-man from behind and drops it with tendrils of magic.
Adokas ties up the two sleeping lizardfolk, while the clerics heal everyone up and Zedlyn gathers the bodies and searches them. The party take the tied-up lizardfolk and bring them each into different wagons, then P'hla slaps one of them awake and they interrogate it. They try to speak with it in Common, but it just hisses back at them. Unexpectedly, Flossaria responds to it in its own hissing language.
The creature is antagonistic, but Flossaria convinces it to answer their questions. It tells them that it comes from a tribe to the north, home of many lizardfolk, although no amount of cajoling will convince it to give up the exact location. They have made a deal with humans in both Viskha and Barar; these individuals give them advance warning of caravans that are coming through, the lizardfolk attack the caravans, and they split the spoils. It has nothing to say on the subject of the caravan whose occupants simply vanished, except that "they were delicious". Finally, it confirms that they do, in fact, have Iskander's holy symbol of Kord. Apparently, they are quite fond of it.
They try to question the second lizardfolk as well, but it turns out to be much less talkative than the first. It simply tells Flossaria to either kill it or let it go; it won't answer any questions.
Considering what to do next, Adokas and P'hla do some mental math and realize that, based on the time that the suspicious man must have departed from Viskha, and the amount of time the lizardfolk had to arrive at their ambush point, the lizardfolk village can't be more than half a day's travel to the north. The party consider heading there immediately, but eventually decide that they should finish escorting the caravan to Barar and regroup.
They travel for the rest of the day before setting up camp for the night. They chain the two lizardfolk together and move them into the same wagon, so that one person alone can keep an eye on them. They set up a system of guard shifts in which the six party members, plus the two guardsmen, will take turns on watch, two at a time - one outside, keeping an eye out for trouble, and one inside, watching the two lizardfolk. While they'd like to have more than two people watching at a time, they can't; they need to give everyone enough time to rest, and any delay means that the caravan won't make it to Barar the next day.
P'hla and Zedlyn take the first watch shift, which is uneventful. They see nothing suspicious. After two hours, they swap out with Adokas and Flossaria. Flossaria watches the outside of the camp, while Adokas stays inside with the lizardfolk. However, midway through his shift, Adokas' attention starts to wander, and he fails to notice the lizardfolk furtively cutting apart their ropes with their sharp claws and teeth. He also fails to notice when they grab weapons and sneak up behind him. He only realizes that they're behind him just in time to dodge the bludgeon of the first lizardfolk, dodging directly into the bludgeon of the second lizardfolk, which nearly knocks him out cold in a single blow. His scream of pain and surprise sounds across the camp as the lizardfolk heft their weapons and prepare to finish him off...
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