When Tamas hears Emil's voice he quickly turns his head in the direction where he heard him and then throws himself flat on the ground. He lifts his head enough to try to locate where Emil is and also if he can see any raider with a crossbow ready to shoot in his direction.
He won't leave his grog with these barbarians so if he sees that they are starting to move away with Emil captured he will follow them and try to stop them.
If someone comes towards him he stands and immediately prepares to cast another Pilum of Fire.
From his vantage point on the ground, Tamas can see Emil running towards him. The situation behind the grog is confused, with horses rearing and kicking while the remaining raider trying to regain control of them. You can see a ruined crossbow on the ground -- probably the result of Emil's actions -- but also the two other raider edgeing toward you.
Emil doesn't look happy to see you on the ground, "Get up! Run!" He's almost reached you position by now.
As soon as Tamas sees Emil running towards him and yell to get up, he rises and starts running towards the forest. The magus adjusts his pace so that he runs next to his grog. He glances over his shoulders a few times to see where the two raiders are if they continue chasing them or if they give up.
(Actually, Emil runs faster than Tamas does, even accounting for Encumbrance. Emil has Sta 1 + Athletics 4 - Enc 1 = 4 vs Tamas with Sta 2 Athletics 0 = 2.)
Soon enough, they pair are back into the trees. When they eventually stop, both out of breath, there is no sound of pursuit. Once he gets his breath back somewhat, Emil asks in a whisper, "Why did you come, master? We'd agreed that you'd wait with the others until I came back to let you know the way was safe. I can't protect you if you go off on your own this way!" He looks more unhappy than angry.
Tamas breathes heavily after the running.
"I know but it took so long and I thought something had happened to you. Let's get back to the others, it might be that we have to stay the night here and then we need to prepare our camp well."
The young grog shakes his head, "I was about to come back. I think these were the last ones, but I didn't want us to stumble upon more while trying to catch up with the main group. I should stay here for a little longer, to make sure the area is clear. I'll catch up with you?" Tamas notices that Emil received a cut from his scuffle with the fourth raider. Taking out a piece of cloth, the young man quickly ties it around his sword arm, to stop the bleeding and prevent the wound from catching too much dirt.
Tamas disapproves as he looks at Emil's arm. "We are done here. How bad is that arm? Let's go back. It's late so we can't be travelling very far today anyway." He starts to walk in the direction he came from, back towards the place where they hid the cart.
"Just a shallow cut," Emil shrugs off the pain from the cut. Even though he'd have preferred to make sure that all the raiders had left the area, he follows his magus back to their hiding place.
Once there, after relating the situation to Endre, they older grog isn't happy about Tamas' decision. "Delaying has its own risk, magister. If we delay too much, then we won't be able to catch up with the main group. That will make us easy preys to any other brigands along the way. I'd feel much better if we were to travel for the few hours of sunlight we have left."
Tamas looks at Endre, then Emil and finally the cart. "What about the axle, can't we do something about that if we stay here for the night and then we can travel faster tomorrow? If not, then let's go for a few hours but Endre you scout forward and report any sights of raiders. Emil you stay closer to us, I don't want to risk your arm further."
"We've done what we could with it for now," says Endre quietly. "Whether it holds or not is another matter entirely, but there is little more we can do on that right now. Getting another piece of wood ready for when it this one fails -- I think it's a matter of when rather than if -- is something that will take drying the wood. So unkless you can magic something out, that'll take time." The older grog is rather grim, "But even starting now, we may not be ablke to catch up with the main group in time to avoid drawing attention." He pauses before adding, "We may have to leave the cart behind at some point."
When Endre has left to scout the way ahead, as the rest of you begin leading the cart and the mules back to the road, the lady Adelinde asks you, "Has danger passed?"
Tamas looks at Adelinde with a serious face "For now the danger is at a minimum but we need to be very careful. The raiders can get back soon and we must be ready to hide quickly then. You may have to abandon the cart to save your own lives." He looks at her for a few moments to see the meaning of his words sink into her mind, then he moves to help getting the cart and mules back to the road.
"What of my husband's body? Will we be able to bring him back with us?" She seems distraught by the whole situation, but is trying to hold herself together.
Tamas gives her a long look with a sad glimpse in his eyes "It may come to a point where you have to choose between you coming home alive or both of you stay here dead." he says, trying not to sound too harsh.
Adelinde lowers her head but says no more, instead dropping back to look anxiously as Meffrid leads the cart forward until it has reaches the road.
The next few days are quite tense, as your small group try to catch up with the main party. Twice, you need to hide and wait for small groups of men to pass by. You are not sure they are bandits, but they look shady enough that you think it best to avoid contact with them. The temporary axle is showing signs of failing when you finally catch sight of the merchants' chariots in the afternoon of the third day, climbing its way to the mountain pass an hour or two ahead of you. Unfortunately, on the slope behind, Endre points to a small armed group making their way up. Even from this distance, they are a scruffy-looking lot.
"How many are they?" Tamas asks Endre. "Can we delay them in some way? If not, we need to find a place to hide quickly."
He looks around where they are. Is it possible to block the road quckly in some way and what are the chances of finding a reasonable hiding place ahead of them?
The pass they are climbing, which crosses the the low mountains between Hungary and Bohemia, is fairly wide. Even if Tamas was to block the road, that would only slow down the group chaser after them a little, as it would be easy for the dozen or so riders to lead their mounts around the road. A high magnitude Terram spell might be able to block the pass completely, but that is beyond anything Tamas can hope to achieve. Not to mention that it would also block any future trading caravan trying to use the same road.
The problem remains the cart, which slows them down a lot. It all comes down to a choice between fight and flight, with flight only becoming possible (though by no mean certain) if they leave the cart behind. Or if the speed of the cart was improved in some way.
After a quick discussion with Endre and Emil, Tamas walks over to Adelinde with a serious look in his face. "It's time. We have to leave the cart behind otherwise the riders will be upon us and we all will be killed. Take your most precious things and then we must move on, as quickly as possible."
Then he starts walking upwards the way they were travelling. If they choose to stay, so be it. The dead should be buried not travelling in a cart across Europe, he thinks to himself.
Although tears streak down her face, she nods and relates the order to her henchman, who quickly unhitches their mule from the cart and hooks everything he can unto it. It isn't much, far less than what the animal could have carried, but all they've been able to put into packs. Adelinde herself takes a pack and carry it as they small group leave the cart behind.
After they are back on the trail, climbing quickly after the main caravan, Endre quietly mentions to Tamas, "You know, we could probably have loaded the body on the mule, had we had time. She's in trouble now, I think. Unlikely to inherit anything, from what I could understand from what her man said to me."
The rest of the afternoon is tense. Your tighs burn with fatigue as you all push yourselves to move quickly upward on the trail. But before long, you catch up with the tail of the caravan. Your arrival is met with relative indifference by the others.
(Unless you have any other plans for the introduction threads I'm ready to fast forward to the arrival at Fengheld or whereever you plan to put us all together.)
The next few days are a bit akward for the small group. Adelinde is notably depressed by her future propects (or lack of them) and the absence of her cart means she had to leave behind most of what she had been able to bring back. Her henchman Meffrid does his best to see to her needs, but Endre tells Tamas later that the man was also very much affected by the need to leave his master's body behind, without a proper burial in his family's graveyard. He seems to see it as a failure on his part. This of course affects the mood of your grogs as well.
To make things worse, once you rejoin the main merchant train, Emil eventually discovers that the young woman -- the one who'd offered you her 'services' and who'd also been held captive by the raiders you attacked -- had escaped and also rejoined the caravan. She must have talked about what she's witnessed, for the other members of the caravan now treat your group with suspicion or even outright hostility.
Still, the caravan eventually reaches Vienna, where it disperses. From there, you make your way to Passau along the Danube, then to Prague in Bohemia, then finally along the Elbe and around the Ore Mountains into what Endre calls the Margavates of Meissen and of Brandenburg. Leaving the Elbe -- and the still-distraught Adelinde -- behind, you then travel north west on foot towards the Harz mountains and your final destination, Fengheld.
Your arrival is noted by the guards at the gate, and you are soon met by a maga named Dorana. She helps you settle into temporary quarters, then gives you a tour of the covenant. Eventually, all the other young magi who were set to arrive do so, and you gather for a meeting with the leader of Fengheld, the archmagus Stentorius of Tremere.