Rintor scowls as he walks. The mountains looming in the near distance seem more arid than they'd looked from afar. It's likely that the party is headed into their rain shadow. [i]Open ground is more defensible with a party this large and unlikely to travel stealthily, but voyaging into the mountains proper is inadvisable. Finding and following a river or stream into he foothills is our best bet.[/i] Then there's the startling lack of native fauna that more than one person has observed. Briefly, Rintor adds his voice to the growing chorus of agreement. The halfling and the tall, gangling girl - still half a child - go to investigate, while the half-elf seems eager only for the personal glory of slaying a beast in combat, uncognizant or perhaps uncaring of the fact that hoping to protect others from danger means hoping for it to exist in the first place.

All of these little storylines come to a halt before they have the chance to resolve themselves, however, when a sudden, unexpected noise emerges from the depths of the heavily-laden cart. It quickly turns into a man breaking free, supplies tumbling to the ground, and - 

Rintor does not wait a moment longer. He centers himself, reaches for the threads of light, and grabs them none too gently. Disappearing from view, he sprints toward where the man is leaping from the cart, landing in a roll, and starting to rise. The stowaway pauses, his face becoming pained, pensive, bewildered, and then jubilant in sequence. Then The Blade of Boshir appears in front of him, black-robed and as menacing as he cares to look at this point in his life. "We know no more than you, stranger. Now you had best explain the Who are you, and what the meaning of this intrusion is." He rests his hands on his daggers, feeling a long-forgotten or perhaps long-repressed rush, and quickly clamps down on it again. [i]The consequences would be too great.[/i]