Adriena peeks her head into the room, "What's taking so long? There can't be anything interesting in the kitchen, can there?" She strolls in and makes a gross face at the dead body. "What is that stuff on his neck? Yuck! I'm getting tired. Maybe we should find a comfortable place to sleep. Not in here. I have always liked camping under the stars..." She returns to the main hall and slips one of the rings into her belly-pouch, judging that it would not be too encumbersome for her to lug around until she finds out what it is for.

Ganthanor responds, "Yes, let's make camp outside. It would be better for us to get outside anyway. I feel so cramped in here."

Seeing the moving things on the corpse, Gregory thoughtfully backs away from the body and says, "I think camping outside is a good idea. We don't know if whatever killed everyone is still around here or not and I don't like that pit in the other room. Why don't we go back to the other room where we got the shutter open and go out the window. Once outside I say we get at least a mile away from here before we make camp. By the way, no one touch that body. There are little moving brown things on it and I have no idea what they are."

Aanparon says, "I suppose camp is probably the best idea. Let's get out of here."

Ganthanor responds, "Let's not forget our mission. It's time we started our trek and reach that Orc city/village. let's get out of here and get a move on. The lady did mention that time was of the essence."

Adriena says, "Well, if you all are finished in the kitchen then we can leave. Going out the window sounds a little silly, but I'm game." She heads for the well room where the shutter was opened by Gregory as the rest of the party follows behind her. Gregory gives her a boost out the window and while he is helping her, his hands slip a little and palm her orc behind. Once Adriena is through the window the rest of the party follows.

Adriena lands outside and crouches to the left of the window alert for any noise or movement outside but doesn't hear or see anything out of the ordinary, so she steps away from the window, as others come jumping through it, to gaze up at the stars. She quickly determines the party's location and the direction in which the group must head, "I believe the city lies in that direction. Maybe there is a trail or even a road that the orcs used to come here. Should we follow one or stay clear? It would be faster to follow, safer to trail blaze..."

"I think we should stay to the trails if we find any. I think we would have an easier time explaining ourselves if found on the trail than if we were found deep in the woods," Gregory replies.

Malis speaks saying, "I agree that we need to leave. I feel wide awake although it is night. I wonder if we should camp at night and travel during the day, there would be less orcs around to bother us. I think we should travel on the path, that way we get there faster, but we should camp off of the trail."

Gregory listens and then remarks, "Malis has a good point. If we travel during the day we are less likely to get spotted by the Orcs. We can always explain that the priestess' business is so urgent that we must travel during the day in the event we are discovered by some Orcs. Camping off of the trail is also a good idea. Since the Orcs are active at night we want to make sure we are a good distance away from any trails, but as long as we don't have a fire and keep a good watch we should be fine. I say we travel far enough tonight to find a good place to camp and then rest until dawn. I volunteer to take first watch."

Upon reaching agreement the party begins to head Northward towards the city, staying on the path, after traveling for a while the party sees a farmstead in the distance that looks like a good place to set up camp. Continuing to move forward, but with more caution, the party come up on the farmstead. The humans that lived here are obviously long absent. A pall of smoke hangs over the whole place. Straining, the party hears the sound of raucous orcish laughter riding in the evening breeze. The laughter sounds gleeful; there is much shouting, punctuated by the occasional sharp, high-pitched scream. The sounds seem to be coming from the burned-out walled orchard just past the farmstead.

Adriena has a look of sickness to her when she says, "Oh, my... It appears we have reached the first obstacle of our long trip. I think we should be away from here quickly. That sounds like someone being hurt. Oh, how I wish we could help them, but we can help more people by keeping our secret and by-passing this whole mess. Please let us just leave! Maybe we should even go around the other side of the farm and orchard so we don't get spotted. It may even take us out of earshot of those awful screams."

Anyone who is looking will notice Gregory's eyes go dark and his hand strays to the hilt of his sword, "I realize we have a mission to accomplish and we can't afford to blow our cover, but we can't just do nothing while they torture someone down there. We are out in the middle of nowhere, so if we leave no witnesses we should be fine. We should at least sneak down there and see what they are doing. Garth, since you can't be seen, would you go see what is going on?"

Ganthanor pulls out his sword. He looks to the others especially Adriena, "Adriena, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Someone is in trouble and with or without your help, I'm going down there to kill each and every orc." The party can see the intensity of Ganthanor's feelings. He looks to Gregory, "You ready to take out the trash? Let's go."

Gregory replies, "I am with you Ganthanor. Why don't we approach slowly to give Garth time to scout the area. I don't like letting whoever is down there suffer any longer than necessary, but we will have a better chance of success if we get some information before we hit the Orcs."

Aanparon says, "I agree Garth should scout out the area and report back to the rest of you. Mean time, I will try to work my way around to the other side. This will give them two fronts to worry about, and give us adequate warning if their should be others not with the group involved in whatever gives them such pleasure."

Adriena, seeing that the group is planning on heading into the orchard with or without her, says, "I don't like the thought of someone being tortured any more than the rest of you! I, also, don't like the thought of charging into battle - I'm not as brave as the rest of you, sorry. I'll come along and try not to be a hindrance. Maybe there will be some way I _can_ help." She then draws her dagger with a very shaky hand.

Gregory replies, "No one is questioning your courage or your ability Adriena. Your concern for the secrecy of our mission is commendable. What we do here tonight may very well compromise our mission, but I feel we need to do it anyway. Our talents are in different areas. Ganthanor and I are better in a fight than you are, but only because we have spent a lot of time practicing. I couldn't cast a spell to save my life, which is why we need you. When we attack the Orcs down there, why don't you stay back and see where you can best help. It is entirely possible that one of your spells will help us when we need it most." Gregory smiles and winks, "Just be careful who you put to sleep."

Adriena's face becomes very flushed at the reminder of her earlier failure. She says, a bit shakily, "You should know that I won't be able to help you magically. I can only protect myself with a shielding spell or understand foreign languages. Once I have time to study, tomorrow, I will be much more useful in a confrontation. For now I _will_ hang back. If one of the orcs slips by you, I'll try to head him off. I do know how to use this." She waves the dagger around, her hand becoming more steady as she gets up her nerve.

Malis halts everyone with her strong voice saying, "Hold on every one! First we must help who ever that is, my God would be very up set if I did not help, even if it jeopardizes the mission. We still need to think though. We look, sound, and even smell like orcs. What if we just walked down there with our weapons down and asked if we could join the fun, then the thief could make a loud noise to get there attention and then we could jump them. that way they have little chance to run and blow our cover. Adriena could even put them to sleep, I seem to remember that she is rather good at that. Plan B could be for the females of our group could use our feminine wilds to distract them while the rest of you jump them. What ever we do we should think before rushing in."

Adriena says, "Malis is right, of course. You warriors have a better head for that stuff than I do. As I said, I won't be any help with magic, right now anyway. I'm going to hang back and cover the back door, so to speak. As for using my wiles - yuck!! The only way I'm touching any of them will be with this dagger! Besides, Malis, you and I are supposed to be priestesses. I'm not sure they 'mingle' with the common orcs like that. Yuck !! Maybe you can go in and say you need their prisoner(s) for some arcane sacrifice or something? Well, whatever, you all had better hurry, before there is no one left to save. I'm going to check the trail ahead and determine which way they will run...if they run at all. Holler real loud if you are dying," she finishes with a smile.

Gregory says "I think we should stick to our plan to launch a surprise attack. I know a little about Orcs and I don't think they will be willing to share their fun with any more people than they have to. They may grow suspicious of our being out here, or they may just decide to run us off to keep their fun to themselves. Either way, if we announce ourselves we will lose the advantage of surprise. I say we listen to what Garth has to say about the situation and then decide what to do."

Ganthanor responds: "I agree. Surprise is better than the chance they will trust us enough to get close to them our their prisoner(s). let's proceed with the surprise attack. We'll wait for Garth to return, quickly, and then attack. Hurry Garth, the prisoner(s) could be dead before you return." Ganthanor then hangs with Gregory until Garth returns.

"I shall return," You hear as you all sit and wait for Garth to come back with news. Garth moves forward to the stone wall and quietly peers over the four foot tall wall that surrounds the orchard. He sees that the orcs have taken over the orchard and are using it as a campsite. He sees about twenty orcs, a small campfire, three large wagons, and five huge gray lizards. The orcs have strung a woman up by a rope and have set her swinging pendulum-like over the low, smoky campfire. At the high end of her swing, the giant gray lizards snap at her hungrily. At the low end, she swoops inches above the fire. At the northwestern area of the orchard there is a line of twenty captives, all staked out and chained together along the northern wall. The captives are all human, half of them male, half of them female. Garth watches and takes in all of the details and then returns to the party to tell them what he has seen, he ends his report by saying, "I think that we will all be summarily slaughtered if he attempt to attack this group. The orcs all looked to be seasoned fighters, perhaps we should think of a different approach."

Adriena's face goes pale at the description of the campsite. But quickly brightens at an idea, "We could set the farmhouse on fire and run into camp saying a large band of heroes have snuck past the front lines. That should get several of the orcs away, if not most of them. We could tell them that all of our priestess powers are drained from holding them off and now it's up to them to finish the job. "

Gregory says, "I think Adriena is on the right track. We have to get some of those Orcs away from there or we will not be able to handle them. We could send someone down to free the captives and they could help us fight, but they are probably not experienced fighters and would probably only be of little help. However, any help is better than none. I don't think we want to set the farmhouse on fire though, that would draw too much attention. I think Garth should start freeing the prisoners since no one can see him. While he is doing that, he should tell them we are out here and we look like Orcs so they don't try to kill us by mistake. The rest of us could mess ourselves up to make it look like we were in a fight. We can distract the Orcs by telling them we were in some sort of skirmish of some sort and get them listening to us so they don't notice the prisoners being let loose. Then, we and the prisoners can hit them at once and hopefully in the confusion we will be able to get them all. If anyone has a better idea I am open to suggestions."

Aanparon replies, "One problem with your theory, Gregory. There are 20 seasoned orc fighters. Should we successfully release the prisoners we have 10 partially worthless fighters, one mage out of spells, two thieves who don't want to fight, one cleric and two seasoned fighters. Go for it, I'll find a nice seat here in the bushes and cheer real hard for you. We need to turn the orcs on each other and get them to do the work for us. Garth, you speak orcish, go down there and start calling them names and make it look like another one of them did it. You know, names like honeybuns, sweetheart, cutie-pie. An all out fight would be great, but even if it only gets a few that would be a step in the right direction. At least that's my suggestion."

Gregory says in return, "I like your idea, Aan. However, we could still use the help of the prisoners. I realize they are not seasoned fighters, but they should be able to take out several of the Orcs due to their numbers. Besides, aren't there 20 prisoners, 10 men and 10 women? Don't count the women out. They have seen part of what is in store for them. They may just help out. However, we need someone with the proper skills to free them. If we have Garth inciting a riot, that leaves you. How sneaky do you feel? If Garth can start them fighting each other then when things get really heated the prisoners can rush them from one side and we can hit them from the other. Sound good to everyone else?"

Ganthanor responds, "I now know how you feel my friends but let's not forget how those people down there are going to feel as well. We have 20 innocents tied up and 1 dangling from a rope over an open fire (roughly). I am not about to let them die like that even if Tiamat herself was the one doing to cooking. I'm not walking away from this one with or without your help. I'm sorry but that's the way I feel. Now as to a plan. I like the idea of freeing the prisoners before any battle ensues. Oh, and let's not forget about the 5 lizards. They could be a problem. Let's try the riot plan definitely. It can't hurt and some of them will die, others will be hurt."

Adriena says, "Yes I suppose lighting the house on fire is a little drastic and other orcs will be able to see it from miles away - though it is a sight they are probably familiar with by now. I'm glad you mentioned the lizards Ganthanor. Getting the orcs to fight each other is a great idea, but once they start to go at it we could excite the lizards to join the fray. Once the prisoners are loose enough to get out of the way, of course. I am willing to go in as a distraction. I can speak orcish. Ganthanor can come with me and I'll tell them I had your tongue removed for insubordination. Malis should come, and Gregory. That is four of us. Garth can start some of them fighting while we four talk to the leader(s), and Aan can sneak around to free the prisoners. That should be plenty of things going on at once to cause lots of confusion. Now, we need a plan for when it's over, as well. Let's plan to meet at the barn, in case we can't find each other when the fighting is almost over. Aan can tell the ones who can't fight to go to the house and hide. We can get them later, but don't send them to our meeting place in case they are spotted and watched. We must put our mission's success first, still, or all of HonShar will meet the same fate as these."

Gregory says in return, "Adriena has a good idea. We might be more effective if we start our attack from within their camp instead of charging it. We need to time things carefully because we do not want to give the Orcs a common enemy to unite against until it is too late. The lizards should not be a problem since they are tied up. Garth will have to do some pretty spectacular insulting of the Orcs to get them to fight, especially since their leader will be trying to keep them in line. We should be able to dispatch the leader quickly once the fight starts, which should hurt their morale. However, we don't want any of them running away to blow our cover. We will have to do our best to kill all of them. We need some sort of signal Aan can give us once all of the prisoners are free. When they are free, we can attack the leader and any Orc near him. That should get the Orcs to notice us and they should move to attack us. When they do that, the prisoners can hit them from behind. Since the prisoners don't have any weapons, they will need this advantage in order to be more effective and to help them live through this. It does put us in more danger, but what is life without a little danger? Aan, when the prisoners are free, whistle so we know to act. The whistle should not attract too much attention since there should be other commotion going on. When we hear the whistle, we cut down the leader and start to work on the rest. How is this for a plan?"

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