Anyway, the small kingdom we're investigating seems to be largely deserted. The army has moved out to engage in the fighting in the east, so there's not much here in the way of powerful warriors or nobles.

The one item of interest seems to be that many of the leaders in the army, men with years of experience, quit just before war was declared. They left in various directions telling various stories, which seems to me to be a smokescreen to hide their true direction. Actually, if we figured out all the places they said they went, the one direction left over is probably where they actually are.

Since we were sent here to investigate a mercenary army, and these guys all headed out, it seems likely that they are out on contract. The fighting in the world is in East Mantar or in Trovantain, so they're probably in one of those places. I wish I knew more about the political situations in the surrounding countries, so I could figure out who they might be working for.

For instance, it seems to me to be unlikely that they are working for the Yogar. The Yogar Belar don't seem to look for subtlety, and don't trust humans that they don't control. Of course, there could well be factions inside Yogar -- I just don't know enough about the place. It's hard to imagine Yogar humans hiring outside mercenaries.

In the meantime, we're off getting sidetracked inside a volcano. We had thought it might be a hiding place for the missing mercenary army, but now I suspect that there's nothing of interest regarding the army here -- it just doesn't seem like a hospitable place. We haven't seen that much of it yet, though.

There's also apparently some sort of giant bat that people have hunted here, which we plan to investigate while we're here. Certainly the lure of all the goodies dropped by previous failures pulls strongly at the party. We do like our stuff....