The party caught up to Jacob's caravan and handed him the letter of introduction Tera had provided. Jacob looked a little surprised, but welcomed them when he read the letter and introduced his team. Troy was a veteran warrior, Paige and Rose were young twin fighters, Lisa a wizard, Yorag a cleric. There were also several other novice warriors.

Jacob said, "Well I'm hurrying towards Gront as I have an important appointment there. There's a rainstorm coming, and I'm hoping to beat it there."

By early afternoon, though, it started to rain, and it quickly worsened. After about an hour making poor time through the deluge, it was clear the caravan would not make it to Gront that day.

Jacob called a stop to the caravan to camp there for the night. With amazing precision and organization, a massive tent was created using the wagons as support for canvas. In addition, another tent was erected for Jacob.

Vernon and Errol knocked at the tent and asked if they could have a word in private. Alone, they recounted the story of the lost sculpture. Jacob looked pretty doubtful, but the letter was clear; he was to help the party as best he could.

After dinner the rain stopped, and Kestrel and Vaugner gathered some information about the caravan crew. It turned out that several of the employees were fairly new -- in addition, one of the new warriors, Savan, was missing!

The party debated whether to pursue Savan, press forward to Gront, or to wait there. Eventually Vernon grew exasperated at the indecision and struck out on his own. He found Savan's tracks leading towards Gront and started following them.

After about 15 minutes, Blink noticed that Vernon was gone. A decision was made -- Kestrel, Blink, and Malif would go after Vernon, while Errol and Vaugner would wait in camp in case Savan returned.

Meanwhile, Vernon continued tracking Savan's footprints. Luckily, with the recent rain, his tracks were easy to follow. After walking about an hour, the tracks led off the road and up a slight incline. Figuring that the others would be spurred to action, and hopefully would be along soon, Vernon cast light upon a twig where the tracks diverged from the road.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the rest of the party, who had been following the road looking for Vernon found the lit twig. Blink called out, "Vernon!" and then quickly realized perhaps that wasn't the wisest thing to do. Apparently it did not matter though; Vernon heard the call and waved his torch, and not a peep was heard from anyone else.

Blink, Malif, and Kestrel caught up to Vernon, and together they wandered up the path. As they crested the incline, a small meadow lay before them. About one hundred yards away, they saw three figures: after watching it quickly became evident that it was a group of two people talking to a single person. One of the figures held out a torch and was making no effort to conceal the light. Vernon was able to catch a few snippets of conversation. The figures were engaged in an argument about money. The party decided to send Blink back to get Errol and Vaugner, while Malif went back down so that when they returned they would know where to turn off the road.

Eventually the argument was settled, and one of the men passed another two pouches. Then he and his partner turned and exited at the far end of the field, while the single figure turned around and started back towards the party.

The party hid out of the way. Luckily the lone figure seemed to be preoccupied and didn't notice the party, but the party noticed him! It was definately Savan. As Savan neared the road, Malif silently cursed as he realized it wasn't the rest of his party. He tried to scoot back silently but crushed a couple of twigs. Amazingly, Savan was so preoccupied he didn't even notice that!

Together again, Malif, Vernon, and Kestrel followed Savan, knowing that he would be caught in between the other returning party members and them. But the plan didn't quite work. Hearing the hoofbeats of Blink, Errol, and Vaugner's horses (who still made better time riding than walking despite having only moonlight and a bit of torchlight), Savan quickly doused his torch and dove into the bushes.

Seeing Savan's light wink out, Vernon quickly lit his torch and looked around, trying to spot Savan. Though he wasn't able to find him, he strove into the bushes and was able to find Savan's tracks running parallel to the road. Dashing ahead on the road a few hundred feet, Vernon then cut back into the side of the road and amazingly was able to find Savan's tracks again! Casting longstrider on himself, and by taking a more direct route (Savan was weaving a bit, being a little panicked), Vernon caught up to Savan. A melee ensued. Vernon took a nasty nick from Savan's dagger but grimly pressed on.

Vernon stabbed with his spear and scored a huge gash along Savan's chest, but Savan stayed up. By then, Blink had caught up.

"We won't kill you; we just want to talk. You can't win -- there are 4 of us here," Blink shouted.

Upon hearing the distressing news, Savan turned the dagger towards his chest, fully intending on killing himself. But Vernon was too quick and cast a cure minor wounds to stabilize him.

While Vernon had started chasing Savan, Vaugner and Kestrel went back to the caravan to head Savan off in case he showed up there. They filled Jacob in on the story and then waited impatiently for the rest of their party to arrive, not knowing that the others had captured Savan.

February 25

Vernon cast a cure light wounds on Savan but was unable to bring him to consciousness. Searching through Savan's belongings, he found 250 pieces of gold and two amazingly lifelike figures of trolls. Then he tied Savan to his horse and they started heading back to the caravan. After about half an hour, they neared the caravan. Reunited, the party compared notes and decided to ask Jacob and Yorag, the cleric, to come out -- they didn't want to bring Savan into a camp potentially containing an accomplice.

Jacob agreed, and Yorag was able to revive Savan. He seemed suprised and distressed he was still alive, and claimed that he was "already dead." After a bit of intimidation, Savan became more pliable. He admitted to stealing the statue, claimed he was alone, that he had been hired by a man named Burton to steal the statue, that the statue was in his wagon, and that he was supposed to deliver the statue later that night. When asked about the troll figurines, he replied that when water was poured on them they turned into real trolls. If necessary he would have used them to create a distraction.

The party discussed their options. Eventually, they decided an attempt to ambush Burton would be the best option. They headed back to the meadow, but unfortunately, Burton did not show up. At dawn, the party found two sets of tracks leading away. Following the tracks, they eventually came to a cave. Vernon noticed that the cave was very odd -- it looked mostly like a natural cave, but was actually man-made.

After debating whether to peek inside the cave or not, they decided to be safe and not go in. "I don't know about the rest of you but I want to get some sleep!" exclaimed Errol. Before heading back to Gront, though, the party discovered another cave about 500 to 1000 yards away.

At Gront, Vernon went to worship and seek guidence at the local temple, Errol bought a nice bedroll and other supplies. At the caravan (which had arrived in Gront by this time), Jacob was talking to four dwarves, Brevrin, Trevrin, Sevrin, and Mevrin. Kestrel greeted the dwarves in a heavily accented dwarven. Amused that a human could speak dwarvish, Brevin gave Kestrel a small chiseling hammer as a token of friendship. The party sold the troll figurines to Jacob for 400 platinum, took possession of the sculpture (which had been hidden in one of the wagons) and decided to delay sleep and head back to Pavalar immediately.

February 28

After a couple days of pressing their horses when they could, they were about five hours out of Pavalar. In the distance, they spotted a huge figure which could only be a belar rushing towards them. Every few minutes, the belar's horse would wink out of existance only to reappear several miles closer.

It soon became clear that the belar would catch up to them shortly, so the party reined in and waited to see if the belar was simply on the road or was specifically looking for them.

Soon the belar drew his horse near them. He was a full 10 feet tall, with spiky white hair and pale skin, wearing a black traveling cloak which flowed down to his boots. In one hand was a 6 foot rod, in the other were the horse's reins. Also he wore a silver necklace with a mounted star rose quartz gem.

"WHO HAS THE STATUE?" he roared, looking at each of the party members in turn. "Give it to me, it is mine!"

Kestrel bravely stated that the statue was Tera's. At the same time, Malif smartly crushed the special opal that Tera had given them and quietly spoke the command phrase "Tera save me!"

The belar's face grew a horrific grimace, and he spat out, "It is mine by right, give it to me!"

Kestrel started to say something else when a thin red beam shot out of the necklace and hit Kestrel squarely on the chest. Amazingly Kestrel was still alive!

Vernon drew his horse up and started to speak, but the belar had lost all his patience. Drawing Vernon in with his eyes, the necklace shot forth another beam which drilled into Vernon, but Vernon too did not fall.

As the party looked on in fear, suddenly Tera materialized. "What is the meaning of this Klaus?" she asked in disbelief.

Turning to Tera, a look of recognition crossed his eyes.

"The statue is MINE!" Klaus roared.

Another beam shot forth and hit Tera. Feeling shocked, Tera acted on instinct. Quickly she created a wall of force in between the party and Klaus. "Gather together!" she shouted, as tried to decide how to extract the party from Klaus' wrath.

Another beam shot forth and again Tera was hit. Sparked into sudden anger, without thinking she cast the first spell she thought of to retaliate -- a cone of cold burst forth and hit Klaus. Klaus looked a little frostbit but not too damaged, and returned fire yet again with another beam which unerringly found its mark. The horse looked much worse than Klaus, but also remained alive.

"What's going on?" Tera wondered, "Klaus is more powerful than I am and what is this beam he is shooting at me?"

She decided maybe she could win this fight after all, and cast another cone of cold. As the cone again hit its mark, Klaus let forth a primal yell -- a blood-curling un-belarlike scream. With a final flicker of his hand, he tossed forth a delayed blast fireball at Tera and dimension doored out.

Tera rushed forward to try and throw the bead of fire out of the way, but as she touched the bead it exploded in her hand. Though a little hurt, Tera was still steady on her feet. She probed out to see if Klaus was still nearby but found no sign of him.

Then she turned to the party and asked if they were hurt. The party was mostly still in shock, but managed to tell Tera that they were mostly all right (Tera healed them) and that they were able to recover the sculpture. Then they offered Tera the sculpture.

She replied, "What a rare company indeed, it is refreshing to find a non-excess of ambition. Still, it would be better off for you if you were to return with the statue."

Seeing the fear in their eyes, she put out her arm and murmured a few words. With a shimmer, a giant eagle appeared perched on her bracer. "My familiar Freedom will fly overhead and guard the final leg of your journey. If you run into more trouble, I will see it and be able to come," she reassured them.

As the party returned to outer Pavalar, Pippy spotted them. "It's almost the holidays, I have a great gift you can buy! They're called Cherbas... It's a small stone, but if you water it, it will grow fur and begin to talk. You can even teach it tricks and stuff! The cost is only 1 gold!" Vernon, Errol, and Kestrel decided to humor the lad and each bought a stone.

As they neared the gates to the inner city, Malif felt a tug at his pocket. Spinning quickly, he caught a pickpocket trying to lift something.

"Good to see you still have good reflexes, sir!" the would-be thief said with a smirk. "I have a message from Alana; she would like to meet her. The only problem is she's in jail so you'll have to meet her there."

Then with a quick twist he broke free, ran about 10 feet, turned and did a quick bow, and then disappeared into the crowd.

Finally, the inner city! As they passed through the gates though, alarms began sounding and soon 15 armed guards had them surrounded. Evidently the rocks which Pippy had sold them were forbidden, and the students were allowed to continue in after the rocks were confiscated.

They made their way to Tera's office, where a conversation between 3 belar and 4 humans stopped when they entered the room.

"Thank you for recovering the statue; you have done better than anyone has expected of you. I have a meeting I need to attend, but please tell Tangor here about your adventures. I can tell from your eyes that you have many questions to ask. Meet me in my office tomorrow at 9AM and I'll answer them as best I can," Tera said.

With that, she left, and the party started relating their adventures. Though they had many questions, they would have to wait for tomororw.