"Look! Birds!" Anna points to a circling group of black specs in the sky. Hope shields her eyes from the sun and looks. "A murder of crows. Must be 50 of them, so it's a big kill. Let's just keep moving."

"What do you think they were eating?" Tyrion ponders. Hope shakes her head. "With that many and in this area, hard to say. Ogre, possibly? They could be fed for days on a carcass like that."

"An ogre. Not something I'm interested in running into." Amadeo watches the birds for a bit as they walk. Hope nods and sticks her tongue out. "Fought one before with another adventuring party. They were experienced, but they decided I'd be the one to draw its attention. So I spent the whole fight throwing rocks at its dumb face while the others pelted it from behind with spells and arrows. Gods, that was exhausting, but at least it let me know I really needed to get in shape."

"So you weren't always a lean and mean fighting machine, hm?" Tyrion jests, and Hope chuckles. "No, I wasn't. I mean, I wasn't huge either. Just not very healthy. They didn't exactly feed us steak and potatoes at the orphanage. We got what we could afford, which wasn't much. Mostly bread and some slop they kept saying was 'oatmeal'. Bah. Oatmeal, my foot."

"And here you are now, strong and stable." Amadeo offers. "Let's just hope you make for a good snack while the rest of us run away."

Hope gasps in mock shock. "Hey wait a minute here!" The whole group gets a laugh before Amadeo stops, his eyes turned to the south. "Now there's a sight, ain't no mistake."

Towering above them to the south sits a great mountain, capped with the purest snow even in the heat of summer. "Once home to the dwarven city of Lothar, this lonely rock now stands as a reminder of what happens when greed drives us to go where we were not meant to." Amadeo speaks as if reciting from memory, looking over the mountain and particularly the scar across it, shaped like a massive dragon with wings unfurled as if in flight.

"What happened to them?" Anna eyes the mountain curiously. Amadeo shrugs. "No idea. I just read a story about Lothar in a history book. There were no survivors of whatever event occurred there, and I dunno if anyone has ever tried to find out. But something that can wipe an entire dwarven city off the map is something I don't want to tangle with."

"I hear that. I don't like even being in that thing's shadow." Hope shudders. "Feels like at any moment, something could come crawling out of that hole. Let's get out of here. I want at least another hour before we enjoy lunch, and I'm sure Anna needs some shade."

"You have no idea. Even my little cap here isn't helping much anymore." Anna wipes her brow with a sigh.

"Only a little further then, at least until we can't see that mountain. The road should turn soon, and we'll find a place just off the path to rest." Hope opens the map and checks it before nodding. "30 minutes, at the most."

"Can do." Tyrion marches on, keeping close behind the others and eyeing the area around them. Anna focuses on the road ahead now, occasionally scratching a bit at her arms.

The road slopes downward and bends to the north, turning away from the mountain. Soon, the scarred rock is gone from their sight, and Hope breathes out a sigh of relief. "Alright. Let's take a bit to rest up." She looks around, then heads off toward a small clearing off the side of the road with a few small trees. "This looks like a good spot. Clear lines of sight, good visibility. And even better, we've got glorious shade!"

The party sits under the shade of the trees, enjoying some of their rationed jerky, nuts, berries, and seeds. Tyrion watches the road while they rest, and Amadeo draws a line with his silver wire, that blue glow surrounding him again.

Anna sits under one of the trees, wiping sweat from her brow. Hope takes a knee, breathing deeply in, then out. "You gonna be alright?" The devilkin turns to her companion.

Anna nods, closing her eyes. "Uh huh. Just trying not to throw up. You?"

Hope shrugs her shoulders. "I've had worse. When I was about ten years old, we had a real bad heat wave come through. Only place we got any relief was the cellar, but they reserved that for punishment, which I thought was stupid...So I stole the key from the Matron and just let a few in during free time and at night."

Anna puts a hand over her mouth to cover a gasp. "Hope, you stole as a kid?"

"Didn't have much choice. Some kids starved cause we didn't have enough food, so I picked up pick pocketing as a skill. I never took anything you couldn't afford to lose. Besides, the Matron was a b-"

"Before you finish that story." Amadeo sits down, sipping from his canteen. "Is there anything else we need to worry about? You mentioned ogres previously. What else can we expect on the road to Kaina?"

Hope thinks for a moment. "Beasts like wolves at night, but they shouldn't be an issue for us. Not a whole lot else unless you think lights are something to be afraid of."

"Lights? What lights?" Tyrion asks curiously, though Amadeo seems to pale a little bit.

Hope shrugs. "Supposedly, there's lights you may see on the road. Nobody's really sure what they are. Some think they're just fireflies but others experience a sense of dread in their presence; they seem to think they're will-o-wisps."

"What's that?" Anna tilts her head.

"They're spirits of the dead." The wizard explains. "They feed on living energy and drive you to run into death traps, whether a monster's lair, pits of snakes, or quicksand. Then they feed on the pain and fear, reveling in your screams as you die. And if there's evil in your heart, you join the lights. They typically gather in places of death or where great evil was done."

"You know alot about them." Hope notes.

" I studied undead as part of a series of tests my mentor set before he'd decide to take me in. I recommend we run from wisps if we can." Amadeo shudders despite the hot day, feeling the white tuft in his hair.

Hope frowns with concern. "A-Alright. If we encounter them, we'll flee." She rests a hand on his shoulder and softly squeezes it. "Little bit longer, then we'll go."