The week passes...and it is February 5th, 1371. A mild, overcast day, but probably as good as one could hope for, for winter travelling.
First off, Raz and Farad - now recovered from his wounds - head over to Ray Jay's tower with the wand, returning within the hour carrying 4000pp.
Once they return you set off for Borderland Keep. You are fully equipped for a camping trip in the winter - you hope. J'Harast's corpse - being stored out in an unheated shed so that it is still relatively intact and not too stinky - is bundled up and carried atop Illyana's horse. The mindless Jaramir walks beside his dead brother, his expression blank. Bel's steed is loaded down with your equipment, so you are all walking.
No one gives you a second glance as you walk through the crowded streets of Sandas and pass through the West Gate. This time, though, you do not turn south after leaving the inner city but continue west along the Old Dwarvish Road. The huts and shanties are soon left behind, and you find yourselves passing through farmland. Here and there is the occasional peasant hut or farmstead. On the road you pass other people going to and fro, plus a patrol of the Baron's own troops. Otherwise, the morning is uneventful.
It is early afternoon before you come to the border of Nlad and the Dwardarf, the dwarven lands. Here there is an intersection. The Old Dwarvish Road continues west into the mountains that loom ahead of you, while a lesser road runs both north and south. To the south some seven miles, Illyana tells you, is the Megadungeon...and some miles beyond that is Castle Yuri, her home. To the north is Borderland Keep.
At this intersection is a small military base dominated by a tower which dates from the times when Nlad was but a province of the Empire of Saltar...now used by the Baron's troops. Also here is an inn, the Smoking Dragon. You stop for a late lunch and come out feeling unimpressed.
Then, you head north...over the great bridge that spans the Grande River, and into the Borderlands.
Nominally claimed by the Baron of Sandas, the Borderlands are really under the sway of no one. Small settlements of humans and demihumans try to eke out an existance here, all the time being threatened by bands of humanoids which continually drift down out of the mountains.
You press on.