>>5429525>>5429542>>5429561>>5429586>>5429634>>5429716>>5429733>>5429772You do not expect much in the way of danger. The Silver Marches seem comparatively tame, when measured against the worst of what you have seen whilst wandering the Underdark. As such, you reason that joining with other travelers on their way to Silverymoon should be sufficient, even if you will have to part from their company before they arrive at the city.
Finding a suitable caravan is a simpler affair than you had initially imagined. It is currently late summer, a good time to travel in this corner of the Realms - or so you are told. The master seems incredibly uneasy as you work out your arrangement, and those who will be joining you look on with intrigue or skepticism, as if you are a gladiator from the arenas who has somehow snuck out of their cage to wander about the city. In turn, you sneer at them, adopting a more assertive posture to deter their stares.
Is it truly so strange, to see a flesh-and-blood Ilythiiri woman?
This would not be the first time that you have ridden in a wagon, but the experience differs significantly from your numerous journeys though the Underdark. For one, the surface-dwellers do not use lizards as beasts of burden. Instead, they employ a bulky creature which they have dubbed the 'ox' to haul their goods and wagons. For another, security measures are quite lax by your metric. Most often, several dozen soldiers are organized into elaborate patrols positioned ahead of and behind the caravan as a precaution, but this is not so in the sunlit world.
From a place of moderate comfort, you watch from midday to dusk as the verdant idyll of the northern lands rolls by. At night, you study the moon and stars as chilled winds from the northern mountains sweep over the land. Even still, several tenday after emerging from the Underdark, those crystals in the sky have yet to lose their luster. What is it that keeps them fixed in place when this world has no roof?
