Your brave band has been hired to carry the mail from Excelsior! to one of the outlying backwaters. Some place called Elmhurst or Yewwood or Oakstaff or something…. Regardless, you are supplied with riding horses and dispatch bags and you find yourself getting on evening knowing you’re still several leagues from the next relay station, where you’re due to change mounts and continue on.<br/><br/>Your path has lead you through a beautiful forest that sleeps peacefully about you. Leafy green trees with silver and white trunks stand in blissful grandeur as far as you can see. The trail you ride splits and you can see it winds toward the high mountains nearby to the north. The forest’s carpet of ferns and deep green bushes is punctuated by the bright reds, blues, and yellows of the abundant woodland flowers.<br/><br/>Ahead, sunlight flashes off metal lying in the path. Armor-elven armor-and whoever wears it is not moving.<br/>