<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">The Adventure Begins...</span></span><br/><br/><br/>Mayor Hansbrough fretted all week about the arrival of The Harvest Festival.  He worried that since not as many merchants had visited this year that the festival would not draw in the revenue that it normally had.  Despite the lack of usual merchants, the townsfolk prepared in high spirits.  The population of Fourway, a small town, populated mostly by humans and a few dwarves from the nearby mountains, bustled in preparation.  Vendors prepared their trinket carts and food wagons as people began to gather in town.  The smell of pastries and mincemeat pies filled the air from the bakery, singing voices carried on the Autumn wind from the town’s humble inn, and children laughed and played in the streets.<br/><br/>All was on schedule and moving forward, but the Mayor had been keeping a secret from the townfolk.  There was a reason why there weren’t as many merchants visiting Fourway this year.  The main route, the Northroad, had been plagued, something or someone was keeping the merchants from reaching Fourway.  He had heard rumors of bandits and trolls and everything in between and had done his best to quell the rumors and stop them before they reached his town.<br/><br/>As the sun sank lower and lower in the sky, the people began to stir with excitement.  The bonfire was lit in the middle of town square and musicians began to play for the earlybirds.  The first crescent moon after the equinox rose into the sky announcing the start of the festival.<br/><br/><br/>Inside the inn Ruy, the resident minstrel frowned as the musicians outside began to draw his crowd out of the inn and away from him.  Finishing his ballad and his ale, he put away his guitar and whistled happily hoping he would be able to charm some young beauty away from her morals and steal some virtue this evening.<br/><br/>Elsewhere, miles up the Northroad, a merchant raced against the sunset to reach Fourway in time for the festival.  Whipping the reins, he encouraged his already tired horses to run faster.  The goods in his wagon rattled around making a ruckus as the merchant hurried as fast as he could to town.<br/>