An Audience With The King RPG

[Bêthberry]

^ ^ ^ ^ Erebor/ Lonely Mountain ^ ^ ^ ^

On foot, pony, and cart through Mirkwood, progress was slow and tempers of the entire crew of dwarves, elves and men of Dale curt and testy. They had 188 miles to cover and barely made seven miles a day. Often, the cart wheels snagged in ruts and rocks and it took seven or eight hands to push the heavily laden carts off. Even at the height of mid-day, the sun barely breached the canopy overhead and rarely reached the forest floor, a green sea of swaying ferns, mosses, subshrubs, tangled branches, and fallen, decaying trees. Tree trunks loomed liked forbidding sentries and voices were quickly swallowed up, their direction masked so that if anyone left the trail, not even voice could guide him back. Dank humidity rose suffocatingly from the floor.

To make matters worse, storm clouds rolled in and heavy torrents of rain pelted through the tree tops, turning the path into a morass of heavy, clinging, oozing mud, a veritable bog. The carts careened on the slippery ground and, under the strain, the front axle of the first wagon snapped, sending wagon and contents tumbling into the mire.