Zeke will step to the side and incline his head, giving the rider permission to pass him and the caravan.

'I feared something like this would befall on us on this journey.  I hope you all are prepared to fight - do any of you need to make any preparations before we move on?'

"Giant spiders?" Elra's eyes widen in excitement, "Wow, that's awesome. But don't we need to go south? How are we going to make it to Phandalin if we don't go that way? Maybe there's another way around? Or maybe we just need to hope that whatever attacked the caravan isn't interested in us anymore."

Elra readjusts the clasp on her cloak and messes with the straps of her armor. "I mean, the armor still feels weird but I think the cloak goes real well with it. It might be better for us to keep moving. We'll learn more going ahead than we will looking back, cause we'll miss all the stuff that's sitting before us."

The rider cautiously skirts the edge of the road to get past Zeke but stops fifteen feet beyond him and says "I'm Zachary Winter, by the way.  I hope you make it through.  I bet you could kill a whole pile of spiders."

Fae would take back her book, thanking Elra for taking a look at it. The symbol she spoke of was the same as her dream, but she’s right, the one on the barrel was different, it was blue, not white. She’ll make note of that before she flips to a fresh page near the beginning of the book where her adventure notes left off. Time to focus on the task at hand. “Your new cloak looks great.” She’d smile and nod at Elra in agreement, excited for the adventure ahead. “I agree with Elra, we should press forward. Definitely nothing fun to learn by going back!” She’d call back out to Zeke before she begins sketching in her journal. 

Killing a pile of spiders... I hope we won't need to. But with who we got here, spiders don't scare me. I can be a pretty mean spider meself. But whatever is driving 'em out of their forest, though... that's some bad business.

Tarja equips her axe, shield, and touches her mistletoe pendant.

I don't need much preparation. The wilds grant me strength. Though if we do see where and who we'll be fightin', I can pick what form to start the fight in.

Elra taps her shield with her foot as she pulls out her own journal and begins to write inside it. "I think I have everything I need. That's the excitement of something like this, you never truly know what you need until you do it for a while. Fighting doesn't seem like much fun, but I suppose I can help where I can..." Elra trails off as she hears what Tarja says. She turns to face them. "You can turn into a spider? That's awesome! How do you do it? Does it hurt to transform? Oh, what other things can you turn into. This is so cool, an artificer and... you must be a druid then," she says as she looks at the mistletoe. "One of the other plants use to focus spells is mistletoe if I'm correct. I have so many questions for both of you, Loremaster Atlavast would tell me to stop running your ear off with questions that I don't give you enough time to answer."

Vincent continues to fly above the party, an odd sight for any passerby seeing as owls rarely come out during the day time.

"Bienvenue!"

As the courier rides out of sight, Arvel returns to normal.

"Sounds like trouble. But Gundren needs us to get through. Anyone who wants to back out should speak now or forever hold their piece."

"Why switch form for someone we'll probably never see again?" Elra asks, looking up from her book.

Phandalin needs this. I'm seeing us through. Tarja tells Arvel.

To Elra, she responds: I can change into a vicious beast before a fight if what we need is just brawling, or into a lightfooted creature if I need to be silent. But if I need to call upon the power of nature in the form of spells, I need to be plain old me. Some druids - those of the moon - can transform more easily than I can, shifting from bears to dwarves in the blink of an eye. For me, it takes more time, a few more seconds. My connection is with the land, the mountains, which I draw upon for my casting.

"Why write something down if someone will probably never read it?"

Arvel winks at Elra.

He hops up into the "shotgun" seat of the lead wagon and takes a long pull from Finnan's aleskin.

"If you or your brother have anything on these wagons you can't live without, gather it up and be ready to run  like crazy if things kick off, OK? Your brother may too ugly to live, but a face like yours should stick around."

"Oh, I hope Gundren and his friend made it past without trouble."

"We should definitely keep going. We can deal with trouble, and maybe we can help others so they don't succumb."

Ethan smiles at the revelation that Tarja is a druid.

"Oh wow, that sounds wonderful, could I also study you changing shape sometime?"

"This is going to be great for my study and development of my abilities. I can learn so much from you all, this is wonderful."

Ethan turns to Zeke,

"Should we start moving, see how far we can get before dark?"

"Should we do anything special to prepare for this next stretch of the road, do you think?"

Arvel reaches out with his walking stick and taps Ethan on the gauntlet.

"Just make sure you have whatever you need in that bag of tricks of yours ready, eh Etan?"

"Uh, oh well I have a grease canister programmed into my magic matter condenser." (Grease)

Ethan indicates the glove of the gauntlet.

"And I still have it programmed with the perimeter alarm we used on our way up to Neverwinter."

"So I can set that when we stop for the night, give us some warnings if anything gets close." (Alarm)

Ethan pulls out his fire shooter.

"And I have this for putting down any rogue spiders who should be staying deep in the forest."

Ethan smiles, putting the wand-gun back in its holster.

Ethan looks confident in his equipment and capabilities, even though he is yet to full test himself.

Ethan gets back on the second wagon, keeping an eye out for anything coming, getting bored if nothing happens for more then half an hour, going back to his tinkering.

Fae would sit quietly, smiling to herself, listening to her party members go back and forth. Occasionally after Ethan or Elra asks a question and information is exchanged, you could hear Fae flip through her journal and make some notes before flipping back to the page she was on. Her strokes for the main page she’s working on are different, not like writing. If you were to peak over to look, Fae was drawing again, though this time, you may be able to recognize the illustration. It was Zeke with his wings spread out in his protective stance, as witnessed earlier. As she retraced shapes from her memory onto the page Fae would think out loud, “I think you all have something unique to offer for this journey. I feel sorry for the poor sap who tries to pick a fight.” She’d shrug a little before taking a moment to look up from her page to Tarja, “If it is, or are, if plural, giant spiders, would you want to attempt communicating first? You’ve mentioned a couple times that they’re far and this could be unusual behaviour. We may even learn something else?”

Zachary smiles and waves and then takes off at a gallop, trying to make up for the few moments lost so he can still beat the darkness to Neverwinter.  "Good luck!"

As the group prepares to press on the skies grow darker despite it being only mid to late afternoon.  It looks like any remaining miles and perhaps their overnight rest will be wet ones.

Zeke listens quietly as his comrades discuss their options and then nods his head as they come to consensus.  ‘Of Course we must move forward. We have committed ourselves to delivering these supplies to Mssr Gundrun and I for one won’t let certain death stand in our way’ 

He says this last bit without a trace of humor or irony in his voice - just a simple acknowledgement that walking this road will lead to their collective deaths. 

He shrugs his shield back up into its customary position on his shoulder and slides the blade back into its sheath. 'Tarja if it's ok with you, perhaps we should switch places - I'll take point with Vincent and you can cover our backtrail?'

The party is able to push on over what soon become muddy roads as the rain moves in.  Finnan and Farnin each affix a short pole to the front of the wagon and tie off a thin, well worn hide to it and their seats providing dry cover.  They happily sit in their little hovels while chewing on provisions and sipping their 'water' skins, even occasionally singing songs despite the poor conditions.  Finnan is even willing to allow Arvel to squeeze in, especially after the compliment about his superior looks.  To the rest each driver tells them, although almost too late as the first drops start to fall, that there should be something to cover up with in the back if they so choose.  In the back of each wagon is a large canvas cloth that seems to be oiled in some way to repel water.  The sounds of the hooves splashing in the mud is quickly drowned out by the increased force of rain drops battering the wagons and their cargo until the companions can barely hear one another from more than a few feet away.

The party encounters no one else on the road nor any trouble as dusk sets in.

(OOC:  Do you push on into the dark?  Camp?  Try to sleep in the wagons?  Keep watch, etc.?)

Elra doesn't seem to get what Arvel means, "Well, technically people do read it. Or at least, the reaserch notes anyways. I kind of write everything down in the same journal though, so I've gone through more than a lot of people."

As the rain starts up, Vincent flies back to the wagons. He hides under the oiled cloth when Elra pulls it up to try and keep the people in the wagon drier than they already are. "Well this is fun," she say, watching the rain and the clouds. "I've never been caught in a storm on the road before. Normally I'm close enough to the temple to run back before the rain gets really bad. I've never noticed how pretty it is before." Vincent seems content to just hide under cover with the rest of them, ducking under Elra's cloak and seeming to go to sleep.

Zeke is unbothered by the mud or the weather but is concerned about not being able to hear or see anything as they move forward. 

'I say we settle in and camp for the night. Finnan, Farnin, is there a copse of trees anywhere nearby to huddle under?'

'We'll need to set a watch for the evening.  I'm happy to take the first shift after we get set up for the night'