Having decided upon the watch schedule, your group prepares camp. While some of you unpack the knapsacks, get out lanterns, and dig a small pit for the fire, a few of you head out to gather kindling and firewood as well as to see if you might be able to forage for some food other than rations. As it turns out, the kindling and firewood is not very difficult to find, and you expect to having a roaring fire to keep you warm. Unfortunately none of you are very savvy about the natural world and find little to eat except for a few wild berries which is hardly enough for a meal. So when you are all finally gathered back at camp, you make the best of your rations and journeybread and wash it down with a large swig from your waterskins. After that, you begin the night's watch.
Petron and Erik spend most of their watch talking of old times (in whispers of course so as not to wake the others). They talk about how they used to spend time out in the wilds of the Istalle river valley growing up in the rural village of Calendon. It has been a good while since they could see the stars so brightly overhead and hear the sounds of the wild all around them as they did when they were young. They even discuss the one time they encountered an ankheg on a neighbor's farm and poor Petron was nearly devoured whole. They have a good laugh about that. Soon enough however, their watch is over and they wake Omar to begin his watch. He is groggy at first, but he quickly snaps to with the readiness of a soldier. Petron and Erik tuck into their bedrolls and list off to sleep in the gentle calm of the chirping crickets and croaking frogs.
The next thing you know, Omar is stirring you quietly from your rest. It is very dark now. Much darker than before. It seems the stars as well as the twin moons of Geora have become overcast by clouds. Amicae and Krawlinstar at first think it is their turn for watch, but Petron and Erik soon realize it is much too early for that.
"It's the girl," Omar explains. "While I was keeping watch, I noticed what appeared to be a shadow in the bushes. I went over to investigate and found a jackrabbit hopping away. When I returned to the camp I did a once over to make sure everything was alright. But Awna had disappeared from her bedroll. I looked all around the camp, but I cannot find her. I don't know how she could have slipped away. I could not have been away from camp for more than half a minute."
