Time Passes
The elves and the dragon travel south, back down the make shift trail the group used the day before. The group is able to finish the night's rest without any further incident.
Over the next several days, Aleera proves to be valuable as a stealthy scout with some modest wilderness skills, though Valen and Johen surpass her in knowledge of nature. She is rather untalkative however and the group gets the sense that she is not a typical elf in many ways. There is a hardness and bitterness to her that seems very out of place for an elf.
As the group heads further into the mountains, the terrain becomes rugged and they soon leave the sparse woods behind in favor of light shrubs and a great deal of harsh and treacherous slopes and cliffs.
At the dawn of the fourth day since meeting the elves, Norali says, "We should be nearing the secret tunnel my uncle spoke of."
Aleera, however, returns from a scouting patrol (she only rests four hours a night and spends time not on watch scouting the area), looking grim but with an eager viciousness in her eyes that is unsettling, "There are orcs nearby. Let us bring swift and merciless vengeance upon them!"
The Cliff Tunnels
William walks through the cliff face, which is evidently an illusion covering the entrance to a roughly carved tunnel through the rock. The illusion also blocks the light, so William finds himself unable to see, except the faint luminescence of his ghostly guide. He does, however, hear the trickle of water nearby...a welcome sound to his parched throat.
The spirit answers his question, "His name is unknown to me. He travels with another Tureni, a woodsman by his appearance; as well as a dwarf, a young centaur, an Azgundi man, and a halfling. They travel into the mountains, toward Silvergard."