The party heads off towards the Black Horse Mercenaries' camp, leaving the mercenaries themselves mostly stuck in a magic web. The trail to the camp cuts through a narrow ravine before opening up and turning into a rough game trail over rocky terrain. The wind cuts at any exposed skin and the environment offers little shelter. Leaving the road you feel the mountains towering over you, humbling you with their indifference.
During the walk Torrent stops for a moment to cast a healing spell on herself. "Anyone else need help?" she asks.
After a little over a mile of travel you reach the camp. It's in a grotto with several small tunnels carved into the walls, each sealed off with a locked iron gate. Those of you who've lived in Gate Pass for a few years recognize it as where people place the unopened clay jars from the Festival of Dreams. In addition to the expected clay jars from past years' Festivals, inside one tunnel you see what looks like a person sleeping, wrapped in a ragged sheet.[sblock=Festival of Dreams]Gate Pass has its share of holidays; the most prominent is the Festival of Dreams, a holy day observed by all of the city’s major temples on New Year’s Day. Parades march from either end of the city, stopping at the grand square on Summer’s Bluff just before sunset for a ceremony in which the high priests of each of eight different temples “offer up the dreams of the people.”
Each citizen is encouraged to write a prayer or hope on a slip of paper and place it in a small clay urn, which the city produces by the thousands every year. People deliver their urns to Summer’s Bluff in the days leading up to the festival. During the festival, each high priest chooses one urn, breaks it open, reads the prayer held within, and pledges to fulfill that dream if possible during the next year. Selfish requests are frowned upon, and often the city takes great glee in perverting the words of selfish prayers, fulfilling the adage “be careful what you wish for.”
The rest of the urns are left in the center of the square, and citizens are encouraged to pick one up and try to fulfill someone else’s wish. The morning after the festival, those left unopened are carted en masse to the countless small caves that dot the cliffs around the city, where they are buried. Many folk tales involve stories of these buried dreams coming to life and bringing good fortune, though most adults of the city view these as merely superstition.[/sblock]As for the camp itself, there are eight light horses, huddled under blankets, and a half-dozen tents with cold cookfires near them.
[sblock=ooc]Make search checks if you're looking around the camp for loot, or other checks or actions as appropriate.[/sblock]
