60 minutes

The party takes off after the Company of the Gilded Banner, just before midday they get their first glimpse of them, as they are ascending into the foothills of the mountains. The party and Sergeant McCreadie finally catch up to the Company of the Gilded Banner at the following map:

In the following image, the party can position their tokens anywhere in the white box to commence combat, the Company of the Gilded Banner is located where the brown oval and box are (representing their horse and cart), and the red box indicates the scale (this is a 5 ft square):

Note that this road is on the edge of a steep hill / cliff. The first section of road (with the white box, and brown box and oval representing the horse and cart) is about 30 feet higher than the second section (the part connecting to the bridge), and there is a 100ft drop from the bridge to the water below.

Enemy tactics

The company of the Gilded Banner will employ the following tactics:

Ebkas Firstrom

Ebkas will use his most powerful spells to target the party, starting with Lightning Bolt. He will, however, hold onto a 3rd level Fireball which he intends to use to destroy the bridge once he has crossed it. A fireball spell is powerful enough to destroy the bridge, but spells which do less damage (or a less destructive damage type) are not.

Branmil Halfanvil

In Branmil's first round, he will dump caltrops onto the road, creating a 10 ft x 10 ft area covered in dangerous spikes. Characters who want to avoid these caltrops must make a DC 15 Animal Handling check to successfully jump the caltrops (as part of their movement, this does not take an action). On subsequent rounds, Branmil will throw javelins at their pursuer's horses, trying to unseat them. If he gets into combat, Branmil will use his flametongue flail (igniting it as soon as he is able).

Jaben Krieg

Jaben uses all of his actions to drive / steer the horse and cart he is controlling. If the horse and cart are incapacitated, he will keep a distance, though he will refrain from firing arrows (in truth, Jaben did not know what he was getting himself into, and feels as though he has done the wrong thing, he is hoping Ebkas and Branmil will lose, at which point he intends to surrender to the party).

The Elderstone is inside a chest on the cart. In one play through, the party attacked the horse pulling the cart, but this caused it to topple over the edge of the cliff, I then informed the party that in one turn, the whole cart would fall, taking the Elderstone with it, this forced them to either get onto the cart, retrieve the stone and then get off again, or to break the lashings between the horse and the cart, so the horse fell but the cart remained on land (they actually succeeded at doing both).

NOTE TO DM: Try to ensure that as many horses remain alive and uninjured as there are party members; in theory this means two in total can die or be injured (the ones carrying the party, plus the one pulling the cart and the one Sergeant McCreadie was riding). We want to ensure that the entire party can return to Fort Daylight to participate in the next chapter.

Once they have retrieved the Elderstone, the party should attempt to return to Fort Daylight as quickly as possible.

Proceed to Chapter 4.