Crouched atop the old tree Osgood is well hidden yet has as good a view of the road as the night will allow.  It takes several invocations of Helm but eventually Wilhelm talks Victor into coming back to the camp and helping with the defenses.

 

Despite the tension in the air the work goes smoothly and in less than an hour the old stones are shifted and stacked to form a chest-high wall around a roughly circular enclosure that is just large enough to accomodate everyone and a firepit.  Osgood spies nothing while the work is being done.

 

After several hours on edge the Vistani have still not made their appearance.  Osgood has been called down and Wilhelm has taken his place.  It would be difficult to say who is happier, the halfling settling down by his fire or the Helmsman taking up his vigil.

 

The moon is high and conversation is just beginning to turn toward the relative merits of sleep versus watchfulness when all ears hear the faint and intermittent sound of many voices singing in a strange tongue, somewhere in the distance. 

 

Moments later there is a slight movement over the fire which suddenly shoots out a shower of greenish yellow sparks followed by a thick cloud of sweet-smelling smoke.  Despite the lack of any breeze the miasma is gone almost as abruptly as it appeared and sitting before the fire is another figure. 

 

A tough, wizened old woman with a great mass of tangled grey hair, she sits calmly smoking on a long-stemmed clay pipe and regarding you with a gaze that is hawklike yet not overtly hostile.  "I am Madame Riva," she says beore anyone can react, "I have come alone and I mean you no harm.  Will you not hear my side of this tale we share?"

 

(OOC:  Good news, I was looking through a box and I found the notebook with all the game info in it so everything is pretty much 100% at my end.)