Xalmann looks at Edward as he sits next to him. He listened as he continued eating his meal. They seemed to be offering words of comfort and encouragement, but he didn't feel he needed them. He wasn't bothered by the others avoiding him. He didn't care about their opinion of him and had no opinion of them except that they hadn't proved themselves to him yet. Still, it was kind of Edward to attempt to comfort him even if it was unnecessary. He looked at Edward.

"I do not mind it. I like the quiet. I do not need comforting." he replied, no emotions in his voice.

He finished his stew, drinking the last of the broth from his bowl before wiping it clean with a bit of bread. He stood up and looked at the others by the fire. They seemed to have been watching him from a distance, but they all looked away when he glanced toward them. He looked back down at Edward.

"You should sit near the fire. It is cold. I am not bothered by the cold. I will keep watch now." he said before walking away from him. He began to circle a perimeter around the camp to watch for any approaching dangers.

The other adventurers eventually joined in on the watch as well. They took turns between standing guard around the caravan and sleeping. When it was Xalmann's turn to sleep, he woke up the next adventurer in the decided order who gave a slight scream when she saw him standing over her. When morning came, the adventurer who was on watch was too nervous to wake him, only waking up the others, including Edward.

Edward can see that Xalmann is not really into the mood of talking and walks away after Xalmann moves away from him. Edward walks towards the fire and talks with the others. They celebrate being alive despite the troubles they have gone through today. After finishing dinner, Edward joins the night watch and watches over the surroundings around the caravan with diligence. 
The caravan tears down the encampment and gets moving around 8 o’clock in the morning. The skies are as gray as ever and Edward can hear thundering in the distance. Edward and Xalmann are still guarding the back of the caravan as nobody else is willing to pair with Xalmann. The group has been traveling for 3-4 hours when Edward can hear the flapping of giant wings beating in the air. 
Edward looks up to see a two large lions, each with a pair of pure white wings, trailing behind the caravan. Edward taps at Xalmann’s shoulders and points up at the angel beast. “Look its an angel beast.” Edward yells at the rest of the adventurer who are guarding the front, “There’s two angel beasts behind us. It seems that we have to pick up the pace before they come any closer!”

Xalmann looks up at the approaching angel beasts, a hint of surprise on his face. He had never seen such creatures before and didn't expect them here. He hadn't heard anything about this kind of thing happening. He had heard about bandits and dangerous weather, but not angel beasts. It was strange. It looked like they were heading directly for the caravan, like they were specifically targeting it.

Xalman and Edward jumped onto the back of the wagon at the rear as the whole caravan picked up their pace. Everyone got onto the nearest wagon and the drivers used the reigns to urge the horses to move faster. Even with the increased speed, the winged lions were gaining on the caravan, though it was slowly. They wouldn't be able to outrun them.

Once the lions finally grew close enough, Xalmann raised a hand forward, his other holding onto the wagon, and a small flame appeared in front of his claws. The flame grew again into the sphere of fire and flew toward one of the lions. They flipped in the air and dodged out of the way of the fire ball. They were unharmed, but it at least slowed them down slightly. The fireball burst on the ground behind them as they continued their pursuit of the caravan.

Edward doesn’t no much about angel beasts, so he can’t figure out why they are chasing after them. He keeps shouting for the other adventurers to get ready. He can see that they are catching up and knows that a battle with these strange creatures is inevitable.
When Xalmann raises his hand to shoot a ball of fire, Edward would also raise his hand as golden light gathers into the palm of his hand, which forms into a bolt of golden light. Edward throws the bolt at one of them, the bolt growing larger as it soars through the air. The angel beast flaps its wings to gather extra air to lift itself over the bolt.
The two beasts roar in anger at the audacity of the two weaklings for trying to stop them. They soar faster through the air, already within 20 feet range of the wagon Edward and Xalmann are guarding. Edward gathers mist into his hands and throws it at one of the beasts. The mist surrounds one of them and seems to draw out energy from the beast. The beast seems to be more sluggish and falls to the ground as its wings seem to no longer have the energy to move.

The lions continue trailing behind the caravan. The one that Edward hit with his mist falls behind on the ground. They try to keep up, but they seem exhausted. The other lion looks back at its downed companion and roars angrily at Edward.

Xalmann takes this as an opportunity. He raises another fire bolt in his claws and aims it at the sluggish lion. With it like this, it should have a hard time dodging this time. He doesn't know how long Edward's mist will keep it like this, so its best to hit the beast now and either finish it off or scare it away. As the ball of fire grows in his hand, the other winged lion notices where the lizard man is aiming and lets out another angry roar.

The lion puts on a burst of speed and smacks Xalmann's arm, causing his fire bolt to sail off target, missing the downed lion by a wide margin. The lion then turns around and heads back to the other. Xalmann doesn't really know much about lions, but one of them looks a bit different than the other. One has a large mane of thick fur around its head while the other does not. When the lions reunite on the ground, the distance between them and the caravan is too far for Xalmann to throw another fire bolt at them.

Well, it's fine. As long as they're not pursuing us anymore, it doesn't matter. But he wonders why they did in the first place. Something is odd about this whole thing.

Edward sees that one of the lions is approaching closer to him and he summons a glyph of light. He throws the glyph into the air and it expands in size into the shape of a wall that block an incoming swipe from the beast. He sees that Xalmann summons a ball of fire and was about to throw it at the downed beast when the lion that was occupied with Edward swipes the lizard man’s hand away and retreats back to the downed angel beast. Both of the beasts regain their bearings and fly up and away from the caravan.

Edward can see that this whole encounter seems strange. Angel beasts are fairly territorial but they usually make their nests high up in the mountains, since it is easier for them to fly up to high places and this gives them a natural defense against creatures that can’t climb to high in the air. They don’t attack without reason and Edward doesn’t think that the beasts were attacking the caravan for food. They seem almost angry and are attack with purpose. He thinks for a moment, then he has a thought. What is Important enough for a pair of angel beasts to leave their nest? The only reason that Edward can think of is that their child has been taken. Somehow, some of these travelers have stolen the child of these angel beasts and are keeping the child hidden on this caravan.

Edward turns to Xalmann, “It seems that we are in the middle of a poaching operation. Angel beasts usually don’t travel outside their nests except for finding food and water. It seems that some of the people in this caravan have stolen their child and are hiding it in the caravan somehow. Probably to sell the angel beast cub when they get into Frost Gale.”

Xalmann listens to Edward as they stand on the back of the moving wagon and thinks about their words silently. They weren't exactly the most noble or law abiding individual. It didn't really seem like their place to judge someone for doing something illegal. They'd done plenty of things they knew were considered crimes in a majority of the world, but it was his tribe's tradition to raid, steal, and kill. He didn't care much about someone kidnapping some baby animal to sell.

However, he was hired to protect this caravan, and this stolen baby was currently attracting these angel beasts that posed a threat not only to this caravan, but to his own life. They'd been fairly easily fended off this time, but who knew how powerful they were and if they might attack again? He wasn't going to go out of his way to punish criminals, but he wouldn't try to protect them either.

Once the caravan had slowed down again, seeing that the angel beasts were no longer giving chase, Xalmann jumped down from the wagon to walk along with the caravan again. He looked at Edward with a nod.

"We will search for them." he said emotionlessly before setting off down the line of wagons to begin inspecting their contents to find that baby angel beast and whoever had kidnapped it.

Edward nods, “Thank you, Xalmann. I appreciate it. Hopefully we can bring the child back to their parents. I don’t feel good about unknowingly escorting poacher who would sell this creature to the highest bidder. I’ll go to confront the three that hired us for protecting this caravan. They probably know about this. You can search for the angel beast child while I do that. Hopefully I’ll be able to distract them from finding you if they are apart of this. I don’t believe that the other three adventurers and the rest of the travelers had anything to do with this. So maybe don’t kill them?”

Edward laughs awkwardly at his joke before turning around to search for the three travelers that hired them. He finds them at the front of the caravan, in discussion to one of the adventurers, and goes up to them. “Hi there. I’m not sure if you had noticed but a pair of angel beasts have attacked the caravan at the back. They were repelled by both me and Xalmann but I was wondering why they attacked us. They usually don’t travel far from their territory.

One of them looks at Edward with a disgruntled stare, “What do you mean? They’re just wild beasts, don’t worry about and get to the work we hired you to do.”

Xalmann walked down the line to the first wagon after the one he had been in. He opened the back door without knocking and stepped up onto the stairs on the back of the wagon, holding himself steady with the handle of the door. He glanced around at the interior of the wagon. This was just one of the storage wagons full of the goods the merchants were trying to sell, so there were no occupants to be disturbed by his sudden entrance.

He entered the wagon and started inspecting the boxes and crates piled up along the walls. He wasn't a fool, so he knew he needed to handle this cargo with care. He was being payed to transport it safely. If he damaged any of it in his search, even if it was to find this angel beast child, they wouldn't be very happy with him. He carefully opened and closed the crates, checking each one for anything unusual. There was no baby in this wagon.

He moved on to the next wagon, repeating the same process. This one, however, had an occupant. One of the adventurers, the alchemist, let out a startled shout as he opened the back of the wagon and entered. They had been smoking a pipe of something that smelled like a mix of fruit and incense. They obviously didn't want others to know about this habit. They stammered out a nonsensical explanation, but Xalmann ignored them as he began searching through the wagon.

"Hey, it's not illegal, alright! I just said I'd stop, so I don't want the others to know I'm still doing it. It's hard to quit, you know! Hey, are you even listening?"

Xalmann rolled his eyes and glanced at them.

"I will not tell. I am busy." he said and continued his search, the alchemist watching him cautiously.

Edward stands his ground, “I’m sorry, sirs but I can’t do that. The beasts my have retreated for now but they might come back again. I’m sure that there is a reason for this. If you tell me why, maybe we can-“ The adventurer that the three were speaking to pipes up, “Why don’t you shut up? We haven’t done anything to the beasts, they’re just beasts. We kill them if they come back, it is what we’ve been hired to do anyways. So be a good boy and get back to your post before I have to take drastic action? 
Edward stares hard at the group and was about to say something when he hears various roars coming from behind the caravan. He turns around and peeks out his head from the opening of the wagon he was on to see eight winged lions furiously soaring through the sky at the caravan. He turns around and grabs one of the travelers by their collar, “You better speak up or I’ll take drastic actions. Angel beasts usually don’t travel outside the mountains unless necessary and they certainly don’t travel with a flock of angel beasts to attack a ordinary caravan outside of their territory without good reason.”

As Xalmann is searching through the cargo inside the wagon, he hears the roars coming from behind the caravan. The alchemist in the wagon with him, closely watching him as he works also turns toward the noise.

"What was that?" she asks, not really directed toward the Lizardman, but more just out loud.

"Angel beasts." Xalmann answers, deciding she may be able to help a little if he told her rather than trying to keep it a secret. He had no real reason to hide such information from her, anyways.

"Wait, what!? Outside the mountains? But why?" she said, suddenly turning to look at Xalmann, her attention fully on him.

As they're speaking the Lizardman cracks open a crate that had been well sealed, nailed shut and filled with soft padding. He uses his axe to pry the top of the crate off and reaches in to search through the wads of fabric and paper that filled the inside of the container. He finds something large and smooth and gently lifts it out. In his hands is a very large egg, even larger than a Lizardfolk egg. The egg was a cream color and almost seemed to be slightly glowing.

He lifted it out of the crate with both hands and cradled it as if he was holding a baby. He turned to the alchemist who was still staring directly at him. As she looked at the intimidating Lizardman holding an egg like it was his child, she put a hand in front of her face to stifle a laugh.

"They want this." he said, pretending not to notice her laughter.

Edward rushes out of the wagon, leaving the three travelers behind. The adventurer who was talking to them quietly follows after Edward, with his spear at his side. Edward runs through several of the wagons, impeded by people and the objects on the floors. Edward desperately prays to Solaria, even though he doesn’t worship him, to protect these innocents since it seems that these angel beasts are here to seriously do some damage to the caravan. Edward also feels guilty for leaving the back wagons unguarded.
While running through the wagons, Edward spots Xalmann and yells, “Xalmann! Xalmann! More angel beasts are coming towards our way! You have the egg!? Just come to the back wagon when you can where we can negotiate with the angel beasts. I want to end this peacefully even if it means handing over the egg to them. It seems that travelers don’t care about the caravan.”
Edward finally reaches the back wagon where he was stationed, seeing that the angle beasts are still around 20 feet away from the wagon. He summons dark blue mist from his hand that shoot out and form into a web of blue threads. The web slams into one of the beasts, wrapping around the beast’s wings, causing it to fall to the ground. Edward was about to summon more mist when he feels a sharp pain in his back. He turns his head to see the adventurer holding his spear into Edward’s back. The adventurer says, “You don’t get to mess with our business. Since you like these beasts so much, how about you join them.” The man kicks Edward off the wagon before Edward had a chance to react.

With the egg held carefully in his arms, Xalmann runs back to the rear of the caravan with the alchemist following behind. She seemed to have lost most of her fear of the red Lizardfolk for some reason. Perhaps she could sense the urgency of the situation and pushed her fear aside. Or perhaps she just thought the Lizard man holding a giant egg like it was his baby was cute. In any case, she ran behind him toward the back of the caravan, a staff in her hands, ready to fight.

Xalmann could see the angel beasts approaching. One of them fell to the ground, tangled in some kind of blue web. It seemed Edward was working to keep them at bay until Xalmann could bring the egg. But, Edward himself suddenly was rolling on the ground behind the last wagon, a winged lion nearly upon him. He looked behind him at the alchemist.

"Stop the caravan." he called to her.

She seemed to have put together the situation rather quickly. She must be pretty smart, not surprising considering she mixed potions for a living. She ran toward the front to get them to start stopping the wagons while Xalmann ran toward the back. He tucked the massive egg under one arm for a moment while he summoned a ball of fire and threw it toward the nearest beast before it could attack Edward. The fire drove it back and caught its attention. It looked at the Lizard man angrily, but its expression changed to shock when it noticed the egg in his hands.

It let out a roar toward the rest of the approaching beasts and flew toward Xalmann. The Lizardfolk just placed the egg softly onto the ground and ran to the side, away from the caravan. If they wanted the egg, they could have it. If they attacked him even after giving them back the egg, he'd show no mercy.

Edward rolls to the ground, caught off guard by the sudden attack. He fights through the pain of being stabbed in the back, both emotionally and physically, and struggles to stand back up. He sees that Xalmann threw a bolt of flame to divert the attention of one of the angel beasts that was about to claw at him.

Edward looks at the angel beast and moves his arms up in a sign of surrender, “I don’t know if you can understand me but we don’t want to hurt any of you. We just want to get to Frost Gale peacefully. We’ll return the egg to you if you just go back to your mountains peacefully, alright?”

The angel beast closest to Edward seems to understand his words and nods in response. Edward reaches for the egg that Xalmann placed on the ground to give it to the beast when he hears a yell. The adventurer who stabbed him in the back lunges at Edward with his spear, “Don’t you dare!!”

The angel beast looks at the man coming towards Edward and swipes at him, flinging the spearman back. Edward quickly takes the egg and hands it off to the angel beast, “Just go, we can handle the other adventurers.”

The angel beast takes the egg gently with its front paws, clutching the egg to its front like a cat. It'd almost be adorable if it was a giant lion with wings capable of killing a grown man with a swipe of its claws. The beast flew back to the others who began to retreat. Their egg had been returned and there was no more reason to continue the chase.

The adventurers cursed and called out to the angel beasts. They wouldn't be receiving their pay without that egg! But the angel beasts were already too far away. There was no way to get it back. This mission was a failure. With that being the case, the only ones they could take their anger out on were the two who had ruined their plans, Edward and Xalmann.

The spearman began to lunge at Edward again, but was intercepted by a ball of fire to his side. The small burst of flame sent him tumbling to the ground, his spear leaving his grip and clattering beside him. The other two adventurers also came out and saw the situation as the caravan rolled to a stop. The alchemist had finished her task.

Xalmann walked up to the three, his axe in one hand and his dagger in the other. He glared at them, ready to fight if they continued trying to resist. They knew their poaching operation had been discovered and they had no chance against the Lizardman who they still feared from his brutal assault on the bandits. They just dropped their weapons and held their hands up in surrender.

The three mysterious people in the hoods showed up walking along the side of the caravan along with the alchemist. Seeing Edward on the ground with his back bleeding, she gasped and ran to him, feeding him a health potion to heal his wound. The three in the hoods seemed confused.

After careful questioning and intimidation from the head of the caravan and Xalmann and Edward, it was found that the three adventurers had been smuggling the angel beast egg. The alchemist was innocent and hadn't know anything about the egg. The three in the hoods were also innocent. They had nothing to do with the smuggling, they just are a bit eccentric, but that's not a crime.

With the caravan's arrival in Frostgale, the three poachers were handed over to the authorities to be handled. Xalmann thought it would have just been easier to kill them on the road, but was talked out of it by Edward. He didn't personally care about what happened to them anyways.