About a thousand lengths east of Valorde (or 1350 lengths west of Canth) along the Valorde-Canth road, the sharp-eyed traveller may with luck be able to spot a faint Trail leading away down the ridge to the south, toward the now-deserted hamlet of Valorca. The route is generally deserted, since few people even visit the ruins of Valorca these days. This Trail is very easy to miss, because in this region the road itself twists back and forth like a snake among the bumpy hills east of Valorde, and you may easily miss the trailhead.
Once on the trail, however, there is little trouble to follow it meandering almost straight south through open country, eventually beginning to climb back up out of the valley where Lake Valorne may be glimpsed off to the right in its basin. The Trail climbs up onto a broad ridge and suddenly you find yourself in the midst of the deserted ruins of the village that once was Valorca.
All that remains of this once-pleasant hamlet are a deserted Smithy, a couple of surviving buildings, and the burnt-out remains of the old Valorca Tavern, which once echoed with song and merriment. South of the hamlet, in the direction of the Wickenburg Escarpment, a great abandoned wheat field still testifies to the vibrant life that once filled the place. But Valorca is not a casualty of the goblins and orcs, or even of the loathesome bandits from Hadren who roam the hills to the southeast; rather Valorca was burned a generation ago by the Hadren Gendarmerie themselves, who fought a pitched battle on this hilltop with a huge mob of evil bandits, killing them all and then burning the hamlet itself because it served at that time as their hide-out and base of operations. The smell of smoke still lingers about the burnt tavern.
At the eastern edge of the hamlet, after a bit of careful searching, you will find the Valorca Trail East arriving from the Wickenburg-Valorde Road, which lies out of sight around the hills to the southwest.
