PROLOGUE
The sounds of someone grunting could be heard as Arawn woke up to a bump in the road.
"…"
It seemed as if he was in the back of a carriage, along with four others who had their hands tied behind their back. They must've been caught, but by who and where they were being taken was still a question yet to be answered. Arawn took a quick glance towards the others in the dimly lit carriage to assess the situation. Despite the lack of lighting in the carriage, he could tell that three of his fellow captives were clearly not human. Of those three non-humans, one person with slightly pointy ears and a slim constitution looked up and caught Arawn's gaze.
"I think I have a way out of this."
The half-elf spoke up and gestured towards one of the packs sitting towards the front of the carriage.
"I have a dagger in there, help me get it and I'll cut us loose"
Arawn nodded and slowly moved towards the front of the carriage, being careful not to trip over the remaining three captives who were just slowly waking up. After some fumbling around the packs, Arawn found a small dagger in one of the leather skin adventurer packs and passed it over to the half-elf who then cut himself loose and proceeded to do the same for Arawn and the rest of the captives. Rubbing his wrists slightly, Arawn whispered towards the group.
"So, now that we're loose, what do we do?"
"Let me take a quick peek through the back doors and I'll see what information I can gather."
The half-elf started to move towards the back of the carriage and was about to prop open the back doors when the giant, loosely dressed barbarian spoke up.
"To hell with all this sneaking! I say we just jump out the back of this carriage!"
The barbarian roared, without a care of alerting the people that were outside of the carriage.
"YOU FOOL! Keep your voice down! And how do you suggest we jump out when the carriage is moving so fast?!"
Arawn reprimanded the barbarian while trying to keep his voice low.
"! WHAT'S GOING ON BACK THERE?!"
A deep voice speaking in common language could be heard as the carriage started to slow down.
"Look at what you've done!"
"As if I care, out of my way! I'll take care of this myself!"
The barbarian picked up his great axe that was at the bottom of the packs and moved towards to carriage doors at the back. Just as the doors were about to open, the barbarian kicked open the double doors and took a step.
"HA! SEE? EASY."
Occupied with his successful opening of the carriage doors, the barbarian neglected to pay attention to the small height difference between the interior and the steps outside the doors. With a loud crash and a small puff of dust, the barbarian fell face first into the road outside of the carriage.
"…"
The remaining four people inside the carriage took glances at each other and then shook their heads at this careless blunder of the barbarian's. At this point however, the carriage had already come to a complete stop and footsteps could be heard coming from the front.
"Quick! Out of this carriage now!"
The half-elf shouted. With Arawn in the front, the remaining four people also jumped out the back of the carriage and turned around to face their captors.
There were two green goblins that were seemingly guarding the back of the carriage, as they were already facing the group and had their weapons drawn. A giant shadow could also be seen coming from the front of the carriage.
"I guess we have no choice but to fight this."
Arawn drew his sword and lifted his shield, with the other members of the group also drawing their weapons. The half-elf held a dagger and a shortsword in each of his hands, going into a stance that seemed to favor agility and quick strikes over a more traditional combat style such as the one that Arawn was taught. Now that they were out in the open, Arawn could more clearly see what the remaining two members of the group looked like. One of them also had pointy ears, and had a case on his back that seemed like it was for an instrument, in his hand however, was a rapier commonly seen amongst nobles that held them as an indication of their wealth and status. The rapier was of an intricate design and wasn't something that Arawn had seen before during his time in the cities where his army was stationed. The other person was without a doubt, a dwarf; the short and sturdy physique that were unique to the dwarfs was hard to mistake for anything else. What was interesting however, was that this dwarf held a bow on his back together with a shortsword in his hand instead of the axes and blunt weapons that were often seen together with dwarves. The last person, of course, was the blundering barbarian that held only a great axe and wore little clothing. Just as Arawn finished his quick observations of his now temporary allies in combat, the giant shadow that was seen earlier revealed itself to be a huge orc.
"HOSTAGES… ESCAPED… CATCH!"
The orc was obviously the superior of the two goblins and as soon as he issued the command to recapture the five adventurers, the two goblins hopped forward and took a strike towards Arawn, who was standing at the front of the group. However, despite their best attempt to strike down Arawn, the heavy armor that he was wearing blocked most of the strike. Having failed their attack on Arawn, the group saw a chance to attack and proceeded to engage in combat with the two goblins. The quickest out of the group was the agile half-elf, who slashed at the closer goblin of the two with his shortsword, and then followed up with an upwards strike of the dagger in his other hand. The dwarf saw his chance as the goblin faltered for a bit, having taken two blows to the torso, and shot an arrow that notched itself in the forehead of the goblin, taking him down immediately. With a fast motion, the dwarf drew a second arrow and shot it at the orc, also aiming at the head for a quick kill. The orc saw the arrow and blocked it by waving his large club in front of him. While the orc was distracted, Arawn stepped past the dead goblin and raised his longsword to cleave the other goblin, but as he did this, the other half-elf shouted out.
"WAIT! Don't kill the other goblin, we can interrogate him afterwards!"
"You sure make it sound it easy…"
Arawn scoffed at the idea of intentionally leaving his enemy alive. As a person who fought on the battlefields years before, he knew that in a fight, it was either the enemy's life or your own. If he left this goblin alive here, who knew what the sneaky little bastard would do after they let him go. And besides, he had orders from superior officers to leave no goblins alive anyways. That would be his reason for killing this goblin he told himself, he wouldn't let his personal decisions get in the way of his responsibility to the people of the land. Despite his intention of striking to kill, this other goblin was too agile and dodged the sword, escaping with only a small scratch on this left arm.
"HAHAHA. LET ME SHOW YOU HOW IT'S DONE. BEHOLD MY GREATAXE! I'LL CUT THEM ALL DOWN!"
As if to show off his immense power and presence, the barbarian rushed forward mindlessly and took a swing at the orc who was now next to the remaining goblin. The large greataxe certainly wasn't for show as it struck the orc. The orc managed to stay standing despite the barbarian's strong blow. However, even though this orc was easily twice the size of the dwarf, couldn't hold his ground completely and staggered a few steps backwards. As if not to lose to the barbarian's overwhelmingly large presence, the orc roared and charged at the barbarian, ready to strike him down with his own club.
"Step aside you idiot!"
The barbarian, who had been laughing and admiring the wound that he had inflicted on the orc was pushed aside as Arawn stepped forward and dodged the strike from the orc's club.
"TAKE THIS!"
Planting his left foot firmly into the ground, he stabbed the orc straight through the heart with his longsword. With a thud, the body of the orc dropped to the ground with Arawn's longsword still stuck in his chest. All that was left of captors was the lone goblin still standing next to the dead orc. With a swift leaping motion, the masked half-elf closed the distance between him and the goblin and proceeded to strike down the goblin with quick consecutive strikes with both his shortsword and dagger. Pulling his sword out of the orc, Arawn turned around to look at the remaining members of the group.
"Is anyone hurt?"
Although everyone in the group seemed fatigued from being held captive and fighting the captors, no one seemed to have sustained any major injuries.
"Well, since we've taken care of those guys, what now?"
"Well, if you guys had listened to me and didn't kill the goblin."
The half-elf with the rapier shrugged and looked away from the rest of the group. He didn't seem particularly pleased with the outcome of the group's small skirmish just now.
"Why not head back to town?"
The masked half-elf suggested.
"How? We're stuck in the middle of this hilly area, with no markers or anything to tell us where to go. And then you guys were so eager to kill our captives, our only source of any information."
The other half-elf turned back around and retorted at the masked half-elf's suggestion.
"Well, these orcs were definitely taking us somewhere, I suggest we track them down and take them out before they do any harm to the local residents around here."
Arawn proposed.
"Well how exactly do you suggest we do that? Last I checked, all the goblins are…"
"I can do it."
The dwarf interrupted the upset half-elf's sentence and stood forward.
"I'm a ranger, so I'm confident that I can track down these sons of bitches."
The dwarf said with a rough, coarse voice. He also seemed to be very eager about tracking down the orc and destroying their base.
"Well, they were able to capture us in the first place, so I don't really think we should go after them. And plus, it's so much work anyways."
The barbarian seemed to have brought up a very good point, however he also didn't really seem to care what the group's next course of action was in the first place.
"Well, so far the votes are two and two. So I guess that leaves the decision up to…"
Arawn turned back around to face the upset half-elf.
"The name's Arthur. But I'd prefer it if you just called me Art."
"Arawn. Pleasure to meet you I guess."
Arawn stepped forward and extended his hand. Art hesitated for a bit before taking the handshake and then proceeded to cross his arms a bit, seemingly lost in thought.
"Well… I think we should head to their base and see what we can find out."
"It's settled then, we'll head to the base. I can drive the carriage and um…"
Arawn paused for a bit.
"Rako. The name's Rako."
"Rako here can lead the way."
"I'll ride up front with you then, just in case."
The masked half-elf started walking towards the front of the carriage and jumped up to one of the seats up front.
"Guess that leaves me and this guy in the back then."
Art shrugged his shoulders and started walking towards the back of the carriage, with the barbarian following closely behind.