The wheels of the ox-drawn carriage rolled roughly against the dirt and rocks of the Triboar Trail.
Whose idea it was to leave at the height of the moon was never made clear, but all four of the cart's passengers and their driver were regretting the decision.
"Noisy crickets, haunting owls," Brecht complained as he gripped tightly to the reins of both oxen, "and I can hardly see a thing. Would a street torch like the ones in Neverwinter or Baldur's gate be too much to ask for?""
"You're the only one among us with any experience driving vehicles." Midnight mentioned from the back of the carriage, keeping a zealous guard over all the mining equipment being transported. "Besides, I can see perfectly fine even from back here. You're on the trail, and that's good enough."
"You ever been?" Iva asked the carriage passenger across from her, towards the front. "To Phandalin I mean."
"Not that I can recall." Harper shook his head, and leaned back, his shiny chainmail armor glinting moonlight into Iva's eyes. "My family would never take me to any such small frontier town as a boy. Went to Thundertree once. Wonder if it's gotten any bigger since then."
"I just hope that the letter we received isn't trying to play us for fools." Iva responded. "It's super vague. I mean, 'something big?' that's all we're going off of here."
"I've met our patron." Bracht joined in on the conversation. "I can vouch for their honesty. If they say something big, they mean it. What I cannot vouch for is the necessity of all the equipment we're lugging."
"10 gold pieces is 10 gold pieces." Midnight smiled. "For such a simple task as delivery, too. I'm eager to see what kind of wealth will roll in after we do…whatever it is that needs doing."
"So long as it's all above board." Harper nodded. "I'm in enough hot water with my own family, I don't want to risk getting into any actual legal trouble."
"This isn't Waterdeep, lordling." Iva laughed. "Even if you did land in legal trouble, word likely wouldn't reach your parents until the next full moon, and gods willing we'll be long gone by then."
"Maybe…"
A small silence followed, interrupted by a gasp from Midnight.
"Brecht, stop the cart, would you?"
Breacht reared up the reigns as the oxen stopped their trot.
"What is it? What is it?" Brecht asked. "Gods damn, it's hard to see too far ahead. I think…. Wait a minute…."
"Good, you see it too." Midnight sighed.
"What is it?" Iva asked as she followed Midnight out of the cart.
"Shigra…." Brecht nudged the sleeping hafling beside him.
"Are we there yet?" She yawned.
"No. But look ahead. Squint if you have to, you'll see it."
"Hmmm…" Shigra looked straight ahead. "Oh no."
"Is it what we think it is?"
"Yeah. That's his horse alright. Not sure about the other one."
"You two go join the others." Harper delegated. "I'll tie the carriage down and be along shortly."
"Shigra has confirmed it." Brecht informed both Iva and Midnight, "It's Gundren's horse."
"Very clearly killed by several arrows. Puncture wounds match to a 'T'." Iva noticed.
"Saddlebags' have been looted." Midnight informed them as she dug through the saddlebags. "Map case was empty too."
"Map case?" Brecht pondered.
"This one." Shigra walked up to an empty map case on the ground.
"This poses a problem…" Harper noted as he rejoined the others. "While it's sad that these horses are dead, they're blocking the trail. We should probably remove the hazard if we don't want to continue on foot, each of us lugging roughly 10 extra pounds of mining supplies. There's also the convenience of others traveling along Triboar Trail to consider."
"You know how heavy a horse is?" Iva rose a brow at Harper. "We'll be here all day! What we should do is go off trail, just a little bit, until we're past them, and we should do it soon. Nothing good comes from standing out in the open like this."
As the words left Iva's lips, a black feathered arrow darted past her and into a nearby tree.
"Weapons at the ready!" Harper ordered. "It's an ambush, cover each other's blind spots!"
"Wait, wait, wait, please….wait." Midnight looked up at the sky.
"How does combat work again?" Melody asked at the table. "Like, do we just…go at it?"
"Did you read the handbook?" Helen sighed and crossed her arms. "There's literally a whole chapter about it."
"Hey, Lang, I'm already going out of my way to sit at this table. Okay? I read through character creation, got my equipment, and Zastin said that was all I had to do! I'm not about to read through that whole giant book, just explain combat to me, sheesh. I'm not a moron."
"S-sorry, geez." Helen held up her hands. "But I'm new to this too, and I'm not having any problems."
"You aren't dealing with hate mail and stalkers though, at least not to my degree."
Rudo, Liu-Ten, and a perfectly clean Alcott all looked at each other.
"This isn't going to be a common thing right?" Liu-Ten finally asked.
"No, no it's not. I'm just, sorry Melody, I'm just kind of stressed." Helen sighed.
"Ohhhh…" Something clicked in Melody's head. "That's right, you're waiting on acceptance letters, huh?"
"We're cheering for you Helen." Rudo smiled as she gave a thumbs up.
"Yeah, you got this." Alcott nodded. "And this is supposed to be a relaxing, and fun event."
"You can let the stress out on your ambushers in the game soon enough." Zastin smiled at Helen. "But as Melody is also a new player, let me give her a brief rundown of how combat works. In the meantime, why don't you talk to each other about your impressions of each other's characters."
"I'll start with the elephant in the room then…" Liu-Ten turned to Alcott. "Why a girl?"
"Helen's playing a guy, too, you know!" Alcott defended himself. "I just thought of a girl when I thought up the character, there's no other reason."
"Is this party going to uh, get along though?" Rudo wondered. "I mean, the three of us-" She pointed to herself, Liu-Ten, and Helen "are all good aligned, and the two of you uh…"
"It'll be fine." Liu-Ten assured her. "I remember asking Zastin that same question. He's vetted all the characters to make sure that no one's going to, y'know, be a dick about things."
"Yeah, no 'that's what my character would do' as an excuse gonna be happening here, at least." Alcott nodded. "Can't say anything about the other four groups."
"Oh god, group four." Helen shook her head. "They'll either be only doing that, or somehow will have perfect chemistry. But anyways, Alcott, I actually really like Iva's concept. And I can confirm, I'm only playing a guy because that's what came into my head."
"Harper's a very you character too." Liu-Ten teased playfully.
"Excuse me, Sir Brecht of Baldur's Gate?" Helen teased back. "Think you might be in the best position to say this?"
"The biggest surprise here is Rudo choosing to play a halfling." Zastin said as he and Melody finished up their own conversation. "I figured she'd go for something taller since…"
"I can and I will flip the table." Rudo joked with a grin at Zastin.
"I'm surprised none of you chose to play as someone with darkvision." Melody chimed in.
"Hello? Blind fighting?" Alcott pointed at himself. "Blindsense 10 feet, that's like, ultra darkvision."
"Hampered a bit by the 10 feet part." Melody smirked. "I've got 60 feet."
"And 6 hit points." Liu-Ten snickered.
"Midnight was not designed with a combative focus in mind." Melody crossed her arms. "Be nice to the only party member who can cast arcane and utility magic."
"Well, why don't we let the combat do the real talking?" Helen suggested.
"I've got an idea." Alcott nodded. "We vote MVP among each other's characters for the session, and they get to choose what we order for dinner afterwards."
"Oooh, that sounds like fun, I like that." Rudo nodded.
Everyone nodded in agreement with Alcott's proposal.
"Alright, so…" Zastin clapped his hands together. "Are we all ready to dive back in?"
"Yeah!"
"Yes!"
"Yeppers!"
"Ready!"
"Of course!"
"Great. As the-"
As the party turned out to face their enemy, four goblins came shambling out from the bushes on the north side of the trail.
Three held scimitars with shortbows on their backs, while one was wielding a shortbow, with a scimitar at their side. All weapons looked crudely made and easy to break if anything bigger than a goblin were to wield them.
They began shouting at the party in Goblin.
"Anyone speak gobbledeygook?" Harper asked.
"Nope." Iva shook her head.
"Why would anyone?" Midnight hid a laugh.
"Never learned it." Brecht denied.
"Uh…uhm…I do." Shigra stepped up.
"H-hello there." She spoke in Goblin to the one wielding the shortbow, as she took it to be the general leader of this small band of goblinoids.
"You. Looters. You take!" The goblin pointed to the horse.
"What? No, we didn't do this!"
"You lie! We see! You take! Our horse meat! Not yours!"
"Well, it looks like we found our killers." Shigra whispered back to her companions before turning her attention to the goblin again. "Gundren Rockseeker, a dwarf, he was on one of the horses, where is he?"
"You lie! You see no one! No dwarf! No human! You bad. We fight! We fight! Yaaaghh!"
"I don't speak goblin, but that sounds like a battle cry." Brecht noted.
"You'd be right." Shigra replied. "Negotiations have broken down, so uh, I think we should probably kill them now."
Iva was the first to leap into action. The easternmost goblin marked as hers, she rushed at him with her shortsword and shield drawn. With a fake out to distract the creature, she pierced through his gross flesh with her blade swiftly.
"Tch." She clicked her tongue. "Missed the heart."
Brecht was next into action, rushing past Shigra and Harper to take the westernmost goblin. With a giant swing, one of his two warhammers crashed down, putting a small crater in the trail as the goblin dodged the blow, only to be met by Brecht's second warhammer colliding right into the creature's ribcage, though it still somehow found strength to stand.
Midnight slowly backed away from the goblins and readied waved her hand over a crystal orb.
She spoke a string of words in Infernal and a skeletal hand appeared beside the southernmost goblin, gripping its shoulder by surprise. The goblin jumped and shivered at the attack, and leered at the skeletal hand angrily.
It immediately attacked the strange magical effect, and discovered that it was indeed only an effect as it disappeared.
Celebrating their ally's 'victory', the eastern goblin lunged at Iva with its scimitar, effortlessly blocked by her shield with a flourishing spin.
The western goblin focused his attention on Brecht, hollering in a language he didn't understand as it leapt at him with its blade, only for the crude weapon to bounce off Brecht's armor as though it was naught but a stick.
The northern goblin, a bit smarter than its allies, noticed Midnight holding a shiny thing, and aimed an arrow towards her, striking her hand, causing her to drop her arcane focus onto the mud In the goblin's greed, it ran to pick up the shiny thing, accidentally surrounding itself in between the three women of the party.
Harper took the opportunity to distract the southern goblin, swinging her longsword down just a tad too late, as the goblin managed to parry the blade.
Shigra took the opportunity to strike at the surrounded goblin, the leader she had tried to speak to. She thrust her dagger forwards, it's jagged edge driven sharply into the goblin's side as it wailed out in agony, just before it could grab the shiny orb. With a quick spin, Shigra brought her leg around towards the back of the goblin's head, but instead found herself accidentally caught in his hand and knocked onto the ground.
Iva continued her dual with the eastern goblin, once again faking out with her shield before driving her shortsword towards the monster's heart. The trick did not work a second time however, as the goblin parried her thrust.
Brecht leapt and swung both his warhammers down, one towards his own goblin, and one towards the goblin Harper was fighting. With a battle cry he ascended and descended, both hammers striking true, and flattening the evil creatures beneath them.
"Well, looks like Liu-Ten's choosing dinner." Melody snickered, causing a small uproar of laughter before she got back into character.
Midnight snatched her orb back up from the goblin and conjured the skeletal hand once again, As it tried to grasp around the neck of the goblin, it immediately dissipated when it came into contact with the goblin's arrows, flying out of its quiver as it continued wailing in agony from the pain of Shigra's dagger.
As it gained enough composure to make a move, it dropped its shortbow and took out its own scimitar, aiming to strike violently at Shigra, driving its own jagged edge into her thigh,, and the two small creatures began their battle of agonized screams.
The eastern goblin continued its duel with Iva, as their blades constantly clashed. One strike was all it needed, but Iva practically danced as she dodged and blocked every blow the goblin tried to give her.
Harper, seeing Shigra and Midnight struggling with the lead goblin, elected to help them over Iva, who seemed to be handling herself fine.
He brought his longsword down with a fast slice, and realized just how blessed by Tymora this particular goblin must have been to be so accidentally adept at dodging blows. Shigra hobbed back onto her feet, and readied her dagger once again.
"Die." She cursed in Goblin at her adversary and thrust her blade forward.
Through its back, the goblin had no chance to dodge the strike. It fell to the ground, as it choked out its final word in Goblin. Only Shigra could understand what it said. But she could not understand what it meant.
"Castle."
The final goblin, the eastern goblin fighting Iva, watched in horror as the last of its allies fell.
"Time to finish the job." Iva smiled. She changed the grip on her shortsword and brought it down like a pick. The goblin's neck snapped as its head came off, and its body fell to the ground
"That's all four of them then." Iva said as Harper looked over Shigra and Midnight.
"How bad is it?"
"Really fucking bad, lordling." Midnight wheezed as she tried to keep blood from spilling out of her wound.
"I could use some help, yeah." Shigra gritted her teeth as she did the same.
"Alright…then let me…there we go." Harper placed his hands over both wounds and concentrated as a small light seeped out of them, and cauterized both injuries. "There not gone, but this should keep you both in somewhat decent shape. Maybe leave the main fighting to Brecht and Iva for a little bit."
"No complaints here." Midnight stretched her arms. "Don't want those nasty things trying to steal my orb again."
"Don't tell me not to fight." Shigra shook her head. "I'll just be careful going forwards until I'm healed up completely."
"Well, I'm not going to force you to stay out of fights. I just meant-"
"Hey!" Iva called from the bushes. "Guys, come look at this!"
"What am I looking at?" Shigra asked as they all gathered around.
"Footprints. Goblin footprints…and it looks like they were dragging something back that way, further up into the forest."
"How big was the something they were dragging?"
"Unless it was some kind of sleigh, I think they were dragging a person." Midnight looked over the tracks. "Yeah, these are definitely the tracks of someone being dragged by their heels."
"Well, if Gundren is in trouble, then I say we go rescue him!" Brecht voiced his opinion.
"It would be a shame to have come all this way with all this stuff to not get a reward for it because our patron died." Iva nodded. "Fine, I'm game."
"Hopefully the goblins wherever the tracks lead us speak Common." Midnight sighed. "We probably could have gotten out of that fight just now if I was the one talking."
"Hey, I'm just a girl from Neverwinter, alright? I can fight. Politics and talking aren't exactly what I set out to do when I became an adventurer."
"Oh,, no, I'm not trying to bash you, I'm just saying I'm really good at it."
"So, we're all in agreement then?" Harper asked. "We're following the trail to see where it goes? Get Gundren back?"
Everyone nodded in agreement, and the party set out.
"So, can I get a marching order and a marching speed?" Zastin asked the players at the table.
"Maybe put our 18 AC Paladin in front?" Liu-Ten turned to Helen.
"Yeah, I think that's fair." Helen laughed. "But we need someone with high AC in the back, too, I think. Don't want to have one of our lower AC players getting ganked."
"I volunteer Alcott." Melody said. "Iva's AC is high enough, and I'd rather have mr. two warhammer man up in the front."
"So…marching order is Harper, Brecht, Our two injured party members, and then I'm in the back?" Alcott asked.
"I call dead center." Melody looked at Rudo.
Rudo shrugged. "Sure, I've got darts, it'll work."
"If we go somewhere too dark, I'm lighting a torch, fair warning." Helen warned. "I want to be able to see."
"If we go somewhere dark, sure." Melody shrugged. "Alcott and I can probably go off on our own since we can at least see."
"You were ragging on me for the 10 feet thing earlier."
"10 is better than 0 though."
"Alright, so we have Harper, Brecht, Midnight, Shigra, Iva. What's the marching speed?"
"Fast." Helen said without hesitation. "We're trying to rescue our patron here, and we don't know how long he's been captured or if he's even still alive."
"Alright." Zastin said. "The party-"
The party set out at a brisk pace with Harper in the lead, Brecht close behind. Midnight and Shigra made up the middle rank, and Iva brought up the rear.
"He better not be dead. It would be a waste of my whole week." Iva grumbled.
"He won't be dead." Brecht shook his head. "Gundren is a tough customer. He's alive, I believe in him."
"It's nice to have that much faith in him." Harper nodded. "But even if he's not, we should at least try to see whatever he was attempting to do here to the end. It would be the respectful thing to do."
About 7 minutes into their trek, Brecht shoved a hand out in front of Harper.
"Stop."
"Why?"
Brecht pointed at the snare on the ground. "That's why. Don't go stepping in traps that are that obvious."
"I wasn't planning on it." Harper shook his head.
The three women behind them giggled as the party pushed on.
Another 7 minutes passed.
"Stop!" Harper put his arm in front of Brecht.
"Haha, very funny. There's no snare there."
"You're right." Harper smiled. He stepped down hard on the ground and a bunch of leaves fell down a crudely made pitfall.
He motioned silently.
The table was laughing at the situation. "Ah man…I didn't…" Alcott shook his head. "I didn't think what went around would come back around so soon, you two!"
"Okay, if there are more moments like that, I think yeah, this will be fun." Melody agreed.
The trail led the party along a shallow creek running through the woods, and soon the tracks disappeared into the water. Rather than reappearing on the other side however, small grooves in the creekbed led into the mouth of a dark cave.
"Some castle." Shigra snarked.
"And that's where we'll call it for now." Zastin smiled. "Congratulations guys, this was a story milestone, you've each earned 75 experience points, be sure to mark it down on your character sheets. We'll meet again same time next week. But first, we need a vote on MVP to determine who actually gets to choose dinner. No self-votes, and I'll abstain."
Alcott, Helen, Liu-Ten, Melody, and Rudo all mockingly got up and put votes inside a hat that Zastin had taped the word 'voting urn' onto. They each gave little confessionals as well.
Confessional: Alcott: Iva Blythe (LE Criminal BG Standard Human Fighter)
"Bro, that was sick. I'll be shocked if you don't win."
End Confessional
Confessional: Helen: Harper Gloryforge (LG Noble BG Standard Human Paladin)
"I think your contributions will go unpraised, but I noticed them, so here's the vote."
End Confessional
Confessional: Liu-Ten: Sir Brecht of Baldur's Gate (NG Folk Hero BG Variant Human Fighter)
"Purely based on roleplay. I'm actually kind of excited to see where this adventure will go with your character in tow."
End Confessional
Confessional: Melody: Midnight (NE Criminal BG Fierna Tiefling Wizard)
"You know what you did."
End Confessional
Confessional: Rudo: Shigra Ravenstrike (CG Inheritor BG Stout Halfling Monk)
"Yeah, it was between you and another person, but I gotta give it to you."
End Confessional
"I'll go tally the votes." Zastin mocked Chris as he stood in front of the hat for a minute, doing nothing.
"Let's see…" He finally took out the paper slips. "Liu-Ten, Liu-Ten, Melody, Rudo, Liu-Ten. Alright, Liu-Ten, Session 1 MVP, what are we eating for dinner tonight?"
"Very tempted to just take you guys all out to a steakhouse." Liu-Ten laughed. "But uh, I know Alcott's got work soon, so we're going to order from this nice, fast, Italian place I know. Here I'll send you guys their menu."
Everyone clapped.
"Group 2 is tomorrow, Zastin, right?" Helen asked.
"Yeah, Group 2 is tomorrow. It'll go in order. Then it's two days I have to myself so I can adjust the campaign as needed for you guys, and then it's you in Group 1 again."
"Wait who was in Party 2 again?" Rudo asked.
"It's gonna be Kaede, Twilight, Donovan, and Victor coming over tomorrow." Zastin answered.
"Holy shit, is Kaede gonna be okay?" Alcott's eyes widened.
"She'll be fine." Helen waved a hand. "She's actually really excited to hang out with people she never got much of a chance to during the show."
"It'll be a good group." Zastin nodded. "All the groups will be good groups."
"Even group 4?" Liu-Ten raised a brow.
"Especially group 4." Zastin nodded. "Now then, what should we do while we wait for dinner?"
Party 1, Session 1, COMPLETE
Experience Gain:
Brecht (Fighter Level 1): +75: 75 Total
Harper (Paladin Level 1): +75: 75 Total
Iva: (Fighter Level 1) +75: 75 Total
Midnight (Wizard Level 1): +75: 75 Total
Shigra (Monk Level 1: +75: 75 Total
The Votes for those who are curious…
Alcott voted for… Brecht
Helen voted for… Shigra
Liu-Ten voted for… Midnight
Melody voted for… Brecht
Rudo voted for… Brecht