Six Free Booters for Hire Day 1
The six adventurers once again awakened naked deep in a simple forests small clearing to the drizzling rain of an early dawn morning but they quickly realized they were not in Saffin where they had expected to be. Xena had an unpleasant dream of monsters coming after her with big fanged mouths and big slobbery tongues licking her awoke with the feeling as if something small and nice had been licking his face. Unlike when they entered the Tome, this time there was no sign of anyone else having been near here including Bob the Bard. They equipped themselves as best they could with rough clubs and woven plant skirts before heading into the forest collecting more rocks and extra clubs along the way east to whatever lay ahead.
Unknown to them their true location was in the unfamiliar center of the great escarpment, in the middle of the greatest continent of the world, near the east end of a mountain range. Saffin was very far to the East.
Eventually they noticed faint distant sounds in one direction and turned to follow the sounds. As they got closer the sounds became louder and cleared and now sounded like lumber jacking activity. Eventually the adventurers come upon a group of human, demi-human and humanoid lumberjacks filling up a wagon load of wood. Grazing nearby was a pair of ten foot tall reptilian looking beasts they later learned were called grox.
The work camp seemed to be overseen by several bored or dozing guards and when the adventurers called out greetings they found the work crew's language was unknown to them. They tried other languages as the odd guards approached. Then one of the elven adventures spoke in elven as the elf came into a bright clearing and the guards suddenly noticed the three elven adventurers amongst the six odd intruders.
This normally wasn't a bad thing unless of course the previously bored guards and some of the lumberjacks just happened to be elf hating orcs.
The orc roared Whaaaag in hatred as they charged towards the elf's wielding the crudest of weapons and barely any armour or even a tunic. These basic orcs stood no chance against the high level adventurers and they were quickly beaten to death.
After killing the eight orc guards plus two orc lumberjacks as well as a goblin lumberjack the adventurers found the humans were cowering in fear. The adventurers looted the orc bodies giving them three very smelly and oversized crude leather armours with no padding, two crude shields, and one set of oversized crude boots that also needed padding to fit. There were also several crude but sturdy iron weapons including a chopper, axe, cleaver, heavy crossbow, three clubs, three daggers and a dozen crude bolts,. All of these were crude with oversized uncomfortable orc hand grips that made them all harder to hold.
The remaining human work detail carried wood axes and tree saws plus their personal daggers. When the human workers realised that they were not going to be crumped they huddled up away from the party in conversation. The lumberjack crew noticed the strangers did not loot the dead orcs teeth, just their weapons and armour. Neither did the strangers threaten them or speak orcish. After several futile efforts to find a common language the closest they came was Xena's badly spoken old Hawk Peoples tongue. The local humans re-huddled to decide a course of action.
"These people must have been sent to this land and stranded by great powers unknown" one suggested. Another commented "Look how easily they slew the guards with crude clubs while they are naked". "They are mighty fighters but have not taken the orcs teeth" noted another. "They know not the orcs ways and will be killed by the great orc horde without our help". One noted Xena's "physique" but was told to shut his gob.
A local nick named Big Fish remarked "They could have been sent to help against a coming peril or maybe to bring it down upon us. I prefer for it to be the former, not the later for our people's sake". Unknown to the others Big Fish realized the adventurers could be the means to achieve his dream to leave the orc realm where he could never become someone rich. And so he began to form yet another grand plan in his mind. Big Fish outlined his general idea and after agreement with the other locals they set to it. He approached the adventurers and made it known with pantomime and stick drawings that the local humans wish to assist them.
First several locals began building a temporary shelter in the lumber camp, setting up a small hidden fire and scrounging some left over food. Several others made crude traps around it and built a wall of thorny hedges around the shelter to protect it. The rest meanwhile went back to work felling trees as they had a quota to fill. As Xena approached the two grox to examine them, the two grox turned and each gave Xena a big lick with their enormous slobber covered tongues. While not an expert on animal behaviour it seemed that the grox both seemed to find Xena very distasteful as they frantically tried washing their tongue with dirt. Xena herself found the experience very unpleasant and reminiscent of her drooling monster nightmare that morning.
One local collected the teeth of the dead orcs and gave them to the adventurers in a pouch. When the adventurers showed that they did not know the reason for this Big Fish pantomimed showing that they were valuable and were used to purchase things like food, weapons and armour. This drew Loro's eager attention who started trying to find out from the locals the values for teeth sizes and exchange rates.
The locals installed some padding in the captured orc gear and helped adjust it for the humans to wear. The elves were given some of their cloths to keep the chilly night at bay while Xena was also given the biggest orc shirt, plus the boots of one blushing lumberjack (who most certainly was not the one who spread certain descriptions in town of a near naked Xena). The three elves were directed to stay tonight at the camp as the orcs could smell them and will attack elves on sight, so they must hide in the woods for now. The adventurers made fresh cut staffs and reworked some orc clubs for all three elves plus two orc daggers to the Loro and one to Ani the Mage. Ransarn and Xena grabbed the crude orc swords while Ghengis took the bigger axe and Xena took the only crossbow. And Loro made a pile of rocks.
After some more gestures, further pantomime and drawing in the dirt the adventurers came to understand that the lumberjacks had come from a town (that they would later learn was called Gamble Way) that was just a few miles away. The plan was that the three human adventurers would go back with the lumberjacks to talk to the town's human leaders, and then the work crew would return tomorrow morning to resume work. Loro wanted to keep a banner the guards had but it seemed that it needed to stay with the human lumberjack crew as it acted as both some kind of a orc work permit and a "don muck wif me boyz or ill'z crump ya" warning sign.
Eventually the wagon was fully loaded up and the human party members accompanied the lumberjacks back towards town as the elves settled into the shelter for a chilly night on the high escarpment.
Once out of the forest the work party pointed out the foot hills starting just to the west and north with unfamiliar mighty mountains right behind them. Eventually they saw a long line of smoke belching smithy shops alongside a polluted river outside of the town. The smithies were ram shackle in appearance but each one had working water wheels powering them and chimneys spewing black smoke. It seemed to be a sprawling smithing town with many orcs dwellings and smithies outside the walls and human serfs lived inside the old towns stone walls.
To quote the orcs "Wolz iz fo scardy punie humies".
The work crew dumped off the load of wood at their boss orcs smithy and returned the work banner before they got paid in orc teeth then proceeded into town. Each local went off with a task for the adventurers.
The boss orc was told that the missing crew members and guards went off chasing some animal and never came back. Then Big Fish mentioned to the boss that he knew of some Free Booters looking for work and he can have them here tomorrow. The boss orc gave a grunt as he farted and then shrugged before he went back inside. Big Fish mimed that "The boss didn't say no so you got yourself a job". On the walk into the old town it was noticed that some of the orcs seemed to be sniffing the air as they passed near them.
The three human adventurers saw a large armoured battle wagon go by equipped with two ballista and three mounted heavy crossbows. There were no less than two dozen armed and armoured orcs riding it as they went off to some battle, one orc was pushed off and had his back crushed under the heavy wheels much to the amusement of the other orcs as scavenging orcoids plundered the paralyzed orc. The wagon was pulled by a large creature with only two thick legs and big sharp teeth (they learned it was called a squigoth) which was covered in a barding made of large shields.
Small orcoids of kobold size were a common sight (they learned were called Gretchen, grots or most commonly runts) while a creature that looked like a small squigoth (called a squig) was also seen roaming free. The squigs and the large squigoths looked like a big orc face full of sharp teeth was plunked upon two strong but short legs. The smaller squig creatures were seen stalking and eating the runts while packs of runts stalked and ate the creatures in return. Oddly two nearby large grox and a squigoth seemed to go out of their way to approach Xena then gave her a long slobber full lick which left her covered in drool before they backed off in apparent revulsion at her taste. This seemed to happen far too often throughout the coming days when any new creature was encountered. The three adventurers realized that they had to be on the lookout as any nearby small squigs would zero in and attack Xena. The runts and goblins (called gobbo's) were soon following behind the three adventurers as they started killing any squig that came near providing the orcoids with a free meal.
The three party members made it into the old town of Gamble Way and laid low in an unused room where they were provided food and rough cloths. Big Fish took all the ill-fitting gear they captured to be traded to an orc merchant for human/elf sized clothing and basic battle gear. So they spent the night in some comfort while the three elves took turns keeping watch through the cold night. Loro's high dexterity allowed him to bean the hungry creatures of the night in the head with rocks and his unusual strength meant that they hit really hard.
As the morning made its appearance the high priest Tulo prayed to his god Apollo but much to Tulo's dismay there was no reply. After Ani relight the camp fire with his cantrip fire finger spell he wondered if the cantrip could be modified into a longer reaching flame attack and after being warned not to burn down the forest this time started experimenting. Ani was gutting and skinning the carcasses of the two small critters he had beaned in the head overnight to prepare them for the morning meal.
Back in town the humans would receive human sized studded grox leather armour, rough wood shields, three ill-fitting short swords plus some disguises for the elves). Then they set off into the second day in this new land.
