Episode 1 the WatchTower and the Search – Part I Interim Report

These are the communications and pieces I could find describing what happened during what was supposed to be a routine supply mission.

////MissionBriefing////x93g30////
////CaptainMorgan/Commanding////
////MissionCategory/TraineeObservation////
////MissionObjectives////
////1/EscortSupplyCart/38s2/to/Outpost/LC30s3////
////2/Standby////
////MissionBriefing/End////

Journal Excerpts

“Captain Morgan from the local Militia has been assigned to watch over our team and report back on our performance while we are trainees. Our Team is still very uncertain about what kind of person he is other than that he likes to drink. We do know however that his assessment will determine whether we ever make it from Trainees to full-fledged expedition adventurers. I don’t mind working my two part time jobs but it would be really nice to finally get paid for adventurers.” – Hyde

“We set out today to deliver supplies to some outpost that I’ve never heard of before… or what did they call it? a way station? I’m not sure what that even means but if it brings us one step closer to getting paid then I can’t argue with that (I hate to say this but these are really starting to get worn down. I can’t believe how far I’ve had to walk since I left my town and started on the path to becoming a real adventurer but I worry these boots will break a critical moment… some coin would really help) – Mirai

“Today we finally embark on our first mission together. I’m looking for to seeing how we can work as a team and build on each other’s strengths.” – Derasign

What happened, according to stories being told

The team set off on a pretty boring sounding delivery run. It’s only about day’s travel to the outpost. So it had to have been late afternoon when they arrived considering how early they left. I’ve heard that the road there was extremely uneventful.

When they arrived to find <NamePending> tavern and inn as stables, a smith, 6 houses, and a storage shed. Not the most exciting place, I can imagine. From what I hear it’s quite a decent tavern with decent beds a pretty much no competition for a days travel but it’s also quite old and the wood is showing its age.

From their, Captain Morgan went into the Tavern to greet the local proprietor who was the receive our shipment of goods. While Derasign stayed with the cart, the others went into the tavern following the Captain. The horses were stabled and the cart parked between the Stables and the Tavern, Derasign ran into the local Dwarven Smith, <NamePending>. They worked out how to properly hand over the goods to the right people.

Captain Morgan, busy getting drunk with the bartender, <NamePending>, was called out by the smith to go and transfer all the items from the cart into storage. Although really, the group got the sense that they have met several times people and were actually heading off to get really really drunk once the goods were secured.

The captain lets Derasign know that now that there mission is complete they are to remain here for at least a couple while waiting for new orders. You find out that there is a chance your group may end up getting dispatched somewhere to the north where it seems like something is happening but the Captain reassured that we most likely would just be heading home after a few days.

Meanwhile in <NamePending> tavern are the rest of the team. They are spending some time to get to know each other a little better as well as chatting with each other. It all seems like a pretty run of the mill mission to me.

Now, here’s where things get a little strange…

…and I can’t verify the accuracy of these stories but…

It seems that before entering the tavern, the ever so agile Ataraxia decided to “sneak” into the Tavern while the rest shuffled in. He could sneak in without the bartender, the staff, nor anyone else outside of our team even notice. He set himself up to not be noticed but could easily gather information from anything that the bartender or anyone at the tavern was saying or muttering…. and apparently the bartender was muttering a to himself and was irate.

Now, again this is just hearsay but through a brilliant stroke of team work, various members put pieces into motion to get a reaction out of the bartender and mutter things to himself that he wouldn’t have said opening. With Ataraxia hidden right there, the team was able to ascertain that he has a son named <NamePending> and was irate with him but after discussing some of the nuances in his voice with Ataraxia eavesdropping and Legless observing his body language the group could conclude that while he really was irate it was largely masking what the group felt was likely concern for the son. (This might be complete bullshit but I heard someone suggest that Graive did some sort of brilliantly timed drink spilling that repositioned the bartender and staff both physically and mentally to easily manipulate the situation to our advantage)

Through only 2nd hand accounts, I’m not sure how the group made this leap, but the group decided that something was off and they thought it had something to do with the bartender’s son.

The group decides to see what they can find out and reconvene 30 minutes later.

As the sun was setting, Legless decides to look around a bit and look for any tracks that seemed unusual. He found two separate sets of prints. One set were of two light humanoids getting into the forest. The other set were from something quite a bit heavier, also humanoid, but heading in a slightly different direction into the bluish hued forest.

Derasign decides to go and talk to the smith more to see if he could get more information. He buys three GIANTnourmous glasses of beer and heads over to the already drunk Dwarf. Hyde follows along from a safe distance with his bow unwrapped and ready should things go south.

In the meantime, Legless and Mirai display some brilliant teamwork in coaxing information from and reading the bartender. Almost like sweet cop, concerned cop, they make their approach to hit all the right things making the bartender openly express his deep concern that his son hasn’t been seen for 3 days. Two other children have left to join caravans and he’s the only son he has left who could possibly take over the Tavern. Without the tavern, he knows that this trade route will die and tries to convince himself that his concern for son is for the greater good of the entire region but again Legless and Mirai cut through to him and even convince him to give them a reward for bringing back the son safely — A huge 36,200G (362GP) reward at that!

It’s made abundantly clear that our group is really lacking money. Graive and Derasign’s armour, while still effective, look very old and beaten up. We worry that their armor may just break one of these days. The group could seriously use the coin. We don’t get paid as trainees and unless you want to sleep outside, then we need to pay to rent tents or yurts in our village.

Ataraxia decides to talk to the kitchen staff and patiently wakes for his chance to talk to him. You know one of these days, we’ll probably learn to keep doors shut but all the going in and out of the tavern, we never really bothered to close it again. A bird that had flown in and perched on some of the overhead beams suddenly swooped down catching Ataraxia off guard. Ataraxia falls back through the door to the washroom (strangely perfectly fine smelling and surprisingly very clean washroom) and lands on his back. As he lay there next to a super clean toilet (You guess that it might be enchanted with cleanliness), Ataraxia quickly springs to his feet and closes the door without anyone except for Legless and Mirai even noticing anything had happened.

While Legless and Mirai distract the bartender to keep him from noticing anything out of the ordinary, Ataraxia found than when he fell, his weapon made a gash in the wall, making a hole inside revealing a storage location on the other side. They surmised that this is probably a storage area connected to the kitchen and backroom and that you had just broken wall. Something inside catches Ataraxia’s keen sense of perception. He masterfully does an 2 second yet thorough sweep for traps and pulls out the documents inside. He finds a map as well as some kind of journal entry warning of a cursed area. He figured that it seems to be the same place that is marked on the map.

Graive returns to the tavern. It seems he was following the single heavier tracks into the woods and at the edge of what his darkvision would let him, he spots a figure in the woods but decides to head back to the group.

The group reconvenes and discusses everything they’ve found. Derasign joins the group with a fancy and shiny new set of armor – this one won’t be fallen apart anytime soon. When asked how he could even afford new armor, he responded that that was the power of beer and the members here some song playing about how we are the champions, we are the champions… of the world. Some 2nd hand accounts of what happened go against this part of the story but it is a fact that Derasign has shiny new armour.

Into the darkness, into the forest

The team decides that while Captain Morgan is passed out drunk, they will head into the forest to investigate the figure that Graive spotted. If they can find the son, then that’d be a great sum of money that would really help our team out. The team, however, is a lot more realistic than that and approach cautiously.

Legless heads out ahead of the rest to scout out the area. His expert wilderness tracking skills helps him gleam more information and find that there are no other people around waiting to ambush us. The rest of the team cautiously follows and spreads out into flanking and ambushing formations.

It turns out the mysterious figure in the woods was not hostile but also wasn’t the missing son. The group was very suspicious of her since he was carrying around very large and heavy sack that was big enough to hold a person and heavy enough (based on her tracks) to be a person.

They find that she is a Woodland Elf Ranger under the King’s employ charged with protecting this large region of wilderness and had routed a group of mischief causing goblins the day before. The contained the goblins armor and shortsword but the smith in town refused to buy them. Some suspected that it might have been because she was an elf.

Graive and Derasign chat with the Elven Ranger trying to get key pieces of information from her but Derasign’s repeated vocal jabs did not ingratiate him. Before approach the elf, they lit torches as to make their approach as non-startling as possible hoping that it would make the two seem friendly (and the rest of the party surrounded at a distance in ambush position and Ataraxia stealthily nearby.

Unfortunately, the torches had one more side effect: it drew 7 scarily large stealthy flying spiders to drop from the trees onto our party. The ranger yells out in warning and the group heads into combat. The Ranger doens’t take these spiders seriously and repeatedly scoffed saying that they’re just weak spiders. She pulls out some john woo spinning and shooting only to have one of her shot miraculously pin the spider in the leg. The pinned down spider furiously but unsuccessfully tries to break but is unable. Legless fires off a a Sam-Raimi-Evil-Dead kind of arrow but the spider doesn’t some matrix style dodging so the Mysterious Ranger just head shot it resulting in the creature exploding for no good reason. The group was able to successfully defend against the spiders and decimate them with the exception of Hyde who was bitten twice.

The learned that the Ranger had spotted the Bartender’s son and is familiar with the various people in the area. She noted that the day he was last seen that he and another individual were heading in the direction of the cursed tower but everyone knows that place is cursed and not to go into that tower.

With the new information they’ve obtained and feeling tired after the battle (and it being now after midnight) the group decided to head back to the tavern and get some rest in their already paid for rooms upstairs.

— Team Awesomer, Manager —

{30XP each was awarded}