Chapter 1

The Adventure Begins

July 1

The group consists of the knight Ra, the troubadour Kieron, the wizard Jaysek, the mentalist Neiia, the woodsman Agnarr, and the priest Ertak. The others had been in the same class in the adventurer’s guild training in Brazenhold, except for Ra who joined only a few days ago. The group needs to go consecrate some crypt near Kassen. Their contact is the mayor of Kassen, Jonark Uptal.

The group figures that they will reach their destination in two days. Neiia complains the entire journey that something is wrong with her equipment. She also fiddles with her gear during every break, not being used to moving on foot.

In the evening, just before the group would start looking for a campsite, Ra and Jaysek notice some creatures about two hundred meters ahead. They are some kind of humanoids, but not humans. There are three of them.

Ra recognizes that the creatures are great orcs. The group moves their horses aside and wait by the side of the road for the orcs to arrive. When the orcs are 70 meters away, the group notices that one of the orcs is wearing plate armor and is cursing and commanding the other two, who are dragging something between them. It also appears that the orcs haven’t noticed the group at all.

Agnarr moves the horses further away and stays with them to keep them quiet. The others position themselves in the forest, behind trees and bushes. The orcs walk past the group without noticing anything. They appear to be dragging a large 10-meter-long copper sword. The others watch as the orcs pass by without doing anything, but Ra begins to sneak after the orcs. No one else notices that Ra attacks the orcs, so they just watch the orcs without noticing Ra. Ra manages to get behind the orcs without anyone noticing him, and then he strikes one orc three times in the back, but it seems that the blows do not penetrate the armor well.

After this, the orc drops his end of the big sword, jumps around and attacks Ra. Ra begins to retreat while Kieron also rushes toward the battle. Jaysek also walks toward the battle, shooting with his pistol until it breaks. Ertak aims at the orcs with his bow but the shot goes wide and hits a tree.

Neiia shoots at one orc with an explosive fireball but that doesn’t accomplish much, but when she fires a fire bolt at almost point-blank range at the same orc, the entire orc disappears into smoke.

The orc that Ra was pummeling flees when the boss joins the battle. The orc boss has a large halberd that he uses to hack at Ra. He hits Ra once, but after that Ra dodges all strikes. Since Kieron doesn’t have any other opponents as the other orc fled, and in his training she was taught that a good strategy is the one person distracts the enemy and the other hits the enemy from behind, she hammers the boss from behind. She can’t get through the armor at back of the head, so she moves to attacking the arms.

The boss hits Jaysek, who had joined the close combat, and Jaysek is wounded badly. Then one of the orc boss’s arm is immobilized by a wound, at which point Kieron and Ra move to attacking the boss’s leg. The boss heals his own arm and tries to strike a few more times before he’s had enough and flees the scene with acrobatic movements. Kieron throws her sword at the boss, but the weapon doesn’t penetrate the armor. Ra starts running after him.

Kieron and Neiia also start running after them. They catch up to the orc and begin to attack it, at which point the boss stops and hits Ra very badly so that he is badly wounded too and has to withdraw. Kieron moves to the front line of the battle, but the boss hits him very badly too, and Kieron’s weapons are too light for him to be able to parry the blow, so it hits.

Neiia gathers her fireball and casts it at the orc so that the orc falls. After that, Kieron states that the situation is very good and falls unconscious to the ground. Neiia begins to shoot the unconscious orc in the face with her magic until the face is completely ruined.

Ertak heals the group, and after that Agnarr goes to look for a good campsite, and meanwhile Neiia and Ertak collect items from the bug-bears as they are actually identified as when looked at closely, instead of the orcs the group thought they were.

Ertak also tries to move the bodies away from the road but doesn’t succeed, so he takes Kieron’s pack horse and tries to get it moving, but the horse doesn’t like Ertak’s actions, so the horse decides that it won’t obey that guy anymore.

With Jaysek’s instructions, Ertak finally manages to drag the bodies away. Agnarr returns, and when Kieron also regains consciousness, the group moves to the better campsite found by Agnarr.

July 2

The night passes peacefully.