D&D story: Fitting misfits

(First, we went through the complete character creation.)

So our brave adventurers started out in an inn in Hinderton. Shinrich and Lousk walk into this inn searching for some rest after their recent adventures. In the corner, there is a drunk man sipping his beer. They are immediately greeted by a slightly nervous innkeeper: Ronald. He asks the two sorcerers to stay away from any fire-based magic, puts down some beers and leaves to welcome another visitor.

This other visitor is Evelynn, a young paladin from a town close by. Ronald asks Evelynn to please keep an eye on the two sorcerers because they might just burn down the complete inn. Evelynn is guided to a table very close to the table of Shinrich and Lousk who talk in hushed tones.
Not short after Evelynn sits down she gets a beer and some ridiculously good looking chicken. Both Shinrich’s and Lousk’s mouths start to water. They each have their own way of dealing with this kind of temptations. Shinrich shoots off a spark so all heads turn. When Evelynn turns back to her plate, a small amount of chicken is missing and Shinrich has some grease on his upper lip. In the meantime Lousk has shifted closer to Evelynn and makes some small talk about travelling and being adventurers. Evelynn offers some chicken which is happily taken by Lousk; maybe just a bit more than the actual offer was.

A jolly bard looking for a drink comes into the inn and starts playing some music. He gets some ale in return for his services and entertainment and walks over to the tables of the other guests. This inn has not seen so much activity in days! The bard turns out to be Tedon. Both him and Evelynn make Shinrich a bit nervous and irritated. Being halflings, Lousk, Tedon and Evelynn enjoy the nice talk. However, in all that merriment one thing was not seen by our dear adventurers and as the music dies down, the darkness fills the world for Shinrich, Lousk, Evelynn, and the yet unknown bard.

Waking up from total blackout darkness is never easy, let alone when it means that some sort of poison or toxin is slowly leaving your system. Shinrich is the first to his feet and tries to get the others up. As always Lousk doesn’t really like waking up, but Tedon and Evelynn get up without any problem. They find themselves, after a bit of location pinpointing at the bottom of the town well of Hinderton. They try to get out, but all their attempts are fruitless. Since they find themselves locked up together they decide to continue together through this harder period in their life. This, among others, means that names have been exchanged: Shirich, Tedon Halfbottle (Wholebottle if drunk), Evelynn Highhill & Lousk Gravehill; one half-elf surrounded by three halflings.

Even in this dark time, our adventures are blessed. Their kidnapper left them with plenty of food, some water, torches and a sorry note from Nathan. They also find some sort of bone covered in blood to which hair is stuck.  With these provisions, the party, though Shinrich wasn’t enjoying it, started off through the only opening in the well, other than up. It soon became dark, so some of the torches were lit. The light coming of these torches was cast on a pair of legs, then a torso and finally a complete corps of a goblin. A little further ahead, another goblin corps was found but this was had lost its head. Lousk soon found the head and carefully kicked it back to the body. The two goblin corpses were mutilated with cuts, and one with the beforementioned beheading.

Of course, such a level of violence is not nice to see for anybody. What made it worse was that the cause of these cuts was not to be seen. What was to be seen was a choice in the form of a fork in the road. After going back and forth for a while, the party decided to go right. The reason was that that was where the head was found, so the attack likely came from the other side. Sounds solid, right?

WRONG!

If there is one danger in a dungeon, there are usually more. It didn’t take long for our adventurers to find this out themselves. Slowly a couple of torches came closer together with some unrecognisable sounds. As soon as she notices, Lousk turns around and starts running the other way. However, Shinrich grabs her by the collar and keeps her in place. That is when Tedon came up with a plan, but not before a heavy discussion with the other party members. Tedon started applying makeup to his face, put on some extra ears and all of a sudden made himself look like a goblin. So by the time that the torches, who were in fact carried by 6 goblins, arrived at the party, they saw a goblin with 3 other humanoids. Tedon managed to convince these goblins that he needed help with his prisoners. Reluctantly, Shinrich and Lousk were tied up and, together with Evelynn transported to the goblin camp a little further in the cave.

The prisoners, Shinrich, Lousk and Evelynn, were locked up in a cage. Evelynn, however, was never bound by Tedon, so she could just move about. Lousk quickly took her knife out of her boot and started releasing her bonds after which Evelynn took the knife and released Shinrich. In the meantime, Tedon was making friends with the goblins, who still were under the assumption that he was also a goblin. The only weird thing they encountered was that Tedon only spoke common as he, of course, was not really a goblin.  Their reasoning? Tedon clearly is a goblin with a different accent! (Also some dice hated the DM)

Once they were loose, Shinrich, Evelynn and Lousk started to kill the goblins. Tedon helped as well, but was very upset when Shinrich killed his new goblin friend. After this short combat, the adventurers were tired, hungry and thirsty. They decided to use the campfire of the goblins to provide light and relax for an hour or so. Lousk decided to look for a map, which was mentioned by the goblins before. She found a map of the region with a couple of places indicated that she didn't know before. Additionally, she found some sort of bone with hair glued to it by blood. As she knew how much Shinrich likes creepy and disgusting stuff, Lousk brought it to him. Shinrich soon found out that there was nothing magical to the item, but decided to keep it anyway.

After the short rest, the adventurers continued their trip towards what they hoped to be an exit to the cave system. Armed with torches from the campfire another tunnel is entered. Another choice comes up, another fork in the road. To the left is a rumbling that both seem to come closer as well as staying where it is. To the right is more darkness. Loud sounds or darkness? Darkness it is! Walking through the darkness there is the constant presence of claw marks on the walls. These marks do not resemble anything known to Lousk. These claws do not belong to a bird, nor to a mammal. It makes the party, especially Lousk, uneasy.

With all this uneasiness you would expect for the party to stay silent, but our misfits are not familiar with cave silence. Tedon in particular has a hard time, he picks up his flute and starts playing, while Lousk and Evelynn talk about life. Shinrich is the only one that is made more uneasy by the sounds than the possibility of silence. His efforts at keeping the group quiet are in vain. It doesn’t help that Tedon is all out of wine and starting to sober up. His headage is slowly getting stronger than the buzz of the alcohol.

The scratched walls and floors of the hallway led to an underground river with a boat. In the distance, there is the sound of voices, but it can’t be determined what tong. The rumbling sounds of before can still be heard in the distance; going back doesn’t seem to be an option. So the torches are extinguished and the half-drunk bard, the grumpy Warlock (no he said sorcerer, oh well), the actual sorcerer & the paladin filled with credulity, enter the boat and slowly continue to travel on the river. The boat contains a third bloody, hairy bone. The fasted way for such travel? Magehands! As halflings don’t have the ability to see without light, Shinrich takes the lead.

The serenity, apart from the rumbling and the voices, doesn’t last long. It is rudely disturbed by muffling after two stalactites fell from the ceiling. Torches are quickly lit and both Tedon and Shinrich have an octopus-like creature on their face. They were hideous, skin coloured and pretty strongly attached.  

It takes longer than it should have been to take them off again, but it does work. As the second creature is tossed about 10 meters away, an arrow poked out of its head. The voices are also closer now than ever before. They no longer come from far away but from above. There were people stuck in the ceiling.

Gregg and Dylan invited the adventurers to come into their hole (hihi). It turns out that there is a small crawl space in the ceiling that leads also has an opening to the other side. This other side is heavily guarded by a humongous centipede. So leaving through there is not really an option. It is a blessing from the gods that the chittering creature is too big to enter the crawl space.

It is decided that there will be a longer rest this time; the party is tired. Before going to bed the party talks a little more. They find out that Gregg and Dylan had also gone to the inn in town, were asked whether they were adventurers and woke up at the bottom of the well. It turns out that they were the ones that killed the goblins, after which they turned left and ended up in the crawl space while fleeing from the centipede.

Thank god they had more wine for Tedon. Tedon than decided that the death of his goblin friend won’t feel as bad if he just gets a new best friend. He decides that this new best friend will be Gregg. They take turns keeping watch. Not everything stays undisturbed though. Shinrich can’t take the music of the bard any longer and steals Tedon’s flute.

Well rested and with newly found spirit, the group enter the boat again in what feels like the morning. There is no way of truly telling the time without any sunlight, though. The party continues, down the underground river. The cave opens up and the river widens into a lake. The lake has another dock, but at first glimpse that seems to be the only thing there.

Slowly bubbles start to rise from the lake. Three heads pop up, followed by the three hideous bodies of sea hags. Our group of semi-fitting misfits decides to get off the water as quickly as possible. Surely they will have an advantage on land.

Wrong again! Combat breaks out and Lousk, with the help of Shinrich, quickly takes control over one of the three hags. She steers it to attack the others. The hag struggles, but can’t shake the control of Lousk helped by Shinrich. It seems like they did this trick a couple of times before. In the meantime there is a stare-off between another one of the hags and Gregg, but Gregg is feeling inspired by the love of his best friend Tedon.

The battle is hard and long, but in the end, our adventurers, that at least I have grown to adore, prevail. With the courage of Evelynn, the strong mind of Gregg, the love of Tedon, the power of Lousk, the stubbornness of Shinrich & the helping hand of Dylann, they slay these horrid creatures. The group falls to their knees, almost in unison. The camera zooms out and...

To Be Continued!