The Game Begins, Need More Info

The adventurers woke early, their night of rest having thankfully passed without incident. Maybe it was the fact that they were ensconced on the edge of the friendly Red Bronson clan’s claimed grounds, or maybe it was that they had killed six men and women the day before - ambushed on the path, the deaths witnessed by a dozen more of the bandits.

Winning a fight against an enemy with double your number gives off something of the ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe.

After a breakfast of cold squirrel and scavenged nuts and barries, found, caught and prepared by Fergus the day before, they sat around a low fire and reviewed what they knew briefly.

“The most important piece of information we don’t have is the why of it all,” Olivia grumbled. “Everything else is just… fringe stuff.”

“Well, they’ve made it clear that Houndsfang is supposed to make his big announcement to the camp tomorrow,” Renee said. “So we’ll either need to wait until then, or find a way to get it out of someone.”

“Can’t you just use that Charm magic on him?” Jade asked. “Get him alone and charm it out of him.”

Renee winced. “The stronger the mind, the more stubborn, the harder it is for the magic to work. And he’d know I’d done it after.”

“Not if you kill him before it’s done,” Olivia said.

“He’d also know if it didn’t work at all,” Renee finished.

“Oh,” Olivia grunted.

“So it’s a risk. A big one,” Jade said, getting nods from the other two. “What else can we try to accomplish?”

“We want to figure out what he is,” Renee said.

“Good point. And we also probably want to make some more cracks in this ‘alliance’ they have going. They aren’t unified,” Olivia said. “If we can piss people off at each other, even if we don’t find out the plan ahead of time, they’ll be more **** to work together.”

“OK,” Jade nodded. “Then let’s start with getting information on the last big group we know almost nothing about…”

The heroines decided that their morning would be spent fact-finding about the Burnt Men. The twenty-odd former soldiers were quite possibly the most dangerous of the gathering - they were outnumbered by the Risen Wolf Gang and the Red Bronsons, but they were trained to work together and were much more tight-lipped and testy about who they spent time with. Escaping the King’s armies in the West had made them paranoid - even more than the banditry of others; if they were discovered and caught the Burnt Men would be condemned to **** without question.

With their goal set, I let the girls workshop their ideas before running another small skill check - rather than wanting an answer immediately, I tested the waters on letting them do more of a ‘team up.’ In the end, Elyse decided she wanted to go back to the Coalblacks - the dwarf barbarians had been easy-going and friendly and weren’t actually bandits. Meanwhile, Rhia and Tori decided to use the game mechanics to their advantage; Jade would aid Olivia in making a direct approach to the former soldiers, rationalizing that a ‘Bandit Paladin’ would potentially have common ground with the Bandit Soldiers and that Jade’s upbringing among her roving people and their militaristic training might help. Mechanically it meant that Rhia would be able to roll twice and take the higher number due to the help, but they would only get the one roll between the two of them. Rhia even remembered that she could pray for Guidance, adding an additional d4 to the roll, as Olivia muttered a quick prayer to Revelry before their final approach.

Renee de l’Ombre spent the morning with the Blackcoals telling stories - a favourite pastime of Dwarves in the setting. The key was that Dwarves had a keen sense for truth and lies, but preferred well-crafted stories with all the proper embellishments over the cold truth, though a story needed some truth to it to make it feel worthy of repeating. This meant that Elyse had to tell a ‘true story’ about Renee’s past, something that would suitably impress the dwarf berserkers and their runeworker husband. She ended up asking for time to come up with something, so we pivoted to the others.

Rhia and Tori had accounted for everything. Rational logic of why they could try to make overtures. Mechanical advantages for their rolls. Tori even plied me with a muffin, wanting to make sure I wasn’t hungry, which led to everyone around the table groaning in delight at her baking.

What they couldn’t account for was the dice.

“Motherfucking tit shit fuck numpty garbage!” Rhiannon growled, picking up both her d20s and hurling them out of the game room and into the hallway where they clattered across the floor towards the kitchen. It wasn’t the first time my hallway had welcomed some dice, and I doubted it would be the last.

“No!” Tori groaned. “What were they?”

“A six and a four,” Rhia groaned. “Which, with my bonus, is a ten.”

“Don’t forget you prayed for Guidance,” Elyse said, looking up from the notes she was scribbling.

Rhia perked up, grabbing her d4 and rolling it before making a face. Her fingers made frustrated claws in the air over the little plastic die. “Fucking. One.” She looked at me. “Eleven total.”

I nodded solemnly. Eleven wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t good either. “There are about a dozen of the Burnt Men puttering around their section of camp as you approach - it’s orderly, a double line of tents, with two cookfires. You also notice that they’ve posted sentries, unlike the rest of the groups. As you approach the nearest two step in your way, hands already on their swords. ‘What do you want?’ one asks gruffly.”

Olivia cleared her throat. “To talk,” she said and then gestured at the larger camp sprawled through the rocky clearing. “About all of this.”

One of the two sentries narrowed his eyes. “Ain’t got nothin’ t’ say about it,” he said. “Not yet, anyways. Houndsfang hasn’t spilled the beans yet, ‘as he?”

“No, but I think we might have a common perspective on things,” Olivia said, pressing on. “If not common purpose, yet. You men were soldiers, I was-”

“A knight. We got it,” the other sentry grunted. “You talk about it a lot when you’re buying people drinks. Rubbin’ it in faces an’ the like. You know who were the worst in the Army camps, stealin’ all the good food, ridin’ their horses wherever they pleased an’ leavin’ shit everywhere? Refusing to charge the Dark Lord’s pike walls, even from the side, while we was dyin’ up front?”

“Knights,” the first one growled.

“Right,” Olivia said, holding up her hands to try to show she meant no harm. “Well, I wasn’t that kind of knight.”

“Sure don’t know what other kind of knight there is, do we Todd?” the first sentry asked the second.

“Not ‘at I can right tell, Nodd,” Todd replied.

“So far yous have gotten into fights all over the camp,” Nodd said. “Fightin’ in the alehouse, killing in camp. Makes you downright untrustworthy, it does.”

“I… think we’ll be going,” Olivia said.

“Just like a knight, turnin’ tail and runnin’,” Todd grumbled.

“Well, fuck,” Rhia sighed.

“I kind of like them,” Tori ch
uckled. “If they weren’t so dead set against you, they’d be funny.”

“Sorry, them’s the breaks,” I said.

Rhia sighed and got up, heading into the hall to fetch her dice.

“Oh, fuck off!” she shouted. Her face was pinched into a mighty frown as she came back in. “They were natural 20s in the hall. Both of them.”

I couldn’t help my snicker, and the other girls joined me.

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