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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 9772606" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks, GuyBoy.Over the years I’ve published six other completed stories here: Travels through the Wild West (3e/Forgotten Realms), The Shackled City (3e/Dungeon Magazine Adventure Path), The Doomed Bastards (3e/Rappan Athuk), Keep on the Shadowfell (4e/Nentir Vale), X-COM (3e/Neverwinter Nights d20 Modern conversion), and Forgotten Lore (5e/Homebrew).I can't promise I'll say ahead of the story enough to post every day, but I am trying to get as much done before National Novel Writing Month begins in November. Here's today's update:* * *Chapter 8The warrior spent the night at Cornflower’s barn, sleeping in the hayloft. The hay was itchy, and there were bugs in it that left red welts on his arms, but it was free, and the halfling girl even offered him a breakfast of apple slices and goat cheese.He woke up early, an old habit that he hadn’t broken on the road, and was mucking out the stables when his three companions arrived. They looked bright and bushy-tailed, having spent the night at the local inn, which was located right across from the tavern. They were carrying an assortment of gear that he hadn’t seen the night before. Leana wore a shirt of chain links that looked much lighter than his own armor, and she carried both a ball-mace and an iron disk bearing the sigil of the rising sun. Ravani had added a small bow and a quiver of arrows to his armory, and he wore a dark cloak in a mottled pattern that would probably blend in well in the wilderness. Only Folgar appeared much as he had last night, but he was now wearing a large backpack slung across his shoulders.“Are you ready to go, or what?” Ravani asked as he emerged from the barn to greet them.“Just let me put on my armor,” the warrior said, wiping his arms and neck with a rag before picking up his mail coat where he’d left it by the door, next to his weapons.“We’re about to head out into danger, and he’s shoveling manure,” the elf said to his companions. But he waited with the others while the warrior put on his armor, then grabbed his sword and bow.“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” Ravani asked as he finally stepped out into the road to join them.“Oh, I don’t have much,” the warrior said. “Just a lantern… should I get that?”“Um, what about food? A bedroll? Rope?” the elf asked."Uh..."“It’ll be all right,” Leana said. “We have a few days of rations if needed, but the goal will be to spend our nights at the keep. The areas we’ll be exploring today aren’t that far away.”“Doesn’t even carry rope,” Ravani said as they left, shaking his head.They left the keep. There were two different guards on duty that morning, who nodded to the group as they departed. From there it was a short hike down from the bluff to the road, which became more of a trail as it turned to the east, passing between the forest on the left and the fens that expanded around the river to the right. Today they were going to follow the trail for about a mile before turning into the woods, hiking a circuit that would hopefully fill in enough of the details that Dwern wanted in his notebook. If all went well, they’d be back at the keep well before nightfall.The warrior didn’t know it at the time, but it was going to be a very long day.They had barely turned east along the trail when Ravani called a halt. The elf had naturally been gravitating to the front of the group, acting as scout, and the warrior has happy to leave him to it. He had fallen in naturally between Leana and Folgar, the dwarf bringing up the rear, the halfling’s diminutive stature allowing him to see clearly over her.“What is it?” the cleric asked as the elf stepped to the side of the road.“There’s something here,” Ravani replied, scanning the tangles of bushes that grew up to the very edge of the cleared path. “I think it’s a wagon.”“A wagon,” the warrior said. He thought about the one he’d seen yesterday, just before he’d arrived at the keep.“Be careful,” Leana said, but Ravani was already advancing into the bushes, careful of where he put his feet and bending low to minimize the rustling he created as he moved. “There’s no one here, just a wagon,” he reported back a few moments later. “It looks abandoned.”The others followed him. The warrior cleared the way for Leana and Folgar, as his armor protected him from the subtle stickers that the bushes carried, and his size and weight allowed him to trample a path for the others.“I wonder what happened here,” Leana said. “Bandits?”“I don’t see any signs of violence,” Folgar said.“Had a two horse team,” the warrior said. Ravani had hopped up into the bed of the wagon. “There’s plenty of stuff here,” he said. “Sacks of… animal feed, and flour. Some bales of hay.”“If it was bandits, why would they have left the goods behind?” the warrior mused.“Sacks of animal feed and flour aren’t exactly high-value items,” Folgar said.“They might be if you’ve stolen a horse,” the warrior pointed out.“Maybe they were too close to the keep, so they just grabbed what they could,” Leana said. “Took the more valuable cargo, and the horses.”“And the driver?” Folgar asked.Leana shook her head. She’d been studying the ground around the wagon, but didn’t appear to see anything that might be a clue. “Ravani, you see anything else?”The elf had been poking through the sacks, but lifted his head at the question. “No, just what I said.”“You’d better go up to the keep, let them know this is here,” Leana said. “They can send someone down to pick it up, and put out an alert for the driver.”“Why me?” the elf asked.“Because you’re fast, and you have sharp eyes. If you see anything from the top of the bluff, signal us. A loud whistle should carry that far.”“Right,” Ravani said. He hopped down from the back of the wagon and set out at a jog back up the road.The warrior pushed through the bushes to the side of the wagon. He pulled himself up to the front seat. There was no sign of what had happened to the driver, and no indication of the fate of the horses. The harness had all been unfastened, probably before the wagon had been pushed into the bushes by the way it was all tangled together, but there were no cuts as far as he could see. He stood on the seat and looked around, but there were no answers around them, nothing at all but the suddenly less-reassuring bulk of the keep atop its bluff directly behind them.* * *The forest was lit by rays of bright afternoon sunshine that filtered down from the canopy above. The trees were thick enough that there wasn’t that much undergrowth, at least not enough to significantly slow their progress, and with the almost-constant shade it was cool, almost pleasant. But the warrior could not shake the presentiment of danger that he’d felt ever since they’d found the wagon that morning, even though it was getting late enough that they’d need to start back soon, if they wanted to make it to the keep before nightfall.He was about to suggest that to his companions when Ravani, still in the lead, raised his hand to signal a stop. He turned back to them and said, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “Do you hear that?”The warrior listened, but all he could hear was the faint rustle of the branches in the soft wind, and the steady thrum of his own pulse in his ears, quickly speeding up at the elf’s warning.“What do you hear?” Leana asked.The elf took a few steps back toward them before responding. “Voices,” he said. “Chanting, it sounded like.”“Chanting,” Folgar said. “That doesn’t sound good.”“All right, let’s check it out,” Leana said. “Slowly, carefully.”They resumed their advance, with Ravani again stepping out to a lead of a dozen paces. As the elf led them forward, the warrior could finally hear the sounds that had alerted him. It was a low chant, multiple voices, though he could not make out how many exactly. It was coming from a clearing up ahead to the right. As they drew closer, the warrior could just make out something in the clearing, a large gray object. There was a glimpse of something, just a hint of motion that drew his eye to something red. It looked like a cloak or robe, though he couldn’t see its wearer clearly through the trees.Ravani held up a hand again to urge them to stop, though he continued forward, sliding through the trees like a shadow. But he’d barely covered five steps when a misplaced foot led to a loud, clearly audible snap.The chanting stopped immediately. The warrior fumbled for his sword, wishing he’d thought to take out his bow earlier. His fingers felt thick on the buckle of the strap holding the weapon in place, and he let out a low curse.“What is it?” Folgar whispered from behind him. “What’s happening?”The warrior didn’t get a chance to respond before several figures burst out from the trees ahead, armed with nasty-looking sickle-shaped blades that they raised as soon as they caught sight of the adventurers.Game Notes:The group failed every single check described in the booklet to learn more about the wagon. Ravani rolled a 2 on his Stealth check in the forest.Folgar: Intelligence (Investigation): 7 (+5): 12 vs. DC 13 (Failure)Leana: Wisdom (Survival): 8 (+3): 11 vs. DC 13 (Failure)Ravani: Wisdom (Perception): 7 (+2): 9 vs. DC 13 (Failure)Next time: first blood!</blockquote>

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