The Adventure Begins

== Arc Summary == Each of their own accord, adventurers gather in the Silverbass Inn of Port Valor. As everyone goes about their day, a man barges in and begs anyone to go to the mine nearby town and rescue his brother. Five would-be heroes pledge their service and make their way to the mine, fighting off an ambush along the way. Eventually, the party reaches the mine and fights through goblins, bugbears, and orcs. The last group they run into drops what seems to be the name of their leader: Thorak. Soon the party comes upon a pile of rocks where the brother, Balgrus, was squirreled away. The group brings him home safely.

Session 1

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The story starts in Port Valor. A triton (Reides) and a human in heavy armor (Kilwin) enter a tavern. Kilwin is in a state, but Reides is focused on their search for the rat who bit him. Reides REALLY wants to befriend it, even though Kilwin tries to gently break it to him that most rats don’t want to be friends. Kilwin lets it go and starts to look for the rat, since it probably needs to be found before it bites someone else. First, Kilwin buys some milk at the bar (it’s very expensive), and Reides buys some water (he’s shocked that it costs anything at all), and they sit down for a bit to gather their thoughts.

Before they can get very far, a shirtless drow man enters the tavern. He’s very loud and looking to get drunk. Reides wants to talk to him to learn about drow and convinces Kilwin that they should sit with him. The man gets skittish when Reides calls attention to the fact that’s he a drow, but relaxes when he realizes that Reides and Kilwin are just being friendly. He admits to Reides that he doesn’t really know anything about drow, so he can’t really help Reides with his research, but offers to buy them both drinks. He introduces himself as Erak.

A tall, hooded woman comes downstairs to complain about the noise. Kilwin apologizes to her! She says that they all have to deal with her now though, and that her name is Marcyra. When she learns that Reides is looking for a specific rat, she pretends that she knows the rat personally and that his name is William. Reides takes her at face value at first, but even though Kilwin points out that she’s joking, the rat is now named William.

Everyone looks for William, but no one finds him. Reides asks a masked person sitting in the corner if they've seen William, but they ask if he’s here for their head, and when he’s not, they tell him to begone. Erak and Marcyra comfort him. Kilwin privately wonders if this person is in some kind of trouble, though. They also haven't seen the rat, apparently.

(We were really yelling about rats this whole time, like a big rat who bit someone and we were looking for it in this tavern, idk how we didn't get kicked out for scaring off customers tbh)

A man barges into the tavern, exhausted and injured. He asks if there’s a healer, and Kilwin starts tending to his wounds. The man explains that his brother had something to show him at a mine when the mine was attacked by goblins. He escaped, but his brother is still in the mine and in need of rescue. The brother is named Balgrus, and he has brown hair and a nose piercing. He says he doesn't have much, but then offers an OBSCENE amount of gold that Kilwin feels too guilty to take. He tries to refuse payment, and Reides agrees, but Marcyra and Erak object. Reides wants to try a diplomatic approach with the goblins, which Kilwin thinks is a good idea. The masked person in the corner says they'll help for more gold, but settles for some of the treasure in the mine. Their name is Slumberjack, although they lie and say that their name is Rilineth. Marcyra is the only one who suspects that this isn’t the truth, although she doesn’t say anything about it. Slumberjack wants to take the injured man back to the mine without giving him a chance to rest, regardless of the danger. They’re more concerned that he’ll try to stiff them on the payment. Kilwin argues that they should escort the man home so he can rest and they'll know where to find him, if Slumberjack is really concerned. Marcyra says Kilwin should have more confidence in his ability to keep the man alive, but Kilwin says it’s too much of a risk, even with healing magic. Erak suggests holding him in a room at the tavern as a compromise. The barkeep agrees to let the man stay at the inn and to put the room on Erak’s tab. Erak tries to chug the rest of his ale before we leave, but spills it on himself. Kilwin tries to get him something to clean himself off, but Erak doesn’t seem to mind.

The mine is about a day’s travel away, and the newly formed party sets off, with Erak leading the way. On the road, the group gets attacked by goblins trying to stage an ambush, although Kilwin and Marcyra spot them before they attack. Kilwin tries to talk to a goblin first to de-escalate things, but it doesn't work, so he tries to attack the goblin and that doesn't work either. The goblin manages to hurt him pretty badly in return, but not as badly as the other goblins manage to hurt Reides and Slumberjack. Kilwin makes a snap judgment call to heal Slumberjack instead of Reides, in hopes that Marcyra will cover Reides. Instead, she creates the illusion of a loud noise to try to drive the last goblin standing off, which doesn’t work. Reides makes one last attempt to convince the goblin that they don’t need to fight. The goblin refuses, and Reides freezes him where he stands. The party gets to relax for a moment. Reides collects some grass. Slumberjack investigates the woods near the ambush site and finds the goblins' campsite. The camp consists of tents stolen from humans and a fire where horsemeat was being cooked. The horse probably belonged to the injured man waiting in Port Valor, and the meat is burned by now. One tent contains three bedrolls, while the other just has one. Kilwin checks the tent with a single bedroll and finds a LOT of money hidden inside the bedroll. He tells the party about it and they split it evenly across the party. Erak offers to salvage the horsemeat, but manages to make it even less edible. Reides, Erak, and Kilwin try it, while Marcyra and Slumberjack talk off to the side. Marcyra tries to figure out where Slumberjack is from, but fails. The party splits up watch duty. Reides gets to sleep through the night, since he’s still badly injured, while Slumberjack takes first watch. Kilwin volunteers for the last shift of watch, since he’s an early riser. Slumberjack finds themself spacing out while on watch, while Erak spends his shift whistling a tune. Marcyra actually falls asleep on her watch, but pretends it went fine when she wakes Kilwin up. After a while, Kilwin doesn't feel so good. Eventually, he throws up the horsemeat and spends most of his watch cleaning up after himself. Fortunately, the night passes uneventfully. In the morning, everyone who had a watch shift feels a little sheepish. Marcyra and Reides discuss jewelry, and Marcyra off-handedly mentions taking some as bribes from people she was sent to collect debts from. Reides is not sure what to make of that!

The next morning, we reach the mine and there's three goblins guarding the front. Erak and Marcyra try to intimidate them into letting the party pass while Kilwin, Reides, and Slumberjack hang back. Marcyra pulls down her hood for the first time, revealing her tiefling horns, and pretends to be in league with the goblins’ boss, along with Erak. Marcyra sends Kilwin a telepathic message saying that they have to pretend to be prisoners, which Kilwin passes on to the rest of the group. Marcyra makes some illusory handcuffs for them and they approach the mine. The goblins confer in their own language, and Reides overhears them saying that they're onto this ruse. Combat starts and lasts literally forever, Sacred Flame hits for the first time. One goblin runs back into the mine and gets help from a bugbear, who also starts running away after Slumberjack roughs him up. Absolutely no one can hit him until he gets to almost the end of the long passage when Slumberjack finally finishes him off. The party is very mad at the bugbear for giving them so much trouble. Almost immediately after the bugbear is dead, Erak gets jumped by another goblin who was on guard duty, although the goblin is quickly dispatched.

Erak is in pretty bad shape at this point, so Kilwin heals him up. The last goblin from the entrance is still running and trying to get help, but down the next passage, it gets eaten by some creature the party can't make out. It's very gross and also terrifying, especially to the party members who can see the creature directly. The creature is a worg, and it threatens to eat Erak, Marcyra, and Reides, which Kilwin doesn't like one bit. The worg knocks Erak unconscious, but Kilwin is able to revive him pretty quickly with Cure Wounds. Erak gives Kilwin a big hug in thanks. Kilwin has no idea how to react, so he just comes off as kind of embarrassed and awkward. The worg dies and everyone basically collapses with relief. The party sees a ladder to a lower floor, but decides to explore the rest of this floor of the mine. Another group in the mine spots Kilwin's light (he turns it off for a second but that was dumb, so he turns it back on) and investigates. The group is led by an orc, and Kilwin is the only one to think he’s just a very large man. Fortunately, the orc and his goblin co-workers don't manage to kill anyone. During the fight, Kilwin kills one of the goblins with holy magic. The orc drops that his boss's name is Thorak, and we discover that the goblins were continuing the mining. We also figure out that Thorak isn’t currently at the mine.

The group backtracks to the ladder, and Erak goes first and falls on a broken rung and almost beefs it again. Kilwin would very much like to heal him a third time, but he's level 1 and only has two spell slots. Fortunately, nothing attacks them down there and there's a voice coming from behind a pile of rocks. Marcyra suggests it might be an ambush, but Kilwin calls Balgrus's name. The voice responds with a  "Hello?" so he starts moving the rocks out of the way. It is Balgrus after all! He's not doing great, but he'll be okay. Balgrus thanks the party for saving him and offers them a box of treasures he found, including a magic scroll that Marcyra takes, a health potion that Reides takes, and a bunch of money and gems that Kilwin at least thinks that the party will split. The party also learns that the man waiting in Port Valor is named Alexandrius because they never actually asked. The party prepares to escort Balgrus back to Port Valor to be reunited with his brother. At first, Marcyra holds the box for safekeeping, but Kilwin catches her trying to pocket some of the contents. She puts everything back and pretends that she's just admiring the craftsmanship of the box, but it doesn't work. Kilwin promises not to tell the rest of the party after she insists that she put it all back, but also asks to carry the box instead, which Marcyra reluctantly agrees to.