Session 15

The party came to their senses when it was already dark. The clearing was illuminated only by the faint light of the moon. The travelers didn’t immediately understand what had happened to them.

Tari awoke from a burning pain in her left arm. The amulet had embedded itself into her skin; the wound was still fresh, and she felt a searing sensation. She found herself completely naked. Nearby lay the other members of her party; some were gradually coming to. Even in such dim light, it was clear that she wasn’t the only one in such “inconvenient” circumstances. Everyone was absolutely naked. As it turned out, besides their clothes, the adventurers had lost all their mysteries, provisions, weapons, and armor.

A little distance away lay Name. Someone had given him a good beating while the party was “tranced.” The monk moved toward his comrade-in-arms.

“Forgive me…” the dwarf coughed and said in a hoarse voice, “I couldn’t hold them off…”

It was evident that he had fought a hard battle and had miraculously survived. Gradually, everyone came to and began to realize what had happened.

They had been robbed while they were unconscious. Name had tried to resist and protect them, but he didn’t have enough strength.

“At this moment, the party didn’t think to ask why Name wasn’t knocked out along with everyone else.”

After receiving some light healing, the dwarf told the others in more detail what had happened.

“They were village bumpkins, not exactly serious fighters. Rusty swords, rags instead of armor. They swarmed me like bees… Master, I’m so ashamed that I let you down!”

“It’s okay… We’ll figure something out,” said the Nameless.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.

“We need to find something resembling weapons, at least sticks, and we need to get out of here—we’re sitting ducks here,” said the elf, whose thin silhouette was lit by the moon and some strange glow in the sky.

The sky was filled with something resembling lightning; the travelers guessed that it was emanating from the Stellar Tower.

After spending some time searching for sticks and slightly collecting themselves, everyone agreed it was time to get out of there.

“I see tracks; someone left in a hurry and carelessly. We can follow them and maybe find those who attacked us.”

Setting off along the tracks into the depths of the gloomy forest, the party disappeared into the foliage.

First went the ranger Aden, followed by Erdal, then Tari, Danaya, and the dwarves. The Nameless helped his wounded friend move. Therefore, the party wasn’t moving very quickly.

“Those guys… They’re from that village,” said Name.

“From which village?” the Nameless asked him.

“Well, from that one, remember, where we ended up after the fight in that house,” the dwarf replied.

“Where that crazy half-elf woman was?” the monk inquired.

“Yes, that’s the one. I thought I recognized one of her brothers,” said Name.

“Most likely, our things are with them now,” concluded the Nameless.

Carefully, trying not to make much noise, the party moved through the dark forest. The forest was practically silent. Coming to a small fork, the party faced a choice. One of the paths definitely led toward the city. The ranger had some orientation in the area and concluded that the city was in that direction.

“Do we need the city, or do we want to try to get our things back?” he asked.

They collectively decided to go and punch the faces of those who had robbed them and retrieve their belongings. Perhaps it was a rash decision, given that their only weapons were sticks, fists, tails, and, for some, teeth… But that didn’t diminish their overall eagerness to deal with the robbers and reclaim their artifacts.

With that settled, they set off again.

After some time, the party began to feel they were being watched. Everyone except Erdal.

“What an interesting snag; I’ll just jump over it,” he thought.

Ahead, Aden saw a fallen, broken tree. On the wet moss stood the source of the howl—a dire wolf in all its glory. The moonlight fell on its fur, making it shimmer silver. It was calm, but its stance made it clear that it was somewhat pleased to encounter easy prey here.

Soon, a battle ensued. From all sides, other wolves emerged, eager to snatch a piece of uncovered flesh and feast on fresh elf meat. In total, there were eight of them, not counting the leader.

But the wolves couldn’t have suspected that death would inevitably overtake them after such audacity. The party was broken in spirit, powerless, and with low morale, but that was no reason to die like this before ordinary forest dogs.

They only had trouble with the leader, the Alpha.

As a result of the fight: while Danaya gave everyone bardic inspiration and boosted morale, the monk masterfully smashed skulls with his fists, Erdal burned and destroyed everything in his path—even trees were sacrificed. Tari skillfully wove spells that didn’t require mysteries and dealt massive damage to the Alpha, including a chaos bolt. However, he was a tough guy and lasted a bit longer than the others. Aden found out that a stick wasn’t the best weapon he could have gotten; it didn’t even remotely resemble his usual bow and rapier. The most useful thing he did was poke at resin in a hollow, which he decided to do instead of seriously participating in the fight while the rest of the party battled the attackers and made an impact.

Everyone in the party was alive, and the wolves were dead. The fight somewhat cheered up the party, and they moved on. After some time, they reached the edge of the forest. Before them lay a view of the village—the very one they had ended up in last time; they recognized the place immediately.

Since the travelers were not entering through the “front entrance,” the main road ran a little further away. Along with them, two beautiful carriages from the Stellar Tower were entering the village, but no one could figure out who exactly had arrived.

Letting it go, the party surveyed the entire village. Apparently, the adventurers hadn’t noticed the first time that there was major construction going on in the village. Somewhere off to the side from where they were, near the river, something resembling a dam was being built.

“Well, they’re building, so let them build,” someone grumbled. “Let’s find ourselves some clothes; we’re walking around like…”

A deep thought was interrupted by the nasty, creaky shout of an old woman:

“Hey, get out of here! Shoo-shoo, I said, you accursed lunatics! I’ll give you all a whipping! Get back to where you came from!”

Everyone panicked and began to back away. However, Tari, keeping her composure, managed in a confident voice to convince the woman that they were not insane and posed no threat to her or the village. Changing her anger to mercy, after a short conversation with Tari, Alima—that was the old woman’s name—agreed to give the party clothes to “cover their shame,” as she put it.

Approaching the old woman’s house, the party passed a group of workers who were resting after a hard day’s work. They were drinking a bit and loudly discussing something, but when the party passed by, they fell silent and listened.

Grandma let them into her house and went to find clothes.

“Yeah, I could eat a whole goat or a small lamb right now, something tasty,” thought Erdal. Hunger in dragonborn is a “slight” problem for everyone around.

“Well, here’s some clothes for you, dearies. I don’t know where this dragon will stick his tail, but you’ll figure something out,” the woman joked, handing over the clothes.

Aden immediately began pulling on slightly oversized pants and a shirt, while Erdal only had imaginary delicacies in his eyes. Unable to hold back, he began demanding food.

“Well, since you found clothes, maybe you’ll feed the travelers as well! I’m hungry! I’m very hungry!” Erdal began to demand.

“I have no food; times are tough, we don’t have enough ourselves! There will be no food!”

“What do you mean, no food?! I’m hungry, don’t you hear me? Find food!”

“What food for you, you tailed devil! Don’t mistake kindness for weakness, or you’ll all get it from me!”

The latter didn’t sit well with the hostess—she cursed and chased everyone out of the house with a broom, right in front of the group of workers who had managed to overhear part of the altercation.

“What do you want from Alima?” the big guy asked. “We have no food, and there won’t be any for you, what’s not clear?”

“Give us food, are you stupid? I’m hungry. And if you didn’t understand me, I’ll explain it to you in more detail,” Erdal growled in response, and light flames began to flicker from his mouth.

The other travelers tried to ease the situation; Aden even tried to back away and disappear in the heat of the fight, but the point of no return had already been passed. Suffering a combat fiasco, the weakened and hungry party was beaten and captured. They were dragged into a barn and chained to a pipe. No one managed to sleep that night: first, the handcuffs prevented them from settling comfortably and relaxing, and second, the place, to put it mildly, wasn’t conducive to people sleeping—more suitable for donkeys and horses.

After a whole night of torment, in the morning, the big guy from yesterday looked into the barn.

“So, bandits. My name is Karm, now you work for me until I say you’re free. You’ll be working off your behavior. We’ve got plenty of work; whoever’s going to work—come out and line up.”

To be continued…