Last time, a trolled punched our mammoth. Now onto the game.
So we’re at the outskirts of the Living Forest with our large party of followers. Althus and Cratch are hurt, so it’s time to take a look at that. We’ll tend to Cratch first (got to protect the mammoth) and then ourselves. We roll +wits and get a strong hit (10 vs. 8, 2) due to our Herbalist asset, giving Cratch +2 health (up to +4). Next ourselves, which we get to roll the lowest of our wits or iron (it’s our wits) but we still get the bonus from the Herbalist asset (this time, we’re going for an additional health on a hit) and get a weak hit (6 vs. 5, 10) which gets us +3 health (back up to +5) but lose -1 supply (down to +3). Not bad.
But now for the bad part: this isn’t the path we took from Wyvern’s Rest so we’re going to need to Undertake a Journey to return. It’s still Troublesome but we could run into all sorts of trouble on the way back (hell, even just some delays may be bad for the people of Wyvern’s Rest). So it’s time to setoff.
For the first leg of the journey, we get a strong hit (8 vs. 7, 4) and turn to the Chartopia waypoint generator again to see where we arrive: a cold grove. We mark progress and, due to our strong hit, can burn some supply to gain some momentum. I feel like we need to do so, and can probably take the hit to supplies with Cratch feeling much better, so we will (taking us to +2 supply and +5 momentum) and continue along our journey.
For the second leg, we get a weak hit (6 vs. 4, 8) and come to an isolated river ford. Our supplies also take another hit (down to +1). Since we got a weak hit, I feel like we’re going to have to ford this freezing river to continue our journey. Finding a boat (or a reasonable facsimile), especially one that will carry Cratch, seems difficult, so we’re going to see if we can Secure an Advantage to find or make something that will work. Since this is going to be a job for observation, we’ll roll +wits and get a weak hit: our advantage is short-lived but we gain +1 Momentum (up to +6). I think this means that we have something that will get us across, but we’ll need to work quickly before it sinks into the water.
So we’ll pull our makeshift raft out into the water and try and ford the river. Timing is everything here, so I think we need to roll +edge, which luckily nets us a strong hit (7 vs. 3, 2) so we don’t have anything to worry about (and get another +1 Momentum for our troubles). Since we’ve crossed the halfway point (I imagine this river may also be part of the same waterway as the fjord we crossed before) I think this a good reason to mark some progress on our Vow (4/10).
For the final leg before we reach Wyvern’s Rest, we get a weak hit (4 vs. 6, 1) but can cancel that out with our Momentum (which we will and reset back to +2). This gets us to our last waypoint (an abundant plain) without running out of supplies. Since we’re at 9/10 progress, we’ll roll the Challenge Dice to reach our destination and get a strong hit (9 vs. 2, 4). We mark progress on our Vow again (6/10) and Ask the Oracle to see if the Dragonshadow army has reached the town yet (almost certainly) and it has. This means we’re going to use the bonus from our strong hit to make another move with a +1 bonus, but what should it be.
Our choices are to confront Baron Servan and bring her Sarria or get the daughters to the safety of Baron Quinn and let him handle Baron Servan. I think handling this himself is exactly what Althus would do, so we’re going to try and make our way to Servan. But a large group seems not the best for this, so we’re going to see if we can convince the bandits to deliver word to Baron Quinn that we’ve made it back. We share a bond, so we +heart +1 (for our bond) and get a weak hit (6 vs. 2, 9), so they want something. I think it’s Cratch. Riding to the Baron’s on the back of a mammoth means they’ll probably get left alone. It’s a good plan, so Althus tells Cratch to watch over them and sends the five off to alert the Baron.
Now it’s just Althus, Sarria, and Lestara in a warzone. Excellent.
So we’ve got some options on how we can try to get through this warzone to Baron Servan’s encampment. We could try and sneak our way through or make a run for it. Or, and this could be a winner here, Althus exudes enough “don’t fuck with me” energy that he just walks through Servan’s forces without anyone messing with him or the daughters. Let’s go with that one to Face Danger.
We roll +heart (because this idea screams courage) and we get a weak hit (5 vs. 2, 8). I think the fear’s getting to Althus, so we’ll Endure Stress. We lose -1 Spirit (down to +4) but we get a strong hit (9 vs. 7, 2). Althus is going to embrace that fear and we’ll get +1 Momentum as we walk into Baron Servan’s encampment (we also mark some progress for our Vow, now 8/10).
Well, this is the final step. We Compel the Baron to listen to their daughter and accept that Wyvern’s Rest had nothing to do with her escape. We roll +heart and not only do we get a strong hit, but we get an opportunity at that (8 vs. 5, 5). While things are not going to resolve quickly, I think things eventually do resolve. Dragonshadow pulls out of their assault on Wyvern’s Rest. Servan and Quinn agree to a peace. And most importantly, they agree to let Sarria and Lestara stay together. This marks the last bit of progress on our Vow (10/10) and when Fulfil Our Vow, we get a strong hit (10 vs. 7, 4). Finally, we’ve completed our original quest from character creation (though we did sort of forsake it for about a day or two there for a bit). We mark XP (2 for a dangerous quest) and, having completed Baron Quinn’s request, earn the bond of both him and Wyvern’s Rest as a whole.
I think a little bit of time passes. The leaders need time to argue about what peace means and Althus needs time to rest up from his adventures. We can Sojourn (pg. 71) in Wyvern’s Rest (with a +1 bond due to our Bond with the town) which we get a strong hit on (9 vs. 6, 3). We definitely need to provision (+2 supply), but the other two options are less needed. I think we’ll just recuperate (getting Cratch his missing health back, probably from having some local kids brush his hair and groom him) and consort (getting Althus back his missing spirit). We could focus on getting provisions (getting our remaining missing supply back) but I don’t want to push our luck anymore.
The bandits, Pearce, Nadira, and Saskia go their own way. They were just looking for a way to get back home anyway. Perella has probably had enough time to recover and is itching to get back to his mercenary ways.
After a few days, the Barons come to let the Northerner know the outcome. He’s pleased, especially for their daughters getting to choose their own path with supporting parents to help them out. I think Baron Quinn makes Althus an offer to join his Bannersworn, which was what he wanted in the first place. But that road is going to call him back soon enough I imagine.
Next time, who knows, but for now a poll for the audience. I’ve finally got enough XP to either pick up a new asset or upgrade an existing one, so I’d like to see what you folks think. I’ll go into those options in that post.