Ormegrand - The Future Holds What?!?

With a stranger resting in the wagon as they headed East through the forest the party moved on in silence. As they did noise of movement reached their ears and soon they saw a figure dart across the road behind them moving north. Stopping they watched as a second figure, an orc it appeared, moved north. Readying themselves they watched as a third moved across and just after Quinnzly heard them speak in their tongue "they see us ... just keep moving". As he relayed this they saw another trio of orcs rush north across the road at which point they decided it was past time to be moving on.

Later that evening they exited the forest and entered the small village that would be their next stop in the trip. The found room and board at "The Scholar", the only inn in the village ... the stranger tagging along as if he were one of them. During the mostly uneventful evening a group of six dwarves entered and began drinking.

Garek, the group's lone dwarf, approached and pulled a chair up asking if he could join them. In reply to the question of "who are you" he stated "just another dwarf" ... and the seeming leader of the dwarves yelled to the barkeep "next round is on him" pointing to Garek. Rather than joining he returned to his table with the dwarves left laughing about the exchange behind him. After over hearing just a bit from the dwarves it was pretty obvious they were transporting something themselves. Approaching the dwarves again Garek mentioned they were on a quest and asked if they cared to join. Laughter about "such a strange dwarf" sent Garek back to his table again.

The next morning, after finding the strange man had disappeared, Laurien found a note among his things stating that if they were ever in Beabury to look him up and it was signed by Aros. They then went down, ate in a mostly empty room aside from a pair of dwarves passed out at one of the table, then went out to get their wagon. They marveled at the large wagon with a handful of large chests, all locked, and the two massive work horses that also sat in the stables, but soon were moving on out of town.

They traveled for some time through grasslands before entering the forest again and with another evening nearing and a couple small trails of smoke barely visible in the distance they decided to camp with the trees just south of them. Half way through the night Slonnie began to feel as if he were being watched and awoke Blazer, though neither found anything out of place looking about the camp. With the second watch ending they awoke Laurien and informed him of the strange feelings. With careful eyes watching he was just able to catch a glimpse of what looked like a cloaked figure moving off through the trees nearly half an hour later. The rest of the night passed and they quickly packed up to move on deciding to leave without taking a chance with whatever may have been in the nearby woods.

After just a short hour's travel they came to the small town of Pora, the likely source of the smoke trails the night before. Jeff continued on towards a shrine in the town however but the rest decided to stop in for a chance at work or something that would add a bit of coin to their pocket they stopped at an inn called the Pigeon's Sword. As they entered they found it mostly empty with a single, older woman sitting by herself. The woman's eyes seemed milky, her dress colorful but ragged complete with silk scarf. As she watched them enter she asked them to come sit with her and see what the future would hold, rubbing hands with wrinkled skin and knotted fingers ... a deck of cards seemingly appearing from nowhere as she did.  Also as she did the barkeep came from the back room and yelled at her to leave his customers alone.

Skeptical of the woman Aidan and Quinnzly approached as the others went to the bar or stayed back and watched. When asked what her cost was she told them they could pay what they felt the reading was worth and handed the cards to Aidan, who shuffled and handed them back as he sat.

"The future has been decided, and you have decided it here." she said as she began to flip over the first card. "The Emperor ... someone of great power has set events in motion, events you may not even know about yet but will affect you greatly."  Another card is flipped over. "The Wheel of Fortune ... seemingly random events will pull you into these events."  Two more flipped over... "Justice and Judgement ... you will be tested in the eyes of the law and man, justly or not, for actions you have yet to take. Which side of things you land on is uncertain." Another card "The Magician, a great power will present itself with a choice you must make" and another "The Tower ... you will have to travel to a place of great strength and danger." As she took the next card off the deck the rest she sat on the table. She flipped the card showing Death. "Death will be waiting at the end, perhaps for you, perhaps for the other."

Shock and worry sat in those sitting at the table as she gathered the cards and they seemingly disappeared again. Aidan grabbed four gold from his pouch and started to place them before her. She grabbed his arm with surprising strength and strangely clear eyes. She stared for a moment, tension in the air, before telling him "his path was set" and pushing the coins back to him before rising and gingerly leaving the inn.

 It took a moment for those that could hear to recover but even as they did those at the bar were asking the barkeep about work. He mentioned that of course farmers would be willing to hire able bodies to work their fields at this time of year, or they could wait and see if there would be merchants passing through looking for more guards. As they discussed he spoke up again ... speaking of rumors that passing dwarves had talked about. Rumor was there was a temple or tomb found in the mountains to the north and the followers of Pelor were looking to have it investigated.

Deciding to move on, without Jeff, they stopped and spoke with a farmer who would indeed accept their help in the fields but what he could and would pay was less than they were looking to make. They continued on and that night, as they camped, a cloaked figure began towards their camp walking with a purpose. Slonnie woke another quickly and the figure kept coming. They could tell it was not tall, and it was slender and appeared to have a bow on its back and something at its side. As it got closer Slonnie yelled for all to get up and as he did the figure turned and began moving quickly away to the south.

Blazer, just having woken and seeing the figure, was the quickest and first to begin rushing towards it but not the only one. As he did however the figure whirled and had bow out, arrow knocked, at the warrior with unnatural quickness. He and the others that were moving that way stopped and after a few short moments the figure asked in a feminine voice "who leads you?". Blazer thumbed back in the direction of his father and she instructed Blazer to return to the camp and for Slonnie to approach.  As he did she eased the tension on her bow, still watching not the man approaching but the rest of the large group. As he neared he could tell even with the little light from the fire that reached this far he was approaching an elven woman. "You will tell the towns, the orcs, goblins, and other what you would call monstrous races all move north. Something gathers them." After getting his word that he would do so she turned and moved off south, disappearing into the night.

After another couple days travel the party crested a large hill and could see the ocean to the East some distance.  Later that day a large black plume of smoke could be seen in the distance. They moved forward and came across a pair of wagons on fire, a handful of bodies on the ground, and a half dozen others either trying to save the wagon's goods or taking them. As the moved forward Garek yelled out "Did you kill these people?" and the six below were put on guard, one of them being heard to speak arcane words of a protection spell.

Soon a battle began with both sides fighting hard, taking severe wounds. After several minutes things appeared to be turning a bit in favor of the party and the caster below was heard to call out "how about we call this a draw", bringing much of the fighting to a standstill until Aidan fired another arrow at the group. Battle continued again with both sides taking wounds, two of the people below having fallen already. Two of their warriors combined to drop Blazer bleeding to the ground before one of them was killed.  Seeing the odds against the woman who seemed to lead this group she looked at Quinnzly as she rubbed a ring, saying "I'll see you again" as she vanished from site. The last opponent left standing, also a woman, dropped her weapon and gave herself up. Laurien grabbed her arms and held her but even as he did Slonnie stepped forward and struck her with his dagger again. She fell to her knees bleeding badly and clinging to life. "My son lay bleeding, be thankful I did not just kill you" Slonnie said as he turned his attention to his son bleeding before him. As this went on Aidan and Garek began looking over the fallen bodies, even as Blazer lay bleeding to death.

He appeared pale, barely breathing, and Quinnzly's attempts to help him were not doing much. "I can save him if you let me go ... but you have to let me help now or it will be too late," the captive woman stated. She was immediately released from Laurien's grasp and after catching herself she lunged to her right at her former party member. Despite not knowing what she was after the group only watched as she reached for and pulled away a pouch from the body, pulling out a vial and forcing it down the throat of Blazer. As she did he began coughing some of it up, liquid flying, but even then some of his bleeding began to slow and stop and shortly after his eyes began to flutter open.

Falling back and leaning away from the group the woman looked at them ... "So I can go then? That was the deal..." and as they agreed she grabbed her things quickly and took off at a run to the south. The rest were left with Blazer tired, sore, and bloody but alive before them as Aidan and Garek came around a wagon carrying part of what they'd found already...


*******Director's Commentary********
Things went a bit smoother in tonight's session and should only continue to do so as those new to the game continue to get used to it and I get back into the swing of things myself. I still need to do a lot of creation in this homebrew world ... a downside to having something all done yourself ... but it's coming along slowly.

Throwing in a bit of suspense with what the future holds with the tarot cards (how the cards came out as they did with a player having shuffled them is a DM secret ;) ) as well as the figure that approached them I think will add to the story moving forward and is the first steps in a "bigger picture" story that is down the road a ways.

Also having a character nearly die tonight was a great thing as far as I'm concerned. They didn't die but were very close (I adopted a "death saving throw system from 5E/Critical Role and he had failed 2 of 3 saves when he finally go the healing potion), and as such a real sense of danger and "oh no, I can die if things go bad" was introduced.  I liked the striking of the captive prisoner given the situation, his son lying there dying, but isn't something that "good" characters will likely do often. I am curious to see if the rest of the party reacts to the two members who decided to start looting bodies even as one of their own lay bleeding.

We did lose one player, the Paladin, whose schedule just doesn't work ... thus his leaving while in a city. He may or may not come back into play later...