After the expedition against the Shadow Devil, Darion trained with the captain of the guards and levelled up: L3. But it we all knew it was time: Time to honor our word and bring Hezeroth the Cat to the castle Stormwing – presumably close to the barbarian village stormwing.
No road went there, and anyway, rumor had it that the roads were haunted by a horned red devil. Not exactly an encounter we were keen on. So we hired a local boy, the son of the village hunter, who knew the land well. He recommended going through the rough country to avoid monsters of all sorts and maybe even the wolves that were also running rampant in these parts recently.
So we stored our coins in the village elder’s place, loaded the donkey Tomandy with food and bedrolls, and a spade.

Encounter Checks

We stayed quiet and kept off the beaten paths. An encounter check in the evening turned up a One, and the GM puzzled together what the tables decreed: Wolves!
11 of the creatures had us encircled and came at us from all sides.

Darion ordered the boy up a tree and chose a big boulder to face the wolves from. Apoqulis and Heidel stood back to back with him in Sardaukar formation. Bubo was not that keen on heroics and climbed a tree like young Marten. Our poor donkey could not climb, so we just had to hope that our furious stance on the rock would distract them.

As the wolves broke forth from the underbrush, Darion whirled a sling stone at them and hit one in the side. The others waited for the animals to close the distance.

Best laid plans

Things went pretty well: The wolves broke against the stones and Darion laid at them with his axe. No hits at first, but we had time, and the tactical advantage. Only problem: Darion kept missing the wolves. Luckily they did the same to him. Apoqulis and Heidel also kept their footing well, and although finally one bit Apoqulis, two bit Darion, and while they did not manage to drag us off our rock, it became clear that we would need to get some good hits in or this would end a lot less fantastic than anticipated.

Meanwhile one wolf went for the donkey and wounded it! Screaming, the donkey took off into the forest. The wolf would have an easy time to kill it … thought the wolf. But he did not have a lot of time for thoughts, because right behind him Bubo dropped from the tree like a shadow and stabbed it in the liver.

Heidel struck a wolf down, and another, and young Marten also lowered himself off his branch to get an arrow in.

Masterful shot! The boy took a wolf down.

Although then a wolf jumped up and got his teeth in, and dragged the boy down.

Fight against the clock

Heidel moved in to defend the fallen youngster against the slavering wolves. Bubo ran after the donkey and tried to capture and calm it down.

Meanwhile, Darion and Apoqulis did their best not to get torn to shreds while missing many (Apo) or all (Darion) of their attacks.

“Think of it like you would of golfing!” Apoqulis shouted encouragement. “Swing from your hips!”

Darion tried the golfing advice … and whack! Hit his own boot! Luckily that cost only 1 hit point, not the whole leg.

Darion kept missing, Bubo kept chasing the donkey with little success, but at least Heidel and Apoqulis scored some good hits.

Then Darion lost his footing, fell, and dropped right on an especially big wolf. With luck, he managed to bury his axe blade in the beast, and voilá, it died! Hero by accident. The wolves, so far tenacious despite multiple losses against the clerics, broke. That had been the alpha, and the survivors turned and ran.

For good measure, the fighters attempted parting shots on them. Darion missed, naturally. But Heidel downed one more with an expert swing.

First Aid

Finally! Finally we could look after young Marten. Heidel cast a healing spell on him, then he did his saving throw with a bonus.
Alas, too late: The brave young lad had died.
Torn flesh and broken bones, including his neck, he looked terrible, and the taste of victory turned to ash in our mouths. That was going to wipe out some smiles in the village.

It was already evening, and we made camp. The clerics did some healing for Darion too … he had been bloodied a good bit himself, the next hit might have taken him down.

The right way

Bummed out, Darion pulled the pelts off the fallen wolves, while we were all brooding what to do.
Well … not all of us. Hezeroth the cat “shrugged” it off and said “Well, luckily it was only a hunter’s son”.
Go back and face the music? Explain what had happened? Or not? Take him with us to the village of Stormwing? No that would make no sense. And how would we tell it in the village?
Bubo brought back the donkey from his chase through the forest. Seeing the dead boy, he made an argument for burying him here and and only tell his father that he had died fighting wolves: a way to avoid letting the community see the torn, mangled and broken body. The mystery could soften the blow. A tale of heroism instead of the tangible view of a dead child.
It was very tempting, because it felt really awful to come back, look him in the eye, and hand over the corpse of an underage boy that we dragged out to his early grave. Yes, it was his idea to take this route, but in the end we were the grownups and we failed him. Terminally.
We discussed the matter at length and came to the inevitable conclusion that there was no other way but to return to the village and face up. Right now.
After cleaning and dressing the boy so he looked less mangled, and after skinning the, impressively, 9 dead wolves, we made our way back, with young Marten across the donkey’s back, and we carried everything else, and Marten’s little bow, suddenly such a fragile thing.

Orcspotting

On the way we had another random encounter – a bunch of orcs busy piling up rocks for some reason. We saw them before they saw us and decided to evade them in a roundabout manner.

Heavy burden

Nearing the village was like walking with lead shoes through a muddy field: every step felt heavier than the last. But then it was happening. The guard at the gate saw us and came out, and word spread. We tarried at the gate for a time. Everyone was shocked and expressed how unbelievable it was that Marten of all people would die to wolves – him being so talented a hunter even at his young age, and with his vast knowledge of the wild and the forests. The village elder also came to inspect the situation, and with a grim mien offered to work as an intermediary to break the news to the boy’s father as gently as possible.

In a pretty intense scene the father came and refused to look us all in the eye as he picked up the body of his boy. He did not want to hear a word from us – and that was him already calmed down after half an hour of 1 on 1 with his chief.
The burial was set for the next day, and it was commonly agreed by the villagers that it would not be good if we were to attend. Instead, we left the nine wolf pelts for the father, as a testament of his son’s bravery in the fight, together with the shortbow he used to be so proud of, and 200 gold pieces as some embarrassingly inadequate form of … well. You know.

And that was it.
The last time we would ever hire a minor.

The Story of Morgansfort