At the “Tasty Eel” over dried swamp eel and rum, our employer Renfred asked us what we were going to do now. Hermione told him we were looking for the head tracker of the baron’s, and he even knew of her: Myrelin Orym, the legendary elven ranger. He suggested that it might be tough to get in contact with her.

We picked up some rumors:

• Foremost, that the young baron is hiring mercs for the fight against bugbears and whatnot.
• That the young baron only got the title because his older brother mysteriously died (we knew that already)
• That he may be not really the baron’s son, and that his “mother” was not allowed to leave the castle.
• That a goblin tribe has taken over a keep in the west and drove away the villagers from nearby Julvet.

That village was not super important, but others are: Foltan and Clearspire are their names, they are close to mines.

• And the Baron’s uncle Lord Winmert resides in a castle down south, Blackmire Bastion, an honorable knight.

Well, we dare the trip to the castle and are stopped by two guards.

Not at all creepy that weird seat on the tower looking toward Dark Moor. Minig will certainly make sure his curtains are drawn!

They ask what we want, and as Hermione explains her looking for Myrelin, they jump to conclusions and say we probably want to get hired as mercs. Anyway they can’t let us in, even though Myrelin is right there in the castle right now; we are better off going to the market to get hired as mercs.
The party resolve was wavering slightly and was about to follow the directions of the guards, but about half of us were still motivated enough to wait for the elf, so we stayed.

Farin got bored and challenged the guards to a game at dice — but they refused, being on duty, and Minig was quite happy about that. Just imagine if Farin won big time, they would get angry and we would get chased off. So, out of worry that gambling may get us in trouble, Minig asked Farin if he had got a taste for gambling back in Wildehaven? He suggested to keep that habit to specific places; and Farin agreed.

Suddenly movement: Two elves and a halfling, all in green-brown camo, came out of the castle. The halfling was covered in belts and bandoliers full of interesting pouches and pockets, which fascinated Minig. One of the guards pointed at the lead elf: “That’s Myrelin!”
Hermione called out to her and explained that she, too, was a ranger, and spoke about learning from Myrelin.

The elf was not very impressed and suggested the party go to the marketplace if they wanted to be hired as mercs.
The party was about to accept that defeat, but Minig wasn’t having any of that. He shouldered his way forward and name-dropped the dwarf from Wildehaven, Mr. Bonebuckle, from whom we had Myrelin’s name in the first place.

That turned the ship around, Myrelin was happy to hear from her old friend, and suggested we all go to the Tasty Eel to talk; her comrades she sent off elsewhere. She was now much more interested in Hermione’s scouting — Hermione was very modest and downplayed her role, but Minig praised her all the way to the coast and back, suggested we were only alive and well thanks to her stellar scouting… Hermione asked him to please tone it down.

Lots of interesting talk with Myrelin in the Inn.
We learned from her:

• Hobgoblins and goblins are a problem, but the real problem are Trolls: when you see them it is usually too late.
• The mercs are many and they are well paid, but their use in the wilderness is limited due to their lack of skills: they are only good for open field battles, and the monsters don’t like to give that.
• She herself was here, and is in the employ of this house, since long, long ago, came with an elven ship, but she wanted to keep the details of that private for now. Even so it suggested she had seen this land different, in the time when there weren’t any infernals prowling on mortal soil, inconceivable… she may have met the mythic knights and bishops of old, those who perished in the hell wars.
• The infernal lands are all dust and ash, burned and barren. There is an old keep, where Greater Devils reside. And a black evil tower surrounded by dark clouds, where a warlock is supposed to live. Mirylin has seen it from afar.
• She has also seen their sinkholes called “hell holes” all through the land, where the infernals live by day — by night they spill out and swarm the land.
• They are tough to bring down, only enchanted blades and spellcraft can do it. (This was uncomfortable news for Minig, whose goal in all this was, after all, to steal a legendary weapon and bring it back home. Now he heard that such weapons were desperately needed… he might have to re-think his goals, because, leaving good people helpless against hell-creatures was something he would likely regret forever.)
• But lucky for Dark Moor, the hellspawn also don’t like water, so being a swamp nest has protected their community back in the times of the Baron’s Great-grandfather, when the Hellstorm wrecked the land and Morgansfort fell.
• The old baron of those days of yore and his son and grandson were all well-respected; stalwart fighters for good — only the current baron, Edmund Rainwood “the Elegant”, is not so well loved. People don’t trust him, there is talk about his “true” ancestry, and he seems less honorable, less brave, less a man of his people than those who held the title before him. something fishy about his brother’s, or rather half-brother’s death, and now his stepmother, who does not like him, is under house arrest.

Tricky topics of course, only to be murmured closely across the tankards.
Another tricky topic is

• the religion here: This fish- and frog-mongering that we all feel uneasy about; she feels uneasy about it too, and recently they even started to “discover” old rituals and went toward sacrificing animals, which they didn’t do in decades past, but the new baron was for it and even participated. He also had connections with the corrupt Archbishop. Myrelin clear shied away from calling the cult “evil” though — she was only prepared to call it discomfiting. And also, tricky topic, because the whole town is much invested in the mud-cult.

Mission!

Farin cut to the chase: Where are we most useful, he asked? We are interested in making a difference. And she is too, he feels from her words. She agreed: and she could sense we are skillful bunch, so she is not convinced we are best placed in the faceless ranks of regular foot soldiers. “You two do not look like tough fighters,” she bluntly stated towards Wil and Minig.
Minig grinned and said: “True! I am more a lover than a fighter!”
Then, more earnest, Wil and Farin confirmed that the two of us are of the sneaky persuasion.

Myrelin pointed to the Fort in the west, “Redshield”, that goblins had taken over: that was, she felt, a lynchpin where an impact in the great battle of Order versus Chaos could be done. The baron had sent out a squad, but that had been handily repelled by the goblins, with archery alone! The men had stood no chance and a gaggle of survivors had fled back covered and shame and desperation.

Another option was the fight in the south, basically guerilla warfare against hobs.

But we were already game for the taking of Fort Redshield! Now we made concrete plans. She would come with us, and bring some more men. Tomorrow early morning we would go. A magic user would be good to have — she warned that as the survivors told it, the Fort-Goblins had one small red infernal with them.
The baron gave order to kill all the goblins; she would volunteer to take on the infernal, her blade was magical.

She also agreed to motivate a friend of hers to repair Willem’s broken heirloom-sword. Finally our strongest arm can once again swing his family steel.

Hiring help

We went to hire an MU; Wil wanted to pick one with Magic Missile or similar offensive capabilities, but Minig proudly proclaimed that any magic spell was useful if applied with creative smarts.
We discussed terms with a job-less MU, and he haggled us up to a full share — only then did we learn that his spell was “Read Languages”.
Well; we see that Minig has a bit to learn.
Still, even a bookworm-spell is better than nothing, and even a Magic-User can hold a dagger.
Thomas Padruc, welcome to the team.

Wil tried to buy an MM-scroll, but 500 gold is too much for our coffers. Minig suggested “borrowing” the scroll without consent, but the local wizard conducted business on his doorstep, not in his library, and Minig did not trust his as yet unpolished slight-of-hand skills.

There was the option to hire a better thief in the basement of shady slum-Inn “grey ravens”, but we expected the price would be in the same ballpark, and we had no time nor inclination to do thief-missions as a pay-forward to earn the right to get guild-help … all that could wait for later, and so we had to make do with “Read Languages”.

Expeditionary Corps

Myrelin came with 2 donkeys, 2 spearmen and 3 archers. We came with Ryden and Thomas. A small army already! And only half of them in the baron’s employ.

One day we walked to the abandoned village, where we barricaded up and spent the night. Nothing disturbed us. The next day we made it all the way to Fort Redshield: A ruin!

Out in front of it still lie about seven dead Dark Moor mercenaries, killed with arrows and left to rot out here in wind and weather. Farin promised that once we had taken the fort he would make sure those souls would receive a proper burial.

Intelligence gathering

Mindful of the goblin’s nocturnal lifestyle we decided to spend the first night only watching and learning.
So we discovered a patrol and a six-head hunting party, and all across the Fort 11 standard goblins and 4 armored officer-goblins. No sign of the infernal so far.
True to form as a classic group of adventurers it was tough to stay on course and gather intel; the impulse was always there to simply run off, improvise and act on opportunities.
But we held out and noted down numbers and movements of our foes — especially the times and directions of the hunters.

We decided to create a trap + ambush for the hunting party, using Farin’s new skill to charm animals to lure our little goblin archers into a pit trap out in the wilds.

The rest was determined shovelling and the camouflage-expertise of our rangers.

The plan: We take out the hunters in a surprise attack with superior numbers.
If two or three guys go out looking for the hunters, we amubsh them too.
Then when dawn breaks and the goblins retreat into their den, we breach it and slay the last survivors, with sunlight in our favour.

Time for the ambush:

It worked like a charm. There were actually eight goblins coming. A full four of them dropped into our trap, three of them were killed outright! The mercenaries peppered the area with arrows, then Wil sneak-attacked one archer, knifing him with max damage and Hermione took out the other one. In the end only one lone goblin remained in the pit. Wil wanted to take him alive, but missed with his high-kick. Good old stoic Willem reached down and grabbed the lone survivor: he rolled a 1 on his STR test (roll under), so he comfortably dragged the foe out and knocked him unconscious, all with one hand.

Victory!

We have a prisoner (who hopefully knows our language because we don’t know his) and a Fort to conquer!

The whole story to review