I. Three friends walk into a bar
The hearth in the Molag Inn crackles with a stubborn warmth, fighting off the damp chill of the city’s reconstruction. Saggy Sack thumps a third sweating pitcher of ale onto the scarred oak table.
“Don’t go breaking the furniture,” the barkeep grunts. “I’ve only just got the ‘no-stabbing’ sign back up.”
Both Crow and Aelfric cast a wary eye at Ender and his heavy maul, and the bloodstains still drying near the doorway from Captain Maddox’s hasty exit.
” Where did you learn to handle a weapon like that? ” , asks Crow.
II. Ender’s Story: The Forge and the Flame
Ender takes a long, slow draw of his drink. His hand, calloused from the forge and the maul, grips the table as if anchoring himself to the earth.
“I was born to the stone and the steam of the Lortmil Mountains. My clan knew the language of metal and the honor of the hearth. I was fifteen when the sky turned to fire. A dragon… a beast of such malice it decimated my home in a single afternoon. My mother Breda, my father Fellthorne, my twin brother Meldor—all taken by the flame.
Only my sister, Phlegan, and I survived the ash. In the silence that followed, I saw him: Moradin, the Warden God. He didn’t offer comfort; he offered a purpose. I took an Oath of Vengeance that day. I will hunt that dragon to the ends of the Flanaess, and I will see order restored to these hostile lands. To that end I trained in the ways of the warrior and the light, so that I could one day avenge my family and my homeland.
Phlegan… she took a different path, one of devotion. Finding her is my first duty.
“Ah, yes… Phlegan.” Aelfric coughs into his ale. “A lovely girl. Very… dedicated. Though, Ender, between friends… you might want to spend some time teaching her which end of the mace is the ‘business’ end. She spent most of our last skirmish investigating the structural integrity of the riverbank with her face.”
Aelfric raises his tankard, his small feet dangling inches above the floor. ” To Phlegan and the Wyrm! While we’re at it a toast to the liberation of mead, the confounding of idiots, and the finding of new—and significantly more competent— hic company!” He beams at Ender, then winces, rubbing his ribs. Ender lets out a rumble that might be a laugh or a small rockslide. He wipes froth from his thick beard. “A maul doesn’t stutter, Master Bard. It speaks a language even a bandit captain can understand. Besides,” he glances at Crow, “the Elf did the fancy work. I just provided the… punctuation.”
Crow leans back in the shadows of the booth, his fingers idly tracing the grip of his new Lightning Strike Dagger. His eyes, sharp as a hawk’s even after two pints, never quite leave the door. “Maddox was slow. Most ‘civilized’ men are. They rely on the walls to keep them safe. In the Corusk Mountains, if you’re slow, the crows don’t just name you—they eat you.”
” The Corusk Mountains! ” repeats Ender, an eyebrow raised. “I’m intrigued Master Crow to hear of the tales of the dark woods and peaks of that infamous mountain range?
III. Crow’s Tale: The Child of the Crows
Crow remains still, his elven features as unreadable as the ancient Waystones they visited. He doesn’t look at his companions, but at the shadows dancing on the wall.
“The forest does not make mistakes, or so the wood elves of the Corusk Mountains say. A winter hunting party found me below the tree line, a babe wrapped in a torn cloak, half-buried in the snow beneath fallen branches. No tracks led to me. No struggle marked the ground. They only found me because they followed the cawing of the crows—the birds that gave me my name.
The northern wood elves of the Corusk Mountains and Spikey Forest raised me. They are a cautious people, slow to trust outsiders, but they believe the forest does not make mistakes. If the woods spared me, then I was to be raised as one of their own, but wood elves value familial ties and shared memories, and I had none. I was an outsider.
Some elders whispered that I had been left as an offering to the forest —others that I was stolen in a raid and later abandoned. A few even feared me as a bad omen.
Still, they raised me in their ways — to move quietly through the forest and frozen mountains, to read the forest and the rocky crags, to hunt without waste, and to listen —not just with ears, but with my whole being to nature.
The forest and mountains spoke in subtle ways: the creak of ice before it broke, the sudden stillness before danger, the strange sense of being watched that did not always mean harm but sometimes did.
Their ways became mine from an early age. Yet, I grew older; questions remained unanswered — indeed, could not be answered. Who was I? How and why was I left? Finally, whether driven by a need for answers or simply a curiosity about the bigger world and a chance to find my own place in it, I left.
I did so with the elves’ quiet blessing. After a long journey and many adventures that need not recounting here, I find myself now in the company of a halfling bard and a paladin dwarf
I left the Spikey Forest not out of anger, but because I needed to know why the forest spared me. Was I left to die, or was I a gift? Finding you, Aelfric, in that crypt… perhaps the forest is still guiding my path. I am a Ranger of the wild, but I find I am learning to hunt in the cities of men.”
Aelfric shudders: “The Corusk Mountains? Brrr. I’ll stick to the archives and the well-stocked cellars of Ulek, thank you. Though, Crow, I must ask—after seeing you navigate that graveyard in Willip, were you raised by elves or the birds themselves?”
Crow offers a rare, faint smile. “Elves. Though they looked at me like I was a bad omen for the first ten years. I left because the trees knew who I was, but the people didn’t. I’m still looking for a trail that doesn’t go cold.”
Ender cleared his throat,” Talking of cities and men we know something of your story Master Bard but, I sense there is more to it than you have let on!”
IV. Aelfric’s Monologue: The Secret of Waybury
Aelfric’s usual theatrical grin fades. He stares into the amber depths of his ale, his voice dropping to a low, serious register that commands the table’s attention.
“You see a bard who likes his jokes and his mead, but I was a man of high account once. I served Duke Edward Ravenguard in the Duchy of Ulek. He was a good man, a just ruler. But jealousy is a rot that starts at the root. His own brother, Alexander, murdered him to seize the throne. I saw the blood; I wrote the accounts of his treachery.
I fled with my life and the truth. In a well, in the garden of my nephew Toby’s farm outside Littleberg, lie documents that would set the Royal House of Greyhawk ablaze. They are sealed by Cardinal Wolfred himself—proof of the coup and the names of every snake who helped Alexander climb that blood-stained throne. I have heard that Alexander is courting Greyhawk nobility to buy their silence. I must tread lightly until I am sure that I have the confidence of those to whom I would reveal these secrets.
I also smuggled out the Duke’s daughter, Lady Flagella. She is fifteen, the rightful heir, and currently hidden in a safe house only I know. I cannot tell you where—not yet. If I reveal her too soon, she dies.
I might have need of a Ranger who hears the ice break and a Paladin who can break a palace gate…. if we can take Waybury back… then I will be in your debt until the stars fall.”
V. A Final Toast
The silence that follows is heavy but not uncomfortable. The three of them—a fugitive historian, an abandoned ranger, and a vengeful paladin—look at each other with a new clarity.
“Well,” Aelfric says, breaking the tension with a small, watery chuckle. “Between the three of us, we’ve got enough tragedy to fill a library and enough enemies to fill a graveyard. It’s a good thing we’re all excellent at killing imps.”
“And better at outrunning the law,” Crow adds, tapping his Boots of Speed.
Ender raises his tankard one last time. “To the mission. To Phlegan. And to the well in Littleberg.”
“Hear, hear!”
Saggy Sack plonks another pitcher in their midst. They have long since lost tally. The ale has done its work, softening the edges of the day’s violence and bringing the three together in cameraderie.
“POTATOES!” Aelfric suddenly shrieks, bursting into a fit of giggles as the ale finally conquers his dignity. “The Barbarian yelled… potatoes!”
Saggy Sack sighs from the bar, reaching for a mop. “That’s it. They’re toasted.”
VI. A Breakfast of Gold and Grief
The morning light in the Molag Inn was not kind. It filtered through the grime-streaked windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing over the bloodstains we had gifted the floorboards the night before. Saggy Sack, surprisingly hospitable for a man with such an unfortunate name, allowed us to slumber at the bar. He seemed genuinely relieved that Captain Maddox and his band of bottom-feeders had been sent packing—or limping, in the Captain’s case.
As the city’s dregs began to filter in for their morning “hair of the dog,” the barkeep slid three plates of sizzling bacon and greasy eggs in front of us.
“On the house,” he grunted, though his eyes lingered on Ender’s massive maul. “Just… keep the peace today, yeah?”
We spent the meal counting our spoils. Between the mead delivery, the bandit pouches, and some frugal living, we discovered our collective wealth had swelled to 144 gold pieces. We were practically nobility by Molag standards.
“Saggy,” I asked, wiping grease from my chin, “any word on where a certain ‘righteous’ paladin might have wandered? My friend here is looking for his sister, Phlegan.”
The barkeep scowled, polishing a glass with a rag that looked older than the city. “Paladins? In this town? Usually, they end up in the river or the pits. I haven’t seen her.”
Ender let out a weary sigh, his voice like grinding stones. “She’s out there somewhere, likely trying to save the world one ‘righteous’ lecture at a time. If there’s a lost cause or a sermon to be given, Phlegan will find it.”
VII. The Crying Runner and the Nervous Barkeep
Lacking a better plan, we decided to reach out to the Relay at the Limponn Inn. Not wanting to walk back into that den of “Fiendish Feelers” just yet, we tossed a gold piece to a young serving girl named Mina. She was a waif of a thing, with trembling hands and eyes far too large for her face.
“Just deliver a message to the man in the corner,” I told her with my most winning bardic smile. “Simple as that.”
An hour later, the door to the Molag Inn flew open. Mina burst in, her face a mask of absolute terror, tears streaming down her soot-stained cheeks.
“He’s so mean!” she wailed, clutching her apron. “The air… it went cold! He looked at me and I felt like I was being unmade! Don’t make me go back! What is a Relay, anyway? Is it a monster?!”
She bolted for the kitchen, sobbing. We exchanged a grim look. It seemed the “Relay” didn’t appreciate unannounced house calls.
We set off through the desolate streets of Molag, where the shadows seemed to linger longer than they should. Re-entering the Limponn Inn, the atmosphere was thick with a different kind of tension. The Tiefling bartender—the one who had warned us about the basement—saw us and nearly dropped a tray.
“Is the Relay in?” Crow asked, his hand hovering near his new Lightning Strike Dagger.
The bartender hissed, pressing a finger to his purple lips. “We don’t talk about that! Not here! Not out loud!” He beckoned us to a dark booth, his tail twitching erratically. “Do you have any idea who these people are? You sent a common girl into my bar to shout the Relay’s name! You’ll get me flayed alive—or worse!”
“We need Phlegan,” Ender growled, leaning over the table. The dwarf’s shadow loomed large over the trembling Tiefling. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know!” the barkeep squeaked, then withered under our triple-stare. “OK, OK! She’s on a mission. She left for the Tangled Forest—the Tangles. She has a day and a half, maybe two days’ head start.”
“How long until she returns?” I inquired.
“She won’t be coming back here,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder at the staircase to the basement. “She’s a Paladin, and the Relay decided she was… better suited elsewhere. Now go! And for the love of the gods, do not send runners to me. Ever!”
As we stepped away, Crow looked toward the horizon, his elven senses already mapping the wilds. “It’s 300 miles to the Tangled Forest as the crow flies,” he noted dryly. “And we aren’t crows.”
VIII. Urum: The World’s Worst Spy
Suddenly, the door swung open with a bang, and a young Half-Orc blundered into the room. He was a clumsy mass of muscle and green skin, wearing a vest three sizes too small. He marched toward our table with an expression of intense, misguided focus.
“I’M A SPY!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
The entire bar went silent. The Half-Orc froze, realized he’d just shouted his secret identity to a room full of criminals, and panicked. He snatched a half-eaten plate of gristle from our table and dove behind a nearby stone pillar, trying—and failing—to hide his massive bulk.
I rose cautiously, hands raised. “Easy there, friend. We’re just talking.”
The Half-Orc let out a strangled yelp, grabbed a heavy clay mug from a passing server, and winged it at my head.
CRACK.
“Ouch!” I screamed, stumbling back as stars danced in my vision. “My theatrical forehead! My best feature!”
“What’s that all about?!” Crow and Ender yelled, rising from their seats.
“Wait, wait!” I nursed the growing lump on my brow. “He’s just confused.” I looked at the Orc. “Come out, lad. We won’t hurt you. Just tell us your name.”
The Orc peeked out, looking sheepish. “I am… Shadow Stalker.”
Ender snorted. “Like a mountain is a ‘pebble.’ Try again.”
The boy slumped. “Fine. My name is Urum. I am Chun’s cousin. I have a message from the Big Man himself.” He straightened up, trying to look imposing. “Meet at the Broken Tusk in Trigol by the next full moon. Come… or your death will be unavoidable.”
Crow and I exchanged a look of pure bewilderment. “Chun the Unavoidable is in Orcatraz. How is he sending messages from the bottom of a lake?”
Urum grinned, showing off two yellowed tusks. “Chun escaped. He decided he didn’t want to be there anymore. So, he ripped the iron bars off his cell, tied them to his feet like weights, and walked along the bottom of the lake until he reached the shore and walked the rest of the way to Trigol. He wants to meet you because you were clever enough to walk out the front door. He likes ‘clever folk.’”
Without another word, the “Shadow Stalker” turned and barreled out the door, knocking over a chair and a small elderly man in his haste.
“Trigol by the next full moon,” I mused. “That gives us nearly a month. Time enough to hit the Tangles first.”
IX. The Spinning Shield and the Temptress
The barkeep told us to find a man named Ix at the stables in southeast Molag if we wanted horses. We headed out, but the moment we stepped into the street, the air changed. The bustle of reconstruction died away. The streets were completely deserted, save for the wind whistling through broken rafters.
“You Mother-Fuckers are marked for death!”
Standing in the center of the road was a woman who could only be described as dangerously voluptuous. Dressed in form-fitting black leather with red accents, she held a gleaming shield above her head and a short sword at her side. Her hair was a mane of dark silk, and her smile was a promise of trouble. This was Daisy.
Behind her, three Imps hovered, hissing and clicking their teeth.
“You’ve chosen the wrong side,” she purred, her eyes raking over us. “Brittany doesn’t like it when her toys play with other children.”
She hoisted her shield high, then hurled it toward the cobblestones with a scream: “GO GET ‘EM, BOYS!”
The shield hit the ground, spinning like a deadly top, and the three Imps leaped onto it. The disc whistled across the ground toward us, a centrifugal nightmare of claws and teeth.
Ender didn’t blink. As the shield reached him, he stepped forward and stomped his heavy armored boot onto the rim of the spinning metal. The physics were brutal. The shield flipped, and the three Imps were launched into the air like discarded fruit, falling prone and shrieking in the mud.
Chaos erupted. One Imp scrambled up, unsheathing a jagged dagger and lunging at Ender and me. Crow was faster. He loosed an arrow that thudded into the Imp’s leg, pinning its calf to the dirt. I followed up with a bolt from my new crossbow, hitting the same leg.
“Double-tapped!” I chirped.
Another Imp turned invisible, while the third took to the sky, beating its leathery wings 20 feet above us. Crow, with the cold precision of the Corusk wild, sent another shaft upward. It pierced the flying Imp’s shoulder; it dropped its daggers and plummeted to the ground with a wet thud.
Daisy, seeing her “boys” turned into pincushions, held up a hand. “Wait! Can we talk about this, boys?”
“Sure,” I said, reloading my crossbow. “As long as your invisible friend puts in an appearance before he tries to ventilate my Ranger.”
Daisy snapped her fingers. The third Imp popped into view, his dagger inches from Crow’s back. He looked very disappointed.
X. Desire and the Debt
Daisy smoothed her leather armor, looking entirely unbothered by the carnage. “My name is Daisy. Brittany wants a word. She’s marked you because you’ve been flirting with the other Ascendants. She knows you’ve spoken to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, to Chun, and even the Connection. Brittany isn’t used to her playthings flirting with strangers!”
She stepped closer to us, her presence a heady mix of perfume and sulfur. “Brittany deals in Desire. And right now… she desires you.”
Ender stepped forward, his maul resting on his shoulder. “We desire information. Why should we care about her? Why would she be a better God than the rest?”
Daisy scoffed, her gaze lingering on the dwarf’s rugged features. “Can you imagine Chun as a God? A world governed by ripping bars off windows and walking underwater? Please.” She tilted her head. “I know where you are going. The Tangles, to find the sister.”
I nodded. “We need horses. And a way through the Bandit Kingdoms.”
“Brittany can help,” Daisy replied, a wicked glint in her eye. “She knows Ix. He will provide what you need for the journey. Just… remember the price.”
Daisy marched off, her hips swaying with a confidence that made even Crow blink, the three limping Imps trailing behind her like kicked curs.
We found the stables and the master, Ix. He was an Incubus—all sharp cheekbones, folded wings, and an aura of predatory grace. He was already waiting with three stallions, their tan coats shining.
“Heading to the Tangles?” Ix laughed, a sound like silk tearing. “No traders go that way. That’s the heart of the Bandit Kingdoms. You’ll be lucky to keep your scalps, let alone your purses.”
He handed the reins to Crow. “Daisy sent word. These horses are yours. Saddled, fed, and ready to gallop into the mouth of hell.”
He leaned in, his breath smelling of cinnamon and old copper.
“Just know that you’ll owe Brittany.”
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