The house wasn’t too far away, but still took around 20 minutes to walk over to.

It was a respectable-sized log house with a tall chimney made of what seemed like loose stones, and it had a sharply angled roof. If it weren’t for the broken windows, the blood on the stairs, weapon marks around the wall near the front door and of course the mess of what used to be a sturdy wooden door in chips all over the entry, it would be quite a cozy home and a perfect place to live in, come winter.

Once the party is done admiring the outside, Marcus starts making his way through the front door. The body of the lumberjack is laying in the middle of the room in a pool of blood, a pile of haphazardly thrown rocks, and his body, which is littered with many injuries.

The deep gashes on his arms, especially his right shoulder, obviously rendered his arm useless. His face bruised to the point that it is barely recognizable, and a few dozen shallow cuts covering various parts of his body.

When Marcus examined the body, they learned that the man had been dead since last night.

The party then decides to search the house for clues and of course valuables to “re-appropriate” but find nothing other than the lumberjack's axe embedded into the floor next to him, also covered in blood.

While Marcus and Drazdan were looting, the Druid finally managed to get his fluffy butt through the small doorway and decided to sit down on the bear carpet in the living room.

He could smell something in the air and the more he focused on it, he felt like he could follow it. So that's what he did, letting out a low growl to signal the others before forcing his way through the front door again.

He follows the scent to behind the house, Drazdan and Marcus in tow. Once in the backyard, Drazdans ear starts flicking around as if hearing something in the forest. As he slowly puts his hand on his axe and starts to vaguely make out that the sound is coming from his left, the Druid decides that this moment is the perfect time to let the most disgusting and loud fart. Making his party members feel sick and absolutely breaking Drazdans focus, losing his target.

“Did you really have to do that now?” asks Drazdan.

The bear lets out a loud growl in a devious and almost impossible smile.

“Whatever you ate this morning, DON’T EVER eat it again.” the paladin says while he backs away from the bear.

The Druid lets out a series of short growls that vaguely sounds like he’s laughing.

“Now what?” Drazdan asks, “With your destructive bout of flatulence, I lost track of the thing that was watching us.” he says.

With a low growl, the grizzly points a claw at his muzzle and stands up once again, walking forward and sniffing at the forest. Once he picks up the scent again, he starts walking into the forest as the rest of the party follows.

Within minutes, they start seeing a trail of footmarks in the dirt and follow it to a cave at the foot of the local mountainside. Strangely enough, nobody has yet to name said mountain, and so it is just known as, the mountain.

Approaching the dark entrance, they can see 3 obvious directions that it parts in.

Before they can start making their way in, however, the Druids Shapeshifting spell ends and turns into a human once again.

“Finally!” Drazdan shouts. “Took you long enough!” he lets out.

“Okay? What does it matter?” the Druid asks.

“What does it matter? You were going to take a shit on a 200 gold coin carpet! Then got your ass thrown out for attempting and nearly got us all on the mayors’ shit list! Not to mention that disgusting fart you let out earlier to ruin my concentration and let an enemy getaway!” Drazdan yells.

“Am I supposed to care? I don’t even know you… Well, other than your name and I really couldn't care less either way.” the Druid answers.

“Well, regardless if you care or not, you’re stuck with us until this job is done! Now, what is your name, for heaven's sake?!” Drazdan asks.

The Druid lets out a sigh. “I am Xandarr Molnar, I am a Druid and I belong to the Circle of the Moon. Now let's get this shit over wi…” he gets cut off by a loud cry of pain from Marcus, who just set off a rockfall trap in the middle passage of the cave.

“Oh, for fuck's sake. ” Drazdan exclaims.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

They can see Marcus under a pile of rocks struggling to get out and start to run over to help. By the time they get there, Marcus managed to climb out of the pile of rocks, and heal himself, but he was still severely injured. As Xandarr starts to heal him, Drazdan investigates the area around them for more traps, thankfully they are safe. For now…

“Alright, Big man, what did we learn today?” he chides the paladin.

Marcus looks up at him, brows furrowed and none too happy.

“That you’re a dick.” He answers.

A look of surprise forms on Drazdans face. “I mean, you’re not wrong. Anyway, before you walk into random enemy caves, maybe check for traps? Or wait for your team to come in with you.” he says.

“Fine.” is all the answer Drazdan gets.

"Now, which way do we want to go?" he asks.

"Dunno, but I ain't going first." Answers Marcus, accompanied by a shrug from Xandarr.

Drazdan can only sigh at this development.

'Alright up to me then I guess…'

So he starts listening to see if he can hear anything in particular to give him a hint.

He can slightly make out the sounds of crying from the left side and the wind on the right.

Drazdan takes the lead and starts to walk through the corridor on the left. Following the bend in the cave, he gets to a room with a couple of old, some broken, flipped furniture. No signs of traps and no enemies hiding in the room.

After reaching the middle of the room, they can see that there are 2 other corridors in front of them, one turns to the right while the other continues deeper into the mountain.

As Drazdan approaches the corridors, he can hear whimpering from the one going straight and very quiet crying from the right.

Before deciding which way to go, he checks for traps in the corridor that goes deeper.

"I don't see no traps in the middle, but I don't trust it… It feels… Off…" Drazdan explains.

"Let me check." Exclaims Marcus as he walks up to check as well. "I don't see anything either, but it feels eerie." he remarks.

"Move over ya bunch of pussies." now it's Xandarrs turn. He can't see any traps either, but he does spot a sign.

"Hey, guys!" and he points to the sign on the wall written in red… It looks like blood, but it could just be paint, who knows.

"It's written, 'Definitely no traps this way.' what do y'all want to do?" He asks.

"Let's go right. That way is definitely not safe." Drazdan says while making his way to the corridor on the right.

After a few seconds, Drazdan announces that there aren’t traps in the next corridor.

Marcus takes point, followed by Drazdan and Xandarr, they start advancing towards what they expect is where the hostages are kept. Once they get close to the entrance to the next opening, they can somewhat see some furniture laid about in the room.

Suddenly, Drazdans ear shoots up, and he throws an axe into the darkness, a loud THUNK is heard then a creaking followed by a cry of pain.

“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!!” screeches a high-pitched creature.

And within moments, Marcus gets showered by a volley of rocks from 3 different directions, Xandarr making sure to stand behind this human shield while Drazdan leaps into combat going for the one he threw his axe towards.

Drazdan near instantly appears next to a knocked-down kobold, whose trying to slowly get up while being crushed by the weight of a barrel of wine, using both of his arms to try and push it off clumsily. His right hand is holding a rusty dagger, and it's pressing into his own hand, causing a fair bit of pain, his frightened face, giving it all away.

The kobold is incapable of reacting and is easily beheaded. His body getting crushed under the barrel before his head touches the floor, he also dropped his dagger at Drazdans feet.

Drazdan picks up the dagger and throws it straight forward, landing it in between the eyes of another kobold, slaying it. Then he feels the hairs on the back of his head stand up and feels a surge of energy welling from inside him, prompting Drazdan to slash behind him, narrowly missing the neck of a 3rd kobold.

The terrified kobold who just stared down death and lived didn’t notice Xandarr run up behind him and gets a shocking slap to the back of the head, essentially frying his brain, and falling down next to Drazdan, spasming for a couple of seconds.

“Gross.” Drazdan remarks before looking up to the Druid and giving him a thankful nod.

When they look over to the Paladin, they see a kobold cleaved in 2 behind him and a second kobold smacking him in the face with a rock over and over while he’s attempting to remove his sword from the table the kobold is hiding behind.

“I’m coming!” Drazdan shouts while running up and charging into the table, shoving it into the kobold and knocking the air out of it. Sadly, Marcus wasn’t ready for the blow and got hurt, nearly breaking his right arm in the attempt.

“YOU BLOODY IDIOT!” Marcus yells out. “I’M BEHIND THE TABLE TOO, DAMN IT!”

“Sorry, thought it would…” is all that Drazdan can get out before he gets rammed into by Xandarr pushing him into the table and into Marcus’ greatsword…

The blow was strong enough to crush the kobold alive, but it also knocked out Marcus, and Drazdan had to carefully remove himself from the sharp end of a greatsword.

“YOU GODDAMNED MORON!” a pained scream from the Harengon is heard.

“WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING THAT'S ALREADY ESTABLISHED AS A BAD IDEA, DAMN IT!”

Xandarr runs over to try and help Drazdan off the greatsword, but he wants none of his help.

“HEAL THE OTHER MONKEY, YOU DAMN APE! FUCK, THIS HURTS LIKE A BITCH!” Drazdan keeps screaming as he starts to try to remove himself from it.

Xandarr is playing mute again, but you can clearly see that he is very irritated and not pleased by his actions.

Xandarr moves over to Marcus and immediately starts casting healing spells on him. Once Marcus awakens, he is, well, pissed off and starts to yell at Xandarr over his stupidity while tending to Drazdans wound.

After about 2 minutes to lick their wounds, they get up and look around the cave while Drazdan goes to collect his axe and the newly claimed rusty dagger. As he kneels down to pick them up, the others join up behind and talk.

“You know that's a bad weapon, right?” Marcus asks Drazdan.

“Of course, it’s still good for throwing, tho. Also, if the guy I hit manages to run off he will, hopefully, get a mean case of Tetanus, so I still win.” Drazdan answers Marcus’ question, who is now speechless at his careless statement of using a disease as a weapon.

“That’s nasty.” Xandarr remarks.

“Maybe, but why should I care? If I threw a dagger at someone, that means I already meant to kill them and if they live then I failed, but if they die from the infection in the end well then it's a win. Simple as that.” is Drazdans answer.

“It’s not honorable…” Marcus says, but gets cut off.

“Bandits don't care for honor, Marcus! Remember that.” Drazdan retorts while pointing the rusty dagger up at him.

“Still…” is all that Marcus gets out before Drazdan moves to the next opening in the cavern and interrupts him again.

“I hear crying. Children and a woman. Let’s go.” he says