After your rest, you notice tracks in the immediate vicinity of your camp. They were obviously made by wild pigs.
Do you
- Follow the tracks?
- Get your things and march on?
You have been marching quite a while when you notice the herd has split up. You decide to follow a single track leading into a small copse of trees. There you find an enormous boar digging about in an obvious search for food.
The boar appears to have noticed your approach. It stops its search for food, sniffs the wind and disappears between the trees like greased lightning.
Do you
The boar hasn’t noticed you as it continues its greedy search for food. Who will kill the animal?
[NAME] sneaks carefully closer, stands up and fires two arrows in quick succession at the boar…
What a shot! The boar rears up and collapses. It’s dead.
One of the arrows hits the boar but doesn’t seem to harm it. On the contrary, it appears enraged by the shot. It gallops right at and through [NAME], before disappearing between the trees.
Do you
Firun must have turned his back on [NAME] today: both arrows miss their target. The boar turns around, kicks viciously in your direction, and disappears between the trees at a gallop.
Do you
- Pursue the boar?
- Turn around and continue your journey?
This is obviously the boar’s home territory. It manages to loose you within minutes. Disappointed, you return to the road
Monolith
[NAME] asks you to stop. [NAME] claims to have seen a strange monolith on the opposite bank of the Thossel. No one else among you has noticed anything out of the ordinary.
do you
March on?
Investigate?
You’ll have to swim across the river for that.
do you
Swim across fully encumbered?
Build a small raft for your equipment first?
Forget about the whole thing after all?
[NAME] safely reaches the opposite bank.
[NAME] can only just stay above the surface and reaches the opposite bank gasping for breath, more dead than alive.
[NAME] was right after all: in the distance, at the edge of a small forest there is indeed a black stone approximately five paces high. As you approach, you notice it is a two-headed idol of orcish manufacture. Someone has painted the names “Tairach” and “Brazoragh” on the pedestal in awkward garethi, using a brownish sort of paint. Just one guess where the writer got it, as there are quite a number of dwarven skulls arranged symmetrically around the idol!
do you
Knock the orcish idol over and smash it?
Leave it where it is?
Under your heavy blows, the macabre obelisk shatters into tiny shards of splintered stone. You say a short prayer to the twelve gods and leave this ghastly place.
you’ll have to cross the river again to journey on, you know.
do you
Swim across fully encumbered?
Use your raft?
[NAME] asks you to stop. Apparently, [NAME] saw an interesting spot for gathering herbs on the opposite bank of the Hjaldorval. No one else sees it, though.
Do you
March on?
Investigate?
You’ll have to swim across the river for that.
do you
Swim across fully encumbered?
Build a small raft for your equipment first?
Forget about the whole thing after all?
[NAME] safely reaches the opposite bank.
[NAME] can only just stay above the surface and reaches the opposite bank gasping for breath, more dead than alive.
After reaching the opposite river bank more or less in one piece, you can see that this is indeed a prime spot for gathering herbs.
To journey on you will have to cross the river again.
Do you
Swim across fully encumbered?
Use your raft?
You can see what appears to be a leg sticking out from behind a rock by the side of the road. Dried blood is caked on the trouser leg.
Do you
You need only one look to know it’s a wanderer killed by brigands - the broken sabre blade is still wedged between the unlucky traveler’s ribs.
In front of you, four foot-pads block the hollow you are marching along. Another scruffy thief has jumped out behind you and is keeping you well in the sights of his crossbow.
“Your money or your lives!”
Do you
“We charge a modest toll of fifteen ducats per person.”
“There, may you suffocate on your greed!”
“How about fifteen blows per person!”
“In the name of the hetman! Step aside, you scum!”
While fleeing [NAME] is hit in the back by a crossbow bolt!
you can hear soft voices somewhere ahead.
do you
Sneak closer and spy?
March on?
You notice a camp in the middle of a clearing. About ten desperate looking characters are sitting around a fire playing dice. Quite obviously foot-pads. Why, they might even be the bandits you had a run-in with earlier.
do you
Greet them with a hail of arrows?
Storm the camp?
Quietly sneak away again?
Oops! They noticed you!
A barely discernible path winds through the rocks here. This would be an ideal spot for an ambush.
After about fifty paces, the path ends in front of a cave. The smell of food from the inside is quite strong.
do you
Enter the cave?
Turn back and continue your journey?
You’ve stumbled upon a path leading to a well secreted cave entrance.
do you
Visit the cave?
Continue onward?
For quite some time you have felt like you were being watched. You get no satisfaction from knowing you were right as you hear a voice echoing from the forest:
“Your money or your lives!”
do you
Fight?
Try to flee?
Bargain with the brigands?
“Would you mind very much parting with a toll of fifteen ducats per person?”
“Take our money, but spare us our lives!”
“You won’t get our money, but we shall have your lives!”
“They are the wanted men! Have at them, knights!”
In front of you, an avalanche has come down and blocked the path for at least a mile with snow. To get by here would be a real feat without some heavy equipment.
do you
Try to clear a way?
Try to find a way around the obstacle?
Slowly, methodically, you shovel a path through the snow. It is freezing. Your breath is covering your clothes with a layer of ice, and your toes are going numb. You will have to take a break and light a fire if you don’t want to freeze to death.
Hour upon hour you march through the endless snow, your eyes blinded by the white expanse, till you finally reach the road again.
Hour upon hour you march on through the seemingly endless snow, your eyes blinded, your feet frostbitten and your clothes frozen stiff with sweat and breath. You have no idea, how much time has passed, but you have reached a point where you simply cannot tell anymore where you are or even where you’re going. If you don’t rest a while and light a fire, you’ll freeze to death…
After the much needed break, your renewed strength makes the going seem somewhat easier, and after only six more hours of hard work you reach the end of the avalanche.
Finally, you reach a spot that you recognize. From here you manage to reach a road again - and thanks be to the gods, it is the right one!
This is the end! After five days you simply do not have the strength to go on. Exhausted you collapse onto the soft snow…
[NAME] noticed some strange tracks during the hunt: the paws of the animal in question must be unusually big and clawed to boot.
do you
Follow this new trail?
Continue your journey?
The tracks lead ever further into the mountains. One thing should be quite clear by now: you are following a dragon’s trail!.
do you
Break off the hunt?
Try to kill the dragon?
Finally, you reach a small plateau with a cave entrance on one side of it. A disgusting stink comes from the cave.
do you
Coax the dragon out of its lair?
Break off the hunt after all?
What a disappointment! After some taunting calls, its not a dragon that appears, but a disgusting, stinking wyvern. You exchange one look and turn your backs on the creature. You can hear it snort angrily as you leave, but it doesn’t pursue you!
You are crossing a low hillcrest and notice four orcs and an ogre camping beneath. The ogre appears to have seen you, as he points in your direction. Immediately, the five take up arms and approach.
do you
Fight?
Flee?
You notice a small spot in the sky, approaching from the east and getting bigger… fast. On the ground, the shadow of a three-headed monster comes closer at rapid speed: it’s a giant wyvern!
do you
Keep standing and admire the spectacle?
Quite unheroically take cover in the bushes?
The giant wyvern rapidly descends and shoots towards you almost touching the ground. You can see every single scale and the glare of those six red eyes as big as dinner plates. Smoke tendrils wafting from its nostrils.
it is here! At the very last moment the wyvern pulls up. The force of its passage throws you off your feet. Your ears ring from an infernal roar. As you get back to your feet, the monster has disappeared…
With an infernal roar, the wyvern shoots past above your hiding place. When the noise has died down and you rise up again, the monster has disappeared…
The wanderer is carrying:.