As soon as
I had downloaded the free adventure, I realized that it was a solo adventure,
in the same style as the Player’s Book’s ‘choose your own adventure’ style (‘if
you agree, go to 41, if you disagree, go to 89’). The Player’s Book was more to
teach people how to create their own character and get it going a little bit,
but this extra adventure motivated me to just try it out and build a character,
which I’d send through these solo adventures whenever I have a free moment to
do so.
So, without
a shadow of a doubt, I jumped into the Red Box’s Player’s Book. Chronicled
below are the (mis)adventures of Nolan, the elven rogue I built using this
book, and it will be followed up with more adventures as soon as I get the time
to do them. Naturally, this means these stories will contain spoilers for
these adventures.
---
Nolan was
just your average elf, accompanying Traevus, a dwarven merchant as he travelled
to Fallcrest to sell his wares and gather return wares and supplies for his
trip back to Hammerfast, where he’d perform the same thing over again. Though
the man wasn’t very talkative, as was in the dwarven nature, Nolan didn’t
really mind. He preferred the stalwart silence of the dwarves over any
talkative halfling any day.
What hadn’t
been in the planning, though, was the sudden strike of an arrow, embedding
itself deeply in Traevus’ shoulder. As the dwarf cried out, Nolan noticed a
pack of little creatures storming towards them: goblins, coming to steal the
car and Traevus’ wares and killing them in the progress.
Nolan acted
quickly and grabbed a dagger he had seen lying around, jumping out of the car
to sneak around it and confront the goblins from a position of advantage before
they could bring serious harm to Traevus. At the first opportunity, he jumped
on the closest goblin and quickly ended its life.
Though the
other goblins were clearly shocked by this display of defiance, they also still
had the idea of ‘strength in numbers’, quickly running at Nolan and starting to
stab at him with knives and short swords. A couple of them managed to wound
him, but he also managed to fight back and, turning his fighting into a more
defensive style, eventually wear the goblins down enough to make them realize
that he was more of a challenge than they had initially thought. The survivors
chose that discretion was still the better part of valour, turned their tail,
and ran for their lives.
As the
goblins ran, Nolan noticed a person sitting on a black horse, standing on the
crest of a hill, several hundred yards away. Though Nolan couldn’t make out any
features, he saw the rider shake his fists in frustration before turning away
and riding for the Moon Hills. Before Nolan could decide if the pursuit would
be worth the trouble, though, Traevus’ swears pulled him back to reality.
The dwarf
had noticed that something had been stolen, though he wasn’t very specific
about what it was. All he said was that it was very precious to him. Though the
dwarf hadn’t been very talkative, Nolan had appreciated his willingness to let
him travel besides him on the trek to Fallcrest, so he decided that it would be
worth the trouble to help the merchant with his problem. Traevus even offered
to reward him with thirty gold pieces, after which he described the little
wooden box with personal contents that he had to find and retrieve.
Figuring
that the fleeing goblins had taken the little lockbox – even though Nolan
hadn’t seen any of them carrying it away, the situation had been rather chaotic
– Nolan decided that he would have to put the rider out of his mind for the
moment and track the little creatures to their lair.
Though the
goblins had scattered in all directions after they had ran, Nolan managed to
find tracks leading back to the direction of attack the goblins had chosen.
After picking up their tracks, it was easy for him to decide where to go and
find more signs of the little critters passing by. The tracking quickly led through
rough terrain, but it wasn’t much of a problem for his trained, elven feet, and
he eventually found his way to the entrance of a cave system without alerting
any goblin guards posted outside.
Sneaking
in, it didn’t take long before Nolan managed he was finally starting to mess
up. One of the goblins inside spotted him and screamed before he managed to
silence him, and he got swarmed by four of the creatures before he even
realized it. Stabbing left and right, still only brandishing the dagger he had taken
from Traevus’ cart, the creatures managed to wear him down quite badly before
he took them all down.
Looking at
the entrance going deeper into the cave, Nolan realized there would be a whole
lot more goblins waiting inside. Though the fight in the entrance might not
have warned them off just yet, it was just a matter of time before they would
be alerted to his presence and swarm him until he was dead.
He would
need some allies to do this.
Noting the
cave’s entrance on his map, Nolan turned his back to the caves and started
walking to Fallcrest. Adventure was waiting for him.
---
So, there
you have it, the Red Box’s little create-your-character adventure. The
immediate sequel to this is ‘Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens’, which will be
the next adventure log, detailing Nolan’s further misadventures. Looking
forward to it!
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