We met first thing the next morning with everyone looking a little worse for wear. Between Adrik and the three of us we got the wagon loaded fairly quickly, with each of us grumbling under our breath every time Adrik threw another bag of god knows what onto the back of the wagon rather than place it in gingerly like the rest of us.

“What say you three to some breakfast before we set off” Adrik boomed. You would have thought he had cast thaumaturgy to amplify his voice based on the way we all reacted by covering our ears, wincing and nodding. I was starting to think Adrik was enjoying torturing us.

A breakfast of beans, bread and sausage improved the mood all round, and after double checking the wagon over to make sure everything was secure we set off south from Neverwinter down the High Road towards Phandalin. The others seemed to take this in their stride, just another job for them I guess. But for me, this would be the first time ,at least that I remember that I had been outside the walls of Neverwinter, my first time in the wide open world of Faerûn.

Early on in my pit days I had once been partnered with another half-orc named Ragna the Red. Ragna was extremely influential in my formative years teaching me just as many things about the outside world as he did about brutality in the pits. He was free with his advice, but being a young man I often dismissed his musings and words of wisdom. Some of the things he said stuck with me however:

“Kid trust me one day you’re going to walk free from this place…this life, and it’s not going to be the fairy tale we all hope it’s going to be. You’re a half-orc, that immediately puts you on the back foot, people are going to treat you differently just because of that. You don’t need to go reminding them that you were once an indentured thug as well.

You gotta leave the past in the past. Trust me little one, people out there will never understand what life is down here, they think they do, they think they know and they will judge you for it, they will treat you as less-than-people.

Listen, find some of the good ones, folks you could imagine calling friends one day and you act like you belong. You fake something long enough and it becomes your nature. Trust me, the only people interested in where we’re from and what we’ve done will end up dragging you right back here”

Ragna was eventually sold on by his owner once it was clear he was slowing down in his advancing years. We all saw it, the fire starting to wane. The hard truth was he had probably been sold into this last match, some bloody exhibition match to hype up some young and upcoming fighter, it happened all the time. From time to time I would hear equally as many rumors about Ragna being alive as well as him being dead until I just stopped listing all together.

I never asked Ragna what he did to end up fighting in the pits, or what he did before. I suppose at the time knowing wouldn’t have helped me survive so it wasn’t a priority. I was a different person back then, less thoughtful, more reactive, violent and primal. It’s strange to think that people like Ragna had a hand in shaping my future, gently adjusting path from time to time, keeping me from the feral mindlessness that was so common in the pits. I don’t know if Ragna was particularly religious, most of us aren’t given the way we have been treated. Hard to put your stock in a god who lets you rot in a cell between brutal fights day in, day out until one day you get your head caved in with a pointy rock by a fully erect naked dwarf to the cheers and laughter of a crowd of civilized folk.

But I hope if he’s out there somewhere looking down on me, he’s happy with what he sees.

The reason Ragna’s words suddenly came to me, because I was now seeing things that had only been described to me and I was at risk of no longer acting like I belonged. Things like forests, beautiful wild flowers, wildlife and the almost dizzying horizon were perpetually blowing my mind, I wanted to scream and shout and point and laugh in delight at all these incredible things, but I knew if I did I would stand out, more so than I already did.

I told the my companions I would keep watch as we traveled, they seemed relieved that I offered and I spent my time hanging off the side of the waggon making sure no one could see the grin on my face and the tears in my eyes.

Whilst the weather was glorious, clear skies, with a warm sun and a gentle breeze, the journey down the high road was relatively uneventful. The various merchants and common folk we did pass along the way gave polite greetings, but after having their valuables eyed up and down by our halfling, given the thousand yard stare by our avivan ally and coming face to face with a masked, grinning, openly weeping leather bound half orc they were quickly on their way.

Eventually we turned due east onto the Tribor trail and It had just turned midday when our services as badasses were required.

We all spotted it at roughly the same time, up ahead of us were two large objects blocking the road. As we got within 50 feet or so we could see it was the corpses of two horses, peppered with black flighted arrows. Adrik stopped the wagon and we decanted to assess the situation.

We all gathered at the front of the wagon, Gondar raised an eyebrow at Maisee and me and thumbed over his shoulder at the horses,

“You guys know this is a trap right?”

Truth be told I wasn’t too sure what to believe, but I followed the little mans lead and scouted off in the treeline to the north whilst he stalked off to the south seemingly evaporating into the vegetation. Maisee, not bound to the sphere of rock and mud we call home as we gravity bound peasants are, exhaled disapprovingly at our actions and with an almighty beating of her wings took to the sky. Now that she was off the ground I couldn’t help but marvel at the form and grace she had in the sky, to use the reverse of an analogy that I had heard but never seen, it was like seeing a fish out of water, but you know…in reverse…a fish in water, you get it.

I stalked through the trees as quietly as I could, my senses dialed up to 11 and my heart settled into slow gentle rhythm, this was where I felt familiar, the coiled spring,the nocked arrow just waiting to explode. I stalked forward from tree to tree, Quickly looking through the tree line to see if I could spot Gondar but giving up quickly. I get the feeling I wouldn’t see him again until he wanted to be seen. I did however spot Maisee through a break in the tree cover hovering like a dark omen in the sky. I was about to wave to try and get her attention when I heard multiple thunks of taught bow lines being loosed ahead of me. In slow motion I watched the same black flighted arrows we found impalong the horses sail through the air in an arc towards her.

She saw the arrows, but it was too late. they peppered about her body and her wings stopped their rhythmic flapping whilst they processed this sudden new stimulus, sending her immediately into a free fall out of my sight.

My head snapped around towards where I heard the shot originate from and I saw a flash of something green in the brush. There was no time to wait, I exploded out from my cover and loosed myself at the shooter. As I flew through the brush I felt a sudden, sharp pain explode in my left shoulder, my eyes focused on the origin of the pain and saw a black flighted arrow sticking out of it. Clenching my teeth I ripped the arrow from my shoulder and spoke the words I had spoken a thousand times before, words passed down from fighter to fighter, words without meaning to me but with a purpose. As I finished them I could feel some ancient force repairing the wound in my shoulder.

Diving through a large blueberry bush I grasped the mystery archer from behind, locking my left arm around his neck and another arm under his right armpit forming a restraining choke. With the creature now in my arms I knew it to be a goblin, weak and cowardly. Easy to kill when you can manage to get your hands on them, but quite sneaky if left unchecked.

Feeling confident I could now drag this pest out into the open and pay him back for puncturing my flying friend I suddenly remembered the second thunk from before…and In the brush I saw another flash of green.

The next few seconds happened very fast and very slow at the same time

I had expected the Goblin in my arms to attempt to break free from my grasp, this was a common and understandable reaction from creatures need to breathe. I was prepared for this and was confident it wouldn’t succeed an attempt to break loose, playing a part in the act to make them believe they had a chance by loosening my grip slightly when they struggled, this method served to keep them from resorting to the more stabby responses, the panicked brain is not an intelligent brain. The goblin brain however is a biologically evil brain and this particular goblin immediately defaulted to stabby. Leaving the goblins left hand free was a foolish mistake on my part which I was now going to pay for. I watched the filthy evil creature slide a cruel looking dagger out of his filthy garments and bury it into the flesh of my thigh, gritting my teeth as I felt the tip of the dagger scrape bone. I had no time to process the pain however because it was immediately followed by another arrow puncturing my left shoulder blade. The colour from the world started to fade as my grip loosened on the goblin and I felt my balance give way.

So this was how my story was going to end. I felt sorry for the reader, the last few chapters really were a bit of a downer to a pretty excellent hero’s journey. I wasn’t scared of death, not really, I had done this dance a thousand times before and death had just become a matter of when not if, sooner rather than later. I did however feel sorry for my compariates, we didn’t know each other well but I had let them down when they needed me, so much for climbing the ladder. I had just kicked it out from underneath all of us by rushing in like a rookie, stupid.

And as I looked up to the sky for the last time the sun vanished behind the unmistakable silhouette of Death.

Maisee arced through the sky, blocking out the sun with her fully extended wings. Hanging there silent, frozen in time before swooping away obscured by the tree cover. As she vanished so did the resistance of the goblin in my arms. I let go and It fell to the floor, a lifeless pile of limbs with an arrow parked in its brain.

She had granted me a second chance, redemption.

I turned on the spot and exploded towards the origin of the second arrow. Screaming the words again to any god, entity or being that would listen, and as I raged and yelled I felt life returning to me, and knowing full well that was it, no more second chances. I approached a tree and duked to the right and back to the left quickly as an arrow sailed past my head. I saw the second goblin, and he looked terrified. I lept and we collided, a mess of limbs as we grappled. He was slick with sweat and filth but I managed to tie him up into a disgusting bow of green limbs and drag him out of the tree line and into the open. Somehow he was still able to reach for a dagger but quickly dropped it as he spotted Maisee hovering above our heads with her bow trained between its eyes.

Gondar ducked out from under a low hanging tree branch from the opposite treeline rubbing what looked like blood off his hands onto his breeches.

“Ah, how kind you saved another one for me” he said with a grin that reached his eyes.

“I saw him first little man, he’s mine” Maisee responded without the unlaying humor present in Gondars words

“I thought we might question him first, there’s bound to be….” I trailed off as all of our heads turned in unison to a figure approaching at speed on the horizon. It started low, I suppose that’s what we all heard first. Not words, just noise, a yell perhaps but broken up almost like a chant. As the figure got closer I could see it was humanoid in size with one hand holding a weapon raised in the air. If this was a further ambush it was sprung far too early…

I watched Gondar who was picking dirt out from under his fingernails with a dagger try to stifle a yawn with the back of his hand. He looked at Maisee and then to me and shrugged, I returned the shrug and returned my stare towards the figure. Even the Goblin seemed to be perplexed as to what was happening.

As it got closer I could finally make out the words the figure was yelling:

“SIIIIIIIMPLE MAAAAATTTTTT”

What on earth did that mean?
“Ah” Adrick interjected “he came”