Adventure begins at the library! Read the chapter and vote by 2pm each Saturday to influence which way the story should go. A new part of the story will be posted every Monday throughout the summer. Read Chapter 1 here.
~ CHAPTER 2 ~
After guiding the merchant safely to her destination, you look around for an inn—always a promising place to find adventurers. Sure enough, as soon as you enter the city’s most prominent inn (The Happy Accident), you spot a group of three adventurers in the corner, identified by their clothes and weapons.
After describing your quest, they are happy to help, especially if there’s money in it for them. You set off at daybreak, heading for the place where you and the merchant were assaulted by goblins. It isn’t difficult to pick up their trail—they left traces all over the forest. As you walk through the forest, following your tracker, you wonder where the goblins could have gone. You’ve seen goblins make their lairs in tree houses, inside hills, and on mountaintops. Sometimes, though, goblins nest in dungeons: ancient, abandoned underground structures. However, you won’t know until you find where the tracks lead.
Three hours after you started tracking the goblins, the tracker loses the trail at the edge of a small lake. It looks like they went into the water, facing north, but there’s nothing on the other side. After about thirty minutes, she gives up: if there were tracks leading away from the lake, she would have found them.
Some outside-the-box thinking is required. Obviously, the goblins could not have grown wings and flown away. Anything big enough to carry a goblin while flying would look upon one as prey, so that’s not an option either. Then, just like that, you hit upon it! Feeding the lake is an enormous waterfall, but you can see that there is a space behind it. The goblins must have their lair in there!
You lead your party of adventurers stealthily around to it, and use a line of stepping stones to reach the waterfall. You draw your weapons and jump in behind the curtain of water, ready to fight! You find yourselves in a huge cavern, lit by coal-burning braziers. The firelight creates flickering shadows, writhing ominously on the damp walls.
A pack of goblins are milling about the cavern, but when you enter, they snarl and draw their weapons. There look to be almost too many of them for you and your new friends to fight! You:
1. Run away—ahem, tactically retreat—and escape into the forest with the rest of your band.
2. Try to fight the goblins, and push on into their lair.
3. Try to talk to the goblins instead of fighting them—intimidation, or bribery.