On the Road

**"On the Road"** is Chapter 9 of *The Vagabond Chronicles* series. The episode begint with our heroes heroes as they escape towards the North through the Black Mountains.

## Summary

The wagon has lost its mortar and cannon so the party can move faster towards the Black Mountains. Rattigan passes his initiative test to take a posing lunge against the weapon(causing his bathrobe to open up). Ziggy is the only one who sees this and shouts 'Mein Gott' at whatever he seems. Bondo is pounding back cans of yellow Minotaur 'feel the beast/gives you hooves'. Ditrich von (unknown) uses Minotaur piss to make a quick buck and turned it into energy drinks giving him +10 to initiative. Teddy decides to keep the one crossbow on the cart, detaching the other one over the side. Vixen turns to Ziggy, who was bowing, as she elbows him in the neck to shuffle past him. Bondo gets a critical succes and he sees that Ricecake isn't looking good and could die of exhaustion. He also sees that they have a self-healing aspect, as the sinews are trying to close up again but the running keeps breaking open the recently closed wounds. Rattigan remembers that he has a cone of healing and failing the intelligence test he believes this is an *fantastic idea* and his **brain claps at him.** Rattigan decides to not do it, seeing as they're self-healing all they need to do, is to stop the wagon for a bit. Bondo comes to the same realisation. Teddy says 'stuff the penguins, keep going, push 'em' to which bondo responds 'Why would you want to stuff a penguin? Bloody half-ling!'

The goblin horns can be heard from the Valley side as Blitzen points them out to the party. Six goblins riding wolfs come down the valley sides, still about 2 rounds away. The party gets +10 to their weapon skill since they now know the enemies tactics. Teddy fires the crossbow and hits a rider, knocking him out of his saddle and tumbles down. The wolf stops and is sniffing the air, growling towards the goblin and attacking it. Blitzen is aiming her spear towards the riders and it distracts Ziggy. Dasher tells Rattigan to stop the wagon. The wolf rider has a fantastic singing voice singing 'have a banana', which distracts Ziggy who gets a critical miss, losing his repeating crossbow. Rattigan hold out his hand as Spidge delivers some Innkeeper butter in it, which Rattigan uses to cast Butterfingers on the rider. The goblin just falls off and rolls down the valley hill. Bondo sees the Franky Sanatri goblin who's about to throw a spear at him. Bondo passes his leadership test with luck as he moves the wagon to run Franky over. Bondo raises his arm where the spear sails underneath it and completely misses him. Bondo succeeds on a weapons kill test (+20), killing Franky. The other riders approach the wagon and Dr Dasher managed to barely step away in time as a pilot hits the shield. Rattigan gets hits by a spear, suffering 1 wound. The other goblins go to retreat mourning Franky (who gets his own shrine).

The party doesn't feel like another attack is imminent, they are about 500-600 yards away from the woodlands and the river. Bondo understands that they could probably hide for cover there and recover, so he steers the penguins that direction. The wagon gets parked into the cave where the party can recover. Vixen is standing guard outside. Bondo tries to help Dasher with treating Prancer next to him, grabbing his tools out. Bondo uses Magic Flame, which calms the war penguins down a bit. Ziggy tells Bondo to snuff it so the enemies can't find them and he does so. Time passes but no more enemies come for the party. Dasher stands up straight and sighs deeply as he walks towards the cart. Bondo is going to investigate the small cave tunnel. Rattigan fails a initiative test, looking slack-jawed into the distance. Vixen is starting a fire telling Rattigan to gather some firewood. Blitzen is saying something to Prancer as his hands come up to the side of her face and then the hand falls down as Blitzen places it on his chest. The party takes some time to recover and rest. Rattigan goes up to ask her for his burial rights, to which Blitzen replies that her brother needs to be wrapped up and taken back to the homeland. Blitzen places her hand on his shoulder causing Ziggy to drop his sword, before quickly picking it up again. Bondo goes to dig a hole to which Blitzen replies with fury 'We do not bury our dead like you do, filthdwellers!', after which she finds rags on the cart and start wrapping Prancer's body. Vixen throws some fishes towards Bondo, telling him 'these are for the beasts, you insensitive pig' before moving over to Blitzen to help her. They are both elves but they are clearly different subraces of elves. The penguins start eating the fish and honk enthusiastically

Rattigan uses this time to take a quick rest as he recovers 4 magic points and 2 hp. Bondo recovers 1 hp back. Dasher and Blitzen pulls out a rough map of the area, the party being south-east and the burial grounds (of Karnos) at Loren forest. She looks at Rattigan and ask him to follow her, to talk to the speaker of Karnos. Dasher says they should go to La Maison Tal, since he's an initiate of the order of Tal. It's in the grey mountains about 1-2 weeks travel. The party huddles together and decides where to go. Dasher joins the huddle and gets shoo'ed by Bondo. The majority of the party decides to want to go to Maison Tal. Rattigan tells the elves about their decision but tells them that he loves to visit their woods some other time. Blitzen says they will go north-west to bury the body and tells Rattigan to join them soon, since she thinks their paths are intertwined, as she hands him this little leaf made of a metal material. They lift the body onto the sleds and start carrying the body out. Blitzen wishes the party luck and says she hopes their fates meet again at some point, before her and Vixen exit the cave and head towards the forest.

## Quotes

Teddy: 'stuff the penguins, keep going, push 'em' to Bondo responds: 'Why would you want to stuff a penguin? Bloody half-ling!'

(alternative) Franky: 'Fly me to the...ARGGGH'

Franky: 'Start spreading the news....AAAARGHHH'

## Trivia

* This episode didn't have a hand colored piece of art like most of the episodes.
* The GM choked on the pizza he was eating in this episode.
* This is the first episode that has an official intro by Neil and a retelling by Bondo
* The intro is 3 minutes long
* One of the penguins might be called Ricecake?
* Ziggy is played (reluctantly) by Neil this session (and the party collectively at times)
* Neil has a great singing voice
* At the end of the session the whole party gets 300 experience points