Session 1: All's Wild on the Western Front

## Overview

**Date:** 19th of Bloom, 695

**Location(s)**: Malborak's Pass, Goldenmaul Order

## Summary

### That Old Tengu Charm

Abilene McCaw was the first of the party to arrive at Malborak's Pass. Although she had purchased a stagecoach ticket from the company, she did not have any identifying papers or writs of transit. Relying on her charm and wit, she spun up a yarn to the guard in the booth both singing the praises of the Goldenmaul Order and fabricating her own tragic backstory. The guard was moved and decided to help her through.

### Queue Up or Square Up

A few spaces back, David Goodbarrel overheard their conversation and learned for the first time that he needed papers to pass through the gate. To gain more time, he slipped behind a goliath that was queued up behind him. Seeing the goliath's treasure chest, he opened it up to find various metals and tools. David dropped an unidentified metal ingot, which got the goliath's attention. After failing to fool the goliath, David ran further back into the line.

Casmire watched the argument escalate. When David bumped into him, he took the halfling beneath his cloak and hid him from the angry goliath. Guards swarmed the area, but Casmire stepped up to the booth and was cleared for entry. Taking the name "Frederick," he was given the surname Booker by the gatekeeper.

### Herr Professor

At this point, Professor Hieronymus Strauss arrived at Malborak's Pass. With his MK0 thaumatomaton Abigail in a trunk, and a line of dozens of people being hassled by the guards, Strauss smelled opportunity. He offered Abigail's superior senses to go through the crowd and got the approval of a Goldenmaul knight. Abigail sniffed out a gnome who had smuggled three crystal orbs which contained an unidentified gas. As a reward, Strauss was ushered into the fortress.

### The Seedy Underground

Inside the central concourse of the fortress, Casmire agreed to help David find or steal a stagecoach ticket. While scoping out marks, the pair drew Abilene's attention. Having pegged them for criminals, she decided to join up and help pay for David's ticket. They found Strauss dragging his trunk through the concourse. Abilene approached while David, traumatized from his early trunk-related experience, held back. Strauss eagerly engaged in conversation with Abilene, showing off Abigail and discussing the intricacies of firearms and fulmenic technology. Casmire and David left to buy David's ticket, while Abilene helped carry Strauss's trunk to their station.

### The Bird and the Brain

Heading to the station, Abilene and Strauss were stopped by two Goldenmaul guards. As they seemed to recognize them, the guards asked, then demanded, they come with them. When one moved behind Strauss to grab Abilene, she drew Strol and fired point-blank at him. The wounded guard grabbed her and disarmed her and the other beat her unconscious with a truncheon . Strauss opened the trunk and activated Abigail, who latched onto one of the guards with a bite and let off a fulmenic discharge, frying one guard instantly. The remaining guard, holding Abilene's unconscious body, picked up Strol and pointed it at her. He threatened to blow her brains out unless Strauss surrendered. Strauss, realizing the gun was unloaded, began pelting the guard with the scraps and gizmos in his trunk. Lobbing a wrench into the guard's crotch, he keeled over and bled out on the ground.

### The Battle over the Bounty

Casmire and David bought a ticket for a seat that was originally for the gnome smuggler that had been caught by Strauss. As they were walking to their station, Casmire kept an eye out for their own safety, until he saw his own face. On the back wall of a tavern named Stumbledy's Drink, there were dozens of bounty posters plastered all over. In addition to Casmire's own, he found posters for David, Abilene, Strauss, the Man of Gears, the Prince of Dregs, Dead Hand Hudeiras, and Manticore Jack. He and David entered the tavern, and Casmire cast his cloak over the halfling. Under the cover of the cloak, David ripped down Casmire's poster but the noise alerted the other patrons of the bar.

The people in the tavern, bartenders and patrons, turned out to be Stumbledon agents and recognized Casmire and David. One Stumbledon seized David and dragged him away. As another Stumbledon failed to grab him, Casmire summoned Kucheka, the demon attached to his soul, to free David. The other Stumbledons grabbed crossbows and shot bolts at Casmire. With Kucheka's help, David killed the agent grabbing him by stabbing him through his brain. He returned to Casmire's side. One of the remaining Stumbledons struck down Kucheka and, their soul link severed, Casmire dropped dead. David thrust his rapier through the nearest agent's heart, grabbed Casmire's corpse, and dragged him out of the tavern.

### Book It to the West, Young Men

David saw Strauss and Abigail standing over a couple of dead guards and started running over. Strauss, seeing Casmire's corpse, went back to collect it, putting both him and Abilene into the trunk. By now, the alarm had been raised throughout the fort and dozens of guards were alerted. As the guards started chasing them, they fled into the scattering crowd. Running into the market, they went past a stalled fruit cart and made their way into a maze of alleyways carved into the stone fortress. With the guards on their tail, they slipped into a crumbling service tunnel that served as a shortcut to the western gate. The gate, locked and barred, was picked, pulled, and bashed open by just enough for Abigail to get the trunk through.

Having won a few minutes before the guards would catch up to them, they hurried over to their stagecoach. There they met the driver Tokas Thistleboots and armed guard Aurok Hornchaser, who dawdled on before the party got them going. As they crossed over a hill, the great Shield Colossus came alive and scanned over the landscape. With an army of Goldenmauls flooding the staging area, the party set off along the road, westward bound.