Family Picnic

The Runners went out for a walk outside Glimmerton, looking for a nice spot to have a picnic.

Instead, they came across an agitated old woman being corralled by a young man claiming to be her grandson, but this lie was immediately sussed out by Goro -- plus, he and Larkin spotted archers being shifty on the roofs of the little fishing village, and Larkin called out to them. At the same time, Mishka himself claimed to be the (human) woman's grandson, and the young man gave up and just shoved the old woman over. She claimed that he was a pirate, and he and his crew were attacking her village and trying to run the civilians out so that they could establish a little pirate outpost.

The young man shrugged and said, "You got me."

The gang excused themselves under the guise of not caring, discussed, and came back -- Larkin scouting around first, and Mishka and Goro using hold person on a couple of isolated pirates so that the others could murder them with impunity. Goro then lied his way within five feet of the pirate captain and dimension doored her back to his friends to continue doing murder. She called for aid, alerting her crew to the gang's presence, and the pirates descended on the Runners.

As they went, they murdered the townsfolk in their way, and Mishka became concerned about the fate of Gwendolyn, a former knight who lived in the town and was the only one attempting to fight back, alongside her peasant sister Tabitha -- both of them the granddaughters of the old woman who initially accosted the gang. They were hidden from sight by a building, so Mishka got a volunteer from the crowd -- Raef -- and dimension doored over to check things out. Unfortunately, this put them right in the line of fire of three archer fighters, who action surged and dealt massive damage to Mishka, even with him protected by Goro's Shield of Faith and his own Shield spell. He was knocked unconscious, and three other nearby pirates dealt similar damage to Raef and knocked him out as well.

Meanwhile, the other Runners contended with their own pirate problems, unaware of the plight of the elves. Luckily, the pirates didn't finish them off, and Mishka managed to regain consciousness and cracked Raef back to Luci, who got him on his feet. The first mate had already absconded with a few other crewmen as well as Gwendolyn and Tabitha.

Once the Runners finished off the rest with a combination of sickening radiance, fireball, and entangle, Larkin non-fatally shot the sole survivor, and Goro and Mishka interrogated him. He had no loot to give, frantically explaining that his crew had fallen on hard times, which was why they were inland attempting to rob peasants. He assumed his pals had gone back to their previous camp, perhaps intending to ransom the knight and her sister. The gang let him go.

"You always have to leave one alive," Mishka remarked.

The old woman entreated the Runners to save her granddaughters, to which Goro stole Larkin's line by responding, "What's in it for us?" The old woman and two other surviving villagers promised to scrape up whatever gold they could, and the Runners put a pin in the quest.

They still had a picnic to eat, after all.