Budget Adventurers

The Budget Adventurers campaign was an intro campaign to the setting of the Shokugon Empire. It was run by Tropingenie.

## Characters

### Player Characters

* Jack, the Human Monk, played by Zerxrez
* Kraxneed, the Crocodilian Barbarian, played by Popcorn
* Pie, the Ratfolk Bard, played by Arcane
* Leneae, the Kisune Spawn Sorcerer, played by Arch
* Elena, the Kitsune Spawn Bard, played by Zerxrez

### Notable NPCs

* Chief Kamitsu, an elderly Tortillian and the village chief
* Frank, a robust crocodillian and self-proclaimed town guard

## Campaign

### Session 1

The players, after investigating the mandragora and determining they had been harvested, not foraged by a wild animal, proceeded forward with little caution. Jack and Kraxneed did take the vanguard, however, they were not observant enough to notice the archers lying in wait, and both were struck with arrows. Jack was hit hard, bloodied in an instant, so Pie quickly cast healing magic on him. Jack dashed forward, foolhardy but string: He slew two goblins in the time it took Kraxneed to slay one. But that proved Jack's undoing, for he was not immune to arrows. Kraxneed, too, fell to the goblin's blade as Pie and Lenei showed their mettle. The goblins cut their losses, and retreated, but it was too late. By the time Pie had revived Kraxneed, and begun attending to their other fallen comrade, he was both out of magic and exhausted. Blood spewed from Jack's neck, and when Pie finally stopped the bleeding, he noticed: So, too, had stopped Jack's breathing.

The players returned to the village, and informed the chief of Jack's demise.

### Session 2

Evening drew, and most of the villagers returned to the village. As was common, there was a gathering by the large firepit in the center of town. But, that day, something was clearly amiss: The bonfire lay unlit, and the fire tender, Elena, was nowhere to be found. Thus, more folk than usual gathered, out of respect for the dead.

It was a ritual no villager, from the smallest child to the oldest elder, would not know the meaning of, and so a somber silence dominated the square. But among the silence, there can’t help but be those who are curious, and in the interim before it was dark enough to start the rites, a question was muttered:

“Hey, Pie. You’re a knowledgeable guy, you know who… Well, you know.”

Frank and Pie had a brief conversation, explaining the events that had occurred in the mandragora investigation. After their conversation faded into silence, and then some more time further, the village chief appeared with Lenae in tow.

He carried upon his back a wicker chair, in which sat Jack, wrapped in burial cloths. As Lenae performed the funeral rites, Kamitsu carried the chair and set it atop the pyre. Once the Lenae's speech came to a close, she somberly lit the fire.

As the night drew on and the fire burned down, all the villagers present trickled away until only Lenae remained, staring into the last of the dying coals. Frank, patrolling as he said he would do earlier, passed by, asking about her well being and advising her to not stay out too late. After he left, Lenae stayed out a little while longer, and just as she was about to head back to the house to sleep, she heard a cracking sound echo from the gloom. But, peer into the darkness and strain her ears as she did, she could not detect any sign of a threat. But, perhaps still slightly wary or perhaps simply her strong reflexes, Lenae dodged to the side as a crude blade swung at her back from the gloom. She quickly cast minor illusion, creating an alarm sound she called "klaxon," while at the same time a bell began ringing from the direction Frank had gone.

Elena quickly stepped out of the house to help her sister, and goblins began pouring out of the woodwork. After dealing with the nearby goblins and saving Lenae, Frank deduced that the next wave of goblins was coming, and that they needed to take cover. In the meantime, Kraxneed had been unable to find most of his gear in the pitch black, and had been rather unsuccessfully trying to hit the goblins with rocks he picked up off the ground.

Lenae and Frank quickly joined Lenae in the house, and began barring the doors and shuttering the windows. At the same time, Pie ran out, heading toward's the chief's house, while Kraxneed attempted to circle the town center through the swamp and assault the remaining two hobgoblins from behind.

As Pie ran to the chief's hut, Lenae and Elena engaged in a shootout with the hobgoblins, who wielded longbows. Lenae went down, but Frank quickly saved her with a healing potion he had on him. In the meantime, Pie had reached the chief's house and found him unconscious. As arrows rained on the house and Frank was even shot through a closed door, Pie found the supply cache the chief had prepared for later, and gave the chief a potion from it.

Shortly after Pie revived the chief, a goblin leader attacked the hut. With the chief's help, Pie slew the attacker, and the two of them dashed out to break the stalemate. At the same time, Elena was noticing a smashing sound coming from the pilings beneath their house, and Frank, Elena, and Lenae prepared for a final push. The chief fucking carried and the two hobgoblins ended up dead, while Frank and co killed the final goblin leader.

### Session 3

The chief spoke with the party in the aftermath, and had Elena explain the vision she had told him about earlier that day. He petitioned them to continue their investigation, to ensure that the goblins wouldn't carry out another attack.

The party returned to where they first saw the goblins, burning the corpses there and exploring the area. Seeing some ruins, they wondered if it was a dungeon. Elena explained that there wasn't enough magic in the area for a dungeon to form, since they were too far from URealms where magic originated. She was only half correct, but it's not like anyone was going to leak government secrets to win an argument today. They found the remains of the goblin encampment, and burned the large, crude tent that was erected there. Meanwhile, Pie had climbed the tallest hill, and was surveying the area. Seeing a thin column of smoke rising over the forest in the distance, he took the lead on navigating the forest to investigate its source. Hours later, they emerged from the shrubbery to find... Swamp Town.

Pie had, of course, taken them the wrong direction, perhaps in part due to a second column of smoke now rising: Chief Kamitsu had taken Elena's place as fire tender, and had lit the fire. After Elena let him know the fire wasn't usually lit until later, Pie gave the chief a status update.

The chief thought a bit, and suggested they examine the Onsen Mountains to the East, to see if they could find where the goblins came from. He explained that his worry was a dungeon had spawned there, and a larger threat was to come.

The chief did, in fact, suggest the party retrace their steps to verify if the goblins had come from the mountains, but instead the party headed dead East to simply scour the mountains for signs of a dungeon.

After around a day's travel, the brush and trees gave way to a more defined path. Perhaps a game trail, or something more, but the party didn't investigate: They were ready to set up camp. That night, Elena saw for a split second a pillar of fire rising in the North, and Pie fell asleep.

In the morning, based on Elena's vision, the party decided to follow the road North. They eventually noticed some fallen trees in the road, but seeing nothing amiss continued to approach.

“That’s far enough!” a gruff voice called out. “State your business!”

Five Grasslands humans appeared, swords out and bows nocked but not drawn.

After asking the leader who he was, and hearing his rather frank statement that they were bandits, the party decided to backtrack a bit. Elena took the lead this time, attempting to circumnavigate the bandits' roadblock. It took some time--it was far enough from Swamp Town that Elena's trove of local knowledge was beginning to fail her--but she got them back to the trail by nightfall.

That night, most of the party took notice of an extreme lack of wildlife. The bushes were barren, and not a creature flew in the night sky. They soothed their minds by trying to logically explain away the phenomenon, saying it was their proximity to the mountains and not considering a more sinister reason.

On the third day, shortly after embarking once more, Elena got the feeling they were in the right place.

### Session 4

After investigating the area, the party chanced upon goblin corpses. They seemed to have been fleeing from somewhere, so the party traced the tracks back to a cave.

After much deliberation over who should carry what light source, the party entered the cave, straining their eyes and ears to detect the sign of... Whatever had run inside. As the light began to illuminate the cave, they were stopped in their tracks:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

Two humans, dressed similarly as the bandits from earlier, rounded the corner. Brandishing their blades, they made half-hearted threats to drive the party out of the cave. Elena, quick on her feet, sent one to sleep with magic, and shouted "attack!"

Nobody else moved.

"Hey, what the heck?" exclaimed the human who remained awake, shaking awake the other one.

After some discussion with the humans, who were insistent they were bandits and made an occasional verbal threat, the party reconvened outside, and discussed their plan of action. The discussion took so long, that the two humans from earlier returned, and resumed their threats. The party took the opportunity to gather some intel, and they learned that the bandits had taken camp fairly recently and didn't know why the goblins had fled or what killed them.

Things took so long that another group began to draw near; the sound of hooves in the dirt were first noticed by Pie, then drew into earshot of the others. They suspected centaurs at first, but were eventually proven wrong when the bandits from earlier drew near.

The captain reiterated the threats, and that they were scary bandits who wouldn't hesitate to kill the party. He was rather disinterested though, and allowed them to flee. In a passing conversation, the bandit captain said that the cave was their base, and that they had killed the goblins, but upon hearing Elena's suspicion that the cave was a dungeon seemed to grow more wary, and ended the conversation there.

With some final threats, the bandits drew their weapons and entered the cave, leaving the party to deliberate. Most of them moved to leave, but Kraxneed and Elena both seemed to want to stay. The former was observing the cave entrance, straining his ears, but could hear nothing. The latter had a premonition, that a "heart of fire" lay within the cave. Unable to discern anything else, she walked back to the entrance too peer within. Inside, she saw---

Gouts of fire burst from the depths of the cave, blasting out the entrance tunnel and vaporizing anything in its path. From within the cave, following the blast, echoed a deep and furious roar. The party, or what remained of it, didn't stick around to find out what caused that roar. They fled without a second thought, not even time to mourn their companion's certain death.

With a fleeting glance, Pie confirmed the worst had occurred: Nothing remained, but a sole dragon exiting the cave.

It came as no surprise that the return journey only took two days. After returning to the village, and informing Chief Kamitsu of the tragedy, he retreated to his abode. Pie, concerned, followed him, and eventually coaxed out that the villagers were free to do as they pleased. Kamitsu would stay, to lead whoever stayed behind and the preserve the homes of those that left. He also gave Pie a letter, to be delivered to the adventurer's guild in the nearest city, Mirashi.

Pie ran into Frank, who was also preparing to leave, on his way back to their shared house. They met back up with Lenae and Kraxneed, who were spreading word of the evacuation. It wasn't long before they, and a procession of the displaced, began their exodus.

#### Epilogue

Meanwhile, Elena had awoken. Completely naked, she lay on a bed of stones, and as far as her darkvision could pierce the gloom saw nothing more than the same across the cavern. Cautiously making her way, in search of an exit, she came across a large mass different to stone. From within, much more strongly than before, she sensed the "heart of fire." His scales shone a brilliant green, though in the dark it was impossible to tell, and he was an ancient dragon. He spoke to Elena, apologizing for her death and casually mentioning his god-like status. Tired though he seemed, Elena tried to follow through with every bard's dream of seducing the dragon. Seeing her as nothing more than a child, to whom he had no relation, the dragon was bemused nonetheless. Practically on a whim, he touched his snout to her heart:

"I bestow upon you the heart of fire. Take it, and..."

Elena's consciousness faded once more, and his final words to her faded out of hearing.