Four goblins surrounded Aeli, the Hero of the Vale. They yammered and hooted, surrounding her. Aeli expertly swing the famed Runeblade and sliced through the armor of the first goblin, spilling its blood and its life. She swung the sword back, moving to cleave the goblin next to it in two… except her sword kept going back and back… and she fell flat on her back in front of the now joyous goblins, who rushed in with their crude spears to end her life…

And so started the first combat of the resurrection of my solo game with @thePrincessWife- Angie. It has been almost 4 years (March of 2011) since we last played, when Aeli (Angie’s character) managed to insult the ambassador of the Southron Empire and miss on the apology (Jeff Rient’s Carousing rules FTW!) But with time on my hands now, and a little bit of brain power to devote to thinking about gaming, we gleefully jumped into a game this weekend. We pulled out miniatues, dusted off books, I converted things to a simpler D&D (using OD&D / S&W WhiteBox – sixes and twenties, yo!) And we got to playing elf games once again.

I had to reconnect Angie with the campaign progress and status, so I had typed up a recap in our Obsidian Portal campaign wiki. I also had to set up what the state of the world was like for her, after she had slain the Minotaur Mage and recovered a mysterious black orb. One that radiated magic and Chaos. She received warnings about the artifact from the Sage that she’s befriended, and she learned a little bit about Thyckletray, the “school” of Lawful mages. She had decided to visit Thyckletray in order to learn more about her wizard ancestor, why her family was killed over this ancestor and more about the mysterious crystal orb. However, it seems that Thyckletray has fallen into a miasma of infighting and politics – worried more about the status of each competing Tower within the school than to the lawful use of magicks within the world. And as a closing comment, the sage told her that the books she’d recovered from the Tomb of Minotaur Mage were written in a black, Chaos language, but hinted that the orb she carried was a harbinger of Death and Chaos.

Despite the bad news, Aeli decided to press on. “So how are you getting to Caleston” I asked. After going through the options available in a relatively civilized/settled area, Aeli decided to buy her own covered wagon, a 2nd nag horse to help with the wagon and a war horse for herself. Apparently converting to a silver standard gave her an excuse to spend those silver coins gave her a reason to shop (or maybe she was hoping for Black Friday prices!)

After the purchases, Aeli hunted around for her mobile healing/turning service, I mean, a cleric. :) Her first attempt was to visit the dour cleric of the Sea Goddess. (Think Grumpy Cat in cleric’s skin) If I was to describe the coversation, it went like this:

Aeli: So, Worlale (the cleric), could you send one of your acolytes with me on a secret personal mission that may be very dangerous? (flashes a smile)
Worlale: Uhhh… so the taverns with the adventuring clerics are that way…
Aeli: But… [that’ll cost me more money] …
Worlale: Have a nice day!

(The dice were not favoring Aeli on reaction rolls…)

After a brief negotiation with two adventuring clerics (after spending coin on drinks and bribes), Aeli ended up with a cleric and they were off. A day’s travel through the hills separating Westport and Valetown was a simple matter, except for bandits and goblins have been marauding through there lately… and an encounter came up.

Eight goblins jumped out and surprised the party, but they spent their surprise round demanding money and loot. Aeli drew her sword and the rest of the party jumped out of the wagon. Implementing the OD&D “Fighting Men get to beat up a lot on Less than 1HD oppoenents”, Aeli was going for the hat-trick but ended up flat on her back. Three successful goblin attacks and Aeli was looking pretty badly off. Fortunately, the battle turned her way and after scrambling to her feet, and a well placed Sleep spell, 6 goblins lay dead and 9 more were webbed or snoozing.

So, Aeli finished the trip to Valetown, met up with the local cleric there who loves her. When asked what she was doing “Oh, just looking for adventure”, the Patriarch asked “The Hero of the Vale” to help with a mysterious sighting of dragons killing cattle, destroying crops and terrorizing people. Except… dragons are a mythical creature, fables and legends only. Aeli put her travels to the mage school on hold. Off to Wyvern Falls and help local farmers!