Grumble the Dwarf woke up wondering where he was and why. He seemed to be shackled to a wall and had company around him. The ground was littered with odd items, some chicken bones, a belt, a wooden spoon. What had he done to his dwarven gods to deserve this?!
Next to him was and odd assortment of people, he looked over and saw Percival, or so he thought his name might be. Engaging the strangers, he gatherer there was a thief and a Magic User, along with goodness knows what. After some efforts using a chicken bone, he and Percival picked their locks and tasked the thief to help the others.
When the guard came in, they jumped him and killed him. Exiting the room, they killed another three captors, losing a fellow prisoner. By bad luck, a crossbow bolt took Grumble across the side of the head, bringing him a hair’s breadth of death. To his great surprise, one companion was a holy woman and she healed him – extraordinary!
Exploring the rooms around their cell, they encountered a stock of crossbows and bolts, which they armed themselves with before taking the stairs up.
Emerging into a grey rainy day, they saw they were in a stockade, with no immediate egress. Following the wall to the right, they skirted some sort of barrack and came around the bottom of it. There they saw a cage with a pair of resting bloodhounds and their handler. They managed to take them by surprise and killed the human and one dog, wounding the other. Leather clad guards arrived and were also engaged from a distance, taking two down before the 3rd one fled. However, sounds emerged from the barracks to their right and so they hurried across past the dog handler’s tent, losing a colleague on the way.
Grumbler and Percival saw the gate to their left – a large and rough-hewn item, with a solid wooden crossbar. It took two tries, but they lifted the bar out of place, while their fellow prisoners held off the guards issuing forth. Pushing the gate open, Percival and Grumble ran into the depth of the nearby forest. They were free!