Adventurers
The escapees fled down a mountain and found themselves some refuge in a little town built around a fortified bridge. They had a few days’ grace at the inn by doing the chores but, when three young locals went missing while foraging, it was to these expendable newcomers that the citizenry turned. After all, they had their own weapons and armoured looted from the slavers. Directed towards the last known location, a derelict keep upriver, the escapees picked up a passing ruffian, Retch, and set off.
Seeing little sign of the trio in the area around the keep, the group made for the gatehouse, its last standing structure. Spying a gaggle of rodent-like bipeds lounging around its open top floor, the adventurers crept close enough to get within crossbow range and pushed the ex-administrator Vincent forward to try and get some intel out of the guards. His shouted attempt at negotiations met with arrows, but the ratkin’s bows were out of range and the party were able to pick a few of them off.
With the rest hunkering down and insisting that their boss was refusing the party’s demands, Retch crept around to the blind side with the protesting Pinchy, and they quietly clambered atop what now constituted the building’s roof. The remaining ratlings were sitting ducks. As the pair dispatched them, they heard terrified squeals down below.
With the way now clear, the rest of the party approached the gatehouse and pushed inside while the sneaky pair dropped down through a hole in the floor. Creeping through the corridors which quartered the building, they readied themselves by two doors which they anticipated would lead to one large room. However, there was a cry from the back as Vincent toppled into a hidden pit, and one of the doors flew open presenting a large and angry-looking rodent humanoid.
It leapt upon Emilia while the other half of the party pushed through their door and fell upon more of the ratlings. The scuffle was vicious with the adventurers’ pilfered armour just enough to give them the edge. Retch went down with a spear to the chest, and Vincent was teetering in and out of consciousness, but the group cleared out their rodent opponents.
Scouting the rest of the gatehouse, they cornered some more ratlings in what passed for a kitchen, and discovered Deirdre, one of the missing young adults, locked in a cupboard. They tied up the cowed rodents and, restraining the furious young woman from brutalising her former captors, forced them to lead the party to a trapdoor down where apparently the other two prisoners had been taken.
Deciding that required more preparation, the adventurers bagged up some gold and silverware they’d added to their collection of purloined goodies and returned with Deirdre and their prisoners to town where at last they could pay their bill.