James & Rosha

James and Rosha are traveling down a road with a small group of guards. Most new players might think this was to protect them but Rosha knows the truth. As a wayward uncle put it, “They are there to be buzzkills”. Her aunt was quick to correct him and tell her they are there to prevent new players from joining a bandit group without the authorities knowing. Then she thwacked him when he started to complain about it.

What is confusing Rosha at the moment though is how few dwarves are accompanying them. Even if they aren’t strictly there to protect them, they still are there as a deterrent. However the dwarves only sent a couple of low level soldiers to travel with James. Rosha on the other hand has a full complement of 6 guards with a nice mix of professions.

James on the other hand is cursing his rotten luck. The fool's back at the mountain settlement where blind! He barely started to preach the truth to them before the elders forced him out. Even now they shame him with the two idiots sent to ‘guard’ him. When the other players where learning the secret dwarven teachings he had to travel to the nearby village. His natural charisma allowed him to con a couple of fools into carrying him through the newbie content but even then one of them was useless to him. How can anyone level that slowly? And the fool thinks he will grow into a power later! James can only thank his lucky stars that he ditched the idiot.

During their travel, neither James nor Rosha are particularly talkative. For one, the split from a friend was saddening while the other was planning how to convert his guards. It isn’t until they set up camp that they talk.

Rosha starts, “I will miss Jason. He was a fun guy despite not being a myconid.” James doesn’t even bother to respond beyond a groan. Rosha assumes this is just his disapproval of the pun and attempt to lighten the mood. While partly correct James is more annoyed that she actually misses the idiot they allowed to be the leader of the party. Not to reveal his hand too soon he eventually speaks up, “We can only try and breakthrough as soon as possible. When he breaks through, we will need to be able to travel wherever he is if we want to meet up. Until then being with him would waste everyone’s time.”

With a sigh Rosha can only agree with him before muttering something about going to bed early. This suits James just fine as it will allow him to work on the two idiots barely worthy of being called dwarves.

Next morning they both wake up refreshed. James feel he has made headway with the dwarves and Rosha got some extra sleep. With such a nice start to the day things soon sour. Bandits show up and shake them down. Of course not before offering them a job. The guards stand to the side and chat with the person leading the bandits. They very obviously know each other quite well. James just curses his incompetent guards. Rosha on the other hand can only sigh. She rightly assumes with how smoothly this went that this was a planned part of their trip. Though unlike James she spent most of her money on some new armor before they left so she didn’t lose much.

After the shakedown, Rosha notices that James seems to have changed a bit. Instead of sitting back, he tries to order the dwarven guards around. At first she assumed the robbery shook him. However as another day passes she notices there is more to it. He seems smug every time they do what he wants and devolves into cursing if they don’t.

The fourth day and he gets worse, even trying to order her guards around. They of course are having none of it. Once they put him in his place Rosha hears something she wasn’t meant to. Under his breath James mutters, “useless plebs, only dwarves are worth my time anyway!”. As her uncle would also say, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. He always enjoyed old literature though that describes the current affairs for her so she doesn’t mind using it.

There is only one more day before they reach their destination so she decides to get some answers tonight. As usual Rosha claims she is going to hit the hay early. She heads into her tent and lies down, letting her breathing settle. She doesn’t go to sleep though, instead using her ranger training to reduce her presence and focus on what she can hear. Even going as far as to activate a skill the others didn’t know she had. Mouthing the words “Enhance Hearing” is enough for her to hear everything going on in the camp. She hadn’t planned to hide the skill but it never came up after she got it. The last bit of training with her instructor brought it out. Enhanced Hearing isn’t even a skill the instructor was trying to teach but her rabbitkin nature upgraded the less powerful “Careful Listening” to it.

Out in the camp not much changes right away. The guards are all talking among themselves. Mostly observations about their trip so far. Things like how the grass was browner over the last day and that means summer was coming early this year. Very useful stuff for a ranger to know. This casual conversation is more than worth staying up later to Rosha. She does generally prefer to get to bed early and sleep in late but the game might just break that habit. Her mother would surely be ecstatic about this. In fact, the conversation is so interesting she almost misses what she stayed up for in the first place.