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kittymaine · 29 days

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Five Idiots Look For a Cave - Chapter One

Summary: Laios and his sister Falin are hired to guard a wagon of provisions as it travels from the city of Neverwinter to the small frontier settlement of Phandalin. It seems like a dead easy job, but it quickly becomes more complicated when their employer is kidnapped by goblins, sending them on a wild goose chase across the most dangerous parts of the Sword Coast in search of him with a ragtag group of unlikely allies.

Or, I make the dunmeshi guys play through the Lost Mines of Phandelver, because why not.

A/N: This is such a weird project to tag and explain, but I'm going to try.

For those familiar with Delicious In Dungeon, but not Dungeons & Dragons: The Lost Mines of Phandelver is the scenario/campaign that's provided in the starter set that you can buy for Dungeons & Dragons. I've run this campaign a bunch of times during my years playing Dungeons & Dragons and I thought the characters of dunmeshi were just begging to be dropped into a D&D game. So, that's what I did. The plot of this story is the campaign, Lost Mines of Phandelver, and whenever the characters need to do something, I roll dice to see whether they can do it or not. Combat, investigation, everything. I am literally playing this game by myself and then converting it into a fic.

For those familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, but not Delicious In Dungeon: Delicious In Dungeon is an anime set in a fantasy world where dungeon diving is a well-known career choice. The setting and characters are such a good match to Dungeons & Dragons that I had to change very little to get the characters to fit into a Forgotten Realms setting.

All that to say, the story should be digestible by anyone, even if you're not familiar with both fandoms.

Also, just a warning that I don't really have an in depth plan for this story, so I'm going to add tags and relationships as I go. I really like Chilchuck/Laios and Falin/Marcille, so those are the two pairings most likely to be added, but no promises either way. I'll make sure to warn if I add anything at the beginning of each chapter.

Laios Touden and his sister Falin stood by while the wagon they had been paid to accompany was loaded up with supplies. Young men barely more than boys hauled barrels and burlap sacks of provisions up into the old warped bed of the wagon, more passing up shovels, pickaxes and crowbars. Laios counted about twelve sacks of flour, seven casks of salted pork, two kegs of strong ale, five lanterns, and a small barrel of oil.

It was early, just an hour before dawn, but the south gate out of the city of Neverwinter was already starting to bustle with traffic. Mostly it was wagons not unlike their own, though filled with produce and other products from the farms circling the city that served to feed the swollen populace within the city walls. From farther north the smell of baking bread and roasting meat signaled the beginning of breakfast for the many people packed in close behind thick the stone walls.

Laios was ready to leave the city. He had grown up in the far north, surrounded by rolling fields, freezing cold fjords, and winter lashed forests. He had lived in a lot of places since he had left his home, but cities were never his favorite. There were too many people, too close, all smelling and talking and leaving their things everywhere. He was looking forward to being outside the city walls for a while, but they had to wait until the wagon was full before they could leave.

“Toudens!” a boisterous voice called from the main thoroughfare.

Falin, standing beside him and watching the loading of the wagon with more interest than Laios, smiled and raised her hand at the call. Slower, Laios raised his hand as well, to wave to their most recent employer.

A dwarf with rust colored red hair and beard sitting atop a pretty dapple gray pony split from the little stream of people leaving the city through the south gate and came toward Laios and the steadily filling wagon. Following behind him was an older human man wearing chain mail and riding on a three quarter sized bay mare with another small dwarf with a thick black beard witting sideways on the horse’s haunches behind him.

“Mr. Rockseeker,” Laios greeted him as he pulled his horse up close. He didn’t step down to talk to Laios, but he didn’t begrudge him. Laios wondered how the dwarf had managed to get onto the horse in the first place.

“Please, call me Gundren,” Mr. Rockseeker said with a twinkling smile. His nose and cheeks were ruddy red above his red beard. “Mr. Rockseeker was my father.”

Laios stared at Gundren blankly until he heard Falin snort out a laugh and he realized that the nonsensical statement was a joke. He quickly barked a laugh out that felt false even to his ears. But, if Gundren noticed, it didn’t show on his face that Laios could tell.

“It looks like everyone is here, so I hope you don’t mind if I introduce you to my nephew-” Gundren started to say before being interrupted by Falin.

“Oh, actually! We’re still waiting for a friend of mine who offered to come along,” she explained with a pleasant smile.

Gundren’s face did something too complicated for Laios to follow. “A friend?” he asked uncertainly.

“Who’s everyone?” Laios asked, wondering if Gundren had meant him and Falin. He thought you usually would say ‘both’ instead of ‘everyone’ if you were just addressing two people, though he was no stranger to being wrong when it came to things like that.

“He means me,” a surly voice from near Laios’ hip grumbled, making him jump about a foot in the air and turn around.

Laios hadn’t heard anyone approach, but a halfling man with short brown hair peppered with a few fine gray hairs and big ears was standing right beside him, his arms folded in front of his chest. He had a soft looking green muffler looped around his neck and worn leather armor over a plain white shirt and dark pants. And, he apparently noticed Laios staring, as he threw a nasty look up at Laios after a few second of him looking a little too intently.

He was usually pretty bad at interpreting people’s expressions, but it was hard to misunderstand that kind of look.

Laios tuned back into Falin and Gundren’s conversation just in time to see them get interrupted by Marcille stumbling up to them, panting and bracing her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Her long blonde hair was braided in a complicated style that left half of it piled on top of her head, and half it hanging long down her back and she was wearing a pretty blue dress that looked warm but a little impractical for hard travel. As well as her spell book and quarterstaff of course.

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” she gasped. “I told the innkeeper to wake me up, but she never came! I ran the whole” she paused to take another gasping breath, “way here!”

“I won’t be able to pay another person,” Grundren said to Laios, turning his back on the two women.

“Falin and I will split our pay with her. She’s a good friend of ours. She’s trustworthy,” Laios explained, he hoped sufficiently, for Gundren.

Gundren’s eyebrows did some wiggling, shadowing his small dark eyes for a moment, but then he sighed and his shoulders slumped, and the warm smile and the twinkling eyes were back as if they had never left.

“Well, that’s alright then. Anyway, I wanted to introduce you all to my nephew, Senshi,” he said, turning to gesture to the two men behind him. The human man had helped the dwarf off the tall horse and he was walking up to the small group. “He’ll be accompanying the rest of you on the wagon to Phandalin.”

A chorus of hellos in various levels of enthusiasm came from the small group gathered by the side of the wagon. Senshi looked a lot like Gundren, if the coloring was a lot darker and his face a lot less expressive. Senshi had a long thick wavy beard that matched his thick wavy hair and a slightly receding hairline. His eyebrows were thick and his eyes were small, dark and keen. It was hard to read Senshi’s expression. Laios suspected that was probably true even for people who weren’t him.

“With that, I’ll have to bid farewell,” Gundren said with a little half bow from the top of his pony. “I look forward to meeting with the rest of you in Phandalin.”

“We won’t be traveling together?” the halfling man spoke up. He looked uncertainly at Laios and the others, before turning a frustrated expression up at Gundren.

“It’s faster to travel by horse than by wagon and I have some business to finish up in Phandalin before you all get there. But, you all won’t be far behind me,” Gundren said, already turning his pony around. The human man was mounting his mare, as well, turning her nose toward the south gate. “Take good care of those supplies!” he called over his shoulder as he rejoined the press of people heading toward the walls of the city.

The five left behind awkwardly glanced around at each other. Laios, Falin and Marcille stood together, looking down at the two smaller men who would apparently be their traveling companions for the next two or three days.

While they had been talking, the last of the supplies had been loaded into the wagon and the men who had been doing the loading had left. There was nothing to keep them there but uncertainty about their new companions.

Finally, the halfling man broke the silence with a derisive sniff. “I’ll drive the wagon,” he said. “The rest of you can ride in the back until we get out of the crowd.”

With that, he stepped away from the others and jumped a little to reach the bench at the front of the wagon and confidently took the reins. He looked over his shoulder impatiently and the others took the hint.

“Uh, right. Thanks!” Laios said, probably way too late by the way that the halfling man sucked his teeth at Laios, but Falin always said better late than never.

His chain mail clinking, Laios climbed up into the wagon behind Marcille and Falin, who had already claimed the most comfortable spots on top of the flour sacks. He reached back behind him to help pull the dwarf man, Senshi, up into the wagon as well and got a friendly nod in thanks. Together, he and the other man had to make do trying to find a comfortable spot between the tools and barrels.

Once everyone had stopped shifting, the halfling man flicked the reins and the old horses hitched to the wagon started off, pulling the rattling wooden wheels across cobblestones out of Neverwinter and south along the well maintained High Road toward their destination.

---

They made camp the first night in a little windswept area off the left side of the road alongside a number of other travelers. Their campfires flickered orange in the moonlight, lighting up the worn cobblestones of the road even if it was too dark for anyone to keep moving. The air was brisk since the shoreline was close, close enough that you could hear the soft crashing of waves on the beach in the small silences between the campsites.

“I’m surprised they only gave us five ration packs each,” Marcille said into the silence as they all sat around the fire munching away at the hard bread, dried meat and sharp cheese that had been wrapped up in wax paper for them by the same store that had loaded the wagon up for Gundren.

“It shouldn’t take us more than two days to get to Phandalin,” Chilchuck answered her from around a mouthful of bread. Chilchuck Tims was the halfling man. After half a day of traveling by wagon, Laios had finally worked up the courage to ask and was pleasantly surprised when he answered.

“Still, tis foolish to not prepare for a longer trip. Who knows what trouble we may meet on the road,” the dwarf, Senshi, said as he looked down and rubbed the dried meat between his thick blunt fingers. Laios wondered if he was trying to soften it with his hands first. He wondered if it worked.

“Senshi is right,” Laios said after a second. “If it does end up taking us longer than two days to reach Phandalin, we’ll be in a real bind.”

“We’re not going to die if we have to go a day or two without food,” Chilchuck responded, but he looked a little unhappy at the thought.

Laios shared a look with Falin at that. He supposed that was true, but he had gone without eating before on expeditions that went wrong and it wasn’t something he wanted to repeat if he could help it.

“What made you take this job, Chilchuck?” Marcille asked after an awkward moment of silence. “You seemed surprised to see other people.”

Chilchuck frowned back at her. “What made you take this job?” he asked back.

Undeterred, Marcille answered, “Well, I didn’t really take it so much as I agreed to tag along.” Turning to Falin, she asked, “What made you guys take it?”

“Laios saw the job posting at the guild,” Falin explained as she broke off a piece of her cheese and offered it to Marcille who hummed happily as she popped it in her mouth. “He’s my brother and I often accompany him on jobs that take him out of the city.”

“Yep,” Laios added, thinking back. “Falin has saved my life more times than I could count. But, this job sounded easy and straight forward. ‘10 gold to escort provisions to Phandalin with option to make more. For reliable persons only.’ “ Laios recited from memory. “Seemed just like the thing for me and Falin.”

“Ye belong to an adventurer’s guild, then?” Senshi asked Laios with a raised eyebrow.

Laios wrinkled his nose as he realized that, even if it was true, saying he was part of the adventurer’s guild was probably a little misleading.

“I only just joined a month ago. I’m still pretty green. Easy jobs like this are the only ones I’m qualified for,” Laios said hesitantly.

“But, Laios is really amazing in a fight! That’s how he got into the guild, by proving himself in a tournament. He’ll climb the ranks in no time!” Falin added with an enthusiastic grin thrown in Laios’ direction. Even if the praise made him more self-conscious, it warmed something in his heart to have her support and encouragement.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, scratching at the back of his neck.

“And, you’re just tagging along?” Chilchuck asked Marcille, doubt thick in his tone.

“Uh, well,” Marcille fumbled, seeming a little taken off guard by the question.

“Marcille is a friend of mine from temple,” Falin jumped in to say. “She just moved to Neverwinter and we’ve been showing her around. We didn’t want to leave her alone in the city for however long the job took, so we invited her along.”

Marcille and Falin shared a speaking look, something that Laios could recognize from the outside but not totally understand. Sometimes it seemed like they could have whole conversations with just their faces, in a few brief seconds snatched between words. It seemed an impossible kind of skill, one that he envied and was a little mystified by.

“That’s right,” Marcille agreed, her nose and ears a shade pinker than they had been a moment ago. “But, you still haven’t answered my question. I understand why Mr. Rockseeker wanted someone like Laios to guard his provisions on the road to Phandalin, but I’m not really sure how you fit into this.” She gave Chilchuck a piercing look, one he returned with an unhappy twist of his lips.

But, after only a moment, he sighed and sagged back against the fallen log he had sat himself against.

“Me and Gundren go way back. We used to go dungeon diving together back when I was younger. He was always decent to me. All he told me was that he had some kind of crazy opportunity opening up in Phandalin that I would want to get in on and to meet him there by the gates. He didn’t mention I’d be riding in a wagon with a bunch of strangers while he went on ahead,” Chilchuck finished with a dirty look aimed at the dirt by his foot. Laios didn’t have to be good at understanding people to understand that Chilchuck probably wished he could aim that look at Gundren instead.

“Oh, that’s awful,” Marcille sighed.

“Aye, I’m sorry to hear that. My uncle isn’t always the most considerate. Especially when he’s on a job,” Senshi added with a sorrowful nod of his head.

Chilchuck waved his hand, as if he could swat the condolences offered to him out of the air. “Whatever,” he said. “What’s done is done. I owe you all an apology, anyway. I didn’t mean to take my bad mood out on all of you.”

“Well, it’s a bit understandable,” Falin offered with a smile.

“Yeah, we didn’t take it personally,” Laios said with a shrug. He had assumed that the behavior he’d seen so far had been Chilchuck’s normal personality. It was sort of nice to hear that it wasn’t.

“Gundren is your uncle, huh?” Laios asked, changing the focus to Senshi. “Is there anything you can tell us about him? I only got to speak to him a little bit before taking this job.”

“Aye, he is my uncle, though our family is large and he is one of five uncles of mine,” Senshi explained. “There’s not much I can tell you about him, unfortunately. He and two of my uncles do much treasure hunting in the mountains about Neverwinter. I suspect that’s how you came into contact with him?” Senshi asked Chilchuck.

“Yep,” Chilchuck said. “I’m a locksmith by trade, but I have a reputation for being skilled at disarming dwarvish traps. He hired me way back when I was just starting out and is half the reason I have that reputation.”

“Do you have an interest in treasure hunting, Senshi?” Falin asked curiously.

Senshi stared into their crackling fire, his usually expressionless face becoming sorrowful. “Nay, not I. Not anymore.”

Laios looked around at the others, hoping someone more skilled at talking would interrupt the sad lonesome silence that had descended over Senshi. Unfortunately, it looked like everyone else was casting around to each other for the same thing.

Luckily, it was Senshi himself who broke the long silence. “I suspect my uncle thinks me a bit of a layabout. I don’t do any of the traditional dwarven pursuits. Mining, blacksmithing, gold prospecting. I’m sure whatever job he wants me to help with it will be something like that.”

“And, what is it that you like to do, Senshi?” Falin asked gently.

Senshi looked up for the first time since he had started talking.

“Cooking,” he said decisively. “I love to cook.”

Falin clapped her hands in joy. “Oh that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed.

“What do you like to cook most?” Marcille asked.

“Do you have a specialty?” Chilchuck asked with interest.

Laios smiled as the conversation lightened and turned lively as everyone talked and shared about food, their favorite foods, their family recipes, regional specialties they knew of.

It seemed like the ice had been broken and even if they weren’t friends they were well on their way to getting there.

---

The next morning they got an early start, eating their third ration for breakfast quickly before cleaning up the last embers of their campfire and packing up so they could get back on the road. They were not on the high road for long before they turned left onto a small dirt track with a simple sign marking it as the Triboar Trail.

It’s this road that they would take for the rest of the day and hopefully reach the small settlement town of Phandalin before nightfall.

Laios didn’t know much about the town of Phandalin. From what little he heard from other people in the guild, it was a tiny town just on the edge of the wilderness that was built on the remnants of another older settlement. It sat on the edge of the foothills of the Sword Mountains and was mostly populated by miners and the people who ran businesses that served them.

This part was the part of the journey that he had been hired for. The Triboar Trail was really that, just a worn down dirt trail leading off into untamed and largely uninhabited woods and meadows. All manner of creatures, bandits and beasts populated those lands and would have likely loved to get their hands on a wagon full of supplies like what they had.

A shiver of anticipation ran down Laios’ back as he imagined the types of monsters known to haunt the woods around them. There were stirges, of course, terrible little mosquito like creatures about the length of your arm that attacked suddenly and would try to drain their victims of blood. Ghouls could come out at night, ethereal specters of long dead travelers looking for warm bodies to possess. Ogres preferred the foothills, but they could wander close enough that running into one traveling afield for hunting wouldn’t be out of the question. Then there were goblins, orcs, owlbears! The list just went on.

Laios couldn’t suppress a whine of excitement at the thought. The sound, as quiet as it was, was still noticed by the halfling sitting beside him on the bench at the front of the wagon. Chilchuck jumped a little at the sound and gave Laios an uncertain look.

“Oh, uh,” Laios fumbled, trying to think of an explanation that didn’t include explaining that he was just excited to finally be entering monster country. “Just had a tickle in my throat,” he landed on lamely.

Chilchuck gave him a suspicious squint, but turned back to examining the road in front of them.

They continued on like that throughout the morning. Marcille and Falin occasionally walked beside the horses, the two old things walking slow enough that the women had no issues keeping up with them at a brisk walk. Senshi said his legs were too short to keep up and instead enjoyed relaxing on the flour sacks and making small talk.

It turned out that Senshi had traveled all over the world cooking and learning new cooking techniques. Marcille, the most well traveled of all of them, was especially impressed with him and got him to talking about all the far flung places he had visited.

Unfortunately for Laios, not a single monster accosted them that whole morning, even though both he and Chilchuck in front of the wagon were trying to keep a weather eye out for any movement in the brush on the sides of the road.

That is, until they reached a road block just before noon.

Just as they turned a bend in the road, they came upon a distressing sight. Two horses lying dead on their sides in the center of the road, numerous arrows pointing up out of their sides.

Chilchuck pulled the wagon to a stop as soon as they saw them and everyone stopped and stared.

“Those are Gundren and Sildar’s horses,” Senshi said slowly, looking at the two dead horses from between Chilchuck and Laios.

“Sildar?” Laios asked.

“The human man that was with Gundren yesterday morning. His bodyguard,” Senshi explained.

“I don’t like this. This feels like a set up,” Chilchuck whispered, furrowing his brow and barely raising his voice enough to be heard by the two men sitting right beside him.

“Even if we don’t trust it, we won’t be able to get the wagon past unless we move the horses,” Laios said with a thoughtful frown.

“Maybe you could use your magic to move them?” Falin asked Marcille.

Marcille fidgeted with her cape, tugging on the silky red ribbon at the front. “I couldn’t use mage hand to move them, they’re too heavy. I can only manage ten pounds at most.”

Laios sighed and jumped down from the wagon. “I’ll go investigate and try to move them. You guys take cover and let me know if you see anything, okay?”

Everyone nodded except Senshi who climbed down from the wagon, as well. “I’ll help ye,” he said gruffly. “Moving the horses will go faster if we work together.”

Chilchuck jumped back into the wagon and took cover behind a barrel, drawing his shortbow and knocking an arrow, his keen brown eyes scanning the thick foliage on either side of the road. Marcille also drew close the wagon, crouching down by a wheel and clenching her staff in both hands and looking a little seasick. Falin, however, stepped out front holding her mace menacingly in front of her, the sharp metal edges at the top glinting dangerously in the dappled light through the trees.

Laios tried to approach the horses cautiously, but his armor clicked and rang out as he walked. Senshi was quieter, but much slower. As they approached the horses, Laios agreed that they were the same ones he had seen Gundren and the human man riding yesterday morning. Even the tack on the horses was the same. Examining the blanket and saddle, Laios also noticed that the saddlebags of both horses were open, the insides looking dark and empty.

“I’ll take one set of legs, you take the other,” Senshi said, approaching the back legs of the pony.

“Wait, Senshi. Does it look like their saddlebags have been looted?” Laios asked, pointing at the bag he was looking at on the bay mare.

Senshi barely had time to make an inquisitive hum before the sound of a twig snapping behind him sent him and Laios turning just in time to see a small green creature sneaking through the underbrush with a small rudimentary bow drawn on them.

“LAIOS, LOOK OUT!” Falin shouted, pointing her mace at the goblin who had just startled them both.

Before either of them could react, an arrow was fired at them from the opposite side of the road, arching straight at Laios’ back. A flash of incredible burning pain lanced through his back, the pain so incredible that his vision fuzzed and blurred for a moment. He put his hand to his shoulder and felt hot blood against his fingertips, the soft wood of a small arrow sticking out of his back.

Beside him, Laios heard Senshi grunt and turned his head to see his new friend pierced through with an arrow, as well. Senshi was reaching out to touch a small arrow fletched in black feathers that was protruding from his upper arm, dribbling bright red blood.

“Laios!” Falin shouted again, her voice cracking on his name in a way that made his already racing heart stutter in his chest. Then, Falin quickly shouted a word that made Laios ears ring, her hand tracing a strange pattern in the air, before a flame-like radiance shot down from the sky at the goblin they had first seen.

Just as the light flickered in the air, Falin’s magic building above the goblin, the creature dodged to the side, missing the blast of sacred energy by a hair’s breadth.

The little green man growled, his voice high and stringent, making him sound like a saw working through a green piece of wood. Popping up from his rolling jump, he ran at Laios, a short chipped scimitar appearing in his long fingered hand.

Laios watched the blade come at him as if in slow motion, the goblin’s mouth fixed in a vicious snarl, his thin dark hair flying out behind his bulbous head. At the last second he leaned back out of the way of the strike and drew his own sword, his hand sure on the grip through hours and hours of training.

Behind the first goblin, yet another one appeared, this one also wielding a rusty damaged scimitar. It dodged around Laios, who was still engaged with the first goblin he had seen, and went straight for Senshi. Senshi, who had just yanked the arrow from his arm, threw up a hand desperately to protect himself from the attack, but still suffered a grievous wound across his arm that sprayed blood across the dirt road.

With a grunt, Senshi raised his greataxe high above his head. The goblin, still grinning in glee at landing a hit on the dwarf, didn’t see the axe coming until it cleaved his skull cleanly in half.

“Great job, Senshi,” Laios gasped, raising his own greatsword up at an angle to swipe at the goblin he was facing off with.

His own sword, heavier, longer and carefully maintained, carved through the small body and brittle bones of his attacker like a hot knife through butter. The goblin collapsed in a bloody heap with barely a whimper.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Laios could faintly hear Chilchuck saying from over by the wagon.

An arrow flew from the wagon where Chilchuck was hiding, fired into the bushes where the first two arrows had been shot from.

Laios barely had a moment to process that Chilchuck had joined the fight before another arrow flew, this one decidedly not from Chilchuck, and struck him right in the neck. Laios hit the ground in a spray of dirt, blood welling from his neck. In a matter of seconds his body began to feel cold, his eyesight blurry, his heart sluggish in his chest. He could hear people calling his name, but it all sounded far away.

Time became smeary around Laios. He could hear people shouting, see movement in what little he could still see, but the sound of his own struggling heartbeat took up most of his awareness. He could feel the blood pump out of his own body with each squeeze of his heart, smell the salty copper of his own life spilling out onto the uncaring forest floor.

Then, familiar hands are yanking the arrows out of his body. He could feel the flesh tear and give away under the new violence, but no pain came. He felt cold, so cold. Those same hands pressed tight against his back and a rush of warmth and pain pulsed through him, like unseen hands were yanking his flesh back in place, knitting the holes closed with fury, his body put back together none too gently, but put back together none the less.

Laios gasped as he opened his eyes and they focused on the scene around him. Falin was kneeling over him, her hands still stained with his blood, two bloody arrows discarded on the ground nearby. Senshi was laying on his back beside him in the blood soaked dirt, an arrow sticking out of his chest.

Struggling, still feeling dizzy from blood loss, Laios climbed back to his feet, picking his greatsword up off the ground.

“Thanks,” he whispered to Falin as he stood up between her and the two goblins still hiding in the brush.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said around teary eyes.

“You’ve got to get them out of cover!” Chilchuck shouted as he shot another arrow into the underbrush that the arrows were coming from, though from the sound he didn’t hit anything.

Another arrow flew out of the bushes, this time aimed right at Falin, but pinged the chain mail under her robe and fell uselessly to the ground by her feet.

“Ouch,” she grumbled, rubbing the spot on her chest.

“Did that thing just hit you in the boob?!” Marcille shrieked from near the wagon.

“Uh?” Falin responded uncertainly.

Marcille shouted something in a language that Laios didn’t understand and gestured with her staff. Three darts of light flew from her staff to the bushes, igniting them with pale blue light followed by a sound of agony and a wet thump as something hits the ground. Shortly after, the sound of fast footsteps receding into the woods could be heard.

“Whoa,” Laios said, his eyes huge as he turned back to look at a still panting Marcille, her staff still held out in front of her.

“Did the last one just run away?” Falin asked faintly.

“Forget that! Heal Senshi!” Chilchuck shouted, already crawling over the seat of the wagon and hurrying over to where Senshi was still laid out on his back.

“Oh! Right, of course!” Falin exclaimed, falling back to her knees and pulling the most recent arrow from where it had buried itself in Senshi’s chest. Falin spoke some strange words and traced a symbol on Senshi’s skin. A faint warm yellow glow emanated from her hands where she pressed them to Senshi’s torso and the wounds steadily closed, the blood marching backward back into his body as the puncture wounds pulled back together.

Senshi grunted, his unfocused eyes finally seeming to see them, tracking Falin and Laios and Chilchuck as he ran up to meet them, Marcille trailing behind.

“Did we find victory?” Senshi asked with a harsh groan as he pushed himself to sit up, Laios’ hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“We’re alive and they’re mostly not, but I don’t know if you’d call that victory,” Chilchuck said wryly.

“That was terrifying,” Marcille gasped with a hand to her chest. “Is this really what you two do for a living?” Marcille asked with a concerned look at Falin who only shrugged.

“Usually with less dying, but yeah mostly,” Laios said with a shrug of his own.

“Oh, my god,” Marcille breathed. “OH MY GOD!” she shouted after a second.

“Shush! Not so loud!” Chilchuck hissed at her. “Just because these goblins are dead doesn’t mean there’s not more hiding in the woods. We need to get out of here before the one that got away comes back with his friends.”

“But,” Laios said, sheathing his sword and turning to look at the dead horses still blocking the road. “If Gundren was caught in the same ambush we just were, then the goblins could be holding him hostage. We need to help him, right?” he asked, turning to the others.

“I agree. If Gundren is in trouble, we must help him,” Senshi said with a firm nod.

“I don’t think so!” Marcille exclaimed. “You two almost died and that was only four goblins! Now you want to stomp into their lair and what? Demand to speak to a manager? I don’t think that’s going to go over very well!”

“But, Marcille. The magic you just used was amazing! With you and Falin helping us, we’ll be able to save Gundren. I’m sure of it,” Laios said with a determined nod.

“Well… About that,” Falin said awkwardly. “That last healing spell kind of wiped me out. If someone gets hurt again, I won’t be able to heal them.”

“… Oh,” said Laios, caught flat footed by that thought.

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Chilchuck sighed. “And, I’m too old to go charging into danger unprepared. The two of you aren’t all the way up to snuff either. Why don’t we take this wagon the rest of the way to Phandalin and then come back to investigate? At least that way our two mages will be at full power and you two will be back to full health.”

Laios looked down at the ground, at the two goblins crumbled and bleeding into the dirt, at the two horses still on their sides in the middle of the road. At the blood still crusted into his sword’s blade and his chain mail, still matted into Senshi’s beard and on Falin’s hands and knees.

“Okay,” he said finally. “You’re right. Let’s to Phandalin and come back tomorrow.”

There were mumbles of agreement as Chilchuck, Marcille and Falin went back to the wagon and Laios and Senshi turned back to their original goal of dragging the horses off the road.

“Do you truly think the goblins took my uncle?” Senshi asked as they stood up from pulling the second horse off the road.

“I do,” Laios said. “Horses have a lot more value to goblins than humans or dwarves do. They use them as pack animals and sometimes eat them. If the goblins shot your uncle’s horse, then they wanted him in particular. And, if they wanted him for some reason, then there’s a good chance he’s still alive wherever they’re hiding him.”

Senshi gave Laios a long calculating look before nodding slowly. “Thank you, Laios,” he said gruffly, before turning and walking back to the wagon.

Laios scratched his head for a moment, not sure what he did to deserve thanks. Whatever the reason, at least Senshi seemed reassured.

#delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #dungeons & dragons #dnd #d&d #dungeons & dragons au #pov alternating #fanfiction #kittywrites #five idiots look for a cave

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