Robin swore as he bent a fingernail back trying to undo the knot and free another of the adventurers. The priest’s reappearance threatened to throw a damper on his kobold revolution. The magical force Urkhan provided the priest’s words had forced one of the kobolds to bow to him. Without time to think, Robin threw out another [Lesser Phantasm].

‘Urkhan stupid god! False god! Will bow before true god of kobolds!’ Robin punctuated the words with a couple kobold battle roars (or his best guess what they would sound like).

‘How dare you!’ the priest roared, laying about him with his mace. ‘I will—’ he cut off mid-sentence and cocked his head to one side.

Robin, glancing over as he finally undid the knot he was working on, locked eyes with the priest. The man had seen them! They needed to get out of here now.

All four women were free and scrambling for their equipment. The elf was furthest along and the only one to notice the priest’s attention aside from Robin. She grabbed her closest companion and pulled them toward the nearest cavern exit.

‘The pris—’ the priest began to shout.

Robin couldn’t let him do that. He twisted his aching hand through another casting of [Lesser Phantasm], and this time Bula’s voice rang out.

‘Frak this! I’ll make any kobold who kills that priest the new chief of this tribe!’

Chaos erupted anew as the battle shifted and several kobolds charged the priest in a mad fury of bloodlust and ambition. The smarter ones paused. Bula was still laying about with her weapon, foaming at the mouth in the grips of an insensate rage.

The adventuring party Robin had rescued were running away down a tunnel. Robin followed. It was easy. The elf in the lead had conjured a small magelight and it danced in the shadows ahead of them.

The women were a few lengths ahead of Robin and moving quickly. He tried to catch up but caught his foot on something in his haste. There was a thwang and his shoulder erupted in bloody fire. He’d tripped a trap and been skewered by a crude crossbow bolt.

Forcing himself to ignore the pain as best he could, he continued on. This time he paid more attention to where he was going. The women ahead seemed to have no trouble avoiding the traps. He followed their lead.

The yipping and sounds of battle behind them swiftly faded. Robin bent one ear behind him, trying to catch any signs of pursuit but he came up empty. They might have successfully gotten away in the confusion! And a moment later, his quest prompt confirmed it.

Quest Complete! [You Gotta Have Friends]

Congratulations! You have liberated the Sisters Sharp adventuring party! Due to your use of illusions and trickery in doing so, you have been awarded triple experience!

Reward: They might not be allies yet, but they aren’t dead, so you’re moving in the right direction! Trousers, well, you’ll have to wait and see. Who knows? You might still get lucky!

Robin felt an influx of energy. It did nothing to ease the ache in his hands or feet, nothing to salve his tired muscles, but it made him feel a bit better nonetheless. He quashed the urge to open his character sheet though. Time for that when he wasn’t surrounded by traps. He dismissed the notification only for it to be replaced by another.

Quest Complete! [Just a Spark of Rebellion]

Congratulations! You have successfully sparked rebellion amidst the Bentscale tribe of kobolds, inciting them to revolt against Bula Bloodfist. Due to your use of illusions and trickery in doing so, you have been awarded triple experience!

Reward: [Mark of the Trickster] Rhyth may be lost, but even the memory of a deity can hold power, and some of that power has been used to mark you. Kindred spirits are more likely to take a liking to you, while humourless stuffed-shirts are more likely to hate you on sight. Have fun with that!

Bonus Reward!

Congratulations! Your exploits in fomenting kobold rebellion have drawn the attention of Nevarre, Elvish God of Mischief. Because you used words to such lethal effect, he has granted you new arcane knowledge! You have learned the [Cutting Words] cantrip!

Elvish God of Mischief? Because there’s no way that can go wrong. Robin wasn’t sure how common it was to attract this much divine attention in one’s first day in a new reality, but he suspected it was not ideal. New cantrip though, that was a welcome reward.

Your actions during the recent conflict have unlocked the following proficiencies: Ranged Combat; Sleight of Hand.

Ranged Combat must have been the rock he threw, but what unlocked Sleight of Hand? Untying the ropes under pressure? Picking up the rock while sneaking? He really wished he had a copy of whatever Player’s Handbook worked with this system.

‘Fiamah,’ the elf said to the human woman next to her, ‘he’s bleeding. Can you heal him? Else he’ll leave a blood trail behind us even a kobold hatchling could follow.’

Robin blinked. He hadn’t realised any of them had noticed. The human woman, Fiamah, stepped up to him and before he knew what was happening she ripped the bolt out of his shoulder and set it alight with divine fire. Robin screamed.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘this is going to hurt.’ She dug her fingers into the wound. ‘Try not to scream. You’ll bring the kobolds down on us.’

And then the fire was in Robin’s veins, burning away both any potential infection and the wound itself. As it passed, it left euphoria in place of the pain and his extremities began to tingle. He managed not to scream but he started to giggle though his teeth. 🎶Hurt So Good🎶 started singing through his head.

‘Thanks,’ he managed, through both giggles and pain.

‘Do you know any safe places nearby?’ the elvish woman asked him.

‘Yes, but we’d have to go back through the cavern to get there, so I’m going to say no?’ Robin replied as he gently prodded his now intact shoulder.

‘Don’t poke at it,’ Fiamah said.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Robin immediately removed his hand.

‘Lantha!’ the dwarven woman said urgently to the elf, ‘we need to move. We can’t wait here.’

‘We can’t rush off half-cocked, either,’ Lantha replied, ‘unless you can lead us to a safe cavern somewhere in these tunnels?’

‘Not my thing. Ask Ora-Jean. Maybe that badger spirit that follows her about can sniff something out. They like tunnels.’ The dwarf crossed her arms.

Robin got the sense that this was either an argument that happened often, or a super-tense version of the regular banter a tight-knot group like this usually developed. Ora-Jean, whom Robin identified by process of elimination, was a diminutive woman (halfling?) who was nonetheless built like a brick shizhouse.

‘Taterpicker says we should go this way.’ Ora-Jean pointed down the tunnel to her right. ‘Says the air smells fresher.’

Robin had neither seen nor heard any badgers, spirit or otherwise, but as the highly competent women (including the one who had just burned the hurt right out of him) seemed inclined to trust this development, who was he to object?

‘Right. Move out. We go until we find daylight or a safe-looking place to rest. None of us are at peak and I’d rather face whatever is down here closer to full strength.’

‘We don’t even have all of our packs,’ the dwarf protested.

‘Grathilde, so help me I will gut you if you say one more thing about the packs. We’ve got what we’ve got, including our lives, so let’s focus on holding on to that, shall we?’ The elf glared at the dwarf. ‘There was a priest of Urkhan back there, and I don’t fancy facing him and that orc and all her kobolds. Not down here in the dark where they can see without torches or light spells. Unlike some of us.’ Lantha looked pointedly at Grathilde.

‘Fine,’ the dwarf grumbled, ‘but I don’t know what supplies survived, so I make no promises in the magic department. There’s only so much I can do without all of my ritual components.’

‘Understood. Now can we please move out?’ Lantha began walking after Ora-Jean, not waiting for an answer.

Ora-Jean, for her part, was already several lengths ahead of the party, moving down the tunnel she had indicated moments ago. Fiamah and Grathilde followed, and Robin trailed along. The women ahead of him whispered to one another. After a moment Robin realised they were using a different language to the one they had spoken before when they were speaking to him.

‘Can we trust him?’ Grathilde was asking.

‘We don’t have to trust him, we just have to keep an eye on him,’ Lantha replied. ‘He helped us once; he might be useful in the future. If he gets out of line, I can carve him a second smile or Fiamah can turn him to ash.’

That was less than comforting. Robin kept his face neutral. Right now [Tongue of the Fallen Tower] was a bit of an ace in the hole and he wanted to keep it that way. Knowledge was power, and he needed every scrap of it he could get.

‘Wait,’ Ora-Jean paused at the fork in the tunnel ‘Taterpicker says we have to choose here. There’s fresh air to the left, but if we head to the right we’ll hit a section of switchbacks in the tunnel system and can find a safe place to hole up for a bit.’

Lantha pursed her lips in thought.

‘Taterpicker says he can’t say how far it is to the surface. These tunnels are windy as all get out.’

‘But you can find a safe space to hole up?’ Lantha looked to the halfling.

‘That I can do.’

‘Then we do that,’ Lantha decided. ‘We need to take stock of what we have in the packs we managed to recover, then rest and recuperate as much as we can. I don’t want to run into those kobolds again like this.’

Ora-Jean nodded and turned to the right, leading them through several increasingly narrow and jagged switchbacks. Robin made careful note of the landmarks in case he needed to flee. He almost missed it when Ora-Jean slipped back and wriggled through a diagonal gap in the wall.

The others followed. Robin left behind a layer of skin from his chest as he squeezed through. In short order, they found themselves in a small, oblong cave. It was more a jagged niche than anything, but it was out of the way and had enough room to spread out and sleep if they needed to.

‘Fiamah, take inventory. Grathilde, lay down whatever magical protections or alarms you can. Ora-Jean, slip out and see if you can forage up some mushrooms. We’ve seen a few species in various caverns while we’ve been down here. I want to pad out our supplies if we can. Don’t take more than an hour.’

‘And Fiamah,’ Lantha added in that second language, ‘see if there’s anything in there we can give our bard friend to clothe himself.’

‘Why would you think he’s a bard?’

‘He’s naked. Of course he’s a bard.’

Fiamah shrugged and, after a few moments of rummaging, tossed a loose pair of trousers, some burlap sacking, and a roll of cloth bandage to Robin. ‘Here. See what you can do to cover yourself with this. Don’t have any shirts in here, unfortunately.’

‘Thank you.’ Robin quickly donned the trousers, and then, after considering the burlap and bandages for a couple minutes, ripped and folded and knotted himself a pair of rough cloth sandals. They wouldn’t do much, but they’d protect his feet a little. Unfortunately, his torso would have to remain cold and at attention for a while longer.

Robin was just finishing the last knot when he found himself with a knife at his throat. The elvin woman, eyes bright, teeth white, smiled sweetly at him.

‘Start singing, bard.’