Kingdomfall

Chapter One: The Beginning and The Meeting

The young man pulled his chair closer to the table as he set up the opaque screen so the others sitting around the table couldn't see his notes, drawings, graphs and books. They were teenagers, some of them just barely so and some about to leave their teens behind, but teenagers all the same. It was a rare occasion for them all to be in the same room with the same goal, what with sports practices, driving tests, parties, college applications and some of them getting ready for the first summer of the rest of their lives.
Several sets of dice began to roll across the table, pencils scribbled down numbers in boxes on paper specifying statistics such as strength and constitution, pages turned in books as each player looked up specific bonuses and feats they could or could not use.
Finally, as the blank map of squares was rolled out across the table, plastic miniaturized characters were placed in specific points and foam landscape pieces were set, the Dungeon Master began his tale.

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Heavy footsteps in weathered leather boots crunched down dirt as the burly man emerged from the woods heading for the town ringed by 100-yard-tall walls. Along with the boots, the man wore leather fighting gauntlets he had made himself, a bear pelt with the head as a hood hung off his back, ragged cloth coverings adorned his torso and bottoms, and a handmade leather belt with a daily sharpened knife of draconic scale iron the size of a male human's arm hung at the man's waist - the only metal he ever used.
The man had shaggy brown hair that flowed to his shoulders, and his graying beard flowed down to the top of his chest. His lake blue eyes were nearly bloodshot - not from drinking, but from spending every night and day surviving in the wilderness. He had defended his family and their druidic village as long as he could, but one day as he was out on the hunt, tragedy struck as a band of orcs ravaged half the forest leaving nothing but burning trees and corpses behind along with a single bloodied blade - the two-handed blade that now hung at his waist. The man now had no choice, but to move on to a new life, using what he had grown on and learned and possibly learning something new. But first, he was going to sign up with a hunting party and wipe every last stinking orc off the face of the map.
"Hello stranger!" A chipper and distinctly female voice said coming over the hill to the man's right.
The man turned to look as a slender woman wearing a simple-but-eye-catching tunic with what appeared to be a flute strapped to her back was walking across the hill towards him. She had blonde hair that almost glowed in the sunlight as it flowed just past her shoulders, with the slightest hint of subtly-pointed ears peeking out. She wore a modestly ornate string of emerald jewels around her neck which matched her emerald-flecked-with-silver eyes, and a pair of silver buckled sandals covered her feet. She also wore a green satin, silver buckled belt that held two leather pouches on it; one pouch was a bit heavier and looked a bit more like a bag made of leather, the other looked somewhat like a box and had another small silver buckle on it.
"If I may ask, where ya' headed?" The woman asked as she got closer to the man.
"Low-San." The man replied gruffly as he gestured toward the walled city, "Looking for work."
"Do you mind if I walk with you?" The woman asked, "I'm headed the same way to visit some of my relatives."
The man shrugged, but as he didn't say or indicate no, the woman began to walk a little behind him and to his side. The two continued to walk until they reached the large front gates of the city, and a window to their right - about eight feet off the ground - opened in the wall revealing a man with a metal helmet atop his head and a large graying mustache that covered his mouth.
" 'Ello travelers," The helmeted man said with a thick accent, "Why 'ave you come to Low-San?"
"Looking for work." The man from the woods replied.
"Visiting relatives." The woman replied.
The helmeted man looked the two travelers over before turning to his left and barking something in a language neither traveler understood. A reply in the same language come from somewhere in the wall.
"While we normally don't accept travelers without the proper paperwork," The helmeted man started as he turned back to them, "Our town population and morale 'ave both been unusually low, so I've been told to let you lot in. Welcome to Low-San."
As the helmeted man stated the last sentence, the gates opened just enough to let the two travelers in. The two walked into the city as the window in the wall closed and the gates closed behind them.
The first thing that struck any newcomers to Low-San was the aroma: baked goods, fried meats and cheeses, a fresh deli, a sweets shop and a tavern dealing only in top-shelf quality drinks were the first businesses to meet travelers. As one would walk further into town, they would be met with makers of fabric ranging from fine to humble, a few blacksmiths as well as woodworkers and equipment enchanters, makers of potions that could do anything from increase one's overall health by double or suck out one's soul and put it in the bottle they just drank from. Further down the street resided several inns as well as homes of those that offered rooms for rent. The wide street then broke out into the rest of the city, homes lined some streets, trees lined others, and one led to a very large but simple castle.
"If you're looking for work," The green-clothed woman started as she and the woodsman looked around, "I would start at Lucky Baldwin's Tavern & Inn. Even the busboys make a pretty penny, no matter the day or the season."
"I'll look into it." The woodsman said before someone bumped into the woman.
"My apologies." The person said in a gruff but feminine voice from under a dark hooded cloak.
"Don't worry about it." The green-clothed woman said as she put her hand on her hip, "Hey, that thief stole my gold!!"
The woodsman turned to the direction the cloaked figure had gone and saw the figure breaking into a sprint as they ran into other people and through some of the open shops and stores. The woodsman and green-clothed woman both took off after the cloaked figure, following the path of toppled street market carts, displays and people picking themselves up.
The cloaked figure darted down a street to the left, turning over a cart of baskets behind them.
"Keep after them!" The woodsman called out as he put his time climbing everything from trees to mountainsides to good use.
Without hesitation, the woodsman jumped with a perfect foot placement on a windowsill propelling himself upward to the second story and up onto the roof of a tavern. He then scrambled across the roof and jumped across the alley from above and continued across rooftops following the cloaked figure as the green-clothed woman followed behind in the street.
The cloaked figure expertly maneuvered between two horse carts coming from opposite directions and lost the green-clothed woman due to oncoming traffic. The woodsman, however, kept up by jumping rooftops and using clotheslines over streets as tightropes. The cloaked figure dared a look back before rounding a corner into an alleyway that opened onto a different street and another block of town.
As the woodsman expertly used a cloth canopy and empty street cart to get down from his rooftop and begin following the figure through the streets, the figure turned to see the shine of blades flying through the air in their direction. The cloaked figure spun around as they dodged three blades, and as their face came back around they were knocked flat on their back by a large figure sporting a shield made of tree bark over a sheet of dense metal.
The woodsman slowed as the hulking figure with the shield grabbed the cloaked thief by the scruff of their cloak and lifted them off the ground.
"Well now," the large figure stated in a husky voice over small but prominent tusks in his lower jaw, "What have we here?"
"Not sure." Replied a small figure in a high-pitched, feminine but threatening voice as it dropped down from a clothesline and brandished a knife blade the size of a grown man's finger, "Let's cut it open and find out."
"Well stranger," The large tusked man said firmly to the cloaked figure, "Is my friend here gonna have to cut ya' open, or are ya' gonna tell us why you're running around toppling people over and generally causing mischief?"
As the woodsman stepped forward a bit, the tusked man shook the cloaked figure just enough for the hood to fall back revealing the assailant; a woman - ginger red hair cut to fall just above the chin, deep brown eyes, a scar over but not through the right eye leaving the mark but not causing any blindness.
"Excuse me Miss," The woodsman said as he approached and pointed at the cloaked woman's hand, "I don't think that belongs to you."
The woman looked at the pouch in her hand, then at the tusked man, then dropped the pouch on the ground.
"Thank you." The woodsman said as he grabbed the pouch off the ground.
As the green-clothed woman came onto the scene, a swarm of soldiers wearing helmets similar to the soldier at the gate covered that block of town and pointed their spears at the five travelers.
"What the hell is this?!" The small knife wielder asked, "I thought we had a deal with Jade!"
"Your deal still stands," The green-clothed woman replied as she took the pouch from the woodsman, "That's exactly why they're here, they're protecting both you and me."
"And who are you supposed to be?" The cloaked woman asked without taking her eyes off the tusked man.
"I'm the King's niece," the green-clothed woman said, "My name is Alma Jade."