Rescue From the Strangest Places

Short Story ... DnD Mission ... well, sort of ...

Duncan was at the table with Lilly Tahoma when the dancing girl HotMess started her act. Since they got together as an adventuring couple, he'd still never seen any true dancing girls before. Sure, Lilly had danced for him several times and in different states of undress, too. But this dancing girl was an Elf. There was no way he was going to miss that show.

He and Lilly were already in a tizzy about the wandering eyes thing. As a typical guy, Duncan just kept insisting that it was all about learning more about the different races ... it didn't mean anything.

When a conversation began at a nearby table about somebody needing help guarding a wagon of stuff through the bandit-infested countryside, she got up and joined the rest of the crew. Duncan was left to his own devices.

Duncan listened in as well as he could from his own table while trying to act like he wasn't. He already knew that Lilly would assume that he was doing that and found out for sure when he glanced that way and caught her watching him.

He still found out a little bit anyway. It seemed that one of the guys was an Elf named Jushin, and another was a Draconian named Amara. They were the main ones asking questions about the deal. Lilly asked a few questions herself.

There wasn't any way to hear any more of the conversation after that dancing Elf-girl joined the others at the same table. Of all the luck. What were the odds that the girl causing the grief in their relationship just happened to be joining in with the same people Lilly had migrated to after they got into it?

He was left out of the rest, but he did hear a lot about the mission. It didn't sound like that big of a deal, anyway. It was an escort gig ... and for a measly ten gold pieces. Seriously ... ten gold? It sounded like cheap labor to Duncan.

He decided to get up and leave the rest of the bunch there in the tavern. There was another rumor that he wanted to chase down anyway. Something that might pay a whole shat-load of coin. It kind of put the ten gold pieces Lilly was working toward to shame. This could be a big one ... the one they had been waiting on. Okay, at least it might have been the one that he was waiting on.

"Go on then," Duncan said under his breath. "Let her go on with those other guys. She'll learn that other people can't be trusted to watch your back, and other people might even throw you to the wolves if they thought that it might save their own skin. I've got bigger fish to fry anyway."

The rumor he heard was that there were a bunch of Goblins somewhere ... kinda close to where the cheap labor was headed. These guys were supposed to file their teeth down so they would look fiercer or something. They even called themselves the Cragmaw or something like that.

There was supposed to be a whole group of them that had a hidey-hole in the mountains north of the road that Lilly was going on. Again ... what are the odds?

These Cragmaw Goblins were supposed to be run by a badass named the Black Spider. They were trying to find out where the Lost Mines of Phandelver were located, and rumor was that somebody had a map.

You know that any Rogue worth his salt should be able to sneak in and find out whatever he wanted to know from a bunch of wanna-be bad guys. I mean, it was just Goblins after all, wasn't it? He and Lilly had already taken out several groups of them over in the Shorun. So, these guys thought they were tough. Big deal. Pointy teeth didn't make someone any tougher. They were just Goblins ... come on.

It was a mere coincidence that he just happened to be heading down the same road that Lilly was headed ... and only a couple of hours behind, too. If she got in some trouble, he might even be able to help out. But that's not what he was doing ... let's get that straight right now. It was all just a coincidence.