Chapter 1 - New Horizons

You were living your life, going through the same motions you do every day. In your mind, you had a vague idea of a plan, a next step towards school or your career -- but you were never really interested in that next step. In your spare time, you would immerse yourself in other worlds, devour novels, and imagine what it would be like to be someone else. You were a dreamer.

Well, dream on no more. You awake to find yourself on a small grassy hill with four other people sprawled all around you, a few of them seemingly still unconscious -- people from all different walks of life.

As you blink your bleary eyes and sit up, you immediately notice that things are... different.

The grassy hill you wake up on is one of many grassy hills in the area, seemingly stretching miles in every direction. On the top of a nearby hill is an old, abandoned building made entirely of wood.

You see in the distance a handful of trees with large blue fruits dangling from them, with remnants of seed pods littered all around the ground. At the base of the tree are a smattering of small green figures that seem to be arguing amongst each other - until one gives the tree a rough kick and a couple of blue fruits fall to the ground. The others pounce on the fruit and begin tearing into the fruit, blue juices streaming down their face onto their chests.

Further in the distance looms a particularly foreboding forest. It looks darker and denser than any other woods you've seen, the undergrowth spills out past the edge of the treeline and every now and then, a seemingly man-high bush rustles as something passes through them.


During the time you observe this, two people next to you are staring around with wide-eyed shock.

"Wha.... where AM I?!" exclaimed a small, petite Asian woman with glasses so big that they threaten to dwarf her face. As her owl-like visage pivots around to take in the scene, she whispers to herself, "I thought I was just getting coffee."


To her right sits up a frazzled looking man in a rumpled business suit. He wearily blinks around the scene and his eyes slowly widen as he mutters, "Oh damn. I'm going to be so late to work."

Vincent looked all around the smell of grass and earth was what first greeted him. He felt the grass on his face then as his eyes adjusted he beheld what was not his typical wake up scene.

"Shhhhh, to quote Dorothy, I don't think were in Kansas anymore. I don't know what those creatures are but they look unpleasant. Best not to draw their attention. Maybe if we roll down this hill and stay low we could make it to that building and possibly figure out what the hell is happening. Either we are drugged, hooked up in Virtual Reality or... well hell I just don't know." He said quietly to the others and then rolled down the hill to a place out of sight of the green things and hopefully to a place he could keep hills between him and them while looking off towards the wooden structure.

"Not in K-.....? The hell are you talking about? Of course we're not in Kansas. This cannot be real at all, must be a dream. I probably fell asleep at my desk again." A red haired woman dressed in well pressed executive attire, sits up on her hips in the grass, speaking louder with each sentence.

She pinches herself and when nothing changes, she slaps herself slight on her cheeks and rubs her eyes. "Well blast it all, that didn't seem to work." She stands up and her above average height for a woman becomes more apparent. She stumbles slightly as her high heeled shoes sink to different levels in the soft ground. She sighs heavily and pulls them off with an annoyed jerk. As she sets her feet down after removing her shoes she pauses for the briefest of moments....it had been awhile since she had been barefoot in grass.

She looks the odd group of people in her "dream" over and subconsiously begins to strategize her position, "It's tough to turn off, even in a dream" she thinks to herself. She walks over to the other female in the group and offers her a hand up. "Hi I'm Kimberly, call me Kim." She pauses as she helps the woman up giving her a chance to introduce herself as well.

"Oh, man," Colin said sitting up, "That party was wild." He looked around and scratched his bald head. "Ok, whose idea was to go camping? I know it was not me." He stood up and stretched his arms, groaning. "I see someone is still tripping," he said watching at the man rolling down the hill. Still hangover and with red eyes, he walked over to the man in the suit, wobbling a little bit, and asked, "Hey, man, do you have any smoke?"

The slightly-tanned young man quietly rolls into the bushes out of sight and the man in the business suit jolts as Colin addresses him.

"Hey man, you mean like a cigarette right? I don't do... whatever it is you do," says the rumpled-looking man. He pulls out a carton of cigarettes and offers a slightly bent one to Colin. He then turns to Kimberly and says, "My name is David."

"Oh, hello! My name is Eun," says the short asian girl as she bobs her head in an awkward greeting. "I thought I was on my way to class, but this doesn't look like Seoul...." She glances around anxiously until her eyes rest on the goblins clustered around the blue fruit tree, she lets out an involuntary, very loud squeak of surprise that catches the attention of the creatures.

The little green creature's beady red eyes turn to gaze at the group and their frantic kicking of the blue fruit tree stop. Realizing you are there for the first time, they slowly reach to their sides and pull out crude stone weapons and begin moving in your direction - slowly at first, and the steadily picking up speed when they see Eun take a step backward and trip over the last unconscious person on the ground.

David curses as he notices the goblins moving towards the group with crude weapons drawn, he glances around and grabs a fallen tree branch.

Vincent hopes the others will follow him. He didn't understand what was going on anymore then anyone else. Maybe he was tripping. He wasn't really into drugs so he had no way to really judge that. "Follow." he hissed low. Maybe he was wrong but he kept to the plan of moving and keeping low making sure the hill~s were between him and those whatever the hell they were.

Maybe that abandoned structure could provide some protection or at least some boards that could be used. In his mind he screamed ~Please follow guys~

He let his eyes look around for anything that could be possibly used as a weapon as he made his way towards the building.

Colin took the cigarette and lit it up. He exhaled the smoke with a sigh of relief. He didn't get to enjoy it for long as he heard the Eun's sudden squeak. He turned to see what was going on and only then he noticed green little creatures running towards them. "What the hell are those?!" He exclaimed with a surprise. He patted David's shoulder, "Good idea, Dave! But I think it would be better if we will get to that building first. Those could be children in some really ugly and well made costumes and I wouldn't want to get charged with child assault."

"Ladies, let's get moving," he said as he approached Eun to help her up.

Kimberly looks at the odd creatures and notices them draw weapons. Not wanting to stick around she helps Eun up the rest of the way with Colin, picks up her heeled shoes. Handing one to Colin and says "If they get close, perhaps these can work, they're called stilettos for a reason right?" With that she takes off towards the barn at a decent jog. Ensuring the Eun is keeping up the whole way.

As your group scurries towards the abandoned building, it becomes pretty clear that you are outdistancing the little green creatures pretty quickly. Even Eun, the slowest of your group, has managed to grow the distance between the pursuing goblins and yourself. Your group quickly approaches the the abandoned building which has clearly fell into disrepair.

An old sign hangs above the door of the building, which bears has a series of strange symbols on them. As you glance at them, a weird sensation clouds your eyes for a moment and a feeling of pressure builds up behind your eyes until suddenly, the runes become comprehensible. It says, "The Lonely Inn."

The door to the inn is hanging open, hinges barely intact. The inside of the rather small inn has a large bar and an assortment of old, solidly-built wooden tables and chairs with wooden bars instead of glass for windows. Everything inside is covered with a thick layer of dust. Just behind the bar, you see a staircase leading upwards (presumably to lodgings) and an even smaller doorway that seems to lead to a kitchen area. Everything in this room looks to have been stripped bare, but there are a few dusty old mugs and tankards scattered around the floor along with an ominously large blood splatter that coats the ground and part of a table.

As the group pauses just at the entrance of the inn, Eun and David scamper inside. By the time you enter (the PC's), Dave is grunting with effort as he tries to move the heavy wooden tables and chairs into a defensible position while Eun is looking around frantically.

Looking around and seeing the others enter hurriedly Vincent gritted his teeth.

"I guess they saw you ? It's ok we might be able to at least create a bottleneck in here."

Looking for what could be used as a weapon before heading up the stairs (But heading up carefully since the place is old)

"Um... Thanks," Colin said taking the shoe, "I hope we won't have to use them." He put it in the pocket of his leather jacket.

---

Colin goes to help David with the furniture. He grabs the other end of the table David was trying to move, "Let's block the door with it, yeah? They might not be able to move it, given their stature"

Kimberly heads to the kitchen to see if there are any butcher knives or heavy pots that could be used as weapons.

As Vincent moves quickly up the stairs, he runs past a room and does a quick double take. Looking through door, he sees an ancient corpse on the bed. The corpose is so old that the flesh has petrified onto the bone, creating a look like melted wax. Oddly, there is only an old musty scent in the room. The corpse is dressed in a fine leather armor and it's quite obvious how he died - a finely jeweled dagger is sticking out of the corpse's forehead.

In the room leaning against the wall is an engraved shield and a wicked-looking mace. The former owner's bag is open at the foot of the bag and an assortment of parchment, a vial labeled "Healing" that contains a red liquid, and some clothing. There might be more things hidden inside the bag. On the bedside counter is a pair of ordinary-looking daggers.

---

As Vincent heads upstairs, Kimberly ducks under the low door to the side of the bar and enters the kitchen area. Within the kitchen are some old carvings that are etched all along the cubbyholes that dot the kitchen. Inside some of the holes are surprisingly well-preserved grains and some older foodstuffs. On the counter lays an assortment of knives - including a large machete-like cleaver.

Within the fireplace is a large, heavy iron cauldron that rests over where a fire would be lit. You spy some heavy iron frying pans in a cubbyhole near the fireplace.

---

Inside the common room, some furniture is piled up in front of the door according to Colin's instructions. Eun and David are facing the door, each holding a crude make-shift club. Between them and the door is a maze of heavy wooden furniture.

In the distance, the squealing cry of the goblins grows a bit louder as they close in.

Vincent startles a moment and bites back some fear at seeing the corpse. He says a prayer for the dead and takes his keys out of his pocket. His crucifix ring he presses to the corpse. "May you find peace."
Finding the red liquid labeled healing kind of made the chaos of the situation settle, more puzzle pieces in place.
He took the mace and shield and secured the bag slinging it on.

Calling down the stairs, "Found some weapons, tossing them down the stairs for you. I will be down to help in a little bit but I think the stairs would be a good fallback bottle neck."
He tosses the two normal daggers down.

He took whatever cloth was on the bed and tore some there was no real time to put on the armor at the moment unfortunately they had not all snuck to the place. He wrapped the pommel of the jeweled dagger in the cloth. Prepared the mace in case well in case the corpse moved. "Sorry for what happened to you."

Holding his breath and not breathing he pulled the dagger free knowing it might be sold at the least but he didn't want to touch it just yet. Wrapping it in the cloth he slipped it in his own bag and headed downstairs unless something else happened.

"There is a body upstairs."

Hearing that there are actual weapons upstairs, Kimberly grabs only the cleaver and heads out of the kitchen. "When we get through this, there are some supplies in the kitchen, food and such, but let’s survibe whatever is coming before we worry about that. Is there a window upstairs? Can you see the.... the things? Are they getting close?"

(I would have checked for the things Kimberly asked for when she called up before heading down and answered if there was a window and if they were coming closer.)

Colin looks over the barricade they just made.

The squealing of the goblins continues to grow in volume until they almost seem to be outside and then quickly turns into hushed whispers. Harsh, gutteral sounds of the goblin tongue continue for about a minute and then cease.

David warily moves towards one of the barred wooden windows to take a look outside. As his face peaks forward, a flash of movement catches him in the face and David yelps as he's hit. He scrambles backwards, clutching his face as blood streams down. The goblin leans in from the window, a wicked grin painted across his face as he watches David bleed.

There is banging on the front door and little holes of light pierce through the door as it is gradually broken down, piece by piece.

Eun steels herself as she approaches David, "Let me look, I was studying medicine in school." Peeling back David's fingers, she let's out a small mumble as she sees the gash, "It's not as bad as it looks, head wounds just bleed a lot." She quickly rips a piece off her t-shirt and expertly wraps it around the gash.

Bleeding staunched, David wobbles back go his feet and holds a dagger with two hands with anger in his eyes.

By this point, the goblins break down the door and begin squeezing through the small opening one at a time. The first goblin just manages to squeeze half his body through the door as he yells, "Give me your thing things!

Colin pulls out the shoe he was given by Kim and tries to stab the goblin in the eye with it's heel.