Chapter 1: Stolen Goods

On the eldest boy, the armor actually fits decently well. It's clear to see that he's well-muscled from the years of work on the farm. It's also clear that the others don't fit quite as well, and there's a lot of extra space within the armor.

The boy stands still, unsure of what he's supposed to do.

"Hey! Are you the Bailey Boys?"

The eldest nods his head, "I'm Xander Bailey. These are my brothers, Elmer and Vargas, and that's Pa. His name's Fergus. Who might you be?"

"You stole this armor," says Krogir-Vaam, letting go of the piece on Xander. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Englefeldt. Feldty says, sitting down to breath a little heavily, having tapped into the deepest part of his magical stores.

Seraphina is genuinely furious with these humans.

"Yeah!" she declares on the heels of KV's admonishment, not bothering to name herself.

"You took that from the armourer's shop in town! And you didn't even use 'em very well! It's like you've never been in a fight before! And now we had to come to your rescue when we're trying to rescue your children! And now my Wizard's wasted all his frosty missiles - " she reaches over and massage's Feldty's shoulders the way a boxing coach might energize their prize fighter - "And lookit KV's arm! That goes right to the bone!" She pats him on the kneecap since she can't reach his arm.

She pauses to take deep, measured breaths.

"So. You're gonna give the biggest suit of armour to KV. You're gonna take the rest of 'em back to the shop in town. Tell them you ran into Seraphina, and she set you straight. Don't leave that part out! I'll find out, you know I will. And then, you're gonna wait at home and stay outta trouble! What good is rescuing kids if they come home and their families got themselves chopped up into a goblin stew?"

"You just leave this rescuing business to us. We're professionals!"

She looks around to see if her message has sunk in.

"Oh right," says Krogir-Vaam, looking up at the sky. "There's a missing sister."

Just as Xander is getting ready to answer KV, he's interrupted by Sera's tirade. The boys slowly seem to get smaller as they cower before the three foot powerhouse giving them a lecture. Once it's all over, they look ashamed of themselves.

They all look to Xander, even Pa, who's just begun to wake up. He nods, "Pa, can the big guy gave yer armor? I think they'll have better luck rescuin' Briela..."

Pa reluctantly agrees and, five minutes later, a suit of chain mail is handed over to KV to put on.

Krogir-Vaam tries the fit of the chain mail, before remembering to take off his hide armor first.

"It's heavy," says the goliath, grunting under the weight.

Once the Bailey Boys depart, Seraphina rolls up her sleeves and gets back to tracking the slavers.

"KV, you good enough to find the slavers' trail?" she says, gesturing to his wound. "We'll let Feldty recover his strength."

Krogir-Vaam nods and looks for an appropriate trail to follow.

"Like where?" asks Krogir-Vaam as the group tries to pick up the trail.

A few hours later, after following the goblin tracks, you come over a hill and spot a cave. It looks like whoever lives their tried to camouflage it, but didn't do a good job of it.

"Do we knock? I don't see a door," says Krogir-Vaam, shouldering his maul as he stands tall and gazes upon the entrance to the cave.

"Hey, thanks for asking first big guy! As much as I like the idea of kicking down the door and running them slavers through one by one, I think we should hold back. Or maybe one of us could sneak in there and check things out first."

"Hey Feldty, how ya doing there? You got back any of magic back yet? Maybe you could turn me into a mouse or something and I could sneak inside. But not a spider or a bug, that would be yech!"

"And hey, what do you guys think? I'm starting to think these goblins are the slavers, not Humans after all! Or maybe they just work for the humans. I mean, I don't think I see any human tracks..."

Sera sees some small booted tracks, which she recognizes as goblin tracks. Mixed among those are several large dog-like tracks. though they appear to bear the gait of a two-legged creature rather than a four-legged dog.

I'm good Seraphina, a bit of magical power is coming back to me now. Not much, but enough to do some hurting if need be. he says, hopping up to his feet. I don't really have those kinds of abilities yet, but perhaps one day. But I am definitely ready to go with you wherever! he says, flipping through his book trying to find a spell to turn Seraphina into a smaller creature.