C2 E5 in brief

The party hits the road for the first time and the road hits back. Day one is gentle — a caravan passes, Jester climbs her first tree, Nott casts Message for the first time and Caleb scoops her up in pride. At the campfire, Jester gives Nott wildflowers because “all girls like flowers.”

Then Fjord dreams. Underwater, drowning, a coiling mass, and a gargantuan yellow eye: “Watching. Potential. Learn. Grow. Provoke. Consume.” He wakes coughing salt water. The falchion is gone. He tells the group the truth — a sailing trip went wrong, people died, a sword on a shore changed everything. He summons the blade from nothing: barnacles, seawater, teal light. The pact is visible now.

Day two, they push toward Alfield and arrive exhausted as the town burns. Gnolls — dog-faced, coordinated, dragging corpses onto carts. A wounded Watchmaster offers 30 gold per ear. The group charges into the fire.

The Battle of Alfield is the campaign’s first real combat as a party. Beau holds a doorway alone for three rounds, catching arrows and throwing them back. Jester’s radiant lollipop and Guiding Bolt hammer the pack lord. Caleb fires from behind buildings and hyperventilates between rounds. Nott casts Hideous Laughter with a toad pun. Fjord’s Armor of Agathys bites back in cold. The pack lord retreats with the cart, dropping Nott and Molly with two arrows on the way out.

Watchmaster Bryce pays 360 gold and explains the attack was coordinated — a feint drew guards south before the main assault. Something is making the gnolls desperate. The group is conscripted to hunt what remains. Molly drinks alone at the bar and has a quiet breakdown. Caleb counts gold in the dark: “This was a good idea.”

Unresolved: what the gnolls are feeding, where they took the cart of corpses, Fjord’s patron and the yellow eye, the road to Zadash, and whether six people who fought their first battle together will hold when the next one comes harder.