Outline and Setting
The story takes place in an early medieval styled era but the use of steam power were already founded. However, people decided to rely on magic power instead of steam as it was more convenient.
The story takes place in the country of Ghuqham, a neutral nation where races of all types and backgrounds were welcomed. However, deep down in the roots of the country were corrupted rulers and nobles who were secretly conspiring with a dark cult to accumulate an abundant amount of people of different races for sacrificial purposes.
Currently the story was taking place in an open forest pathway and a cart, dragged by two muscular horse was traveling along it.
The story starts off with our main protagonist, Marth, who is a priest with a half-elven background, being captured and bound in the cart with three other individuals. Their destination was to the execution ground in an encompassed town, due to their treason against nobles. Surprisingly, the nobles that each one of them had managed to provoked was one and the same.
[From here on out will be a rough detail of each the character description and the circumstances to how they were captured as prisoners.]
The prisoner sitting off at the back of the cart was a burly Dwarf with a carefree personality. The Dwarf had no clothing on whatsoever; he was stark naked with nothing but a leaf on his groin.
Between Marth and the Dwarf was a little boy with green leaf-like skin and two wooden stubby horns, erected from both sides of his head. To be more precise, the boy was a Fey.
On the front end of the cart was a fairly tall and slender build Lizardman or perhaps a Dragonborn, it was hard for Marth to tell due to the several layers of clothing the person had on.
All of four of them was surprisingly social and they all almost immediately volunteered to introduce themselves as soon as the trip starts. Ignoring the escorting guards nearby, they all decided to share more about themselves, their occupations and what they were specialized in. To their surprise, all of them were travelers and wanderers, with no specific end goal.
The naked Dwarf introduces himself as Billy and he was a spellcaster, as well as a sex offender. According to him, his reason for being sentenced to execution was because he had slept with the nobleman's mistress while the nobleman was away on a campaign to hunt for a monster that was haggling a nearby village.
On the other hand, the Fey introduces himself as Pueri and he was more or less a traveling trickster who uses his ability to charm people to have his way with them. He was sentenced for execution by accidentally burning the nobleman's entire stock warehouse, in an attempt to steal food from within the warehouse by captivating the guards stationed outside. According to him, his magic had gone haywire at the last moment and exploded.
When it was Marth's turn to explain his circumstances to everyone, he first shared that he decided to travel the world to broaden his view on 'life' and to spread the teachings of his knowledge on 'life' to people he'll come across in his journey. He then explained why he was sentenced for execution.
Marth told them that he'd come across a battle between a bear-like monster and several armed men, and seeing how injured the monster was, he decided to heal the monster in the midst of the battle. By doing so, one man had died by the hands of the monster, before it was finally subjugated. He was then tracked down and captured afterward.
It was then the Lizardman's turn, he called himself Blaade and he explained to everyone that he was a traveling bard and costume maker. Essentially he crafts extremely realistic costumes that would make one appear to be a completely different person. He explained that while trying out one of his newly made costumes, which was made out of bear fur and skin, the suit had become stuck.
He said that villagers had misunderstood him for a ferocious monster and had sought the village's protector, which was the nobles, for help. He was then assaulted by armed men and was almost cut to death when somehow he was miraculously saved at the last moment.
Using the chance to retaliate, he lunges forward and bear-hugged an incoming sword slash, effectively removing the costume and stealing the sword at the same time. He then thrust the sword into the man who had just assaulted him, killing him but at the same time collapsing over due to exhaustion.
Marth was astonished by Blaade's story, while the other two couldn't help but chuckle loudly, the Lizardman remained completely oblivious of his fateful encounter.
[From here on out would be a rough story of how they become criminals and finding a way to escape.]
There were only a few minutes left before their arrival in the town and death was looming over them if they don't act. After devising a "strategic plan" they managed to not only unbound themselves but also set the cart and its guards aflame and afterward, looted them of their belongings.
They decided to set up camp in a forest away from the pathway. However, they encountered a villager who was out hunting and he questioned the party of what they were doing out here.
Blaade tried to reasonably talk it out with him but Marth finally decided to display his true nature as a wicked cruel brute. He savagely attacked the villager with his mace from behind when the villager was preoccupied and repeatedly bashed him on the face.
The villager managed to scramble away with whatever is left of his face. Pueri decided that the villager might be of use to them, so he healed the villager with his magic and tried to charm him for information. The effect, however, was too strong which somehow resulted in the villager capturing the petite Fey and running off with it.
Marth cast a spell that conjured a wall of light to block the man, but he managed to somehow get around it. Just as he was about to escape, however, Marth fired a bolt with his light crossbow, instantly killing the man.
Afterward, they heard the sound of carriages and footsteps that belongs to those of armored men; they were patrolling knights. Unfortunately, they'd failed to quickly conceal themselves and was spotted by the Knights.
Blaade tried to approach the Knights to mislead them into believing that they were investigators sent by the king of the country. At first, they were suspicious of the party due to seeing the burnt cart, the dead corpse with a bolt in the head and the blood dripping from Marth's mace.
However, with phenomenal luck, Blaade somehow owned a badge of a noble minister which was attached to one of his several layers of clothing which he may or may not know he had. Nevertheless, the knights were now fully convinced of their identity, after saluting to Blaade they continue on their way.
Blaade and the others were in relief but were instantly sent into a panic when Marth decided to aim his crossbow and fired at one of the knights. The knight managed to survive by not being hit on a fatal spot. He was now provoked, however, he was too slow to react to another upcoming mace attack.
The other knight just so happened to be an expert swordsman and quickly disarmed the mace from Marth's grip with his sword. As Marth was about to get stabbed, Pueri decided to intervene and cast withering magic that decayed both of the knights.
Marth almost got himself killed during the battle. After much bloodshed, they finally camped out for the night and traveled to the town where their execution was meant to take place.
Their initial plan was to secure supplies, however, Billy got captivated by a local whore-house and went in it. Blaade and Pueri got ahead of themselves and tried to con a golem merchant. Marth decided to enter into a tavern but before he can get inside, a man was tossed out of the entrance unconscious. Seeing that the man was not waking up, Marth quickly looted his body and left. He decided to go into the whore-house as well.
The Pueri ended up setting fire on the entire town once again from failure in casting magic. The whore-house was set aflame as well so Blaade bought a pouch of snow powder to douse the fire and saved both Marth and Billy.
With an entire town ablaze they quickly escaped from the town into the woods and towards the mountain ranges in the west.
News of their escape, massacres, and chaos spread around the nearby towns and eventually the cities. Currently, they were now posted as wanted and were being hunted down by imperial enforcers.
Blaade brought out an old map that he had haggled with the merchant, he said it'll lead to an underground cave that leads to a tropical land, northeast of here. The party agreed as this was their course for escape.
[A brief detail on what happens afterward.]
They met with a few local guards and monsters on their way to the cave but nothing major happened along the way, besides some minor side events and scenes. However, there are two possible relevant scenes that is worth mentioning in the travel.
The first was that Marth had almost got himself killed by another merchant golem along the way in an attempt to mugg him.
The second was that their journey was slightly detoured due to an upcoming war in the area with the Orcs.
They'd finally made it to the cave but they found out it was in fact a large labyrinth and they managed to discover that hidden within were a lost civilization of superior knowledge in both magic and industry.
End of volume 1.
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