Choose Our Own Adventure Part 2

Choose Our Own Adventure

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

By Jason (Aeston) Rosa

When you really think about it we're all basically surrounded by instruments of our tragic demise on an hourly basis. There is really no reason to believe that being outside the woods is even one iota safer than being inside of it, especially considering the lackluster company that comprise this adventuring team. So my suggestion was to push on through and see for myself exactly how fortune could screw us over. Small surprise, we would find out before long. 

Less than twenty minutes after entering the woods, the path ahead took a steep decline and beyond it we could hear the familiar din of screaming and fighting that just makes one hate the fact that they didn't decide to be a cobbler or a cooper or something. Three decades of experience rushed me to the edge of the hill before I could really think better of it, my transient compatriots only a step behind, and the scene was as regretfully eventful as I expected it to be. Let me paint you a word picture. 

First there was the carriage. Carriages come in many shapes and sizes, of course, and if I had to describe the shape and size of this one, I would have to say “opulent”. It obviously cost a lot of money and was obviously worth a lot less money now that it was pretty much obliterated, over on its side. Near the wreck six men in armor were fighting a troll who was clearly getting the better of them since only two of them were actually still alive. Cowering on the ground and trying to conceal himself as best as possible behind the shattered mode of transport was a foppish young man who had already attracted the attention of a pair of goblins who were inching closer. Finally, clearly the wisest of the lot, a young woman was making haste to flee the ongoing disaster as quickly as she could, unfortunately choosing deeper into the obviously monster-ridden woods as her direction of egress.

There were, of course, many ways to intercede into this mess and no doubt my fellows were each deciding which of many possible mistakes they should commit in doing so. For my own part, I decided...