Lightning Rail Chain Gang

Nothing like conscripted work detail to ruin a good time. But if I skip out of it, the consequence is death; so off I go to deal with untrustworthy strangers. I get assigned to cabin 15 of the rail car I happened to board. This is a rather motley crew. The first thing I notice is a huge dragonborn. He's over twice my height and covered in white scales. He's wearing heavy armor so is most likely a meat shield. It is so rare to see a dragonborn, my first thought is to hang near him, and I can hide while people are goggling at him. Maybe nick a few purses while he's got their eye.

There are a few other “talls” in the cabin: An elf in light armor that has a windbag over his shoulder that makes the oddest squeaks and squeals as he moves and a human that looks jumpy. Probably a city boy on his first trip out of doors. There is also a dwarf in leather that looks like a fellow cutpurse. He is quietly sitting and looking out the window. I'll need to keep my eye on him to make sure he doesn't cut in on my marks.

Finally, there is one other small; a gnome. An untrustworthy gnome. I'll have to keep my secrets to myself around him. No need giving him and his kind any more information than they need. He is tinkering with some small mechanical device but I can see he is listening in on the words spoken and surreptitiously cataloging everything going on in the cabin.

As I head to my seat, the foreman—a surly looking dwarf—comes in and notices the gnome and the human. He asks after their professions and they reply artificer and sorcerer. He looks pleasantly surprised and relieved and assigns us to stone marker detail. We are to catalog any damaged stones and mark fallen trees and other debris that would make the train unsafe for passage. This sure beats setting up camp and digging latrines and I breathe a small sigh of relief.

After a few hours we arrive at the camp site and debark. We are given parchment and quills and head up the rail line. The stones all look round to me and I quickly get bored. I pick a few up for the gnome and the human gets all upset saying it will wreck the train. Oh well, I'll scout about and see if I can entertain myself. It's a pleasant afternoon, and as its getting dark, we hear a gods-awful screech. We run to see what is about (I'm behind the meat shield of course) in the woods. It appears to be a honey badger stuck in a rope sling in a tree. We decide to save it, and just as I cut it out of the trees a bone-chilling howl occurs and I nearly die of fright. It takes a lot to scare me, but the shadow mastiffs howl seems to do the trick. It also paralyses the honey badger. One of the dogs grabs it and starts to take off with it, but the sorcerer puts one of the dogs to sleep. The other turns and attacks us. I hide behind the wall of scales and sneak over to the sleeping mastiff. I give it my best shot to the kidneys, but it isn't enough to kill it outright. I step behind a tree and hide as it wakes up.
The others are harrying the first dog and we end up finally killing the one that was asleep. There is a far off whistle, and the other dog runs off. Figuring that we have some meat for the camp, we decide to bring it to camp. While we are getting a quick bite to eat, a giant orc comes out of the woods claiming we killed his dog. I explain to him that the dogs attacked us first and we were just defending ourselves. He wasn't happy, but left complaining about having to replace some special hunt hound.

Next morning we get up for breakfast. I stand in line but find that they are serving porridge. If there is one thing I can't eat, its porridge. So I dust off my charm and stand near the bread line like a lost puppy begging for scraps. Just about everyone in line hands me a roll fresh from the oven. I'm in heaven. Later we report for duty. Foreman Zelcer looks at the sky and claims that it will rain today and no need to survey rocks. Instead, we are to scout for some rocky hills in the area and place some elemental traps on there. He hopes that he can catch a few lightning elementals to use as living power sources in camp. This sounds like fun, so we go scouting the hills. I can tell that the human, Vincent, is not used to anything but city life. He constantly jumps at everything. We manage to find four suitable places for traps so the dwarf Oakburn, and I place them.

We go back to camp and I'm ready for a few minutes of relaxation when Vincent volunteers us for foraging duty. For someone that doesn't like to work with his hands, he sure volunteers a lot. So we go out among the forest and pick herbs, plants, mushrooms, and tubers to bring back to camp. As we are foraging, I hear some small-folk laughter and as I'm looking for the source, I trip over my own feet. The little scarpers tied my shoelaces together! I had to laugh and give them props. I congratulated their cunning with a reward of a warm bread roll.

That afternoon, I overhear one of the cooks worried about something someone foraged. I come over to see what is the matter and they show me a little mushroom, only it moves, and has a cute little face! They are worried that the adults will come to claim the little sprout and wreak havoc in the camp. I volunteer to take it to the edge of camp so that its parents won't disturb everyone. I give it a piece of bread and try to entertain it by rolling a rock through my fingers. It seemed a little scared but started to calm down when two huge mushrooms come charging at the camp toward us.

As they are coming toward camp, Vincent gets all nuts and starts throwing fire at one of them. I tried to yell to him to stop, but he was half mad. While I'm yelling to him, the sprout shoots off a cloud of spores and I sneeze. Next thing I know, it is talking to me inside my head! I quickly calm the sprout and convince the dragonborn (Donaar) and the artificer (Wabnuc) to heal the mushroom that was nearly flambéed. I tried to tell the mushroom to run from Vincent after it was healed, but Vincent thought I wanted him to run, so it all worked out. I gave the sprout over to the adults and waited for supper to be done. Meanwhile the elven bard (De sir e) treated us all to some music. Apparently that air bag is a musical instrument. Who knew!