Fiction | Game | Medium Adventurers League ⚔️

The Elf Queen’s Temptation

Part 1 of a quest

This is part of a story that works as an interactive game. You’ll need to have some paper and dice at the ready! Click here for the beginning of the Medium Adventurers League, and find a reminder of the rules here. You can also return to the Guild Headquarters, or go back to the inn to rest.

You read the anonymous note that accompanies the quest to save the Elf Queen:

For over a month, Queen Arriana has been held captive by a clan of goblins that have made their home in the Deadwood. I can’t offer to pay the adventurer who finds and releases her… but justice might be payment enough.

Signed — a concerned citizen.

As you depart from the Adventurer’s guild, Yorrick grabs you by the shoulder. “I admire your willingness to take on this quest, kid,” he says. “But be careful. The Elf Queen has a strange reputation. A lot of people feel that she can’t be trusted.”

“But if Queen Arriana is being held captive,” you say, “she must be rescued! Besides, they say she’s very beautiful.”

The bull-headed man grunts, his large ears twitching slightly. “The part about her beauty is true enough. Just… watch yourself. All is not as it seems.”

“Thanks, Yorrick.”

Pondering this cryptic warning, you set out. At first, the route causes you to retrace your steps towards your childhood home, Westport. Before long, though, you have to leave the main road and enter the Deadwood. As its name suggests, it is a grim, deathly and rotten place, and you’ve never been closer than its edges before.

Now you are heading for its heart.

You make slow progress onwards. There is no clear path, and the ground is marshy underfoot. Many times you have to clamber over a fallen tree or a huge cluster of fungi, or pause to make your way around a stagnant pool of water.

There’s no sign of anything to eat, and the air smells strongly of rotten wood. All the same, there are some living trees here. Perhaps a third of the trees you see have a few green leaves, and many crows caw harshly in their branches.

The sun is high in the sky by the time you pause for something to eat.

Subtract one day's rations from your inventory. If you have no rations, you must subtract 1 from health.

You also swig from your water, moderating your intake — it’s obvious that the pools and streams here are not fit to drink.

Just as you stow your waterskin away again and begin to move, there is a rustling in the branches behind you. You spin around, just in time to see a rabid ape leap from the nearest tree and attack you!

You try to fight back, but the ape swings back into a tree, and begins pelting you with broken pieces of branch.

(Here is a link to a dice-rolling app!).

Encounter: Rabid ape.

Challenge rating: Medium (roll 15+). The ape is hard to hit.
Roll using magic.
Or try to trick the ape into falling – roll using wits.
Or you can use brawn, but only if you have a ranged weapon such as a bow.

If you succeed, you land a hit. The ape falls to the ground, injured. You must do this twice to win the fight.
If you fail, the ape hits you with a branch. Subtract 1 from health.

If you defeat the ape, click here to continue with the quest. If you are killed, click here. You can flee, wounded or otherwise, back to the Adventurers Guild. If you do so, click here. Alternatively, you can run back to the inn to recover.