Tabletop Tales: Once upon a game table, a band of haggard and exhausted adventurers stumbled out of a ooze infested cave and found themselves in front of an army on the march. When confronted by the soldiers, the weary band managed to convince the commander that they were master mercenaries ridding the mines of the monsters that had been tormenting the local dwarven community.

However, they didn’t quite manage to convince anyone that they were worth hiring. The gnomish wizard still had the shakes from being revived after spending too much time dissolving in a Black Pudding’s stomach. The Tabaxi’s typically well-groomed fur was now matted with blood and goo, and the dwarven monk was barely conscious and needed to be supported by the Firbolg druid. Which was a curious site seeing as the druid was 7 feet tall and nearly had to double over to prop up her friend. Because the battle in the mine was so harsh and the local environment so dangerous, the adventurers truly needed the aid of the army at that moment.

Realizing the troops would soon leave them behind, and that they needed food, shelter, and (most importantly) a job, the quick thinking and risk-taking Tabaxi pulled a pistol from his gun belt and a gold coin from his purse. With a flick of his thumb, he sent the coin spinning through the air. Seeing weapons drawn on their commander, the accompanying soldiers drew their own muskets and pistols, but the swift Tabaxi managed to fire a single shot straight through the center of the coin before anyone could react.

The commander, also a man with quick reflexes, snatched the coin out of the air. Peering at the adventurers through the whole the musket ball left in its wake, he said, “I need people with some talent, and I’ll pay you handsomely when the jobs done and if you survived.”

That night, the weary band of roaming mercenaries managed to eat well and sleep in safety. Fortune and glory waited alongside death and danger the following day, but those challenges would not be met on an empty stomach.

-Ash Alder