Hamish and Harrison were sat at a table, in a pub, in good old Eanverness.

"Hamish, I'm out of cash, and I gotta feed my dogs sometime this week. What can we do for money?"

"Go... eat. Big animal"

"You're right, Hamish! We should go seek our fortune in the wilderness!"

Just a days travel out from civilization, they came across not fortune, but a strange band of fellow all marching with stone masks on, and arms and armor of Pictish and Norse style both; their leader bore the strange banded mail of a foreign country, to go with a shortsword and a large shield... Fortunately, in the fog and being set up in camp already the party quickly killed their fire and resolved to hide away as these strange neighbors set up camp.

That morning, they crept away with the strangers gone, but came across the path of four stragglers that did not leave! They were wary though, and caught the stragglers by surprise! Leaping in against them, Harrison's dogs jumped on one and caught his legs and arms as he was shot with arrows... but the Norseman didn't seem to care.

The stone-faced demons dispatched his hounds with ease, but then Harrison swore an oath he'd see these men fed to dogs for killing his. He put an arrow sharply through the eye of one of them, dropping the man(?) instantly. They hesitated, and began to withdraw. Then, as they picked up pace one turned around to size up the odds -- another arrow found her eye! The two remaining broke into a sprint, but Hamish was unladen by armor and ran after the slower of the two.

With a tackle, the giant Hamish had him down, and as he was held down Harrison grabbed an arrow like a dagger and fished it around in the eyehole of the man's mask.

Returning to town with two masks strung on Harrison's and one hanging from Hamish's belt, they promptly sold the looted gear and got pissed. As they boasted in increasingly embellished terms of their ease of slaying the foe, a Warrior in the tavern told the two drunks if they could kill these three on their own, it wouldn't be a problem for his boys to roust their whole camp.

Sensing that his deed was about to be one-upped by another, the incoherent Hamish shouted that HE would do it, RIGHT NOW! and immediately grabbed the first two men who would take his money to come along with him. One man armored in mail with an Atgeir, and another common bowman were his picks.

Setting out for a deeper strike into the wilderness, they came across a band of men with their gear and colors turned inside out having an altercation with a pack of hungry wolves -- the quarry of deer both were stalking having run away.

In the chaos, one of the turncoats died, but the wolves were slaughtered by their blades. A good three of them died to Hamish and Harrison, so the leader of the men was willing to overlook them crossing his turf as payment for quite possibly saving a man's life... when they explained their plan to slay the leader of the stone-masks the bandit guffawed. "Aye, we know where they camp, it's far too close to Caelkirk and we avoid both of them..."

The party's fortunes were looking on the up and up as they prepared to set out, next time...