Today the party was a group.

So our youngest player apologized for his actions that started the derailment of the adventure last week.  It happens, I am sure he feels better after doing so, the other members accepted the apology and we were right into the action.

Adventure Spoilers for The Slaying Stone

Quick recap, they are playing the adventure The Slaying Stone. I am adapting it to an overall plot that will have lasting effects across the Nentier Vale in my campaign. Last week after the missteps of our adventurers they managed to get into the town and began the search for the Slaying Stone. They went to the Library and managed to make an enemy there, but they did not find the stone.
They did turn up that a possible dragon had mad a mess in the worn out library but they soon forget that lesson. They enter the old temple and discover a noble named Kiris who is being hunted by a goblin named Triflik who shows up and a fight begins. The cleric in the group does not care for Kiris after his true form is revealed and when the fight is over they have a nice shiny new magical dagger.

From there they head to the old stables. They fight a pack of wolves and the Goblin from the library shows back up to tell them they have overdue books and attacks them but soon runs when the wolves get beaten and screams curses at them as he flees.

From there they realize they need to head to the Hot Springs where they parlay with the Dragon and they are tested to see how worthy they are. At this point in the adventure it is down to just three of them, the Cleric, Mage and Paladin as the Bard, Ranger and Druid were either not there today or had to leave early. I suddenly realized I had some unaligned players in my presence and this could spell some doom for them if they were not careful.

Luckily they were in awe of the Brass Dragon while still being able to flatter the Dragon and finally be allowed to take the slaying stone to get destroyed. Currently the Mage is controlling (is he?) the slaying stone. They are now trying to get the stone out of the town and back to the tower where it will be destroyed. Though one warning... the Dragon mentioned the man in red again.

So there were some real differences in the group today. Most notably was Throm's player, he went from having to be begged for healing to offering it up right away after the Paladin was hurt. They all planned out the tactics they wanted to use before hand things moved pretty smoothly.

Throm's player just impressed me a lot, this is not a praise a player piece because of last weeks fiasco. I could take the blame for some of that by simply not stopping it when I clearly could have. I am honestly impressed with the progression today of his abilities.

• Healing when not pushed into it.
• Taking a frontline approach to the fights (instead of hiding) after he saw how powerful he was with his combined attack. Both he and his Bear did about 36 damage to one Goblin. Enough to kill it outright.
• Roleplaying. This is a big one, he usually is like. "come on guys lets get to the next encounters." today it was go with the flow and even participate in the roleplaying. Something I am impressed with in a 10 year old, I think we were doing that at his age but I am not quite sure but still an improvement over previous sessions.
  Truth be told, from him coming from Encounters where the roleplaying is watered down, the step up from that to a full blown campaign lets him and the rest shine a bit. Instead of 90 minutes of pure fighting they now get a few encounters in with some roleplaying sprinkled in.
• taking suggestions and using them. This is at the group as a whole, they are not telling each other what to do so that the individual shines. It is a group effort.

Next week will see hopefully two more encounters and a bit of roleplaying before we take a week off because of a Memoir '44 tourney at the store. They have the slaying stone and a soul is needed to off set the cost.

Who is the man in the red armor?