You meet in a tavern

On a warm spring evening in the year 4711 after Aroden, Hanrin enters the "Rusty Dragon" inn in the tranquil coastal town of Sandpoint. Hanrin is a young man of slim, almost delicate stature, with fine facial features. He wears his blond hair a little longer, his blue eyes shine friendly, and when he smiles, two small dimples appear on his cheeks. As usual, he is wearing a red robe,  decorated  with finely embroidered golden symbols and wide sleeves that reach down to his beautiful hands. He is in a great mood, because later that evening he has arranged to meet Elisabeth, the daughter of the local grocer Vinders, and they will certainly spend the night in the hayloft of the nearby stables and talk about their future together. But first, Hanrin wants to meet his other friends, especially his best friend Lian. Since the beginning of the affair with Elisabeth, the two friends have spent far too little time together. He calls out a friendly greeting to the landlady Ameiko Kaijutzu and sits down at a free table in the corner, with a good view of the inn's large stage, on which he hopes one or two adventure stories will be told or even a song will be performed.

A short time later, Lian also enters the inn. He is tall and strong and you could mistake the two friends for brothers, because Lian also has blonde, slightly curly hair, bright blue eyes and a beautiful mouth. He also has pronounced dimples when he smiles, which is often the case, because Lian sometimes seems a bit dreamy and out of touch with the here and now. He greets Ameiko with a warm hug and two kisses on the cheeks, as the two grew up together in Sandpoint and are good friends. After Ameiko returned from her adventure and the death of her parents, Lian was a great support to his friend and helped her renovate the "Rusty Dragon", so that the inn is now one of the best in Sandpoint. Lian and Hanrin greet each other no less warmly and discuss the experiences of the past few days.

A little later, a tall Tiefling woman named Fushigi comes through the door. She has to bend her head a little, because she is only a hand's breadth short of seven feet. Her long white-blonde hair is braided into a ponytail that hangs down her back. She greets Ameiko with a quick nod and turns to her friends' table, where a stocky young man stands in her way.
"Hey, squirrel. Would you like to go for a walk with me?"
It is Lars, the blacksmith's apprentice, and at least in terms of strength he can keep up with Fushigi, even if he is not quite her size. In the background, his two buddies, Klaas and Theis, are laughing and smirking. 
"Ask them if they want to hold their tails! But theirs is definitely bigger," Theis calls out.
"Shut up," Lars calls to his buddies as he turns to them briefly. Then he looks at Fushigi expectantly again.
She takes a deep breath in and out before answering him: 
"I thought you knew that the most you could get from me is a beating," before she turns away and goes to the table with her friends. She hears a murmured
"Too bad. Maybe next time?" as the three teenagers leave the inn under Ameiko's stern gaze.  Fushigi sits down at the table with the other two and tries to make herself inconspicuously small, but she only partially succeeds due to her size. Lian and Fushigi are something like siblings, as they were both taken in and raised as foundlings by the local Desna priestess Koya Mvashti.

As darkness falls, more and more people come to the inn, craftsmen, day laborers or farmers from the surrounding farms and the usual gossip begins, how was the spring crop, how will the weather affect the future harvest, which cow should be kept for breeding and which should be sold or slaughtered. But one topic seems to be particularly worrying people. The goblin tribe of the "Toadlickers", led by Chief Gutwad, has recently become bolder and braver. In recent weeks they have left their traditional territory, the Saltstalk Swamp, about two hours' walk south of Sandpoint, and are attacking traders on the adjacent coastal road or plundering the livestock of the surrounding farms. They have recently started using strange fireworks that shoot out flashes of light or incendiary balls. Some farmers suspect that the goblins have learned to make them themselves, but this has not yet been confirmed by the bailiff Belor Hemlock.

Sandru Vishka, a local caravan leader, is also currently in town and is paying a visit to the Rusty Dragon. Sandru is accompanied by Nikta Nonda, a tall half-elf who was employed as a guard and tracker in Sandru's caravan. Nikta has long, pale blue hair and wears dark, spiked armor. He has a spiked iron chain wrapped around his waist that rattles quietly when he moves. Sandru approaches the table of the three adventurers, whom he knows well as Koya's foster children, and introduces Nikta to them as a reliable companion who has unfortunately decided to leave his caravan and seek new challenges. Lian, Hanrin and Fushigi greet the half-elf, the latter with a little more reserve than necessary. Nikta sits down at the table and takes over the conversation with his new friends. If there is one thing Nikta does not lack, it is self-confidence.

Sirca is the last visitor to sneak into the Rusty Dragon and quietly sits down at the friends' table. Sirca is a petite girl with long, light hair and two differently colored eyes. She has only been living in Sandpoint for about a year. Before that, she came alone and dirty from the surrounding forests and had difficulty trusting the villagers - or them trusting her. Ameiko found her a job as a stable girl in the stable next door, where she still lives and works today. The owner of the stable, Daviren Hosk, a former ranger without his own family, has taken Sirca to his heart and now regards her as his own daughter. But not all of the villagers have lost their mistrust of Sirca and so she hears the following murmured comments as she sneaks through the inn.
"Look, there's the little witch from the forest. Ever since my wife brought her to our farm, Betty, my best cow, hasn't given a drop of milk. They should chase her away, I tell you.”
“Betty is your oldest cow too, isn’t she, Eichmann? Perhaps she’s simply too old to give milk.”
“She helped me give birth the other day when Liese was pregnant. It was really difficult because the calf was lying the wrong way around and Liese kept wanting to lie down. But Sirca calmed Liese down and whispered in her ear. And half an hour later there he was, a strong, healthy bull calf.”
“No, I tell you, she’s a witch. One day you too will realise and think back to my words.”
But this village gossip is nothing new for Sirca and so she doesn’t let it put her off and sits down at the table with her friends.

Even the story of the renewed sighting of the so-called river monster, told by one of the local fishermen, cannot disturb our friends. The fisherman claims to have seen it on the New Fish Trail in Saltstalk Swamp, standing in the fog on the other side of a ditch, taller than a tall man, and then bending down to feast on the carcass of a goblin. The fact that the monster was busy eating was the only reason the fisherman escaped.

Later that evening, Mayor Kendra Deverin and the bailiff Belor Hemlock come to the inn to announce that goblin attacks, especially near Saltstalk Swamp, have increased so much that the town has decided to offer a new bounty on goblin ears. Each pair of fresh goblin ears will be rewarded with ten gold pieces until further notice, while there is a further bounty of three hundred gold coins on the head of Chief Gutwad of the Toadlickers. The announcement is met with broad approval by the villagers and the farmers present, especially since there were already rumors that the goblins were about to attack the town again. The residents remember all too well the horror that the last goblin attack caused four years ago. The friends are also excited by the prospect of several gold pieces and want to free Sandpoint from the goblin threat.

So they prepare to leave. Hanrin is eagerly awaiting his meeting with Elisabeth, the others are preparing for the next day. Then the shopkeeper Vinders and three other craftsmen from Sandpoint stand in their way. 

"There's the rascal! What have you done with my poor Elisabeth? She's been missing since yesterday afternoon and in the weeks before that she kept finding excuses to hang around with you."

The target of the accusation is Lian, who is genuinely surprised that Elisabeth did not show up for her appointment yesterday. Emotions are running high and a wild fight almost broke out, had Ameiko not intervened courageously to prevent this. She does not like it at all when people speak disparagingly about women in her bar. In the discussion that follows, it is clarified that Elisabeth has probably arranged to meet Liam and Hanrin alternately. Sirca can confirm that their secret meetings took place in the hayloft of the neighboring Goblinmatch stables, but did not think anything of it. Elisabeth was last seen by her father yesterday afternoon when she went to pick up fabric from the tailor Vernah. A quick inquiry to the tailor reveals that he did not have any delivery for the Vinders family. So was it yet another excuse from Elisabeth for a secret meeting with a lover?

The search in the stables also yields no results. However, it turns out that a horse was stolen from the stables that afternoon. As it becomes apparent that the group might leave Sandpoint during the night, Daviren Hosk warns Sirca urgently about the dangers. He gives her an old protective amulet that she should always wear, as she has become close to his heart like his own daughter. Old Wim, gatekeeper at the Sandpoint bridge, can confirm that a rider with a large bundle fled Sandpoint over the bridge. Wim could not say who it was, he only saw him galloping over the bridge from behind.

After the heroes quickly fetch the most necessary equipment, they set out late at night to find Elisabeth and the mysterious kidnapper and bring the girl back to Sandpoint safely.