“Uh,” grunted Novak as he pointed at a trail leading out of the meadow. The ranger announced his acceptance of Novak as the party leader, which an outsider might have regarded as foolish, given the fighter’s profound lack of intellect. Yet, his supreme combat ability, as is often the case, made him a natural leader amongst those ready to battle any opponents.
They trudged along a path until they came to another clearing, across which they spied a waterfall. Suddenly a crossbow bolt streaked past them. Novak sprinted into the forest to get up to the top of the waterfall. He missed seeing the elf land a spectacular bowshot on a hobgoblin who crumpled in a heap. Several minutes later, most of the party descended on the hobgoblins and cut them down.
At the clifftop, Novak drank deeply from the clean water of a small lake. Where to next, they wondered. Again, Novak grunted and pointed. The ranger took the hint and began leading them down a path dotted with the boot prints left by hobgoblins.
Presently, they arrived at another river. On the other side, they faced a number of hobgoblins, too many for Novak to count. That is, more than three. He rushed into the thigh-deep water, nimbly stood on slippery rocks and cut down a hobgoblin standing at the shore. The ranger let fly an arrow that cut down the leader of the hobgoblins and the rest panicked.
Novak, weighed down in plate armor, did his best to pursue the cowardly hobgoblins. He managed to catch one that stumbled, easily cutting the monster down, but this pause allowed the rest to escape. He returned to his comrades at the river.
Noting the sun’s progress towards the west, Novak pulled a small tent from his sack and made camp. There was some conversation about attempting a return to the ferry. Novak was determined to stay out in the wilderness. Naturally, the warnings of the danger in the woods were nowhere in his thoughts. He pulled a measure of rations from his sack and gnawed on a tough chunk of some unknown comestible. “First watch,” he announced as the others bedded down around the campfire.