Um . . . Hooray?

With their captain and most of his retinue dead, the rest of the low-rent invaders decided they preferred their day-jobs and headed back to their town. They did attempt to drag some of our villagers back as slaves, but Bruce, Jeff, and iMike stopped two of their three boats, saving dozens of people from slavery and preserving them for a far more satisfying life of perpetual feudal serfdom.

(Sorry . . . off-message?)

But our victory cost our village pretty much all of the remaining militiamen, leaving us defenseless in the face of the inevitable next wave. (Also, and most unsurprisingly, the lone "survivor" of the original ambush mysteriously vanished during this last battle. As far as we're concerned, this NPC is now named "Dirty Stinking Traitor.") So rather than surrendering her hand in marriage (and surrendering the town as well) to Duke Loathsome, Duchess Pretislava is sneaking said hand out of the area to hole up with a trusted relative downstream.

Of course, we all have to go rafting through the Haunted Forest, but so far we've managed to get on the good side of the River Goddess, and also get some solid advice in how to make nice with the wild-people who live there. Good thing we picked up that Fodor's Guide.