Milly is behind the abbey, gazing across the river.

"Oh, adventurers! Have you come to help?"

Gosh she is an adventurer now and not just a villager. That's so exciting.  

"Yes!!" 

"My vineyard has been taken over a group of bandits wearing strange red bandannas. They called themselves the Defias. Can you drive them off before they drink all the wine?"

"We're on it!"

Oh hey, she remembers this. This is about how these guys are all up in arms because of the death of what's his face the stonemason in the old Deadmines after Varian made several unwise governing choices, and then it turns out his daughter is in charge of them and it's all very dramatic and tragic. Why does she know that. ... Oh, this is a great opportunity to test if her bizarre concussion-induced memories bear any resemblance to reality! She can totally figure out what they're so mad about that they gave themselves a group name and if it's actually something to do with the stonemason's guild then maybe she actually knows things. 

"We should figure out why they're doing this," she suggests to Diane. 

Do any of the bandits in the vineyard talk if threatened and/or hit and/or (thank you, mage friend, Theri loves you, mage friend) set moderately on fire? 

They are generally defiant of the "Alliance lapdogs", and seem confident that someone named Garrick Padfoot will show them the error of their ways.

(The thieves also have more money and better quality stuff than the kobolds did.)

The sentiment is familiar but the name is not. Hm. 

Well, they can gather some loot and accomplish a quest objective, at least. 

(It is both reassuring and weirdly disappointing that she seems to have an actual backpack and not an invisible video game inventory.) 

"Do you think we should go back and tell the Marshal about this Garrick guy?" asks Diane as they rescue the last of the wine bottles.

"Yeah, good idea, that sounds like information he might be interested in." And he conveniently hardly ever moves from his supervisory spot, which is great because as soon as she needs to follow directions more complicated than 'behind this building you are already standing in front of' she is almost certainly going to have a problem with how she can hardly navigate her way out of a paper bag without a map.

(... or without Maps, really. Which definitely doesn't exist. Man, she is going to be feeling the internet withdrawal super hard any hour now.) 

Back to the abbey! They can drop off the wine with Milly, who gives them a silver apiece.

Marshal McBride strokes his chin thoughtfully at the news of the bandit leader. He'll have to think about what to do about this. In the meantime, the two of them can go ahead and pick out one piece of gear or a weapon each from the Militia's armory, since they've been working so hard.

Theriel accepts a silver coin cheerfully, thanks the Marshal for his time and the reward, and then stalls out slightly in the process of attempting to actually select one.

How is she supposed to decide which piece of gear is best without convenient hover info?? 

How about .... this nice belt? She doesn't have one of those at the moment and it will make her outfit feel less incomplete. 

It might be her imagination, but she feels just a little bit stronger after putting the belt on.

Diane chooses a brown cloak, on the basis of the spring nights still being a little crisp and also lots of surface area for additional pockets.

Huh. Weird but cool. Maybe with enough gear she'll feel not just like she's stronger than her possibly fictional desk-job self but like she's actually got superhuman strength, that'd be rad.

If they go back to Marshal McBride has he manifested any ideas about what to do about the Defias? 

The Marshal has concocted a brilliant scheme to deal with the Defias leader, to whit: send Theriel and Diane to deal with him.

Theriel is on board with this plan. Does he, uh... have any idea where this Garrick character might be physically located? 

Somewhere near the vineyard, most likely. But that's the sort of detail they can sort out themselves. He's the idea marshal.

Okay, sure, they can go back to the vineyard, they were just there and there are plenty of big tall plants that someone could theoretically have been hiding behind. 

Their mark will probably not be wearing a nametag, though. Or have his name floating conveniently above his head.

"Gosh," says Theriel loudly once they're back in the vicinity of the vineyard, "I sure hope that Garrick Padfoot guy isn't hiding around here somewhere to show us the error of our ways." 

"You think that'll work?"

Shrug. "No idea! But I don't have a spell for finding people, do you?" 

"Not unless you counting setting a really big fire, I guess? But Miss Osworth might not appreciate that."

Snicker. "Really effective pest control! And yet, no, she probably would not." 

If shouting is unfruitful perhaps next they could try canvassing the area in some sort of systematic fashion, going down each row of plants and checking behind particularly tall fenceposts and so on. 

This does not reveal any hiding bandit chiefs.

"-Hey, what about that clearing over there? It'd be pretty hard to sneak up on anyone hiding back there."

"Oh, yeah, let's look." Their collective combat strategy does not very much rely on sneaking so if he's hiding back there, seeing them coming won't help him very much! 

It would help even less if she could conjure hammers from the ether and throw them at range, but she does not seem to have a mental action that makes that happen. (Yet, growth mindset? Maybe she needs to get Brother Sammuel to show her how, when she was playing the game he was just a cosmetic holdover from earlier grittier versions and she would not have even remembered his name but here in her actual life he's who taught her practically everything she knows.)

Any bandit chiefs over here in this clearing? 

There is one, in fact.

"More lambs to the slaughter!" he shouts when he sees them, drawing his sword.

"Oh no," says Theriel, hefting her ridiculous mace, "but we have no mint jelly." 

Time to head into melee range at an enthusiastic run! 

Padfoot is a better fighter than her other opponents today have been. Still, he doesn't have a pocket mage, and it becomes obvious he's not going to win against the pair of them. He decides to try for a tactical retreat.