Haha, thank you so much for playing!
The RNG of the very first combat node is an issue, I agree. I didn't think about that. I was too busy just getting it all together and hoping nothing broke!
Regarding the story, I had SO much more I wanted to do, but left out for time constraints. When I work on this again, going in and fleshing out the story beats of each area is definitely high up on the list of priorities for sure.