The Ironlock claimant, two-shot
General Summary
The ancient hold of the Ironlock clan has been re-discovered, and a good friend of the party Gruthilda Ironlock (or just Hilda for short) intends to stake her claim on it.
Ever since the hold was lost the Ironlocks have been seperated and scattered, so there are likely to be a set of different claimants which will likely come into conflict.
To help her Hilda has sent out an ask for help to every good friend and Ironlock member she has met throughout her journeys across Aedinia. The party are some of the people that answer that call.
Hilda had set up a camp around the edge of the the Northern Stretch, so people from the continent can gather before the whole group would depart on the long journey to the rediscovered hold. The party gathered on the 20th of Bryt, year 664.
2 of our main character Lori and Lothar, the twins and circus performers arrived late. That came in cartwheeling and playing instruments, the bells attached to their clothes making their arrival hears in the whole camp.
Lori was a pink tiefling girl, playing the flute was her specialty.
Lothar was a green tiefling boy, he mainly did cardtricks (and stole from onlookers)
As the 2 arrive the 1 other tiefling in the camp facepalms seeing this colourfull arrival in what should be the preparations for a dangerous journey.
This tiefling is our last main character, named Zorus. He was a queit and brooding man, with grey skin, a scar across his cheek and clad in black clothing.
The rest of the camp consistend mostly of other ironlock dwarves with only a couple other humanoid species. The caravan was well equipped with both money and recources as well as some carts and mules to drag them.
Hilda did not expect the twins to show up, but was happy they were here, she said the twins should get to know the rest of the travelers. In response the twins of course did a performance for the whole camp, which gathered them some attention. During the performance the twins get to know Brullin a little bit as they involve them in the performance.
During the night as everybody is packing up and getting ready to leave the next day, the twins are still being loud and trying to get to know everybody. Gimdor the oldest dwarf here asked the twins to be quiet the next day, because once they start travel they will enter an area filled with monsters. Before the caravan leave the next day, Hilda leaves behind some dwarves to send anybody onwards that arrived late.
As the group starts traveling through the Northern Stretch, Hilda asks Zorus to babysit the twins a bit. During the first couple days of travel nothing eventfull happens as there are still a relatively large amount of towns to sleep in instead of wilderness. After a couple days the group does however encounter a couple bodies, riddled with arrows on the road. As most of the caravan stays back, the party is asked to investigate. Together they quickly find a small goblin hovel close by. As they sneak closer to look, they notice the goblins are pre-occupied with the loot from the group they had just ambushed. So the party decides to take the opportunity and sneak past the road, avoiding any conflict.
That night the twins take an interest in the scar on the cheek of Zorus. They try and guess what the scar is, and then Hilda eggs them on further with a bet (she is curious herself). So the twins go crazy trying to guess about the scar while Zorus doesn't budge. Eventually Zorus leave the camp and stealths away into the bushes. The twins go after him and yell to try and find him, Lori gets very upset at Zorus being so distant while she tries to befriend him. The loud noise the twins made attracts a small pack of 2-headed death dogs which attack. Zorus was hiding close by and so makes the first strike as the dogs didn't notice him either.
The fight was brief, with only some minor damage to Lothar and Zorus. The dogs mostly attacked Lori as she was a clear target due to being upset. The party as a whole managed to defeat the dogs however, while the last dog who tried to run away was also taken care of as Zorus chased him and Lori shot fire. After the fight however Lori didn't feel great as she had contracted a sickness from the dogbites.
The next day Lori tries to just walk with the caravan but is clearly very sick and has to be helped. Zorus after looking at Lori for a bit knows a herbal tea that will likely help. So Zorus, Lothar and some dwarfs from the caravan spend the day looking for those herbs while traveling.
Eventually they find them all, and as the tea is steeped and drunk Lori feels great again by the next day.
Lothar gets bored and does a cartwheel
A couple days of travel later the party finds an abandoned camp right on the side of the road. Lori finds some supplies like food, equipment and a couple healing potions. Meanwhile the others find out whoever was here was likely ambushed, as there are only some signs of struggle. Lastly the party finds a trampled on flag of the ironlock clan, this camp was likely from another claimant traveling to the hold.
That eveing the whole caravan was on edge and tense, Gimdor suggested to Lori she might do a mostly silent show to help with morale. Lori asked Hilda is she could tell about the hold, but she sad the clan lost the hold before she was born. The only dwarf old enough to still have been in the hold was Gimdor. So Lori instead worked with him. Gimdor would tell a story about the hold, the smells and appearance and little stories of his childhood in the hold. During this Lori would use illusions to make the images real. It instilled an energy into the caravan, actually seeing the home they were fighting for, even if just in an illusion.
That same evening Lothar also helped Brullin teach some of the unexperienced dwarves the basics of using a bow.
On one of the last days of travel the party had been roaming around the caravan as lookouts. And they spot an ambush on the road. 1 dwarf on the road while from a distance they could see many more hiding in bushed on the slopes of the hills. Lori stopped the caravan using a sign of illusion magic. The party reconvened with the caravan and talked about what to do. Zorus and Lothar both would get close to the ambushing dwarves to counter-ambush if things go wrong. Lori together with Brullin would then go up and talk to the dwarf to try and go through safely instead.
Lori briefly talks before managing to charm the dwarf with a spell. Under the spell Lori quickly becomes friends with the dwarf. Using this the dwarf tells Lori basically everything. The dwarf is part of a clan called Marblerock. They are supposed to turn back any Ironlock claimants on the hold, by intimidation or force if needed. This is because the Marblerocks have a claimant of their own, from Ironlocks that were taken in by their clan when the Ironlock hold fell.
Lori managed to convince the dwarf under charm that she was part of a traveling circus and if they could pass by in a bit. The charmed dwarf agreed after hearing he could get free entry next time. So Lori went back to the caravan and used all her supplies to get the caravan to look like a circus and hide all the Ironlock symbols. Succeeding in doing that they managed to pass by the ambush without a fight. Waving the charmed dwarf goodbye.
At the end of the next day the caravan turns the corner on a large hill where they see a town in the distance. The "town" is more of a small village, there probably don't live more than 200 people there. They can see the plots of farmland on the flatter spaces and the roaming sheep being herded. There is a tiny stream running close to the town.
Way more importantly they can see a huge stone door with the ironlock crest on it, high up in the mountains with an overgrown dwarf-made path leading to it. They had arrived at the lost hold.
In total the travel took 19 days, while it could have taken much longer the music and performance of the twins across the journey helped with morale a lot.
The session ended on the 39th of Bryt
2nd session
At the start of the 2nd part the caravan and party looks out from a distance over the town. And are talking to eachother to prepare a plan for entering the small village. While a plan is being made Lori goes around to use magic to mend various tiny breaks in equipment and the like of the caravan. People have really come to like Lori as she has gotten to know basically everybody in the caravan.
Lothar and Zorus argue together about whether to enter town still disguised as a circus or not.
Eventually Hilda asks just the 3 party members to enter town in order to scout it out, they also do decide to keep up the circus lie.
Lori and Lothar come up with the name: Sunny goat traveling circus. The town instantly does seem warry of new people, stopping them right on the edge of the village and asking what they want. The twins talk and say they are a traveling circus scouting out for the larger group, while Lothar stays in sight but further back. The twins do a performance which does end up convincing the village it could be fun to have them close if the circus could do a performance. The warry mob disperses and Gotthard, a community leader comes to talk to the twins.
Gotthard explains they should look out for giants which have been spotted by scouts close by. And also he welcomes the twins to town. From there the party goes to get the rest of the caravan to find a spot to set up camp. As the party goes to do that, Hilda goes into the village with Brullin Ironlock, in order to try and get the town to like her and maybe also get a pulse on how much the village is in the pocket of the Marblerocks through aid they gave the village.
The party finds an area to set up camp, slightly from the village, in a hill with some trees and bushes for protection. While setting up for a bit, the party hears a scream in the distance and immediately goes to investigate.
A couple minutes walking later they find a humanoid laying on the side of hill, legs completely broken, groaning in pain. Lothar immediately goes up the them to try and help. Which is the moment 3 ogres appear from around the hillside, ready to attack what caught their bait. Zorus engaged the first ogre in a fight, but not before it threw some spears at Lothar. An ogre on top of the hill also pelted Lothar with arrows which he mostly dodged. Lastly an ogre wielding a long chain came around the other side of the hill. With 1 smash of the shain he accidentally killed the bait and nearly got Lothar too. Lothar dodged by rolling down the hill, which still damaged him a lot. Lori tried to go to his brothers help, but also made herself invisible to not be a target. Lothar ran for cover, with the invisible Lori going to the same patch of trees. The chain ogre catches up however and manages to land a strong hit on Lothar, which causes him to becomes stunned and disoriented. During this Lothar is still fighting 1 ogre while another ogre rains arrows on Lothar.
Next Lori created a hypnotic pattern with her magic, hypnotizing the chain ogre. The spell did however cause her invisibility to be removed. Soon after this, Lori also shot a fireball, which was large enough to cover both the ogre with a bow and the one Zorus was fighting. Zorus also was in the area but managed to swiftly dodge, while his opponent was blown to the side and died. The ogre with the bow also barely lived, but Zorus quickly closed the distance and finished that ogre too.
Lori started to walk further away from the hypnotized ogre, dragging the still stunned Lothar with her. Zorus approached the final ogre and struck him, which caused them to wake up and attack back. During this Lori tried to have her brother snap out of his daze, which worked. After this Lothar took out his bow and show the final ogre right through his eye as he looked over, killing them. After this the party went to loot the bodies, across the dead humanoid, ogres and a sack the ogres had been carrying with them. The party found some gold and jewelry worth a decent chunk of money. They also found a magical dagger and 2 stones with a face shape. The twins took 1 of the stones both. Later the twins learned the stones are magical stones allowing telepathic communicatin for 5 minutes per day, Gimdor helped them figure this out.
After returning to camp they learn of Gimdor that Hilda hasn't returned despite how late it is. And they ask the party to go into town to ask about it. Before going into town the party briefly rested from its fight with ogres. People were bandaged up and Zorus and Lori finally had a bit of a tiny bonding moment because Lori helped Zorus with bandaging his arm. Going into town they find a gathering of townsfolk having fun together at 1 house. The party asked around there and they said Hilda was here to talk a while ago. But that Marblerock soldiers accompanied her to their camp and she left with them. The party also informed that 1 of their scouts likely died, and learned they had only just joined.
The party went to the camp of the Marblerock clan to ask about whereabouts of Hilda. They were let in asking for their ringleader of the circus (aka Hilda). While walking through the camp the party notices all the dwarves have Marblerock insignia while the only place the Ironlock clan flag flies is at the central flagpole alongside the Marblerock. In the biggest tent of the camp the party sees 2 dwarves, a younger dwarf actually wearing Ironlock insignia only and a greying older dwarf that carries himself with authority. The older dwarf was the one speaking. As the party asked about their ringleader, the dwarf thinks that Hilda lied to this circus. He reveals the "truth" to them, saying she in reality is a claimant. He also says she is being held in house arrest now in untill the succession is done and the young dwarf next to him rules. The dwarf also says its likely she isnt alone and more members of their circus are really supporters of Gruthilda.
So the party goes back to the camp to make a plan together with Gimdor and the rest of the dwarves. They have 2 things they need to do: protect themselves from direct attack since the marblerocks are stronger and get Hilda and Brullin back.
For the first part, the party comes up with a plan to stage a circus show and invite the town. The idea being to get the towns trust and to prevent direct violence through relatively neutral wittnessess. This idea works based on the idea that there will likely be more claimants and whoever used violence first (when there's proof its them) will have a hard time in the public opinion between the claimaints, and are likely to be ganged up on.
So the party spends the whole night preparing a show with the dwarves. Only Zorus actually sleeps a good night while Lothar gets a couple hours after Lori insists he does. Lori is up the whole night helping various dwarfs to turn weird little talents they have into actual acts. Zorus does a knifethrowing act and the twins do their usual series of illusion, acrobatics and cardtrick acts (they make up a big chunk of the acts). The next moring the show happens and they invite the town, many of which comes. Mainly children, the elderly, pregnant woman and only a few others which skipped out on work to be there. They also ask for the townspeople to try out for ringmaster since their ringmaster (Hilda) has been taken by the Marblerocks, HOW MEAN right????
The show actually goes great. About halfway through a large group of Marblerock soldiers with the older dwarf arrive to probably attack the camp. But when they see the acts they realize they cant and back off. After the show is done the dwarf leader comes to talk to them, saying well done to their ploy and warning this just means the fight moves into the shadows. The party acts like they have no idea what they mean.
After that the party rests during the day, preparing in the evening to try and infiltrate the camp and get Hilda back. In the night they do so, sneaking over the wall and through the camp using stealth and in Lori's case invisibility magic. They overhear some dwarves talking about the claimant and how the clan is just using him to hopefully get the hold themselves. After a short bit the party finds a tent which is locked down and guarded, clearly an improvised cell. The party goes to the unguarded back of the tent, quietly stiches the tent open and uses invisibility to get both Brullin and Hilda out one by one. Then the party goes themselves, trying to just climb over the earthen wall. Zorus makes it no problem, Lori doesn't but is invisible and thus safe. Lothar however struggles and nearly is spotten, except Zorus managed to quickly help him and pull him over, also rolling down from the top of the wall himself, just in time.
From there the party reconvenes with Hilda in the camp and the session ends. The session lasted around 1 day, ending right before midnight on the 40th of Bryth, 664
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