240331 An unexpected party member
General Summary
In last week’s episode of derring-doery, our band were trying to liberate an, as yet unknown, inventory of items from the Dwarven tomb of Lord Torril Flametongue. They managed to trip a poison gas trap leaving the poor hobbit Drogon feeling a little peaky, whilst simultaneously causing two perfectly fine giant dwarf statues to animate. Let’s see how they fared…
“Bugger!” said Drogon as he felt the poison take hold, staggering as the two lumbering statues turned to face him.
Kurog leapt to his aid and faced off against the right-hand statue and Thorg was quick to follow. Unbeknownst to them all, the statues had a nasty surprise. A wave of magic emanated from them causing all three to slow down, like pulling weights through treacle.
Kurog brought his mighty Axe, Destroyer’s Vengeance down hard, sending chips of stone flying but seemed to have little effect. The diminutive rogue sped into action and moved behind the left-hand statue to perform a stealthy attack, causing his own fair of chips and cracks. Before the left-hand statue could march any further our bardic beauty, Sentinel, commanded it to “Halt!”, which it dutifully did. Griff grinned ruefully as he knew that everyone did as the half-Elf said without the command spell.
Ever creative and unconventional, Griff the Wizard decided to cast one of his few remaining spells to open the ground under the left-hand statue, sending it falling thirty feet down into a pit.
Both Kurog and Thorg shook off the slow effects and laid into the Statue left at ground level, with Drogon firing his bow from the other side of the now yawning pit between him and the other target. Finally, the pernicious statue crumbled into pebbles and dust. The other statue was then pelted with anything our team could lay their hands on, ever arrow-parsimonious, whilst it climbed out of the hole.
It got back out swinging catching Drogon hard. Drogon is Halfling enough to admit he cried. The team piled in and Sentinel had the joy of delivering the killing blow on the huge dwarven golem, by blowing on it slightly. The rest of the group stared in disbelief, as the bard broke into a new ballad all about her destroying statues single-handedly.
Griff suddenly remembered he could read and write dwarven and proceeded to translate the runes on the golems and the wall. Yup, definitely desecrating a dwarf leader’s tomb, one Mr. Flametongue. With gleeful relish, the merry band lifted the lid from the sarcophagus to reap the rewards for their hard work and bruises, to find it was totally empty.
“Bugger!” said Drogon again
Sentinel performed a more thorough check for secret doors and found one by the stairs where they came in. She couldn’t help but wonder if they could have avoided all of the poison and statue nonsense if they’d just found this first. “Ah well, think of the experience.” She thought.
The team entered the secret passage with our stout-hearted thief checking for traps all the way, meticulously. As he rounded a corner, he discovered a square room with a large twenty-foot iron statue at the far end, next to a marble dais. The dais had a carving of a dwarf in repose form etched into it. Perhaps the real resting place of Lord Flametongue?
Learning from their previous encounter, Griff boxed the metal statue inside a wall of force leaving a prudent gap for poking. The team then investigate the dais and tried to lift it. Of course, the metal mammoth of dwarven engineering animated and when finding itself trapped, it blew poison out into the room through the handy gap the team has left. Luckily, the three nearest avoided it. It was then that Thorg noticed Griff was missing. He tutted when he realised the wizard had legged it around the corner.
Kurog confidently walked up to the dais and tried to lift it again, pulling a bicep muscle. The whole group joined him but to no avail.
“You know what guys?” said Griff, his voice slightly muffled due to the corner and distance from the others. “Let’s come back another day. Honestly, I’m worried about the horses we left outside. No really! Thorg, why are you looking at me like that?”
The team tactically retreated from the dark crypt, determined to return to continue pilfering the lawful good dwarf lord’s final resting place. That’s what adventurers do!
Sneaking out backwards, carefully closing all doors behind them, our intrepid team turned slowly and quietly and faced each other to offer a round of high-fives, only to find a group of dwarves staring at them, tapping their battle axes. They did not look amused at the desecration of their former leader’s tomb.
Without the slightest of pause, Sentinel took a deep breath and started to spin a tale of amazing altruism, one where they were in fact tomb savers, not tomb robbers. Nope definitely not robbers, heaven forfend! Luckily the corpses of the two fire giants were on the ground where they had fallen by the door. Her tale involved a lot of pointing at the corpses, especially during the weaker parts of the story.
Thorg looked down at his feet guiltily, with Griff whistling a merry tune looking at his spell book, an attempt at nonchalance. Kurog and Drogon nodding along with Sentinel’s story, throwing in the odd bit of colour here and there. Mostly the half-orc grunted and Drogon trying not to laugh when Sentinel described them helpfully checking the sarcophagus hadn’t been opened, by opening it.
The Dwarf leader, Guthrum was suitably impressed and seemed to buy into the pack of lies, but dutiful reader, I suspect he just wanted the Half-Elf to stop talking. He offered respite from the harsh mountain clime and would take them to the dwarven fort of Eagle’s Nest further up into the mountains.
The party hastily agreed, the thought of food and a bed pushing the last modicum of guilt from their minds.
Guthrum led them up a stone staircase that wound itself up the mountain, towards the fortification at the top. The group couldn’t help but be impressed the defences, from arrow points, to ballistae all poisoned to defend the road.
Once inside the grounds, the party was struck by the state of the dwarves, old, battle-weary and had clearly seen better days. They also noticed someone watching them from a window up high. Definitely not dwarven and but perhaps human and female.
Thorogrimm, the dwarf chieftain came out to meet them and listened to the tale of their adventures. Seems the dwarves and the party had a common enemy, giants! This group of dwarves really hated the fire giants. Thorogrimm decided a feast was in order!
They were given rooms to rest in and after they were escorted to the feasting hall. There they met a human cleric called Jude Ellstar. Jude had been staying with the dwarves after a few adventures of her own, recovering from injuries. Jude declared herself from Chalke, and her home was in the Theocracy, north of the Ashen Plateau. She had had to run due to the rise of the cult of The One in Chark and they had wanted to try her for heresy, being a loyal cleric of Lathander.
All the time they were drinking and chatting, the dwarves got more and more rowdy. Jude leant in to Kurog and whispered “Here we go, here comes the bloody songs again!”. As if a prophet, the dwarves started banging their tankards on the tables in rhythm, so that Thorogrimm could start the song.
It was a sad tale of long-ago King Argorod and the fight against the fire giants and also the songs referred to a “red aberration blocking out the sun”. Through the songs the party learnt of the traditional homeland of the dwarves had been lost to them. A Hall further up the mountain. Sentinel sang her own ballads and the dwarves cheered along and thoroughly enjoyed the performance.
Jude and the party chatted some more and Jude agreed to join them on their mission, hoping that they in turn would be able to help her in Ranke. She assured them all, that she had a few healing spells and she’d keep them alive. She looked at the scars on Drogon, and wondered if she had enough healing for that one.
A very drunk Thorogrimm challenged the party to an arm-wrestling competition which Kurog readily agreed. He was caught trying to cheat, twice. Once with his giant-strength girdle and another as Sentinel started to fire up a rousing, Kurog-strengthening tune. The dwarf was drunk, not stupid! Kurog won, just.
The party were then escorted to chieftain’s reception room where he remonstrated them for their tomb opening activities and desecration. The party again spun their tale, Jude from the back smiling gently to herself, recognising a familiar tale from her own adventuring. She advised then to apologise.
The chieftain was willing to forgive if they could just help him with itsy-bitsy problem he had. Something of so little import that it was barely worth worrying about. Just a huge, flying, dwarf-eating, spike firing, pissed off manticore that had nested somewhere near the entrance to their old home.
The party had little choice but to agree to help the dwarves begin the recovery of their ancestral land. At first light Guthrum and Argarod, leading a party of some thirty dwarves, headed off up the mountain path with our hung-over party following now a sensational six.
Once they arrived at the stunning entranceway and entrance hall, they could see it had collapsed at the back and the dwarves instantly set to work to clear the rubble that blocked the way further in. The ceiling too high to see and was pitch black.
The adventures hatch a plan and bait and trap the beast they hunted, then forgot about that as Sentinel and Drogon leapt a-Pegasus-back and patrolled from the sky, leaving the heavy metal and the robe-wearer to hug the ground. After a few hours it was clear the beast wasn’t going to appear. It then crossed the team’s mind that the nest might be inside the entrance hall itself, up in the dark ceiling. The flying team soon discovered this to be true as spikes flew out from the darkness.
The Pegasus was hit and poisoned, leaving the winged horse to plummet knocking the pair of riders off.
“Bugger!” said Drogon as he fell. Luckily the quick-witted wizard cast feather-fall and the pair floated, very slowly down. The manticore burst from its hiding place. This was not your usual manticore, it seemed bigger and angrier. Sentinel made a strong suggestion to the beast that fighting would be much easier upon the ground, which is did. This bard had serious skills.
The manticore was not a trivial beast. After being blessed by Jude, the sword wavers strode into battle. Where Kurog was promptly smacked hard enough that he thought he was a teenager again and called for him mummy. Not wanting you, faithful reader to miss anything, this fight might appear in a longer tail. Suffice it to say, they kicked its leonine arse, but not without having a few chunks ripped from them in turn. The dwarves cheered and did a lot of back-slapping. It was a momentous day for them.
A judicious search of the manticore’s nest found two items of interest. What they are and how the team progress will have to wait until next week my friends.
Report Date
31 Mar 2024
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