ASFTD: Session VII
A Shadow from the Deep
General Summary
With Flintwick dead and Bedezorus’ ultimatum still ringing in their ears, Elijah, Rain and Thorwald moved away from the place where their companion had been slain, with Johann, the freed guard in tow and, realising that they had not rested for over a day, decided to take the opportunity to rest and collect themselves. Making their way to the other side of Bleak Hollow's slaver camp, they were able to purchase some food and wine from the Shadow Elves that had set up camp there, and following their meal they were able to grab a couple of hours of sleep in an unoccupied tent.
Aware that the clock was ticking towards the rendezvous date that Bedezorus had set them, and not wanting to waste more time than was necessary resting, the party collected their things after a few hours of sleep, and began to make their way to the exit out of Bleak Hollow that they had not entered by. As they made their way back through the slave market, they noticed several of the Dwarven guards that were accompanying Bjorn, several of whom were wearing bandages and bore wicked looking burn marks on their exposes flesh, having evidently been injured by the explosion caused by Flintwick. As they left Bleak Hollow, the three companions joined the steady trickle of Shadow Elf traffic moving to and from the slave market, and once more entered the tunnels of the Underdark.
For the first couple of hours travelling the tunnel they were travelling along was bustling with the movement of Shadow Elves to and fro. The reason for this traffic was revealed when they passed an adjoining tunnel entrance that plunged steeply down, further underground, into and out of which the Shadow Elves moved. Seeking to ascertain where the tunnel led, Elijah fleetingly engaged one of the Shadow Elves in conversation, and was told that the tunnel led down to the city of Sabratha, home settlement of the Kin of Sabratha, to which these Shadow Elves belonged. Although they were briefly tempted to follow the tunnel down and see the Slaver City for themselves, the party stuck to their immediate priority, and continued to ravel along the tunnel that had led them away from Bleak Hollow, which now began to curve upwards towards the surface world.
The continuous upwards slope of the tunnel made the going quite hard, and after several more hours of climbing, the party were beginning to become weary again. Stopping for a brief breather, Elijah began to pick up the faint echo of voices up ahead, and telling the others to remain where they were, he began to stalk further up the tunnel to investigate. Up ahead, Elijah could see that the tunnel widened out slightly into a larger, rounder cave, before continuing again at the far side. Littering the bottom of the cave were the remains of several Deep Dwarves, that were mostly skeletal, but that here and there had strips of flesh and sinew adhering to them. Sat right in the centre of the cave was a large hulking creature, much larger than an average humanoid, with its back turned to Elijah. From the figure’s vicinity two voices could be heard, one that spoke in a deep rumbling tone, and the other in a higher pitched nasal voice. As he couldn’t see the other creature that the giant-like figure was conversing with, and not wanting to try his luck and go further into the cave unsupported, Elijah crept back to his companions.
On returning to Rain and Thorwald and telling them about the creature and its unseen companion up ahead, Rain, who was champing at the bit to exercise his Warhammer, began to make his way, fairly unsubtly up the tunnel, with Elijah and Thorwald following slightly apprehensively behind. However, as he came within earshot of the creature, who was still sitting in the cave talking to an unseen third party, Rain realised that the creature was speaking in Orcish, a language that he too could converse in, so rather than charging in to the fight as he intended, he instead attempted to engaged it in conversation. As soon as his words rang out, the creature started and turned to face the new comer, allowing the party to get a good glimpse of what it was for the first time. As it rose to its feet and revealed the true height and size of its giant-like proportions, the creature, and Ettin, leered down at Rain with both of its, Orc-like heads, and began to speak to Rain in Orcish, with one head speaking in the deep rumbling tone, and the other in the high pitched nasal voice. Rain asked the Ettin what it was doing in the cave (looking for food) and whether or not it would let them past for a fee (it wasn’t interested in gold, only food), and also whether it had heard or seen anything of the Stoneblood tribe that he belonged to (it hadn’t). As the Ettin was clearly a rather simple being, both in taste and intelligence, the Ettin brought the conversation back round to the subject of food. Having finally spied Thorwald keeping a safe distance from the creature further back in the tunnel, the Ettin offered Elijah safe passage to go on his way, if he would give him Thorwald to eat, as he did enjoy the taste of true Dwarf flesh so much. Guessing that the conversation was going south, Elijah used the distraction Rain’s conversation was having, to begin to creep around the side of the cave, and round the back of the Ettin. Catching a glimpse of this out of the corner of his eye, Rain drew the Ettin closer to him, claiming that he wanted to have a more private conversation so that the two of them did not scare Thorwald away with their talk of trading him to be a snack. As the Ettin leant down to Rain’s level to continue the conversation in a whisper, Rain attempted to take out one of the heads with his Warhammer, whilst Elijah attacked from behind. What followed was a short scuffle between the three companions and the Ettin, which resulted in the creatures eventual death, though not without catapulting Thorwald across the cave and into the wall with a well-aimed swing of its club.
With the creature dead, and the way now clear for them to progress, the three companions and Johann began to move onward, Thorwald nursing his wounds, Elijah stopping to gather up some of the well-made weapons from the Deep Dwarven corpses and Rain stopping briefly to extract the largest of the Ettin’s Orc-like fangs from its mouth as a trophy. It did not take them much longer to travel the rest of the tunnel’s length, and emerge once again into the daylight of the surface world. From their position, now on the south-eastern line of the Felsspitze Mountains that flanked the Tafelland Valley, the party could see the small village of Dornsill below them, and just on the edge of the horizon, the outline of the town of Kleinhaupt, their destination. With daylight still on their side, they made their way quickly down the mountainside, and after a brief stop to buy some supplies in Dornsill, they took the road to Kleinhaupt. As they approached the town, the Baronial seat of the Barony of Hohensten, the area around the road they were travelling on became busier as they encountered people travelling to and from the town, labourers working in the fields and beginning to move back towards the town as the sun began to set. On entering the town, which was dominated by the fortified mound, on top of which stood the baronial mansion. With the night drawing in, the party decided not to head straight up to see the Baron Theobald Hohensten and deliver their cargo from Bedezorus, but instead decided to explore the marketplace a little and find somewhere more comfortable to settle down for the night. Johann, keen to remain with the party until they went to see his employer Linde Frankesen, rather than attempt to explain where he had been and what he had been doing alone, decided to stay with them for the night. Elijah was attracted by the sound of an armoury, and approached it to see if he would be able to procure any interesting weapons. On entering he was directed towards the Tiefling proprietor Egmont, who at first tried to rebuff him by saying that he wasn’t allowed to sell arms or armour to civilians, on the strict orders of the Baron, who had decreed that all of the work he and his workforce did should be for the benefit of the Baronial Army. Trying his luck, Elijah showed him the Deep Dwarven weapons he had picked up in the Underdark, which drew the attention of Egmont, not just because of the fine quality of their craftsmanship, but also because of the outstanding quality of the steel they were made from. Egmont invited them into his office, where he produced a finely crafted dagger, imbued with innate magical energy, which he called the Dagger of Riposte. Although the price in gold of the Dagger was far above what Elijah could pay, Egmont made a deal with Elijah that he would take the weapons he had brought with him as a down payment, and would accept a similar shipment of Deep Dwarf weapons as the rest of the payment. After the two of them signed a contract of sale, they parted ways, with Elijah now being in possession of the Dagger of Riposte. With the night rapidly creeping in, the party repaired to the nearby Wolf Tavern to eat and rest. Inside they found good hospitality at the hands of Serkan, the Half-Orc tavern keeper and they ate, drank and risked their fingers in a bar-game before two familiar figures entered the Tavern. Wynstan and Arno recognised the group from across the tavern, and came across to be reunited with the party, whom Wynstan had presumed were dead after they were detained by the Baron’s agents in the village of Ormur. The two guards in Linde Frankesen’s employ, Arno and Johann were reunited as well, with both believing the other to be dead. As the party briefly caught Wynstan up on their adventures, they outlined their plan of action going forwards to him, and he gave some information to them about the feeling of discontent that was sitting over the population of Kleinhaupt, as the Baron was becoming more and more repressive. Wishing them luck the next day, Wynstan retired to bed, followed shortly by the rest of the party, who were glad to sleep in a bed once again.
The next day, Elijah, Rain and Thorwald awoke and began to head across town to the offices and residence of Linde Frankesen, accompanied by Arno and Johann, to meet the woman in whose employ they had been claiming to be in for so long. On entering the offices, they were made to wait by a Gnome clerk, who seemed rather disinterested in their request to see his mistress (claiming that she was booked all day and they would be better off returning tomorrow), until it was made clear to him that Arno and Johann were hired guards of Linde’s, who had been presumed to be dead until that very moment. Hastening upstairs to inform Linde of the news, the Gnomish clerk quickly returned and ushered the party upstairs into a large, sparsely furnished room, where a Dwarven woman with fiery red hair sat behind a desk, Linde Frankesen. Confronted finally by Linde Frankesen, who began to pummel the party with questions about who they were, why they had two of her guardsmen with them, why they weren’t dead, and where they had been, the party decided to tell her the whole story, including their conversation and deal with Bedezorus and the plight of the Baron’s son, and intimated that the information that they had might be of leverage to Linde and the population of the Barony in general. Seeing the potential of the conversation, Linde requested that she summon some of her associates, who would be very interested in listening to what the party had to say, and with the party’s consent, she despatched the stressed looking clerk to summon her associates to her establishment without delay, and invited the party to breakfast with her whilst they waited.
Comments