Session 31: Decisions Before the Gatehold of Iskard

General Summary

The Storm Eaters battled through the Roper infestation that plagued the ancient dwarven lift as they descended deeper and deeper into the earth. Bloodroot loomed over the center of the battle in his tree-like form, surrounded by his enchanted grove, trying to control a pair of Ropers. Svagnir took shelter behind his fellow druid, directing his summoned fey octopi to keep turning the wheel that lowered the lift, hoping to keep the platform moving faster than the Ropers that were emerging from everywhere in the shaft. Einar stood toe to...stalagmite with the foe, entangled in their mighty tentacles, tirelessly smashing away with his heavy maul. Ottar tried to slip into a hiding place behind the main brawl but was suddenly grappled by a rocky tentacle and pulled in close to one of the Ropers, becoming entangled with Synsk who was already restrained by the strange abomination of the deep earth.
Suddenly a glow of azure light emerged from Synsk's forhead! It quickly grew, engulfing the Raate and Ottar, who was tangled with him in the grasp of the Roper. And then with a flash of azure light both of them vanished. From the Roper's now empty tentacles a small, misshapen stone fell, clattering across the floor of the dwarven lift. Two of the Storm Eaters had vanished out of the blue (literally). This surely wasn't the work of the Ropers? What strange forces were at play, and could it have happened at a worse time?!?!
A moment later Maebha wailed in sheer agony! The mage was trying to maintain concentration on a spell to animate more skeletons for her undead troupe, struggling amidst the chaos of the battle on the lift, when suddenly a burst of arcane energy erupted from her hand! The skin peeled back from her fingers and then from her hand to the wrist, exposing a fully functional skeletal hand. But not completely her skeletal hand...two of the bones were jet black and smaller than her other bones, as if they belonged to someone else. The burst of arcane energy from her hand coalesced around the skeletons she was trying to animate. The piles of dwarven bones merged into a single entity and one skeleton arose. With a curious tilt of its head, almost as if it were befuddled by the chaos of battle that swirled about it, the dwarven skeleton took in its surroundings. Pushing her own confusion and pain aside, Maebha ordered the new skeleton to destroy the Ropers. With an unusual moment of hesitation the dwarven skeleton obeyed.
The dwarven skeleton took a short sword from one of the other skeletons in Maebha's mob, rushed directly up to the closest Roper, and buried the blade up to the hilt in its single, yellowed eye! With an unnatural scream the Roper died, releasing all those restrained in its many tentacles. But then, just as it looked like there might be some ray of hope for the Storm Eaters, a chunk of rocky debris fell into the gears connected to the crank that lowered the lift. The entire platform came to a sudden halt! A swarm of Ropers were pursuing down the shaft and would catch the stalled lift in mere moments. Svagnir and his fey octopi set to unlodging the debris without damaging the lift's gears while the rest of the companions battled the remaining Roper currently on the lift. The barrage of attacks was finished off by the odd new dwarven skeleton, who unable to get close enough to the Roper to attack with steel, picked up a large stone and hurled it hard into the Roper's open maw! With a surprised and pained choke, the Roper died as the hurled stone crushed whatever alien anatomy was inside its rocky hide. Unfortunately this victory was very short lived. By the time the debris was cleared and the lift was back into a descent it was too late. Another Roper had caught the lift and joined the melee.
Exhausted, wounded, and desperate the Storm Eaters turned their attention on this new foe, when suddenly the lift came to another jarring halt. They had finally reached the bottom of the shaft! It came to rest in a massive natural cavern that expanded in every direction far beyond the party's meager torchlight. But what could be seen of it was a nightmare. The earth and rock itself was black with corruption. Pools of stagnant water were brackish with oily corruption that seemed to make patterns like humanoid faces in agony. A gigantic root of Valdryssil was exposed through the earth, like a cliff of wood jutting from the stone. And it was clearly the source of the corruption that consumed the entire area, as the root was black, poisoned, and oozing with filth.
Luckily for the Storm Eaters, the Ropers wanted nothing to do with this area of rot. They instantly fled back up the lift shaft, leaving the bedraggled and bleeding companions alone in the corruption. The Storm Eaters moved away from the lift and took stock of their situation. Svagnir picked up the strange stone that was left when Synsk and Ottar vanished. It was heavier than it looked and warm to the touch, with a vaguely humaniod shape with far too many limbs. Svagnir wondered if his friends were trapped within it, or would somehow return to it, so he kept it.
Bloodroot set to determining the extent of the corruption they found themselves in. He attempted to speak to Valdyrssil itself by using his druidic magic while touching the rotten root. The sensation of an unknowable, primordial presence almost overwhelmed him, and he thought better of continuing the converation. He then attempted to enrich the land here with his magic, but found that the corruption was too pervasive to do much of anything.
Maebha was pouring her thoughts into her now skeletal hand and its black bones, when suddenly a familar voice filled her head with a disappointed tone, "Now you finally show promise...when it is too late." Hiding whatever thoughts and emotions triggered in her, the wizardess turned her attention to her newest, and oddest, skeleton. She retorically asked, "and what the hell is going on with you?" To her, and everyone else's shock, the dwarven skeleton responded with a fist to its chest, "Dainn." Maebha was silent with bewilderment. Strange powers were manifesting through these black bones in her now exposed (and quite functional and painless) skeletal hand. Powers to animate sentient skeletons? Powers to hear her dead mother? She kept all her thoughts on these matters to herself, despite her companions' many questions. Dainn however was quite open, and with what halting words and phrases it could recall from life, did its best to answer the Storm Eaters questions. Not much was revealed, as Dainn was just as baffled as they were.
The Storm Eaters moved to a defensible position amidst the corrupted cavern and took a must needed rest. Many strange things were afoot. Two of their number vanished. Maebha with unexplained powers that even she is confused about. A talking skeleton. But no answers awaited them after their rest, so in the early morning hours of the 41st day after Midsommar (not that the Storm Eaters could tell this far underground and removed from the sun) they determined to press on with their quest, as no other options presented themselves. And so Einar filled the blood bowl once more, and the lode stone guided the party through the massive corrupted cavern. They seemed to be paralleling an underground stream that vanished and emerged in and out of the earth. Like everything in this area the stream was black and rotten with corruption. They passed other exposed roots of Valdryssil, also putrid with corruption.
Along the way Skordal contacted Maebha on the sending stone for an update. Maebha gave a concise update on their situation, and added inquires about the state of the Lodge and any information about talking, sentient skeletons. Skordal's response would have to wait until tomorrow, as the power of the sending stone was spent for the day. Maebha also used the new power found in her black bones to trade necrotic energy for physical vitality by draining souls in Valdyssil's roots, as the corrupted area was taking its toll on her health (which didn't seem to affect her Eater companions as much).
The blood bowl eventually led the Storm Eaters into a narrowed portion of the cavern, where they discovered a group of dverge and their strange, insect-like automatons made of brass and corrupted root wood waiting to greet them, as if they knew they were coming. The leader of the dverge was a sickly and exhausted lookind dverge woman with long red hair and only one arm. She introduced herself as Lasgila Starksorrow and asked what brought a group of surface folk this far into the deep earth. The Storm Eaters replied that they were on the Barak Tor, a quest given by Wrothgar, in order to help stop the Wormborn Plague. This seemed to both intrigue and confuse Lasgila, who asked where this quest was taking them. The Storm Eaters pointed in the direction the blood bowl indicated. Lasgila said that they were then bound for the Gatehold of Iskard then, as that was all that lay in that direction. She explained (along with Dainn at times, who seemed to retain some memories of its former dwarven lives?) that Iskard was one of five Gateholds into the dwarven kingdom of Svarthalla. These Gateholds were impregnible fortress-temples garrisoned by the best and deadliest Svarthalla had to offer. Lasgila said Iskard was commanded by Thul of Guild Coalhammer, a xenophobic tyrant unlikely to allow a group of surface folk to enter Svarthalla. But Lasgila possibly had another option for the group to get into the Gatehold. She invited them to her camp not far away to discuss the idea.


Lasgila led the Storm Eaters to a small refugee camp built in the corrupted area just outside the gates of Iskard. Along the way the Storm Eaters met other members of her band. The first was Kexten Fungalhorn, an egnigmatic dwarf (the only non-dverge in Lasgila's band) who claimed to have left Iskard willingly to help the dverge survive in the corrupted area. He was responsible for building the insect-like automatons out of rotten root wood that protected the dverge.


They also met Arak, a crippled dverge who rode a gigantic subterranean spider, with the ability to become invisible together as one. The Storm Eaters assumed Arak had been spying on them since the lift and that was why Lasgila and her band seemed to be ready for them.
When the Storm Eaters were welcomed into Lasgila's refugee encampment they found it was populated by around 30 dverge (all of whom looked sickly, exhausted, and slowly dying of the corruption that consumed everything here). Lasgila explained that about two months ago all the dverge on or near the surface recieved messages from Svarthalla that they were not safe, that the Lodge Eldritch was plotting to harm them, and they were all welcomed back to Svarthalla for protection. Lasgila led her band back, braving the Roper infested area (where she lost her arm), only to be denied entry into Svarthalla by Thul, the lord of the Gatehold of Iskard. Thul claimed there was not enough room or provisions currently in Iskard for the dverge, forcing them to make a refugee camp in the corrupted area outside of Iskard. The dverge were slowly dying there, a race between starvation and the corruption to see what would take them first. Lasgila went on, saying that Thul also has some new magical gauntlet that allows him to move and manipulate corruption. He and his trusted minions have been using this gauntlet to push out all the corruption within Svarthalla through the gates of Iskard, where it has thickened here where the dverge refugees are stuck.
Based on this information, the Storm Eaters wondered if Svarthalla had made a deal or alliance with the Traitors Three, who told them the Lodge Eldritch perhaps planned to sacrifice a dverge to a God Gash. This would kill the entire dwarven race, but would return enough life force to Valdryssil to stop the Third Wormborn Plague. The Storm Eaters also wondered if this new magical gauntlet was part of a deal between Svarthalla and the Traitors Three, as they were the only ones known to be able to control corruption.
Lasgila then offered the Storm Eaters a way into Iskard to complete their quest, as she was sure Thul would not let them enter. She said she knew a secret way into Iskard, a way she could not go but the Storm Eaters could. She would tell them this secret way if they promised to steal the magical gauntlet from Iskard and bring it to her so that she could use it to clean out an area for her band of dverge to survive outside Svarthalla. She said she would need collateral from the Storm Eaters to guarantee they would return from Iskard with the gauntlet, something they could not go on without.
The Storm Eaters said they wanted to see Iskard for themselves before they agreed to Lasgila's plan. She said it would be futile, but pointed them toward the gatehold anyway. And so the Storm Eaters made the short trek to the Gatehold of Iskard. They discovered a sheer cliff face that ended the cavern they were traveling down. Einar came forward and knocked on the cliff, and a moment later an ingeniously hidden slot big enough to shoot a crossbow through opened in the rock face. A gruff voice asked what business surface strangers had with Iskard. The Storm Eaters stated they were on the Barak Tor quest of Wrothgar to help stop the Wormborn Plague, and wished entrance into Iskard to complete it. The slot closed without response. Several minutes later a much larger opening peeled open in the cliff face, revealing a fortified balcony twenty feet off the ground. A small group of well armed and armored dwarves filled the balcony. Thul, Guildmaster of Coalhammer and Lord of Iskard, stood among them and asked what this business of Wrothgar was that brought surface folk to his gate.

When Maebha attempted to answer, Thul immediately cut her off and said he would not hear poison words from a Lodge mage. Svagnir took up the conversation and explained they wished entry to complete a quest Wrothgar had put them on to help stop the Wormborn Plague. Thul said he cared not for the plagues of the surface or for what Wrothgar was meddling with. When Svagnir tried to convince him, Thul became short tempered, saying how ignorant and daring of a surface dweller to presume what Thul should think and do. When it looked like the Lord of Iskard would not be convinced in the slightest, he suddenly posed an option to the Storm Eaters. He said he needed help with the dverge that camped outside his gates. He less than convincingly claimed he could not let them in (not enough room, food, etc) but he wished they had a safe place to live (again, unconvincingly). He said that if the party escorted the dverge out of the corrupted area, past the Roper infestion, and to a safe place called the Ice Cradle, he would let them into Iskard. He said the Ice Cradle was a huge cavern where cold air travelled down fissures from the surface in the far north to make that area frigidly cold. But this cold kept the Ropers away and the area was free of corruption. Food could be found there, mostly fish, clams, and a subterreanan beast called a Linnorm. Thul said the Ice Cradle lay just beyond an abandoned dwarven Gatehold known as Cathbad. Within Cathbad was an old root portal the party could use that would bring them inside Iskard, without having to travel back through the Ropers and corruption once the dverge were safe in the Ice Cradle.
The Storm Eaters stated they wished for time to consider Thul's offer, at which the Lord of Iskard and his entourage departed, leaving the party standing alone outside the cliff face once more. The Storm Eaters returned to Lasgila's camp to discuss their options. As they did, Kexten asked several of the party questions about their plans and abilities, seemingly curious about a host of mundane topics. In his conversation with Maebha he gave her a twisted bit of rotten root wood and said if you ever need ol' Kexten's help, just tell the wood and I'll come to your aid.
During the discussion on what to do with Lasgila, where the party disclosed that they couldn't harm any dwarves which complicated things, Lasgila revealed that she met another ghost druid. It was years ago she claimed. An old coot by the name of Virhis. Svagnir remembered this was the druid who was bringing a secret message from Ghostfalls to the Lodge. A task the Storm Eaters completed when Virhis died not far from Blackwater Keep.
Eventually the Storm Eaters agreed to Lasgila's plan to steal the gauntlet from Iskard in exchange for knowledge about the secret entrance. To the displeasure of some of the party members, Svagnir gave Lasgila the blood bowl as collateral to ensure they would return with the gauntlet. Lasgila then revealed that the secret way into Iskard was through water. An underground stream flowed out of Iskard and surfaced in a cavern not far away in the corrupted area. Lasgila said she and her dverge did not have a way to travel underwater, but revealed that Arak (while invisible) had seen some members of the party breathing water when they crossed the undergound lake before descending the lift. Kexten added that the party needed to proceed up the underground stream until the third place it surfaced, and that should put them in the temple of Hjellik within Iskard where the gauntlet would most likely be kept.
And so, early on the 41st day after Midsommar, the Storm Eaters (minus two of their number who were still missing after a flash of azure light took them) were brought to the place where the underground stream surfaced. The water was black with oily corruption. What horrors would the party find in that rotten watery tunnel on the way into Iskard? And once inside Iskard, what dangers lurked in the temple of Hjellik where the gauntlet was believed to be kept? Would Synsk and Ottar return in time for this dangerous undertaking, or were they gone forever? What secrets do the black bones in Maebha's hand still hold? And why is Dainn the skeleton an absolute Roper killing machine? Join us next time...

Report Date

01 Feb 2024