Something is embedded in the largest scorpion’s chitin, just above its eyes. A red-glowing crystal. Much like the one they have…
“Kill it! The crystal is in its head!” The Necromancer exclaims, before casting haste and then an extended improved invisibility and vanishes from sight.
“You two, the small ones. I’ve got the big one…” Ogrim steps up, setting himself into the dwarven defensive stance, using his staff of defense, he invokes a shield of law, which surrounds him with a myriad of perfectly geometric force-shapes.
Damaré and Eltharion follow their orders fast, each one charging toward and engaging one of the eight foot scorpions. Each one stings at them as they approach, but they both are too fleet of foot, and dodge easily. Eltharion slices into the things pincers, cracking chitin and exoskeleton, sylvan and flaming scimitars tasting bug-flesh. Damaré rakes the thing with his spiked chain.
The gargantuan scorpion approaches Ogrim. Its stinger moves with unearthly speed, slamming down into him hard, his practiced defensive stance the only thing keeping him standing. The stinger itself is like a perfectly sharpened adamantium blade. It slices through his armor easily, delivering its poison liberally. And what a poison! Ogrim, usually stalwart against poison, disease, or sickness of any kind, can feel it instantly. His muscles burn, and he can feel them growing weak. So difficult to hold up his weapon and shield. He does so, however, and strikes the thing in the face. The weakened axe hit barely pierces the thing’s defenses.
Eltharion and Damaré make short work of the smaller scorpions, and approach the big one. Eltharion dashes over to Ogrim in an attempt to slow the poison, but gets a stinger in the side for his efforts. Never the most stout of elves to begin with, the poison fills his body and he finds it difficult to stand. He slows the poison in Ogrim, and brings his weapons to bear. Damaré closes in from the opposite side, hoping to flank the thing. He rakes it with his chain, doing considerable damage.
On top of the scorpion, a flash of dark bluish energy flashes and the thing shudders. Then, the scorpion acts. It snaps a huge pincer at both Eltharion and Ogrim, cutting through armor, skin, sinew, and bone. The insect was strong, too strong. Both could feel the life pouring from them, their blood trickling over the tiny little scorpions on the ground beneath their feet. The stinger strikes Damaré, his muscles going weak from the poison, and the stab wound sends him to his knees. He staggers back to his feet, barely able to swing his chain at all.
Eltharion stabs the thing with his scimitars, but with little effect. He’s far too weak to penetrate the vermin’s extra-tough exoskeleton. Ogrim hacks into it as well, drawing a small wound. Eltharion feels something touch his shoulder.
“You’re invisible; let’s kill this damn thing!” The Necromancer yells from behind him.
The scorpion ripped into Ogrim this time, both claws tearing into his body, nearly ripping him in half. His ancient dwarven defensive training keeps him alive. Damaré gets another stinger; the wound not too bad, but the poison sears his insides.
“This chain is so… heavy… ugh…” and Damaré collapses under his own weight, unable to support himself with his muscles burning so.
Ogrim then feels a touch on his shoulder as well.
“Tear this thing apart,” The Necromancer says.
Now that everyone is invisible, dispatching the creature becomes rather easy. With chill touches and vampiric touches from The Necromancer, expert cuts from Eltharion, and weakened, but still effective, axe hits with Orc-Killer, the party manages to down the gargantuan scorpion. Eltharion climbs on top and hacks out the red glowing crystal.
“Looks like we’ve got two pieces of ‘The Glow’ now,” The Necromancer states. “One to go.”
“Ogrim, don’t move,” Eltharion heals Ogrim with the rest of his spells, and helps him to sit. “I can feel that poison isn’t done with us yet. Let me tend to us, so it doesn’t spread.”
Eltharion breaks out his herbal kit and applies bandages, salves, herbs, and other concoctions to both his, Ogrim, and Damaré’s limp form. It does no good. All three of them feel the burn continue, and are soon too weak to move. The Necromancer clears a space around them from insects, and tries to let them rest.
“If you can still hear me, and I think you can, I’m going to try to set up camp here or something,” The Necromancer states, as he prepares a couple of spells from his books. Using a few cantrips he’s able to keep the area free of bugs and relatively quiet. They wait…
The next morning, everyone awakes. Eltharion, Damaré and Ogrim can hardly move. Barely able to lift his arms, Eltharion prepares his spells for the day. He is able to make them all a little bit stronger with the use of a few lesser restorations, but they are far from perfect. They take their newly acquired crystal and leave the forest of insects. They head toward the “Peak of the Sky” where the giants are said to be.
Travel is pretty tough, as most of them are still weakened considerably from the scorpion’s poison. They manage, however, and the next day, Eltharion is able to heal them all some more. One more half-day’s travel, and they should reach the small mountain, and they should be back at full strength.
The following day, around noon, they approach the steep hill that leads to the mountain. They see a large building where the hill becomes more cliff-like. Several forms are seen atop it, and a huge boulder lands next to them with a thud, bouncing down the hill. They see a couple more boulders flying toward them. The Heroes bolt toward the building.
The Necromancer casts haste and invisibility on himself and is gone. Ogrim, Eltharion, and Damaré charge up the hill, dodging (or not) rocks that are being hurled at them from the now visible walled encampment. Eltharion gets grazed by a boulder, as does Ogrim, but both grit their teeth and continue to charge. Eltharion reaches the wall and continues to run; up it, with aid from his slippers of spider climbing. Ogrim and Damaré reach the large wooden doorway and begin to hack into it, trying to break it down.
Eltharion gets to the top of the wall and hears an arcane incantation from above him, in The Necromancer’s voice. He sees two giants atop the wall with piles of rocks, getting ready to drop them on Damaré and Ogrim. However, a wave of evil and terrifying energies rolls past Eltharion and over the giants, who drop their rocks and run. One of them climbs down a ladder to get off the wall, but the other just jumps, too scared to wait. The Necromancer appears above Eltharion.
“Run away, timid ones… run away…” The Necromancer grins in evil glee.
One final chop, and Ogrim breaks a large enough hole in the large door, and squeezes in. He gets a huge rock in the head for his trouble. Inside, three giants stand, waiting to pound whatever came through the door. They all hold large sticks with rocks tied to the ends. One of them is a bit broader than the others, and wears a strange skin headdress.
“Damn giants, hope yer ready for Moradin’s wrath!” Ogrim chops into the large one’s ankle, drawing blood and a loud yell from the giant. Damaré slinks in as well, taking a rock-stick-hit to the shoulder, dislocating it. He groans in pain, but manages to swing his chain and cut into one of the giants.
Eltharion comes flying in from the other side, having climbed down the ladder, and slams into the chief giant as well, on the other side of Ogrim. He cuts small lines of blood into the things calves and quads. The giant swings his rock-stick, but Ogrim’s dwarven heritage trained him to avoid such lackluster attacks, and he simply ducks underneath. The other two giants swing at Damaré and Eltharion respectively, each connecting. Eltharion staggers from the hit, and Damaré falls to a knee, but gets back up quickly.
The Necromancer can be seen casting improved invisibility on himself from above. He vanishes, and then one of the smaller giants screams in pain, the top of his head blisters and peels; evil necromantic energies flow into him, and his life-force flows out. Damaré takes that as his queue and rakes into the things legs with his chain. The giant drops his stick and falls to his knees, then onto his face, motionless.
“You handle the big one, Ogrim!” Eltharion exclaims, as he rushes to the other giant, surrounding it with Damaré. Ogrim ducks under the giant’s legs and cuts into its knee tendons. The perfect hit severs them, and send the leader to his hands and knees. Ogrim doesn’t waste time; he takes a few quick steps and chops across the thing’s now-exposed neck, spilling gallons of blood, and it collapses.
Eltharion and Damaré work in perfect unison, distracting, harrying, and injuring the final giant. Ogrim comes in from the side and smashes the giant on the foot with his axe. The giant drops his stick and hops on one foot. Damaré wraps his chain around the hopping leg, and while Eltharion stabs into its heel, Damaré pulls, bringing the giant down.
“Nice teamwork,” Eltharion slaps Damaré on the back, and Damaré does likewise. The Necromancer appears, flying above them. He lands.
“Good job. But for some reason, I don’t think that these are the giants who are building that huge bridge to the mainland. These guys are using sticks with rocks tied to them. I doubt they could build anything…” The Necromancer explains.
“True enough, but let’s find the last stone and head to the top of the mountain. I want to see what this is all about,” Ogrim states, searching the pouch of the chief giant.
He finds the last glowing crystal, this one is blue.
“I hope these bring back Moradin, wherever he is…” Ogrim takes the stones and places them in a sack.
The Heroes don’t waste time looking for the two runaway giants. They head to the cliffs and start ascending. Not by conventional means, of course. The Necromancer casts fly on everyone, and they head up the face of the mountain. After a short (less than an hour) flight, they reach the top of the small mountain. They land on a small flattened space. Several standing stones are around, and in the center there is a rock with three indentations. The indentations are exactly the same shape as the three stones they carry. Eltharion notices a small viper slithering nearby, along with a goat hopping from stone to stone, below.
“I guess this is it. Let’s put the stones in,” Ogrim states, producing the stones.
“I’m going to try to use the ring again…” Damaré concentrates for a moment. He hears nothing. “I wonder why the rings aren’t working.” This draws a shrug from the party.
“I kinda like the name ‘Tribe that Shines,’ should be call ourselves that?” Eltharion asks.
“No.” The party answers in unison, and Ogrim places the stones in. The earth seems to reverberate, and a bright white light begins to pour from the sky, enveloping all of them. The viper slithers up to Eltharion’s foot before the light becomes too bright to see. In a bright flash, everything is black.
What happened!?! Why would I stop writing right now, just to annoy you? Is that snake as bad as you all (including the Heroes) think it is? These and other important questions shall be addressed next time.
