handforged
First Post
I just realized that I didn't change my email back to my school address when I got back. It should be correct now. Or, bcp0424 at mail.ecu.edu. I'd really appreciate to see your notes even.
~hf
~hf
"Out of the Frying Pan"- Book III: Fanning the Embers
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
part 1 (of 2)
Session #52
“Get out of here!” Jeremy cried to his companions, when the giant block yet another blow from Derek. “I’ll slow him down.”
Kazrack got feeling back in his arm and swinging his flail in front of him, he grabbed his shield off his back and turning deftly as to not present a target put it into position.
The giant turned toward the dwarf and Jeremy found the opening. The point of the Right Blade of Arofel did not pierce the hide, but he whipped his long sword with great vicious across its thigh twice. The giant bellowed and lowered the club towards Jeremy, who leap away. The mighty blw slammed into Beorth instead. The paladin’s helmet crunched as the club struck it, and he fell down and slid painfully across the grass, blood blooming from a deep gash across his brow. However, that was not all. Kazrack had expected a blow from the other direction and did not see the blow come over his shield having lost no momentum from the collapsing Ghost-hunter and his head was suddenly ringing with pain. The dwarf staggered to his right, but amazingly did not fall.
The club continued to swing around and Ratchis barely pulled back, his blows going out of alignment.
Derek thought he saw an opening and had his axe above his head when there was a surprising shadow over him, he was shocked as something struck his axe and then slammed into his head. He barely kept his feet and looked up to see the second giant appear at the further clump of trees, hefting a rock in her other hand.
“Fall back to the trees,’ Kazrack said, thinking the closer clump would give them cover from the giants’ rocks and blows.
Martin was tracing a multi-colored pattern before himself as he faced the male giant from atop his rock. So far, it seemed to be of no effect. He had to throw himself down atop the rock to avoid a rock that came flying at him from the giant-wife.
“WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE US ALONE!!??!!” The giant-wife half-asked, half-commanded. Her voice, while low was still a screech of hysteria.
“Someone grab Beorth!” Jeremy cried frantically, working his blades in a frenzy of parries and thrusts trying to keep the slowed, but no less strong, giant occupied. He could see the blow flowing readily from his vantage point.
Beorth was dying.
The Neergaardian stepped forward feign a thrust with long sword and his foot landed on a muddy spot in the grass where the giants’ great and stony feet had torn up the grass. He fell painfully to his rear-end, jarring his backbone.
The giant turned from the fallen warrior towards those that still posed an immediate threat. Kazrack’s shield crunched and slammed back into the dwarf’s face when the giant whipped his clun across the front of his face and chest. The dwarf went flying back and landed with his shield over his face. Blood flowed out from underneath and into the grass.
The violence of the blow shocked Ratchis and he did not have time to react before he felt the club slam into his hip, taking him off his feet. He landed painfully on his side. But Ratchis did not hesitate, he rolled over on his stomach and pushed himself to his feet, using his moment to strike the giant with a powerful blow to the chest.
Wheezing, the giant teetered for half a moment and then fell over; a wash of gray-black blood splattering down from his many wounds. Jeremy barely rolled out of the way and up to his feet.
“RUMMMMBULLL!” the giant-wife cried in horror and dismay. Her face seemed to harden into a snarl as she looked at each of the standing members of the Fearless Manticore Killers in the eye.
“Wow, she’s pissed,” Derek said under his breath, as he hung his axe on his back and took up his bow again, fitting an arrow to it, calmly.
Martin thought quickly as he saw the giant woman begin to clear the trees.
“Imago Majorca!” he cried, and around the giantess erupted a ring of fire 10 feet high. She cried out and put her hands to her face and hesitated, looking around for an escape. She could feel the heat pouring off the flames.
“We didn’t want this fight,” Martin called out to her. “Leave us be and we’ll spare your husband!”
“Somebody help Beorth and Kazrack!” Jeremy said, turning to hold the line if the giantess were to approach. He held his swords up and ready.
Derek stepped over to look the dying giant. Blood flowed steadily from him, creating a thick black pool around his huge crumpled form.
“GET AWAY FROM HIM! GET AWAY FROM HIM!!” the giantess shrieked and covering her face with her arms leapt through the illusory fire hoping her stone like skin would protect her some.
Ratchis squat down between the giant and Beorth, and reaching over to the bleeding paladin beseeched Nephthys to grant him her healing graces. Beorth’s wounds closed.
Derek tried to fire an arrow, but was smashed by the giantess’ last boulder. The young ranger collapsed in a bloody heap.
“I said, move away from him!” she cried, her hurried steps shook the ground, Martin leapt off his rock and ducked behind it.
Jeremy sheathed his blades and made broad motions with his arms trying to get her attention. She looked over hurried. She now stood above Derek, her own club hanging above his bleeding head. She looked around confused and scared.
“Let us take care of our friends and you can take care of your husband or whatever,” Jeremy called up to her. “Look! I put away my weapons.”
Sweat poured off his brow, as he stole a glance over at Derek’s crumpled form below the looming giant.
“Back away from Rumble,” she commanded Ratchis, pointing to the stone giant on the ground.
“If you don’t let us take care of our friends your husband is going to die. You back up,” Ratchis retorted. He held his hammer above the bleeding giant’s face.
The giantess looked down at her bleeding husband, and tears welled up beneath her pupil-less steel-gray eyes.
“Have at your companions,” she said, and got down beside her husband to tend to his wounds, leaving herself open to a blow from Ratchis. She pulled furs from a bag on her back and began to tie off his wounds.
Ratchis hurried over to Kazrack and healed him with a spell. The dwarf began to cough and his eyes fluttered.
“I think this fight is over,” Martin said, gaining confidence with every word as if he were trying to convince himself. He walked out from behind the stone.
“Jeremy, you get Beorth. He can be moved,” Ratchis barked. Kazrack sat up and shook his head.
The giantess held her husband’s head in her lap and was holding him close. She looked up at them, her face growing rigid with anger again, “You owe us for our chickens!”
“Whu-what?” Jeremy’s jaw dropped, as he made to grab Beorth by the shoulders to drag him off.
“You killed our chickens!” she accused.
“What about the gnomes your chickens killed?” Martin spit back, forgetting himself for a second. All the death he had witnessed in less than a year’s time weighed heavy on his green shoulder when he allowed himself to think on it.
“Your chickens attacked us, and the little ones are our friends. We want to know what happened,” Ratchis asked her, as examined Derek after having stabilized him with a spell.
“If they hadn’t come into our home uninvited and set them free they would not have been attacked, and the hole in coop would not have been there for them to have escaped once again and attack you when you came here uninvited. The gnomes decorate my garden now.” Her disgust was for them was apparent.
Rumble coughed and a bubble of blood burst at his lips. Perika wiped it away with the hem of her fur and leather dress.
Kazrack grumbled and then offered to heal the giant. “That will be payment enough!”
“Payment enough!?! You were the ones who attacked him, and now we should owe you for that?” Perika sneered.
“What would you have us pay you with? We have nothing to give you that you could use, I’m sure,” said Martin, calming down.
Kazrack grumbled about his dishonorable it was to trade with giants. (1)
“We will take coin,” the giantess said, looking up. “We trade with the woodsmen north of here, and can use the coin to buy goods and supplies we cannot make or find ourselves.”
Ratchis stood and sighed, wiping his hands on his greaves.
He walked over to the two giants. “May I?”
Perika nodded, and the half-orc lay his hand on the giant and spoke to Nephthys, recalling pieces of the tale of Bronthro, the stone giant who had been won over to serve Fallon, goddess of healing.
Rumble took a deep breath and moved his great head back and forth, but did not wake. Admonishing the party to stay where they were while she carried Rumble away to their cave.
“I’ll not pay for those chickens!” Kazrack sputtered, his anger rising.
Jeremy shrugged his shoulders, “I have some coin.”
“I am not paying for…”
“Kazrack, we have to,” Ratchis acquiesced.
“These filth frokkin’ giants!” Kazrack spit and wrung his beard in his hands. His face became flush.
“Ratchis is right,’ Martin said, walking over. “We need to negotiate with her, since violence is out of the question. We may be able to get the gnomes away from here.”
“What? How?” Kazrack asked, but Ratchis hushed him, for the giantess was returning.
“300 pieces of silver per chicken will be adequate,” Perika told them. She had washed her face with water, but her eyelids were so puffy they looked like a jagged piece of coral.
Kazrack tried to speak, but could only make a “Pfa-Pfa” sound, over and over again.
“We have no where near that much money,” Martin exclaimed, and the rest of the group glared at him.
“Wait… For each chicken?” Jeremy was stunned.
“That is what ‘each’ usually means,” Ratchis scowled.
“Why are these birds so valuable?” Martin asked.
“They provide us with eggs, which we use and also trade with the hunters,” Perika explained. (2)
The four conscious members of the Fearless Manticore Killers huddled up and gathered their money. In the end, they offered her 14 pieces of gold and a ruby. She examined the ruby closely, but accepted the offer.
“Now that we’ve gotten that taken care of,” Jeremy said, smiling. “I wanted to ask, since the gnomes got stoned by your chickens, can you cure them?”
Perika looked at him slyly. “There are cures. But why would I want to do that? They decorate my garden and they only got what they deserved. The little sneak-thieves stole into here and let the chickens free and tried to take stuff without asking. Do they not kill men for that among your people, blood of orc?”
“Watch your tongue!” Kazrack admonished.
“Uh, but Kazrack, it’s true,” Jeremy looked at the dwarf like he was touched, and wished Derek were awake to share in their game of catching Kazrack at being Kazrack-like.
“You are aware of the great reputation o gnomes as generous of spirit,” Martin tried a different tact.
“No,” Perika replied shortly.
“Well, they are.”
“Gnomes are like gnats or other insects,” Perika sneered. “If they get in the food stores you have to stomp them out, and they look so lovely among the tomato plants, and one as a warning by that littlest of holes as a warning to other little things that might come crawling through.”
“The ‘warning’ had an opposite effect,” Martin replied. “It is what drew us here.”
Perika huffed. She still had her club resting on her shoulder.
“The gnomes are our friends,” Martin continued. “If you freed even one he could go to his people and get recompense for whatever inadvertent damage they have done and bring something to decorate your garden.”
A constant grumbling stream of incomprehensible sounds came shooting from Kazrack’s tightly closed lips. He was visibly shaking with anger.
“And the gnomes are a friendly and industrious people,” Martin continued. “The show of good will could lead to a new and valuable ally and trading partner.”
Perika frowned, but finally accented to curing one.
This was followed by a long discussion about which gnome to return to flesh, while the giantess retrieved the means by which she planned to affect the cure.
Finally, Kazrack threw the stones to decide, but even the gods seemed unwilling to make a choice, and it was decided any was as good as another. The one outside the cave, outside of the wall was chosen.
Perika left the valley home by the true exit, meeting the party back outside of the gully wall. She held the a stone sliver a little over a foot long. It looked tiny in her hand. Speaking a word, she tapped the gnome on the head and in a flash he was flesh again, collapsing to a shaking and sobbing heap.
“Wha. . .what happened to me? Who are you?” the gnome cried out, his voice full of fear. He grabbed for his axe, but Ratchis plucked it away. When the gnome saw the ugly half-man he screamed.
“Stay out of my home.” The giantess commanded, ignoring the shrieking gnome the party tried to calm. “If you should return come around to the northwest and knock on the door like a civilized being. And… remind that gnome of his debt and kin.”
She stomped off.
When it was explained to the gnome that he had been rescued, and the party knew Captain Fistandilus and his people he finally calmed down, though he still seemed skeptical that the party would have free access to the village of Gravan.
“What year was it when you happened upon the giants’ lair?” Martin asked him.
“The 3rd Year of the Grey Wash,” (3) the gnome replied. His name was Moishe Nimblewyck, he explained.
Martin nodded, knowing that was what the gnomes called the previous year.
“How long since you have been to Gravan?” Martin asked.
“Are you one of Greddadiddlerun’s people? Because he is dead and your people are leaderless,” Ratchis informed him crassly.
The gnome began to sob, buried his face in his hands; his large noise honked every time he took a deep sobbing breath in.
“I don’t know what to do! What am I to do? I can’t do it alone,” the gnome said through wracking sobs.
“Take your time,” Kazrack said, putting his arm around the gnome’s shoulders with compassion. “We have time. This is all over-whelming.”
“What brought you around here to begin with?” Ratchis asked, after a moment.
Moishe shook his head. “I can’t say. I shouldn’t say.”
The party was taken aback.
The gnome leapt to his feet suddenly. “I have to go!”
‘Wait! You cannot just leave!” Kazrack protested.
“I have to see someone about something and find some people,” Moishe said cryptically.
“Other gnomes?” Martin asked.
“The chieftain?” Jeremy asked. Moishe’s gaze shot at the Neergaardian.
“I cannot say… Do you have any food?” Moishe rubbed his belly.
“Can you write it down? I mean, write down what it is you are doing here and what you leave to go do?” Martin was desperately curious.
“No…no, she’ll see,” Moishe replied, softly.
“She? Who is this ‘she’?” Kazrack furrowed his brow, but Martin shot him a look of disdain.
“I think I understand,” the watch-mage said. “Say no more.”
“Surely you don’t mean to just let him go, do you?’ Jeremy interjected.
“We cannot hold him against his will,’ Ratchis said. “But I feel like we deserve to know what is going on.”
“You asked me to trust you, now I must ask you to trust me,” Moishe said, meekly. “If you are truly friends of my people and care for their welfare you will give me that much. If you do not let me go others of my people will suffer.”
Ratchis sighed. “Good luck on your journey,” he said to the gnome.
“We will be resting an hour before moving on,” Kazrack said. “Why not stay with us and share a meal and we’ll see what supplies we might spare you?”
Moishe Nymblewyck agreed.
Afterward Moishe asked them to give his love to his family if they should return to Garvan before he does.
“That’s not where you are going?” Kazrack asked.
Moishe looked around nervously and shook his head.
Kazrack grunted with frustration.
“May Fezzik watch over you,” the gnome said, shaking all their hands, with a sad and scared look on his face.
“And you,” replied Martin.
Moishe took off for the north.
“What was that all about?” Kazrack asked Martin angrily.
“I think maybe we should follow him at a safe distance,” Ratchis suggested. “I should be able to track him.”
“No, I don’t think that is a good idea,” Martin shook his head. “He said ‘She’ – and I think that could mean either the Mozek’s mother the succubus, or perhaps one of the escaped drow witches.”
Derek groaned, finally waking up from the wounds he had suffered at the hands of the giants.
“I heard some of that,” the young ranger said. “I was thinking, how many gnomes left the village with the chief when they left to go get the elves’ help?”
“About a dozen, maybe slightly more,” Kazrack replied. “Less than a score from what I can gather.”
“And you only found one of them in the elf place, right? He could be one of them, since they are mostly unaccounted for.” Derek posited.
The party could not move far from the giants’ lair, for Beorth was still unconscious and too heavy and weak to be carried along for very far. In the morning they would continue their journey southward, along with their speculation about yet another mystery.
Anulem, 7th of Sek – 565 H.E.
A night’s sleep on the cold hard ground was not what Beorth needed to recover. So in the morning, both Ratchis and Kazrack tended to the paladin with the blessings of their respective gods.
“Did everyone survive?” was his first question.
“Yes,” Martin replied, not liking the look in the paladin’s eyes. It seemed to reply, “Not yet, anyway.”
Kazrack explained to Beorth about the deal with the giants and the freeing of the gnome named Mosihe, and how he seemed scared and uncertain, but not because of the giants. The decision to leave the gnome to his own devices seemed to weigh heavily on the dwarven holy warrior.
Dark clouds rolled in quickly from the southeast as they packed their gear and began the march southward as fast as they could.
The rain was light, but constant by the time mid-day approached, but it seemed more like dusk, for the low dark clouds were only intermittently lit up by flashes of distant lightning, followed by powerful thunderbolts.
Visibility was low, but in the flash of a lightning bolt they could momentarily see some what looked as if the earth had exploded, sending shafts and panels of stone into a haphazard network of slopes, caves, passageways and jagged towers.
As they approached they could see this broken land was huge. It went as far as they could see in each direction, and according to the map the Pit of Bones should be somewhere within or just beyond this place.
It was awe-inspiring, as if the foundations of the earth had erupted long ago, with shades of gray, brown and black making striations on the long side of the huge stone pieces. (4)
The rain picked up and the sound of echoing torrents resounded from the place before them, like the predatory purr of a great dusky lion.
Ratchis tried to climb up on one of the outlying tall rounded stones to get a better view, but the stone was too round and too wet to get atop it.
Frustrated, he signaled for the rest of the group to stay where they were so he could check for tracks in the muddy and grassy field that led to an entrance to the broken land, where two huge tables of stone leaned on each other, jagged ends pointing askew.
The rain made it too difficult to find anything.
Ratchis walked back and dropped his pack and his quiver of javelins, keeping only his bow and his hammer.
“If I don’t return in six hours come up with another plan,” he told the others.
“Where are you going?” Kazrack asked.
“To check things out quietly on my own,” the half-orc said.
Martin shrugged his shoulders and granted the half-orc a ward against arrows, ‘just in case’, and with that the Friar of Nephthys hustled off to the damp darkness of the place on his own.
-------------------------------------------------
Notes
(1) Giants and dwarves are ancestral enemies.
(2) Female Cockatrices lay eggs seven to nine months out of the year, laying one large one every three or four days. The eggs have a hard stony shell, which is difficult to break open, but by not being fertilized they keep for weeks or even months, remaining edible.
(3) For a such a mathematical people, gnomes have colloquial and local ways of counting years, based on weather cycles, astronomical phenomenon and the rules of famous gnomes.
(4) DM’s Note: By way of comparison, after I described this place to the players I told them to envision a dirty black and wet version of the Fortress of Solitude in Superman: The Movie.
Session #52
“Get out of here!” Jeremy cried to his companions, when the giant block yet another blow from Derek. “I’ll slow him down.”
Kazrack got feeling back in his arm and swinging his flail in front of him, he grabbed his shield off his back and turning deftly as to not present a target put it into position.
The giant turned toward the dwarf and Jeremy found the opening. The point of the Right Blade of Arofel did not pierce the hide, but he whipped his long sword with great vicious across its thigh twice. The giant bellowed and lowered the club towards Jeremy, who leap away. The mighty blw slammed into Beorth instead. The paladin’s helmet crunched as the club struck it, and he fell down and slid painfully across the grass, blood blooming from a deep gash across his brow. However, that was not all. Kazrack had expected a blow from the other direction and did not see the blow come over his shield having lost no momentum from the collapsing Ghost-hunter and his head was suddenly ringing with pain. The dwarf staggered to his right, but amazingly did not fall.
The club continued to swing around and Ratchis barely pulled back, his blows going out of alignment.
Derek thought he saw an opening and had his axe above his head when there was a surprising shadow over him, he was shocked as something struck his axe and then slammed into his head. He barely kept his feet and looked up to see the second giant appear at the further clump of trees, hefting a rock in her other hand.
“Fall back to the trees,’ Kazrack said, thinking the closer clump would give them cover from the giants’ rocks and blows.
Martin was tracing a multi-colored pattern before himself as he faced the male giant from atop his rock. So far, it seemed to be of no effect. He had to throw himself down atop the rock to avoid a rock that came flying at him from the giant-wife.
“WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE US ALONE!!??!!” The giant-wife half-asked, half-commanded. Her voice, while low was still a screech of hysteria.
“Someone grab Beorth!” Jeremy cried frantically, working his blades in a frenzy of parries and thrusts trying to keep the slowed, but no less strong, giant occupied. He could see the blow flowing readily from his vantage point.
Beorth was dying.
The Neergaardian stepped forward feign a thrust with long sword and his foot landed on a muddy spot in the grass where the giants’ great and stony feet had torn up the grass. He fell painfully to his rear-end, jarring his backbone.
The giant turned from the fallen warrior towards those that still posed an immediate threat. Kazrack’s shield crunched and slammed back into the dwarf’s face when the giant whipped his clun across the front of his face and chest. The dwarf went flying back and landed with his shield over his face. Blood flowed out from underneath and into the grass.
The violence of the blow shocked Ratchis and he did not have time to react before he felt the club slam into his hip, taking him off his feet. He landed painfully on his side. But Ratchis did not hesitate, he rolled over on his stomach and pushed himself to his feet, using his moment to strike the giant with a powerful blow to the chest.
Wheezing, the giant teetered for half a moment and then fell over; a wash of gray-black blood splattering down from his many wounds. Jeremy barely rolled out of the way and up to his feet.
“RUMMMMBULLL!” the giant-wife cried in horror and dismay. Her face seemed to harden into a snarl as she looked at each of the standing members of the Fearless Manticore Killers in the eye.
“Wow, she’s pissed,” Derek said under his breath, as he hung his axe on his back and took up his bow again, fitting an arrow to it, calmly.
Martin thought quickly as he saw the giant woman begin to clear the trees.
“Imago Majorca!” he cried, and around the giantess erupted a ring of fire 10 feet high. She cried out and put her hands to her face and hesitated, looking around for an escape. She could feel the heat pouring off the flames.
“We didn’t want this fight,” Martin called out to her. “Leave us be and we’ll spare your husband!”
“Somebody help Beorth and Kazrack!” Jeremy said, turning to hold the line if the giantess were to approach. He held his swords up and ready.
Derek stepped over to look the dying giant. Blood flowed steadily from him, creating a thick black pool around his huge crumpled form.
“GET AWAY FROM HIM! GET AWAY FROM HIM!!” the giantess shrieked and covering her face with her arms leapt through the illusory fire hoping her stone like skin would protect her some.
Ratchis squat down between the giant and Beorth, and reaching over to the bleeding paladin beseeched Nephthys to grant him her healing graces. Beorth’s wounds closed.
Derek tried to fire an arrow, but was smashed by the giantess’ last boulder. The young ranger collapsed in a bloody heap.
“I said, move away from him!” she cried, her hurried steps shook the ground, Martin leapt off his rock and ducked behind it.
Jeremy sheathed his blades and made broad motions with his arms trying to get her attention. She looked over hurried. She now stood above Derek, her own club hanging above his bleeding head. She looked around confused and scared.
“Let us take care of our friends and you can take care of your husband or whatever,” Jeremy called up to her. “Look! I put away my weapons.”
Sweat poured off his brow, as he stole a glance over at Derek’s crumpled form below the looming giant.
“Back away from Rumble,” she commanded Ratchis, pointing to the stone giant on the ground.
“If you don’t let us take care of our friends your husband is going to die. You back up,” Ratchis retorted. He held his hammer above the bleeding giant’s face.
The giantess looked down at her bleeding husband, and tears welled up beneath her pupil-less steel-gray eyes.
“Have at your companions,” she said, and got down beside her husband to tend to his wounds, leaving herself open to a blow from Ratchis. She pulled furs from a bag on her back and began to tie off his wounds.
Ratchis hurried over to Kazrack and healed him with a spell. The dwarf began to cough and his eyes fluttered.
“I think this fight is over,” Martin said, gaining confidence with every word as if he were trying to convince himself. He walked out from behind the stone.
“Jeremy, you get Beorth. He can be moved,” Ratchis barked. Kazrack sat up and shook his head.
The giantess held her husband’s head in her lap and was holding him close. She looked up at them, her face growing rigid with anger again, “You owe us for our chickens!”
“Whu-what?” Jeremy’s jaw dropped, as he made to grab Beorth by the shoulders to drag him off.
“You killed our chickens!” she accused.
“What about the gnomes your chickens killed?” Martin spit back, forgetting himself for a second. All the death he had witnessed in less than a year’s time weighed heavy on his green shoulder when he allowed himself to think on it.
“Your chickens attacked us, and the little ones are our friends. We want to know what happened,” Ratchis asked her, as examined Derek after having stabilized him with a spell.
“If they hadn’t come into our home uninvited and set them free they would not have been attacked, and the hole in coop would not have been there for them to have escaped once again and attack you when you came here uninvited. The gnomes decorate my garden now.” Her disgust was for them was apparent.
Rumble coughed and a bubble of blood burst at his lips. Perika wiped it away with the hem of her fur and leather dress.
Kazrack grumbled and then offered to heal the giant. “That will be payment enough!”
“Payment enough!?! You were the ones who attacked him, and now we should owe you for that?” Perika sneered.
“What would you have us pay you with? We have nothing to give you that you could use, I’m sure,” said Martin, calming down.
Kazrack grumbled about his dishonorable it was to trade with giants. (1)
“We will take coin,” the giantess said, looking up. “We trade with the woodsmen north of here, and can use the coin to buy goods and supplies we cannot make or find ourselves.”
Ratchis stood and sighed, wiping his hands on his greaves.
He walked over to the two giants. “May I?”
Perika nodded, and the half-orc lay his hand on the giant and spoke to Nephthys, recalling pieces of the tale of Bronthro, the stone giant who had been won over to serve Fallon, goddess of healing.
Rumble took a deep breath and moved his great head back and forth, but did not wake. Admonishing the party to stay where they were while she carried Rumble away to their cave.
“I’ll not pay for those chickens!” Kazrack sputtered, his anger rising.
Jeremy shrugged his shoulders, “I have some coin.”
“I am not paying for…”
“Kazrack, we have to,” Ratchis acquiesced.
“These filth frokkin’ giants!” Kazrack spit and wrung his beard in his hands. His face became flush.
“Ratchis is right,’ Martin said, walking over. “We need to negotiate with her, since violence is out of the question. We may be able to get the gnomes away from here.”
“What? How?” Kazrack asked, but Ratchis hushed him, for the giantess was returning.
“300 pieces of silver per chicken will be adequate,” Perika told them. She had washed her face with water, but her eyelids were so puffy they looked like a jagged piece of coral.
Kazrack tried to speak, but could only make a “Pfa-Pfa” sound, over and over again.
“We have no where near that much money,” Martin exclaimed, and the rest of the group glared at him.
“Wait… For each chicken?” Jeremy was stunned.
“That is what ‘each’ usually means,” Ratchis scowled.
“Why are these birds so valuable?” Martin asked.
“They provide us with eggs, which we use and also trade with the hunters,” Perika explained. (2)
The four conscious members of the Fearless Manticore Killers huddled up and gathered their money. In the end, they offered her 14 pieces of gold and a ruby. She examined the ruby closely, but accepted the offer.
“Now that we’ve gotten that taken care of,” Jeremy said, smiling. “I wanted to ask, since the gnomes got stoned by your chickens, can you cure them?”
Perika looked at him slyly. “There are cures. But why would I want to do that? They decorate my garden and they only got what they deserved. The little sneak-thieves stole into here and let the chickens free and tried to take stuff without asking. Do they not kill men for that among your people, blood of orc?”
“Watch your tongue!” Kazrack admonished.
“Uh, but Kazrack, it’s true,” Jeremy looked at the dwarf like he was touched, and wished Derek were awake to share in their game of catching Kazrack at being Kazrack-like.
“You are aware of the great reputation o gnomes as generous of spirit,” Martin tried a different tact.
“No,” Perika replied shortly.
“Well, they are.”
“Gnomes are like gnats or other insects,” Perika sneered. “If they get in the food stores you have to stomp them out, and they look so lovely among the tomato plants, and one as a warning by that littlest of holes as a warning to other little things that might come crawling through.”
“The ‘warning’ had an opposite effect,” Martin replied. “It is what drew us here.”
Perika huffed. She still had her club resting on her shoulder.
“The gnomes are our friends,” Martin continued. “If you freed even one he could go to his people and get recompense for whatever inadvertent damage they have done and bring something to decorate your garden.”
A constant grumbling stream of incomprehensible sounds came shooting from Kazrack’s tightly closed lips. He was visibly shaking with anger.
“And the gnomes are a friendly and industrious people,” Martin continued. “The show of good will could lead to a new and valuable ally and trading partner.”
Perika frowned, but finally accented to curing one.
This was followed by a long discussion about which gnome to return to flesh, while the giantess retrieved the means by which she planned to affect the cure.
Finally, Kazrack threw the stones to decide, but even the gods seemed unwilling to make a choice, and it was decided any was as good as another. The one outside the cave, outside of the wall was chosen.
Perika left the valley home by the true exit, meeting the party back outside of the gully wall. She held the a stone sliver a little over a foot long. It looked tiny in her hand. Speaking a word, she tapped the gnome on the head and in a flash he was flesh again, collapsing to a shaking and sobbing heap.
“Wha. . .what happened to me? Who are you?” the gnome cried out, his voice full of fear. He grabbed for his axe, but Ratchis plucked it away. When the gnome saw the ugly half-man he screamed.
“Stay out of my home.” The giantess commanded, ignoring the shrieking gnome the party tried to calm. “If you should return come around to the northwest and knock on the door like a civilized being. And… remind that gnome of his debt and kin.”
She stomped off.
When it was explained to the gnome that he had been rescued, and the party knew Captain Fistandilus and his people he finally calmed down, though he still seemed skeptical that the party would have free access to the village of Gravan.
“What year was it when you happened upon the giants’ lair?” Martin asked him.
“The 3rd Year of the Grey Wash,” (3) the gnome replied. His name was Moishe Nimblewyck, he explained.
Martin nodded, knowing that was what the gnomes called the previous year.
“How long since you have been to Gravan?” Martin asked.
“Are you one of Greddadiddlerun’s people? Because he is dead and your people are leaderless,” Ratchis informed him crassly.
The gnome began to sob, buried his face in his hands; his large noise honked every time he took a deep sobbing breath in.
“I don’t know what to do! What am I to do? I can’t do it alone,” the gnome said through wracking sobs.
“Take your time,” Kazrack said, putting his arm around the gnome’s shoulders with compassion. “We have time. This is all over-whelming.”
“What brought you around here to begin with?” Ratchis asked, after a moment.
Moishe shook his head. “I can’t say. I shouldn’t say.”
The party was taken aback.
The gnome leapt to his feet suddenly. “I have to go!”
‘Wait! You cannot just leave!” Kazrack protested.
“I have to see someone about something and find some people,” Moishe said cryptically.
“Other gnomes?” Martin asked.
“The chieftain?” Jeremy asked. Moishe’s gaze shot at the Neergaardian.
“I cannot say… Do you have any food?” Moishe rubbed his belly.
“Can you write it down? I mean, write down what it is you are doing here and what you leave to go do?” Martin was desperately curious.
“No…no, she’ll see,” Moishe replied, softly.
“She? Who is this ‘she’?” Kazrack furrowed his brow, but Martin shot him a look of disdain.
“I think I understand,” the watch-mage said. “Say no more.”
“Surely you don’t mean to just let him go, do you?’ Jeremy interjected.
“We cannot hold him against his will,’ Ratchis said. “But I feel like we deserve to know what is going on.”
“You asked me to trust you, now I must ask you to trust me,” Moishe said, meekly. “If you are truly friends of my people and care for their welfare you will give me that much. If you do not let me go others of my people will suffer.”
Ratchis sighed. “Good luck on your journey,” he said to the gnome.
“We will be resting an hour before moving on,” Kazrack said. “Why not stay with us and share a meal and we’ll see what supplies we might spare you?”
Moishe Nymblewyck agreed.
Afterward Moishe asked them to give his love to his family if they should return to Garvan before he does.
“That’s not where you are going?” Kazrack asked.
Moishe looked around nervously and shook his head.
Kazrack grunted with frustration.
“May Fezzik watch over you,” the gnome said, shaking all their hands, with a sad and scared look on his face.
“And you,” replied Martin.
Moishe took off for the north.
“What was that all about?” Kazrack asked Martin angrily.
“I think maybe we should follow him at a safe distance,” Ratchis suggested. “I should be able to track him.”
“No, I don’t think that is a good idea,” Martin shook his head. “He said ‘She’ – and I think that could mean either the Mozek’s mother the succubus, or perhaps one of the escaped drow witches.”
Derek groaned, finally waking up from the wounds he had suffered at the hands of the giants.
“I heard some of that,” the young ranger said. “I was thinking, how many gnomes left the village with the chief when they left to go get the elves’ help?”
“About a dozen, maybe slightly more,” Kazrack replied. “Less than a score from what I can gather.”
“And you only found one of them in the elf place, right? He could be one of them, since they are mostly unaccounted for.” Derek posited.
The party could not move far from the giants’ lair, for Beorth was still unconscious and too heavy and weak to be carried along for very far. In the morning they would continue their journey southward, along with their speculation about yet another mystery.
Anulem, 7th of Sek – 565 H.E.
A night’s sleep on the cold hard ground was not what Beorth needed to recover. So in the morning, both Ratchis and Kazrack tended to the paladin with the blessings of their respective gods.
“Did everyone survive?” was his first question.
“Yes,” Martin replied, not liking the look in the paladin’s eyes. It seemed to reply, “Not yet, anyway.”
Kazrack explained to Beorth about the deal with the giants and the freeing of the gnome named Mosihe, and how he seemed scared and uncertain, but not because of the giants. The decision to leave the gnome to his own devices seemed to weigh heavily on the dwarven holy warrior.
Dark clouds rolled in quickly from the southeast as they packed their gear and began the march southward as fast as they could.
The rain was light, but constant by the time mid-day approached, but it seemed more like dusk, for the low dark clouds were only intermittently lit up by flashes of distant lightning, followed by powerful thunderbolts.
Visibility was low, but in the flash of a lightning bolt they could momentarily see some what looked as if the earth had exploded, sending shafts and panels of stone into a haphazard network of slopes, caves, passageways and jagged towers.
As they approached they could see this broken land was huge. It went as far as they could see in each direction, and according to the map the Pit of Bones should be somewhere within or just beyond this place.
It was awe-inspiring, as if the foundations of the earth had erupted long ago, with shades of gray, brown and black making striations on the long side of the huge stone pieces. (4)
The rain picked up and the sound of echoing torrents resounded from the place before them, like the predatory purr of a great dusky lion.
Ratchis tried to climb up on one of the outlying tall rounded stones to get a better view, but the stone was too round and too wet to get atop it.
Frustrated, he signaled for the rest of the group to stay where they were so he could check for tracks in the muddy and grassy field that led to an entrance to the broken land, where two huge tables of stone leaned on each other, jagged ends pointing askew.
The rain made it too difficult to find anything.
Ratchis walked back and dropped his pack and his quiver of javelins, keeping only his bow and his hammer.
“If I don’t return in six hours come up with another plan,” he told the others.
“Where are you going?” Kazrack asked.
“To check things out quietly on my own,” the half-orc said.
Martin shrugged his shoulders and granted the half-orc a ward against arrows, ‘just in case’, and with that the Friar of Nephthys hustled off to the damp darkness of the place on his own.
-------------------------------------------------
Notes
(1) Giants and dwarves are ancestral enemies.
(2) Female Cockatrices lay eggs seven to nine months out of the year, laying one large one every three or four days. The eggs have a hard stony shell, which is difficult to break open, but by not being fertilized they keep for weeks or even months, remaining edible.
(3) For a such a mathematical people, gnomes have colloquial and local ways of counting years, based on weather cycles, astronomical phenomenon and the rules of famous gnomes.
(4) DM’s Note: By way of comparison, after I described this place to the players I told them to envision a dirty black and wet version of the Fortress of Solitude in Superman: The Movie.
handforged
First Post
I love it when they have to deal! I absolutely love it. Especially with a giant. YAY!
~hf
~hf
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Be sure to check out the "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour portal thread and be sure to vote in the poll there.
Last edited:
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Session #52 (part ii)
The place was damp and dark. Torrents of water fell hither and thither, in great cascades through openings made my slabs of stone leaning on each other, and dripping endlessly through cracks, making all the stone surfaces slick and shiny in the few place the muted light of moon made its way through cloud, mist and stone. And the sound seemed to echoes from all corners, making Ratchis unable to even hear his own breathing, though the misting of it in the cold dampness reminded him that he still did draw breath.
The broken stones that had long ago erupted from the earth, made a huge chamber not thirty feet in, but its shape was haphazard, and in places the half-orc could not see the ceiling, for it reached in shafts beyond even his darkvision. Creeping forward he chose a passage to the right, after hearing the lapping of water coming from a passage in front and to the left. The passage he chose climbed upward, and the hulking ranger struggled to keep his grip and he pulled his muscled bulk up from stone to stone. He crawled on his belly through pounds of bat guano.
It was a long dangerous climb, and he rested on every large ledge he could find, to catch his breath and continued. He thanked Nephthys for his magical boots, because even through their protective enchantment the cold of the slick stones nearly numbed his thick calloused fingers.
More than 80 feet above where he had come in, a slanted shaft made by three cracked slabs gave way to the open air. He pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge, that had a drop far beyond his vision on the other side of it. The black and gray stones of the broken land went off as far as he could see, and he blinked his eyes to keep the cold rain out.
Suddenly, there was flash to his left, someone hastily put out a fire beyond his vision, for a sending in the dying members he though he saw a hunched form climb down. There was no way to reach that plateau from where he was, and the water here came down like a river over stone. Climbing further would be hard for him and impossible for most others, except perhaps Jeremy. He climbed back down to find another way.
The floor of the more central path gave way to jagged stairs that tumbled down to an even damper darkness. Beneath his feet Ratchis felt gravel and sand give way, and then his boots squished in mud, all the while going further and further down. He held his hammer in one hand and put a hand to the wall of the narrow passage to lend balance. Eventually it opened into an even bigger and flooded cavern. There was a small beach-like outcropping, but the water smelled of death and minerals. Ratchis touched a drop to his tongue and spit it out. It was foul.
He noted tracks of sandaled feet on the beach and the tell-tale sign of a small boat that been dragged up on the beach several time and then pushed off with an oar. He could not see the other side, but hopping it was shallow enough and knowing his boots protected him from the cold he waded in. He had barely gone out for our five feet when the bottom gave way plunging him in above his waist. He paused and considered going back when he felt strong hands grasp both of his legs. Lurching backward he looked down to see rotting dwarven forms trying to pull him down to a watery doom. One twisted his leg with such strength, he felt himself getting pulled under as it gave way. He shuddered in pain.
Ratchis leapt back, grabbing his chain of scored links in his left hand and calling to his goddess. The undead dwarves let go and melted into the darkness of the water. Ratchis hurried back out to the first chamber, breathing hard.
The passage to the left was broader than the first two, and while it started going by winding down further into the earth, after several turns it began climbing by way of oddly angled plateaus that might have been steps for giants even greater than those the Fearless Manticore Killers had faced, but these steps had been made by falling stones, and were jagged and covered in bat guano. Despite the littered feces, Ratchis could tell the air here was fresher. He climbed a bit and found the passage way ended a narrow crawlspace, no mare than three feet high. Not wanting to go beyond it because of how difficult retreat would be he returned to his companions and described what he found.
“We face another vast army of undead,” Beorth said, when he heard of the undead. “With a name like the Pit of Bones, we can hardly expect any less. Anubis will be done.”
They walked down to the first chamber and looked around more. Kazrack looked up the shaft which Ratchis had first climbed.
“When will you learn to fly, Martin?” the dwarf asked the watch-mage.
“I don’t know,” Martin replied sounding annoyed.
“I don’t mean to sound like Kazrack,” Ratchis asked, but you once made a magical dome we could sleep in, could you make a magical boat?”
“I used a scroll for that, and, no,” Martin said. (1)
The way to the left seemed the only way to go.
Martin sent Thomas to crawl past first and then described what he saw the best he could. The squirrel described many climbs leading to an open plateau and what he thought might be a way down deeper in the center of the huge slabs of upturned igneous rock.
“Ooh, I see someone!” Thomas cried.
“Hide!” martin commanded.
“Already have,” the squirrel familiar replied. “I’m coming back.”
“He saw someone,” Martin told the others.
“Like a monk?” Ratchis asked.
“No, he said it was small, like a gnome or a dwarf.”
“Or an undead dwarf,” Ratchis said.
“Could the monks be commanding these undead?” Kazrack asked.
“If they split from Beorth’s order, they should have no power over the undead,” Ratchis speculated.
“I do not think Anubis would support this,” Beorth said.
“But another god or power might,” Martin said.
“If these monks have turned Anubis and now flaunt his edicts so boldly as to command the undead they will die on my sword,” Beorth said, without a trace of emotion. “But we should try to take them alive to learn the truth of them before we dispense justice.
Ratchis nodded.
The crawl was not as long as they feared, as they moved beneath the tons of rock on their belies, dragging their packs with ropes behind them.
After that was more the ‘giant steps’; some were only a few feet, but were as tall as 18 feet, Jeremy and Ratchis would climb up first and pull up the others with a rope. Kazrack was hurt leaping across a shallow pit, when he did not quite make it.
Jeremy and Derek laughed.
Up and up they went, winding in broad arcs ever to their left. Finally they came upon flat plateau of black stone, shaped like triangular wedge, divided by a perpendicular wall of cracked stones that seemed forces up through the sheer rock floor. Coming out of the ascending passageway, a narrow stone outcropping blocked their view on their left, but on the great were great mottled overhangs of stone. Ratchis could see great pieces of ice on the upper stones, cracking and melting.
Coming around the outcropping, Ratchis could see they were above a great opening that broad lip of stone creating by mighty slabs of the stone shoved up out oft earth at sharp angles. Ratchis came forwardsand saw they were over a hundred feet, perhaps as much as 120’, above the upper portion of the area below, a whole swath to the right was even deeper and shrouded in darkness. Jagged stones covered everything, giving the place the appearance of thousands of jagged beaks.
There was a very steep ramp covered in places by splotches of the black jagged stones that ran parallel to the face of the plateau that hung over the great chasm. Getting down would be treacherous, Ratchis saw.
He looked back and saw that Derek and Jeremy were the first to climb up the last small 'gaint step' and come out on to the plateau and Beorth was close behind them.
Suddenly there was a commotion below. Ratchis looked down to see a small, probably gnomish figure go dashing across the black upper slab. The sound of his chain shirt jingling echoed in and out if the sound of the water, and it was clear he held some weapon in his hand.
Less than a moment later another figure appeared below them (both were running in the way the party faced so their backs were to them). It was a tall lanky human man with a shock of silver hair. He wore armor as well, but had a hand and a half sword held over his head as he poured on speed to cut down the more diminutive figure.
End of Session #52
---------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) This was back in the Honeycombe. See Session #24
The place was damp and dark. Torrents of water fell hither and thither, in great cascades through openings made my slabs of stone leaning on each other, and dripping endlessly through cracks, making all the stone surfaces slick and shiny in the few place the muted light of moon made its way through cloud, mist and stone. And the sound seemed to echoes from all corners, making Ratchis unable to even hear his own breathing, though the misting of it in the cold dampness reminded him that he still did draw breath.
The broken stones that had long ago erupted from the earth, made a huge chamber not thirty feet in, but its shape was haphazard, and in places the half-orc could not see the ceiling, for it reached in shafts beyond even his darkvision. Creeping forward he chose a passage to the right, after hearing the lapping of water coming from a passage in front and to the left. The passage he chose climbed upward, and the hulking ranger struggled to keep his grip and he pulled his muscled bulk up from stone to stone. He crawled on his belly through pounds of bat guano.
It was a long dangerous climb, and he rested on every large ledge he could find, to catch his breath and continued. He thanked Nephthys for his magical boots, because even through their protective enchantment the cold of the slick stones nearly numbed his thick calloused fingers.
More than 80 feet above where he had come in, a slanted shaft made by three cracked slabs gave way to the open air. He pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge, that had a drop far beyond his vision on the other side of it. The black and gray stones of the broken land went off as far as he could see, and he blinked his eyes to keep the cold rain out.
Suddenly, there was flash to his left, someone hastily put out a fire beyond his vision, for a sending in the dying members he though he saw a hunched form climb down. There was no way to reach that plateau from where he was, and the water here came down like a river over stone. Climbing further would be hard for him and impossible for most others, except perhaps Jeremy. He climbed back down to find another way.
The floor of the more central path gave way to jagged stairs that tumbled down to an even damper darkness. Beneath his feet Ratchis felt gravel and sand give way, and then his boots squished in mud, all the while going further and further down. He held his hammer in one hand and put a hand to the wall of the narrow passage to lend balance. Eventually it opened into an even bigger and flooded cavern. There was a small beach-like outcropping, but the water smelled of death and minerals. Ratchis touched a drop to his tongue and spit it out. It was foul.
He noted tracks of sandaled feet on the beach and the tell-tale sign of a small boat that been dragged up on the beach several time and then pushed off with an oar. He could not see the other side, but hopping it was shallow enough and knowing his boots protected him from the cold he waded in. He had barely gone out for our five feet when the bottom gave way plunging him in above his waist. He paused and considered going back when he felt strong hands grasp both of his legs. Lurching backward he looked down to see rotting dwarven forms trying to pull him down to a watery doom. One twisted his leg with such strength, he felt himself getting pulled under as it gave way. He shuddered in pain.
Ratchis leapt back, grabbing his chain of scored links in his left hand and calling to his goddess. The undead dwarves let go and melted into the darkness of the water. Ratchis hurried back out to the first chamber, breathing hard.
The passage to the left was broader than the first two, and while it started going by winding down further into the earth, after several turns it began climbing by way of oddly angled plateaus that might have been steps for giants even greater than those the Fearless Manticore Killers had faced, but these steps had been made by falling stones, and were jagged and covered in bat guano. Despite the littered feces, Ratchis could tell the air here was fresher. He climbed a bit and found the passage way ended a narrow crawlspace, no mare than three feet high. Not wanting to go beyond it because of how difficult retreat would be he returned to his companions and described what he found.
“We face another vast army of undead,” Beorth said, when he heard of the undead. “With a name like the Pit of Bones, we can hardly expect any less. Anubis will be done.”
They walked down to the first chamber and looked around more. Kazrack looked up the shaft which Ratchis had first climbed.
“When will you learn to fly, Martin?” the dwarf asked the watch-mage.
“I don’t know,” Martin replied sounding annoyed.
“I don’t mean to sound like Kazrack,” Ratchis asked, but you once made a magical dome we could sleep in, could you make a magical boat?”
“I used a scroll for that, and, no,” Martin said. (1)
The way to the left seemed the only way to go.
Martin sent Thomas to crawl past first and then described what he saw the best he could. The squirrel described many climbs leading to an open plateau and what he thought might be a way down deeper in the center of the huge slabs of upturned igneous rock.
“Ooh, I see someone!” Thomas cried.
“Hide!” martin commanded.
“Already have,” the squirrel familiar replied. “I’m coming back.”
“He saw someone,” Martin told the others.
“Like a monk?” Ratchis asked.
“No, he said it was small, like a gnome or a dwarf.”
“Or an undead dwarf,” Ratchis said.
“Could the monks be commanding these undead?” Kazrack asked.
“If they split from Beorth’s order, they should have no power over the undead,” Ratchis speculated.
“I do not think Anubis would support this,” Beorth said.
“But another god or power might,” Martin said.
“If these monks have turned Anubis and now flaunt his edicts so boldly as to command the undead they will die on my sword,” Beorth said, without a trace of emotion. “But we should try to take them alive to learn the truth of them before we dispense justice.
Ratchis nodded.
The crawl was not as long as they feared, as they moved beneath the tons of rock on their belies, dragging their packs with ropes behind them.
After that was more the ‘giant steps’; some were only a few feet, but were as tall as 18 feet, Jeremy and Ratchis would climb up first and pull up the others with a rope. Kazrack was hurt leaping across a shallow pit, when he did not quite make it.
Jeremy and Derek laughed.
Up and up they went, winding in broad arcs ever to their left. Finally they came upon flat plateau of black stone, shaped like triangular wedge, divided by a perpendicular wall of cracked stones that seemed forces up through the sheer rock floor. Coming out of the ascending passageway, a narrow stone outcropping blocked their view on their left, but on the great were great mottled overhangs of stone. Ratchis could see great pieces of ice on the upper stones, cracking and melting.
Coming around the outcropping, Ratchis could see they were above a great opening that broad lip of stone creating by mighty slabs of the stone shoved up out oft earth at sharp angles. Ratchis came forwardsand saw they were over a hundred feet, perhaps as much as 120’, above the upper portion of the area below, a whole swath to the right was even deeper and shrouded in darkness. Jagged stones covered everything, giving the place the appearance of thousands of jagged beaks.
There was a very steep ramp covered in places by splotches of the black jagged stones that ran parallel to the face of the plateau that hung over the great chasm. Getting down would be treacherous, Ratchis saw.
He looked back and saw that Derek and Jeremy were the first to climb up the last small 'gaint step' and come out on to the plateau and Beorth was close behind them.
Suddenly there was a commotion below. Ratchis looked down to see a small, probably gnomish figure go dashing across the black upper slab. The sound of his chain shirt jingling echoed in and out if the sound of the water, and it was clear he held some weapon in his hand.
Less than a moment later another figure appeared below them (both were running in the way the party faced so their backs were to them). It was a tall lanky human man with a shock of silver hair. He wore armor as well, but had a hand and a half sword held over his head as he poured on speed to cut down the more diminutive figure.
End of Session #52
---------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) This was back in the Honeycombe. See Session #24
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handforged
First Post
Thanks indeed. This environment is very creepy. I like it.
~hf
~hf
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
(part 1 of 2)
Session # 53
The fleeing gnome reached what would have been a short plateau for anyone else, but the diminutive figure struggled to grab the edge of the slightly more than five foot stone lip.
A second gnome appeared to the human’s left, atop another small plateau from which a tiny cave egressed. He held up a crossbow and fired on the him, but the bolt seemed to bounce off the man’s chainshirt with little or no pain, and not distracting him at the least from his prey.
Ratchis stood tall and putting an arrow to his great bow, fired at the pursuing figure with such abandon that the bow snapped out of his hand, forcing him clutch it to his chest to keep it from flying over the cliff edge. (1) The arrow went wide.
“There’s a human attacking a gnome,” Ratchis cried to companions.
Derek came around pulling his bow out and stringing it, as Jeremy squeezed past them both and examined the slope leading down to scene below them.
“We have to save the gnome!” Beorth commanded.
“I’m on my way,” Jeremy replied, and looked at Ratchis and Derek. “But please don’t shoot me.”
Martin climbed the last step and hurried out onto the plateau to see what was happening, leaving Kazrack complaining behind him. The short and stocky dwarf was having as much trouble getting up the last lip as the gnome was having below.
Ratchis rained more arrows down, that fell short of the mark as they could hear the gnome crying out in pain from the savage blows the human was now bringing down on him with his bastard sword. The gnome pathetically tried to parry and return the blows with his axe, but failed. The man’s steel was a blur of silver.
Jeremy leapt down on to the sloping natural ramp and swayed and slipped, making it down to one of the outcropping of jagged stone, he grabbed on to steady himself before continuing. He warned the others that the near frozen water on the slope made it even more treacherous than such an incline would normally be.
One of Derek’s arrows lodged in the human’s lower back, between chinks in his armor, but he did not seem to care or notice. He cut down the gnome, even as it begged for mercy and then dropped the point of his sword into it again making sure it was dead.
The man turned his head slowly and calmly as another crossbow bolt flew past him from the second gnome.
Beorth awkwardly tried to make his way down the slope, while Kazrack still cried out, forgotten, kicking his legs wildly trying to get purchase.
“This is so demeaning,” he muttered.
Ratchis’ rain of missing arrows continued, “I hope those aren’t demon-gnomes and we’re making a big mistake.”
Derek flipped off the cliff edge, twenty feet down the slope and fired, but the arrow went wide as he lost his footing and was about to begin a potentially deadly descent when he reached out and grabbed the edge of one of the sharp rocks, grimacing.
“You’ll have to show me how to do that one of these days,” Jeremy quipped, as he made his way carefully down to the same outcropping of stone; to move any faster would have likely meant tumbling the rest of the way down out of control. (2)
A third gnome came charging out of the small cave with a battle axe held above his head, heading towards the human, while the gnome with the crossbow, put it away and drew a warhammer. The bastard sword and the battle axe met with a clang.
Martin hurried back to Kazrack, realizing the dwarf was still not with them and reached down to grab the dwarf’s hand and pull him up. Even with help the dwarf scrambled in place.
“Igneous spheres!” a high-pitched voice cried, as a little dumpling of a female stepped out of the shadows near the bottom edge of the ramp, and a ball of fire a few feet in diameter began to roll towards the human, bouncing as it went. With amazing dexterity, the man leapt and twisted, as the ball of fire bounced beneath him.
He did not speak a word.
Ratchis dropped his bow and grabbing his rope secured to a nearby outcropping of rock and tossed it over the side of the incline.
The clang of weapons echoed from below. The man turned as if dancing, blocking and returning blows with easy. The gnome with the warhammer moved to flank, but the tall warrior blocked his blow readily. The man’s skill with his weapon was apparent.
“Wish me luck, D,” Jeremy said to his friend as he moved to continue down the slope. ‘This guy looks serious.”
Derek fired another arrow at the man, carefully keeping his balance, hoping to flush him away from the remaining gnome. But not even a rolling ball of fire could do that; even as it turned and rolled back to him he leapt again, but this time the edge of his gray cloak caught fire.
Derek grabbed for Ratchis’ rope after putting his bow away, seeing the man drop the gnome with the axe and turn his attention to the other, who fled.
Ratchis shoved Martin out of his way and reached down to pull up Kazrack. The watch-mage hurried back to the scene and calling upon one of his illusions, a bristling wolverine of large size appeared between the man and the gnome.
“It’s Tanweil!” Martin cried, seeing the man in profile for the first time. (3)
Jeremy made to the bottom, and the female gnome turned her short bow on the Neergaardian.
“We’re here to help you,” Derek said, getting to the bottom of the rope.
The female gnome was had a cute chubby face, gray face and silvery ringlets that fell out from beneath a colorful knit cap. She wore no armor, and looked dirty as if she had been on the road for a long time. Her large hazel eyes were swollen as if she had been crying long and often, and there was fear and sadness in them.
“Do you speak common?” Jeremy asked.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked harshly.
Her attention turned away from her ball of flame, it fizzled out as Tanweil leapt over it one last time, as he eyed the wolverine cautiously.
Beorth grabbed the rope and pulled himself over the edge, but before he climbed down he looked down to where the female gnome was and covered his eyes, “Anubis, please grant me your divine vision so that I may know we are entering this fight on the right side.”
He detected no ill will or darkness in her heart.
Ratchis pulled out his bow again and made ready to shoot as the man moved away from the wolverine towards the small plateau the first gnome had tried to climb upon.
Derek let an arrow fly at the man as he leapt up easily the little less than six feet up on to the lip. Without looking back the man’s sword swung in an arc behind his back, sending the arrow flying off before it could strike him. In one smooth motion he sheathed his blade on his back, turned and drew his own bow.
“Whoa!” Jeremy said, his jaw dropping.
“He is a very dangerous man!” Martin called out to his companions. “He killed 20 or more orcs on his own, on the road to Gothanius.”
The other gnome began to hurry over, putting away his warhammer and drawing his own crossbow and keeping it aimed at Jeremy.
He was an older gnome, and though he wore a metal cap, they could tell he was bald. He had craggy wrinkles around his long and broad gnome, and bags beneath his umber eyes.
“You’d better stay the hell away from her,” he threatened. The female gnome moved away, putting a thick rock outcropping between her and the Neergaardian.
Martin had his illusory wolverine move to guard the fallen gnome, as everyone heard Beorth cry out. He lost his grip on the rope and came tumbling down with a hard fall 45 feet below. He lay there stunned and holding his head, his armor dented and scuffed.
Hollering with frustration, Ratchis dropped his bow, as his arrows fell short of their target again and again.
“You little guys should stay behind cover,”: Derek told the gnomes. He let another arrow go, and this one found it mark. Tanweil winced from the blow, but did not hesitate. An arrow came flying back, grazing the ranger’s thigh.
Jeremy loaded his crossbow, not anxious to test his own swordsman ship against someone who’s prowess seemed to come from legend. He fired a bolt and it grazed the man’s ear, and he took a five-foot step back.
“Whose side are you on?” the older gnome asked. “You can’t stop us like he’s trying to.”
“I hate not know what’s going on,” Jeremy muttered.
Ratchis decided the bow was his best option to stop the man, and lifted his bow again and kept up the rain of ineffective arrows.
Worried that he might be in the line of arrow fire Martin stepped to his left to get behind a rock, but at that same moment Kazrack had pulled the rope up and was leaping down onto the incline used it to swing about halfway down onto the incline. Unfortunately, doing this brought the taut rope with the dwarf’s weight on it across Martin’s ankles, whipping the watch-mage off the edge and onto the ramp, and he began to slide painfully down. Thomas leapt from his master’s shoulder and onto the safety of the plateau.
Kazrack was able to reach out and grab the mage, but the latter was stunned and the illusory wolverine popped out of existence.
“My apologies,” Kazrack said, as Martin drooled and moaned.
Derek hurried forward to get a better shot, but missing he felt the bite of two more of the steel-headed arrows, and now blood was flowing readily from his wounds. This realization made Derek note something about Tanweil.
“You’ve got to drive him away! Drive him away!” the older gnome cried out from behind the rock.
“Derek! For the love of the gods, get back here,” Jeremy called to his friend, loading and shooting another bolt that grazed the man.
Beorth crawled over to the gnomes and stood. “We are here to help you. Who is that man?”
“You’d better stay back!” the female gnome warned Beorth, point her bow and arrow at the paladin with suspicion.
“That guy does not seem to bleed,” Derek said to Jeremy. “He seems to have some kind of protection. I just noticed.” He backed away, ducking to avoid more of the man’s arrows.
“I am Beorth, a servant of Anubis. I mean you no harm,” Beorth said to the gnomes.
Jeremy dropped to the ground to make a smaller target and called out, “Beorth, you need to back us up. I think it’ll take the three of us to drop that guy!”
Tanweil winced again, but did not bleed as another of Derek’s arrows caught him in the shoulder. He leapt down and grabbed the fallen gnome.
“He’s got Kasha!” the older gnome cried.
“Drop the gnome!” Jeremy commanded, standing and loading his crossbow again. “And drop the bow!”
The man held the bow in his right hand and held the gnome beneath the arms with his left, taking in the scene silently.
“What does he want with the body?’ Beorth asked, pausing.
“I don’t think he’s dead,” the female gnome said, tears sliding down either side of her potato-like nose. “I hope he’s not dead.”
Martin shook his head to clear it and glared at Kazrack angrily. He reached into the folds of his watch-mage robes and found his magic ring, slipping it on. (4)
“Are you well? Can I leave you?” the dwarf asked the mage.
Martin nodded, and Kazrack foolishly decided to try a controlled slide the rest of the way down. Instead, he managed to slam into the wall below spinning as he came down.
Ratchis cast light upon one of his arrows.
Derek moved forward again, firing as Tanweil leapt up on the ledge again, still holding the gnome. His arrow went wide, as did Jeremy’s bolt, as they were afraid to strike the gnome-shield.
“He’s stealing Kasha!” the older gnome cried.
“I will stop this desecration!” Beorth said firmly, and drawing his sword, began to run toward Tanweil.
Bolstered by Beorth’s bravery, the female gnome came around the stone and speaking two arcane words, two arrows of light burst from her pointed finger, and struck Tanweil unerringly.
Martin made the rest of his way down using the rope, and called to his familiar telepathically.
“I’m coming down with Ratchis,” the squirrel replied.
“Okay.”
Ratchis fired one last arrow, and then moved to use the rope for his own descent.
Tanweil flung the gnome, Kasha, onto a taller ledge atop the first one and then leapt up beside him.
Jeremy dropped his own crossbow and drawing his sword, made a running leap up on the first lip.
“Come back here!” he cried.
Beorth was having a much more difficult time getting up on the ledge.
The female gnome moved over to her companion as Martin finally got to the bottom, and heard her say, “we have to get out of here.”
“Are you from Garvan? Why are you here?” the watch-mage asked them, as they looked back at him with wide-eyed surprise.
“I will tend to your friend,” Kazrack told them, as he stood and hurried to where the battle had moved.
Martin did not wait for an answer and hurried after him.
Meanwhile, Tanweil had scooped the the gnome back up and Jeremy was up on the upper plateau approaching him with caution. Derek began making his way up there as well, but Beorth still struggled.
Kazrack paused on his way to the first fallen gnome, and coruched down to give Beorth a boost.
Anxious to get down the slope, Ratchis moved too quickly and fell prone, holding the rope to keep from going down the rest of the way.
Derek made it to the upper ledge as well, and fired nearly point blank on Tanweil, but the warrior ducked into a crouch, letting the arrow go over his head
“Now I know who the dragon’s allies are,” Tanweil said, his voice an emotionless hiss. They could see his face clearly now, his white hair belying his long youthful face. Suddenly he sprung off the ledge to his left, where the floor of the open area gave way to a great drop of over fifty feet.
It was as if time slowed, as jaws dropped, certain that the warrior they were struggling against had just decided to kill himself rather than face the party.
But they were wrong.
Instead of plummeting down, Tanweil glided down, his feet hanging akimbo, one arm up and still holding his bow, and the other let the gnome fall.
“Gods!” Jeremy cried, leaping down to a different lower ledge in that same direction. “Did ya see that?”
Beorth got up ton toe first ledge just in time to see the warrior glide past.
Martin turned back to the gnomes, seeing that the man had fled, by whatever bizarre means. They were hurrying along back to the small passageway the older gnome had first emerged from.
“What’s going on?” Martin asked them. “Why are you fighting? Talk to us, please!”
Tanweil landed far below with a jerking step, almost stumbling, and then hustled down beneath a huge broken horizontal slab that rested on two others.
Jeremy called for Kazrack to follow him as he jumped and climbed down towards the dropped gnome.
“Well, I don’t think we need to rush down to help that gnome,” Kazrack commented in his common brusque tone.
“Jeremy!” Beorth called. “You are the only one fast enough catch him!”
Jeremy looked back at the paladin like he was crazy. He had no intention of chasing down Tanweil, and was only concerned with the gnome.
“We can’t protect you if you hurry away,” Ratchis said to the gnomes, coming up beside Martin.
The two gnomes clambered up on to the small lip and retreated into the passageway.
“If you let him get the sword our chieftain will die,” the older gnome pleaded, and then disappeared into the darkness.
“We’re cousins of Garvan. We just came from there. We know your chieftain is missing. We’re here to help!” Martin called after him, climbing up himself.
Chaos reigned for a few moments as the party was trying to accomplish two different things at once. Martin and Ratchis wanted to chase after the gnomes, Jeremy and Kazrack were heading down to see to the gnome and regroup for pursuit of Tanweil.
Beorth and Derek stood with indecision, not sure which was the proper course.
So in the end they decided to await it out and camp there, as the day was growing long and on the morrow use Martin’s spell of levitation to get a vantage point from which to spot the actual Pit of Bones.
Beorth and Ratchis went about recovering the corpses of the two gnomes and burying them beneath cairns of stones, while Derek and Jeremy made their way back up the treacherous slop to get the party’s packs and other dropped gear.
On their way back Jeremy and Ratchis discovered a patch of brown mold on the large stone the gnomes had hidden behind earlier. It’s very presence made them both feel cold and feverish.
Jeremy wanted to burn it, but Ratchis figured it the warmth might feed it and make it bigger, and they decided to leave it alone altogether.
They unrolled their bed rolls, but decided against even a small fire since it would be too easy to spot from all the nearby perches. They just suffered through the cold and damp.
“I don’t know what that creature was, but it moved so fast and the way it glided with its little wings,” Kazrack said, as they brought their gear to the upper plateau from whence Tanweil fled.
“What creature?” asked Ratchis.
“The man who attacked the man was no man,” Kazrack replied.
“Yes, it was an illusion or something; a disguise,” added Derek. “When he was flying or whatever I could see it for moment, like it didn’t make sense that he could do that and suddenly I could see him for what he truly was…”
”And when he landed he looked that a human again,” Jeremy said, agreeing.
“What are you saying?” Martin asked. “I know that man from my journey to Gothanius. His name is Tanweil, and he is fierce warrior, but as far as I could tell human, though he never spoke to me, or anyone else that I ever heard the entire time we traveled.”
“He looked familiar to me, too,” said Ratchis.
“Probably from the castle,” Martin speculated. “But, what did he look like to you?”
“Like some kind of man-lizard,” Kazrack said.
“Or a dragon-man,” Derek said. “He had little wings on his back, and he really wore a chain shirt, but he also had a tail, with a ridge up his back.”
“He was certainly scaly, and the muscles of his wings and shoulders were broad,” Jeremy added. “He looked strong.”
“I think it is connected to the dragon,” Derek said. “Glamorganna.” (5)
“You know the dragon’s name?” Beorth was astounded.
“Yeah…”
“How come you never told me?” Martin asked.
“You never asked,” Derek replied, laughingly.
“Hmmm, well… the dragon could be the ‘she’ Moishe mentioned,” Martin mused. “When he said, ‘she would be watching’”
“The gnomes may be working for her,” Derek suggested.
“This is growing increasingly odd,” Martin said.
“We cannot allow this to distract us,” Ratchis said. “The only thing that matters is finding the map that shows us where Hurgun’s Maze is.”
The others agreed, though some more grudgingly than others.
“I still think we should go after the gnomes,” Kazrack said.
“The gnomes don’t know where the map is,” Ratchis said. “They said they are here for some sword, and anyway, they can travel through passages too small for us. It is best we make our own way. I’ll take first watch with Martin. They rest of you get some sleep.”
“Good idea,” said Kazrack, bedding down.
“And what if that dragon-creature comes back?” Jeremy asked, trying to fluff his pack into some kind of pillow.
“Then I’ll wake you when we reach Anubis’ Realm,” Ratchis replied.
----------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) DM’s Notes: Ratchis’ Player rolled a fumble requiring him to take a move-equivalent action to fix his grip or drop his weapon.
(2) DM’s Notes: Moving any moving any faster than half speed required a balance check (DC 20) to keep your feet and a subsequent reflex checked (if failed; DC 12 to 20; depending on how far the PC was from an outcropping) to keep from tumbling down.
(3) Tanweil traveled to Gothanius with the same group of dragon-hunters as Martin the Green did.
(4) DM’s Notes: Remember, in addition to the “sustenance” abilities that kick in after a week’s time, the ring also provides the wearer with a +4 enhancement bonus to Constitution.
(5) Derek was sent to warn Martin the Green about the dragon, and to help him in any way possible to stop it.
Session # 53
The fleeing gnome reached what would have been a short plateau for anyone else, but the diminutive figure struggled to grab the edge of the slightly more than five foot stone lip.
A second gnome appeared to the human’s left, atop another small plateau from which a tiny cave egressed. He held up a crossbow and fired on the him, but the bolt seemed to bounce off the man’s chainshirt with little or no pain, and not distracting him at the least from his prey.
Ratchis stood tall and putting an arrow to his great bow, fired at the pursuing figure with such abandon that the bow snapped out of his hand, forcing him clutch it to his chest to keep it from flying over the cliff edge. (1) The arrow went wide.
“There’s a human attacking a gnome,” Ratchis cried to companions.
Derek came around pulling his bow out and stringing it, as Jeremy squeezed past them both and examined the slope leading down to scene below them.
“We have to save the gnome!” Beorth commanded.
“I’m on my way,” Jeremy replied, and looked at Ratchis and Derek. “But please don’t shoot me.”
Martin climbed the last step and hurried out onto the plateau to see what was happening, leaving Kazrack complaining behind him. The short and stocky dwarf was having as much trouble getting up the last lip as the gnome was having below.
Ratchis rained more arrows down, that fell short of the mark as they could hear the gnome crying out in pain from the savage blows the human was now bringing down on him with his bastard sword. The gnome pathetically tried to parry and return the blows with his axe, but failed. The man’s steel was a blur of silver.
Jeremy leapt down on to the sloping natural ramp and swayed and slipped, making it down to one of the outcropping of jagged stone, he grabbed on to steady himself before continuing. He warned the others that the near frozen water on the slope made it even more treacherous than such an incline would normally be.
One of Derek’s arrows lodged in the human’s lower back, between chinks in his armor, but he did not seem to care or notice. He cut down the gnome, even as it begged for mercy and then dropped the point of his sword into it again making sure it was dead.
The man turned his head slowly and calmly as another crossbow bolt flew past him from the second gnome.
Beorth awkwardly tried to make his way down the slope, while Kazrack still cried out, forgotten, kicking his legs wildly trying to get purchase.
“This is so demeaning,” he muttered.
Ratchis’ rain of missing arrows continued, “I hope those aren’t demon-gnomes and we’re making a big mistake.”
Derek flipped off the cliff edge, twenty feet down the slope and fired, but the arrow went wide as he lost his footing and was about to begin a potentially deadly descent when he reached out and grabbed the edge of one of the sharp rocks, grimacing.
“You’ll have to show me how to do that one of these days,” Jeremy quipped, as he made his way carefully down to the same outcropping of stone; to move any faster would have likely meant tumbling the rest of the way down out of control. (2)
A third gnome came charging out of the small cave with a battle axe held above his head, heading towards the human, while the gnome with the crossbow, put it away and drew a warhammer. The bastard sword and the battle axe met with a clang.
Martin hurried back to Kazrack, realizing the dwarf was still not with them and reached down to grab the dwarf’s hand and pull him up. Even with help the dwarf scrambled in place.
“Igneous spheres!” a high-pitched voice cried, as a little dumpling of a female stepped out of the shadows near the bottom edge of the ramp, and a ball of fire a few feet in diameter began to roll towards the human, bouncing as it went. With amazing dexterity, the man leapt and twisted, as the ball of fire bounced beneath him.
He did not speak a word.
Ratchis dropped his bow and grabbing his rope secured to a nearby outcropping of rock and tossed it over the side of the incline.
The clang of weapons echoed from below. The man turned as if dancing, blocking and returning blows with easy. The gnome with the warhammer moved to flank, but the tall warrior blocked his blow readily. The man’s skill with his weapon was apparent.
“Wish me luck, D,” Jeremy said to his friend as he moved to continue down the slope. ‘This guy looks serious.”
Derek fired another arrow at the man, carefully keeping his balance, hoping to flush him away from the remaining gnome. But not even a rolling ball of fire could do that; even as it turned and rolled back to him he leapt again, but this time the edge of his gray cloak caught fire.
Derek grabbed for Ratchis’ rope after putting his bow away, seeing the man drop the gnome with the axe and turn his attention to the other, who fled.
Ratchis shoved Martin out of his way and reached down to pull up Kazrack. The watch-mage hurried back to the scene and calling upon one of his illusions, a bristling wolverine of large size appeared between the man and the gnome.
“It’s Tanweil!” Martin cried, seeing the man in profile for the first time. (3)
Jeremy made to the bottom, and the female gnome turned her short bow on the Neergaardian.
“We’re here to help you,” Derek said, getting to the bottom of the rope.
The female gnome was had a cute chubby face, gray face and silvery ringlets that fell out from beneath a colorful knit cap. She wore no armor, and looked dirty as if she had been on the road for a long time. Her large hazel eyes were swollen as if she had been crying long and often, and there was fear and sadness in them.
“Do you speak common?” Jeremy asked.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked harshly.
Her attention turned away from her ball of flame, it fizzled out as Tanweil leapt over it one last time, as he eyed the wolverine cautiously.
Beorth grabbed the rope and pulled himself over the edge, but before he climbed down he looked down to where the female gnome was and covered his eyes, “Anubis, please grant me your divine vision so that I may know we are entering this fight on the right side.”
He detected no ill will or darkness in her heart.
Ratchis pulled out his bow again and made ready to shoot as the man moved away from the wolverine towards the small plateau the first gnome had tried to climb upon.
Derek let an arrow fly at the man as he leapt up easily the little less than six feet up on to the lip. Without looking back the man’s sword swung in an arc behind his back, sending the arrow flying off before it could strike him. In one smooth motion he sheathed his blade on his back, turned and drew his own bow.
“Whoa!” Jeremy said, his jaw dropping.
“He is a very dangerous man!” Martin called out to his companions. “He killed 20 or more orcs on his own, on the road to Gothanius.”
The other gnome began to hurry over, putting away his warhammer and drawing his own crossbow and keeping it aimed at Jeremy.
He was an older gnome, and though he wore a metal cap, they could tell he was bald. He had craggy wrinkles around his long and broad gnome, and bags beneath his umber eyes.
“You’d better stay the hell away from her,” he threatened. The female gnome moved away, putting a thick rock outcropping between her and the Neergaardian.
Martin had his illusory wolverine move to guard the fallen gnome, as everyone heard Beorth cry out. He lost his grip on the rope and came tumbling down with a hard fall 45 feet below. He lay there stunned and holding his head, his armor dented and scuffed.
Hollering with frustration, Ratchis dropped his bow, as his arrows fell short of their target again and again.
“You little guys should stay behind cover,”: Derek told the gnomes. He let another arrow go, and this one found it mark. Tanweil winced from the blow, but did not hesitate. An arrow came flying back, grazing the ranger’s thigh.
Jeremy loaded his crossbow, not anxious to test his own swordsman ship against someone who’s prowess seemed to come from legend. He fired a bolt and it grazed the man’s ear, and he took a five-foot step back.
“Whose side are you on?” the older gnome asked. “You can’t stop us like he’s trying to.”
“I hate not know what’s going on,” Jeremy muttered.
Ratchis decided the bow was his best option to stop the man, and lifted his bow again and kept up the rain of ineffective arrows.
Worried that he might be in the line of arrow fire Martin stepped to his left to get behind a rock, but at that same moment Kazrack had pulled the rope up and was leaping down onto the incline used it to swing about halfway down onto the incline. Unfortunately, doing this brought the taut rope with the dwarf’s weight on it across Martin’s ankles, whipping the watch-mage off the edge and onto the ramp, and he began to slide painfully down. Thomas leapt from his master’s shoulder and onto the safety of the plateau.
Kazrack was able to reach out and grab the mage, but the latter was stunned and the illusory wolverine popped out of existence.
“My apologies,” Kazrack said, as Martin drooled and moaned.
Derek hurried forward to get a better shot, but missing he felt the bite of two more of the steel-headed arrows, and now blood was flowing readily from his wounds. This realization made Derek note something about Tanweil.
“You’ve got to drive him away! Drive him away!” the older gnome cried out from behind the rock.
“Derek! For the love of the gods, get back here,” Jeremy called to his friend, loading and shooting another bolt that grazed the man.
Beorth crawled over to the gnomes and stood. “We are here to help you. Who is that man?”
“You’d better stay back!” the female gnome warned Beorth, point her bow and arrow at the paladin with suspicion.
“That guy does not seem to bleed,” Derek said to Jeremy. “He seems to have some kind of protection. I just noticed.” He backed away, ducking to avoid more of the man’s arrows.
“I am Beorth, a servant of Anubis. I mean you no harm,” Beorth said to the gnomes.
Jeremy dropped to the ground to make a smaller target and called out, “Beorth, you need to back us up. I think it’ll take the three of us to drop that guy!”
Tanweil winced again, but did not bleed as another of Derek’s arrows caught him in the shoulder. He leapt down and grabbed the fallen gnome.
“He’s got Kasha!” the older gnome cried.
“Drop the gnome!” Jeremy commanded, standing and loading his crossbow again. “And drop the bow!”
The man held the bow in his right hand and held the gnome beneath the arms with his left, taking in the scene silently.
“What does he want with the body?’ Beorth asked, pausing.
“I don’t think he’s dead,” the female gnome said, tears sliding down either side of her potato-like nose. “I hope he’s not dead.”
Martin shook his head to clear it and glared at Kazrack angrily. He reached into the folds of his watch-mage robes and found his magic ring, slipping it on. (4)
“Are you well? Can I leave you?” the dwarf asked the mage.
Martin nodded, and Kazrack foolishly decided to try a controlled slide the rest of the way down. Instead, he managed to slam into the wall below spinning as he came down.
Ratchis cast light upon one of his arrows.
Derek moved forward again, firing as Tanweil leapt up on the ledge again, still holding the gnome. His arrow went wide, as did Jeremy’s bolt, as they were afraid to strike the gnome-shield.
“He’s stealing Kasha!” the older gnome cried.
“I will stop this desecration!” Beorth said firmly, and drawing his sword, began to run toward Tanweil.
Bolstered by Beorth’s bravery, the female gnome came around the stone and speaking two arcane words, two arrows of light burst from her pointed finger, and struck Tanweil unerringly.
Martin made the rest of his way down using the rope, and called to his familiar telepathically.
“I’m coming down with Ratchis,” the squirrel replied.
“Okay.”
Ratchis fired one last arrow, and then moved to use the rope for his own descent.
Tanweil flung the gnome, Kasha, onto a taller ledge atop the first one and then leapt up beside him.
Jeremy dropped his own crossbow and drawing his sword, made a running leap up on the first lip.
“Come back here!” he cried.
Beorth was having a much more difficult time getting up on the ledge.
The female gnome moved over to her companion as Martin finally got to the bottom, and heard her say, “we have to get out of here.”
“Are you from Garvan? Why are you here?” the watch-mage asked them, as they looked back at him with wide-eyed surprise.
“I will tend to your friend,” Kazrack told them, as he stood and hurried to where the battle had moved.
Martin did not wait for an answer and hurried after him.
Meanwhile, Tanweil had scooped the the gnome back up and Jeremy was up on the upper plateau approaching him with caution. Derek began making his way up there as well, but Beorth still struggled.
Kazrack paused on his way to the first fallen gnome, and coruched down to give Beorth a boost.
Anxious to get down the slope, Ratchis moved too quickly and fell prone, holding the rope to keep from going down the rest of the way.
Derek made it to the upper ledge as well, and fired nearly point blank on Tanweil, but the warrior ducked into a crouch, letting the arrow go over his head
“Now I know who the dragon’s allies are,” Tanweil said, his voice an emotionless hiss. They could see his face clearly now, his white hair belying his long youthful face. Suddenly he sprung off the ledge to his left, where the floor of the open area gave way to a great drop of over fifty feet.
It was as if time slowed, as jaws dropped, certain that the warrior they were struggling against had just decided to kill himself rather than face the party.
But they were wrong.
Instead of plummeting down, Tanweil glided down, his feet hanging akimbo, one arm up and still holding his bow, and the other let the gnome fall.
“Gods!” Jeremy cried, leaping down to a different lower ledge in that same direction. “Did ya see that?”
Beorth got up ton toe first ledge just in time to see the warrior glide past.
Martin turned back to the gnomes, seeing that the man had fled, by whatever bizarre means. They were hurrying along back to the small passageway the older gnome had first emerged from.
“What’s going on?” Martin asked them. “Why are you fighting? Talk to us, please!”
Tanweil landed far below with a jerking step, almost stumbling, and then hustled down beneath a huge broken horizontal slab that rested on two others.
Jeremy called for Kazrack to follow him as he jumped and climbed down towards the dropped gnome.
“Well, I don’t think we need to rush down to help that gnome,” Kazrack commented in his common brusque tone.
“Jeremy!” Beorth called. “You are the only one fast enough catch him!”
Jeremy looked back at the paladin like he was crazy. He had no intention of chasing down Tanweil, and was only concerned with the gnome.
“We can’t protect you if you hurry away,” Ratchis said to the gnomes, coming up beside Martin.
The two gnomes clambered up on to the small lip and retreated into the passageway.
“If you let him get the sword our chieftain will die,” the older gnome pleaded, and then disappeared into the darkness.
“We’re cousins of Garvan. We just came from there. We know your chieftain is missing. We’re here to help!” Martin called after him, climbing up himself.
Chaos reigned for a few moments as the party was trying to accomplish two different things at once. Martin and Ratchis wanted to chase after the gnomes, Jeremy and Kazrack were heading down to see to the gnome and regroup for pursuit of Tanweil.
Beorth and Derek stood with indecision, not sure which was the proper course.
So in the end they decided to await it out and camp there, as the day was growing long and on the morrow use Martin’s spell of levitation to get a vantage point from which to spot the actual Pit of Bones.
Beorth and Ratchis went about recovering the corpses of the two gnomes and burying them beneath cairns of stones, while Derek and Jeremy made their way back up the treacherous slop to get the party’s packs and other dropped gear.
On their way back Jeremy and Ratchis discovered a patch of brown mold on the large stone the gnomes had hidden behind earlier. It’s very presence made them both feel cold and feverish.
Jeremy wanted to burn it, but Ratchis figured it the warmth might feed it and make it bigger, and they decided to leave it alone altogether.
They unrolled their bed rolls, but decided against even a small fire since it would be too easy to spot from all the nearby perches. They just suffered through the cold and damp.
“I don’t know what that creature was, but it moved so fast and the way it glided with its little wings,” Kazrack said, as they brought their gear to the upper plateau from whence Tanweil fled.
“What creature?” asked Ratchis.
“The man who attacked the man was no man,” Kazrack replied.
“Yes, it was an illusion or something; a disguise,” added Derek. “When he was flying or whatever I could see it for moment, like it didn’t make sense that he could do that and suddenly I could see him for what he truly was…”
”And when he landed he looked that a human again,” Jeremy said, agreeing.
“What are you saying?” Martin asked. “I know that man from my journey to Gothanius. His name is Tanweil, and he is fierce warrior, but as far as I could tell human, though he never spoke to me, or anyone else that I ever heard the entire time we traveled.”
“He looked familiar to me, too,” said Ratchis.
“Probably from the castle,” Martin speculated. “But, what did he look like to you?”
“Like some kind of man-lizard,” Kazrack said.
“Or a dragon-man,” Derek said. “He had little wings on his back, and he really wore a chain shirt, but he also had a tail, with a ridge up his back.”
“He was certainly scaly, and the muscles of his wings and shoulders were broad,” Jeremy added. “He looked strong.”
“I think it is connected to the dragon,” Derek said. “Glamorganna.” (5)
“You know the dragon’s name?” Beorth was astounded.
“Yeah…”
“How come you never told me?” Martin asked.
“You never asked,” Derek replied, laughingly.
“Hmmm, well… the dragon could be the ‘she’ Moishe mentioned,” Martin mused. “When he said, ‘she would be watching’”
“The gnomes may be working for her,” Derek suggested.
“This is growing increasingly odd,” Martin said.
“We cannot allow this to distract us,” Ratchis said. “The only thing that matters is finding the map that shows us where Hurgun’s Maze is.”
The others agreed, though some more grudgingly than others.
“I still think we should go after the gnomes,” Kazrack said.
“The gnomes don’t know where the map is,” Ratchis said. “They said they are here for some sword, and anyway, they can travel through passages too small for us. It is best we make our own way. I’ll take first watch with Martin. They rest of you get some sleep.”
“Good idea,” said Kazrack, bedding down.
“And what if that dragon-creature comes back?” Jeremy asked, trying to fluff his pack into some kind of pillow.
“Then I’ll wake you when we reach Anubis’ Realm,” Ratchis replied.
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Notes:
(1) DM’s Notes: Ratchis’ Player rolled a fumble requiring him to take a move-equivalent action to fix his grip or drop his weapon.
(2) DM’s Notes: Moving any moving any faster than half speed required a balance check (DC 20) to keep your feet and a subsequent reflex checked (if failed; DC 12 to 20; depending on how far the PC was from an outcropping) to keep from tumbling down.
(3) Tanweil traveled to Gothanius with the same group of dragon-hunters as Martin the Green did.
(4) DM’s Notes: Remember, in addition to the “sustenance” abilities that kick in after a week’s time, the ring also provides the wearer with a +4 enhancement bonus to Constitution.
(5) Derek was sent to warn Martin the Green about the dragon, and to help him in any way possible to stop it.
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