Session #13.4 – Timberline Keep
On the day following the encounter with the hydra, the group returned to the road and resumed their trek east toward Unicorn Valley. With considerably more attention paid to the wood line from which the beast had charged them, they pressed on hard through the late summer day.
Just before dusk they arrived at the village of Unicorn Valley. Wasting no time, they made straight for the local militia barracks and found it locked. When no one replied to their knocking, they instead went to the small tavern for drinks and dinner.
The tavern was stuffy, but the smell of food pulled them in. They soon recognized one of Lord Trebain Durlock’s lancers sitting at the bar. Nigel, Rurik, and Zalman immediately joined him while the others found a table and ordered dinner. The officer recognized them and explained that he was the only military man in town at the moment. The rest of the lancers were out on patrol.
Nigel produced the sketch of the small keep that Jonas had made for them from his scrying and asked whether the man knew of the place.
“Can’t say that I’ve seen it,” the lancer said. “There are several small places like that in the region, though, mostly abandoned since the war. One of the local woodsmen might have a better idea. If’n you like, I can show that drawing around a bit, see what I can learn?”
“Sure,” Nigel said. “We’ll be here eating.”
A short time later, the lancer returned with some welcome news. “Yer in luck! One of the old trappers recognized the place. Says it the Timberline Keep, about ten miles southwest of here…deep in the woods.”
“Know anything about the place?” Zalman asked.
“Not much,” the lancer said. “Now that I know the name, though, I’m pretty sure that I remember hearing that a patrol checked the place out about a year ago when the Shadow and his band were still pretty active. Didn’t find anything but weeds and a few animals, I guess.”
“Are there any paths or roads out that way?” Nigel said.
“The trapper said it’s pretty isolated these days,” the lancer said. “I’m sure any paths have long since become overgrown. Hardly anyone dares go out that far anymore, anyway.”
They thanked the lancer for the information. They also related their encounter with the hydra and suggested that he might want to have the patrol hunt the creature down. The lancer was surprised to hear that a hydra was out in the woods, having only heard about the odd one or two occasionally sighted near the marshlands further west.
With dinner concluded, the group left for the outskirts of the village where Zalman conjured up a secure hut for sleeping. The short-term plan would be to penetrate the woods and find the keep. After that, they would plan the specifics of an ambush for their nemesis.
The next day brought a welcome break to the heat and humidity. For the first couple hours, the group traveled on the road back toward High Hill. Then, picking a more or less random point, they veered south into the woods. Bommer engaged the magical ability of his Raven’s Cloak and polymorphed into a raven. Zalman cast Fly on himself. Between Bommer, Zalman, and Hooty, they scouted the forest by air while the rest of the group traveled on ground. A loose line-of-sight chain was made so as to avoid losing those under the heavy foliage.
Within a couple hours, Bommer finally spotted the keep. It was a fair distance off, though, so he circled back to the others and got them pointed in the correct direction. Zalman sent Hooty off to do some discreet surveillance of the keep while Bommer remained closer to the others for navigational purposes.
By late afternoon, they had closed to within about half a mile of the keep. Nigel called a halt to rest and develop a plan. Hooty reported back to Zalman that he had spotted two hill giants residing within the ruins. No sign of the Shadow.
“Hill giants?” Rurik said. “Think they’re allies with the Shadow?”
“Doubtful,” Zalman said. “Remember Jonas’ description of how the Shadow left the keep? He was very sneaky, even while invisible. It’s possible he lives under the keep and the giants aren’t even aware of his presence.”
“Handy little first line of defense he’s got there,” Bommer said.
“Yeah,” Amill said. The psychic warrior had returned from his ethereal form earlier that morning. “If we try to engage the giants, he might hear the fight and know there’s a problem. And we can’t afford to leave the giants unaccounted for.”
“We could set up an ambush at the pond where Jonas saw him fishing,” Amblin said. “That’d probably be far enough away from the giants.”
“Yeah, I saw the pond while flying,” Bommer said. “It’s about half a mile away from the keep on the opposite side from us.”
“The only problem there is that we don’t know how often the Shadow goes fishing,” Nigel said. “He might only go down there once in a great while. Do we really want to sit around waiting for days or weeks? On top of that, we don’t know exactly where along the waterline he fishes. If he comes down there invisible, it’s far more likely that he’ll spot us than we will spot him.”
“Does anyone have a magical means by which to see the Shadow if he’s invisible?” Bommer asked.
“Yes,” Zalman and Nigel said simultaneously. “My circlet lets me perceive the invisible continuously,” Zalman said. “And Star Slayer lets me see invisible as well, though only for a brief time and only once a day,” Nigel said.
“That doesn’t give us much coverage if Zalman’s the only one who’ll be able to see him coming,” Bommer said. “Sounds like the pond is going to be too big an area to cover for an ambush.”
“Agree,” Zalman said. “Much as I’d rather get farther away from the keep for the ambush, the best place is going to be on the path leading out there. If we’re all in the woods, we’ll be difficult for him to spot. I can be somewhere up near the wood line. When I see him coming, I’ll give a signal.”
“When you do that, I’ll activate Star Slayer and get my ability to see invisible going too,” Nigel said.
“Right,” Zalman agreed. “Then, as soon as he reaches the wood line, you start plugging him full of your sharp pointy sticks. Everyone else will then have a stream of arrows to follow to the Shadow. In the meantime, I’ll fire off a Glitterdust or two. He’s got resistance to magic, so it might not stick the first time.”
“Can you do that Invisibility Purge thing again, Rurik, if Zalman’s Glitterdust fails?” Amblin asked.
“Yeah,” Rurik said. “But first I want to Dimensional Anchor his sorry butt so he can’t slip away from us.”
“Good call,” Zalman said. “You’ll need to be able to find him for that though, right.”
“Hmm, yeah,” Rurik said.
“I’ve got another idea,” Zalman said. “Invisibility cannot conceal a light source. Just in case my Glitterdusts don’t stick, let’s have a back up plan. As soon as I give the signal that he’s coming, let’s have Rurik cast Light on the fletching of one of Nigel’s arrows. Nigel will then stick it into the Shadow, because of course there’s no chance he’ll miss a shot like that. It’ll make a nice little beacon for everyone else.”
“What do you want the rest of us to do?” Amblin said.
“The key here is going to be to drop this guy as fast as possible,” Zalman said. “We’ll need you, Bommer, and Amill to close to melee. Kick him, stab him, stun him, whatever it takes to kill him as quickly as you can.”
For the next couple hours, they sketched out and plan and went over contingencies and minutiae. They wanted to be ready for anything, but most importantly they did not want to fail.
Two hours before dawn, the group packed camp and made for the keep. They wanted to use the darkness to cover their approach. Once they reached the keep, they skirted around the hundred-foot wide clearing that surrounded it until they reached the path.
Zalman found a spot in dense cover right next to the wood line and about twenty feet to the left of the trailhead. Bommer and Amill were about thirty feet behind him in the woods. So dense was the foliage, however, that they could scarcely see any part of the keep. They would be relying upon Zalman’s signal to know when the action was about to start.
Amblin parked himself near the trail, but about sixty feet back. As long as he could use the cleared path, he could easy close that distance to the Shadow in mere seconds. Nigel and Rurik were positioned together on the opposite side of the trail from the rest. They could not see the keep well, but they had a good hiding spot from which they could see both Zalman and the trailhead.
Now that the plan had started, no one was to speak or move until Zalman gave the signal. They knew it was likely they’d have to wait all day to get a chance at the Shadow, but for all the hardship he’d caused them they were prepared to endure it.
While everyone settled in and tried to get comfortable, Zalman telepathically asked Hooty to do some more discreet surveillance. The owl casually flew between various tall trees surrounding the keep and tried to get a look inside.
About an hour after dawn, Hooty made his first sighting. “Yo, Z!” the familiar said in Zalman’s mind.
“What is it?” Zalman telepathically projected back.
“There’s a giant climbing up the stairs,” Hooty said. “Looks like he’s going up to a platform on the back side of the place.”
“That’s fine,” Zalman said. “Just keep an eye on him.”
A minute later, Hooty spoke up again. “Uh, a big eagle just landed on his arm.”
“Huh?” Zalman said. “That sounds odd for a hill giant.”
“Looks like he’s feeding it,” Hooty said. “Maybe even talking with it. Oh, wait, it’s flying away now.”
Zalman pondered it for a while and then gave up trying to find meaning in it. “Just stay out of sight and keep an eye on the giants.”
About an hour later, Hooty startled Zalman out of the wizard’s quiet contemplation. “Uh, Z, bit of a problem.”
“What’s that?” Zalman said.
“There aren’t just two giants here,” Hooty said. “I see three of them. It also looks like they’ve got a pet.”
“What kind of pet?” Zalman asked.
“Look for yourself,” Hooty said. “Two of them and the pet are headed your way.”
Just as the familiar had reported, Zalman saw two of the hill giants heading out the keep’s broken doorway and down the path toward them. There was one male and one female, both toting large wood clubs. Sauntering between them was a grizzly bear.
“I think you really ought to move,” Hooty said.
“Yeah, I’d love to,” Zalman said. “Unfortunately, that’ll just give away our position. Besides, the others will just jump into action and assume that it’s the Shadow. We’ll just have to hope our hiding spots are good enough to conceal us from them. The undergrowth is pretty dense here, so we might have a chance.”
The giants strolled along rather nonchalantly, but just before they entered the woods the grizzly bear stopped cold. It perked up its head and sniffed the air. A moment later, it looked right in Zalman’s direction, bared its teeth and growled deeply.
The thoughts going through Zalman’s mind at that very moment have been deleted for inappropriate content.
Next session: Tangle with the giants.
