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Byzantium on the Shannon I
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<blockquote data-quote="TheBard" data-source="post: 66384" data-attributes="member: 2821"><p><strong>Episode 21: Loki's Last Laugh</strong></p><p></p><p>Time Elapsed: 9/4 - 9/7/495 A.I. </p><p></p><p>Prelude (the DM)</p><p></p><p>Aeolif and Astryd hide the bodies of Halvor's men. Halvor assumes the form of Vidar (the barbarian) and sets off down the track towards the village where he plans to tell the tale of Rungnir being kidnapped by some other Alfar raiders. The rest of you set off, schlepping Rugnir's body back to the coast on a litter with Astryd to guide you. Halvor and Astryd come up with a meeting place a few hours down the coast from Kolbein (the village Halvor is heading to).</p><p></p><p>It takes you a full day to get over the mountains and you still end up spending the night on shore before you can get down to the breakers in the morning. The beach is rocky where you put in. You pull away to a ruined tower on a spit of land, but don't wait long there until you see a lone figure in a small boat approaching you out of the gloom. It's Halvor in his borrowed clothes. He pulls alongside the boat and you notice a pool of blood-dyed seawater in the bottom of his boat. Two fingers are floating in it. Astryd jumps in his arms anyway.</p><p></p><p>When questioned, Halvor says that he snuck away from the Kolbeiners who went out to investigate the scene of the battle and went back into town. He told the townsfolk that he was going to take ship and go to Trolhaven. (He realized that the townsfolk may send a boat to Trolhaven.) So he went down to the beach and stove in the rest of their boats with his father's axe. A couple of the men tried to stop him and he killed one, then forced the others to launch him in the remaining boat.</p><p></p><p>He laughs and says, "One of the Alfar got brave and tried to swamp the boat in the surf - he did not know when to let go, but now he won't have to worry about holding anything in that hand any more."</p><p></p><p>At Ingolf's look he says, "Do not worry overmuch, Ingolf, or your <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> will shrink to the size of your sword! I was still wearing Vidar's borrowed face at the time. They will think Vidar was part of the vikings!"</p><p></p><p>At Martaine worried glance, "Do not worry little priest, I did not kill the man -- unless the sharks got him before he made it back to shore. HAH, HAH!"</p><p></p><p>(Nicasia: You could swear some of those fingers look gnawed.)</p><p></p><p>(Theodorus: Zoe does not like the big man who growls at her.)</p><p></p><p>You sail for a few hours, weigh down Rugnir's body and toss him overboard followed by Halvor's urine. You sail on and into the cold evening - pulling the boat near the town of Trolhaven in the early dawn. You can find a copse of tall trees a couple of hundred yards away so that you can see the town, but there are no good (non-magical) means to overhear anything intelligible.</p><p></p><p>The town has no harbor of sorts, but is provided with a wide beach. The landward side of the town has an imposing wooden palisade with towers interspersed. The wall is rather feeble by human standards, but effective. Halvor and Astryd can tell you that there is only room for one man to move along the walls, but the towers are roomy enough for 4-6 archers and the towers as spaced to give short range covering fire. There is only one gate into the town.</p><p></p><p>The seaward side has no wall, but there are two towers. Three small Alfar fishing craft are beached here.</p><p></p><p>At the middle of that day you hear horns and a great clamoring. Astryd says that Keldan is calling all the elder warriors to counsel. Over the next few hours you see a few more guards in evidence around the towers and pitch pots can be seen being filled on the beach. Late in the day, a raven-prowed ship is rolled on logs from a building near the beach and around a dozen men can be seen getting into it. A smaller boat is also launched with only 4 men. It heads out to sea, to the south.</p><p></p><p>The raven-boat moves slowly out around the coastline - headed for Kolbein. A tall, silver-haired Alfar stands nearly naked on the prow of the ship, covered only in a loincloth and a white cape, silver bracers on his arms. He has an eyepatch and is holding a longspear that crackles with white fire. He is calling to the rowers and they are really putting their backs into the job.</p><p></p><p>"Keldan..." says Halvor and he lets out a low growl.</p><p></p><p>Astryd put a hand on his arm, as if to restrain him. </p><p></p><p>Summary</p><p></p><p>Halvor’s mission into Kolbein a success, and Rungnir’s body dumped into the sea, the group hid on the shore an arrow’s flight or so from the walls of Trollhaven. It was decided that Nicasia and Ingolf would steal into the town under cover of darkness, and perhaps invisibly as well, and liberate the rune from around the great statue of Odin. Halvor preferred the direct approach of simply slaughtering as many of the townsfolk as it took to fight their way to the stave church and back, but Astryd reminded him that they were, for the most part, blameless. </p><p></p><p>Ingolf checked his gear for the third time as the sun set and finally he and Nicasia headed out. They elected to approach from the landward side of town, as it was apparent that most of the inhabitants fully expected to see the sails of Viking ships coming towards their docks at any moment. It seemed that the story of raiders to the north had everyone on edge. They had to cross a river to do so, and though it was not deep the water was cold and not sluggish. Nicasia lost her footing once or twice but made it across just the same. On the far side, Ingolf whipped up a little minor bardic magic to dry their clothes, and the two crept towards the city wall.</p><p></p><p>They could clearly see that the guards on the landward side, such as they were, had stationed themselves in the towers, leaving the wall unpatrolled. The two rogues slipped up against the base of the wall and Nicasia produced her wand, rendering them both invisible. Ingolf climbed the wall with relative ease, then made fast a light short rope for Nicasia to ascend. They lowered themselves into the town and Ingolf’s magic proved useful once again to detach the rope. The stave church was clearly visible in the center of town.</p><p></p><p>The entrance, however, proved to be a bit problematic. Although there were no guardsmen on duty, there was a singularly large and unhappy looking dog tied up next to the only entrance. Luckily enough, the two would-be sneakthieves were downwind of the pooch for the moment. Ingolf crept as quietly as he could, keeping tabs on the wind, until he was close enough to work some magic on the hound, then magically untied the rope from the stake driven into the ground. At that, Nicasia produced a little illusion of her own, in the form of several piteously mewing cats coming from just around the corner. The guard dog perked up at this, and went to have a better look. As the trailing end of his lead disappeared around the corner, Ingolf and Nicasia slipped up to the church door.</p><p></p><p>Ingolf withdrew Aoelif’s magical crystal from his belt pouch and peered through the crack in the door. He could see clearly the interior and the large statue – complete with the runestone about its neck. He could also see the rather unwelcome sight of an aged priest offering prayers. Ingolf could well guess the nature of those prayers – “Allfather, keep us safe from these marauders” and the like. He felt a moment of kinship with this elderly alfar, and however distant, the feeling was strong enough that Ingolf resolved not to do harm to him if he could avoid it. Around the outside of the church was a narrow hallway, through which petitioners would walk, Ingolf knew, to the side door. There a priest would receive their offering and bless or offer to pray with them, on the most busy holy days when the entire congregation couldn’t fit inside the building. He and Nicasia walked, quiet as stave-church mice, through this hall, until they had completely circled the building. </p><p></p><p>Ingolf realize that from the side door he would just barely be close enough to the statue to use his magical servant to retrieve the stone. Nicasia moved to the main door, then began pounding on it as if a townsperson sought entrance. She yelled out the one or two words in alfar she’d picked up from Aoelif. The ploy seemed to work, as the priest within scowled and walked to the door with a mild curse or two for whoever had disturbed his devotions. Nicasia slipped around the corner, and Ingolf set to work stealing the runestone, as soon as he managed to jimmy the latch holding the door closed. </p><p></p><p>The first thing the priest noticed was the missing guard dog. He left the door open and went out, with a stronger curse this time, to find the absent doorwarden. Nicasia took advantage of his absence to slip off away from the church into the streets of the town. Ingolf followed as soon as he had the stone – just in time to find the priest tying up the missing dog once more, muttering to himself about poorly-tied knots and whoreson townsfolk who pound on the door to the Allfather’s church then leave before his creaking bones could answer it. Ingolf realized that he was now upwind of the dog and needed to move quickly. He tucked the stone into his pouch and sprinted past the dog and priest both, magically whispering to Nicasia as he did so to run like hell for the wall.</p><p></p><p>The priest realized at once that something was up, but didn’t know what. As they scaled the wall a second time, Ingolf and Nicasia could hear the sound of a horn blowing somewhere off in the town, and voices coming from the nearest tower. In his haste to get off the wall, Ingolf slipped and made the twenty-foot descent rather faster than he had intended. His natural reflex to roll with the fall didn’t even come into play and he landed hard. Nicasia was already stealing her way towards the river crossing while Ingolf took a moment to unfasten the rope before limping off as quickly as he could on a sprained ankle. A few minutes later, they were back, wet and cold, but with the stone still safely in Ingolf’s purse. The group wasted no time at getting the magic boat back into service and out to sea, as the mothers of Trollhaven brought their children indoors and their men scoured the streets for the spies that had seemingly visited them in the night.</p><p></p><p>The trip up the eastern edge of Trollhaven Island was peaceful enough, and they pulled into the sheltered cove where they'd made landfall once before under the first rays of the sun. Halvor suggested to Astryd that she remain behind to keep a camp and a pair of eyes on the party's back, and against this idea she fought very spiritedly. So much so, in fact, that at Ingolf's suggestion the rest of the group elected to move a few miles up the trail and leave the two newly reunited lovers to their "conversation."</p><p></p><p>A half hour or so later, Halvor rejoined them, with a noticeable bruise and dark swelling around one eye. "I finally got her to listen to . . . reason" was all the hulking barbarian had to say. If anyone smirked, they did so behind their hand. The group began the long and tiring climb into the mountains and up the half-natural, half-carved stair that lead to the shrine door, where they would hopefully put the runestone to work.</p><p></p><p>Ingolf had been disturbed at first on examining the stone, which was actually a piece of ivory, perhaps from a walrus or narwhal. In Aoelif's vision, she had clearly seen a stone with the Ansuz rune of Odin on one face, and the Thur rune of the giants on the other. But this artifact had only Odin's rune and nothing on the reverse. It was Aoelif, though, who discovered its secret. By depressing the Odin rune slightly, the back of the piece could be made to slide open - revealing the Thur rune within. Ingolf's belief that the shrine was not dedicated to the Allfather at all grew even stronger.</p><p></p><p>Though they were all tired, the group pressed on through the cold night, not wanting to surrender any of the precious head start they had over Keldan in the event he elected to come to the shrine at some point. They reached the door in the late afternoon, aching and weary, yet the thrill of discovery was on them all. Ingolf took the rune and, displaying an outward confidence that he inwardly lacked, pressed it into the Ansuz carved into the great door. At once the slab of stone began to move - tilting outward at the base like the gangplank of a ship.</p><p></p><p>Ingolf stepped back and waited. After a few minutes, the huge stone slab was flat on the ground. In the middle of the inside surface was the mirror-image of a small indented Thur rune, matching the one on the back of the runestone. A dark passage pierced the side of the mountain directly ahead. To the right, the group saw a great drum and mallet - clearly very old, and covered with dust. On the wall, in alfar, was a message.</p><p></p><p>"Such is the roll of heroes of Trollhaven who have sought Bjorn's hammer."</p><p></p><p>Below was five names, written in chalk. The writing was so old that it took a moment to realize that it was writing at all. No one elected to add any names to the list, or to sound the drum, though Zacarra did pick up the mallet and tuck it in his belt. Nicasia produced a magic light and the group could see that the passage extended only a short distance before it gave way to a narrow, rough-hewn tunnel that descended into the darkness. </p><p></p><p>Ingolf pressed ahead with the rest of the group close behind. The tunnel was not over-long and ended in a small chamber before a pair of large, oak doors bound with brass and iron. An iconic depiction of Odin was on either panel, overlooking a field of battle where valkyries whisked the dead off to Asgard. Suddenly a voice spoke to them, as by magic, saying</p><p></p><p>"Play my game or away you hie,</p><p>For no victory is without a fee.</p><p>Lose and you will die,</p><p>Win and face my penalty."</p><p></p><p>The iron bindings of the door were in the shape of the Midgaard serpent, the handles formed from the serpent's twin heads. Ingolf bent to inspect the handles and spotted at once a row of hollow needles, positioned to pierce the fingers of anyone attempting to open the door. He pointed them out to Halvor and the others, then inspected the large brass lock. With relish, the young rogue unrolled his kit of picks and tension bars, all expertly crafted for him by a human master thief in far-off Thracan. Ingolf enjoyed this line of work, and had rather missed it for the last months living more or less honestly in Tavia. He attacked the lock with considerable enthusiasm.</p><p></p><p>For such an ancient and rarely-used lock, it proved to be remarkable complex. </p><p></p><p>In ten minutes or so, Ingolf was cursing loudly and fumbling blindly with no more idea how to open the lock than Martaine would a noblewoman's chastity belt. Halvor, never a patient elf, decided he'd had enough, and pushing his brother roughly aside, went to work on the door proper with his axe.</p><p></p><p>After a few minutes of tiring work, Halvor had splintered one of the panels apart and pushed both doors wide. It was apparent from the look on Theodorus' face that he considered Halvor to be capable of quite any act of mindless, lowbrow violence, but whether the Iconian nobleman found this an embarrassing flaw or a potentially useful virtue was not plain. The group entered the dark hallway beyond the door, with Ingolf going ahead.</p><p></p><p>What they saw was puzzling. The hall was twenty or so feet wide, and ran straight into the heart of the mountain itself. They could all hear a strange sort of chiming or pounding noise, as of a hammer repeatedly striking an anvil, accompanied by an odd crackling sound. With each blow, a strange light briefly pierced the darkness ahead. Aoelif opined aloud that it reminded her of the breath of the Behir they'd fought months earlier at the very beginning of their quest.</p><p></p><p>Not thirty feet down the corridor, Ingolf spotted the tell-tale signs of a pit trap laying full across their path. Just before it was a row of holes in the floor, and in the ceiling above a portcullis waited to crash down and block off the only escape route. The alfar quickly determined that the pit door was in fact hinged in the middle, and that by walking down the dead center of the hall the pit doors could be avoided. He went ahead, spotting yet more pits scattered at seeming random along the length of the corridor. He marked each with chalk as he went, and the rest of the company followed carefully in his footsteps. After another 50 or so pit-strewn feet of hallway, the corridor made a ninety-degree turn to the left. From around this corner, Ingolf could hear quite loudly the same hammer and anvil sound, and the odd light splashed across the stone floor with every impact. In the corner he spotted a switch that he expected either disarmed or else opened the pits behind him. Ingolf stepped cautiously around the corner, with Zaccara and Halvor close behind him. The sight before him was bizarre, to say the least.</p><p></p><p>The corridor ran another twenty or so feet and opened into a large room, perhaps 35 feet square. The ceiling was so high as to be out of sight in the gloom, and the floor was odd indeed. Ingolf noticed with some concern that it was not stone - the floor was actually a metal grate, apparently over a deep (bottomless?) pit - from the entrance he could peer down through the grate into the blackness. Several stone columns rose from the deeps of this pit to support the iron grate. The tops of these columns were not covered by the grate, so the end result was something like a strange chaotic chessboard, with parts of the floor being iron grating and parts being the tops of the stone columns that supported it.</p><p></p><p>In the middle of the far wall was a great marble statue of Odin, seated upon a huge throne. Ingolf guessed that the figure would be at least fourteen feet tall were it standing. In the statue's right hand was a great ash spear perhaps 20 feet in length. The statue wore a mail shirt - actual mail, not part of the statue - and a leather patch over the left eye. The right eye was a golden orb set into the marble socket. At the feet of this figure was a low stone altar stained with blood and soot.</p><p></p><p>To the right of Odin's statue in the corner was a smaller statue of Thor. It was holding a metal hammer and Ingolf was surprised to see that the statue was apparently magical - the arm holding the hammer raised and lowered at irregular intervals, smashing the hammer onto an anvil at the statue's feet. With each blow, a loud ringing noise sounded throughout the room, and sparks flew from the anvil.</p><p></p><p>Finally, Ingolf noticed that the room was not entirely uninhabited. Lumbering about with odd, jerky movements was what he at first thought to be the reanimate corpse of a Troll. After he observed it for a moment, the bard realized that it was in fact a construct, a sort of magically animate statue made from the body parts of various dead creatures. Theodorus confirmed this after a moment's observation. Both men were pleased to note that, for the moment at least, the Troll-golem seemed to be wandering aimlessly, not paying them any attention. Something about the way it moved suggested a form composed at least as much of stone as flesh. Ingolf noticed that the Troll was careful to keep to the metal grate and did not walk on the tops of the stone columns. Every time the statue of Thor in the corner struck with its hammer, crackling electricity could be seen shooting up the Troll-golem's legs. </p><p></p><p>As the rest of the company gathered behind Ingolf, suddenly the Troll-golem spoke, the changes in its face clearly the result of long-gone magic.</p><p></p><p>"A treasure of great power awaits you in the halls of green ice</p><p>As long as you listen and heed my advice</p><p></p><p>The answers to my game will never be fair but foul</p><p>Answer wrongly and my scourge will make you howl.</p><p></p><p>Three riddles I'll pose but only the second answer should be heard</p><p>To open your way to the third</p><p></p><p>The first solution is but a key to a door</p><p>(a relative whose insight is quite a bore!)</p><p></p><p>The third answer, though, will unsheath the sword</p><p>As long as it's spoken not in words</p><p></p><p>So gird your small loins and pick out your big ears</p><p>Or your bones will be my company for years upon years"</p><p></p><p>As the group wondered at what this might mean, suddenly the seated figure of Odin spoke, also apparently by magic, saying</p><p></p><p>"I saw a castle on a height with five doors.</p><p>A fine dwelling.</p><p>It has two splendid windows and 32 stone towers.</p><p>There a rich lady reigns, but also a wicked tyrant"</p><p></p><p>Before anyone could utter the obvious answer, the Troll-golem moved to attack.</p><p></p><p>Halvor, clearly not exhausted from his combat with the door, rushed to meet the thing, with Zaccara and Aoelif close behind, all heedless of Ingolf's warnings to wait. Axe, spear and sword all struck true, and when the dead flesh of the thing was rent a strange powder - perhaps powdered stone - came out of the wounds. The golem was hardly defenseless however, and it lashed out with its great fists dealing brutal blows to Aoelif and Halvor both. Then Thor's hammer came down with a crash.</p><p></p><p>Lightning shot through the iron grate of the floor, burning the warrior's feet where they stood. Equally alarming, it also shot up the legs of the jerkily moving golem, and where it passed it knit the wounds that had been deal to the thing back together, undoing completely the damage that had been dealt. Halvor and Aoelif at once tried to disengage from the thing. The fianna moved off the grate and onto the top of one of the stone columns, trying to isolate herself from the deadly lightning. The golem took advantage of her inattention to wallop her once more. The dilemma became apparent at once - the golem, with its overlong arms, could easily deliver deadly blows to those attempting to fight it, but anyone that sought to engage the thing in close quarters would be forced to leave the relative safety of the stone columns and stand on the deadly iron grate to be killed by the same electric discharges that were healing the golem!</p><p></p><p>Ingolf saw a clear way to solve this problem, but Martaine beat him to it. Risking the iron grate, the templar dashed across the room towards the statue of Thor and jammed his wooden shield between the iron hammer and the anvil at its feet. Thor's hammer came crashing down onto the shield - and no sparks flew. The three warriors quickly moved again to dispatch the golem before Martaine's shield was utterly destroyed by the statue's hammer, and they did so in fine fashion. The golem's creator had left one final surprise - as Halvor dealt the fatal blow to the thing, rending it from collarbone to crotch with a powerful sweep of his axe, two small glass vials dropped out of the Troll-golem's torso and smashed on the floor with explosive results. Nearly everyone was wounded in the ensuing fireball, then the golem turned fully to dust which sifted through the grating and disappeared into the depths below. The first challenges of the shrine had just barely been overcome, and most of the group were wounded already.</p><p></p><p>Before Martaine's shield could be completely destroyed, Ingolf emptied out his magical bag of holding on the floor outside the room and then placed it over the head of the hammer. This seemed to offer a long-term solution to the problem of the electrified grating, and the group turned their attention to the problem of the riddle.</p><p></p><p>"I saw a castle on a height with five doors.</p><p>A fine dwelling.</p><p>It has two splendid windows and 32 stone towers.</p><p>There a rich lady reigns, but also a wicked tyrant"</p><p></p><p>The obvious answer - "a head" was on everyone's lips. Yet the advice of the first "riddle" was apparent as well - simply saying the answer would not produce any results. It seemed likely that the key was the head of the statue of Odin - but what, exactly, did that mean? Zaccara climbed up onto the seated figure of the Allfather to examine the statue's head. It was not articulated in any way, nor could it be removed or otherwise tampered with without destroying it. Theodorus suggested that he examine the patch on Odin's left eye and Zaccara found that it could easily be removed. Behind the patch was an empty socket. On a hunch, the human warrior looked at the figure's other eye and saw that it was a golden orb, with a large hole where the pupil would be. He stuck his finger into this hole and pulled Odin's eye from the socket with ease. These actions made the three alfar in the room more than a little uncomfortable, and Aoelif remarked that certainly sticking one's finger into Odin's eye could be thought of as foul.</p><p></p><p>Again on a hunch Zaccara decided to put the golden orb back - in the other eye socket. As he did so, Ingolf suddenly remembered that it was Odin's right eye that had been put out - not the left. Zaccara put the patch back on the statue - over the right socket this time - and the entire throne slowly swung to one side to reveal a narrow passage and staircase winding down into the mountain. The group descended with caution.</p><p></p><p>As they made there way into the deeps, the temperature rose and soon the entire group were sweating profusely. Halvor believed that the passage they followed was in fact headed towards the mountainside nearest the great glacier, so this rise in temperature was strange indeed. "More of Loki's trickery, no doubt" was all Halvor had to say about it. Finally, the narrow passage emerged into a great chamber where yet another odd sight awaited.</p><p></p><p>The chamber seemed cut out of the murky ice at the bottom of the glacier itself, and it was huge. An odd illumination came from deep within the ice revealing the entire room. Ingolf noted that the floor sloped gently towards one end, and in the middle of the room was a ditch filled with sluggishly flowing mud. The heat was oppressive, and water constantly dripped from the melting ice. Without a doubt, some powerful, perhaps even divine, magic had carved out this place and maintained it still. At the highest end of the room was a sight that was as scatological as it was bewildering. A great golden pair of buttocks sans a body were exposed in the ice. Loki, it would appear, was mooning the entire group. The river of mud emerged suggestively from between them. Nicasia and Theodorus were rather shocked at such imagery, but Martaine and Zaccara seemed amused. The alfar considered it just another example of Loki's sensibilites.</p><p></p><p>At the base of this rather base tableau stood another seemingly mechanical statue, this of a dwarf, his hand upon a golden lever. The magic that had powered the other pronouncements activated again and the figure spoke:</p><p></p><p>"There is a maiden, stillborn of a fruitful mother,</p><p>of whom a multitude of birds eat as they</p><p>whirl madly over her body."</p><p></p><p>Several answers were dreamt up - sparks over a burning fire amoung other things - but at each wrong suggestion, the dwarf pulled his lever, releasing yet more steaming mud into the room. Theodorus was briefly overcome by the heat, but Martaine managed to revive him, when Ingolf hit upon the obvious (in retrospect) answer of flies circling a pile of dung. The dwarf pulled his lever once more, and this time the river of apparently volcanic mud was so great that it melted its way into the ice at the far end of the room, hollowing out a passage to the next - hopefully final - challenge.</p><p></p><p>The air was heavy with moisture and water constantly fell from the melting ceiling to soak the entire group as they trudged through the hot mud. After some distance, the newly-melted tunnel emerged into a cavern of green ice. The group were confused at first as to the odd hue, until they saw the Trolls. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Trolls, sealed within the ice at the bottom of the glacier. In the walls, in the arching ceiling overhead, even underfoot - they were everywhere. Loki had not driven the Trolls from Trollhaven as ordered by Odin - he had simply entombed them here. The clear danger of the situation was lost on no one.</p><p></p><p>At the far end of the room was a great Viking longboat, wreathed in funereal flames that seemed as frozen as the glacier itself. This the group approached slowly, and then they saw the hammer. Suspended in the static flames was a great hammer, its impossible head a slice of rainbow that shifted as it was gazed upon - there could be no doubt that this was Bjorn's Jotunhammer, the bane of giants, his prized possession. No one dared approach the boat itself, but all marked the heap of swards and giant-sized armor that lay in the stern. Clearly this was Bjorn's funeral boat, frozen in time and ice until this moment.</p><p></p><p>As they watched, a face appeared in the flames and spoke one final clue:</p><p></p><p>"Who was born twice, wears a crown every day,</p><p>engages in prophesies which are known to all,</p><p>although no one understands a word he knows."</p><p></p><p>Halvor surged forward as if to seize the hammer but Ingolf grabbed him quickly. "Fool of a brother, did you come this far to die in your haste? We must answer the riddle. And not with words, according to the first clue!"</p><p></p><p>The stark fear of being overwhelmed by a hundred ravenous, newly-thawed Trolls overcame the group at that moment. Martaine and Ingolf surmised that, were they to speak aloud the wrong answer, the ice would shatter and they would be quickly overcome. Aoelif produced a bundle of papers and pen and ink and the group set to discussing the riddle via notes passed back and forth in urgency.</p><p></p><p>"Born twice?"</p><p></p><p>"Wears a crown every day?"</p><p></p><p>"Prophesies known to all?"</p><p></p><p>It seemed that their cleverness had deserted them. Time wore on and all were keenly aware that every hour they wasted made it that much more likely that Keldan would catch up to them - a possibility they had worked hard to avoid.</p><p></p><p>"The answer will be foul, not fair, remember" someone wrote, and suddenly in a flash of insight, Martaine had the answer. He almost spoke it aloud, but then remembered, and wrote - "A <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />. Born first as an egg, then it hatches. The wattles are its crown, it prophesies the rising of the sun - surely known to all - yet no one understands it."</p><p></p><p>Ingolf said, aloud "But the answer is not spoken in words." Then, with a grin, the bard threw back his head and crowed "<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />-a-doodle-doo!"</p><p></p><p>Bjorn Jutonhammer's funeral pyre began to burn in earnest, the frozen flames released from millennia of bondage. The hammer fell to the ice with a crash and Halvor swept it up as the group began the back-slapping and laughter the release of such stress afforded. Other treasures lay at their feet, not in Bjorn's funeral boat, and these Theodorus and Martaine collected. Suddenly they realized that the boat was burning - burning in earnest - and the ice melting. Great shards of eon-frozen glacier fell from the ceiling to shatter at their feet, and then they noticed with sudden, renewed fear that the outmost Trolls, those closest to the surface of the ice, seemed to be watching them with hungry eyes as the ice slowly began to melt. Somewhere in the mass of frozen Troll flesh, and arm began to twitch, finally free of the ice after who knew how many years of entrapment - and fasting. The thought of a hundred ravenous Trolls in everyone's mind, almost as a man they sprinted towards the exit.</p><p></p><p>In the next room they saw that Loki's huge golden backside had vanished, apparently an illusion, and the mechanical dwarf was buried up to his neck is a river of steaming mud that melted the ice even faster. Crashing noises could be heard from the room behind them as they dashed up the narrow staircase back to the "shrine" of Odin. Ingolf judged that the passage would be a very tight fit for the Trolls, perhaps impassable, and at the top they stopped a moment to collect their thoughts. </p><p></p><p>Ingolf retrieved his magical bag of holding and the hammer of Thor went back to work. The lithe bard dodged the lighting strokes as he made his way out of the room, stopping long enough to retrieve the contents of the bag he'd been forced to leave on the floor earlier. He pulled the switch he'd noticed before and all of the pit traps opened wide. The group threaded their way through these, Nicasia noting a body here or there at the bottom of the pits that revealed the fates of at least a few of the other challengers of the shrine. Then they were back to the entrance, where they found that the great stone door had closed behind them.</p><p></p><p>Ingolf fiddled with the runestone a moment and opened it to reveal the Thur rune on its reverse, then pressed this into the mirror-image on the inside of the door. The huge slab opened and everyone piled out into the cold air on the mountain's side. While Ingolf was pondering what to do with the runestone itself, Halvor seized it and hurled it back into the Shrine, just as the door began to close once more. "That should keep it out of Keldan's hands!" he laughed. "Unless those Trolls manage to make it up the steps" Ingolf replied. "Hadn't considered that. Let's get moving!"</p><p></p><p>Halvor and Ingolf roused the others, who had already collapsed in the snow, hours of wakefulness and marching catching up with them at last. No one had slept in over 24 hours and they were all footsore, wet, and not a few of them wounded. Wearily the group began the long hike back down the mountain to the sea, Astryd, their boat, and hopefully final flight from Trollhaven.</p><p></p><p></p><p>XP Awarded Per Character: 1138 ( including Halvor)</p><p></p><p>Bonus points:</p><p></p><p>Nicasia +197 for stave church adv. </p><p>Zaccara + 200 for solving riddle #1 </p><p>Ingolf +397 for stave church adv. and solving riddle #2 </p><p>Martaine +200 for solving riddle #3</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheBard, post: 66384, member: 2821"] [b]Episode 21: Loki's Last Laugh[/b] Time Elapsed: 9/4 - 9/7/495 A.I. Prelude (the DM) Aeolif and Astryd hide the bodies of Halvor's men. Halvor assumes the form of Vidar (the barbarian) and sets off down the track towards the village where he plans to tell the tale of Rungnir being kidnapped by some other Alfar raiders. The rest of you set off, schlepping Rugnir's body back to the coast on a litter with Astryd to guide you. Halvor and Astryd come up with a meeting place a few hours down the coast from Kolbein (the village Halvor is heading to). It takes you a full day to get over the mountains and you still end up spending the night on shore before you can get down to the breakers in the morning. The beach is rocky where you put in. You pull away to a ruined tower on a spit of land, but don't wait long there until you see a lone figure in a small boat approaching you out of the gloom. It's Halvor in his borrowed clothes. He pulls alongside the boat and you notice a pool of blood-dyed seawater in the bottom of his boat. Two fingers are floating in it. Astryd jumps in his arms anyway. When questioned, Halvor says that he snuck away from the Kolbeiners who went out to investigate the scene of the battle and went back into town. He told the townsfolk that he was going to take ship and go to Trolhaven. (He realized that the townsfolk may send a boat to Trolhaven.) So he went down to the beach and stove in the rest of their boats with his father's axe. A couple of the men tried to stop him and he killed one, then forced the others to launch him in the remaining boat. He laughs and says, "One of the Alfar got brave and tried to swamp the boat in the surf - he did not know when to let go, but now he won't have to worry about holding anything in that hand any more." At Ingolf's look he says, "Do not worry overmuch, Ingolf, or your :):):):) will shrink to the size of your sword! I was still wearing Vidar's borrowed face at the time. They will think Vidar was part of the vikings!" At Martaine worried glance, "Do not worry little priest, I did not kill the man -- unless the sharks got him before he made it back to shore. HAH, HAH!" (Nicasia: You could swear some of those fingers look gnawed.) (Theodorus: Zoe does not like the big man who growls at her.) You sail for a few hours, weigh down Rugnir's body and toss him overboard followed by Halvor's urine. You sail on and into the cold evening - pulling the boat near the town of Trolhaven in the early dawn. You can find a copse of tall trees a couple of hundred yards away so that you can see the town, but there are no good (non-magical) means to overhear anything intelligible. The town has no harbor of sorts, but is provided with a wide beach. The landward side of the town has an imposing wooden palisade with towers interspersed. The wall is rather feeble by human standards, but effective. Halvor and Astryd can tell you that there is only room for one man to move along the walls, but the towers are roomy enough for 4-6 archers and the towers as spaced to give short range covering fire. There is only one gate into the town. The seaward side has no wall, but there are two towers. Three small Alfar fishing craft are beached here. At the middle of that day you hear horns and a great clamoring. Astryd says that Keldan is calling all the elder warriors to counsel. Over the next few hours you see a few more guards in evidence around the towers and pitch pots can be seen being filled on the beach. Late in the day, a raven-prowed ship is rolled on logs from a building near the beach and around a dozen men can be seen getting into it. A smaller boat is also launched with only 4 men. It heads out to sea, to the south. The raven-boat moves slowly out around the coastline - headed for Kolbein. A tall, silver-haired Alfar stands nearly naked on the prow of the ship, covered only in a loincloth and a white cape, silver bracers on his arms. He has an eyepatch and is holding a longspear that crackles with white fire. He is calling to the rowers and they are really putting their backs into the job. "Keldan..." says Halvor and he lets out a low growl. Astryd put a hand on his arm, as if to restrain him. Summary Halvor’s mission into Kolbein a success, and Rungnir’s body dumped into the sea, the group hid on the shore an arrow’s flight or so from the walls of Trollhaven. It was decided that Nicasia and Ingolf would steal into the town under cover of darkness, and perhaps invisibly as well, and liberate the rune from around the great statue of Odin. Halvor preferred the direct approach of simply slaughtering as many of the townsfolk as it took to fight their way to the stave church and back, but Astryd reminded him that they were, for the most part, blameless. Ingolf checked his gear for the third time as the sun set and finally he and Nicasia headed out. They elected to approach from the landward side of town, as it was apparent that most of the inhabitants fully expected to see the sails of Viking ships coming towards their docks at any moment. It seemed that the story of raiders to the north had everyone on edge. They had to cross a river to do so, and though it was not deep the water was cold and not sluggish. Nicasia lost her footing once or twice but made it across just the same. On the far side, Ingolf whipped up a little minor bardic magic to dry their clothes, and the two crept towards the city wall. They could clearly see that the guards on the landward side, such as they were, had stationed themselves in the towers, leaving the wall unpatrolled. The two rogues slipped up against the base of the wall and Nicasia produced her wand, rendering them both invisible. Ingolf climbed the wall with relative ease, then made fast a light short rope for Nicasia to ascend. They lowered themselves into the town and Ingolf’s magic proved useful once again to detach the rope. The stave church was clearly visible in the center of town. The entrance, however, proved to be a bit problematic. Although there were no guardsmen on duty, there was a singularly large and unhappy looking dog tied up next to the only entrance. Luckily enough, the two would-be sneakthieves were downwind of the pooch for the moment. Ingolf crept as quietly as he could, keeping tabs on the wind, until he was close enough to work some magic on the hound, then magically untied the rope from the stake driven into the ground. At that, Nicasia produced a little illusion of her own, in the form of several piteously mewing cats coming from just around the corner. The guard dog perked up at this, and went to have a better look. As the trailing end of his lead disappeared around the corner, Ingolf and Nicasia slipped up to the church door. Ingolf withdrew Aoelif’s magical crystal from his belt pouch and peered through the crack in the door. He could see clearly the interior and the large statue – complete with the runestone about its neck. He could also see the rather unwelcome sight of an aged priest offering prayers. Ingolf could well guess the nature of those prayers – “Allfather, keep us safe from these marauders” and the like. He felt a moment of kinship with this elderly alfar, and however distant, the feeling was strong enough that Ingolf resolved not to do harm to him if he could avoid it. Around the outside of the church was a narrow hallway, through which petitioners would walk, Ingolf knew, to the side door. There a priest would receive their offering and bless or offer to pray with them, on the most busy holy days when the entire congregation couldn’t fit inside the building. He and Nicasia walked, quiet as stave-church mice, through this hall, until they had completely circled the building. Ingolf realize that from the side door he would just barely be close enough to the statue to use his magical servant to retrieve the stone. Nicasia moved to the main door, then began pounding on it as if a townsperson sought entrance. She yelled out the one or two words in alfar she’d picked up from Aoelif. The ploy seemed to work, as the priest within scowled and walked to the door with a mild curse or two for whoever had disturbed his devotions. Nicasia slipped around the corner, and Ingolf set to work stealing the runestone, as soon as he managed to jimmy the latch holding the door closed. The first thing the priest noticed was the missing guard dog. He left the door open and went out, with a stronger curse this time, to find the absent doorwarden. Nicasia took advantage of his absence to slip off away from the church into the streets of the town. Ingolf followed as soon as he had the stone – just in time to find the priest tying up the missing dog once more, muttering to himself about poorly-tied knots and whoreson townsfolk who pound on the door to the Allfather’s church then leave before his creaking bones could answer it. Ingolf realized that he was now upwind of the dog and needed to move quickly. He tucked the stone into his pouch and sprinted past the dog and priest both, magically whispering to Nicasia as he did so to run like hell for the wall. The priest realized at once that something was up, but didn’t know what. As they scaled the wall a second time, Ingolf and Nicasia could hear the sound of a horn blowing somewhere off in the town, and voices coming from the nearest tower. In his haste to get off the wall, Ingolf slipped and made the twenty-foot descent rather faster than he had intended. His natural reflex to roll with the fall didn’t even come into play and he landed hard. Nicasia was already stealing her way towards the river crossing while Ingolf took a moment to unfasten the rope before limping off as quickly as he could on a sprained ankle. A few minutes later, they were back, wet and cold, but with the stone still safely in Ingolf’s purse. The group wasted no time at getting the magic boat back into service and out to sea, as the mothers of Trollhaven brought their children indoors and their men scoured the streets for the spies that had seemingly visited them in the night. The trip up the eastern edge of Trollhaven Island was peaceful enough, and they pulled into the sheltered cove where they'd made landfall once before under the first rays of the sun. Halvor suggested to Astryd that she remain behind to keep a camp and a pair of eyes on the party's back, and against this idea she fought very spiritedly. So much so, in fact, that at Ingolf's suggestion the rest of the group elected to move a few miles up the trail and leave the two newly reunited lovers to their "conversation." A half hour or so later, Halvor rejoined them, with a noticeable bruise and dark swelling around one eye. "I finally got her to listen to . . . reason" was all the hulking barbarian had to say. If anyone smirked, they did so behind their hand. The group began the long and tiring climb into the mountains and up the half-natural, half-carved stair that lead to the shrine door, where they would hopefully put the runestone to work. Ingolf had been disturbed at first on examining the stone, which was actually a piece of ivory, perhaps from a walrus or narwhal. In Aoelif's vision, she had clearly seen a stone with the Ansuz rune of Odin on one face, and the Thur rune of the giants on the other. But this artifact had only Odin's rune and nothing on the reverse. It was Aoelif, though, who discovered its secret. By depressing the Odin rune slightly, the back of the piece could be made to slide open - revealing the Thur rune within. Ingolf's belief that the shrine was not dedicated to the Allfather at all grew even stronger. Though they were all tired, the group pressed on through the cold night, not wanting to surrender any of the precious head start they had over Keldan in the event he elected to come to the shrine at some point. They reached the door in the late afternoon, aching and weary, yet the thrill of discovery was on them all. Ingolf took the rune and, displaying an outward confidence that he inwardly lacked, pressed it into the Ansuz carved into the great door. At once the slab of stone began to move - tilting outward at the base like the gangplank of a ship. Ingolf stepped back and waited. After a few minutes, the huge stone slab was flat on the ground. In the middle of the inside surface was the mirror-image of a small indented Thur rune, matching the one on the back of the runestone. A dark passage pierced the side of the mountain directly ahead. To the right, the group saw a great drum and mallet - clearly very old, and covered with dust. On the wall, in alfar, was a message. "Such is the roll of heroes of Trollhaven who have sought Bjorn's hammer." Below was five names, written in chalk. The writing was so old that it took a moment to realize that it was writing at all. No one elected to add any names to the list, or to sound the drum, though Zacarra did pick up the mallet and tuck it in his belt. Nicasia produced a magic light and the group could see that the passage extended only a short distance before it gave way to a narrow, rough-hewn tunnel that descended into the darkness. Ingolf pressed ahead with the rest of the group close behind. The tunnel was not over-long and ended in a small chamber before a pair of large, oak doors bound with brass and iron. An iconic depiction of Odin was on either panel, overlooking a field of battle where valkyries whisked the dead off to Asgard. Suddenly a voice spoke to them, as by magic, saying "Play my game or away you hie, For no victory is without a fee. Lose and you will die, Win and face my penalty." The iron bindings of the door were in the shape of the Midgaard serpent, the handles formed from the serpent's twin heads. Ingolf bent to inspect the handles and spotted at once a row of hollow needles, positioned to pierce the fingers of anyone attempting to open the door. He pointed them out to Halvor and the others, then inspected the large brass lock. With relish, the young rogue unrolled his kit of picks and tension bars, all expertly crafted for him by a human master thief in far-off Thracan. Ingolf enjoyed this line of work, and had rather missed it for the last months living more or less honestly in Tavia. He attacked the lock with considerable enthusiasm. For such an ancient and rarely-used lock, it proved to be remarkable complex. In ten minutes or so, Ingolf was cursing loudly and fumbling blindly with no more idea how to open the lock than Martaine would a noblewoman's chastity belt. Halvor, never a patient elf, decided he'd had enough, and pushing his brother roughly aside, went to work on the door proper with his axe. After a few minutes of tiring work, Halvor had splintered one of the panels apart and pushed both doors wide. It was apparent from the look on Theodorus' face that he considered Halvor to be capable of quite any act of mindless, lowbrow violence, but whether the Iconian nobleman found this an embarrassing flaw or a potentially useful virtue was not plain. The group entered the dark hallway beyond the door, with Ingolf going ahead. What they saw was puzzling. The hall was twenty or so feet wide, and ran straight into the heart of the mountain itself. They could all hear a strange sort of chiming or pounding noise, as of a hammer repeatedly striking an anvil, accompanied by an odd crackling sound. With each blow, a strange light briefly pierced the darkness ahead. Aoelif opined aloud that it reminded her of the breath of the Behir they'd fought months earlier at the very beginning of their quest. Not thirty feet down the corridor, Ingolf spotted the tell-tale signs of a pit trap laying full across their path. Just before it was a row of holes in the floor, and in the ceiling above a portcullis waited to crash down and block off the only escape route. The alfar quickly determined that the pit door was in fact hinged in the middle, and that by walking down the dead center of the hall the pit doors could be avoided. He went ahead, spotting yet more pits scattered at seeming random along the length of the corridor. He marked each with chalk as he went, and the rest of the company followed carefully in his footsteps. After another 50 or so pit-strewn feet of hallway, the corridor made a ninety-degree turn to the left. From around this corner, Ingolf could hear quite loudly the same hammer and anvil sound, and the odd light splashed across the stone floor with every impact. In the corner he spotted a switch that he expected either disarmed or else opened the pits behind him. Ingolf stepped cautiously around the corner, with Zaccara and Halvor close behind him. The sight before him was bizarre, to say the least. The corridor ran another twenty or so feet and opened into a large room, perhaps 35 feet square. The ceiling was so high as to be out of sight in the gloom, and the floor was odd indeed. Ingolf noticed with some concern that it was not stone - the floor was actually a metal grate, apparently over a deep (bottomless?) pit - from the entrance he could peer down through the grate into the blackness. Several stone columns rose from the deeps of this pit to support the iron grate. The tops of these columns were not covered by the grate, so the end result was something like a strange chaotic chessboard, with parts of the floor being iron grating and parts being the tops of the stone columns that supported it. In the middle of the far wall was a great marble statue of Odin, seated upon a huge throne. Ingolf guessed that the figure would be at least fourteen feet tall were it standing. In the statue's right hand was a great ash spear perhaps 20 feet in length. The statue wore a mail shirt - actual mail, not part of the statue - and a leather patch over the left eye. The right eye was a golden orb set into the marble socket. At the feet of this figure was a low stone altar stained with blood and soot. To the right of Odin's statue in the corner was a smaller statue of Thor. It was holding a metal hammer and Ingolf was surprised to see that the statue was apparently magical - the arm holding the hammer raised and lowered at irregular intervals, smashing the hammer onto an anvil at the statue's feet. With each blow, a loud ringing noise sounded throughout the room, and sparks flew from the anvil. Finally, Ingolf noticed that the room was not entirely uninhabited. Lumbering about with odd, jerky movements was what he at first thought to be the reanimate corpse of a Troll. After he observed it for a moment, the bard realized that it was in fact a construct, a sort of magically animate statue made from the body parts of various dead creatures. Theodorus confirmed this after a moment's observation. Both men were pleased to note that, for the moment at least, the Troll-golem seemed to be wandering aimlessly, not paying them any attention. Something about the way it moved suggested a form composed at least as much of stone as flesh. Ingolf noticed that the Troll was careful to keep to the metal grate and did not walk on the tops of the stone columns. Every time the statue of Thor in the corner struck with its hammer, crackling electricity could be seen shooting up the Troll-golem's legs. As the rest of the company gathered behind Ingolf, suddenly the Troll-golem spoke, the changes in its face clearly the result of long-gone magic. "A treasure of great power awaits you in the halls of green ice As long as you listen and heed my advice The answers to my game will never be fair but foul Answer wrongly and my scourge will make you howl. Three riddles I'll pose but only the second answer should be heard To open your way to the third The first solution is but a key to a door (a relative whose insight is quite a bore!) The third answer, though, will unsheath the sword As long as it's spoken not in words So gird your small loins and pick out your big ears Or your bones will be my company for years upon years" As the group wondered at what this might mean, suddenly the seated figure of Odin spoke, also apparently by magic, saying "I saw a castle on a height with five doors. A fine dwelling. It has two splendid windows and 32 stone towers. There a rich lady reigns, but also a wicked tyrant" Before anyone could utter the obvious answer, the Troll-golem moved to attack. Halvor, clearly not exhausted from his combat with the door, rushed to meet the thing, with Zaccara and Aoelif close behind, all heedless of Ingolf's warnings to wait. Axe, spear and sword all struck true, and when the dead flesh of the thing was rent a strange powder - perhaps powdered stone - came out of the wounds. The golem was hardly defenseless however, and it lashed out with its great fists dealing brutal blows to Aoelif and Halvor both. Then Thor's hammer came down with a crash. Lightning shot through the iron grate of the floor, burning the warrior's feet where they stood. Equally alarming, it also shot up the legs of the jerkily moving golem, and where it passed it knit the wounds that had been deal to the thing back together, undoing completely the damage that had been dealt. Halvor and Aoelif at once tried to disengage from the thing. The fianna moved off the grate and onto the top of one of the stone columns, trying to isolate herself from the deadly lightning. The golem took advantage of her inattention to wallop her once more. The dilemma became apparent at once - the golem, with its overlong arms, could easily deliver deadly blows to those attempting to fight it, but anyone that sought to engage the thing in close quarters would be forced to leave the relative safety of the stone columns and stand on the deadly iron grate to be killed by the same electric discharges that were healing the golem! Ingolf saw a clear way to solve this problem, but Martaine beat him to it. Risking the iron grate, the templar dashed across the room towards the statue of Thor and jammed his wooden shield between the iron hammer and the anvil at its feet. Thor's hammer came crashing down onto the shield - and no sparks flew. The three warriors quickly moved again to dispatch the golem before Martaine's shield was utterly destroyed by the statue's hammer, and they did so in fine fashion. The golem's creator had left one final surprise - as Halvor dealt the fatal blow to the thing, rending it from collarbone to crotch with a powerful sweep of his axe, two small glass vials dropped out of the Troll-golem's torso and smashed on the floor with explosive results. Nearly everyone was wounded in the ensuing fireball, then the golem turned fully to dust which sifted through the grating and disappeared into the depths below. The first challenges of the shrine had just barely been overcome, and most of the group were wounded already. Before Martaine's shield could be completely destroyed, Ingolf emptied out his magical bag of holding on the floor outside the room and then placed it over the head of the hammer. This seemed to offer a long-term solution to the problem of the electrified grating, and the group turned their attention to the problem of the riddle. "I saw a castle on a height with five doors. A fine dwelling. It has two splendid windows and 32 stone towers. There a rich lady reigns, but also a wicked tyrant" The obvious answer - "a head" was on everyone's lips. Yet the advice of the first "riddle" was apparent as well - simply saying the answer would not produce any results. It seemed likely that the key was the head of the statue of Odin - but what, exactly, did that mean? Zaccara climbed up onto the seated figure of the Allfather to examine the statue's head. It was not articulated in any way, nor could it be removed or otherwise tampered with without destroying it. Theodorus suggested that he examine the patch on Odin's left eye and Zaccara found that it could easily be removed. Behind the patch was an empty socket. On a hunch, the human warrior looked at the figure's other eye and saw that it was a golden orb, with a large hole where the pupil would be. He stuck his finger into this hole and pulled Odin's eye from the socket with ease. These actions made the three alfar in the room more than a little uncomfortable, and Aoelif remarked that certainly sticking one's finger into Odin's eye could be thought of as foul. Again on a hunch Zaccara decided to put the golden orb back - in the other eye socket. As he did so, Ingolf suddenly remembered that it was Odin's right eye that had been put out - not the left. Zaccara put the patch back on the statue - over the right socket this time - and the entire throne slowly swung to one side to reveal a narrow passage and staircase winding down into the mountain. The group descended with caution. As they made there way into the deeps, the temperature rose and soon the entire group were sweating profusely. Halvor believed that the passage they followed was in fact headed towards the mountainside nearest the great glacier, so this rise in temperature was strange indeed. "More of Loki's trickery, no doubt" was all Halvor had to say about it. Finally, the narrow passage emerged into a great chamber where yet another odd sight awaited. The chamber seemed cut out of the murky ice at the bottom of the glacier itself, and it was huge. An odd illumination came from deep within the ice revealing the entire room. Ingolf noted that the floor sloped gently towards one end, and in the middle of the room was a ditch filled with sluggishly flowing mud. The heat was oppressive, and water constantly dripped from the melting ice. Without a doubt, some powerful, perhaps even divine, magic had carved out this place and maintained it still. At the highest end of the room was a sight that was as scatological as it was bewildering. A great golden pair of buttocks sans a body were exposed in the ice. Loki, it would appear, was mooning the entire group. The river of mud emerged suggestively from between them. Nicasia and Theodorus were rather shocked at such imagery, but Martaine and Zaccara seemed amused. The alfar considered it just another example of Loki's sensibilites. At the base of this rather base tableau stood another seemingly mechanical statue, this of a dwarf, his hand upon a golden lever. The magic that had powered the other pronouncements activated again and the figure spoke: "There is a maiden, stillborn of a fruitful mother, of whom a multitude of birds eat as they whirl madly over her body." Several answers were dreamt up - sparks over a burning fire amoung other things - but at each wrong suggestion, the dwarf pulled his lever, releasing yet more steaming mud into the room. Theodorus was briefly overcome by the heat, but Martaine managed to revive him, when Ingolf hit upon the obvious (in retrospect) answer of flies circling a pile of dung. The dwarf pulled his lever once more, and this time the river of apparently volcanic mud was so great that it melted its way into the ice at the far end of the room, hollowing out a passage to the next - hopefully final - challenge. The air was heavy with moisture and water constantly fell from the melting ceiling to soak the entire group as they trudged through the hot mud. After some distance, the newly-melted tunnel emerged into a cavern of green ice. The group were confused at first as to the odd hue, until they saw the Trolls. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Trolls, sealed within the ice at the bottom of the glacier. In the walls, in the arching ceiling overhead, even underfoot - they were everywhere. Loki had not driven the Trolls from Trollhaven as ordered by Odin - he had simply entombed them here. The clear danger of the situation was lost on no one. At the far end of the room was a great Viking longboat, wreathed in funereal flames that seemed as frozen as the glacier itself. This the group approached slowly, and then they saw the hammer. Suspended in the static flames was a great hammer, its impossible head a slice of rainbow that shifted as it was gazed upon - there could be no doubt that this was Bjorn's Jotunhammer, the bane of giants, his prized possession. No one dared approach the boat itself, but all marked the heap of swards and giant-sized armor that lay in the stern. Clearly this was Bjorn's funeral boat, frozen in time and ice until this moment. As they watched, a face appeared in the flames and spoke one final clue: "Who was born twice, wears a crown every day, engages in prophesies which are known to all, although no one understands a word he knows." Halvor surged forward as if to seize the hammer but Ingolf grabbed him quickly. "Fool of a brother, did you come this far to die in your haste? We must answer the riddle. And not with words, according to the first clue!" The stark fear of being overwhelmed by a hundred ravenous, newly-thawed Trolls overcame the group at that moment. Martaine and Ingolf surmised that, were they to speak aloud the wrong answer, the ice would shatter and they would be quickly overcome. Aoelif produced a bundle of papers and pen and ink and the group set to discussing the riddle via notes passed back and forth in urgency. "Born twice?" "Wears a crown every day?" "Prophesies known to all?" It seemed that their cleverness had deserted them. Time wore on and all were keenly aware that every hour they wasted made it that much more likely that Keldan would catch up to them - a possibility they had worked hard to avoid. "The answer will be foul, not fair, remember" someone wrote, and suddenly in a flash of insight, Martaine had the answer. He almost spoke it aloud, but then remembered, and wrote - "A :):):):). Born first as an egg, then it hatches. The wattles are its crown, it prophesies the rising of the sun - surely known to all - yet no one understands it." Ingolf said, aloud "But the answer is not spoken in words." Then, with a grin, the bard threw back his head and crowed ":):):):)-a-doodle-doo!" Bjorn Jutonhammer's funeral pyre began to burn in earnest, the frozen flames released from millennia of bondage. The hammer fell to the ice with a crash and Halvor swept it up as the group began the back-slapping and laughter the release of such stress afforded. Other treasures lay at their feet, not in Bjorn's funeral boat, and these Theodorus and Martaine collected. Suddenly they realized that the boat was burning - burning in earnest - and the ice melting. Great shards of eon-frozen glacier fell from the ceiling to shatter at their feet, and then they noticed with sudden, renewed fear that the outmost Trolls, those closest to the surface of the ice, seemed to be watching them with hungry eyes as the ice slowly began to melt. Somewhere in the mass of frozen Troll flesh, and arm began to twitch, finally free of the ice after who knew how many years of entrapment - and fasting. The thought of a hundred ravenous Trolls in everyone's mind, almost as a man they sprinted towards the exit. In the next room they saw that Loki's huge golden backside had vanished, apparently an illusion, and the mechanical dwarf was buried up to his neck is a river of steaming mud that melted the ice even faster. Crashing noises could be heard from the room behind them as they dashed up the narrow staircase back to the "shrine" of Odin. Ingolf judged that the passage would be a very tight fit for the Trolls, perhaps impassable, and at the top they stopped a moment to collect their thoughts. Ingolf retrieved his magical bag of holding and the hammer of Thor went back to work. The lithe bard dodged the lighting strokes as he made his way out of the room, stopping long enough to retrieve the contents of the bag he'd been forced to leave on the floor earlier. He pulled the switch he'd noticed before and all of the pit traps opened wide. The group threaded their way through these, Nicasia noting a body here or there at the bottom of the pits that revealed the fates of at least a few of the other challengers of the shrine. Then they were back to the entrance, where they found that the great stone door had closed behind them. Ingolf fiddled with the runestone a moment and opened it to reveal the Thur rune on its reverse, then pressed this into the mirror-image on the inside of the door. The huge slab opened and everyone piled out into the cold air on the mountain's side. While Ingolf was pondering what to do with the runestone itself, Halvor seized it and hurled it back into the Shrine, just as the door began to close once more. "That should keep it out of Keldan's hands!" he laughed. "Unless those Trolls manage to make it up the steps" Ingolf replied. "Hadn't considered that. Let's get moving!" Halvor and Ingolf roused the others, who had already collapsed in the snow, hours of wakefulness and marching catching up with them at last. No one had slept in over 24 hours and they were all footsore, wet, and not a few of them wounded. Wearily the group began the long hike back down the mountain to the sea, Astryd, their boat, and hopefully final flight from Trollhaven. XP Awarded Per Character: 1138 ( including Halvor) Bonus points: Nicasia +197 for stave church adv. Zaccara + 200 for solving riddle #1 Ingolf +397 for stave church adv. and solving riddle #2 Martaine +200 for solving riddle #3 [/QUOTE]
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