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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3349893" data-attributes="member: 1210">The choking smoke rolls through the air, making our heroes’ lungs burn.  The stink of sulphur fills their nostrils.  Me think of training, Sir Percival tells himself.  Big man tough. And then he is sprinting down the long, looping path that will lead ultimately to conflict with the giant. He ignores the burning in his lungs, the flaming lake all around the paths. The others start moving in behind hi, and for the moment the smoke aids them all; it takes the giant a few short moments to notice them.  But when it does, it issues a booming laugh, dips its hands into the burning liquid surrounding the platform on which it stands- and pulls out a rock, glowing hot from its long immersion in the flaming sea.  And then it whips its arms back and throws.  The stone sails up in a long, lazy arc- and smashes down on the platform, inches away from Sir Colder.Fwaigo skids to a halt and pulls out his sword.  “Umm,” he says, his mouth gaping, and he inhales a huge cloud of smoke.  Blinded and coughing, his eyes tearing from the irritating air, he shakes his head to clear it. When he can see again, he gasps: flaming forms are lifting out of the flaming lake near Me.  Roaring, he slashes at them, but the bat-like forms dive in and tear at him. One attaches to his shoulder, sucking his blood and burning him.  Otis, too, stops closing the distance with the giant and casts magic missile, blasting the fire bat that is clinging to Me from his body.  It explodes into a mist of red flames. The wizard grins to himself, but outwardly remains aloof; he must maintain his image.  Dahlia pulls her scimitar and begins dueling with the birds, aided by Sir Cedric; but Colder, Jorgen and Percival (or Me, as the big dumb lug calls himself) sprint past.The giant’s laughter booms through the chamber.  A whistling sound announces the arrival of another boulder, which smashes into Me with bone-crushing force!  He throws himself aside at the last moment, avoiding the worst of it, remembering his training, and then throws himself prone to dodge another of the huge heated rocks.  Scrambling back to his feet, he keeps moving up... and sees another of the rocks sail past him and smash Colder in the leg.Kyle, near the back, fires another magic missile at one of the fire bats.  Cedric hacks into the thing and it explodes too; he and Dahlia are holding their own against the flaming things.  It’s the giant we have to worry about, Cedric thinks grimly, running another fire bat through.Meanwhile, Me sprints around the last curve before he has a straight shot at the giant- and finds himself suddenly confused and falling!  “Whooof!” he cries, as he crashes into the ground- Huh? Me thinks. Everything has turned upside down.  Why... why are his friends on the ceiling?  Befuddled, he hesitates for a moment.  Otis, simultaneously, shouts, “Beware!  There is some kind of reverse gravity field! Beware!!”Jorgen edges along near the outside edge of the walkway. “I think the edge is okay!” he shouts.  Then he sees the giant lining up a shot on him- and gulps.  But fortunately for him, the thick smoke obscures him just enough that the giant’s boulder misses!*  Jorgen whistles in relief, pulls out his sword- and charges.The others, meantime, have finished off the fire bats, and now they resume their approach towards the giant.  Kyle stops, drops to one knee and pulls his bow.  I don’t want to get close to that thing! he thinks to himself.  He could cut me in half in a single blow with that huge sword!**  Sighting down the shaft, he fires for the giant’s upper body, hoping to miss his allies.Both Colder and the sheriff of Whitewater dance with the giant, and from the ceiling Me roars.  He runs to get as close to the giant as he can- and suddenly, he’s falling- CRASH!  Disoriented, he groans and shakes his head.  “What... where...” he mutters, and then realizes that everyone is on the floor again.  Confused but happy, he charges with his greatsword.  It is perhaps half the length of the one that the giant is pulling from a great baldric across its broad back, but it is just right for Me!Otis fires another volley of magic missiles at the giant, peppering him with small wounds.  Jorgen and Me have already cut into it in several places.  Roaring, the black-skinned giant cuts into Jorgen with devastating force, slitting him open from his left shoulder to his thigh.  The sheriff screams in pain, staggering back.  He grits his teeth and clutches his sword in shaking hands as the giant swings again, and this time Jorgen barely manages a parry.  Then the giant falters and falls back with a great shout as an arrow hits him in the cheek, and Colder stabs him in the foot.  Beset by the gnats around him, the giant growls deep in his barrel chest.  He will not be defeated by little ones again so soon! It is intolerable!Another of our heroes arrives in melee, bastard sword in both hands.  Cedric!  He springs forward and slashes, but the giant blade crashes into his legs with a backhanded sweep as he closes on the giant.  He howls in pain, then cries, “My friendth, enough ith enough!  We mutht dithpothe of thith mithcreant!”The heroes close in, and the giant cannot fend them all off.  Suddenly another cut slashes across his leg, another on his arm.  He swings his sword into the half-orc, aiming for the head, but Me is fast; he springs out of the way enough that the blade only hacks into his arm.  “AAARGH!” the giant cries, as another arrow hits him, this time in the neck. Then two swords simultaneously stab him, and that’s all. The giant falls to the ground with a great smashing noise.Panting, our heroes exchange glances.“Hey,” Jorgen says, his tone startled and displeased.  “That’s not a stairway.”Indeed, what they had taken for a staircase turns out to be merely a wrought iron column. “Well what the hell, then,” Fwaigo says crossly, having finally broken his paralysis and come across the long, looping pathway to the giant’s area.  The party is very carefully navigating to avoid any further reverse gravity shenanigans; a little experimentation quickly reveals the location of the edge of the field, and our heroes chalk a mark on the ground to indicate it. Avoiding it then becomes much easier.  Once everyone is at the giant’s platform, they begin to search.The iron column that they had taken to be a staircase proves to have an interesting back side.  An inset area contains an anvil and some giant-sized forge tools.  Goer takes some, despite their bulk; as a smith, he is very interested.  “Some of this should be usable, and it will help us at least maintain our armor and weapons. And who knows, maybe it will be worth something somewhere.”There is also a sarcophagus-like object next to the giant. The stone lid is very heavy and resists a casual attempt or two at lifting it.  While the stronger party members prepare to make a more serious, concerted effort, Kyle searches the giant’s body. Almost immediately, he cries, “Hey, everyone, look at this!” The others cluster around. Kyle says, “Check out his arm.”Indeed, one of the giant’s arms has a relatively fresh scar on it- a scar shaped as a rose wrapped around a sword.“Thir Harth’th heraldry,” Sir Cedric intones flatly.“Well-carved, too,” notes Jorgen. “They took their time about it.”  He shivers. For a moment the party studies the face of the dead giant. He looks old- were he a human, about 50. What was his story? They will never know, now. But clearly, Sir Harth featured in it somewhere.“Well,” Jorgen thinks aloud, “at least that is more evidence that we’re on Sir Harth’s trail.”“Now what?” asks Sir Colder.  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty badly wounded.” Several of the others nod in agreement. “I think we should wait to open that sarcophagus until we’ve rested- but I don’t want to rest up here next to it,” Colder continues, and again he gets general agreement. “How about if we rest in the forest?” Kyle suggests.“Thoundth good,” Sir Cedric agrees.  So it is that our heroes retreat to the wooded level of the strange tower that they are exploring, and as there is a clearing immediately at the base of the stairs, they set their camp right there.  Dahlia passes some goodberries around, and soon the group settles in to rest.  Watches are kept; when morning rolls around, our heroes elect to continue to rest, at least for the rest of a full day.  They are fairly beat up, and the rest does them a great deal of good, allowing wounds to mend, spells to be refreshed, the strange sickness that afflicted them all when they first awoke in this blasted land to be overcome.  The goodberries keep away hunger, and Sir Cedric employs a bottle of whiskey to good effect.“Well,” Otis declares, “it is clear that we need to go to the top of this place. We need to figure out how to ascend from the giant’s chamber. Also, have you noticed- there seems to be an elemental theme to this place.”“What?” Goer looks confused.“Yes,” Otis affirms. “The first level was airy, with mist, and flying beasts. The second level was a jungle, full of earth.  Then a fire level. I posit that above the giant we shall find a level of water.”“My master is brilliant,” Kyle breathes. He is really quite impressed.“Well, let’s see what we can figure out,” suggests Otis. “Let us head up there. We are rested, recovered. What say you?”“I agree,” nods Goer.The rest of the party does so as well.  Indeed, they are eager to get back to it. Though a few of them have some wounds remaining, none of them are now in dire straits. It is time to find the way up.Back up in the giant’s chamber, they decide to attend to the sarcophagus first. A concerted group effort, Sir Percival in the lead, manages to remove the lid.  Within it are merely a large brass armband and a large hammer. “Ooh, a hammer,” Goer says, and snatches it up. It does not appear to be remarkable in any way other than its giant size, but again his smithing nature prods him into taking it with him.“Hey, I found it!” cries Kyle.  He’s pointing at the ceiling. “Up there,” he announces. “There’s a hole in the ceiling, in the middle of that magic gravity trap thing.”“The reverse gravity field,” Otis corrects him.“Whatever,” Kyle nods. Otis’ eyes flash. This will be noted in your grade, he thinks frostily of his apprentice.“So we have to fall up?” Sir Colder haltingly asks.“Me fall again,” Me says. A long discussion about the mechanics of the reverse gravity trap ensues, with the party trying to decide how best to get onto the ceiling without hurting themselves. They try a few rope-based attempts involving one person on the floor and one person in the field, and a few heads are bumped, and eventually someone is on the ceiling.  Then they tie one end off to the big pllar of iron on the ground.  With a couple of people bracing it on the ceiling, it becomes a workable bridge that can be climbed- though even so, the gravity reversal is disorienting enough that a couple of people take minor bumps and bruises. Otis peers down the hole. “As I surmised,” he announces. “There is water down there- or should I say, up there.”Dahlia declares, “Hold on a second and I’ll cast water breathing on everyone.”  The party groups around and she dispenses her spell.  Everyone has just under two hours worth of water breathing.Goer sighs. “Here goes nothing,” he says, and jumps into the hole.Next Time: The water level!*Everyone over 20’ away had a 20% miss chance.**At full health, our 6th-level Kyle has 13 hit points. Yikes!!</blockquote>

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