GREYHAWK, THE GOLDEN ERA CY963: CHAPTER THREE

[Tellerian Hawke]

"...[Tam Tam] was inside the alarm. Chances are, he has already tripped it unknowingly when he first entered the area."

GM: Tam was inside the totem area, but OUTSIDE the alarm area when Respen yanked him through the mirror. He did NOT set off the alarm spell. This is easily verified by looking at the runes. When an Alarm spell is triggered, the runes disappear.

Respen listens down the well to detect sounds, grunts, groans, or gasps; sounds of undead or souls not happy to be alive, and he peers into the murky darkness.

Respen, you hear a lot of moaning, groaning, grunting, and shuffling from down below. The cavern below must be HUGE, to produce such a loud echo. You estimate that the well is about 60 feet deep, and you hear nothing among the echoes which sounds even remotely like the shuffling of a golem.

 

[Aust Thale]

Respen Illuminates the Situation

GM: Tam was inside the totem area, but OUTSIDE the alarm area when Respen yanked him through the mirror. He did NOT set off the alarm spell. This is easily verified by looking at the runes. When an Alarm spell is triggered, the runes disappear.

Respen, you hear a lot of moaning, groaning, grunting, and shuffling from down below. The cavern below must be HUGE, to produce such a loud echo. You estimate that the well is about 60 feet deep, and you hear nothing among the echoes which sounds even remotely like the shuffling of a golem.

~ It's time to shed a little light on the subject, but before that happens... ~

"My friends", addressing Lathir and Dewydd without saying their names, "The Halfling did not trip the alarm. I recall that I moved him from outside to inside in the moments before we engaged this rabble. We should be alright in the short term. I will illuminate the well down to the bottom to give us a better bearing. We should not tarry, however. Being here after sunset does indeed concern me. But before we go about this business, I have a question or two for the surrendered. "

Respen calls to the red orc in a normal voice, "Orc, what is your name?"

 

[Sylvar B.]

Sylvar concentrates on the Orc and cast detect magic in his direction for 24 seconds. After he detects magic on the Orc he is going to continue concentrating and slowly pivot so that he scans the immediate 360 degree area.

 

[Tellerian Hawke]

What's In A Name? A Spear By Any Other Name Would Hurt Just As Much...

Respen calls to the red orc in a normal voice, "Orc, what is your name?"

The Orc seems surprised that Respen is addressing him directly; only moments before, he was being barked at and threatened by the Dwarf, and talked about as if he were absent by the Druid. "I am Thallok Oakspear, son of Mallek The Bloody. I am a Sergeant in the Army of the True Believers of Gruumsh, under the guidance of Gurrok Mak, the one, true, favored king of He of the One Eye."

Sylvar concentrates on the Orc and cast detect magic in his direction for 24 seconds. After he detects magic on the Orc he is going to continue concentrating and slowly pivot so that he scans the immediate 360 degree area.

GM: There are no magical auras on the Orc. None of the Orcs had magical gear. However, both the Wand and the Ring that once belonged to Dorinda, glow BRIGHTLY, brimming with power. The only other magical auras come from the trees (the Alarm spell) and from the small totem poles (the Binding spell.)

RESPEN: Do you want to speak further with the Orc? Or do you want to go ahead with your intention to light up the well's bottom?

EVERYONE: What do you do?

 

[MacConnell]

Lathir Searches His Memory

The Orc seems surprised that Respen is addressing him directly...

"I am Thallok Oakspear, son of Mallek The Bloody. I am a Sergeant in the Army of the True Believers of Gruumsh, under the guidance of Gurrok Mak, the one, true, favored king of He of the One Eye."

Recognizing one of the names, Lathir searches his memory to determine the significance and by such make conjecture about the nature of this Orc.

GM: Lathir does not recognize the Orc's name, nor the name of his father; he does, however, recognize the name of Gurrok Mak, the current ruler of the Pomarj. In fact, Lathir knows quite a bit about the Pomarj Orcs, thanks in part to his own experiences, and also in part to the conversations that the party has had with Maxwell Silverhammer (Vale's cousin.) BACKGROUND INFO: The Pomarj - The Orcs of the Pomarj are the main body of Orcs who remain evil; however, two things have changed their society: First, Gruumsh's epiphany has split Orcish society, and turned their whole belief system on its ear. Secondly, the after-effects of The Great War have brought changes as well. The Orcs who renounced their old ways, and took up the mantle of Marek, thereby becoming non-evil aligned, have all fled the Pomarj, into other territories. This event was known as The Great Schism of the year CY 904. The followers of the True Gruumsh, along with the minority faction known as The Truthseekers, left the Pomarj, leaving it in a weakened state. That was 59 years ago. The current population of The Pomarj is 394,000. The Followers of Marek can be found in Dyvers (Tolerated, no temple), The Barony of The Five (Accepted; medium-sized temple in Orctown, and large temple in Muldash), Greyhawk (Tolerated, no temple), Littleberg (Tolerated, no temple), Kron Hills (Tolerated, Independent settlement of Marekville, medium-sized temple), and... Lortmil Mountains (Accepted, Independent underground Kingdom (City-State) of Vaddekk, occupying the ruined / deserted Dwarven city of Kalimbar; this is the largest Orc settlement dedicated to Marek, hosting some 74,000 Orcs within its vast halls. This is because the vast majority of the Orcs who fled The Pomarj fled to the West, looking for caves to occupy high in the Lortmil Mountains, in the middle of the mountain range, above (North of) the Duchy of Ulek. When they got to the mountains, they found the abandoned Dwarven city, and found that it was infested with undead; not ones to shrink from a challenge, they organized themselves, using scavenged materials from the Dwarven remains. Over a period of 25 years, from CY 904 to CY 929, they destroyed all of the undead, who (as it turns out) were the personal army of the Dracolich who had destroyed the city in the first place, Uuldmaa. The Orcs destroyed the Dracolich, having located her primary phylactery which lay inside a demi-plane whose portal was deep within the mountain, and having figured out (through divination) that her backup phylactery was a fist-sized, perfect diamond, hidden within the sarcophagus of the last Dwarven king, where Uuldmaa believed that no one would think to look. The new Orc King, Bregmar, used the hammer of the last Dwarven king to shatter the diamond on the lid of that same sarcophagus. From the years CY 929 to CY 963, over a period of 34 years, the Orcs rebuilt the city completely, dividing it evenly into two sections (Vaddekk, and Kalimbar); each section has its own series of mines. The current Orc King, Mardrog, son of Bregmar, then invited the Dwarves of Kalmir (the new settlement in the Southern Lortmils) to return to their ancestral home, on the condition that they agree to share it with the Orcs. When the Dwarves heard of this, the Dwarven king of Kalmir accepted the offer, having knowledge of the "new" Orcs who follow Marek. He and about 23,000 of his most loyal followers accepted the Orcs' offer to return to the ancestral cite; this required the Dwarves who remained behind in Kalmir to elect a new king, since their bloodline no longer occupied the Kalmir throne. The new king's name is Edelrand, son of Vallendor. Thus, Kalmir has gone from a population of 54,000 down to population 31,000; and the newly-restored Kalimbar now has a population of 23,000. The current population of Vaddekk is approximately 77,000 Orcs. The two cities are now known as The Twin Mountain Kingdoms.)

 

[Aust Thale]

The Orc seems surprised that Respen is addressing him directly; only moments before, he was being barked at and threatened by the Dwarf, and talked about as if he were absent by the Druid. "I am Thallok Oakspear, son of Mallek The Bloody. I am a Sergeant in the Army of the True Believers of Gruumsh, under the guidance of Gurrok Mak, the one, true, favored king of He of the One Eye."

GM: There are no magical auras on the Orc. None of the Orcs had magical gear. However, both the Wand and the Ring that once belonged to Dorinda, glow BRIGHTLY, brimming with power. The only other magical auras come from the trees (the Alarm spell) and from the small totem poles (the Binding spell.)

RESPEN: Do you want to speak further with the Orc? Or do you want to go ahead with your intention to light up the well's bottom?

EVERYONE: What do you do?

~ Surely the orc knows something. He's military. Likely observant. ~

Respen, to the Red Orc with the respect a soldier would appreciate, even an orc: "Sergeant, I can appreciate being forced into service. I have no quarrel with you. What do you know of this place? The succubus was clearly tasked (and you conscripted) with guarding this place in some fashion. Can you offer us any insight that might benefit us all, given that my intent is to explore this hole?
I think we would all appreciate anything that would benefit all of our welfare in this regard. After all, you are a soldier, and soldiers, if nothing else, are genuinely appreciate for being observant, no matter what cause they serve."

Respen is respectful, and his innuendo is not generated as intimidation. It is a subtle acknowledgment of the truth, persuasive more by the facts of the current moment than any implied threat.

Respen intends on casting Dancing Lights down the well, allowing the light spheres to travel in a ring whose diameter is a foot from the walls of the well with one in the middle. He will do so after the orc answers, with only a whisper and motion of his hand to spread the spheres. He will examine closely what they illuminate.

 

[Tellerian Hawke]

"...Sergeant, I can appreciate being forced into service. I have no quarrel with you. What do you know of this place? The succubus was clearly tasked (and you conscripted) with guarding this place in some fashion. Can you offer us any insight that might benefit us all, given that my intent is to explore this hole?"

​

The Orc's reply is short and to the point, "The demoness was tight-lipped, and spoke to us in the manner that an adult speaks to a child; nevertheless, she let it slip that the well was very important to some sorceress, who had bound her to this place. I have no idea what's down there, other than the fact that the well has been dry for nearly a century, and is therefore likely to be useful as a secret hideout. There are probably many things hidden down there. I must say, the golem came as a complete surprise. We were told never to touch or go near the tree, and now I know why. I suppose the best way to surprise one's enemies is to keep the trap hidden from everyone, including one's own henchmen. I will say this: if the well is sourced from a cavern, there are likely to be many tunnels down there, which lead to who-knows-where, perhaps even into the Underdark. And nothing good lives in the darkness; there are things there that even my people prefer to avoid."

 

[Aust Thale]

Respen Moves to Explore the Well

The Orc's reply is short and to the point, "The demoness was tight-lipped, and spoke to us in the manner that an adult speaks to a child; nevertheless, she let it slip that the well was very important to some sorceress, who had bound her to this place. I have no idea what's down there, other than the fact that the well has been dry for nearly a century, and is therefore likely to be useful as a secret hideout. There are probably many things hidden down there. I must say, the golem came as a complete surprise. We were told never to touch or go near the tree, and now I know why. I suppose the best way to surprise one's enemies is to keep the trap hidden from everyone, including one's own henchmen. I will say this: if the well is sourced from a cavern, there are likely to be many tunnels down there, which lead to who-knows-where, perhaps even into the Underdark. And nothing good lives in the darkness; there are things there that even my people prefer to avoid."

~ Perhaps, but then again, what's the point of standing around? ~

Respen nods at the orc in acknowledgement of his answers. Given their well-earned reputation, as a practical matter, releasing the orc now was a terrible idea. But Respen's concern was the well and tunnels below; the others could determine the orc's fate. "I think we should let him go, but (looking at the orc) Sargeant, you are, for the moment, stuck. If you leave the confines of this area, you will set off the alarm; we can't have that. Therefore, you remain here for the moment. If you are a model prisoner, you will sooner find yourself among your people again. In the meantime...."

Respen trails off, focusing again on the well. He whispers into his hands and reaches as if for the late afternoon sun, pulling back a ball of light. He stands near the well as the ball of light splits into a necklace of them, Respen's hands juggling them as if they were real balls, and dropping them into the well. He swirls his hands, taking control of the lights, moving them down into the well, adjusting them to illuminate the well walls, and deeper to the floor. He scans the well carefully for any notable features, facets, or especially the signs of the undead. He suspects they are down there. He now wants to see them. When the light reaches the bottom of the well, he has the lights 'dance' such that they are about head high above the floor and are out of the grasp of anything that might try to touch them.

"My hobbit friend, please tell me also what you see. Four eye are better than two."

 

[Waynan]

Tam-Tam answers Respen:

"Well, if you would kindly tie the rope to a stable, and well planted, rock or tree, you can slowly lower me where my vision will not be affected by the day's light so much. In that way, I may get a better "look", as it were, at what stirs below --- alive or dead. However, if you hear me squeak in alarm, as most hobbits do, or yank upon the rope, please pull me up as if it were your dearest, whether mother, love or favorite pet. OK?

 

[Tellerian Hawke]

OOC: Posted from my phone, minimal formatting.

The well shaft is 10 feet in diameter, and 60 feet deep. Only the first 40 feet of the shaft is paved with brick and mortar, suggesting that at some point, the shaft was deepened, in order, perhaps, to break through the ceiling of the large cavern below. The cavern ceiling is perhaps twenty feet high, making the total drop to the cavern floor a total of 80 feet or so.

Directly beneath the shaft, on the cavern floor, are dozens of iron spikes, of various lengths. Some (but not all) are bent and broken, and there are about 8 or 9 squirming zombies impaled on them. Walking in and out of view are perhaps dozens more zombies and skeletons, all of whom seem oblivious to the light spell, as well as to their 'comrades in distress.' The moaning and grunting is definitely coming from the zombies, while the skeketons are relatively silent, except for the scraping sound their bony feet make as they walk across the rocky floor. A smell of putrid, rotting flesh wafts up from below.

Tam, you are positive that lowering yourself down the shaft would be like dropping a hooked worm into a school of hungry trout.

Everyone: What do you do?