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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 5352264" data-attributes="member: 9546">THE VARNHOLD VANISHINGThe road called to the rulers of Kardashia once more.  After two years of relative peace, the outside world once again conspired to disrupt the new order they were trying to build.  If some misfortune had indeed befallen Varnhold, then danger was on their very doorstep, and they had to discover for themselves if their people were at risk.  They set out northeast, traversing their own lands while skirting the foothills of the Tors of Levenies.  As they reached the northernmost border of their territory, they struck the South Rostland Road, which ran all the way to Restov some sixty miles to the east.  Following the trade route soon brought them to the small town of Nivakta’s Crossing.  The frontier folk there were wary of strangers, but Mox’s charms and wiles were enough to gather that the town was the point at which Maegar Varn and his companions had crossed into the Dunsward to the south.  She was also able to confirm that no word had come from Varnhold in over three weeks.A well-traveled road led south from Nivakta’s Crossing some 30-40 miles to Varnhold.  It took the companions 4 days to make the ride, and as they drew closer to the settlement, they began to pass through worked fields, but all of the farmhouses were abandoned.  One after another, they found the same thing…empty houses, but with no signs of violence.  Instead, they discovered meals half-eaten, one shoe of a pair…all signs pointing to the owners having left in the midst of their daily activities.  Before long, they came in sight of Varnhold itself.  There was no sign of life at all.  The first structure they approached, though fairly new, was of poor construction.  The clapboard walls had large gaps and its roof sagged alarmingly.  Behind the cottage sprawled a mud-filled enclosure and a covered shed.  The smell of decay and filth that emanated from the dwelling was horrendous.  It didn’t take long to discover the source.  Around the muddy pigpen were scattered the rotten, half-eaten corpses of a number of feral hogs, covered in clouds of fat black flies.  The far wall of the pen was collapsed, and as the companions looked at the tableau in disgust, a loud snort and squeal sounded from behind the wall.  A truly enormous boar, its tusks as long as daggers and bloodstained tromped around the corner.  It snorted in anger, shaking its head and pawing the ground when it saw the trespassers.  As it lowered its head in preparation to charge, Selena waved her hand absently, and just like that, the beast collapsed in slumber.  Davrim walked calmly over and cleanly decapitated it.A bit further down the main street, they came upon the village tannery, the acrid stench readily identifying the business.  A fenced enclosure stood behind it, where three hides that appeared to be those of horses, were stretched upon a drying rack.  “Somethin’ ain’t right about them,” Tungdill squinted his eyes as he looked at the hides.  “Looks like part of’em’s missin’ above the withers.”“They’re centaur hides,” Selena said flatly.Velox looked at her questioningly.  “Really?  Are you sure?”Selena nodded.“There is definitely more wrong here than we know,” the oracle said.They passed a brewery before they came to a shallow ford that crossed a branch of the Kiravoy River that bisected the town.  On the far side, they came upon what had to be the livery and blacksmith.  The long, low building partially surrounded a yard encompassed by a split-rail fence.  A sign above a wide, barn-like entrance showed harness for a horse and a blacksmith’s anvil.  Despite the abandonment of the village, it appeared that many mounts and a great deal of livestock were left behind, trapped in the livery and yard.  A half-dozen horse carcasses, decomposed and ravaged by crows that continued to pick at them, lay sprawled in the yard.  Then, as if suddenly aware of fresh meat, the birds rose into the air in a black cloud and flew en masse towards the companions.  As they came, Selena hurled a fireball into their midst, immolating hundreds.  Mox dispersed the remaining ones with a cloud of green acid that she breathed from her mouth. “This is pointless,” Davrim muttered as the burning crows fluttered to the ground.  “There’s no one here!  Scouring the whole town will take hours!  Why don’t we just go to the fort and see if any survivors managed to hold up there?”“Of course,” Mox offered, “if those responsible for the missing townsfolk are still around, it would stand to reason that they too would pick such a defensible location.  I don’t favor just marching up there without knowing what we’re getting into.”“I’ll go,” Tungdill sighed.“You’ll go where?”  Velox asked, his eyes narrowed.“To th’fort, ya idjit!” the dwarf snapped.  “That’s unless you’ve figured out a way t’turn yerself inta an elemental and fly over it t’spy it out.”“I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Velox shrugged.“’Zactly!”  Tungdill barked.  “Best if ya let th’grownups do th’thinkin’ for ya!”The druid stepped away from the others and began slowly turning in a circle.  Gradually, he began to spin faster and faster, until suddenly, he simply vanished into a small, whirling vortex of air and rose quickly into the sky.  He sped quickly over the town towards the structure that sat on a low hilltop on the south side.  The triangular fortification boasted a palisade of sharpened stakes that left just enough gaps for archers within to fire out upon the surrounding hillsides.  The southern corners of the fort both had twin watch platforms, and the northern corner was anchored by a solid-looking blockhouse of sturdy timbers.  A thin column of smoke drifted upwards from the center of the compound.  Tungdill flew in a lazy circle above the stockade.  A flash of sunlight on metal drew his attention to the east watchtower, where he saw several helmets protruding just above the palisade.  As he looked closer, however, he saw that they were simply propped atop spears…a ruse!  He quickly looked towards the western tower, and saw the same thing…except that one of the helmets moved as he flew past, turning to watch him.  It was only then that the druid took note of the source of the smoke from the courtyard.  It was a large bonfire with a spit holding a side of beef over it.  Turning the spit was a giant!  His skin was mottled gray, his head bald, and his ears sharply tapered.  Three wolves jumped and capered around him, leaping for morsels that he tossed their way.  The giant also looked up as Tungdill passed over, then put his fingers to his mouth and gave a sharp whistle.  The druid took that as his signal that he should cut short his scouting mission._________________________________________________________“Maybe they’re not hostile,” Mox mused.“I ain’t never met a giant that wasn’t!”  Tungdill growled.“I’ve heard of some who are actually quite goodly folk,” Selena shrugged.“Who just happen to be barricaded inside a fortress overlooking a strangely abandoned town,” Davrim smirked.“Still,” Mox added, “we shouldn’t go in looking for a fight unless they first offer one.  I say we approach calmly, in the open, and try to at least speak with them.  If they don’t respond accordingly, then we will have our answer.”Between Mox and Selena, all of the companions were imbued with the ability to fly, and they quickly took to the air and closed the distance to the stockade.  As they approached, however, a solitary figure appeared through a trapdoor atop the blockhouse.  It was another giant.  In one hand he clutched a long halberd, while in the other, which was raised above his head, he held a large chunk of masonry.  “I guess we have our answer,” Davrim said.“That’s no giant,” Selena replied.  “It’s a spriggan.  They’re like evil little gnomes, except they can change themselves into giants as they wish.”“Charming,” Mox said.  “He’s all yours, Davrim.”“My pleasure,” the inquisitor snarled.Davrim soared towards the blockhouse, his sword drawn.  He nimbly ducked under the spriggan’s whirling polearm, and then drove his blade into the fey’s gut.  He prepared to finish it off, but then, from behind him, a jet of smoking acid splashed into the spriggan’s face.  Screaming, it tumbled from the roof and down the hill below.  Davrim turned to see Mox smirking.  Meanwhile, Selena swooped in low towards the building, but as she approached, a volley of arrows flew at her from arrow slits set into the walls.  One took her squarely in the thigh, and she quickly veered upwards and over the roof line.  When she came within sight of the courtyard, her eyes widened as she saw not one, but four giant spriggans gathered below.  Fighting through the pain, she gathered her wits and began an incantation.  Around three of the spriggans and two of the wolves, huge black tentacles erupted from the ground, wrapping around them and holding them fast.  As Davrim dove for the yard to engage the free spriggan, Mox appeared over the rooftop, and dropped an explosive ball of acid on the trapped creatures, destroying them all.Velox alighted atop the roof and lifted the trapdoor there.  Below it was a shaft with climbing rungs set into the wall.  The oracle didn’t waste time climbing.  He simply leaped in and allowed himself to fall, breaking his plummet just as he reached the room at the bottom.  He wasn’t particularly surprised to find a giant-sized spriggan in the room next to him, but it still took him momentarily aback to be standing waist high against the fey, squeezed into the small guardroom.  The spriggan raised his halberd to impale the intruder, but a sudden volley of flashing bolts zipped down from the shaft above and struck him in the eyes, briefly blinding him.  Velox lunged forward as Mox drifted down to the floor behind him.  He stabbed his sword upwards through the spriggan’s throat, and it instantaneously reverted back to its much less intimidating gnomish form as it died.  In the courtyard, Davrim traded blows with the lone surviving spriggan, while Selena handily put the last of the wolves to sleep.  Davrim dealt decisively with his opponent, and then finished off the slumbering wolf as he headed for the main door of the blockhouse.  It was locked and barred, but a few kicks and shoulder blows had him through in a matter of moments.  He found himself in a narrow hallway, the interior wall lined with more arrow slits.“Gods!” he shouted as he realized his mistake, and the twang of bowstrings and the hiss of arrows filled the air.A pair of normal-sized spriggans rushed through the door into the room where Mox and Velox stood, while on the far side of the chamber another door opened.  There stood a third fey, but he looked far more intimidating than his companions.  He wore a gleaming breastplate, and held a heavy crossbow in one hand and a large, spiked club in the other.  Velox quickly lunged towards the pair of spriggans, while Mox exhaled a gout of searing acid at the leader.  He cried out in pain as the caustic liquid worked its way beneath his armor and began to eat at his flesh.  Velox danced among the smaller fey, whose polearms became entangled together as they desperately tried to stab at the human.  The oracle slashed first one, and then the other across the throat, dropping them both.  He then shoved Mox behind him just as the leader turned his crossbow upon her.  The bolt meant for the baroness glanced harmlessly off of Velox’s mail.  Before the spriggan could reload or bring his club to bear, the oracle was upon him.  His eyes widened in shock and disbelief as he looked down at the foot of steel buried in his chest.  He slid to the floor, his final thoughts being those of regret for ever having brought his people among the humans.“Do you hear that?”  Mox asked.Velox cocked his head, and heard shouting and crashing sounds coming from the floor below.“Sounds like Davrim might need some help,” he said.Davrim, sporting a pair of arrows from his leg, hammered uselessly at the door to the strong room.  He was at least out of sight of the arrow slits, but the portal was much heavier and reinforced than the outer one had been.  Suddenly, he heard shouts of surprise coming from the room beyond, and when he risked putting his eye to one of the arrow slits, he saw one of the spriggans lying dead at Velox’s feet, and another succumb to a barrage of Mox’s acidic missiles.  A third brought his halberd up to ward off the oracle, but a crashing blow from the flat of Velox’s blade to the side of the fey’s head sent it quickly into oblivion._________________________________________________________“Looks like we have our answer as to what happened here,” Davrim said.He was examining a sword they had pulled from a sack carried by the leader of the spriggans.  It was finely crafted and bore the crest of House Varn upon the pommel.  “Don’t be so certain,” Velox said.  “You saw how easily we overwhelmed these creatures.  I can’t believe they were responsible for the annihilation of a town of two-hundred or more.  My guess is that they simply found the sword here, abandoned like everything else.”“And take a look at this,” Tungdill said.  He held up an exquisitely carved longbow, made of darkwood and ivory that had also been discovered among the spriggan’s possessions.“It’s centaur make,” the dwarf said, “and not just that neither.  ‘Less I miss my guess, this here’s an ancestral relic.  No way the centaurs would’a parted with it easy.”“There’s certainly more here than we are seeing,” Velox agreed.  “Let’s have a look around until our prisoner awakens.”Unlike the other buildings in town, many of the rooms within the blockhouse had been thoroughly ransacked, obviously the work of the spriggans.  In one room that looked to have been a small library, they found several pages ripped from a journal or log book.  Most of them were mundane correspondences between the village and Restov, but several others mentioned troubles with the Nomen centaur tribe.  In still another ruined chamber that looked as if it might have been Varn’s personal quarters, they came upon a wall map that had been ripped to pieces, but together, Tungdill and Stevhan were able to recreate the bulk of it.  Numerous sites within two days ride of the town had been marked and bore notes as to the significance of the locations, including warnings about mudmen, spiders, landsharks and rocs.  It seemed Varn’s holdings were anything but secure.  One final notation, marked some three to four day’s ride from the town clearly bore the name ‘Nomen.’When nothing of any further value was discovered, the companions returned to the still-unconscious spriggan Velox had managed to subdue.  The oracle made sure the creature was bound tightly and wedged into an alcove too small to allow it to grow before he tended the fey’s wounds.  His eyes fluttered open, and quickly widened in fear as he saw the big folk gathered round.“Now you will tell us everything we wish to know,” Mox said as she loomed over the terrified fey.  “If you do not, you will meet the same fate as your leader!”She held up a severed spriggan head for emphasis.  Babbling in his own tongue, the spriggan nodded his head furiously.“What happened here?”  Mox asked.  “Why was your tribe in this village?  What happened to the people that lived here?”“I…I don’t know, and that’s the truth!” the spriggan stammered in a high-pitched squeak.  “Agai,” he nodded at the severed head, “he brought us here!  Told us the big folk was gone, and done left all this loot and these fine houses for us!  On my oath, they’s gone afore we ever got here!”Mox studied the pathetic creature a while longer before she nodded in satisfaction.“I believe you,” she said.  “I keep my word.  You are free to go, but know that if you ever return to these lands, I shall make a coin purse from your scrotum.  Do I make myself clear?”The spriggan nearly broke his neck from nodding as a large, wet stain appeared on the front of his trousers.</blockquote>

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