part 2 (of 3)
Session #59 (part ii)
Schlomo fired another crossbow bolt, but it went wide as he was being careful not to hit anyone else. Kismet left her spot beside her fellow gnome and hurried over to hide behind one of the pillars, as the fight was moving in their direction.
Suddenly the troll let out a ear-piercing hoot of rage, and began throwing her head back and forth violently, her flappy lips whipping around wildly flicking saliva and ooze all directions. She opened her mouth and webs of spit clung between her sharp crooked teeth, and her muscles seemed to swell and expand. (1) Her wounds seemed to suddenly begin to close even faster.
She stepped back and whipped her arms with a renewed frenzy that ripped a piece of flesh from Beorth, and sent Anarie spinning away, crying out in pain, leaving thin elven blood behind her. Ratchis was slammed by the troll’s forehead, as he just barely dodged being crunched in her teeth.
“I’m out of spells!” Martin alerted everyone, fear making his voice quake, but then he snapped his fingers as something came to him. He reached into the red leather bag he had gotten so long ago and pulled out a furry ball, which he quickly tossed in the troll’s direction. As it flew through the air, spinning, it transformed into a screeching and hissing bobcat.
It cried out pathetically, as the troll caught it mid-air and ripped a huge chunk from its flank. The animals small claws did not seem to be able to get through the troll’s blood and ooze rubbery hide.
“Get that bitch out of the water,” Gunthar said. He had that ever-present sneer on his angular unshaven face. He moved between Beorth and the troll as the former withdrew to help Kazrack. “She can even grow back her
in that stuff.”
Suddenly, above the sound of the battle could be heard a golden tenor. “
Cut out her bones and they won’t grow / Kick her out of her home, she won’t know / A troll makes for a bad neighbor!”
The words were encouraging, and Martin could feel some of the quaking fear his limbs slip away. The homespun melody seemed to weave its way around the rhythms of the battle and lighten the hearts of the Fearless Manticore Killers, turning the melee into a dance of death.
From behind the secret door there stepped a familiar young man, with overly long curly brown locks and green eyes. He was wearing what was probably a fine waistcoat in brown, stained with mud and blood and who knows what else, and he placed his hand over his heart as he sang, watching the battle intently, but holding a long sword, lightly in his other hand. It was Frederick the Amazing.
Bolstered by the aid, Ratchis hacked at the troll once again, feeling the blade bite into bone and get caught for a second. The half-orc barely yanked it free, but it was too late. He felt the troll’s claws grab him on either side and draw him up by the armpits and bite deep into his shoulder, worrying him like a dog does to a small animal. Thankfully for him, he did not feel the pain for long, as all went black.
Martin lodged another bolt in the thing’s back and it let go of Ratchis turning, and looking more confused. The bobcat clawed, nearly ineffective, at the troll’s leg, so she just reached down and crushed it with one hand. It disappeared. And then with great speed, side-stepped and tore at Anarie, pulling her in for a bite. The elf maiden collapsed, bleeding to death from a neck wound.
“Schlomo! We need those healing potions you have,” Beorth called to the hiding gnome and pointing at Kazrack and Anarie.
A new figure came out from the secret room, shouldering past the bard rudely. It was a short broad man wearing wolf skins over his chain shirt. He had tangled black hair that reached past his chin, and a great two-handed battle axe.
Beorth began to creep forward to take on the troll again.
“That’s the trick, baldy,” Gunthar encouraged him. “Let’s surround her! She can’t kill all of us.”
“Bah! Debo no care what you say,” the squat barbarian said. ‘Debo can’t die.”
The troll screeched when she saw Debo approach as if she recognized him and with great strength punched her clawed fist right into the barbarian’s gut, yanking him close to her by the end of an entrail she now held in her hand. She ripped up his back and bit his chest open. There was an explosion of blood, and gore dripped from the monster’s maw.
She dropped Debo and screeched again, and the man was looked like a pile of ground beef on the tiled floor.
Beorth withdrew again, overwhelmed by the ferocity of the troll’s attack and the sudden and gruesome manner of Debo’s death.
“Are we all lost?” he wondered aloud.
“Eh, don’t worry. Debo will get back up,” Gunthar winked at the paladin, and then he charged at the troll, sword in each hand. He cursed as the felt a claw try to fend off the attack, but he did not stop plunging the sword into her thigh.
“It is better to leave such a beast and avoid it than to waste your time attacking it,” said a voice, as yet another person emerged from the room. “Let it test the strength of others.”
It was Aldovar, the suspicious priest of Gunthar’s company. Dressed in black, and wielding a nasty looking mace, he had an olive complexion and was bald except for tufts of black hair behind his ears. He seemed to have lost some of his girth from the last time the party had seen him; his double chin just a withered flap of skin on his neck.
As Kismet poured a potion down Anarie’s throat, Gunthar paid for his reckless charge, and he too suffered a horrific rending from the troll.
“I’ve f*cked wenches tougher than you,” he cursed through bubbling blood, slipping into unconsciousness on the floor.
Anarie coughed awake, and then quickly clambered away, screened from the battle by Kismet. The elf could feel a great weight on her body from having been so close to death just moments before.
Beorth was certain his next attack on the troll would be his last, so he knelt beside Kazrack and used the last of his healing power on Kazrack, just enough to stabilize the dying dwarf. While he did this Aldovar stepped over and place a single finger on Beorth’s head.
“Take the unholy strength of my lord and finish that thing,” the dark priest said. Beorth sneered at him, but could feel magical strength coursing through him.
“Ahh! Ahh!” Schlomo cried out frantically, and fired point blank at the troll as it began to climb through the corpses to get at him. “Help me! Help me!”
Anarie scrambled to her bow and lifted an arrow to it, even though her arms felt like dead wood. She let an arrow fly and buried itself through the back of the creature’s neck at an odd angle, peeking out the other side. The troll reached for her neck and clawed at the arrow, falling unconscious.
“Beorth! Drag it out of the water!” Martin cried to the paladin, dropping his crossbow to get a torch lit.
“My lord always respects great strength. Let this half-breed live so that he may learn to use it for his own benefit,” Aldovar said, kneeling by Ratchis to stabilize the half-orc with a spell.
“Get it outta the water! Get it outta the water!” Schlomo cried. The gnome climbed out from the pile of moldering corpses, fishing a flask of oil from his pack.
Beorth grabbed one of the troll’s feet and began to pull her out of the muddy, muck-covered water that had dribbled out of the cracked fountain, but suddenly she screeched and sat up, clawing the paladin viciously. Beorth lay on the ground, bleeding out.
Martin dropped his torch and scooped up his crossbow, while Anarie fired another arrow that missed. Aldovar walked over as the troll spun around and clawed his leg, but was able to smash his heavy mace on her head. The sound of her skull cracking echoed over Frederick’s singing. The troll went down again.
“Musician! Do something useful!” Martin chastised the bard, but the bard kept humming, leaning on the wall casually and watching the action.
Schlomo began to splatter oil on the troll, even as they could see her skull begin to re-knit itself. The dark priest stood over it, and ready to smash it once more, but this time the troll leapt up with great fury and he was driven back and suffered another deep scratch along his side. Schlomo slammed his hammer against the troll’s knee and down she went again. Anarie fired an arrow right through here eye as she lay there.
There was a groaning sound, and Martin’s jaw dropped as he looked over to where Debo’s corpse had been lying. The barbarian was on his feet, and while he clutched his gut, most of his wounds seemed to have closed up leaving many scars. Debo spit on the troll corpse.
A moment later, the troll’s corpse was dragged out of the water and the corpse was burning brightly, filing the chamber with rancid smoke.
Martin went over to check Kazrack who seemed to have stabilized on his own. (2)
Schlomo and Kismet used their last potion on Beorth, which was supplemented by a quiet song from Frederick that seemed to heal the paladin even more.
Aldovar saw to Gunthar.
“Uh… good fighting,” Anarie said to Debo who was just looking at the smoldering corpse with his emotionless visage.
He looked up at the elf, who as short was she was, was still taller than the barbarian. “Debo can’t die! Make babies with Debo!” His eyes bugged out as he stared at Anarie while giving his command. “Make babies with Debo!”
“Uh, you should get help with those wounds,” Anarie replied, stepping away from him.
“Make babies with Debo!”
“Debo, make babies later. Now is not the time for that,” Gunthar said, groaning as he stood. “Anyway, you’d snap a little biddy like that in half with the monster you keep in you pants.” The warrior’s laughter collapsed into a cough.
He turned to Martin was trying not to look too shaken about the fact that aside from the gnomes only two members of the Fearless Manticore Killers were conscious.
“So what have you all been up to?”
“Oh, the usual…” Martin tried to sound casual. “Looting and plundering.”
“Looting and plundering? I didn’t think that kinda thing was your style,” Gunthar replied, shrugging his shoulders. “And what about you friend, Jeremy?”
Martin explained very briefly about Jeremy’s second death.
“Well, you all can stay in this little secret room we’ve been hiding out in to rest,” Gunthar offered. “I don’t think anything in here knows about it, and we’ve been using it for a day or two while Rondar and some other heal up. It will be cramped, but beggars can’t decline picking corn from sh*t when they’re starving. Ya know?”
“I will not give further aid to these,” Aldovar pronounced. “If they want to join us in the room that is fine, but they must carry in their own dead and wounded.”
“Heck, I’ll help,” Frederick said, with a weak smile.
“Debo’s elf,” Debo said, pointing at Anarie and gritting his teeth at Frederick.
“
Levitatus,” Martin entoned, and suddenly Kazrack’s heavy and unconscious form was floating beside him, allowing the weak mage to easily push him into the tiny secret room.
“Neat,” Frederick said, helping Gunthar drag Ratchis into the room. “I’ve always wanted to learn that one.”
The room itself was a small hollowed space in a support wall, with torches scones and a metal ladder at one end. It was no more than five feet wide and just slightly more than fifteen feet long. Both groups would be severely cramped in there.
There was a figure resting in the back corner, a tall lanky pimply-faced man. His cheeks looked sallow, and he had a bloody bandage on his neck and leg. Sitting next to his was short ugly man all in black, with a head of tight black curls, and pinched features. Martin did a double take. This man had not been with Gunthar’s company before, but the watch-mage recognized him none-the-less. It was The Square. (3)
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Notes
(1)
DM Note: Streksis, the skrag, had four levels of barbarian.
(2)
DM Note: Kazrack’s player used a
hero point to stabilize himself one point before he would have died.
(3) The Square was the only member of Markle’s group of thieves to escape capture way back in Session #12.
