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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 1357921" data-attributes="member: 11">part 1 (of 2)Session #52“Get out of here!” Jeremy cried to his companions, when the giant block yet another blow from Derek. “I’ll slow him down.”Kazrack got feeling back in his arm and swinging his flail in front of him, he grabbed his shield off his back and turning deftly as to not present a target put it into position.The giant turned toward the dwarf and Jeremy found the opening.  The point of the Right Blade of Arofel did not pierce the hide, but he whipped his long sword with great vicious across its thigh twice.  The giant bellowed and lowered the club towards Jeremy, who leap away.  The mighty blw slammed into Beorth instead.  The paladin’s helmet crunched as the club struck it, and he fell down and slid painfully across the grass, blood blooming from a deep gash across his brow.   However, that was not all.  Kazrack had expected a blow from the other direction and did not see the blow come over his shield having lost no momentum from the collapsing Ghost-hunter and his head was suddenly ringing with pain.  The dwarf staggered to his right, but amazingly did not fall.The club continued to swing around and Ratchis barely pulled back, his blows going out of alignment.   Derek thought he saw an opening and had his axe above his head when there was  a surprising shadow over him, he was shocked as something struck his axe and then slammed into his head.  He barely kept his feet and looked up to see the second giant appear at the further clump of trees, hefting a rock in her other hand.“Fall back to the trees,’ Kazrack said, thinking the closer clump would give them cover from the giants’ rocks and blows. Martin was tracing a multi-colored pattern before himself as he faced the male giant from atop his rock.  So far, it seemed to be of no effect.    He had to throw himself down atop the rock to avoid a rock that came flying at him from the giant-wife.“WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE US ALONE!!??!!” The giant-wife half-asked, half-commanded.  Her voice, while low was still a screech of hysteria. “Someone grab Beorth!” Jeremy cried frantically, working his blades in a frenzy of parries and thrusts trying to keep the slowed, but no less strong, giant occupied.  He could see the blow flowing readily from his vantage point.  Beorth was dying.The Neergaardian stepped forward feign a thrust with long sword and his foot landed on a muddy spot in the grass where the giants’ great and stony feet had torn up the grass.  He fell painfully to his rear-end, jarring his backbone.  The giant turned from the fallen warrior towards those that still posed an immediate threat.  Kazrack’s shield crunched and slammed back into the dwarf’s face when the giant whipped his clun across the front of his face and chest.  The dwarf went flying back and landed with his shield over his face.  Blood flowed out from underneath and into the grass.The violence of the blow shocked Ratchis and he did not have time to react before he felt the club slam into his hip, taking him off his feet.  He landed painfully on his side.  But Ratchis did not hesitate, he  rolled over on his stomach and pushed himself to his feet, using his moment to strike the giant with a powerful blow to the chest.Wheezing, the giant teetered for half a moment and then fell over; a wash of gray-black blood splattering down from his many wounds.  Jeremy barely rolled out of  the way and up to his feet.“RUMMMMBULLL!” the giant-wife cried in horror and dismay.  Her face seemed to harden into a snarl as she looked at each of the standing members of the Fearless Manticore Killers in the eye.“Wow, she’s pissed,” Derek said under his breath, as he hung his axe on his back and took up his bow again, fitting an arrow to it, calmly. Martin thought quickly as he saw the giant woman begin to clear the trees.  “Imago Majorca!” he cried, and around the giantess erupted a ring of fire 10 feet high.  She cried out and put her hands to her face and hesitated, looking around for an escape.  She could feel the heat pouring off the flames.“We didn’t want this fight,” Martin called out to her.  “Leave us be and we’ll spare your husband!”“Somebody help Beorth and Kazrack!” Jeremy said, turning to hold the line if the giantess were to approach. He held his swords up and ready.Derek stepped over to look the dying giant.  Blood flowed steadily from him, creating a thick black pool around his huge crumpled form.“GET AWAY FROM HIM!  GET AWAY FROM HIM!!” the giantess shrieked and covering her face with her arms leapt through the illusory fire hoping her stone like skin would protect her some.Ratchis squat down between the giant and Beorth, and reaching over to the bleeding paladin beseeched Nephthys to grant him her healing graces.  Beorth’s wounds closed. Derek tried to fire an arrow, but was smashed by the giantess’ last boulder.  The young ranger collapsed in a bloody heap.“I said, move away from him!” she cried, her hurried steps shook the ground, Martin leapt off his rock and ducked behind it.Jeremy sheathed his blades and made broad motions with his arms trying to get her attention.  She looked over hurried.  She now stood above Derek, her own club hanging above his bleeding head.  She looked around confused and scared.“Let us take care of our friends and you can take care of your husband or whatever,” Jeremy called up to her.  “Look!  I put away my weapons.”Sweat poured off his brow, as he stole a glance over at Derek’s crumpled form below the looming giant.“Back away from Rumble,” she commanded Ratchis, pointing to the stone giant on the ground. “If you don’t let us take care of our friends your husband is going to die. You back up,” Ratchis retorted.  He held his hammer above the bleeding giant’s face.The giantess looked down at her bleeding husband, and tears welled up beneath her pupil-less steel-gray eyes.  “Have at your companions,” she said, and got down beside her husband to tend to his wounds, leaving herself open to a blow from Ratchis.  She pulled furs from a bag on her back and began to tie off his wounds.Ratchis hurried over to Kazrack and healed him with a spell.  The dwarf began to cough and his eyes fluttered.“I think this fight is over,” Martin said, gaining confidence with every word as if he were trying to convince himself.  He walked out from behind the stone.“Jeremy, you get Beorth.  He can be moved,” Ratchis barked.  Kazrack sat up and shook his head.The giantess held her husband’s head in her lap and was holding him close.  She looked up at them, her face growing rigid with anger again, “You owe us for our chickens!”“Whu-what?” Jeremy’s jaw dropped, as he made to grab Beorth by the shoulders to drag him off.“You killed our chickens!” she accused.“What about the gnomes your chickens killed?” Martin spit back, forgetting himself for a second.  All the death he had witnessed in less than a year’s time weighed heavy on his green shoulder when he allowed himself to think on it.“Your chickens attacked us, and the little ones are our friends.  We want to know what happened,” Ratchis asked her, as examined Derek after having stabilized him with a spell.“If they hadn’t come into our home uninvited and set them free they would not have been attacked, and the hole in coop would not have been there for them to have escaped once again and attack you when you came here uninvited.  The gnomes decorate my garden now.”  Her disgust was for them was apparent.Rumble coughed and a bubble of blood burst at his lips.  Perika wiped it away with the hem of her fur and leather dress.Kazrack grumbled and then offered to heal the giant.  “That will be payment enough!”“Payment enough!?!  You were the ones who attacked him, and now we should owe you for that?” Perika sneered.  “What would you have us pay you with? We have nothing to give you that you could use, I’m sure,” said Martin, calming down.Kazrack grumbled about his dishonorable it was to trade with giants. (1)“We will take coin,” the giantess said, looking up.  “We trade with the woodsmen north of here, and can use the coin to buy goods and supplies we cannot make or find ourselves.”Ratchis stood and sighed, wiping his hands on his greaves.He walked over to the two giants. “May I?”Perika nodded, and the half-orc lay his hand on the giant and spoke to Nephthys, recalling pieces of the tale of Bronthro, the stone giant who had been won over to serve Fallon, goddess of healing.Rumble took a deep breath and moved his great head back and forth, but did not wake.  Admonishing the party to stay where they were while she carried Rumble away to their cave.  “I’ll not pay for those chickens!” Kazrack sputtered, his anger rising.Jeremy shrugged his shoulders, “I have some coin.”“I am not paying for…”“Kazrack, we have to,” Ratchis acquiesced.  “These filth frokkin’ giants!” Kazrack spit and wrung his beard in his hands.  His face became flush.“Ratchis is right,’ Martin said, walking over. “We need to negotiate with her, since violence is out of the question.  We may be able to get the gnomes away from here.”“What? How?” Kazrack asked, but Ratchis hushed him, for the giantess was returning.“300 pieces of silver per chicken will be adequate,” Perika told them.  She had washed her face with water, but her eyelids were so puffy they looked like a jagged piece of coral.Kazrack tried to speak, but could only make a “Pfa-Pfa” sound, over and over again.“We have no where near that much money,” Martin exclaimed, and the rest of the group glared at him.“Wait… For each chicken?” Jeremy was stunned.“That is what ‘each’ usually means,” Ratchis scowled.“Why are these birds so valuable?” Martin asked.“They provide us with eggs, which we use and also trade with the hunters,” Perika explained. (2) The four conscious members of the Fearless Manticore Killers huddled up and gathered their money.  In the end, they offered her 14 pieces of gold and a ruby.  She examined the ruby closely, but accepted the offer.“Now that we’ve gotten that taken care of,” Jeremy said, smiling.  “I wanted to ask, since the gnomes got stoned by your chickens, can you cure them?”Perika looked at him slyly.  “There are cures.  But why would I want to do that?  They decorate my garden and they only got what they deserved.  The little sneak-thieves stole into here and let the chickens free and tried to take stuff without asking.  Do they not kill men for that among your people, blood of orc?”“Watch your tongue!” Kazrack admonished.“Uh, but Kazrack, it’s true,” Jeremy looked at the dwarf like he was touched, and wished Derek were awake to share in their game of catching Kazrack at being Kazrack-like.“You are aware of the great reputation o gnomes as generous of spirit,” Martin tried a different tact.“No,” Perika replied shortly.“Well, they are.”“Gnomes are like gnats or other insects,” Perika sneered.  “If they get in the food stores you have to stomp them out, and they look so lovely among the tomato plants, and one as a warning by that littlest of holes as a warning to other little things that might come crawling through.”“The ‘warning’ had an opposite effect,” Martin replied.  “It is what drew us here.”Perika huffed. She still had her club resting on her shoulder. “The gnomes are our friends,” Martin continued.  “If you freed even one he could go to his people and get recompense for whatever inadvertent damage they have done and bring something to decorate your garden.”A constant grumbling stream of incomprehensible sounds came shooting from Kazrack’s  tightly closed lips.  He was visibly shaking with anger.“And the gnomes are a friendly and industrious people,” Martin continued. “The show of good will could lead to a new and valuable ally and trading partner.”Perika frowned, but finally accented to curing one.   This was followed by a long discussion about which gnome to return to flesh, while the giantess retrieved the means by which she planned to affect the cure.  Finally, Kazrack threw the stones to decide, but even the gods seemed unwilling to make a choice, and it was decided any was as good as another.  The one outside the cave, outside of the wall was chosen.Perika left the valley home by the true exit, meeting the party back outside of the gully wall.  She held the a stone sliver a little over a foot long.  It looked tiny in her hand.  Speaking a word, she tapped the gnome on the head and in a flash he was flesh again, collapsing to a shaking and sobbing heap.“Wha. . .what happened to me?  Who are you?” the gnome cried out, his voice full of fear.  He grabbed for his axe, but Ratchis plucked it away.  When the gnome saw the ugly half-man he screamed.“Stay out of my home.” The giantess commanded, ignoring the shrieking gnome the party tried to calm.  “If you should return come around to the northwest and knock on the door like a civilized being.  And…  remind that gnome of his debt and kin.”She stomped off.When it was explained to the gnome that he had been rescued, and the party knew Captain Fistandilus and his people he finally calmed down, though he still seemed skeptical that the party would have free access to the village of Gravan.“What year was it when you happened upon the giants’ lair?” Martin asked him.“The 3rd Year of the Grey Wash,” (3) the gnome replied.  His name was Moishe Nimblewyck, he explained.Martin nodded, knowing that was what the gnomes called the previous year.“How long since you have been to Gravan?” Martin asked.“Are you one of Greddadiddlerun’s people?  Because he is dead and your people are leaderless,” Ratchis informed him crassly.The gnome began to sob, buried his face in his hands; his large noise honked every time he took a deep sobbing breath in.“I don’t know what to do!  What am I to do?  I can’t do it alone,” the gnome said through wracking sobs. “Take your time,” Kazrack said, putting his arm around the gnome’s shoulders with compassion.  “We have time.  This is all over-whelming.”“What brought you around here to begin with?” Ratchis asked, after a moment.Moishe shook his head.  “I can’t say.  I shouldn’t say.”The party was taken aback.The gnome leapt to his feet suddenly.  “I have to go!”‘Wait!  You cannot just leave!” Kazrack protested.“I have to see someone about something and find some people,” Moishe said cryptically.“Other gnomes?” Martin asked.“The chieftain?” Jeremy asked.  Moishe’s gaze shot at the Neergaardian.“I cannot say… Do you have any food?”  Moishe rubbed his belly.“Can you write it down?  I mean, write down what it is you are doing here and what you leave to go do?” Martin was desperately curious.“No…no, she’ll see,” Moishe replied, softly.“She?  Who is this ‘she’?” Kazrack furrowed his brow, but Martin shot him a look of disdain.“I think I understand,” the watch-mage said.  “Say no more.”“Surely you don’t mean to just let him go, do you?’ Jeremy interjected.“We cannot hold him against his will,’ Ratchis said. “But I feel like we deserve to know what is going on.”“You asked me to trust you, now I must ask you to trust me,” Moishe said, meekly.  “If you are truly friends of my people and care for their welfare you will give me that much.  If you do not let me go others of my people will suffer.” Ratchis sighed.  “Good luck on your journey,” he said to the gnome.“We will be resting an hour before moving on,” Kazrack said.  “Why not stay with us and share a meal and we’ll see what supplies we might spare you?”Moishe Nymblewyck agreed.Afterward Moishe asked them to give his love to his family if they should return to Garvan before he does.“That’s not where you are going?” Kazrack asked.Moishe looked around nervously and shook his head.Kazrack grunted with frustration.“May Fezzik watch over you,” the gnome said, shaking all their hands, with a sad and scared look on his face.“And you,” replied Martin.Moishe took off for the north.“What was that all about?” Kazrack asked Martin angrily.“I think maybe we should follow him at a safe distance,” Ratchis suggested.  “I should be able to track him.”“No, I don’t think that is a good idea,” Martin shook his head.  “He said ‘She’ – and I think that could mean either the Mozek’s mother the succubus, or perhaps one of the escaped drow witches.”Derek groaned, finally waking up from the wounds he had suffered at the hands of the giants.“I heard some of that,” the young ranger said. “I was thinking, how many gnomes left the village with the chief when they left to go get the elves’ help?”“About a dozen, maybe slightly more,” Kazrack replied.  “Less than a score from what I can gather.”“And you only found one of them in the elf place, right?  He could be one of them, since they are mostly unaccounted for.” Derek posited. The party could not move far from the giants’ lair, for Beorth was still unconscious and too heavy and weak to be carried along for very far.   In the morning they would continue their journey southward, along with their speculation about yet another mystery.Anulem, 7th of Sek – 565 H.E. A night’s sleep on the cold hard ground was not what Beorth needed to recover.  So in the morning, both Ratchis and Kazrack tended to the paladin with the blessings of their respective gods.“Did everyone survive?” was his first question.“Yes,” Martin replied, not liking the look in the paladin’s eyes.  It seemed to reply, “Not  yet, anyway.”Kazrack explained to Beorth about the deal with the giants and the freeing of the gnome named Mosihe, and how he seemed scared and uncertain, but not because of the giants.  The decision to leave the gnome to his own devices seemed to weigh heavily on the dwarven holy warrior.Dark clouds rolled in quickly from the southeast as they packed their gear and began the march southward as fast as they could.   The rain was light, but constant by the time mid-day approached, but it seemed more like dusk, for the low dark clouds were only intermittently lit up by flashes of distant lightning, followed by powerful thunderbolts. Visibility was low, but in the flash of a lightning bolt they could momentarily see some what looked as if the earth had exploded, sending shafts and panels of stone into a haphazard network of slopes, caves, passageways and jagged towers.As they approached they could see this broken land was huge.  It went as far as they could see in each direction, and according to the map the Pit of Bones should be somewhere within or just beyond this place.It was awe-inspiring, as if the foundations of the earth had erupted long ago, with shades of gray, brown and black making striations on the long side of the huge stone pieces. (4)The rain picked up and the sound of echoing torrents resounded from the place before them, like the predatory purr of a great dusky lion.Ratchis tried to climb up on one of the outlying tall rounded stones to get a better view, but the stone was too round and too wet to get atop it.Frustrated, he signaled for the rest of the group to stay where they were so he could check for tracks in the muddy and grassy field that led to an entrance to the broken land, where two huge tables of stone leaned on each other, jagged ends pointing askew.The rain made it too difficult to find anything.Ratchis walked back and dropped his pack and his quiver of javelins, keeping only his bow and his hammer.“If I don’t return in six hours come up with another plan,” he told the others.“Where are you going?” Kazrack asked.“To check things out quietly on my own,” the half-orc said.Martin shrugged his shoulders and granted the half-orc a ward against arrows, ‘just in case’, and with that the Friar of Nephthys hustled off to the damp darkness of the place on his own.-------------------------------------------------Notes(1)    Giants and dwarves are ancestral enemies.(2)    Female Cockatrices lay eggs seven to nine months out of the year, laying one large one every three or four days.  The eggs have a hard stony shell, which is difficult to break open, but by not being fertilized they keep for weeks or even months, remaining edible. (3)    For a such a mathematical people, gnomes have colloquial and local ways of counting years, based on weather cycles, astronomical phenomenon and the rules of famous gnomes.(4)    DM’s Note: By way of comparison, after I described this place to the players I told them to envision a dirty black and wet version of the Fortress of Solitude in Superman: The Movie.</blockquote>

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