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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 2696968" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #74 (part ii)Not forty feet down the embankment, Ratchis spotted an earthen hut built partially into the ground.  It had a straw roof supported with uncut logs and plastered with feces, mud and grease.  He and Kazrack tore the roof off and the smell that came out was revolting. “No more trolls in here,” Logan said, using the light of the medallion Kazrack had made to see by.“We’ll search it in the morning,” Ratchis said. “Let’s move away from here a few hundred yards and find a place to camp.”Teflem, the 27th of Quark – 565 H.E.Four days later they marched down into another pleasant valley set within tall green hills. They had left the jagged bluffs of the trolls and their hut, three days before.  Within the hut were the mostly eaten corpses of three gnomes, shreds of their armor and scattered gems and silver obleks, which the party collected.  Gunthar took the biggest gem, a diamond, for himself; assuring everyone that he was just holding it.  They took the time to bury the gnomes under rock cairns. This place was much more hospitable.  The trees here were growing tiny red mid-summer apples, and the birds sang sweetly along with a babbling brook that wound lazily around the valley.“I know its only just after noon, but maybe we should rest here the rest of the day and leave again tomorrow,” Ratchis suggested.  “We have been making good pace and this is a good place to replenish some supplies, get fresh water, collect some apples and nuts and I can go do some hunting with Logan and Dorn.”The others agreed and began to set camp.“Thanks for reminding me about noon,” Martin commented to Ratchis.  “Casting the detect scrying spell slipped my mind.  I do it everyday at noon as to not forget, since it lasts twenty-four hours.”“Uh-huh,” Ratchis grunted, walking off to deal with his gear.Martin the Green spent the next ten minutes casting the intricate spell, as Dorn pitched the tent and Gunthar carefully unpacked the llama. Logan gathered firewood, while Kazrack figured out in which direction was the First Mountain so he could properly place his prayer stone.“Uh-oh,” Martin gulped. He looked around the camp wildly, and then walked calmly over to where Ratchis was laying his gear out on his hyenadon skin.“Uh, Ratchis? We’re being watched.” Martin whispered.“Uh?” the half-orc looked up.“We are being scryed on,” the watch-mage said.  “By not one, not two, but three different sources.  Right now.”Ratchis sighed and stood up and walked over to Kazrack.“Martin says we’re being watched,” Ratchis said.“Try not to make it obvious we know,” Martin hissed, hurrying over.“What does it matter?  Maybe they’ll stop watching!” Kazrack said. “Anyway, I will call upon the favor of my gods to dispel their evil magic.”“It is three different people,” Martin whined.  “Who could it be?”“Probably Rindalith,” Ratchis suggested.  “And Mozek.”“Oh, one just disappeared,” Martin announced.  “I can try to find out who it is that is watching by concentrating my will against theirs.  I’m going to try.”Martin the Green closed his eyes and concentrated his will towards one of the sensors that were now visible to him. The darkness behind his lids gave way to a gray mist that roiled and expanded, and then crystallized.  He felt as if he could push through and the vision shattered to reveal the form of a man with a well-kept red beard and bright green eyes, he wore familiar crimson robes.  He was in a large room, with a cracked wall behind him and natural broken light raining down from above.  The man sat on the floor and looked into a crystal ball upon a small pedestal before him.  It was Richard the Red.Richard looked up as if he was aware of Martin’s presence and smiled and then he waved a hand before his face and all was black again.  When Martin opened his eyes another of the sensors was gone.“It was Richard.”“Well, whoever it was there is still one watcher left, correct?” Kazrack asked.Martin nodded.“Lords and Lady, please grant me your divine righteousness to undo the weave of foul arcane magics that seek to spy on us from afar, and whatever else might lurk in this area and do us harm,” the dwarf intoned, shaking his bag of runestones.”“What the…!” Gunthar cried out, and there was a sound of alarm from Logan and Dorn as well.   The small trees all around and the soft green grass had all disappeared.  The place was actually much more barren, the few trees did hold fruit, but the grass was hard and yellowed, and stones were piled all about.“There must have been another spell in place here,” Martin said.  “Hallucinatory Terrain.  I am familiar with the spell and can cast it myself.”“Break camp, everyone, we are getting out of here,” Ratchis said.“The sensor still watches,” Martin said.“I figured as much,” Ratchis said.  “And whoever is watching probably cast that spell to make this place more inviting.  We go.”The party angrily re-packed their stuff, and Fearless protested at having the weight of the gear back on his back so soon with frequent wails, but they marched north out of the valley and into the craggy foothills of the nearby wall of mountains.Osilem, the 3rd of Keent – 565 H.E. After two days of marching up and up into the cold air of the mountains, The Keepers of the Gate had barely made eight miles of progress in the last day and a half.  The going was very steep and very treacherous most of the way, and twice the llama had to have levitation cast on it to get it up the sheet climbs.  Frantic, it kicked and spat despite Ratchis’ efforts to calm it, though it quickly became quiet again when its feet were on solid ground.They climbed down into a rectangular gully and were not sure of which way to go.  A narrow path with tall stone walls wound off to the east and seemed to go underground, while a series of plateaus seemed to lead to a higher path that veered northward.It was decided that Martin would talk his dragon-man form and become invisible to get a better vantage of a way to go by using his arcane eye spell.Up among the cold mountain winds, Martin the Green took his time surveying the land all about him, and then sent his unseen eye to scan the distant horizon and look around the mountains that blocked the party’s way.He conveyed what he had seen of the ways to go when he came back down.“The narrow winding way does go underground, and I could not determine where and if it came back out, though there was a place where a stream poured out of a great cleft in the mountains miles east of here, that might have been it,” Martin explained. “The other route is not all that much more promising.  Several plateaus lead over the mountain and down towards a stone highway that crosses a gorge.  It looks like a road paved long ago, and on the other side of the gorge is a fortress cut out of a black stone bluff, with towers and a gate.  It looked like there were dwarves there.”“Then that settles it,” Kazrack said, with a smile.“That route is going to require us to use at least four more levitation spells to get the llama up and over, and there is also a nest overlooking the midway point,” Martin added.“A nest?” Logan asked.“Yes, giant eagles,” Martin said. “I saw them flying around and swooping towards where our path is. Their nest overlooks it.”“We will have to hope they will leave us be,” Ratchis said.  “As much as I would like to avoid a fortress full of dwarves, going underground when we don’t know which way, if any, is out is the worse choice.”“Why would you not want to go to a fortress of dwarves?” Kazrack asked; his brow furrowed.“He’s a pig-f*cker,” Gunthar said matter-of-factly.“But he is also my friend and companion in arms,” Kazrack said. “I will explain to them the situation and we will get a good night’s rest and plenty of mutton and mead before we move on.”“You still haven’t learned anything about your kin, have you?” Ratchis asked, shaking his head.“If you were a normal half-orc I would agree,” Kazrack insisted. “But you favor your man-half.  It will be okay.”“I hope you are right,” Ratchis sighed. “But I doubt it.”Kazrack frowned.----------------------------------Several hours later, just after levitating the llama up its second sheer climb (this one eighty feet), and giving it a few moments to stop spitting and hissing, they heard the loud snap of wings and a sudden wind.  Before them, blocking their path at the top of the next embankment was a huge eagle.  Its wingspan was over twenty feet, and it half-opened its wings twice while awkwardly moving to turn its head and keep a darting eye on the party. The path over the mountain was less than forty feet wide in many places, and the walls on either side either sheer walls or sheer drop offs.  Here, the shadow of the peak of the mountain hung over path on the left, and a width of five feet of sheer rock sixty feet high blocked off a drop to water several hundred below.The eagle was gold in color, save for bright red feathers than lined its wings and about its head. It turned its head with a jerky bird motion and looked at the party with its other eye, clicking is bulbous tongue in its wicked beak.Ratchis raised his open hands and took a step forward.“None shall pass this way, Son of Joacham,” the eagle squawked, clicking his beak and pointing it up in the air while ruffling the feathers of his neck to re-create the guttural tones of dwarvish tongue.“Was that. . ?” Ratchis looked back to his dwarven friend, and Kazrack took half a step forward.“By whose order?” Kazrack asked. “If it is yours and we have trespassed on your territory we beg forgiveness, but we must pass through here.”“By order of your kin,” the eagle replied.  It jerked its head around again, spying them with the other eye and clicking twice.  “We watch the western pass as was long ago agreed when our grandfathers’ grandfathers were hatchlings.  None may pass this way without leave of the dwarves of Adothroch, and certainly not one who reeks of the blood of the boar-god.” The eagle’s eye turned to Ratchis and half opened its wings again suddenly, taking alight for a half second.  Everyone started, fearing the eagle was about to attack.Kazrack told the others what the eagle had said.“Is there no way to buy passage?” Martin asked.“I might let you and your companions through to speak with your kin yourself,” the eagle replied, understanding the watch-mage and now speaking in halting common, but speaking only to Kazrack.  “But I would need a token, a morsel to bring to my nest.”The eagle’s eye darted over to the llama. “But even then, the boar-blood may not pass.”“I would be willing to give the eagle the llama, but not if it isn’t going to buy passage for all of us,” Ratchis said to his companions.“Easy for you to say, it isn’t your llama and it isn’t carrying any of your bloody stuff, Snuffles,” Gunthar swore.“Will you let me pass alone?” Kazrack asked the eagle.  “I am a rune-thrower, a servant of the dwarven gods and of the dwarven people. I can be trusted.”The eagle jerked its head up and down and then whipped it around and hopped back.“I will return having obtained passage for all my companions from the dwarves,” Kazrack added.“You may pass,” the eagled cawed. “But the others must retreat back to the gully.”It was agreed, and Kazrack went on as the others drew back to the gully where they made camp.End of Session #74</blockquote>

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