Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 187
Aravis pokes his head out of the extra-dimensional space the next morning and hears the sound of steady sleet drumming on the rooftops.
“Bother,” he thinks.
The Company eats a cold breakfast and reviews the plan of attack. Figuring that a bit more guidance couldn’t hurt, Ernie casts divination. There is a debate on what the exact question should be; is it more important to ask about their scheme to regain the key, or to learn if the key is what they need in the first place? But the party is pretty sure about that second part, and the first question is more apropos for the spell in question. So Ernie casts his spell, clears his throat, and asks:
“Yondalla, if you wouldn’t mind, could you please let us know if we will be successful in our plan to obtain the key?”
There is no response. Ernie is about to announce that his entreaty failed when he hears a voice in his mind. It sounds like it is coming from a long way off, a tinny, echo-y voice much different than what he has heard in the past when casting augury. The voice says:
Mind the guards. Mind the alarm. Mind the subterfuge.
“The first two parts seem clear enough,” says Morningstar. “I wonder what the subterfuge is?”
They talk about that for a bit. Maybe it simply refers to the trapdoor? Maybe the trapdoor is itself trapped? Or the key is trapped somehow? At Dranko’s suggestion Flicker draws a picture of what he expects the business-end of the key will look like, based on his close examination of the keyhole.
Once everyone is packed up and ready to go, the Company casts a battery of prep spells. Ability scores are buffed up, invisibility, fly, telepathic bond and wind walk spells are liberally applied, and Aravis includes everyone in a mass darkvision for good measure.
“This is it,” says Dranko. “Let’s go.”
Kay executes the first part of the plan. She borrows Kibi’s deck of illusions, flies high over the statue courtyard, and lets the top card flutter down through the sleet. Twelve bored and utterly miserable-looking giants are standing around the tower, shivering and drenched.
The appearance of a huge two-headed ettin cures them quickly of their boredom if not the dampness. Immediately the closest giants move to attack it. Kay directs it to run away as fast as possible, postponing the moment when the giants will figure out it’s an illusion. After a few seconds of chase one of the giants yells something out and then bolts from the courtyard toward Eigomic’s house.
Phase One successful!
The Company flies high above the running giant, shadowing his progress through the streets. A couple of times he slips and falls on the icy ground, but before too long he is pounding on Eigomic’s door. Moments later he is admitted inside.
This is the part of the plan on which everything depends. Will Eigomic take the bait? A minute passes and no one emerges from the house. Then two. But before the third minute is up Eigomic emerges from his home with four bodyguards, plus the runner who delivered the warning about the ettin. Two of the guards are holding a large animal skin stretched over the Keeper’s head, shielding him from the needles of sleet.
“What a wimp,” thinks Dranko, watching the giants jog down the street toward the tower.
Phase Two successful!
“There are still two guards in the house,” notes Grey Wolf. “We should be ready.”
Kay, Step and Snokas take up lookout positions on the roof, ready to alert the others via telepathic bond if anyone comes back to the house. Kibi casts locate object, specifying “the closest key that looks like Flicker’s drawing.” He senses the direction at once; it’s in the same place Morningstar thought it was yesterday. Aravis casts gaseous form on Kibi (a part of the plan to which Scree strongly objected), and then on himself. Now everyone who’s going in is in mist-form. Collectively they stream under Eigomic’s front door and into the living room. There is no sign of the other two giants.
Kibi, both invisible and gaseous, goes first into the den with the trap-door. He pulls up sharply at the sight of two giants, one standing nervously, the other enjoying the Keeper’s comfy chair. Over the mind-link Kibi warns the others, and they have a short impromptu planning session.
“There’s only two of them,” says Ernie. “We can take ‘em.”
“There will only be five of us,” says Morningstar. “Aravis and Kibi should stay gaseous. That leaves Flicker, Ernie, Dranko, Grey Wolf and me.”
“You forget,” says Flicker, grinning. “I’m a giant-killing machine. Let me at ‘em!”
It’s settled. When everyone is ready (and solid), Ernie fills himself with the Strength of Yondalla and charges into the door. Despite his own small size and the great mass of the wooden door, his strength is enough. The door swings open, and the Company pours in.
The poor giants never have a chance. Flicker is first in, slashing at the standing giant’s vulnerable tendons and arteries with his giant-killing shortsword. Dranko follows quickly afterward, snapping his whip into the giant’s face. Morningstar fires off a searing darkness into the giant’s neck. Only Grey Wolf fails to damage the target; he attempts to peg the giant with an ice knife but the spell goes wide, shattering harmlessly against the back wall of the room.
So quick and efficient is the assault, the giants hardly even seem to know what’s going on before the next wave of attacks is launched. Ernie, with no way to reach the standing giant, charges across the room and hacks the knees of the giant in the armchair. Flicker and Dranko finish off the first giant in short order, delivering brutal sneak attacks.
Only after the first giant is slain does the second even swing his club, but when he does, it jars every bone in Ernie’s body, denting his armor and leaving him reeling. Flicker then tumbles nimbly into a flanking position and shears through the giant’s calf muscle with his short sword. Less than ten seconds later it is over; whips, swords, searing darknesses and a final crossbow bolt from Grey Wolf leaving the giant bleeding and unconscious. Never having even gotten a chance to move, its body slumps back into the chair.
Feeling a surge of remorse Dranko uses an orison to heal a single point of damage to the second giant. Unfortunately this brings the giant back to borderline awareness. Dranko rolls his eyes, mutters something about good deeds not going unpunished, and clubs the blinking giant with a sap.
Morningstar checks with Kay via the telepathic bond.
“Any sign of Eigomic coming back?”
“Nope. Visibility’s pretty lousy in this sleet, but you’re fine for now.”
The party drags the bearskin rug off of the trapdoor.
“Mind the alarm,” says Ernie.
Dranko casts detect magic and gets a positive around the trapdoor, but he doesn’t have the spellcraft to discern its nature. Grey Wolf casts the same spell and has no such difficulty.
“It’s an alarm spell all right, though there’s no way to know if it’s the kind that sounds out loud, or in the caster’s head. It’s must be centered in a space about twenty feet below the floor. We’re in luck, though. It covers almost the same width as this whole room, but not the very corners. If the room below us is at least the same size as this one, there will be some space one can stand without setting off the alarm.”
“Unless that’s the subterfuge,” says Flicker. “And how can we find out anything about what’s down there? If we open the trapdoor, the alarm will go off.”
First things first. Ernie tries dispelling the alarm, but fails. Morningstar also tries, but she too fails to overcome the magic around the trapdoor.
Aravis drops the gaseous form on himself and Kibi.
“Looks like we’ll have to do it the hard way,” he says, holding up his staff of earth and stone. The green gem that caps the staff glows brightly as Aravis casts passwall through the floor at the corner of the room. He peers down into the hole he has made. Below the den is what looks like a storeroom. He can see barrels, crates, sacks, planks, buckets and other junk stacked the corner. It appears that the storeroom is the same dimensions as the den.
“Which means someone can go down there and look around,” says Grey Wolf, “as long as they stay in the corner. If anyone takes even two steps out into that room, the alarm will go off.”
Dranko ties off a rope around a giantish desk and lowers himself down into the storeroom. The whole place, forty feet on a side, is filled with innocuous looking junk, except for one feature. About ten feet out from one of the far walls is an enormous iron trunk with a thick metal lock. A check with Kibi’s sense from the locate object spell confirms that the key is in that trunk.
“Kay?” thinks Morningstar.
“You’re still good,” says Kay over the mind link. “Still no sign of Eigomic. But he must have realized the ettin is just an illusion by now. Don’t dawdle.”
It takes a couple of tries, but Dranko manages to toss a grappling hook across the room and snag the iron trunk. They run the rope up through the hole left by the passwall and they all heave. It doesn’t budge; it’s too heavy.
“We need a new plan,” says Morningstar, “and quickly.”
It only takes them a minute to devise a new strategy. With misgivings about burning charges, Aravis uses his staff to cast another passwall into the floor of the den, directly above the trunk. Then he casts knock on the trunk’s large iron lock. Ping! It pops open.
Grey Wolf casts mage hand and guides the grappling hook down to the trunk, securing it onto the lid. They pull the rope and the lid swings up and open. Twang! Some small metal object flies out of the trunk, directly through the place where someone would be standing were they opening the trunk by (non-magical) hand. Inside the trunk is a large silk cushion, and on that cushion is a key!
And not just any key. It’s made of crystal, and the bow is a black circle. More importantly, the key is sized for a human lock. Grey Wolf examines it with his detect magic and finds that it radiates strong enchantment magic. Using another mage hand, Aravis lifts the cushion (since the spell doesn’t affect magical things) and brings the key out of the storeroom. Success?
Not yet. There are two problems. First, Flicker examines the key and decides in about ten seconds that it’s not the right one.
“It’s a good fake,” he says. “The post is the right length, and it’s got ward cuts on the bit. But the depths of the bit’s side-cuts aren’t right. This key wouldn’t open the lock I was looking at on the tower, I’m sure of it.”
“He’s right,” says Kibi. “I know, because my locate object says the key is still in the trunk.”
He and Dranko peer down with their darkvision. With the cushion removed, the trunk looks empty.
“We need to get that trunk up here,” says Dranko.
“I’ve got one more mage hand,” says Aravis. “I can get the grappling hook lodged in the underside of the lid.”
“It’ll still be too heavy to lift,” Flicker objects.
“I’ll also use a charge from my wand of levitate,” says Aravis. “The magic’s not strong enough to lift the trunk either, but between it and all of us pulling we might have a chance, as long as the hinges hold out.”
Using his magic Aravis sticks the hook into the underside of the trunk’s lid, pleased that it finds purchase quite easily. Then he casts levitate and everyone heaves again.
The trunk tips slightly as its lid becomes centered above it. Slowly the huge iron box rises off the floor…an inch… two inches…
Crack! The hook pulls out of the lid with a sound like…splintering wood? The trunk crashes back to the stone floor and wooden fragments shower down around it. Clearly mixed with the other sounds is that of a small metal object clattering on stone.
There is a second of confused silence. Dranko peers down again.
Ah! There was hidden space inside the lid, the underside of which was wood but painted to look like iron. The stress from the grappling hook tore the wood away and a key flew out of the hidden compartment. He can see it on the floor amid the pieces of wood.
“Mind the subterfuge,” he says, grinning.
“And mind the giants,” warns Kay over the mindlink. “Eigomic’s just turned the corner down the street. He’s got a bunch of giants with him… maybe eight.”
“Allow me,” says Aravis. He levitates the key up from the storeroom and hands it to Flicker. Grey Wolf sees that it radiates strong magic – some enchantment, some abjuration, some evocation, and strands of magic of a type he doesn’t even recognize.
“Whoa,” he says. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
“My locate object agrees,” says Kibi.
“Time to leave,” urges Morningstar.
And they do. With moments to spare the Company takes flight through a side window, with flying people carrying invisible people where necessary. While Eigomic and his entourage jog down the street to the house, the Company is flying the other way high above. A minute later they arrive at the huge beholder statue.
There are still obstacles, of course. Eight of them. And they’re all wielding really, really big clubs.
…to be continued…
Aravis pokes his head out of the extra-dimensional space the next morning and hears the sound of steady sleet drumming on the rooftops.
“Bother,” he thinks.
The Company eats a cold breakfast and reviews the plan of attack. Figuring that a bit more guidance couldn’t hurt, Ernie casts divination. There is a debate on what the exact question should be; is it more important to ask about their scheme to regain the key, or to learn if the key is what they need in the first place? But the party is pretty sure about that second part, and the first question is more apropos for the spell in question. So Ernie casts his spell, clears his throat, and asks:
“Yondalla, if you wouldn’t mind, could you please let us know if we will be successful in our plan to obtain the key?”
There is no response. Ernie is about to announce that his entreaty failed when he hears a voice in his mind. It sounds like it is coming from a long way off, a tinny, echo-y voice much different than what he has heard in the past when casting augury. The voice says:
Mind the guards. Mind the alarm. Mind the subterfuge.
“The first two parts seem clear enough,” says Morningstar. “I wonder what the subterfuge is?”
They talk about that for a bit. Maybe it simply refers to the trapdoor? Maybe the trapdoor is itself trapped? Or the key is trapped somehow? At Dranko’s suggestion Flicker draws a picture of what he expects the business-end of the key will look like, based on his close examination of the keyhole.
Once everyone is packed up and ready to go, the Company casts a battery of prep spells. Ability scores are buffed up, invisibility, fly, telepathic bond and wind walk spells are liberally applied, and Aravis includes everyone in a mass darkvision for good measure.
“This is it,” says Dranko. “Let’s go.”
Kay executes the first part of the plan. She borrows Kibi’s deck of illusions, flies high over the statue courtyard, and lets the top card flutter down through the sleet. Twelve bored and utterly miserable-looking giants are standing around the tower, shivering and drenched.
The appearance of a huge two-headed ettin cures them quickly of their boredom if not the dampness. Immediately the closest giants move to attack it. Kay directs it to run away as fast as possible, postponing the moment when the giants will figure out it’s an illusion. After a few seconds of chase one of the giants yells something out and then bolts from the courtyard toward Eigomic’s house.
Phase One successful!
The Company flies high above the running giant, shadowing his progress through the streets. A couple of times he slips and falls on the icy ground, but before too long he is pounding on Eigomic’s door. Moments later he is admitted inside.
This is the part of the plan on which everything depends. Will Eigomic take the bait? A minute passes and no one emerges from the house. Then two. But before the third minute is up Eigomic emerges from his home with four bodyguards, plus the runner who delivered the warning about the ettin. Two of the guards are holding a large animal skin stretched over the Keeper’s head, shielding him from the needles of sleet.
“What a wimp,” thinks Dranko, watching the giants jog down the street toward the tower.
Phase Two successful!
“There are still two guards in the house,” notes Grey Wolf. “We should be ready.”
Kay, Step and Snokas take up lookout positions on the roof, ready to alert the others via telepathic bond if anyone comes back to the house. Kibi casts locate object, specifying “the closest key that looks like Flicker’s drawing.” He senses the direction at once; it’s in the same place Morningstar thought it was yesterday. Aravis casts gaseous form on Kibi (a part of the plan to which Scree strongly objected), and then on himself. Now everyone who’s going in is in mist-form. Collectively they stream under Eigomic’s front door and into the living room. There is no sign of the other two giants.
Kibi, both invisible and gaseous, goes first into the den with the trap-door. He pulls up sharply at the sight of two giants, one standing nervously, the other enjoying the Keeper’s comfy chair. Over the mind-link Kibi warns the others, and they have a short impromptu planning session.
“There’s only two of them,” says Ernie. “We can take ‘em.”
“There will only be five of us,” says Morningstar. “Aravis and Kibi should stay gaseous. That leaves Flicker, Ernie, Dranko, Grey Wolf and me.”
“You forget,” says Flicker, grinning. “I’m a giant-killing machine. Let me at ‘em!”
It’s settled. When everyone is ready (and solid), Ernie fills himself with the Strength of Yondalla and charges into the door. Despite his own small size and the great mass of the wooden door, his strength is enough. The door swings open, and the Company pours in.
The poor giants never have a chance. Flicker is first in, slashing at the standing giant’s vulnerable tendons and arteries with his giant-killing shortsword. Dranko follows quickly afterward, snapping his whip into the giant’s face. Morningstar fires off a searing darkness into the giant’s neck. Only Grey Wolf fails to damage the target; he attempts to peg the giant with an ice knife but the spell goes wide, shattering harmlessly against the back wall of the room.
So quick and efficient is the assault, the giants hardly even seem to know what’s going on before the next wave of attacks is launched. Ernie, with no way to reach the standing giant, charges across the room and hacks the knees of the giant in the armchair. Flicker and Dranko finish off the first giant in short order, delivering brutal sneak attacks.
Only after the first giant is slain does the second even swing his club, but when he does, it jars every bone in Ernie’s body, denting his armor and leaving him reeling. Flicker then tumbles nimbly into a flanking position and shears through the giant’s calf muscle with his short sword. Less than ten seconds later it is over; whips, swords, searing darknesses and a final crossbow bolt from Grey Wolf leaving the giant bleeding and unconscious. Never having even gotten a chance to move, its body slumps back into the chair.
Feeling a surge of remorse Dranko uses an orison to heal a single point of damage to the second giant. Unfortunately this brings the giant back to borderline awareness. Dranko rolls his eyes, mutters something about good deeds not going unpunished, and clubs the blinking giant with a sap.
Morningstar checks with Kay via the telepathic bond.
“Any sign of Eigomic coming back?”
“Nope. Visibility’s pretty lousy in this sleet, but you’re fine for now.”
The party drags the bearskin rug off of the trapdoor.
“Mind the alarm,” says Ernie.
Dranko casts detect magic and gets a positive around the trapdoor, but he doesn’t have the spellcraft to discern its nature. Grey Wolf casts the same spell and has no such difficulty.
“It’s an alarm spell all right, though there’s no way to know if it’s the kind that sounds out loud, or in the caster’s head. It’s must be centered in a space about twenty feet below the floor. We’re in luck, though. It covers almost the same width as this whole room, but not the very corners. If the room below us is at least the same size as this one, there will be some space one can stand without setting off the alarm.”
“Unless that’s the subterfuge,” says Flicker. “And how can we find out anything about what’s down there? If we open the trapdoor, the alarm will go off.”
First things first. Ernie tries dispelling the alarm, but fails. Morningstar also tries, but she too fails to overcome the magic around the trapdoor.
Aravis drops the gaseous form on himself and Kibi.
“Looks like we’ll have to do it the hard way,” he says, holding up his staff of earth and stone. The green gem that caps the staff glows brightly as Aravis casts passwall through the floor at the corner of the room. He peers down into the hole he has made. Below the den is what looks like a storeroom. He can see barrels, crates, sacks, planks, buckets and other junk stacked the corner. It appears that the storeroom is the same dimensions as the den.
“Which means someone can go down there and look around,” says Grey Wolf, “as long as they stay in the corner. If anyone takes even two steps out into that room, the alarm will go off.”
Dranko ties off a rope around a giantish desk and lowers himself down into the storeroom. The whole place, forty feet on a side, is filled with innocuous looking junk, except for one feature. About ten feet out from one of the far walls is an enormous iron trunk with a thick metal lock. A check with Kibi’s sense from the locate object spell confirms that the key is in that trunk.
“Kay?” thinks Morningstar.
“You’re still good,” says Kay over the mind link. “Still no sign of Eigomic. But he must have realized the ettin is just an illusion by now. Don’t dawdle.”
It takes a couple of tries, but Dranko manages to toss a grappling hook across the room and snag the iron trunk. They run the rope up through the hole left by the passwall and they all heave. It doesn’t budge; it’s too heavy.
“We need a new plan,” says Morningstar, “and quickly.”
It only takes them a minute to devise a new strategy. With misgivings about burning charges, Aravis uses his staff to cast another passwall into the floor of the den, directly above the trunk. Then he casts knock on the trunk’s large iron lock. Ping! It pops open.
Grey Wolf casts mage hand and guides the grappling hook down to the trunk, securing it onto the lid. They pull the rope and the lid swings up and open. Twang! Some small metal object flies out of the trunk, directly through the place where someone would be standing were they opening the trunk by (non-magical) hand. Inside the trunk is a large silk cushion, and on that cushion is a key!
And not just any key. It’s made of crystal, and the bow is a black circle. More importantly, the key is sized for a human lock. Grey Wolf examines it with his detect magic and finds that it radiates strong enchantment magic. Using another mage hand, Aravis lifts the cushion (since the spell doesn’t affect magical things) and brings the key out of the storeroom. Success?
Not yet. There are two problems. First, Flicker examines the key and decides in about ten seconds that it’s not the right one.
“It’s a good fake,” he says. “The post is the right length, and it’s got ward cuts on the bit. But the depths of the bit’s side-cuts aren’t right. This key wouldn’t open the lock I was looking at on the tower, I’m sure of it.”
“He’s right,” says Kibi. “I know, because my locate object says the key is still in the trunk.”
He and Dranko peer down with their darkvision. With the cushion removed, the trunk looks empty.
“We need to get that trunk up here,” says Dranko.
“I’ve got one more mage hand,” says Aravis. “I can get the grappling hook lodged in the underside of the lid.”
“It’ll still be too heavy to lift,” Flicker objects.
“I’ll also use a charge from my wand of levitate,” says Aravis. “The magic’s not strong enough to lift the trunk either, but between it and all of us pulling we might have a chance, as long as the hinges hold out.”
Using his magic Aravis sticks the hook into the underside of the trunk’s lid, pleased that it finds purchase quite easily. Then he casts levitate and everyone heaves again.
The trunk tips slightly as its lid becomes centered above it. Slowly the huge iron box rises off the floor…an inch… two inches…
Crack! The hook pulls out of the lid with a sound like…splintering wood? The trunk crashes back to the stone floor and wooden fragments shower down around it. Clearly mixed with the other sounds is that of a small metal object clattering on stone.
There is a second of confused silence. Dranko peers down again.
Ah! There was hidden space inside the lid, the underside of which was wood but painted to look like iron. The stress from the grappling hook tore the wood away and a key flew out of the hidden compartment. He can see it on the floor amid the pieces of wood.
“Mind the subterfuge,” he says, grinning.
“And mind the giants,” warns Kay over the mindlink. “Eigomic’s just turned the corner down the street. He’s got a bunch of giants with him… maybe eight.”
“Allow me,” says Aravis. He levitates the key up from the storeroom and hands it to Flicker. Grey Wolf sees that it radiates strong magic – some enchantment, some abjuration, some evocation, and strands of magic of a type he doesn’t even recognize.
“Whoa,” he says. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
“My locate object agrees,” says Kibi.
“Time to leave,” urges Morningstar.
And they do. With moments to spare the Company takes flight through a side window, with flying people carrying invisible people where necessary. While Eigomic and his entourage jog down the street to the house, the Company is flying the other way high above. A minute later they arrive at the huge beholder statue.
There are still obstacles, of course. Eight of them. And they’re all wielding really, really big clubs.
…to be continued…
