Last time:
The giants were rapidly surrounding the group. They hurled fiery rocks up at Kizzlorn, and she rained ice and hail down on them. Grumbar swept his sword through a giant two, three, four times, each time cutting a chunk of meat away. Jo’nas cast spells that glued the beasts to the spots they stood, unable to move. Shade’s whickering blade cut and stabbed. He slashed almost faster than the eye could follow… until a giant’s sword stabbed him through the gut. He fell to the ground.
The giant bent to pick him up, but Kizzlorn shouted “No!” and cast a spell on him. The giant was frozen where he stood, unable to move. Grumbar finished him off quickly. The giants were still winning, though… Kizzlorn’s face was bloody from the boulders she’d been struck with, Jo’nas was almost down, and Gryph was nowhere to be seen. “Pull together,” Kizz yelled. “We’ll fight to the last!”
Gryph was watching the action from his point on the ethereal plane. He wanted very much to dive in and keep fighting, but he knew that one more blow from a giant’s sword would kill him. He had to be more cautious. What was this? He floated through the wisps of antimaterial and watched as a giant picked Shade’s body up from the ground, while the others were distracted. The giant moved away and gave a guttural command in their language. The fire giants broke from their positions and began to scatter, each fleeing outward into the mist.
Grumbar, Kizzlorn, and Jo’nas hadn’t noticed Shade’s corpse’s abduction. It was up to Gryph. He took a deep breath- or the ghost equivalent- and rematerialized. He then turned into a fire giant and sprinted out for that direction in the fog. Running blind, it was really just a good guess that he found the giant in question. “Hey!” Gryph hailed in the best fire giant accent he could muster. “I lost my sword! Give me the body, I'll carry it, you stay here and fight them off!"
The giant looked back uncertainly, looked to Gryph, and nodded brusquely. He tossed Shade’s limp form to the Knight and pulled his sword. “Go!” he said. Gryph smiled and ran off into the mist.
Jo’nas applied another healing spell to the gash in Grumbar’s chest. The torn flesh knitted, and the blood slowed to a stop. “Where’s Gryph?”
Kizzlorn frowned and shook her head. “We’ve lost him… and Shade. Looks like they made off with the bodies. The elf’s, too… he’s nowhere to be found.”
Grumbar grimaced. “That’s bad.”
“Yes, Grumbar. That’s bad.”
Then, something large began looming through the fog again. “Damn,” Grumbar said as lifted his sword again. “They’re not gone...”
“Yes, they are,” the giant said. It shrunk down and changed its shape as it laid a body on the grass.
“Gryph!” Jo’nas exclaimed. “What happened?”
“I had to get off of this plane for a moment,” he joked. “but I came back to fetch Shade when they snatched him away. Can you resurrect him?”
Jo’nas knelt over Shade’s body. “I certainly can. Give me a minute.”
Grumbar said “So we’re okay for the moment, correct?”
Gryph looked over and replied. “If you mean is the battle over, yes, for now it is. I don’t think they’re coming back tonight.”
“Good.” Grumbar fell backward. He was asleep before he hit the ground.
Gryph paused for a moment, then said “Kizz. We can’t camp again and wait for something like this to happen. We almost got wiped out. If they hadn’t broken, we would have been.”
“I know.”
“Well, We’re almost at the end of the valley. We cut some of these giants pretty badly… I’m betting they leave a trail of blood we can easily follow. They can’t live far from here… Jarl said the giants lived in the mountain at the north end. That’s not even a day’s walk. I think we should immediately strike back. We need to stop being victims, and take control of the situation.”
“What do you recommend?”
Moonday, 17th of Patchwall
Chamak the gnoll brushed some flies away from his face and squinted against the sun. He turned his head left and gazed over the wide view of the southeast corner of the Griff mountain range. He slowly swept his head to the right, over the entire valley of the Mattadin. Up in the crow’s nest atop the south tower, several hundred feet above the valley’s floor, Chamak saw everything. The last remaining smudges of the morning’s mist were fading, leaving a clear field of vision for miles. He saw nothing but trees and trail. “All’s well,” he called down to his watch commander, who nodded.
The south tower sat on the lower slope of the Uffatos Strath, the largest of the volcanic Uffatos mountain range. From here, the dirt trail wound down a hilly, rocky two miles to the lip of the vast north forest. Nothing could approach the tower without Chamak spotting it… and if he could spot it, they could defend against it. The tower’s defenses were well-designed: There were several burning pitch kettles set to pour down on those assailing the huge unbreachable doors. There were dozens of arrow slits surrounding the tower’s face, with archers behind every one. There were thick stone walls that could withstand almost anything. There was even a simple smoke signal system devised to get the attention of the Jirrock’s red dragon ally, who could swoop down on the attackers and finish them off. Not that that would help them much, if the rumors were true. Supposedly a new group of heroes had managed to kill the dragon yesterday. Still, Chamak only needed to blow his horn to alert every set of ears in the castle to an attack... and that would be enough.
He scanned the north forest’s rim again and paused. He looked closer and saw something moving. A single Jirrock warrior was lurching up the path with a hand pressed to his side. The gnoll put his horn to his muzzle and blew. The sound floated down into the valley. “Jirrock returning,” Chamak barked down. “looks like a straggler from last night’s assault. Looks injured.”
Watch commander Yurr’yeh walked up to an arrow slit and looked out. “Huh. I was sure all the survivors had returned. I’ll organize a party to go down and escort him the rest of the way up.”
The heavy wooden doors opened, and a garrison of five Jirrock descended the trail to the wounded giant. They met him midway. “Did you lose your way?” the leader asked.
“Yes,” the wounded giant grunted. “I couldn’t catch up with the group after the attack. I only just now got back.”
“I can see that, soldier,” the leader said warily. He eyed the giant. There was something… wasn’t there? Or was there something missing? He dismissed the thought and turned the group around. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
They walked the injured Jirrock into the tower. Here, gnoll archers behind a wall lined with murder holes eyed them as they passed through the center corridor. Two grates overhead could dump burning pitch down onto attackers, in the unlikely event that they could penetrate the tower’s defenses. The doors closed behind them.
The leader was about to ask if the Jirrock would care to recuperate in the main living area when a curious noise came behind them. It was something of a clank. It sounded not unlike a piece of plate armor clapping against another, as would happen regularly with an armored, walking man… but the soldier they’d escorted up the hill was wearing leather and igneous armor. He turned and looked at the giant. “What was that?”
The giant raised his eyebrows. “That what?”
“That noise.”
“Oh, that. I think one of the gnolls above adjusted a pitch pot and the sound carried oddly. You know how it does that in this area…”
The leader nodded. It did sound odd in here sometimes, now that he thought about it. “Well… I suppose you’re right. It just sounded like metal armor.”
The soldier laughed, then winced from the effort. “Metal armor, eh? I can see how you’d think that. Of course, how could you have heard metal armor, when there’s none here? I think you’re hearing things, my friend.” The leader laughed and turned back around. He felt silly now for feeling suspicious. The wounded Jirrock added “Yeah, either that or I came in with an invisible team of adventurers behind me.”
“…What?”
The Jirrock were all swallowed in a wash of icy whiteness. When it cleared, the “wounded” Jirrock stood alive, and the other five were crusted with ice. They collapsed from their own weight, and shattered on the cobblestones like frosted glass sculptures. Then, everything started happening very quickly.
Gryph the frost giant, who was disguised as a fire giant thanks to his magical hat, was unharmed by Kizzlorn’s Cone of Cold attack, but he clutched his arms and shivered all the same. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” he yelled. He was quite enjoying the ruse.
A gnoll put his eye up to a murder hole to get a look at the commotion. He was then murdered when Grumbar plunged a sword through his head. The other gnolls yelped and jumped back from their holes. They hadn’t seen what killed their companion, but… clearly SOMETHING had.
A gnoll barked down “What’s going on down there?”
Gryph yelled his reply up through the grating. “We’re being attacked somehow, you idiot!” He opened a door to the gnolls’ area and said “Hey, get out here! You need to defend the tower, and you CAN’T DO IT FROM THERE!” The nervous gnolls ran out into the main area, only to have their heads sliced cleanly from their shoulders.
The job was almost complete when something clanked from above. The gnolls had a kettle of burning pitch, and were tipping it into the room. Below, Kizzlorn heard the clank and looked up. Her pretty face tilted up just in time to see several gallons of boiling, burning pitch splash straight down onto her. She screamed and threw herself to the ground. She rolled until the fire was out, and sobbed for the horrible pain of her face. She was just glad she was invisible… she could feel the blisters rising on her ruined face. Hopefully she could have Jo’nas heal this before it could scar.
“Kizzlorn, you all right?” Gryph called. The room was now clear of enemies, and the door to the north would lead to more.
“I’m… urghh… I’m okay,” she cried as she tried to stand. “Need healing.” Jo’nas found her, though both were invisible, and erased the burning from her body with some of his divine magics.
“Okay. Proceeding to the next area. Are we ready?” The others sounded off: yes, they were ready. Gryph threw this door open and ran in, then closed it hurriedly when he was sure the others were through. “It’s horrible out there! We’re being attacked by hundreds of screaming fiends!” He looked and saw that in this room, there were only two terrified gnolls and a troll. There was the bottom of a wide spiral staircase that led to the second and third levels.
“What’s ha-“ the troll gurgled before its head fell from its shoulders and the gnolls were swallowed in fire.
Shade called out. “Got ‘em, Gryph. Care to lead the upper levels down here?”
Gryph shimmered and shrank into the troll’s shape. He smiled. It was quite ghastly. “I’d love to.” He ran up the staircase and started shouting again to the dozen gnolls and giants of fire and frost he found there. “You have to come quick, they’re inside the tower, they’re too strong to handle on our own!” He led them down.
The giants led the troll and gnolls down to this, the north half of the first level of the tower, where the four invisible Knights waited. One giant spoke to Gryph the troll. “You guard that door! Don’t let anything through.” Gryph ran to the north door dutifully. Through this door would be a path to the heart of the mountain, it seemed.
Then, giants started dying as fire exploded around the frost giants and ice around the fire. Gnolls started dying as their heads flopped from their necks with an almost rhythmic speed. In no time at all, the astonished enemy were dead on the ground. For the invisible adventurers, this wasn’t turning out to be much of a challenge.
“Next room,” Gryph laughed. He pushed these doors open to find a long hallway leading down and to the north. The Knights plunged onward and into the mountain.
NEXT TIME: GETTING WARMER...
