Lazybones
Adventurer
Book VII, Part 33
Despite a sense of urgency fostered by Cylyria’s message, the companions had no choice but to spend another idle day within the depths of the Reaching Woods. While Dana had her teleport spell ready, Cal needed to clear his mind of his customary enchantments and rest once more before he could prepare the combination of polymorph and dispel spells that they used to travel long distances rapidly. Benzan grumbled about the prospect of once more being turned into a cat, but he subsided when Cal started cataloguing the alternate forms that he might use when he cast his spell.
Still, they used the time to good advantage, recovering fully from the battering they’d taken at the hands of the dracolich and its reptilian servant. At Lariel’s request they cremated Gorath, and the arcane archer brought the ashes with him in an oilskin pouch in case a resurrection could be later arranged. Lariel let drop that he owned the half-orc such an intervention, but he did not elaborate. The companions were all too aware of the rarity of such potent magic, even in a wonder-filled place such as Faerûn, but the set of the Harper’s jaw as they went about their tasks did not leave room to doubt his resolve.
They also examined the collection of treasures that they’d taken from the dragonkin and from the dracolich’s “hoard.” The latter was a cache half-buried under a muck-filled hollow beneath several massive, tilted slabs of stone near the center of the great circle of the Weeping Stones. Some of the items were quite obviously pillaged from the druids slain by the evil undead dragon and his minions, while others appeared to have been gathered from raided caravans like the one they’d encountered on the eastern edge of the Woods. Benzan, of course, was the one who uncovered the find. Those items that Cal identified as specifically druidic in nature they laid aside for Zev, but they found a number of useful items among the remainder. A battered leather quiver revealed a potent aura to Cal’s detect magic, and Lariel quickly recognized it as a prized item for archers, a magical quiver that could hold far more arrows than a mundane container. None of them begrudged the elf such a boon, although they would have to wait for their return to civilization before he could fill it with new arrows. Also magical was a black gemstone attached to a fine silver neckchain, though Cal could not identify it beyond saying it bore some sort of protective magic. He held onto it for the moment, until they could expose it to a more detailed magical investigation. Most unusual was a strange weapon, a masterfully crafted length of chain links that Lok immediately recognized as mithral, with each end bearing a oblong disk of the same silvery metal. By their weight, Lok suggested that it was likely that the disks contained a core of some heavier metal, surrounded by a smooth mithral outer skin. At first it wasn’t clear what the item was for, until Dana held it and started whirling it in rapid arcs around her head.
“It’s an eastern weapon,” she said, “an exotic from Kara-Tur, or some other far off land. We learned about similar weapons in our martial studies in the monastery of the Sun Soul. I believe it is called a manriki-gusari, if my recollection is correct.”
“It doesn’t look like much,” Benzan said. “I mean, it’d hurt if one of those lumps cracked you in the skull, but not as much as a sword thrust through the vitals.”
Dana didn’t respond, but stopped spinning the weapon and looked it over carefully. It too radiated magic, but Cal could not identify the nature of the spell. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see what I can do with it,” she told the others. No one objected, so she added the mithral chain to her arsenal.
Leaving aside the magic items, that left a considerable amount of loose coinage, miscellaneous items of value left jumbled in the muck, and some trade goods now rotted or spoiled, useless. Apparently the undead dragon had been more careless of its treasure than its living counterparts were wont to be. Even so, there was a small fortune worth of stolen wealth, and predictably Benzan lamented that larger portion which they could not fit into their purses or into Cal’s magical backpack.
“There’s a good three, four thousand’s worth left here, in coin and goods,” the tiefling said, tossing a sack heavy with mixed coins back into the cache. Copper and silver, mostly; he’d spent a fair portion of the day picking out the gold and platinum and distributing among those who had space to spare. His own pouches were already bulging, and he grunted when he picked up his backpack.
“Give over, already,” Dana said, irritated. “It’s not like we have any great need for money, now. We have greater concerns at hand than some gold and silver, and your incessant scavenging for loot.”
“Do you like those new magical boots?” he shot back. “How about Cal’s wands? Lok’s armor, and his magical axe? Those things aren’t free, and my ‘scavenging for loot’ has helped finance many of the fancy items that keep us alive.”
Dana stormed off in anger, and the two spent the rest of the day avoiding each other, a development that didn’t help ease the air of grim anticipation that hung over their camp.
Zev returned as the sun was setting once more, and spoke briefly with them. With the death of the dracolich, the surviving denizens of the forest had rallied to drive out the last of the dragonkin intruders, and the restless spirits of his companions had already begun restoring the natural order that had been disrupted here. It would take time, but the gnoll promised that one day even this ruined place would again be a place of beauty and peace.
“We must depart on the morrow,” Cal told him. “But we are glad to have had to have had the chance to help set things right.”
“Go with peace,” the gnoll said. He took up one of the items from the cache that they had left for him, a carved wooden totem of an oak tree set within a ring of twining thorny bushes, the whole attached to a torn leather throng. “Take this small token in thanks for what you have done here. It bears an enchantment that provides its wearer considerable protection from fire, and once per day can call be used to call upon the additional protection of a barkskin spell. Wear it as a friend of the Wood, and may it serve as a reminder of what you have done here.”
Cal nodded, taking the offered gift. “Go with peace, Zev, and good luck.” The gnoll nodded, and turning, transformed himself back into an eagle, disappearing swiftly among the lengthening shadows between the tall pillars of surrounding trees.
They kept a vigilant watch, but nothing emerged from the night to trouble them. The next morning, after Cal studied his spells, they teleported back to Iriaebor.
Despite a sense of urgency fostered by Cylyria’s message, the companions had no choice but to spend another idle day within the depths of the Reaching Woods. While Dana had her teleport spell ready, Cal needed to clear his mind of his customary enchantments and rest once more before he could prepare the combination of polymorph and dispel spells that they used to travel long distances rapidly. Benzan grumbled about the prospect of once more being turned into a cat, but he subsided when Cal started cataloguing the alternate forms that he might use when he cast his spell.
Still, they used the time to good advantage, recovering fully from the battering they’d taken at the hands of the dracolich and its reptilian servant. At Lariel’s request they cremated Gorath, and the arcane archer brought the ashes with him in an oilskin pouch in case a resurrection could be later arranged. Lariel let drop that he owned the half-orc such an intervention, but he did not elaborate. The companions were all too aware of the rarity of such potent magic, even in a wonder-filled place such as Faerûn, but the set of the Harper’s jaw as they went about their tasks did not leave room to doubt his resolve.
They also examined the collection of treasures that they’d taken from the dragonkin and from the dracolich’s “hoard.” The latter was a cache half-buried under a muck-filled hollow beneath several massive, tilted slabs of stone near the center of the great circle of the Weeping Stones. Some of the items were quite obviously pillaged from the druids slain by the evil undead dragon and his minions, while others appeared to have been gathered from raided caravans like the one they’d encountered on the eastern edge of the Woods. Benzan, of course, was the one who uncovered the find. Those items that Cal identified as specifically druidic in nature they laid aside for Zev, but they found a number of useful items among the remainder. A battered leather quiver revealed a potent aura to Cal’s detect magic, and Lariel quickly recognized it as a prized item for archers, a magical quiver that could hold far more arrows than a mundane container. None of them begrudged the elf such a boon, although they would have to wait for their return to civilization before he could fill it with new arrows. Also magical was a black gemstone attached to a fine silver neckchain, though Cal could not identify it beyond saying it bore some sort of protective magic. He held onto it for the moment, until they could expose it to a more detailed magical investigation. Most unusual was a strange weapon, a masterfully crafted length of chain links that Lok immediately recognized as mithral, with each end bearing a oblong disk of the same silvery metal. By their weight, Lok suggested that it was likely that the disks contained a core of some heavier metal, surrounded by a smooth mithral outer skin. At first it wasn’t clear what the item was for, until Dana held it and started whirling it in rapid arcs around her head.
“It’s an eastern weapon,” she said, “an exotic from Kara-Tur, or some other far off land. We learned about similar weapons in our martial studies in the monastery of the Sun Soul. I believe it is called a manriki-gusari, if my recollection is correct.”
“It doesn’t look like much,” Benzan said. “I mean, it’d hurt if one of those lumps cracked you in the skull, but not as much as a sword thrust through the vitals.”
Dana didn’t respond, but stopped spinning the weapon and looked it over carefully. It too radiated magic, but Cal could not identify the nature of the spell. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see what I can do with it,” she told the others. No one objected, so she added the mithral chain to her arsenal.
Leaving aside the magic items, that left a considerable amount of loose coinage, miscellaneous items of value left jumbled in the muck, and some trade goods now rotted or spoiled, useless. Apparently the undead dragon had been more careless of its treasure than its living counterparts were wont to be. Even so, there was a small fortune worth of stolen wealth, and predictably Benzan lamented that larger portion which they could not fit into their purses or into Cal’s magical backpack.
“There’s a good three, four thousand’s worth left here, in coin and goods,” the tiefling said, tossing a sack heavy with mixed coins back into the cache. Copper and silver, mostly; he’d spent a fair portion of the day picking out the gold and platinum and distributing among those who had space to spare. His own pouches were already bulging, and he grunted when he picked up his backpack.
“Give over, already,” Dana said, irritated. “It’s not like we have any great need for money, now. We have greater concerns at hand than some gold and silver, and your incessant scavenging for loot.”
“Do you like those new magical boots?” he shot back. “How about Cal’s wands? Lok’s armor, and his magical axe? Those things aren’t free, and my ‘scavenging for loot’ has helped finance many of the fancy items that keep us alive.”
Dana stormed off in anger, and the two spent the rest of the day avoiding each other, a development that didn’t help ease the air of grim anticipation that hung over their camp.
Zev returned as the sun was setting once more, and spoke briefly with them. With the death of the dracolich, the surviving denizens of the forest had rallied to drive out the last of the dragonkin intruders, and the restless spirits of his companions had already begun restoring the natural order that had been disrupted here. It would take time, but the gnoll promised that one day even this ruined place would again be a place of beauty and peace.
“We must depart on the morrow,” Cal told him. “But we are glad to have had to have had the chance to help set things right.”
“Go with peace,” the gnoll said. He took up one of the items from the cache that they had left for him, a carved wooden totem of an oak tree set within a ring of twining thorny bushes, the whole attached to a torn leather throng. “Take this small token in thanks for what you have done here. It bears an enchantment that provides its wearer considerable protection from fire, and once per day can call be used to call upon the additional protection of a barkskin spell. Wear it as a friend of the Wood, and may it serve as a reminder of what you have done here.”
Cal nodded, taking the offered gift. “Go with peace, Zev, and good luck.” The gnoll nodded, and turning, transformed himself back into an eagle, disappearing swiftly among the lengthening shadows between the tall pillars of surrounding trees.
They kept a vigilant watch, but nothing emerged from the night to trouble them. The next morning, after Cal studied his spells, they teleported back to Iriaebor.
Last edited:
