Min/Max Boards

Day 180, early, early morning

Having ambushed both trolls and fire giants, the Elven Raiders are currently hurrying across some empty fields in the pre-dawn half-light, having left behind the moat-defended town of Pest’s Crossing. You don’t know at this point if the fire giants are pursuing you, or if so, in how much force. It’s a solid eight miles to the edge of the forest surrounding Pest’s Crossing (with everything in between being farmland and/or clearcut forest, and it is fully daylight (but still early morning) by the time you get there.

Rogue stops as he gets into the edge of the forest and looks around to see if there are any giants in pursuit

Navus does likewise.

Collectively, all you can determine is that if they are pursuing you, they are well out of sight and sound right now.

Rogue starts looking around to see if there is anywhere to hide, “depending on how many follow us, maybe we can set up another ambush.”

Grenda - “Anyone in further need of healing?”

Rogue, “I could use a little.”

Snaga shakes her head “I need some.” She nods thanks as Grenda heals her.

Navus- “Yep, me too. Soooo about ambushing…what if they send half a dozen giants plus trolls this time? The last fight was very close run.”

Grenda walks to each person in turn, casting spells on them.

Rogue, “we only ambush if there are one or two.  More than that we should just keep running.”  Continues to watch for the pursuit to see how many and what type of enemy is following them, “Snaga, Grenda, do you have enough spells to continue a fight?”

Grenda nods. “I’ve used about half of mine.”

Snaga “I think I’ve only used one spell. I’ve got plenty more, and wand charges.”

Navus- “Then let’s at least move deeper into the forest and find a good place to ambush them.”

Rogue nods to Navus, “Lead the way would you, I am going to keep watching for our pursuit and see if I can count how many of them are coming.”

Navus- “Sure.” He gathers everyone and heads into the forest.

About 20 minutes later, Rogue can finally see and hear their pursuers: four fire giants, a few trolls, and what appear to be human-sized dogs colored a deep red, occasionally huffing fire from their noses, and baying loudly.

Rogue jogs to make up the distance he lost, “we need to run again.  Four fire giants, Trolls and dogs they are using to track us.  Keep heading straight, I am going to try and turn and see if I can take a wide route.  I will run fast to somewhere I might be able to lose them and then catch back up.”

Navus- “Suit yourself, lets see if we can meet where the main road passes into the forest by sundown.”


Rogue, “sounds like a good plan.  Also give me a small item of clothing or tear a piece of your clothing off, I am going to rub it against everything as I run so that all our smells are going my way.”

Snaga shrugs and hands him one of her socks.

Navus finds a part of his tunic he doesn’t need, rubs it all over Kusab’s face, and then hands it to Rogue.

Once Rogue has articles of clothing from everyone he secures them to his calves and then starts running south towards the river at a jog just fast enough to keep the same distance between himself and the pursuing giants.  He makes sure to rub against everything that he can with his legs to spread the smell and tries to trample everything in his path to make clear tracks to follow.

Navus- “Lets hope that works.”

Snaga. “Should, if the giants and their dogs are very, very stupid.”

This subterfuge takes the rest of the day. Everyone except Rogue heads deeper into the forest (but just outside of the 100’ wide clearcut area along the road), getting to the eastern edge in the late afternoon.

Rogue spends his morning picking through the forest, before he has to make a listen and/or spot check.

He doesn’t hear anything…and more to the point, gets the impression he is already not being followed.

Rogue signs and moves to the edge of the river and starts making his way towards where he is supposed to meet the rest of the party.  He watches the entire time to try and see if he is followed at all.

With the extra 20 miles Rogue added to his day today, he arrives at the party’s camping location well past midnight…

Day 181

And is greeted by Mav, who doesn’t have spells to memorize, and also retains her motherly ability to stay up at odd hours.

Mav- “You look famished. Did it work?”

Rogue, “I lost them before getting to the river.  I think they gave up, and if they didn’t follow you then yes it worked.  I will need something to eat then a good eight hours to regain my psionic powers…then I think we have to come up with a new plan.”

And so the party spends the day sitting around in the woods while Rogue catches up on sleep. You are still unbothered by giants, elves, trolls, giant elf-trolls, or their hell hounds. By mid afternoon, everyone is awake, spells refreshed, and ready to…plan!

Elsewhere in the world on Day 181, Sephira and her crew returned to Hiasport from their dream vacation island, and may or may not have fought a Kraken on the way.

Navus- “Grenda, when was the last time we reported to Tamurel?”

Grenda- “Not since we left Oytmeet with the drovers.”

Navus- “We could see what he says. Rogue, what did you have in mind?”

Rogue, “I think that might be best.  We need help, or better supplies if we want to continue this.  I don’t think we are going to be able to get anymore good ambushes here.  We need to see if we can figure out how many total giants we know are here and make a guess from that on how many are actually there.”

Navus- “Yeah, not without risking getting into a fight we definitely can’t win. And yes, I definitely need some better equipment.”

Putting their heads together, between what the party saw, their knowledge of how many giants it would take to rule the trolls, and their conversations with the locals, and the size of the castle, they estimate that there are 25-35 fire giants in Pest’s Crossing, not including any children the giants may have.

Everyone hangs out while Grenda composes a 25-word message.

Baelsae elves helped us infiltrate Pest’s Crossing,  killed 4 giants, departed. Crossing has human residents, Leader Landrya. Enslaved by approximately 35 fire giants, also trolls, hellhounds.

Grenda - “Does that about cover it?”

Rogue, “short and to the point.  Looks good.”

Grenda pulls out the sending scroll. “Doesn’t tell him where we are now, but I think the other info is probably more important.”

Rogue, “They will most likely assume we are still at Pest’s Crossing.  If they ask for more information we can send that in a second message.”

Grenda thinks for a moment, then adjusts the message slightly. “There!” She casts the spell and reads the message.

It takes ten minutes, cause that what sending takes to cast, and soon you have a reply: “Received. Humans preparing to advance across rivers. Return to Hochoch to report to Owen on your mission. Will meet you there. Keep hunting.”

Grenda - “All the way back to Hochoch, huh?”

Navus- “Its as good an excuse as any to go resupply. The loot situation has been pretty bad, at best.”

Rogue, “I don’t know if we have enough to be able to really refit our equipment, but we might as well start back.  See if we can take a mostly direct route.”

And so you consult the Mappe! A straight line route would be….120 miles, which would take four days, assuming you didn’t do anything else, and also didn’t have a huge fight and pursuit scene.

Navus- “That also takes us past this “The Lea” place, we could at least look at it as we go by.”

Rogue, “sounds like a good plan.  Let's start going and see if we can make some good time.”

Navus- “Do you want to travel by night or by day?”

Rogue, “I think we should keep traveling and working by night.  It helps us more to deal with the enemy when they would be asleep.”

It’s already midafternoon.

Grenda - “Seems reasonable to me. Should we set out in a few hours then?”

Navus- “Works for us.”

And so, unless anyone has any objections, you set off at dusk. Around midnight you pass through that stopover place where you finished off  the male orcs of Oytmeet plus some giants; the whole palace smells like rotting flesh from half a mile off. Gross. You end your travels the morning of Day 182 in a random point in the middle of nowhere. You’re able to find and abandoned farmhouse to sleep in for the night.

The night of 182-183 is more of the same, although today you stop early (presumably) to make time to reconnoiter the town of “The Lea” the following night. Again, you’re able to find a convenient abandoned barn (that looks like it’s occasionally used by giant passers-by) to hide in for the day, about three miles south of The Lea.

Consulting the map again, it’s one more night of travelling before getting back into the portion of the Oytwood north of the river.

Rogue, “with as open as this area is, I think at night we need to travel as a group up to The Lea and see what we can find out about it.”

The DM approves, as splitting the party is a headache.

Navus- “Sounds good.”

The first two miles to the Lea is deserted, although based on how tall the grass is, you surmise that the town ranches, rather than farms. By the time you can see it, you decide that “town” is really too upscale to describe the Lea, which is really just a collection of sheep paddocks, barns, and a few necessities to support the sheeping industry around here. There’s not even a wall. There are, however, a few watchmen, who look marginally smaller than ogres.

Rogue looks to the party, “approach with weapons drawn and see if they support the giants or not?  Looks small enough we can probably stop this from being a location that supplies the giants if they do.”

Navus- “Any watchman worth his salt will attack people who approach at night with weapons drawn.”

Grenda - “Snaga and I could approach and see if they are human or orcs. Or whatever.”

Rogue nods, “yeah, Navus and I can move discrete enough to be close if it becomes a fight.”

Grenada - “Sounds like a plan, if Snaga is alright with it.”

Snaga “Worth a try.”

Grenda turns off her hat. “It is nice to be able to show my natural clay skin tone sometimes.”

Snaga snorts in amusement, and sets off toward the settlement.

Rogue moves at a distance behind hiding and moving silently.

Navus and Kusab stick close to Rogue.

Grenda and Snaga head boldly up the road toward the town, until…….

Guard (in giantish)- “Halt! Who are you? Declare yourself!” As predicted, this guy really looks like a human, but he is proportioned like a half-ogre.

Grenda - “I am Glori and this is Sellin. We are here in search of Sellin’s brother, his name is Harvok. We heard he might be here.”

The Guard peers at you suspiciously. “No one named Harvok has passed through here. Why are you travelling at night, like robbers?”

Grenda - “Do you not prefer the dark? I personally find my daysight is worse than my darkvision.”

Guard- “No.” By this time you’re close enough for the Guard to get a better look. “Ahh, a hobgoblin and orc! That explains that.” He relaxes considerably. “Come from Oytmeet, have you? I’ve heard of a lot of trouble there in the past weeks.”

Grenda - “Yes, it has been rough. That’s why we’d like to find Harvok, actually, to ask him to come home. Could we ask around your village to see if anyone has met him?”

Guard- “In the morning yes, but whether they’ve seen him or not won’t change between now and dawn.”

Grenda - “Of course, thank you. We’re happy to set up camp a little ways back up the road, so that we do not get in your way.”

Guard- “There are a few farmsteads within an easy walk…” He describes a couple, including the one you spent your day at.

Grenda thanks him and heads back to where the non-sneaky party members are hiding.

Rogue moves back with them, and once back asks, “Disable the guard and then see what we can do to remove enemies here, or just keep moving past this location?”

Navus and Kusab accompany them as well.

Grenda - “If we want to wait the night, I wouldn’t mind scouting the town during the day, so we can report back on it. I’m perplexed, though, I’ve never met a creature like that before. No darkvision, but apparently a giant? A small giant.”

Navus- “I’m with Grenda.”

Snaga interjects. “It is some kind of giant, despite its appearance.. I’ve heard of this settlement before.”

Navus- “It was a really small type of giant called a verbeeg, they’re not found much of anywhere else but the mountains around here, and they avoid other giants cause they’re so small.

Rogue, “then lets wait till morning, let Grenda and Snaga check out the area and we can decide from there what to do.”

Grenda - “And we need to be sure not to forget our names, Sellin.” She winks at Snaga.”I wonder if they’re allied with the other giants or not?”

Navus- “Maybe not allied, but definitely working with.”

Grenda - “I suppose the real question is if a human army showed up, would they fight with them? Well, we can check how they feel about the other giants. And if any of the previous human inhabitants remain.”

Aaaand the sun comes up on Day 183 so you can go infiltrate!

Grenda - “Will the rest of you stay here, or will Rogue and Navus be following?”

Navus- “I’ll be as close as I can without revealing myself.”

Rogue, “same, hopefully we can hear you if you call for help.”

Grenda - “I appreciate it. Though if we get in trouble one of us will probably start throwing fire and/or sound attacks, so you’ll probably figure it out.”

And so again, Grenada and Snaga head into town, disguised as….themselves.

Rogue quietly moves behind them and hides.  Going as close to the small village as he can without being seen.

This time the town looks like it’s….a normal town, except virtually all the residents are these “verbeeg” giants: seven to eight feet tall, powerfully built, but definitely resembling humans more than giants. Grenada and Snaga DO see, however, a total of five actual ogres, who are sitting around looking bored, but with clubs nearby, and a pair of hill giants, who are roasting a sheep apiece. Their cookery is being supervised by an old verbeeg woman. You also confirm that the town is not designed to be defended; there is simply nothing but the houses (and barns and a few specialty buildings) remaining. The only humans you see are generally those with skills that are hard to acquire: the blacksmith is human, for example. Aside from that, the place looks just about like a human village.

Grenda looks around for a friendly looking but not too busy verbeeg to casually ask questions of.

Snaga follows like a sullen little shadow.

The old lady is convenient for such things.

Grenda approaches and says, “Greetings, ma’am.”

The old lady turns from her haranging of the hill giants, who eyeball you a bit, but since you’re small and therefore crush-able, you get ignored. “Yes, dear? Oh! You’re not from around here!”

Grenda - “We’re passing through town, looking for Sellin’s brother, Harvok. Have you heard of anyone by that name around here?” She gestures to Snaga.

Rogue, Navus, and Kusab are able to get to the edge of town without raising alarm; the place is pretty spread out.

The Old Lady peers at Snaga closely. “Ahhh, you’re from Oytmeet, are you? I’ve heard there was trouble there. But no, I haven’t seen an orc man pass through, I’m sorry.”

Snaga “He does wander. Do you have any idea who else we should ask?”

The Old Lady considers this. “Anyone is as good as anyone else, we all gossip, so if anyone saw an orc man, we’d all know. But you can see the cottages are spread out, so if he’s sneaky he could have passed through and not been seen at all.”

Grenda smiles at the gossip comment. “Honestly I am getting a bit tired of this search, maybe we should stay here a few days. It seems like a lovely town.”

Old Lady- “Oh it is the most peaceful place! You will love it! I’m sure there is space around for you to stay if you just look.”

Grenda lowers her voice a bit. “You don’t have trouble with… you know… the other giants? They have often been very demanding of us in Oytmeet.”



Old Lady- “The giants don’t bother me at all. HA, no, the fire giants don’t bother us as long as they get their wool and some mutton. They only come through a few times a year to check on us, cause they know they don’t need to.”

Snaga “So these strong fellows are here to check on you?”

Old Lady- “No, the hill giants and ogre are here as guards, so we can attend to our own affairs. They’re far too stupid to do anything but bully someone smaller than us. The threat of the fire giants makes them behave. That and we pay them.”

Grenda - “That is fortunate, sometimes I shake my head at the foolishness of those who actually want to join the fire giants in their conquests, though some of my own friends did so. I don’t know what has happened to them.”

Old Lady- “I certainly like this area, but yes, going out and fighting for the sake of fighting is just silly.”

Grenda- “Well, we should go check with a few of the further out farmhouses, as you suggested. Thank you very much for the chat!”

Old Lady- “Of course, dear, best of luck on your search.” She turns back to the hill giants and starts shouting at them that they’re ruining their sheep.

Grenda says to Snaga after they are a bit further away, “Should we talk to one of the humans, do you think?”

Snaga “Could try it.  See how voluntary their presence is. The blacksmith maybe”

Grenda - “Good idea, hopefully we can catch him without others around.”

The blacksmith is working, as they continually are, but he pauses when you walk up. “Can I help you?” He says in Giant.

Snaga steps forward. “The head of my spear seems loose. Please check.”

The blacksmith takes her spear and gives it a professional inspection. “It could use some tightening. Do you have 30 minutes?”

Snaga “We do.”

As he starts to work, Grenda asks, “We’re from Oytmeet, one of our human friends was wondering how things are for your kind around here. He’s wondering if changing villages might be a good idea.”

Snaga rolls her eyes “You know Oytmeet humans can’t leave.”

The blacksmith gives you a glance that clearly says he doesn’t believe you have any human friends. “It is peaceful here, because the fire giants trust the verbeeg to not act like ogres, but we’re all slaves just as the humans in Oytmeet are.”

Grenda looks embarrassed. “Of course, I was just hoping he might be able to find a new spot, he does so hate fishing.”

Snaga pats her shoulder and remarks to the blacksmith. “She’s very soft-hearted. Looks like they didn’t keep many humans here though?”

The blacksmith- “No. They learned how to tend sheep for the first year, and then killed most of us. I’m alive only because i’m the smith, and as soon as I’m too old to work, they’ll kill me and feed me to the ogres, just like everyone else.”

Snaga says to Grenda “See, not a good place for your pet. Need to find a better one.”

Grenda does her best imitation of a blush. “I like the one I have, thank you very much.”

Snaga snickers. “Better place, better pet, whichever.” She turns to the blacksmith again. “How many humans are still here?”

Blacksmith- “Maybe 10 to 15. Some aren’t ever let out of their houses by their masters, so I’m not entirely sure.”

Snaga nods and stops talking, just waiting for the smith to finish her weapon.

As predicted, about 30 minutes later, the head of Snaga’s spear is now fixed tighter to the shaft, and got a sharpening.

Snaga pays the man and takes her spear.

Grenda says, after they leave - “I think that about covers it, shall we go to the outskirts of the village to continue our search?”

Snaga nods “May as well.”

They head in the direction that Navus and Rogue are presumably hiding.
The party is able to execute a complex clandestine rendezvous at the farmhouse without attracting attention.

Grenda  - “Well, there are a couple hill giants and 5 ogres, but other than that it’s all verbeeg, maybe about 20? Plus about 10-15 human slaves. The verbeeg like living here, but don’t seem terribly inclined to help the other giants except as they have to. So there’s some potential here for negotiation, rather than a fight, if the duke wants to.”

Snaga “Hill giants and ogres are here as guards. Verbeeg don’t think highly of them, but will feed them with useless humans.”

Rogue nods slowly, “We should probably head back and report and maybe come back if we can get some more equipment to fight this.”

Grenda - “I expect we could take them, if the verbeeg don’t participate.”

Navus- “I’m not against heading back, but yeah, we could take two hill giants and five ogres without help. Yes, if the verbeeg don’t help.”

Rogue, “But will the verbeeg not help?  Do they seem like they are for helping the humans if they are no longer useful or if they would just kill them and do something else with them if they no longer have the ogres to feed them too.”

Grenda - “I expect they would let the hill giants try on their own, but what happens after we kill them, I don’t know.”

Navus- “If we kill the hill giants, they’ll definitely join in.”

Grenda - “I don’t really know anything about their capabilities. Are they stronger than ogres?”

Navus- “Somewhere between bugbears and ogres. So not individually tough, but they’re not nearly as dumb as hill giants, either.”

Grenda - “Hmm, so we could probably take the whole village, but it would be rough.”

Navus- “Possibly.”

Rogue, “I like the idea of saving them now, but it was close when we took on Oytmeet.  I don’t think we can count on having another group show up and help us.  Does that number of 20 include women and children?”

Grenda - “It’s the number of able bodied adults we saw. I doubt their women would hesitate to help fight. And there may be more in the outlying houses.”
Snaga comments “Maybe if it looked like hill giants caused trouble, some humans could be stolen.”

Grenda - “It’s a good idea, but what could we do with them once we had them? I suppose we’re not too far from Oytmeet, but I don’t think they’ve make it to Hochoch.”

Rogue, “I think we would have to take them to Oytmeet.  I would rather not leave any humans behind if we take any of them.”

Snaga “Blacksmith said some never leave their masters’ houses. Taking all means entering to search.”

Navus- “Yeah, that means we have to search every inhabited farmstead in the area.”

Rogue, “we could start with the guards, Navus and I might be able to take them out quietly enough in the night that we could then slowly start working our way through the houses.  Then once the alarm goes up we would hopefully have a lot less to face.”

Grenda sighs. “There’s just so much to do here, I think we may just need more manpower to accomplish a lasting victory.”

Snaga “Also, killing guards means maybe they just ask for more from the fire giants.”

Rogue, “agreed, we should probably go back and report and see if we can bring people with us to try and raid this outpost.  We could then ensure that it is no longer of use to the giants.”

Grenda - “I wonder where Beldren's party is right now? I suppose they’re probably not nearby.”

DM sez: They’re busy shaming Clan fireforge into joining the war, via Tikkaer insulting the elders.

Grenda - “Well, in any case, I agree, we should continue back to Hochoch, maybe the Duke will send a group to help us take back the town. Or maybe it will have to wait for a while.”

Rogue, “then tonight let’s start our journey back to Hochoch again.”

Having just insulted the dwarvern privy council to their faces, and somehow not being run out of town for it, the party is standing around outside the inn that all the foreigners stay in when they’re just visiting. As far as the barkeep can tell them, Tex is off hanging out with her buddy Caboose, a half orc barbarian (of all things), and some of his friends, who just got back from a foray to a frost giant fortress of some kind.;

Erihild looks a bit sheepish in bringing this up. “Seriously, do we really need Tex?”

Beldren says, diplomatically - “She has been helpful at times. Although also the opposite at other times.”

Erihild- ‘“I’m tired of her provoking Beast all the time.”

Beast looks mulish “You know what I think of her… hobby.”

Tikk snort laughs.

Beast continues “...even if it might be useful as an extra target for the enemy” He looks like he really doesn’t want to say something even this kind about the necromancer and her pet skelly.

Erihild sigh. “Well if we see her before we go, then I guess I’ll at least tell her we’re leaving, but if we don’t see her, then….oops?”

Beast nods.

Beldren - “That’s fine with me, I don’t mind not having to worry about her antics anymore. Especially if they’re considering me for regent.” He stares out into space a bit.

Erihild looks enormously relieved at this. “Ah, good! Well then let’s go finish getting ready, head over to my parent’s place for dinner, and then we can leave in the morning.

The DM is gonna gloss over dinner with Erihild’s parents, but suffice it to say her dad is enormously pleased with all of you, don’tcherknow, and very happy that you have helped point the clan in the right direction. Her mom is also just, so proud, packs you all extra sandwiches for the road tomorrow.

Beldren spends the dinner trying desperately to learn everything he can about the political situation without being too super obvious about it.

Rerim is happy to talk at length about all of this. He tries to be as evenhanded as possible, but readily admits his frustration with the Thorrim dwarves. Eventually, after everyone’s 12th beer, it is time to head out. Since there was so little drinking, you all head back to the inn, don’t see Tex anywhere, and can turn in for the night.

Bingle bingle bing…beep!


Day 184, the Morning.

Erhild comes down the stairs and hands the box of sending scrolls to Beast. “Could you carry these? My haversack is nearly full.”

“Yah, of course.” Beast fits it carefully in his pack.

Erihild also tries to talk to the barkeep about leaving Tex a message, and returns to the rest of the party saying, “Apparently Tex left US a message saying we’re dorks…I don’t know that word, I think it’s an insult in the human common language…and that ‘deuces’. I don’t know what that means either.”

Beast, having some knowledge of animal-related anatomical slang. “Yah it’s an insult. Good riddance.”

Beldren- “Well, I suppose that’s that then. I wonder if she’ll head back to Hornword to kill more cyclops? I do feel a bit bad that we weren’t able to do more, but ultimately if the dwarves get fully involved that’s more important.”

Erihild, sounding both hopeful and not- “Maybe we can go back after we talk to the Thorrim dwarves? I dunno.”

Beldren - “Only if we can find someone reliable to take the message to the Duke. I don’t think we should take the message with us if we go back to Hornwood.”

Beast shakes his head. “Can’t trust it to someone else. The elders gave us the job.”

Erhild pulls out the map that she’s obviously had this whole time and starts measuring distances. “Let’s see, 10 miles per square…hey, didn’t we find a boat that folds up?...mmkay, 16 miles per day on the road to Thorrim keep, so tomorrow afternoon…then if we use the boat instead of walking….man, that sounds like a good idea, sitting in a boat for a couple of days…20 miles to Gorna…10 more miles to Oytmeet, we can stop there and hang out with the orcs…man never thought I’d say that….looks like about 50 miles by river, so a day or two, instead of….yeah, six or seven days from Thorrim Keep.”

Beldren - “Yeah, I bought one after the river kept getting in our way so much.”

Erihild- “I am much in favor of boating instead of walking.”

Beldren - “Sounds like a good plan to me. We can also spend the time in the boat scouting, at least if Beast is able to make any bird friends along the way.”

Erihild- “Works for me, lets go!” She fold her map and goes upstairs to get her stuff.

Beast nods “Yah, could do.” He lets Bruin know what they’re doing, and where they’re going. Bruin grumbles, not enthusiastic about  riding a boat.

Cue montage of final preparations for departure, followed by overland travel music. You travel the rest of day 184, and all of day 185.

The trip to Thorrim territory is uneventful. You pass by the point where, when you were first entering this grand adventure, you and Kaicl fought a hill giant, who tragically killed Honey the badger (respect!). As with last time, you are eventually challenged by a sentry who appears out of nowhere. (Dwarves have scouts and rangers, too, you know. They’re just eccentrics.)

Day 185, the afternoon

Sentry- “Travelers! State your business!”

Beldren - “We come bearing a message from the dwarves of Alzak Keep for your elders.”

Sentry- “Ha, what? Prove it.”

Beldren asks Beast for the box with the crest on it.

Beast pulls it out of his pack and hands it over to Beldren ceremoniously, then addresses the sentry. “Message from the Alzak elders for Thorrim elders, concerning the Low Kingship. Most urgent..”

The Sentry, seeing, yes, for realsies, the seal of the Clan Alzak on the scroll, looks at you. “What’s the message?” There is no more suspicion in his voice, actually a touch of hope.

Beast gives the sentry a stern look “Message is for the elders. They’ll tell you after they see it.”

The Sentry looks a bit put out that you won’t give him more of a clue. “Fine, hurry up and get going then. You only have an hour until they close the gate for the night.”

Beast nods. “Yah, thanks.”

The DM doesn’t remember if that is how close to the main gate the sentry was last time, but let’s roll with it this time. You hurry to the main gate, and indeed, slip in between the doors while they are closing. A couple of guards immediately start asking questions.

Guard- “Why are you here, Alzaks? State your business.”

Beast repeats what he said to the sentry, and flashes the sealed scroll at them for good measure.

The guards are impressed enough to call their Sergeant over, who calls his lieutenant, who calls his captain, who calls his lieutenant colonel, who calls his colonel, who eventually stomps his way out, sees the seals, and personally brings you to the Thorrim chief (who would be their prime candidate for the Low Kingship).

Beldren - “Greetings, I am Stonelord Beldren Eregion of the Ironaxe clan, and I have been asked to bring this message to you from the Alzak elders, concerning the giants and the Low Kingship. He presents the scroll with a bow and gives the box with the other scroll back to Beast.

Beast holds the box in front of him, stolidly formal… in his savage, animal-skin-covered, druidic  glory.

The Chief breaks the seal and reads the message from the Alzaks.  He finally breaks into a smile at the end. “It’s about damn time. Do you have the sending scroll? I’ll respond now.”

Beldren says, as Beast pulls out that scroll, “One of the elders also wanted me to let you know that they would be in favor of appointing a regent for the duration of the war against the giants, to step down after the Low King is appointed. He suggested that it be’ - Beldren gulps - “an outsider of good repute, so that fairness to the clans can be maintained.”

The Chief considers this for a moment. “That seems eminently reasonable. Did they have any recommendations? That warrior, Kaicl, whom I’m sure you’ve heard of, would make a good choice.”

Beldren - “I’ve met him, yes. I got the impression they also were considering me for the position.”

Beast clears his throat. “The Stonelord and Lord Kaicl both fit. Neither is local. Both of good repute. The Stonelord has been out fighting giants. Lord Kaicl has been doing diplomacy. The elders just have to choose one.” He pauses. “Maybe flip a coin if the choice will cause another fight.”

The Chief looks like he was about to say something, but Beast’s last comment gives him pause. “Are you saying that if they decide on Stonelord Beldren, and I decided on Lord Kaicl, then we’ve accomplished nothing?”

Beast nods. “Yah, elder.”

Beldren’s eyes bug out a bit. “I can prevent that, if either side wishes it to be Kaicl I will take myself out of consideration.”

The Chief gives you all a sly look. “I was going to recommend Lord Kaicl….do you have the sending scroll?”

Beldren - “Yes! Here it is.” He hands it over.

The Chief spends a couple of minutes composing his answer (he only gets 25 words!), and some butler-y person gives you all pints of beer to drink whilst you wait.

Beldren chugs his.

The Chief reads his response out loud to you: “To the Alzak Council: Offer accepted. Recommend Kaicl as Regent, but- “ he glances at you all, and says, “There’s this thing called compromise, I’m going to try it”- “defer to your choice if different. Will mobilize immediately. Recommend an embassy in Hochoch.”

He looks at you for comments.

Beldren - “I see no issues. We also have a message for the Duke in Hochoch, we are headed there next.”

The Chief- “Hopefully the message is that the dwarves are finally going to war?”

Tikk, “Only eight years late.” under his breath.

Beldren - “We were not given details, but I assume so.”

The Chief- “Good.” He summons his own army of scribes and priests and whomever else, and while you all are drinking your second complementary beer, composes the Official Clan Thorrim response.

There is also some argument (kind of whispered, but not really) amongst the more elder of the Chief’s advisors about how they should hold out for the Low Kingship, etc, how he is the rightful heir (essentially, summarizing what the argument has been for the last few years), and eventually the Chief raises his voice at them, telling them to knock it off.

A few minutes later (you’re on your third beer by now), the Chief brings over another scroll, sealed with the Clan Thorrim seal, and places it next to the Clan Alzak scroll.

The Chief- “Now the humans will get some help from us, finally. Wait a few moments while I actually use the Sending scroll.”

And so wait you do, cause sending takes 10 minutes. The Chief sends his message, and gets a response soon after.

The Chief- “The message from the Alzaks is…that they’ll request Lord Kaicl serve as regent next time he’s in town….although I’m sure they’ll go find him. And they concur with setting up an embassy of some kind in Hochoch. I’ll send a couple people from here as soon as they’re ready, but your clan may pick you-’ he looks at Erihild and Beast-” to represent the Alzaks to the humans. Be prepared, I guess.”

Beast nods.

Erihild looks a little miffed (and also shocked), but says nothing.

The Chief closes and latches the box. “It’ll be a couple of weeks before dwarven troops arrive in Hochoch, but we will start mobilizing tomorrow. Feel free to spend the night, and godspeed to you tomorrow.”

Beldren - “Thank you very much for your time.”

After a fourth beer and some socializing, you are escorted to the finest inn in the Thorrim Keep, and find that your room has been paid for. Congratulations.

Boom, sleep, get up, now it’s Day 186.

On this day, elsewhere: The MAOG later fights a white dragon, and Sephira and Co are shopping in the Goblin Town market, just before crossing the desert, but at the beach, so it’s not so bad.

By the time you get up the next morning, you can already feel the change in the air. On your way out, you can sense the upswing in activity in the Keep. The lower level dwarves, being organized, held many meetings over the years of “Well, what if they DO change their minds”, and so are just now executing well though out plans. There are already areas marked out for units of various types to muster.

It’s about a three mile walk down to the river.

Beldren is holding the box, it’s about a foot by a half foot. He turns it over in his hands. “I hope this ends up being comfortable.”

Erihild- “Anything is better than walking.”

When he gets to the river, he wades out and places the box in the water, steps back, and says the word to change it into a 24’ boat. He pulls it closer to the others.

Erihild gives an impressed noise.

Beast convinces Bruin to get in first, and helps Beldren hold the boat ro Erihild and Tikkaer.

Erihild climbs in with their gentlemanly assists, and goes to sit at the front. She pulls out her bow and some arrows. “I’m good!”

Beast climbs in as well.

Tikk settles into the boat ready to go.

Beldren waits for everyone else to get in, and then scrambles in himself, possibly ending up with his legs in the air before flopping into the bottom of the boat. He grabs two oars, passes one to Bear, and pushes out to the middle of the river. He asks Tikk to man the steering oar.

After probably half an hour figuring out fluid dynamics as it relates to a floating object, you get going. Since you are sensibly travelling downstream, mostly your job is to avoid rocks.

A couple of hours later you enter a confluence, with some other small (non-navigible) river emptying into this one from your right; it occurs to Beast and Tikk that that river is the one that passes through the gnomish holdings.

A little after lunch your river empties into the White Oyt river, and you pass by Gorna. It doesn’t look any different than when you were last there, but you can tell it also has not been re-occupied by any of the giant types. Presumably the gnomish observation posts see you go by. Beldren waves at one as they go by.

You can’t tell if they wave back, cause they’re hidden.

All the birds are staying away from the boat, so Brother Beast doesn’t have a chance to make avian spies out of them.

It’s mid afternoon when you bounce you way across the (fairly gentle) rapids just upstream of Oytmeet, and now have the chance to meet the orc-wives again.

Beldren notes that Tikk is asleep at the tiller, so gently shoves Tikk aside and guides the boat to the dock.

It takes all your non-existent boatmanship skills, but you manage to parallel park your mighty vessel at an empty spot on the docs. There are a few orc women around the docks, who look at your curiously for several minutes before starting the haunting yodels they use as long distance communication. They don’t come close, but they also don’t attack.

Beldren hops onto the dock and ties up the boat. He then ties it up again, because he’s no boat-tying expert.

Beast also jumps out, after telling Bruin to stay.

Erihild climbs out as well, holding her bow in the least threatening manner possible…and also trying to act casual.

Tikk follows everyone out of the boat.
By the time everyone is out of th boat except the bear, Bula, one of the orc sorceresses, and Bus-Mir, now the village elder, have made their way down to your doc, looking pleased and surprised to see you.

Bus-Mir- “Friend dwarves! How wonderful to see you! What brings you back?”

Beldren - “It has been quite a trip. We’re currently on our way back to Hochoch, to deliver word from both clans of dwarves that they will be joining the war effort! We wanted to see how you were while we’re on the way, and to see if you wanted us to bring a message to the duke from your town as well. And to make sure you’re aware of the new circumstances.”

Bus-Mir takes a moment to work all this out, as her common is not the best. “We can talk. Please, come up and have dinner!” She looks at the boat. “Bring your bear, he’s cute.”

Beast convinces Bruin to get out and join the party.

Bus-Mir sends Bula ahead to the town square. The orc-wives have been pretty industrious in the three weeks since you all were here last. There are no dead bodies (mass grave outside town, she says), and all the simple cleanup work is essentially done. From here, she says, they need to scrap buildings that are beyond repair to fix those that aren’t.

The giant table is still outdoors, and the locals have already started setting out dinner (which is a communal activity for everyone at this point. The various humans greet you warmly, and in a little bit you’re all ready to eat.

Beldren digs in, and talks to some of the builders so that he can build some walls or whatever for them before he leaves.

Beast keeps Bruin from pushing to the head of the line and eating everything before anyone else can.

The humans are happy for the help, and for a second time you’re asked why brings you back here.

Beldren tells them about how they went to hornwood, killed some cyclops, sent the other team to kill some fire giants, and what’s been happening with the dwarves. “So while this should help with the war effort greatly, it has potentially dangerous consequences for you. So we wanted to stop by to make sure you knew, and to ask what you would like us to communicate to the Duke.”







Faraz, the oldest surviving human in town (and who looks a lot healthier than last time you saw him) considers this. “We-” he glances at Bus-Mir, sitting next to him, “want to stay out of the rest of the war. We’re in no state to actively fight the giants, and do not want to risk the peace we have now. In fact, as far as the fire giants are concerned, we are still under their control. Not five days ago a fire giant scout was here, asking us what happened. She was investigating the caravan I think you all attacked just after the fight here.”

Beldren - “Well, I imagine it won’t affect you until the border moves closer to the city. I’ll do my best to make sure that the humans communicate with you, and at least know not to attack the town.”

Faraz- “That’s just the first step. The orc women plan to live hear peacefully, and so we also just want to be left to live our lives. Once Oytmeet is recaptured I understand it being used by the armies as a base, but the orc women are not enemies of Geoff. THAT you must tell the Duke.

Beldren nods. “Absolutely. If it comes down to it I will come here myself with the troops and make sure all the orc women are respected.”

Faraz- “I hope so. And so you know, we told the giant’s scout that the orc women rebelled and killed all the men. We didn’t think it prudent to mention the involvement of dwarf and elf adventurers. Her attitude was that if the men couldn’t stay in charge they didn’t deserve to be in charge, so I think that as long as we don’t cause the giants any trouble, and we start fishing again, they won’t bother us too much.”

Beast nods and scratches Bruin’s head “Yah, makes sense.”

Beldren’s eyebrows go up at the giant’s reaction, but he shrugs.

Faraz- “If you come back this way, just be cautioned that there will still be giants around. I think that aside from being left out of the rest of the war, and being left alone after, we have nothing else we want to tell the Duke.”

After a few minutes of conversation, Faraz asks- “Aside from one message from us on this trip, do you have any ability to keep us in contact with the Duke’s government?”

Beldren - “Hmm, not immediately. Unless Beast can train some carrier pigeons? Or one of your mages has a communication spell? Anyone have any other ideas? My elementals don’t stick around long enough to carry a message.”

Beast looks around. “Haven’t seen any pigeons.”

Faraz- “The orcs consider pigeons a delicacy. They’re actually not bad, cooked properly. I don’t think any of the wizards are powerful enough to cast sending.” He shrugs. “I trust you’ll come up with something, and if we do, we will use it to contact you.”

The rest of the evening is full of the random discussion that take place, stories of battle of the last three weeks, some drinking, and eventually Erihild dancing on the table, showing off the “snowflake wardance” fighting style she’s been working on in her spare time.

Round 5!

You can see from the doorway an enormous hall as large as a castle keep. Much of the chamber is open to the level above, allowing anyone there to look down on the lower area. Two large winches, their handles carved to resemble striking cobras, flank the double door. Just past the winches is a contingent of yuan-ti, their bows drawn taut and their leader, a large snake with human arms, directing their actions. At the far end of the room, another pair of yuan-ti these lookling a lot more like snakes than people (snake heads instead of human heads), are also far above in a gallery, looking down at you.

Blank takes on a full run and stops next to Herzog, panting slightly, “I might could use a touch up before going into that.”  Trying to look over the summoned creature into the room beyond.

Syl realizing there is a fight going on, double times to the group to get in on the action!

Sephira follows up the stairs, quickly, so that she can fire a magic missile at one of the yuan-ti. Kedri says hiding behind the pillar in the air.

Sephrias missiles fly through the air and….the missiles slam into him. He looks nearly dead, but not quite.

Kara dashes to the right, and punches the orange-red yuan-ti in the chest.

Kara hits, hears that satisfying crack of rib bones, and her yuan-ti’s eyeballs bug out in surprise…but he’s still up.

Herzog casts cure moderate wounds on Blank.

Blank, “thank you.” as he prepares to continue charging into the room.

The guys near you are all clearly purebloods yuan-ti, IE mostly human with a few snake features, the guys in the gallery above at halfbreeds, and in the middle o the room is a much larger snake man, whose only humanoid feature is a pair of muscular arms. Like everyone else, he has a scimitar (a falchion, really), and a composite longbow, although mostly he is just standing there directing the others.

The five purebloods nearest you start shooting back, except for the one nearest Kara, who has dropped his bow and taken a swing at her with his scimitar. He misses, as do most of the arrow shots. One hits the centipede. The centipede looks injured!

The two halfbreeds also fire at the party. One aims for Kara, while the other hits the centipede once. The centipede dissolves into nothing.

Kara grabs the arrow out of the air with her superior monking skills. Then she drops it.

One of the two purebloods in the second rank just moves up to fill the gap the looks like it’s about to appear on the yuan-ti’s right.

The other one, several of you notice, is not wearing armor, unlike anyone else. Next to him stands what looks like the skeleton of a human, although the skeleton is slightly blurry and moves very quickly. The skeleton moves up and takes a swing at Kara. In the grandest of cliches, the skeleton is armed with a scythe. Buuut it misses her.

This round, the giant abomination just stands and watches while you all fight.

Round 6!

Blank charges Red-Green Yuan-ti, attacking and using his healing crystal. Blank hits him and he crumples like an easily crumpled thing. Super dead.

Syl still being at the bottom of the stairs, runs up behind Herzog. He can see through his legs and yells, “WATCH YA ASS! ARROW COMING THROUGH!” and shoots one off at red/pink creature.

Herzog- “Whooo tingly!”

The yuan-ti is shocked and burned, but still up.

Sephira moves just inside the door so that she can’t get shut out, but otherwise just watches the fight, grumbling about getting low on spells. She flicks a ray of frost at a yuan-ti.

Kara gives the yuant-ti in front of her an uppercut to the jaw, and feints past its head with her other fist.

Her uppercut snaps its neck and it dies.


Herzog casts recitation, and everyone in the party now gets bonuses to attack, AC and saves. He also moves up to inside the doors as well.

The yuan-ti press the attack. The three pureblood mooks drop their bows and draw scimitars, and move up.

Kara is hit once with a scimitar slash.

One of the two guys attacking Blank has a breastplate, shield and mace, instead of the studded leather and scimitar the normal troopers have. He smacks Blank once, but the other one misses.

Blank uses his Counterstrike bracers to attack the Yuan-Ti that hit him, also using the healing function of his Crystal.  Managing to return the favor.

The skeleton swings at Kara twice, missing badly once, and by the width of a hair the second time.

The two archers in the gallery continue shooting; they seem to have divided the room in half between them. Blank and Kara both get missed, while Herzog takes an arrow and one arrow meant for Sephira smacks in to the door mechanism.

The caster behind the skeleton tries to fire a ray at Kara, but misses cause he’s firing into a melee (and also rolled really badly).

Round 7!

Blank starts swinging at the Yuan-Ti in the different armor and weapon, also using his healing function from his Crystal.  Managing to heal himself twice while hitting him.

Snake Mace Guy looks stunned that you can hit him that much, but he is still up.

Syl takes a five step forward up the stairs, sees the red/yellow creature in the corner and yells “CORNER POCKET SHOT!” and shoots off three arrows at it!

The halfbreed archer collapses when the Syl’s second arrow hits him.

Sephira summons a pair of hawks, and sends each of them after an archer. They both attack!

Kara turns and decks the red-pink yuan-ti.  The yuan-ti’s face caves in after the first punch. Kara then kicks the red-purple yuan-ti that is now to her right. Kara cracks this guy’s skull too. He also drops.

Herzog moves up to help Kara with the skeleton, but misses his one attack.

The abomination finally decides to act, and moves up toward Blank. It casts something at him. Blank feels the oddest sensation of magic trying to force him into the form of a garter snake, but he overcomes it.

The Yuan-ti in the gallery tries to fire his bow at the hawks.

Mace Snake man swings at Blank, missing twice.

The last mook also swings at Blank, but misses.

The skeleton swings laboriously at Kara, missing once and crit threatening…nevermind, normal hitting her one time.

Round 8!

Blank continues to swing at the mace welding Yuan-Ti, using the healing function of his crystal, keeping half an eye on the abomination that seems to be coming his way.

The mace-wielding yuan-ti dies at the first hit, and the last mook yuan-ti dies the second time Blank swings at him.

Syl seeing the big snake creature moving, takes aim and shoots three arrows right at its face!

Syl pegs the large snake man twice.

Sephira throws an acid arrow toward the big guy. The remaining bird attacks.

Kara throws a roundhouse kick at the skeleton and follows it up with a second leaping kick.

Kara shatter’s the skeleton’s rib cage, but it’s a skeleton, and so it doesn’t really notice. Some pieces of bone rattle around the inside of its full plate armor.

Herzog swings twice and misses twice against the skeleton. He considers that he’s a spellcaster, not a melee person, and should really stick to his job.

The abomination, seeing how fast you all are burning through his minions, moves up and swings at Blank… but still misses.

The archer in the gallery firest at the second hawk twice. The hawk gives the archer tis but a scratch, and the archer kills the bird.

The spellcaster decides discretion is the better part of valor and flies up to the gallery above.

Round 9!

Blank takes a five foot step in towards the abomination, and starts swinging.

The abomination collapses, hissing curses at you.

Syl sees the other archer in the corner the red pink and lets off three arrows at it!

The yuan-ti collapses, but only because the now dead celestial hawk gave it but a scratch.

Sephira waits, observing the room.

Kara continues to smash bones, doing a couple of sweeping kicks to the skeleton’s legs.

Kara breaks its legs, and the skeleton collapses and stops moving.

The wizard up in the gallery disappears down a hallway you can’t see, shouting the alarm.

Herzog- “Keep going? Or loot these guys and retreat for the day?”

Kara shakes her head “To retreat is to allow the enemy to set better defenses.”

Blank, “we should continue in.  We leave and they might lock us out again, though we should loot before going farther.”

Herzog- “Yeah, but now that I’ve been in here I can dimension door in without getting us killed. But I’m game for whichever. If we run they’ll probably come after us.”

Syl - “well we could loot them now and get some rest. They should only have a finite of soldiers here and we can just keep letting them come back and we keep killing them in this room.”

Sephira - “I’m almost useless at this point, spell-wise. So we should rest. That said, if you want to sit here at the door killing anyone that comes into view until you run out of arrows, I’m fine with that.”

Kara: “Perhaps we could find a defensible room.”


Herzog- “Well I’m going to start looting their bodies while we’re waiting for a counterattack.”

Blank goes to help with the looting.

Sephira - “Kara, that’s a good idea, just be careful not to get ambushed.”

They find:
5x masterwork scimitars (2x given away)
5x masterwork composite longbows (1x given away)
5x masterwork studded leather armor
4x mwk heavy wooden shields
1x mwk falchion
1x large mwk heavy shield
1x mwk heavy steel shield
Magic Mithril breastplate
Magic Belt
Magic 2x Potion
Mastework mace
410 pp
1700 gp
500 gp gem
Magic wand
Magic Necklace with three small red gems
Heavy darkwood shield
4 flasks alchemist’s fire
Magic 2 spell scrolls
Magic Gauntlets
Mithril full plate mail
Magic scythe

While everyone else is looting, Kara ventures down the right hand hall to see what’s there.

This hallway slopes up (ie, it’s a fairly steep ramp instead of stairs), as if the place was build for people for whom stairs are an uncomfortable inconvenience. She can hear shouting in the distance, but it doesn’t sound like it’s getting closer at the moment.

Kara returns to the main room and starts going around the room counter-clockwise, checking doors.

The first door isn’t locked. Behind it she finds….a room. The walls of this rectangular chamber are covered in carvings. What first seems t obe a group of serpentine figures reveals itself to be a single, impossibly long snake with numerous heads along the length of its body. Near the west wall stands an altar, a slab of black marble atop an iron stand in the form of a coiled cobra.

Kara ignores the altar and tries the double doors on the east end of the chamber.

This door isn’t locked either. Beyond it lies a large open chamber that appears to be an audience hall. A raised dais sits against the east wall, complete with a stone podium adorned with serpentine carvings.

Kara retreats to the main room, skips the second set of doors since that lead into the big audience chamber, and proceeds to the third set of doors.

Blank looks up from looting, “anything of interest, need me to check for traps?”

Kara shakes her head “At the moment, only empty rooms. No sensible creature would set traps in places they frequently use.”

Blank nods.

The door to this room is locked.

Kara mentions this to Blank adding “It may not be worth opening.” She moves on to the next door.

Blank stops the looting and comes to check the door she is working with, “or it could lead to more we want.”  Blank checks the doors for traps. He doesn’t find any.

Blank attempts to open the lock.

Blank pops open the lock.

Herzog- “Sephria, how much of this stuff can we fit into your Haversack?”

Sephira - “All the small stuff, but the armor is probably a no-go.” She starts tossing stuff inside.

Blank calls over his shoulder, “I have a bag of holding if we need more space.” As he opens the door he just unlocked.

Herzog is shaking skeleton parts out of the suit of plate mail. “This is mithril, it’s worth a lot of money.”

Syl mozies on over to the rest of the group to see if he can pack in the armor.

Beyond the doors lies a true chamber of horrors. A rack and and iron maiden stand next to terrible contraptions of cables, needles, and cuffs whose purpose is best not guessed at. The floor is stained with dried blood, a red-black pool spreading around a rusty iron grate in the center of the floor.

Blank, “I found the torture chamber.”  Then goes and checks around the coroner he cannot see.

Blank sees a slope heading down, again in place of a staircase. He doesn’t hear much of anything, but even here he can smell garbage and rot wafting up.

Herzog casts detect magic on the pile o’ loot; the potions, wand, scrolls, belt, necklace, mithril breastplate, gauntlets, and scythe are all magical.

Blank comes back to the rest of the party, “there is a path leading down, and it smells of garbage and rot, possibly where they keep all their waste.”

Syl gives a gross look on his face at hearing the possibility of being waist high in someone else’s waste.

Sephira looks at Herzog. “I don’t suppose you have like a detect life spell? To see if anyone is alive down there without actually going down.”

Herzog- “No, I don’t.”

Sephira - “Alright, I’ll do this then.” She summons a celestial dog, and tells it to go check if there is anyone down in the trash alive. “Bark if you find anyone, come back if you don’t. I hope you’re the type of dog that likes gross things.” The dog tilts its head at that, and scampers off down below.

Within just a few seconds, you hear excited barking.

Sephira sighs. “Welp, down we go. Better get them now so that no one takes our murder of their compatriots out on them.”

Herzog- “Fharlanghn commands his followers to free slaves, so we must go down there.”

Blank shrugs and checks his weapons, “lets get dirty, Sly first.”

Syl looks at Blank “why do i have to be first?!” he says mortified.

Kara follows the group down the ramp.


Down the ramp the stench of garbage just increases. This level is lit by a single dim torch halfway down the hall, and on each side of the hall you can see locked doors.

Blank moves up and starts checking each of the doors, “well we found cells, Sephira?”

The first door on both sides of the hall have a human inside them. At the sound of someone speaking common, there is immediately a murmur, and the people in the cells on each side of the hall stand up quickly.

Blank, “and they are occupied.”

Man on the party’s right- “Who are you?” He sounds excited.

There is also a woman on the left, who hasn’t said anything yet.

Blank looks at the man, “I am DeBlanc, Phillin DeBlanc, Hias Secret Service.  What are you all down here for?”

Syl who is in waste and the smell is freaked out at the sound of the man “It’s the cave monster, run for your lives!” as he wails and throws his hands up in the air and runs in circles.

Sephira just rolls her eyes. “Anyone know where the keys are? We’re here to let you out.”

Man (male human)- “We were captured by the yuan-ti, to be eaten or sacrificed or turned into one of their slaves! How did you get in here?”

Sephira - “To be short, by killing everyone in the way. We’re planning on eliminating all the yuan-ti here.”

Blank shrugs and nods, “she is the boss.” and moves to the side for Sephira to talk to them.

Woman- “Oh thank the gods! Can you let us out?”

Sephira - “If no one has seen a key yet, can you get to opening these, Mr. DeBlanc?”

Woman (female elf)- “I’m Selirra, pleased to meet you, we don’t know where they keep the keys, so please just start picking locks or whatever you do!”

Blank looks at Sephira, “open them all?”

Sephira nods. “When you’ve gotten a small group out, Herzog and Kara will escort them to the exit, then come back for the next group.” She calls Kedri “Can you see if you can spot the keys? Both upstairs and further down the hall.” Kedri harumps but obeys.

Blanks starts working on the doors.

Sephira also adds - “Give a scimitar or bow to anyone who knows how to use them.”

Blank can get the first two doors open easily, but the third, which has a halfling woman behind it, doesn’t work the first time.

The human man, who introduces himself as Aldros, hugs whoever is nearest to him.

The elf woman, Selirra gives both Blank and Syl kisses on her way out. She takes a scimitar and masterwork bow and 20 arrows.

The halfling watches Blank and starts giving him suggestions on how to work the lock. “I’ve looked at it pretty thoroughly and I’d pick it but I don’t have anything resembling a tool.”

Blank tries the third door again, “oh, I just had a bad run that time, I am pretty good at this.”

This time it works. “Oh good job!”

Blank moves to start looking at more cells.

Sephira signals for Kara and Herzog to escort those 3 out.

Kara gestures up the slope “Follow this way please.” and leads the way to the main floor.

Selirra also gives Kara a hug. “It’s so wonderful that other elves came to rescue us!”

Kara pats Selirra’s shoulder and disengages herself. “One must be grateful for any rescue.”

Herzog inspects them for injuries, but not wanting to spare his spells if they don’t need it, just takes them out.

Illira the halfling also takes a scimitar, but the bows are too big for her.

Herzog and Kara manage to get back without getting ambushed by any other yuan-ti either, although they again heard voices of groups wandering around.

Recap: Sephira, halfling socereress, has been sent on a Quest to go see if she can rustle up some help in defeating the Giants but her liege lord guy, Grand Duke Owen. Having crisscrossed the southeastern part of the continent, she and her Party are looking for the pieces of an Artifact that may help them summon such a being.

The spider looks around, and after seeing no one else to bite, fades into nothing.

And so you spend a few more minutes looking the bodies of the yuan-ti before scrambling over large rocks for another two miles, heading farther uphill. As you continue past the cataract (ie, the small waterfall where you just fought and killed the yuan-ti), the boulders get smaller and eventually stop, giving way to tough grasses. On your right, the cliff starts to rise, and after another mile and a half makes a sharp turn so that it runs nearly north-south. The river and the cliff face, once within 30 feet of each other, have drifted to about 150’ apart.

At this point you crest a small rise, and can see, about a quarter mile away, a small settlement, and what looks like some kind of castle built into the cliff face (scroll down for a picture of what the castle looks like). From here you can’t make out much in the way of details, except that it looks kind of like an open snake’s mouth. The settlement is a scattering of about ten buildings and a few small plots of crops. You can only see a few people right now (about 150’ feet away)

Blank, “That doesn’t look ominous at all.”

Kedri laughs. “<Looks like a great place to set up my next kingdom!>”

You can see that the settlement is approaching primitive, with a handful of stone buildings with thatched roofs, a couple of poorly maintained livestock paddocks, and a well. Happily for you, you briefy came over a rise and wound up right behind a small patch of mostly-grown corn. From the sounds of what’s going on, some yuan-ti soldiers (which you got a look at) and a giant snake are bullying some humans. Most of the humans are cowering in their homes, with one being threatened with being eaten by the giant snake coiled around the well.

It doesn’t sound like they noticed you sneaking over the small rise just outside of town.

Blank, “so should we charge them, or try and sneak around?”

Sephira - “I’d like to take them out.”

Blank, “I mean sneak around and attack them.”

Herzog- “If these guys are slavers- oh, you meant kill them regardless, yes. I’m good either way.”

Sephira - “Let try to get close enough for me to drop a summon in the middle of them to protect the human.”

Syl - “Wont be easy. Thats a big snake. Why is it always snakes?”

Blank points up towards building F2, “lets get behind that building and once you drop something between them all we can come out from somewhat behind them.”

Syl nods - “yes sounds like a plan.”

Kara hums. “The large distraction may need to start sooner than we can reach there undetected.”

Sephira - “Good point, let me put a distraction… there.”

Blank starts moving silently towards building F2

Syl follows Blank slowly and silently as he can.

Herzog moves up to the edge of the cornfield and looks around; it doesn’t look like you’ve been spotted.

Everyone gets their surprise round actions.

Blank moves as quietly and hidden as he can while quickly getting behind building F2.

Kara runs toward the yuanti that are not near the building everyone else is trying to hide behind, and stops just short of being in reach.

Syl is trying his best to stay with Blank to move up to building F2 sneaking and hiding from the enemy.

Herzog knows his strengths, and knows that agility is not one of them, so he casts brambles on his staff, which then grows spikes, and then moves forward once heads start turning to look at Syl.

Sephira summons a hippogriff mid air, about 10 feet up. It heads for the building to its right before diving to attack yuan-ti blue. Big claw swipe the face!

That yuan-ti takes the claw swipe manfully, and manfully loses most of his hit points in doing so. He’s still up though, looks like he’s close to dying.

While the yuan-ti and the snakes didn’t notice Blank, they noticed Syl, and definitely noticed the griffon appearing out of nowhere. So your ambush failed! Kind of.


Round 1!

Blank continues up and stays hidden as it seems that the Yuan-Ti still have not noticed him yet.  He looks from around the edge of the building waiting to see if the Yuan-Ti go after the summoned monster.

The yuan-ti fight back! The blue one takes a swing at the hippogriff.

Red shirt yuan-ti takes a step toward Kara and swings at her, but she dodges easily.

Orange yuan-ti fires an arrow at her and then moves over to one side to get a better shot. The arrow would have ruslted her hair if she didn’t shave her head as it flew by.

Green yuan-ti moves closer to building F2 to get a clear shot at the hippogriff.

The one female yuan-ti, who looks significantly more snake-like than the mooks, casts a Spell! But trips over her robes and fires a ray of some kind into the ground. So nevermind.

Kara takes 5 foot step toward the red yuanti and executes a punch and feint to its face.

The yuan-ti looks stunned at his suddenly cracked orbital, but he’s still up.

Syl sees orange yuan-ti by itself, puts an arrow into his bowe, and then lets it rip at it! Then shoots again!

The arrows both smack solidly into the yuan-ti’s upper chest, and he collapses to the ground.

Both arrows whistle past Herzog’s ears as he moves toward the yuan-ti, but the arrows are faster, and so Herzog changes direction. He can’t charge cause he has to dodge around people, but he gets within hitting distance of the yuan-ti Kara is fighting.

Syl watches the yuan-ti drop. “I never miss a shot!” he exclaims out loud.

The snake, seeing a large and juicy hippogriff, slithers over there and bites at it, but misses cause he’s the worst snake in the world.

Hippogriff lands and takes offense at the snake attempting to eat. It attacks back! The giant snake dodges everything.

Sephira starts moving through the corn as not noisily as possible.

Round 2

Blank charges the Green Yuan-Ti, taking one attack.  The yuan-ti staggers at the hit, but is still up and fighting.

The green yuan-ti swings back at Blank, and misses.

The blue yuan-ti attacks the hippogriff, and nearly drops his sword.

The red shirted yuan-ti swings at Kara, but he, like his comrades, is uniformly terrible, and also misses.

The female scaly lady casts a spell at Blank, and four magic missiles pew pew out at him.


Kara strikes the red yuan-ti with her palm, killing it, and then pivots into a kick against the giant snake.

Syl moves 30 feet north of his position, grabs two more arrows from his quiver, and shoots at blue yuan-ti! His first arrow drops the yuan-ti, and his second one skips off the snake without apparently doing any damage.

Herzog starts swinging at the giant snake, cause he happens to be here. His spiky staff punctures some pretty sizeable holes, which really only makes the snake angry.

Syl - “Thats two for me!” thrilled.

The snake again attempts to bite at the hippogriff, but gets itself tangled in a knot or something and biffs its attacks.

The hippogriff attacks back. The giant snake is already looking pretty beat up, but it’s still fighting.

Sephira moves around the house to the south.

Round 3

Blank starts swinging at the Green Yuan-Ti in front of him, using the gem of life stealing with his attacks.

The yuan-ti drops on after the second hit, drawing an “ahhh-shit” comment from the now-meat shield-less sorceress.

Blank gives the sorceress a half grin, raising the opposite eyebrow from the side of his lips that is grinning.

Yuan-ti sorceress lady gives him a “what the hell kind of face do you have” look and then disappears!

Kara beats on the snake, pummeling it like it’s a heavy bag.

Kara beats it like it owes her money; when she’s done the snake is laying there dumbly, but clearly still alive.

Kara is slightly perplexed. “Herzog, finish him!”

Syl movies thirty feed forward for a better shot, knocks one arrow and lets it loose.
The snake tenses all over suddenly and then dies.

Herzog, who was about to swing his staff mightily to kill it- “Well okay then.”

Sly smiles “Sorry, but had to get kill three Herzog!” and runs toward the group.

Sephira runs forward and summons a celestial riding dog. “Find the invisible one!” It starts sniffing!

Kedri floats in the air above Sephira. She wrinkles her nose. “<Ew, dogs.>”

The dog picks up a trail!

Kara follows the dog.


Round 4, since it’s now a race!

Blank follows the dog as well.

Invisibile lady does something you can’t see.

Kara continues to follow the dog.

Sephira moves toward the fortress entrance, while keeping an eye on the dog. Dog follows the trail!

Round 5

Blank continues to follow the dog.

Ironically, everyone except Syl sees the door in the cliff face open by itself for a moment, and then slam shut. A couple of moments later the portcullis in front of the door drops with a loud clanging noise.

Kara: “Oh.”

Blank, “well I think we know where the Sorceress went.”

Syl follows everyone moving.

The dog tracks the sorceress to the door, sniffs it, and sits down, its ears sad. Sephira calls it back and pets it.

Blank moves up to join the dog and searches the area for traps.

A massive set of brass doors are set 10’ into the wall/cliff face. With the iron portcullis down, there is a small foyer and/or kill zone between them. But, at least as far as Blank can find, there are no traps on the stairs or the portcullis (which in itself could be a trap).

Blank (and several other people, cause they’re closer) see a few frightened faces appearing in windows in the village. The one person the party could see before their 30 seconds of absolute violence has recovered from her cowering position next to the well and has stood up.

Blank ignores the faces as he searches around the front of the entrance for a mechanism that might raise the portcullis from this side.

Blank can find no mechanism on this side to raise the portcullis.

Blank attempts a deadlift on the portcullis. It is too heavy for him.

Kara approaches the formerly cowering woman.”Are you injured?”

Woman- “No, thanks. Who are you?”

Kara makes the peace gesture of her monastery and then gestures to Sephira “We are travelers. Our leader can explain further.”

Sephira approaches, seeing that Kara is talking to the woman and that Blank is working on the portcullis. “Is this village yours?”

Blank starts searching around the area to see if he can find any secret entrances to the building.  Going left of the entrance forty feet, then starts searching the walls while moving towards the right.

Woman- “Yes. Why are you here?”

Sephira - “We’re looking for an artifact, and heard that it was here and that yuan-ti had taken over this temple and are terrorizing villages around here. So we figured we would stop them while we're here. Do you know how many there are?”

Woman- “No, I don’t.” This weird look of hope and dread crosses her face. She whispers, “Are you going to kill them all?”

Sephira - “That’s the plan. I couldn’t in good conscience leave any alive after stirring them up getting the item we’re looking for, that would put anyone who lives here in great danger. Are there any other humans inside we should be looking out for?”

Woman shrugs- “I don’t know. People who go in there never come out again. We don’t know if they become histachii or what.” She looks dejected and resigned.

Sephira nods. “How many of you are left outside in this village?”

Woman- “Maybe a dozen. They bring people in from other villages almost as fast as they disappear, so I don’t even know everyone’s names.

Sephira - “Do you know whether they have any patrols out right now?”

Blank, despite his thorough searching of worked portion of the cliff face, finds no secret entrances.

Woman- “One patrol left maybe two hours ago and headed out to the direction you came from, and there might be another one out, I’m not sure.”

Sephira - “We met and killed a patrol not too long ago, unless they were just sentries. Can you gather all the people remaining and get them out of here, in case there is another patrol who will come back? We’re heading inside as soon as we can. If any of you can use weapons, please take the ones the dead here have.”

The woman laughs. “Please. They would kill us all. We are not fighters, and if we were, we’re a meal away from starvation.”

Blank’s study of the exterior reveals the following: There are three overhanging towers build into the cliff, one in front of the stairs (so you walk under it to walk to the stairs), which is 90 feet overhead. On either side, the bottom of the hanging tower is only 30 feet overhead. Above the main entrance is some flame-looking stuff carved into the cliff face, but no windows directly above the stairs.

He does notice that in the central tower, at the top, (ie, like 150’ or so above the ground), are crennellations, indicating an open top to the middle tower. Toward the bottom of the tower Blank can also see two very narrow rectangular openings. He can’t tell if they’re just windows or murder holes from this distance, but there is no murder coming from them presently.

Blank pulls out his climbers kit and rope of climbing before looking back towards the party, “anyone have extra rope?”

Sephira turns to Blank, “I do!” She hands Kedri her rope and Kedri grumpily takes it to Blank. She turns back to the woman.

Kara comments “Perhaps, then, we should wait for the other patrol to return before we storm the castle.”

Herzog- “What are you trying to do?”

Blank, “I will use my rope of climbing to get up to a decent point, attach another rope there, then use the rope of climbing to get higher.  My rope of climbing is 60 feet.”  Blank looks up again, “I think I could get to the top and leave a trail of rope everyone else can use if we have enough.”

Sephira - digs in her pack and hands the woman 6 days of her rations. “That will at least be a decent meal for all of you. I should rejoin my team. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do for you.”

The woman thanks you and heads over to building F2; the villagers gather and eat the food you gave them.

Herzog- “Yeah, I have no rope.”

Sephira walks over to the others and casts detect magic. She looks over the entryway.

Blank looks at the rope he got from Saphira and his rope, “will need some more rope to make this work though, if we want to do it.  Without it, I can still get up there and check it out.”

Kara silently offers her rope to  Blank

Sephira - “The other option is to wait. I can summon a small earth elemental to dig us a hole, but not until tomorrow as I don’t have a lot of spells left. That would allow us to make sure no yuan-ti patrols show up.”

Blank, “If I can get up there, Thank you Kara, it could save your spells.  Do we know how long it would take for a patrol to get back?  I can still check it out and maybe up there would be a decent place to rest, I doubt they would expect us to be there.”

Kara smiles slightly “Mages have means of communicating at a distance.”

Blank, “true, what do we want to do?”  He then sets up the rope and his climbing kit in a manner to easily carry and climb up the wall if that is what the party wants him to do.

Kara replies serenely “As our leader has said. The occupants of the village may spare us a house.”

Sephira - “See if you can get up there.”

Blank gets his gear in place than moves to the top of the stairs and holds on to the end of his rope of climbing.

Herzog watches Blank work. “Sephira, do you know the spell spider climb? It would save him a lot of trouble.”

Kara murmurs “And ruin his fun?”

Blank continues to stare at the wall, “It could be fun, I think I could climb the outside walls,  though that might not get me close enough to use the rope of climbing.  Do you still have the hippogriff, it could fly the rope up there and then I could climb?  Or I could ride the thing up there and lower the rope.”

Sephira - “Unfortunately, the best I could do is a small flying creature right now. My phantom steed can’t fly. Yet.”

Herzog- “I could cast fly on you, Blank, although I was hoping to save my domain spells for fights, if we don’t have to use them now.”

Blank nods and looks at the cliff face leading up around to the balcony, “might have to try and climb the long way.”

Sephira - “Hmm, I could also try an acid arrow or two on the portcullis, but I don’t think that would be enough.”

Herzog- “I could also dimension door everyone to the top of that central tower…but that assumes there’s a hatch in the ceiling, AND that means I don’t have the spell haste for when we need it.”

Kara “Earth elementals can make hatches, or tunnels.” She turns to Sephira: “We may be an irritant to the leader here. Surely just staying near could make them come out on their own.”

Sephira - “That is possible. At this point I think we’re better off waiting. Let’s split up, one group to the house nearest the entrance, and one to the house nearest the trail out of here. Kedri, you’ll need to scout.” Kedri growls. “I’ll buy you a fish next time we’re near the water.” Sephira replies. Kedri drifts off toward the way they came in, grumbling.

You’re able to convince the locals to let you bed down there for the night. They look pretty reluctant to do so, but the fact that you butchered the giant snake without breaking a sweat and make Leith (the sorceress) run away is a feather in your cap as far as they’re concerned.

You’re walking through the woods (possibly the Hornwood, although on this side of the river, who knows?) back to the town of Hornwood, where, just yesterday, you murdered a pair of cyclopes who were going to have a romantic/lusty picnic. Since the town had a clear view of the anarchy this caused amongst the sheep, and also cause of the murdering and the grass fire. And then you took the dead giants’ stuff and ran away! The cyclopes may or may not have chased you, but you had a seven minute head start, and they probably got distracted by the sheep (cause them sheeps are worth money!)

Backstory: when you were attacking Oytmeet with Team Elf, one of the people who got rescued was a guy named Jack. He said he’s from the town of Hornwood, and that there are a bunch of cyclopes there, too strong for the locals to fight. He accompanied you back to Alzak Fortress, where Erihild and Brother Beast are from. The powers that be at Alzak have asked you to speak in front of the council of elders about the giants, cause there area growing number of dwarves who are tired of the internecine politicking between Alzak and Fireforge about who gets to be the next king, when there are giants ruling the lowlands. How can the dwarves stay out of this while the humans are doing all the work? Where is the dwarves’ honor?

But since dwarves move slowly, the party had a like a week to kill before the council wanted to see them, and so you followed Jack out to Hornwood to see what he’s talking about. You met him and his boss, a guy named Batral, who kind of described the problem to you. One thing you’re noticed is that both of them are very good about appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the woods.

And so you’re walking!

The party is still far enough in the woods that the only thing that they can see through the trees is a couple of torchlights.

Beldren - “Hmm, I wonder if that’s enough work before our trip back to Alzak. We could probably fit one more raid in before we go, though.”

Beast, no longer bearish, shakes his head “No time for it, unless we can take the road. If we raid, maybe the road won’t be best. Might be we should leave time for travel.”

Erihild, thinking of the soft bed at her parent’s house more than anything else- “We just have to sneak through town if we’re going to take the road.”

The road is on the other side of the river, which does mean crossing somehow. The last bridge that you know of is the one you took due north of Alzak Fortress, which means you would have to walk halfway home to cross any place but Hornwood.

Beldren - “Well, sounds like we should plan our way back through Hornwoood since the road is our best bet.”

Erihild, who doesn’t actually like fighting that much- “Ugh. I’d rather walk on this side of the river.”

Brother Beast shrugs “Doesn’t matter either way. I can guide through the woods. Might need the humans’ help to cross here tho.”

Erihild- “Beldren? You’re in charge, right? Are we crossing now or walking on this side?”

Beldren - “We can walk on this side. We have enough time. Let’s camp here until morning and then get moving.”

Erihild- “Oh thank Moradin.” She flops down immediately, drops her pack, and gets her bed roll out, probably faster than anything else you’ve seen her do.

Tex, uncharacteristically quiet, sets Skelly III to Guard.

Now really the morning of Day 179:

About six hours later, the sun dawns, and you are all unattached by cyclopes. You can still barely make out Hornwood through the trees. Aside from the impression of a bit more activity than yesterday, it doesn’t look like they’re doing particularly abnormal.

Erhild concentrates on spells for a few minutes, primps a bit, and then packs up her stuff.

Beldren - “Ready when you are, Brother Beast.”

Brother Beast pats Da Bear, and leads the way through the woods. He tried to not lose anyone, except possibly Tex.

Well, it doesn’t work. None of you move fast enough to get a way from Tex, and she can ride Skelly like some kind of of horror-show carnival horse. Thing.

You’re walking along, the river to your left, the steep slope to the mountains to your right, when…. Jack pops out from behind a tree about 50’ ahead of you.

Jack- “Hey! What are you doing? I thought you were going to help us with the giants.”

Beldren - “We are, but we have an appointment in Alzak. We’ll return once that is complete. It’ll be enough time for them to let down their guard again before our next attack.”

Jack- “You what!? You promised us that you would clear out the cyclopes! You…you…” He looks like he just can’t even, so flabbergasted by this response. In a huff, he steps back behind the same tree and…disappears.

But! Erihild happens to be standing in just the right spot. “Hey! He turned into a rat!”

Brother Beast growls a bit. “Well. That explains much.”

Erihild- “That’s disgusting. Wait. The other one, Batral, he appeared like Jack, do you think they can both turn into rats?”

Beldren - “Is that concerning? I assume they must be druids.”

Brother Beast shrugs. “May be, may not. Maybe were-rats.”

Beldren - “Oh. Right. I guess I forgot about those.” He considers for a moment. “Do were creatures tend to be evil?”

Beast nods. “Yah, except were-bears.”

Erihild agrees, nodding vigorously. “Mmm-hhmmm.”

Beast scratches his head “Maybe we end up not killing just the giants. Definitely need to not let anyone bite us.”

Tikk - “It’ll be weird to kill someone smaller than I am for once.”

Beldren - “We’ll definitely have to be careful in our dealings with the villagers from now on. What are the chances the whole village is were-rats?”

Erihild’s jaw drops. “How many villagers are there? Do we even know?”

Beast sighs “If any of them are hiding as rats, then no.”

Beldren - “Oh dear. Well, perhaps it is just as well we’re leaving for a while.”

Beast nods “Yah.”

Beldren - “Better get moving, then.”

Erihild- “Yeah, the last thing we need is for a swarm of them to follow us all the way home.” She starts walking at the brisk pace of someone who just saw something gross.

And so you spent the rest of days 179 and 180 walking along the river, and camp the night of Day 180 near the footbridge. Beldren does espy a place that would be pretty decent for a stone bridge, but the river is still over 150’ wide at that point, so it would take him a bit of doing to stone shape a bridge out that far. It’s maybe half a day from the existing footbridge.

Then it’s a hard right turn into the mountains, and thus Days 181  and 182 are spent hiking uphill, mostly. The afternoon of day 182, you arrive at home: the gates of Alzak Keep.

The guards challenge you, as normal, get grossed out by Skelly, as normal, and say that Skellly must to sit behind a rock where no one can see him, as normal. Tex grumbles about this, but she needs to scribe some spells into her book, and so puts up with it this time.

You have until tomorrow morning to do whatever you want, and then you all are expected to say persuasive things to the fortress elders.

Erihild says she’s going to sell this wand of cat’s grace that you all found, cause she’ll never wind up using it. Also probably also her darkwood shield, cause she wants to get back into her snowflake wardance lessons again.

She sells the onyx and splits the proceeds, so 20 gp to everyone.

Beldren and Erihild, while out shopping hear some very interesting information: first, that group of foreign adventurers who had said they’d gone to go clear out the fortress of a frost giant Jarl are in town, because….their tiefling paladin got killed! And then reincarnated as a human woman!

Beldren is concerned that Kochevnik died, but glad he was able to be reincarnated. Beldren decides to see if he can check in on Kochevnik and see how she’s doing.

Kochevnik has been splitting her time going to various dwarven deity temples (mostly Moradin), to pay her respects for the dwarves’ hospitality. And clothes shopping, cause none of her old stuff fits, what with being like eight inches shorter and 80 lbs lighter than before. She tells Beldren it’ll take a lot of getting used to.

Beldren is glad to see she’s doing well and wishes her good luck on her adjustment.

Kochevnik likewise wishes them well on their fight against the cyclopes; she doesn’t know if she’s going to stay in the region at this point, although she still owes Katreana like 10 months of service for saving her life a long time back.

Erhild goes shopping!

Beldren asks the party if anyone wants to chip in toward a folding boat. He can put 5k toward it.

Erhild says she’ll throw in 1000 gp, most of the proceeds from the wand. She is oddly giggly to be part owner of a boat.

Tikk - ‘I’m tired of this &%)$*&% puddle of water getting in the way of me killing giants. I can cover the last 1200 gold.”

Beldren happily goes to buy himself a box!

Erihild- “Ooooh, sorry, there’s something else I want to buy, can I have 500 gp back?”

Beldren says “Sure, I've got some extra still.”

Erihild, completely unapologetic at this faux pax- “Great!” And off she flounces to get…something. She eventually returns with a neat little badge, worn around her neck.

There was evening, there was morning, and that morning is the morning of day 178. The light of morning peeks through some of the small windows in the cellar, and fairly soon you all can hear the thuds of lots of feet on the ground floor as the morning breakfast rush passes through. It lasts over an hour, and tough luck, you have to wait until most of those laborers have gone on their ways for someone to head downstairs.

The first person is Otta, the large, jolly, motherly innkeep, who again has a platter of food (porridge and various meats) for breakfast. She’s followed by two people: the kitchen boy, who has mugs of beer, and an old, wiry, grey-haired woman with one sleeve empty where her arm should be.

Otta and the kitchen boy bustle about setting up the table, and then depart.

Rogue comes down for breakfast pretty early.  Giving Otta a wave before she heads out, and quietly enjoys breakfast waiting on the rest.

Once everyone is seated, the old lady says- “Well, well, I’m very glad to see you. I’m Landrya, a local herbalist and healer. You all are….?”

Rogue, “I am Collar Rogue.”

Snaga, “Snaga.”

“Mav,” Mav says as she knits. She has a calm, grandmotherly smile on her face and looks almost harmless.

Alpharius nods to Landrya and says nothing.

Grenda  (currently an elf, or so it appears)- “Grenda Sunrager, Favored Soul of Pelor. I noticed the temple on the way in, are you all able to maintain it or are you forbidden?”

Navus- “I’m Navus, and this is Kusab.”

Landrya answers Grenda first- “Oh are you? So long as no one casts any spells the giants let Torm- he’s a cleric- act as a pious lay man. They would kill him if they knew he really was a cleric.”

Grenda - “Good to hear, at least you’ve been able to keep some magical support.”

Landrya- “We can get away with quite a lot, as long as the giants don’t hear about it.” She smirks. “So who sent you here? What news can you bring from the rest of Geoff?”

Rogue, “we are more self dispatched at this point.  We recently helped to liberate the village of Oytmeet.  We brought some villagers from this town back here so they could be home with their family and now are working to see what we can do to end the giant's control here.  It is going to be more of a guerilla effort than a straight fight with them though.”



Landrya nods thoughtfully as Rogue tells her this.

Grenda - “It also seems that other independent bands of hired adventurers like our have made headway elsewhere, like in the town of Preston. We don’t know many details, though. We were with one such band until we split before coming here, I believe they went to Hornwood.”

Landrya- “Hmmm, but Geoff isn’t mounting a general offensive yet.”

Rogue, “Not that I am aware of.  We left there to conduct hit and run missions and do what we can to disrupt the giants.”

Landrya nods. “I take it then that you are the reason the giants are worried about a missing caravan? It was due back a few days ago.”

Rogue, “We chased down some Orc’s that were coming here to report what was going on in Oytmeet.  We killed them to ensure that the giant’s here didn't learn of the town's freedom.  We are hoping that will keep the town safe for some time.  There was not a single adult male Orc or giant left in Oytmeet when we left.”

Landrya- “Wow. What of the women and children?”

Rogue waves to Snaga, “she is part of the group that was there.  They helped us save the town.”

Snaga nods slightly but continues to remain quiet.  She looks nervous at this point.

Navus- “Apparently a mongelman passed through some years ago and all the orc women rejected the orcish gods and converted to the worship of Meriadar. They want to live in peace, unbothered by giants or humans.”

Landrya seems fascinated. “Really? That is…well, I have no words.” She pauses for a moment.. “Starting a guerilla war here is a complicated idea. As long as we behave and work hard, and, frankly, produce a lot of babies, the giants don’t bother us. We know we have it much better here than many other places, so there are plenty of people living here who would rather not rock the boat and just wait to be rescued.”

Rogue shakes his head slowly, “I don’t agree with that thought, but I understand.  We will work hard to make it clear that we are attacking from outside the village and not part of your town…”  He takes on a thoughtful look, “produce a lot of babies?”  A worried look on his face.

Landrya shrugs- “More babies now equals more workers in 15 years. That’s how the giants see it. Those with large families get extra food. The fire giants are not as savage as other breeds of giants, although they are still evil.”
Rogue, “Ok, any information you have would help.  Right now we are planning to remove the trolls, though we are also going to watch for supply convoy’s coming to and from the town and destroy them.  After that we are going to start seeing what we can do about picking off the giants.  At the same time watching for them to send messengers for help.  Good chance this ends with the fire giants setting an ambush for us at some point.”

Landrya considers this. She stares at the ceiling and looks like she would be drumming the fingers of her left hand, if she had one. “Shifting the blame to the elves will help keep the town quiet, and reinforces what the giants already believe, that is true. And killing off the trolls will add a lot of pressure to the giants…and the giants know the townsfolk can’t kill the trolls, so they won’t be blamed. It’s worth a try.”

Rogue, “I think that is a good plan.  It might get the elves to do a little more as well.”

Landrya looks at Rogue oddly all of a sudden- “Are you from around here? You sound like it.”

Rogue, “I was.  I had a disagreement with my family and the way they believe things should be done.  I came back to help them, and found our village destroyed and thought they were dead.  Finding that some have survived makes me happy, but doesn’t resolve our issues.  They will survive if the giants think they are to blame for everything we do.  There is plenty of land for them to run too.”

Landrya nods. “Families are tough, and you’re right, there is plenty of land. Well, I will spread the word to a few people what you’re up to, but I’ll keep it on a need-to-know basis, so don’t assume every human you talk to knows you’re here or what you’re doing. Oh, I’m sure you’ve been told, but…huh…every single one of you would be killed by a giant on sight. So either stay indoors during the day or disguise yourselves, if you must be out.”

Grenda - “Are all the townspeople human?”

Landrya- “The vast majority. Elves and dwarves being traditional giantish foes, and gnomes being considered tasty morsels, they are normally killed on sight. Navus may be able to get away with walking around if he covers his ears” - Navus is very burly for a half-elf and only his sharp features betray his half-elvenness- “ but the giants have a hard time telling most of us apart, to be honest.”

Grenda - “And do the giants have any human size creatures with them?”

Landrya- “There is the occasional orc or hobgoblin that wanders through. The humans tend to give them a wide berth, though. They don’t get bothered by the giants.”

Rogue, “we might come to you for supplies from time to time, the rest of the time we will camp outside of the town and only send someone in at night.  If you are ok with it, every four days we will send one of us in at night.  They will meet you here an hour or two after sunset. That way it is less likely for the giants to see us.  If there are giants or patrols near your inn at that time we will not come and will instead wait till the next four day.”

Landrya- “That’s fine. The giants won’t start having someone on patrol until you deal with the trolls, I reckon, so before then as long as you stay out of sight you should be fine. I’ll keep you appraised of what the latest rumors are. There are a few people who talk to a couple of the giants regularly, and we can tell them apart fairly easily.”

Rogue, “Thank you.  Do you know how many Tolls there are, or a rough guess?”

Landrya- “About ten. At night three of them have to be on guard duty at the moat crossings, and three of them are juveniles. Just as evil as their parents, so don’t worry about killing them. They live in a troll hole on the west side of the artificial hill under the castle. So there won’t be more than four out at night.”

Rogue, “We will work at getting rid of as many as we can.  Do you know when the next supply convoy is set to leave or arrive?”

Landrya chuckles dryly. “Ha, not now that a caravan has gone missing. Once your handiwork is found the giants will take a few days to figure out what they want to do.”

Rouge, “Ok.  Are we good to hide here for the day and leave once it is dark again?”

Navus- “Everyone except you and Mav- and Kusab” who is not paying any attention at all and is stretched out luxuriating in front of the fire “could walk around town a bit.”

Landrya- “Just don’t take your weapons. That will also get you executed.”

Rogue shudders slightly, “if you want to Navus, or anyone else that wants to.  I am going to sleep as much as I can.  With the trolls I think we are going to have to work at night mostly.”

“I agree with our grumpy leader,” Mav says.
Chri
Grenda - “I have the other hat of disguise, if anyone wants to use it.” She holds it up to the group.

Snaga, “I think I am ok right now.  I will hold off on searching around.”

Grenda - “I think I’m going to visit the priest, so I’ll switch to human.” She concentrates for a moment, and her appearance switches from generic elf to generic human.

Navus- “Yeah, I’m happy waiting until nightfall.”

Landrya looks impressed- “That comes in quite handy, I’ll bet.”

Grenda - “Indeed. I’m not actually human either, so I have to use it a lot.”

Landrya looks curious, but doesn’t press. “Well if you want an introduction to Torm, I’m more than happy to take you over there.” She finishes her drink.

Since everyone else is going to be a boring basement dweller and probably play World of Warcraft the whole day, Landrya takes Grenda upstairs and through the main portion of the bar. There aren’t a lot of patrons immediately after breakfast, and so only a couple of people look at Grenda curiously.

Rogue works with Landrya and the staff to get supplies to last the party a few weeks in case they cannot make it back in the four day time frame.

Landrya, before she leaves, says she’ll put the word out.

Landrya and Grenda head outside and cross the road. Grenada notices that the town, for the most part, at least as far as she can see, looks essentially normal. There aren’t any giants in sight presently, and the people look like commoners everywhere else in the world. There are one or two buildings that even now, eight years after the invasion, have obvious repairs or haven’t been repaired, but that is really the only sign of abnormality.

The Temple of Pelor is one of the slightly damaged buildings, but it is liveable, and the front door is open to the sunshine, as one would expect.

Landrya calls- “Torm, are you here?”

A voice from the back of the temple- “Yes, just a moment!”

A moment later an old man walks out to the front. He’s pretty spry, but definitely looks his age, and has the shaved bald head often found on older Pelorian clerics. “Hello, Landrya, and who do we have here?”

Grenda bows. “Greetings, I am Grenda, also a… follower of Pelor. I saw the temple when we entered town, and wanted to offer my services if you have any need. And I wouldn’t mind some time to meditate in the sun room if it is available.”

Torm starts to say something, gets a half-smile on his face and says, “Do come in, both of you, it sounds like we have much to discuss!” He ushers them into the temple and closes the doors (which to a keen observer of Pelorian Temples, would notice this is odd, during daylight.)

Torm turns around when the doors are shut- “ ‘we?’ ‘when you entered town?’ Am I inferring correctly what you are implying?”

Grenda smiles - “Most likely. You may soon be hearing rumors of elven raiders harassing your occupiers.”

Torm smiles broadly, although Grenda can tell that he is also working quickly through a whole lot of the implications of people from the outside suddenly appearing in town. “That is good news indeed, he says. Where did you come from?”

Grenda - “My group came from all over, but most recently from Geoff. I’m from south of the mountains, myself. I’m a favored souls, so if you have need of magical support, please feel free to call on me anytime.”

Torm- “Oh, a favored soul, I haven’t met one of Pelor before.” He is fairly bad at keeping a poker face; she can tell he won’t say anything bad about Pelor’s choices, but he also doesn’t have much patience for such newfangled developments like “favored souls.”

Grenda - “It does seem that he has enough clerics that he doesn’t feel the need to call many of us. But Pelor is not worshiped where I am from, so perhaps that is why. It’s certainly an…. experience, being called quite that way.”

Torm nods. “It certainly is. Yes, you are more than welcome here any time.” He drops his voice, even though there are clearly no fire giants hiding under the pews listening. “We must pretend to be pious lay persons, so be sure to keep you talents a secret for the time being.”

Grenda, quietly- “Yes, Landyra mentioned that the giants would kill anyone with magic the moment they knew. But I wanted to make sure you were aware that I am available, especially if the giants start to take out their frustrations at the outside troubles on any of the townspeople.”

Torm- “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that for a long time yet. But thank you, I would certainly need your help. You and…whoever else arrived with you… are more than welcome to stay here if you need. There is more to the temple than the worship hall.”

Grenda - “Thank you, we will definitely keep that in mind. Speaking of, would you mind guiding me to the sun room? It’s been a long time since I’ve done a good sun soak.”

Torm- “Of course! Follow me.” He leads her to a room obviously designed for maximum sunlight and brightness, and leaves her to her meditations.

Landrya- “Grenda, I’m headed back to my barber and apothecary shop.”

Grenda - “Sounds good, I’ll only be an hour or two before rejoining the others.”
~Wun ouer latier~

Once Grenda is done tanning, she returns to the Firelog Inn. When she heads to the basement, the others hear her sigh. “It’s both a relief and a sadness to be out of the sun. Being nocturnal has proven useful for this mission, but it does make me miss the sun…”

Rogue looks to Grenda, “the more time we spend working at night now, the sooner this hopefully is all done.  Then you can be in the sun more and do better things with your magic.”

Grenda smiles at Rogue - “Don’t worry, the sun doesn’t always love me either, so it’s not all bad.” She inspects her arms for sunburns, using a cure minor wound of two on herself.

Rogue is able to secure supplies (at least food, if anyone has weapons they’re not willing to admit it) for four days for everyone, but at this point no one is willing to give up more than that.

Rogue gives over fifty gold for the supplies.

This raises some eyebrows, and Rogue learns that the fire giants don’t allow the humans to keep gold. They keep it for later, though.

And that’s all you can do during daylight on Day 178, except for Alpharius, who got shanghaied into a bardic performance in the evening.. Once it gets dark……

Actually, once it’s nearly midnight and the town is basically asleep, you head out to go troll hunting. The party weaves through the side streets and heads north. The castle looms off to your right, and there are a few torches.

Rogue and Navus both notice that there is only one fire giant on guard on this side of the castle, in one of the towers (currently the northernmost tower).

The party sneaks through some fields, hops the moat, and is back among the vast wheat (or whatever) fields that used to be the Hornwood forest.
 
Rogue moves the party towards where he saw things moving in the night when they first came into the town.  Looking around to see if he can find out what it was, and if it is there again.

Grenda figures the best thing to do would be to watch the north gate of the moat, cause that’s the closest one to the trolls’ lair, and they’re not bright enough to use game theory to vary their patrols randomly. She suggests such to the party.

That also happens to be in the direction where Rogue say movement a couple nights ago…although you are as well.

Navus agrees with Grenda’s suggestion. “Definitely worth a try.”

Rogue, “Lets go and everyone keep watch closely to see if they find anything.”

The Celestial sneers at Niobe, “You are no better than him.”  he points over her shoulder, where they can see Talon walking up.  At first he appears to be rather close, then on second look they notice that instead he must be close to twenty feet tall and appears to be shrinking down to normal size as he walks towards them.  It makes it appear as almost if he is walking in place.  The Celestial continues, “we did not ask for your help, all you did is prevent the petitioners at this level from serving penance to clean their souls of their past crimes.”

Niobe, not knowing quite how to take this, snaps her fingers and both her sword and spear disappear into her gloves of storing. “What?”

Derek, speaking lightly. “Ah, how unfortunate. We weren’t aware that the demons coming through the portal were petitioners.”

The Celestial waives his hand to indicate a portion of the mountain behind him, “this level of the mountain belongs to the Petitioners, they must make up for their sins and prove they are worthy to advance to higher levels.  Fending off these demons would have done much, or they would have died, either way it was their place to deal with it.  The demons would have had much worse on their hands if they actually made it to the next level.”  Looking at Niobe, “you have yet to even start your penance to make up for your past life.  A mistake is all that leads you down the life you think you lead.”

Brak, who feels no need to make friends with someone from Mount Celestia- “I dropped a wand in the sand before the fight, they can go pick it up for their penance. Also, petitioners against Balors and Graz’zt himself? Were you trying to get them all killed? Again?”

Leroy joins the group and say “Either fight to save ye soul or die? Sounds a bit hash me thinks.” He says looking at the Celestial.

The Celestial shrugs at Brak, “they live or die, it is the order of things.”

Niobe- “Yes, it was a mistake to put that helm on my head, but I have become a much better person for it. Why would you complain?”

Talon walks up next to the party and looks to the celestial, head cocked slight to the side.

Celestial just snorts.

Derek addresses Talon “I hope our performance was satisfactory. May we go now?”

All of this only confirms Brak’s personal beliefs that most Lawful Good beings are not all they’re cracked up to be, and that not worshipping any gods is the way to go. He decides to ignore the celestial.

Talon looks to Derek, “I appreciate your help, it prevented things from going worse here, and ensured other things happen in your favor as much as those of the people living here.”  Looking back to the Celestial, “we will leave your land, unless you plan on doing something about us being here.”

Brak- “I’m a big fan of leaving.”

Leroy raises his hand “me is for leaving as well.”

The Celestial waves his hand angrily at Talon, “always putting your nose where you are not wanted.  Leave.”  Then spreading his wings flies off.

Talon, “ready?” he asks, looking at the party.

Niobe, still more than nonplussed, says nothing.

Eli places a comforting hand on Niobe's shoulder and whispers, “I don’t think what he said truly matters in the long run.”

Brak- “Yeah, let’s go. You have a history of irritating these guys? You just went up like four notches in my book.”

Talon, “I have a history annoying a lot of people.”  Holding a hand out, bring it in close and we can leave.

The team assembles close to Talon.

<Insert plane shifting sound here!>

The party arrives in the hall a second later.  Tinyra, Akara and some others that they recognize and others they are around the large room.  Some are healed, others just have discussions.  The room is rather loud with discussions at this moment.

Tinyra walks to the group and approaches Niobe offering a hug, “I would like to thank you for saving me, Though it has been a long time.”

Niobe, pretty distracted, returns the hug. “You’re welcome. Try not to get any balor guts on you, I’m covered.”

Leroy jokingly says to himself with sarcasm “where be me hug?”

Tinyra gives Leroy a glare, and then goes around giving hugs to the rest of the party, “I want to thank you all.  It has been a pleasure traveling with most of you.  And I have learned a lot more,”  Then back to Niobe, “I have enough demon guts on me from everything else, I will get cleaned up after this.”

Leroy chuckles at Tinyra for the look.

Derek makes sure to not mention their pre-battle discussion of whether to kill her if she attacked.

Clifford bounds up to Tinyra and says “I definitely didn’t notice you taking stuff from Grazz…. Whatever his name was. What was it, anyway?”

Tinyra holds up a hand showing Clifford a ring, “this is a ring of wishes, I have used two of the three that are on it.  Once got me out of there before you all killed the balors, the other wished got me away from a temple that might have killed me once they found out who I really was, unfortunately the result of that wish was my marriage to Leroy.”

Clifford nods. “Oooh, neat.”

Leroy just smiles a bit “so that’s where our wishes combined into a happy little mistake me sees. What will ye third wish be lass?” He asks.

Tinyra, “Not something I will discuss with you, or no chance of making that wish around you.”

Brak gives Tinyrea a firm handshake, cause he’s never been close, wishes her good luck.

As the parting talks with Tinyra they all start to feel a weird sensation in their chests.

Leroy grabs his chest, “ugh, this hurts.” and drops to one knee.

Brak sits down on the nearest goblin-sized chair.

Eli gives Leroy a raises eyebrow, but rubs his chest slightly, “this might not be good.”

Niobe looks to Talon- “What’s happening?”

Clifford crouches down, giving a little doggy groan. “I vote time sickness!”

Talon, “I am assuming you are about to be pulled back in time.  You were only half way through your journey.  But that is a guess based on the discussion we have had.”

Brak- “Lets get back to the…”

Just as Brak finishes his comment the party sees a bright flash of light and they find themselves in the same room.  Someone they don’t recognize stands there and blinks at them as they arrive then shouts an alarm, “invaders.  We have invaders.”  Taking off to call for more assistance.

Derek shouts after him “We’re really not. Could you tell us when we are, please?”

Leroy stands up and gives a big ugh sound “me fuckin hates time travel right now.”

Brak- “Yeah, I’m happy to never deal with it again.”

Niobe shouts after the fleeing person as well- “Nope! Wait! Stop!”

Everyone gets a sensation that they should open the notes they were given prior to their start of this adventure.  The fleeing person continues to flee.

Leroy pulls his note out and opens it begins to read it.

Derek retrieves his note and unfolds it to read.

Failing at stopping the running guy, Niobe opens her note.

Brak opens his as well.

Clifford disappears for a moment to grab his from the tree he left it at. He pops back in before opening it.

Niobe
           There is a prophecy concerning you.  The prophecy was miss interpreted to mean that you would serve an evil god.  In order to prevent that from happening the god Athena placed a certain helm in your path.  She worked to ensure that you would come across it in order to force you away from the path that the Olympian Pantheon thought you were on.
 
                                                                       Talon

Also in the note is one of the Eyes of Vecna, with a tag saying “attempt to take care of this, though expect that you will lose it at some point.”
 
 
Derek
 
           Your mother and father still live.  You are being hunted by them and your assassin’s guild.  The guild believes it was a plot between you and your family to get your education for free.  Each of your parents wants to use you against the other and they are still in a fight to end each other.  Though they are trying to do it from hiding as they continue to also be hunted by your assassin’s guild.
 
                                                                       Talon

Brak
 
           Acheron Warlord is not out of your reach, you must find faithful lieutenants to build an army from the prime plane before you start working in the Acheron plane, chaos alone will not serve you along this path.  Search out your immortality before you start building your armies.
 
                                                                       Talon

 
Eli
 
           An Elan leader purposefully interfered with your transformation to Elan.  You were not supposed to survive the transformation.  He is part of a group of Elans that still want you dead.
 
                                                                       Talon
 
Eli sits down and blinks a few times before putting his note back away.
 
Clifford
 
           Be careful, you are a thorn in the side of plans you don’t know exist yet.  Being pulled from the pocket dimension into this world you have created enemies without knowing or planning to.  Stick close to those you know you can trust, and you will ensure their plans do not end you.
 
                                                                       Talon
Arvin
 
           Your family and village now belong to Davy Jones.  He took the village because of your association with Leroy.  Your family lives, and you can still save them.
 
                                                                       Talon



Derek’s face twists in fury as he reads. He folds his note back up, sticks it in his pocket, and mutters angrily. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” He’s not really sure who he’s angriest at.

Clifford - “I like mine, it says I should stay with all of you. Also, I could take everyone to my pocket dimension and then pretend to be a regular dog here to see what’s up if you like.”

Niobe sighs. “This thing again.” Without touching the Eye, she shows it to the rest of the party. “We have the Eye to take care of for awhile.”

Leroy folds his note into his pocket and reflects on it.

Eli looks at Derek, “are you alright?” in a low whisper.

Derek takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I’m fine, thank you, Master Eli. I’ve just been informed that there are some …unexpected people I may have to kill.”

Eli, “I think my note gave me the same kind of information.  Doesn’t seem like anyone really got good information from their notes.”

Brak puts his note away without saying anything, and smirks nastily, at least until he sees the Eye. “Again.”

Arvin goes pale and silent. Then she lunges at Leroy. “You bastard.”

Leroy sees Arvin and throws a punch at her.

Boots attempts to grab Lero by the leg.

Leroy attempts to dodge boots with Arvin lunging and going after boots.

Niobe has busied herself with storing the Eye in her left glove, so doesn’t notice the fistfight for the first couple of seconds. “Whoa whoa whoa!”

Clifford - “Okay that’s it” Clifford starts grabbing each person, teleporting them to his dimension, and leaving them there, in order of whoever is closest first.

“I was a bystander, until you pulled out that map, you selfish, reckless-” Arvin shoves her note at Niobe, then bursts into tears.

Eli is now in the pocket dimension.

Niobe reads the note. “Leroy!”

“What in the bloody hell she be talkin about or yeself Lass?!” Leroy shouts at the group. Boots is still trying to grab his leg, but luckily also not trying to bite it off.

Brak is in the pocket dimension.

Brak takes a moment to discern his location. “Huh, this place is nice.” He prepares to plane shift back unless Clifford shows up explaining himself.

Clifford grabs Boots, and teleports everyone attached to him (Leroy and Arvin)

As the party is attempting to get through their notes and stop Arvin from killing Leroy, Talon comes walking into the room with the person they had seen originally. The person is gesturing frantically as Talon calmly says a few things and then the person leaves and Talon walks up to the party and just stands watching them for a second.

Clifford disappears with Niobe right as Talon walks in. He says, “Stay here, I’ll go see what’s up!”
----------------------
Niobe has to look around quickly to see where he is. She shouts at Leroy- “You got Arvin’s village taken by Davey Jones!”

Leroy becomes pale at the sounds of Davy Jones’ name. “Me would never do something like this or partake in that, it was pure accident Niobe.” Shouting back at her.

Niobe shoves the note at Leroy. “Well, you wanted our help to rescue your crew, and now you’re gonna have it!”

Leroy reads the note, becomes more angry after reading it. “THIS IS NOT HOW ME WANTED YOUR DAMN HELP! ME WILL FIX THIS!” He shoves the note back into Niobe’s chest, cursing as he leaves the open field.

Niobe, still covered in balor ichor laminate, sits down with Arvin and sighs. “Now we’re really going to have to go kick his ass.”

Derek, calmly. “I somehow feel that we would have had to anyway. Excuse me.” He follows after Leroy.

Brak, kind of enjoying the sunshine, even though it’s pretty bright- “Davey Jones, or Leroy?”

Eli, “both?”

“Go shopping on land, my mom said,” Arvin mutters, curled up next to Boots for comfort. “You don’t get out enough, she said. Live a little she said.”
-------------

Derek follows Leroy and watches him mope for a while.

Leroy shoots a glare at Derek and storms back and forth muttering to himself, cursing.

“Would it help to spar, Captain?” Derek asks

Leroy stops and ponders the question. He looks to Derek and pulls his cutlass out, “No killing blows, just taps on the shoulders for points, savvy?” he asks with anger in his tone still.

Derek draws his sword. “Flat of the blade, agreed.”

Leroy shows a wicked grin “Aye flat of the blade,” he raises to this face, “prepare yeself first mate.” and begins the duel.
—-----------
Clifford reappears by himself in the room, looking innocent.

Talon raises an eyebrow, “Ok,”  Cocking his head and waiting.

Cliffford - ‘Oh, it’s you. Uh, do you know who I am?”

Talon shakes his head, “I do not, I know the people you just took away though.  I have been looking for them for a while.”

Clifford looks relieved. “Oh good, I was worried you wouldn’t know who anyone is and like do something bad.”

Talon, “You seem to know me.  Care to explain, so that I don’t do something bad.”  He then moves and places both hands behind his back.

Clifford scratches his throat. “Weeeeell it’s a little complicated, we know you from the future, like a long time in the future? I’m not sure what I should and shouldn’t tell you. I think in this time the others just went to Wonderland? That’s why you’re looking for them?”

Talon, “I have been looking for them for two years.  They disappeared after helping a village of werewolves.  I am good with complicated things, please continue to explain.  Or bring them back so I can ask them and make sure they are not being kidnapped by a dog.”

Clifford - “Oh, in Ravenloft? Like when you first met them? Hmm maybe I do need their help to sort out the timeline. And I should make sure they didn’t kill Leroy.”

Talon, “That was the first time I saw them, and the first time I saw you.  Doesn’t mean I know you.  I am not sure that the last part is a problem.”

Clifford - “I’ll be right back!” He poofs over to his dimension.

Talon nods.

—----

Clifford appears in the pocket dimension. “Hi, is everyone alive?”

“Unfortunately,” Arvin mutters.

Eli shrugs, “it is probably a close thing.”

Clifford goes over to Arvin and nudges her with his head, tilting it quizzically. She grabs him as much around the neck as she can and buries her face in his fur. “Davy Jones took my village.”

Clifford whines and then growls. “Imma eat him. Or burn him. Or both.”

Brak- “What is going on in the Hall?”

Clifford - “Oh, it was just Talon that came in. He recognized Niobe before I ported her over here, but doesn’t know me. He said he’d been looking for you guys for two years after meeting you at a werewolf village, which I thought must mean after we met him in Ravenloft but maybe there weren’t werewolves? I’m not sure.”

Niobe- “There was a village of werewolves that was the last normal place we were. It was on the Prime Material Plane, as far as I know. It was everyone but you and Brak at the time.”

Eli, “we touch a statue of a white rabbit.”

Clifford - “Okay, why don’t I take a few people back?” He looks at Arvin. “Then I’ll come back and sit with Arvin.” Arvin nods.

“Thank you.”

Niobe- “Yeah, take me back out, I’ll talk to Talon.”

Brak looks like he’s watching Leroy and Derek spar.

Clifford goes and puts his head on Niobe’s should and looks at Eli questioningly.

Eli nods. Clifford sticks out a paw to Eli and then ports them both back to the Hall.
----------------------------
As soon as they arrive, a light goes off in Niobe’s head. “Wait, did you say two years?”

Talon looks at Niobe, “yes Kochevnik.  It has been two years near as I can tell when you disappeared from a village full of werewolves that you helped save from some evil or another.”

Clifford pops back out, and goes to sit with Arvin. He might also chew Boot’s tail. Just a little. Boots allows it because he has good armor and Clifford is making Arvin feel better.

Niobe- “Wow. Oh, I go by Niobe these days, I use Kochevnik as a surname. It’s taken me a while to get used to being reincarnated as a woman. But either one works.”

Talon nods slowly, “I think there is a lot you need to tell me.”

Niobe- “I agree.” She launches into the story of falling into the Dungeonland, meeting Clifford and Brak, killing the load-bearing master of that world, finding themselves in Ravenloft and meeting Talon’s future associate Akara, fighting and killing Strahd, meeting future Talon and the kind of planes bending stuff he’s up to at that point, meeting past in the future Talon before he took the name,  finally getting to the future Hall of Shadows and then going off to fight Kyuss and his minions, and ending with their just-completed travel back to her, Derek, Eli, Leroy, and Arvin’s original time. She is not concerned with causality at this point, cause for all she knows, it’s this conversation that gets Talon pointed in that direction in the first place. Also she mentions the Eyes and the Hand.

Eli helps fill in some details while they discuss their travels.

Talon narrows his eyes slightly but doesn’t seem surprised, “I would ask that you not be as open about that to others as you were with me.”

Niobe- “You mean all of your associates? Sure.”

Talon, “not just them, but most people.  You know more about my plans than anyone at this point.”

Niobe shrugs. “Being a paladin means I must be honest, not that I have to say anything.”

Talon nods, “Now, especially after those notes I am sure you have more questions for me.  Some things I have found in my search for you, others I don’t know yet.  I will continue my search for you for the next few hundred years.”

------------------------
Clifford eventually pops back in to check on the conversation, then gathers the others to return to the Hall. He asks Arvin if she'd like to stay here, and offers to show her to the big river/pond.

She says yes please. She’s not up for more time travel shenanigans right now.

Derek and Leroy eventually finish their spar, and rejoin the others, when Clifford comes to collect them.

Clifford brings Derek, Leroy, and Brak back, and sits to watch to see if he’s needed.

Talon reaches into his cloak and pulls something out, holding it in his closed, “follow me, we can find somewhere to take a seat and talk more.”  Then leads the group to what looks like it could be a conference room.

When Brak gets back he spends a few moments looking at Talon. “You look younger.”

Derek nods to Talon “So, when are we? Your acolyte ran before we could get an answer from him.”

Leroy just stares at Talon but doesn’t say anything, he walks from the group to get a tankard of ale to drink. He finally comes back with two tankards.

Niobe- “Apparently two years after we first met and went to that lighthouse in Shibboleth.”

Derek looks surprised “Only two years? That’s not bad at all.” Then he mutters “No wonder they’re after me, I haven’t paid my guild dues either.”

Leroy looks to Derek “how much would your dues be first mate?” as he drinks his ale.

Derek ponders “With interest and penalties for late payment? I’d have to calculate. Certainly not more than I have available. I’m not that far out of training. Technically.”

Talon nods to Brak, “seeing how you last saw me fifty years from now I guess I do.  Yes it has been about two years since you disappeared from the werewolf village.”  speaking to Derek, then looking slowly over the group, “now I am aware that I will give you all notes that come back with you.  I am sure there are questions you have involving those notes and things that have happened since you disappeared.  Please ask and I will answer the best I can.”

Derek jolts as he remembers “Ah, before that, Master Talon.” He gets up, walks over to Talon, and hands him the Deck of Many Things. “You paid us for this in the future, and told us to give it to… you…  so this completes the transaction.”

Talon nods and takes the deck and places it in his cloak, “thank you.  I will find somewhere secure to keep this away from people.”

Derek “Please.” He returns to his seat.

Brak- “I’m fine, no questions from me.” He looks pretty pleased, actually.

Leroy pulls his note out again and reads it. “There be none from me.” he finishes his tankard of ale leaving the other tankard full on the table and then asks “Where be your room full of maps?”

Brak, his curiosity now piqued- “And what DOES your note  say, oh Admiral my Admiral?”

Leroy looks at Brak and says “be the commander of me own ship.”

Brak- “Have I mentioned that I’ll be your navigator? I have a spell and a psionic power that will be very helpful in pursuing Davey Jones.”

Leroy looks to Brak with heavy eyes “Aye, you did master Brak…” his voice tails off, “But we shall see.” again he asks Talon “Where be your room with maps of the world Master Talon.”

Derek  “I have no questions; mine was quite clear.” He looks disgruntled again, just thinking about it. “Though I suppose I should inform everyone else that my guild and… that my guild  is hunting me.”

Niobe-  “We can probably take them.”

Derek waves one hand dismissively. “I appreciate that, Mistress Niobe, but it’s a paperwork error, really. Entirely a matter of money on my part.”

Brak kind of also shrugs.

Talon, “Leroy you will have to wait a little while until you go to the maps.”  Looking to Derek, “I have had discussions with your guild, they are looking for your parents as well.  I have a few leads on that if you want to look over the notes we have about it.”

Derek flinches slightly. “I really don’t care.”

Clifford - “I have enemies! That I don’t know about! I’m excited.”

Talon looks at Clifford, “not sure that is something to be excited about.”

Leroy frowns at this news and sits back down at the table.

Clifford - “Enemies are fun to play with. And bite. Also the note didn’t say anything about them but that it has something to do with me coming to the prime material from Dungeonland. Oooh, maybe I should put some enemies in my pocket dimension to chase!”

Eli, “my note informed me that my transformation to Elan was purposefully botched in an attempt to kill me.  I would like to know more about that.”

Talon nods to Derek then looks to Eli, “I am afraid we don’t have anything about that.  The Elan or not much for sharing information with anyone we have been able to talk with.”

Niobe- “My note said that I was mistakenly prophesied to serve an evil god. I bet it has something to do with this”- she produces the Eye of Vecna from her left glove for a moment, and then puts it back- “and that the goddess Athena put me on the path I’m on today. Maybe I’ll go visit and thank her.”

Talon, “that might be a good place to start in trying to find the actual prophecy.  Not sure all the details, I did know that Athena was involved in you finding that helmet,  not the why before now.”

Niobe- “But more important in the short term-” now she brandishes Arvin’s note, and perhaps glances daggers at Leroy- “Arvin’s entire village has been claimed by Davey Jones because of her association with Leroy, inadvertent as it was.”

Leroy choler rises is in his chest and throws daggers at Niobe back and states “Me had no idea that would happen, nor was it me intention to have Arvin be brought along me trip once me opened the map.”

Derek rubs his eyebrow.  “I don’t fully recall the terms of your deal with Davey Jones, but none of that sounds like him abiding by the terms he set.”

Leroy takes a deep breath and slowly says “It not be part of his deal with me. Me deal is 1,000 GP per head of me father’s crew and proof that me has found the love of me life.” He doesnt even look at Niobe at this point “But me is gonna barter with him for an additional 5,000 GP per head instead of the love part and rescue them. Him takin the village just sounds like he is getting to me and wants his payment.”

Talon, “That is not your only problem, there is a Cleric of Vecna looking for you Leroy.  You apparently made a deal with Vecna to save your crew?”

Leroy sighs at this “Aye, at the time me was drunk findin a crew when the cleric showed up, me was desperate and then he stabbed me hand and had it printed on paper to serve that god without realizing what me was doing. So not totally me intentions to serve that god.”

Talon, “Davy Jones has been looking for you as well, I do not know Arvin beyond when I saw here with you during the battle in Ravenloft, but if that was her village he took it was probably because he has not been able to find Leroy for over two years.  He will continue to search and torment till he finds Leroy.  Not sure what it is about Leroy he wants, but it is not good.”

Clifford raises a paw. “Is Vecna being dead retroactive? Like, is he dead now even though we killed him in the future?”

Talon, “Vecna is very much alive and doing evil.”

Derek mutters “How irritating”

Leroy looks down at the table, “Then me needs to get to port, use the boat and set sail as soon as possible and fly me flag, that sure to bring Davey Jones to me.” He looks to Talon “He wants his payment, thats all me can think of.”

Clifford grins with very shiny, very sharp teeth. “I’ve got his payment right here.”

Leroy looks to Clifford “No, not that way, it will be with gold.” he throws a Tinyra glaring at himself look towards Niobe “And only gold.”

Niobe glances back, without daggers, but says nothing.

Derek runs his hand through his hair then makes a disgusted face at the shreds of balor jerky that he was apparently not out of range of. “You can pay for your father’s crew with gold, then he can pay for Arvin’s village with blood. It will be poetic.” He sounds like he’s discussing the weather.

Leroy looks to Derek. “Aye that be the case first mate, but you shall lead them to the village to take his crew, me must see Davey Jones alone. Once me makes the payment, me is afraid me will go to locker shortly after.”

Talon, “why are you paying him.  What makes you think he will give you what you want if you pay him any more then you would get what you want from Vecna.”

Leroy looks to Talon “Either way, me is a dead man to both of them. So best course would be pay Davey Jones, and then stab him like he stabbed me father. At least me will die on the seven seas that me loved sailin on as a lad.” he states with confidence.

Brak has also wandered off to the bar and returned with a pint, which looks like a gallon, in his hands.

Talon, “When you are ready to try and hunt for Davy Jones, there is a pirate ship called the Black Pearl you will want to hunt for.  It is also dealing with a curse that Davy Jones put on them.”

Leroy smiles a bit “Aye, me has heard of the ship, just never seen it in me life. They would be great help to me in this adventure.”

Derek rolls his eyes and mutters “The pattern is set, and can’t be changed, should have started out by asking for payment in advance.” He then speaks for everyone to hear. “Are we then done with the current inquiry? We all need a rest before taking action.” He mutters again “...and a bath.”

Talon, “you will have as much time and research you need.  Access to our facilities for now.”  He stands up and places a small hand full of little red crystals in the shape of skulls, “these are an offer.  Take one and join the Hall.  you will have permanent access to the hall and support we can give when you need it.  In return all I ask is help from time to time, but only for things that you are willing to help with.”

Leroy looks at the skulls, then decides not to grab a skull.

Eli picks one up, looking it over, then offers Talon a slight nod before putting it in his pocket.

Brak says- “I’ll have to think about it.”

Niobe does not take one, as she does not want be beholden to an organization that may ask her to do things she is not willing to do.

Derek “How likely is it to involve time travel?”

Talon, “Only if I need help figuring it out from you to ensure I can get you back here when the time comes.”

Derek maintains a neutral face “I must take some time to consider as well.”
Talon nods, “Take your time.”  Picks up the remaining skulls, “they are yours if you ever want them.”

Clifford grabs one happily. “More friends! Also I can just put everyone in my dimension and then bring everyone here that way.”

Conversation over, the party splits up to wash, rest, replenish spells, and whatever other personal maintenance needs doing.

Brak is going to hang out for at least four days getting high so he can learn a bunch of spells from his 15-volume set of Encyclopedia Magicka. Also, if anyone wants help quickly picking different feats they picked earlier and life and don’t like, for a small consideration, Brak can help you with that.

Leroy spends days in the confines of the books of the library looking up navigational charts and maps on how we will find the Black Pearl.

Niobe gets all her equipment dry-cleaned and spends her time in deep contemplation of what the angel on Mount Celestia said, and reads up on Athena’s domain in Arborea.

Arvin does stuff and things, maybe swaps out a feat or two, and avoids leroy for his own good

Eli gets a magic item created that will let him not daze himself when he enevates himself, he also works to trade out one of his feats for something that will help him be more effective.

Derek very professionally swallows his distaste (eventually, after a good night’s sleep or two) and gets whatever information Talon has on his parents’ movements, location, and associates, since it’s never a good idea to go after a target uninformed. He also sends a message to his guild to start negotiations for payment of his outstanding balances.

Talon offers Derek the use of a mediator to talk with the guild for him in order to prevent them from getting his location unnecessarily until he settles things with the guild.

 Derek accepts the assistance, since he’s not stupid enough to waltz in through the doors if they’ve actually put a hit out on him.

The party wakes up on a grey morning, sleeping under an overhang that is really meant for about four people, not five and a cat. Just a few yards to the northwest is a cataract, over which the river tumbles for a vertical drop of about 30’. The trail clearly zigzag’s its way up. It would be a fairly easy climb straight up as well, just not very fast.

Blank, “I have a rope of Climbing, Will make this pretty easy.”

Herzog doesn’t answer, cause he is busy meditating for spells.

Kara is watching the river, wondering whether the rain is likely to cause it to flood their current location. While she is able to tell that the river definitely can get much deeper, she doesn’t think that they’re in any danger of getting washed downriver soon. She then gives up staring and starts making tea using the personal oasis’s fire.

Sylaernae stands and stares off toward the sea, as elven archers are wont to do more often than you might think.

Herzog finishes meditating for his spells, and looks refreshed and ready for another day on the open road…er trail.

Kara hands around warm drinks.

Kedri sticks her face in Sylaernae’s drink.

He doesn’t seem to notice, and drinks it anyway.

Sephira drags herself out of bed, and thanks Kara for the drink. She munches some dates.

Once everyone is done with breakfast and the camp is put away, Kara straps on her hat and heads for the cliff.

Sylaernae takes up the rear.

Sephira rolls up the tent, having to remove Kedri from it several times to do so, and joins Kara.

Herzog follows behind Sephira.

Kedri, foiled in her attempt to get rolled up in the tent, jumps into the air and starts strafing the waterfall, just for the fun of it.

As the party collects near the bottom of the cliff….Herzog, Blank, and Kara hear some movement directly above them, Blank and Kara from four different places. Blank sees three humanoid creatures above them atop the cliff, arrows knocked, and drawing their bowstrings. Two of them look human, and the third one looks mostly human, but with a snake’s head.

Blank raises his hands slowly, whispering to himself, “where are my dwarven stepping stones when I need them.”  Then louder to the rest of the party, “We have some people pointing bows at us.”

Round 1! Ba na na na NA nanana NAAA naaaa

Sylernae, who missed them initially, is still the fastest to react! He whips out his bow and shoots at the one standing above the waterfall and across the river.

Sylaernae pegs the guy twice, who gets electrocuted from the two arrows and collapses where he stands. He spasmodically fires his bow as he dies, firing an arrow off into nowhere.

“Serves you right, attacking us like this.” Syl calls.

The yuan-ti fire, but you get more arrows from more directions than you thought, and a fourth one reveals himself in firing his bow. Blank takes two arrows, Kara snatches the one aimed at her out of the air, and Herzog takes the last one.

Blank charges up the hill as best he can, drawing his swords as soon as he gets to the top of the hill. It takes a bit of scrambling, but Blank gets to the top of the hill quickly. He sees that it is, indeed, one yuan-ti half-breed and three purebloods attacking them (although one is dead already).

Kara pulls out her own bow and returns her caught arrow to the yuan-ti… or tries anyway. Her arrows wiff right past him.

Syl takes the time to heckle “Good gods, do you even arrow, sis?”

Herzog grimaces through the pain of getting smacked by an arrow and casts a spell on himself. Then he gets moving up the hill, and makes it about halfway.

Sephira summons two spiders taller than she is, one on each side of the waterfall. They skitter the rest of the way up and start biting people. The one across the river looks like he got bit worse, but avoided the poison, with the one on this side of the river doing the opposite.

Round 2!

Syl shoots the other yuanti across the river. He fries that one even more adroitly than the first one. The second river-crossing yuan-ti screams, spasms, and dies horribly. “See? That’s how it’s done!” he gloats.

The two remaining yuan-ti both drop their bows, draw their scimitars, and start swinging. The strength-weakened pureblood can’t get through the spider’s carapace.

The halfbreed nearly gets a solid slash at Blank, but he dodges just in time and gets a mild nick for his trouble.

Blank returns the favor, swinging three times at the halfbreed in front of him.  Hitting twice with two Solid hits. The halfbreed looks pretty beat up, but is still standing.

Kara sighs and runs up the slope, putting away her bow. She scrambles easily up the slope.

Herzog also finishes scrambling up the slope, and gets just close enough to take one swing at the pureblood, which misses.

Sephira’s spider on the opposite side skitters around looking for another target. The spider is tragically unable to find anything delicious to eat.

The other one bites at the yuanti in front of it, but misses.

Sephira moves up the path and fires a magic missile at the one to her left.

She does just enough damage to knock the yuan-ti down, but it’s still conscious.

Round 3!

Syl yawns and shoots right past Blank’s ear at the half-blood yuan-ti. Once again, Syl kills a yuan-ti. It keels over and twitches a bit as the electricity courses through its body. Easy peasy, apparently.

“And that makes me the most valuable party member, this fight!” he says, smugly. He strolls casually toward the slope.

Blank sheaths his swords and looks down at the one dead in front of him, taking inventory of anything that looks valuable he might be able to slip away.

Kara speaks up “One remains alive but incapacitated.”

Herzog- “The yuan-ti are slavers, which is anathema to Fharlanghn. Let the spider kill him.” He steps out of the stream and kicks water off his boots.

Kara “If it has information, it may be of use for a moment.” She places the tip of her staff on its throat. “Sephira?”

Sephira calls out “Don’t bite it!” The spider, which had its jaws open already, pauses, and backs off. You swear it looks sad, although you can’t figure out how you can tell.

Sephira climbs the rest of the way up. She huffs and puffs a little, getting to the top. Once she’s in front of the yuanti, she says, “Do you speak common?”

The yuan-ti looks at you contemptuously. “Of course I do.”

Sephira - “Hmph, makes this easier. How about you tell us how many of your kind are around here?”

Yuan-ti- “How about you burn in Meershaulk’s stomach acid?” He spits.

Herzog- “A little bit of torture never hurt anyone.”

Blank, “we could arrange some nice stomach acid for you.”

Kara looks pained, hearing this, but stays silent.

Sephira - “Or maybe I’ll feed to your my cat. One piece at a time.” Kedri flies in after having popped open the locket on her collar. Her face is now wreathed in flame, and she licks her lips hungrily at the yuanti.

For some reason this seems to work on him. He looks warily at the cat and everyone else. “There are about 30 of us, mostly purebloods, some halfbreeds, and four abominations.”

Sephira - “Ugh abominations.” She pulls the ankh piece out of her pack. “You have the other half of this. Where is it?”

The yuan-ti looks shocked at seeing half of the ankh. “Y-yes, we do. It sits in the center of the fortress atop a ziggurat. On the fourth floor.”

Sephira smiles. “You’ve been very helpful.” She flicks her wrist toward the yuanti, and the spider leaps in for a bite.

The spider gets a good bite in. The yuan-ti tenses up, spits hate at you a bit, and dies.

Herzog smirks. “Good riddance.”

XP: 9th level characters get 788 xp, 8th level get 800, and 7th level get 875.

End!

29 January 2022- Basically a spoiler for next time.

Blank starts searching through the enemy bodies for anything of value.

Tragically, they don’t look like they have any magic items, but all of their weapons and armor (studded leather, heavy shields, longbows, and scimitars) are all masterwork. There are four of each, plus about 75 arrows, and what looks like dried rations designed for a carnivore (so jerky, none of that hippie trail mix stuff.)

Blank, “doesn’t look like a bad haul, especially since we have an entire temple to go through still.”

Herzog- “Yeah.” He helps strip the corpses of their stuff, and considers whether he should take a longbow, even though his dexterity sucks. “That’s what spells are for,” he mutters. He only takes 20 arrows, though.