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The party continue back through the forest to their home keep of
Gendolrin, the venture south to Celsus' castle past Doolin having
failed. After a good night's rest everyone presses onwards, now mostly in
forested country, having moved out of the mountains. The rangers notice
some webby stuff (webs) in the trees up ahead, and not desiring an
encounter with any unfriendly spiders, the area is duly skirted.
Another four uneventful days pass, with people gradually resting
up to full health. Late in the morning of the next day, some thumping is
heard through the trees up ahead, and Sequoia and Leaf quickly realise
that it's ogres.
The fighters and Gruff form into a rough line facing the way the noise is
coming from, and Marcus, Tharkon and Bid stand behind. Six ogres rush
through the trees. Gruff and Wulf are hit by the ogres for fair damage,
and then the party attack. Marcus fires off a crossbow bolt at the ogre
attacking Gruff, but doesn't hit. Tharkon casts 'flaming sphere' and a
spongy ball of rolling fire appears behind one of the ogres. Wulf cleaves
a gash in his opponent for a good 12 points of damage, and Gruff stabs his
opponent with his spear. Both of the rangers hit twice with their
longsword and shortsword combination, scoring fair damage.
The next round begins, and one of the injured ogres falls as he is
burned from behind by the flaming sphere. Gruff is again hit by his
opponent, but is still plenty healthy. The three stray ogres run in, one
each attacking Tharkon, Marcus and Bid. Marcus is hit, and Bid takes to
fleeing, with the ogre charging after him. The rangers switch position a
bit to get closer to defending the unarmoured Marcus and Tharkon, and take
down another injured ogre as they do. Wulf also hits his opponent, Gruff
misses.
The battle continues on, and Tharkon falls to the first blow he receives,
ending the 'flaming sphere' burning Gruff's opponent. The three remaining
ogres (and one chasing Bid) don't really stand a chance, and Sequoia, Leaf
and Wulf soon make short work of them. Gruff tends to the injured. Tharkon
is within his power to heal, but Tharkon doesn't make it. Bid is rounded
up eventually, and the group can do nothing but press onwards.
Five more days, thankfully boring, take the party back to the home keep of
Gendolrin. A black flag is seen flying above the keep, indicating danger,
and the party rush to see what's up. The magically controlled fires that
provided heat and suchlike to the keep have stopped working and Laureral
(the old half-elf mage chick) has apparently headed off into the mountains
with Rodion (the third apprentice at the keep) to try to fix it. The fires
not working is a big problem and the party decide to set out into the
mountains after Laureral. Tharkon is buried at the keep, and the group
stock up on supplies for the journey. Marcus decides that he's going to be
better off in armour than casting spells, and gets some chainmail. By the
end of the day they set out the party are out of the forest, and facing
into the northern mountains. The next morning the climb begins, and
continues for three more days. By this point the conditions are getting
much worse, but the group press on with the climb and duly arrive at the
cave they are looking for. It is at this point that it is realised that
nobody has a lantern, and a few poor wooden torches are made and will have
to make do instead.
The party explore the inside of the cave. It continues straight
enough, and leads to a four way junction. Straight ahead (and past an
intermittent geyser that spouts from the floor) the corridor tapers off
too small to continue. Left at the junction leads to a small room, about
10' wide by 20' long by 6' or 8' high. Inside, hiding in a corner, is
Rodion, about 1ft tall. He explains as best as he can what has occurred.
He and Laureral travelled to the cave to deal with the problem with the
source of the fire, a lava stream or something. Laureral shrunk them both
to be able to head down the small tunnel, but neither were really able to
cast spells in the their shrunken state. They were beset by big (2'
tall) creatures in the small cave with the lava stream, and Rodion fled on
Laureral's command, and has been hiding in this other cave for the past
day or so, with no sign of anything except scary noises.
Rodion is still explaining his story when two very large creatures come
down the tunnel to the entrance of the room. They have huge muscular
chests, with hooked hands and beaks. They seem just a bit too big to enter
the room, and after a couple of blows are exchanged with the fighters at
the door, the fighters step back to allow Sequoia and Marcus to fire
shortbow and crossbow at them if the creatures aren't going to come into
the cramped room to fight. The creatures do enter the room, and the fight
continues.
All but those wielding shortswords and daggers have trouble in the
cramped space, and the two 'hook horrors' are definitely getting the
better of the party. Leaf is the first to fall, and Sequoia is taking
steady damage. The creatures seem very difficult to hit and injure, even
without the added difficulty of the cramped conditions. Gruff casts 'flame
blade' and a glowing scimitar of fire appears in his hands. This resolves
some of the problems with the lack of light, but he fails to strike home
with it. Sequoia is struck yet again, and is on her last legs.
The fight continues and Sequoia and Marcus manage to hit the front
creature, but for small damage, especially on a creature looking as tough
as it does. The creatures reply by injuring Marcus further, and landing
the blow that drops Sequoia.
Wulf has been mostly unable to step into the action due to lack of
room and holding the torch, but upon passing the torch to Rodion he steps
up and attacks with his longsword. He lands a mighty blow, scoring 20
points of damage, and fells one of the two creatures.
The next round is all misses by both sides, and with everything going on,
Gruff is unable to tend to Sequoia naturally (without magic).
Next, the party have the initiative, but neither Wulf nor Marcus hit the
hook horror. Gruff manages to restore Sequoia with a 'cure light wounds',
just at the same time as Marcus is hit to the ground by the remaining hook
horror.
Sequoia, in the next round, manages to hit the creature once, and
the toll of small blows seems to be telling. The hook horror and Wulf both
fail to strike each other. In the following round Sequoia manages to fell
the hook horror with a good strike from her shortsword.
Gruff immediately moves to tend to Leaf, the person longest on the
ground. She is injured, but saveable. Gruff does his part, but Leaf fails
to survive the shock of being brought back, and remains dead. Marcus is
merely unconscious, and Gruff restores him to health with a 'cure light
wounds' spell.
Deciding that the cave is too dangerous, especially with the right
hand branch unexplored, the party set up on the small ledge outside the
cave mouth until morning. In the morning, it is still unclear what to do
next. Rodion is still small, which seems to indicate that Laureral is
still alive. Rodion is the only one who is small enough to check out the
small tunnel, and taking a couple of candles, he heads in. The tunnel
continues to taper off, and leads to a set of steps leading into the cave
that Laureral wanted to check out to deal with the problem with the fire.
Rodion explores the cave by candlelight, and discovers that the critters
that attacked he and Laureral are now statues. He finds Laureral too, also
standing frozen. After a time, Rodion realises that Laureral and the
critters are not standing frozen, but moving unbelievably slowly. Laureral
must have cast a spell to slow everything down to save herself. Just as
well, as one of the creatures has a dagger dangerously close to Laureral's
head. Rodion tries and succeeds in moving Laureral to one side, out of the
way of the dagger, but it seems a tall order to carry her up and out of
the cave, what with her standing frozen in an awkward position.
After a time, Rodion manages to drag, pull and push Laureral to
the bottom of the couple of steps leading up out of the small cave, but
upon trying to lift her up the steps she falls, what looks like painfully,
on a frozen arm. Rodion leaves Laureral and the cave to get some help from
the big folk out at the mouth of the main cave. After narrowly avoiding
the geyser spouting randomly from the floor that he wasn't warned about,
he convinces Wulf to come on down the tunnel as far as he can with some
rope. As they are making their way back, they see Laureral running towards
them, pursued by some of the little critters. They take one look at the
normal sized Wulf, and scurry back off down the corridor to the cave.
Laureral is un-slowed, but so are the critters, and she needs to
get back into the cave for about half and hour to fix the problem with the
fire, or things will go bad in the keep. Neither Laureral nor Rodion can
cast spells from memory (safely) when they are small, but a couple of
spell scrolls are in possession of the party. Rodion agrees to head to the
top of the steps into the cave and to try to read out 'sleep' scroll to
send the critters in the cave to sleep (before they get to him). Marcus
casts 'light' from a scroll onto Rodion's tunic to afford the illumination
necessary for Rodion to read the scroll in the cave.
Rodion runs in, and catches the creatures somewhat by surprise. He reads
out the spell successfully, and manages to put all of the critters to
sleep for long enough for Laureral to deal with the problem with the lava
flow.
Laureral returns, and restores herself and Rodion to normal size. Laureral
plans to return to the keep via a 'fly' spell, and is able to take one
person with her. It is decided she take Leaf's corpse back with her. The
rest of the group make their way down and back out of the mountains.
During the day, a lone figure is seen across a ravine in the
distance. He seems to be gesturing at the party, but they have no way of
communicating with, or reaching the person. The group press on, but later
in the day Rexel catches up, having climbed down and over to the party
himself. He was with a group of mountaineers from Andolin, looking for
Hippogriffs or something in the mountains, but the rest of his party were
lost. That night passes quietly enough, Gruff's watch disturbed by some
growling noises passing close by, but nothing came of it. At the end of
the next day the party are back at Gendolrin Keep, the fires working
normally again.
Nothing much occurs for the next week. Rodion tries and fails to learn
'comprehend languages', a spare spell possessed by the party. Leaf is
buried. About a month later, a group from Andolin arrive at the keep. They
are a bit upset at Rexel for not having reported what happened in the
mountains. Another two months pass with nothing much occuring. Sequoia
tries to teach Bid a bit about tracking and stuff, but he doesn't pick
anything up. The time for the second meeting with Celsus in Keep Doolin is
coming around, and Marcus (for his father, Lord of Gendolrin) and the
party prepare to head there.
Sequoia is easily able to forage for the party for the three days through
the forest towards the mountains, and Gruff helps with his 'goodberry'
spell, providing magical nourishment when necessary. About nine days after
setting out, an unfortunate encounter befalls the group. A couple of 3ft
long scorpions are seen scuttling towards the party, perpendicular to the
path the party are following. Sequoia and Marcus ready their short and
cross bows, and Wulf steps forward with his longsword. Bid, Rexel and
Rodion hang back. Gruff does his waving and gibbering, and casts
'entangle', ensnaring the two scorpions in their tracks with an overgrowth
of plants and roots. The scorpions will be held for about ten minutes, but
Sequoia opts to attack with her shortbow.
Her first shot strikes one of the scorpions for 4 damage, her
second is fired wildly to her side, ripping Marcus' hand from his
wrist. Gruff moves immediately to Marcus' aid, and does extremely well to
reattach his hand with both natural healing and healing spells, but is
unable to restore use of the hand.
Wulf, in the meantime, has moved up to the 'entangled' scorpions, but only
succeeds in freeing one of them with a missed swipe. The scorpion hits
Wulf once with one of its pincers, but thankfully not with its barbed
tail. Wulf fails to reply in kind, and in the next round, things get
worse.
The scorpion scrapes Wulf with its first pincer attack, and basically
eviscerates him with the second. Sequoia, in turn, having composed herself
a little, fires a critical hit at the same scorpion, killing it. Gruff
rushes to tend to Wulf, but isn't quick enough to see to him without the
use of clerical healing.
In the next round, time is running out for the 'entangle' spell, and the
other scorpion will be free soon. Gruff casts 'cure light wounds' upon the
messed up Wulf, and messes up the spell. Wulf is lost.
With only a minute or so before the other scorpion is free, Wulf's body is
picked up, and the party jog off for a couple of minutes. After a while,
and when it's clear that the other scorpion isn't following, the party
stop and gather their bearings. Wulf's useful equipment is taken, and his
body buried in a small built up cairn of stones.
Five days later, the group reach Doolin. Bid is bidded farewell
to, as he doesn't really want (and isn't up) to continue his training with
Sequoia. There is still about a week to go before the meeting, and Gruff
remains suspicious of Celsus, who hasn't shown up yet.
In the week and days before the meeting, emissaires from various other
keeps and suchlike arrive. Groups from Bwern and Andolin, the other two
keeps the party are familiar with arrive by foot. People from places
called Gnolin, Gatlin and Darola arrive for the meeting too, and it is
said some people arrived by Hippogriff. Right up to the evening of the
meeting there is no sign of Celsus, but when Marcus returns from the
meeting he reports that Celsus was indeed there, and didn't seem too bad a
fellow. Gruff isn't impressed. Celsus was mainly concerned with uniting
the keeps, the building of roads between them, and the establishment of a
standing army.
Marcus reckons that the general mood is that Celsus is okay, and that his
ideas seem good. Marcus isn't too sure himself, and knows that his father
is generally opposed to the ideas. Rexel is curious over the arrival of
many of the people who didn't seem to come with a party through any of the
gates, but doesn't find anything.
The morning of the next day, the party set back out for Gendolrin
to report back to Lord Elbling (Marcus' father). Marcus has no luck in
talking to any of the clerics at the conference. They seem to think it
would be possible to get his hand working again, but he'd have to go a
long way to find a powerful enough cleric (who would probably still want a
pile of money to do it).
Eleven days out, and still in mountainous terrain, the party are on a
ledge, about 5ft wide, winding around a mountain, sheer drop to one side,
sheer cliffs up on the other. An old man is seen on the ledge ahead, is
hailed by the party, and walks up to talk to them. He seems amicable
enough, and names himself Fahrenheit. Gruff is suspicious. The party
backtrack a while, to allow the old man to pass safely at the point where
the ledge begins. The old man lives in a cave there, and the party stay
and talk a while. Gruff gives his usual talk about boars, but Fahrenheit
seems to prefer plants. Fahrenhiet is interested in the goings on, and
admits that there have been a lot more creatures around recently. He is
interested in Marcus' opinion, and how he will report to his
father. Marcus is unsure, but when asked directly, he says that if it were
down to him, he would go along with Celsus' plans. The old man seems
happy, and the party go on their way.
Later on, along the ledge, the party spot a Hippogriff off in the sky. It
seems to have barding, or a saddle, upon it and the party reckon it might
have lost its rider. The Hippogriff is circling. For a change, the party
possess rope and grapnel, and one end is secured on the ledge. Rexel
climbs down to the forest below, for a look for anyone who might have
fallen off. He returns to report that there is indeed a person down there,
and begins to climb back down with the aid of the rope to make sure it
will be safe for Gruff. At this point, the Hippogriff stops circling, and
starts to dive. It slams into Rexel as he is climbing down, and he plunges
to the forest below. The Hippogriff climbs into the air, and circles for a
pass at the party. Sequoia fires off a couple of arrows, but fails to hit
with either.
In the next round Sequoia fires twice more, and Marcus throws a dagger,
but neither strike home. The Hippogriff plunges down, and grabs into
Sequoia's shoulders with both claws. Marcus jumps out and grabs on to
Sequoia's legs, just managing to hold on. The Hippogriff flies out a few
feet, and lets both of them drop to the ground. Gruff and Rodion decide to
take off in different directions along the ledge. Gruff trips and falls
from the ledge straight away, and it isn't long before Rodion has been
grabbed by the Hippogriff and dropped.. to find himself walking along the
ledge with the rest of the party.
Everyone remembers the encounter, but kind of like a dream. Gruff reckons
the barding on the Hippogriff bore Celsus' crest. Sequoia is still feeling
bad about Marcus' hand, and decides to give him a silver armband she owns,
in case she doesn't make it. As he is putting it on, he realises that his
hand is working again. Sequoia is certain there was nothing special about
the bracelet, and Marcus confirms this the next day, casting 'detect
magic' upon it and his arm, and coming up negative.
Two weeks after setting out, the party arrive back in Gendolrin.
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