…made our own camp just outside the encampment of the army amassing around the tower. For several days we sat and we watched, as more giants arrived to join the amassing army.

Observation confirmed that which we had begun to suspect: those who were entering into Mokmurian’s service appeared to be young, perhaps the equivalent of the age at which most human adolescents begin to rebel. It makes a great deal of sense. They are strong, healthy, passionate, and…easily swayed and influenced, something they seem to have in common with human recruits and soldiers. (It’s funny that I do not think of myself as young anymore even though I am not much older than I was when joined the guard back home. A lot has changed since then.)

The more we watch Jorgenfist, the more concerned I become that we are in over our heads. We are isolated, far from home, and surrounded by hundreds of stone giant soldiers which are formidable even untrained. Harpies patrol the skies. A red dragon, quite possibly the same one that we encountered in Sandpoint– we certainly hope it is, for having two dragons in between us and Mokmurian is a very unpleasant thought– appears to live in a cave on the northern edge of the valley. And at night we have seen three more dragon-like beasts that our casters believe to be wyverns hunting for prey.

A frontal assault is obviously out of the question. Having had enough of this, and growing more concerned that we may be discovered the longer we stay at the edge of the valley, we are moving out tomorrow to the ravines east of the tower. It’s probably too much to ask that there be some sort of back entrance that is unguarded, but plenty of these hills have caves and that suggests that there could be a network of caverns underneath us. If we are lucky, that will turn out to be the case, and if we are luckier still one might…

Sunday, Sarenith 29

Even as it sits there lifeless, it taunts. It beckons, it calls, and it teases. While some
can discuss it objectively, there are those for whom it represents equity and fairness. If
the universe has any balance to it at all, then this represents the counterpoint to poison
tails and sharp teeth.

Several are suspicious that it can either harm us outright, or be used to locate us later
for greater harm. Despite all that, Rigel continues to be obsessed with the fire opal left
glinting in the sand after the wyverns were killed.

“It’s worth about 200 gp,” she said, with a bit of anxiety in her voice. “I don’t see any
traps, either. It’s just sitting there and it’s foolish to leave it here for someone else.”
Kane confirms there doesn’t seem to be any traps. Would a magically trapped object be
detectable by a mundane? muses a mage.

“Yes!” says Rigel impatiently. As the others ponder, she reaches forward and picks up the
stone.

There’s a slight intake of breath.

She puts it back down and releases it, looking triumphantly at the others. She helps search
the rest of the cavern, but keeps one eye on the opal. Sabin pushed away the sand where the
opal was, slightly raised. Nothing happens. Rigel grins again.

It is rare to see Rigel so … engaged. Noteworthy, and so I take note.

It seems there’s nothing else in the cavern. But Rigel pauses, cups an ear, and points up.
There is a faint … singing, I guess it would be. Music of some sort. It’s simply
resonating off the ceiling, but its origin lies outside in the canyon somewhere.

Perhaps from the ledge above us.

Peering cautiously, we see we have harpies nearby. About 300 ft or so away they appear to
be luring something on the cliff with their song. I have heard they can do this; despite
their grotesque appearance, their song, when directed to you, can be very attractive.
Something actually does take a step off the cliff before hastily firing a lightning bolt as
it fell, striking a hovering harpy squarely.

Making a snap decision, Sabin casts featherfall on the being, breaks his fall, drags him
into our safe cave and secures him. It appears to be Elvish and carries no armor.

He is Rarallo, sent by the mayor of Roderick’s Cove to investigate the increase in giant
raids. He had arrived in the valley recently but had just woken to the harpy’s songs and
had been charmed into walking into their arms. We told him he’d nailed one with a lightning
bolt as he fell and that evoked a grim smile.

Moonday, Sarenith 30

A long, intense discussion has finally concluded, although I fear it may not go as planned.
Several have offered the opinion that the red dragon represents air support that we do not
have to want to worry about. I suggested we might contact it as equals and see if we can
make it friendly towards us by freeing it from whatever link bonds it to Mokmurian. Others
believe negotiation with an evil creature like a red dragon is doomed to fail, and would
rather remove the threat by killing it. It is, after all, a rather young dragon as dragons
go. Spell, wand, and scroll capabilities were carefully considered in view of the planned
assault. It was decided that fighting it in its own lair would be better than fighting it
after it has taken flight (and on that front I do agree.) But there was so much about the
approach we could now know, and we didn’t want to risk sending scouts since it was clear we
would need a contribution from everyone to defeat the red dragon. We couldn’t afford to
lose even a single party member if this were to work.

The spells we will use will be Fly, Airwalk, Mage Armor, Enlarge Person, Prot from fire,
resist energy (fire) and prot from evil. Several of these have durations measured in tens
of seconds so many of these will not be cast until we gain the ledge before the dragon’s
lair.

Later …

Would we be able to gain and keep the element of surprise? Once we found ourselves on the
ledge outside the dragon’s cave it was kind of moot. We were committed.

The entrance chamber was 50′ across, and about 50′ high. As we enter, we realize it empties
into an even larger chamber. Rigel hears the faint clinking of coins.

“This is a surprise,” says a voice from the back of the larger cavern. “I have not smelled
humans since Sandpoint.”

So much for the element of surprise. Perhaps we can still get him to underestimate us. He
may still think we have a white dragon at our disposal. Unless he can read my mind. Can
he? Would I know? What does that feel like?

I think I’m overthinking this.

Meanwhile, Takkad has taken up the conversational gauntlet. “We are some of his followers.”

The dragon expressed skepticism that Mokmurian would have human followers. “Really?”
remarked Takkad. “There are ogres and giants and dragons working together. Who do you think
helped give him the information on how to best attack Sandpoint?” Nolin added, grumbling,
“But we’re tired of taking his orders. Why do you continue to?”

“I do not take orders from him,” thundered the dragon. “We … share goals. We are peers.”

“Really?” I asked. “He seems to send you places where you can get hurt while he stays
safely behind.”

“Worse,” the dragon responded. “I was wounded by him and he refused to heal me. If I was
certain I could defeat him I might dissolve our alliance myself. Not that I could not if I
truly wanted to,” he hastily added.

As people brought up their lanterns, it was easy to see that 50′ back was a tremendous pile
of coins (many golden) and shiny expensive looking trinkets. The dragon’s hoard. Of course
the dragon lay squarely between us and the hoard.

Rigel stepped forward and says, “It is wrong that he leaves you wounded. I offer you my
healing potion.” The dragon looked at it thoughtfully, sniffed it, and finally drank it.
With a visible sigh, he seemed to relax a bit and even appeared slightly bored.

“So you are unhappy with Mokmurian. It seems we do at least share that,” mused the dragon.

With a conspiratorial tone, Takkad half whispered, “I think we’re going to try to kill him.
With him dead, the army he is raising will simply go home and this will all be over.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, little one,” condescended the dragon. “I get the sense that
many of them are hear having burned bridges to get here. They may have nowhere to return to,
and simply select a new leader.”

In a relatively friendly state now that we’d healed him some, the dragon offered some more
interesting tidbits.

• The harpies pretty much live in the Black Tower, and their command of the air would
  make an aerial assault very risky.

• Mokmurian’s magic is stronger than the dragon’s, “although in a fair fight I would
  win.”

• Looking at Lucretia’s head, the dragon remarked, “there’s only a few of those around”.

• “If it is true you have defeated the wyverns, then you may indeed be able to handle
  the insects as well. There is an abomination that looks like a spider there. If you
  can defeat it, the passages lead to under the tower.”

• These harpies are different from those at the Stairs. These have a deal with
  Mokmurian. They occupy the tower with MM’s permission.

The dragon appeared to have a ring on one talon, a silver armband, and an obsidian amulet.
My concern about defeating him seemed valid, but fortunately we seem to now have abandoned
that strategy.

“If Mokmurian were to .. fall from power … you would benefit from that would you not?”
asked Takkad. “Yes, I could see certain benefit from that,” admitted the dragon. “But I’m
not prepared to battle him again.”

“What if,” proposed Takkad, “your role in this was to do … nothing. Suppose he did not die
at your hand nor at your bidding but that you did not stop it from happening if it were to
happen?”

The dragon thought for a bit. “I tire of Mokmurian and his constant assertion that he is
superior. If I had but to do nothing to make that stop, I would find that quite
acceptable.”

One of the last things we learned before leaving the cavern was that the dragon’s name was
Longtooth. Or so he called himself; probably not his true name.

Tollday, Erastus 1

Based on the dragon’s assertions and information, we were ready to take on the insect cave.
This was a job that simply screamed for fireballs to cleanse the arena before our arrival.

Using my fly spell, hovered in front of the cave and cast a fireball. Awful smell. Flying
in, careful not to touch the ground, walls, or ceiling, I could see the back part of the
cave was still crawling with spiders but I could also what appeared to be a large exo-
skeleton of an ex-spider. Countless small spiders appeared to be running in and out of it.
This must be the abomination that was foretold.

The other team members had arrived via fly, or airwalk, or spider climb, and they now
entered cautiously.

Boom, another fireball, and advance a little farther. I could see now there were apparently
three of these abominations, although they’d been fried pretty good and Rarallo shot some
lightning off as well. One “spider” bit it went Sabin threw his axe at it. In close
quarters now, I had time for one more fireball before we’d all be too close together. Boom.

The second spider died at the hands of Rarallo’s scorching ray. The third one did manage to
attack Nolin by disgorging dozens of spiders upon him, but another scorching ray killed it
and with the “host” dead, the other spiders either died or ran off.

I’d lit a flaming sphere to help with Spider 3, but now I used it to burn webs so we could
advance safely. We found a collection of other people’s belongings; seems we were not the
first to come and play in the spider’s den. Our inventory was:

<

p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>[610] fire opal (from the wyverns)
[611] +1 long sword (giant sized)
[612] +2 halberd
[613] spell staff, already containing rusting grasp

While we were doing that, Kane found a secret door. It opened to a passage 3-5 feet wide.

As he told us later, Kane scouted the tunnels, which seemed to be natural tunnels. He was
doing okay up until he felt a sharp point in the back of his leg. As he turned around he
saw blood, and red caps with knives and mean expressions, but then they looked at him and
screamed DESNA! and ran.

When Kane returned and told us, he led us back to where this had happened and we went
searching. We finally found a larger cavern in which a single ratcatcher was sharpening a
single spear. He looked like a kobold, but we approached cautiously.

Good thing we did.

The ratcatcher was not dispatched easily; for a small creature he had incredible stamina.
Rigel eventually got the killing blow, and made a quick inspection of his belongings before
we turned to a doorway into a room in which there appeared to be a number of ogres. Rarallo
fired off his lightning even though he’d only seen a glimpse of him. The lightning seemed
to hit someone or something, but then a screech and the more vulgar version of “What the
heck?” was screamed in ogre. Hee hee.

But this initiated the battle of the ogres.

Fireday, Sarenith 20

It was today, as we caught the barge heading upriver to the Storval Stairs, that we had a long discussion about the horses. It would cost money to bring them along on the barge, and to what end? They could not navigate the stairs without assistance, and would need to be fed and cared for (more money). In the end, we decided to send them back to Galduria, to be cared for there and retrieved upon our return. We will see when we return if our instructions were followed.

I must admit, it is a pleasant interlude that finds the most difficult decision to be whether to take horses or leave them behind. We expect the barge trip to be largely uneventful, although it may yet be informative depending on how talkative the barge crew and any other passengers are. The trip shall take 5 days total and cost 2gp/person. Weather and current willing, we should reach Ravenmoor in 2 days and the Stairs 3 days after that.

I’ve a mind to practice my illusions (say, a large serpent in the water or another dragon flying in from the sky) but I suspect all but me would find my practice to be … disturbingly distracting.

Sunday, Sarenith 22

The trip did indeed take about two days, and was quite peaceful. Although I did sleep a little uncomfortably, it is still better than sleeping in the wild. I sleep a little better and a little deeper knowing that there is small chance our camp will be disturbed. We still set watches because surprises still could happen, but the nights are quiet and with the barge always available as an escape route, guard duty is much more relaxed.

We are now approaching Ravenmoor, and we intend to stop here to release some cargo, pick up some cargo, and restock supplies. The bargemaster tells us we will cast off before dark. He said we can’t stay here, but it wasn’t clear if he meant there was no place to stay or if we weren’t welcome here.

Sunday, Sarenith 22, late

So I have the answer to my question. It is both. There is apparently no inn, nothing resembling a formal eatery, no place to visit, and no place to stay. There is a pub, and it offers some basic food, but it’s the only deal in town. The barkeep did offer that the stone giants have been more active and that there have been raiding parties and there’s not much they can do about them. Still, Kane told us quietly he sensed a protective evasiveness in the conversations whenever the topic of religion came up.

I asked if there was a wizard or two in town I could speak with and that turned a couple of heads. In hindsight, perhaps it was better asked as a quiet question but who knew? Anyway, there was, out on the outskirts of town, so I travelled out to visit. Perhaps he would be more friendly. I sensed the town was, at best, “tolerant”. The people here seemed to realize they needed to interact for trade, but visitors were still infrequent and I guess they’d just rather keep to themselves.

When I got to the wizard’s place, there was an attractive young lady outside. She said her grandfather was the “wizard” I’d been sent to meet but that he really didn’t do much magic anymore. She said she was something of a magic user too and what magic was needed, she usually provided now. I asked her what magic might be needed and she shut down like I’d asked her the location of the nearest winged demon. Got nothing more than skeptical looks and terse replies after that. I was going to impress her with the spells I know and see if she opened up, colleague to colleague, but not knowing what she was capable of, perhaps they wouldn’t be that impressive. In the end, I finished the uncomfortable conversation and returned to the pub.

As recommended, we left on the barge before nightfall. The bargemaster anxiously herded us onto the barge and shoved off. “Nobody stays here at night” he said, which made it sound more of a safety issue than an accommodation issue. Still, Avia had reported a fair number of (mildly) evil people in town, so although I’m curious, there’s no good reason to find out why one doesn’t stay overnight there.

Toilday, Sarenith 24

Today, we saw a small band of ogres on shore, and they followed us like they would attack. But they didn’t have any weapons of particularly good range so after we all took a pole to move the barge a bit faster, they fell behind and returned to their camp. The bargemaster said this was not that unusual.

Wealday, Sarenith 25

We have arrived at the Storval Stairs. Well, to be precise, at the barge landing closest to the Stairs; they are still about 10 miles away. Here we are within sight and easy walk of a great and beautiful falls, though, probably a thousand feet high. Although the land has been appearing increasingly rugged as we’ve gone upriver, here the spray of the fall and the river itself creates an oasis of green.

However, since the Stairs are our goal, we don’t really get to enjoy it. Unload, and start trekking. And now that we’re closer to actual Giant land than ever before, precautions must be taken. It is bright and sunny today, with no cover. We kept relatively close to the cliff formed by the edge of the plateau, as it afforded what little cover (and sometimes shade) that there was.

It didn’t take too terribly long to reach the Stairs. The cliff had been slowly losing height as we walked east and now we could see the top of the stairs was only about 400 feet higher than the base. Still, the steps themselves were two feet high each, easily, which meant this stairway couldn’t simply be walked.

With the sun near our backs, we figured it was safe for me to fly up and scout the top. Kane, he of negligible weight, came along for the right and an extra pair of eyes.

The stairs were flanked by two great statues (nearly as high as the stairs themselves) and the face looked familiar on these figures. We’d seen this face before, at Thistletop in the looping speech. As expected, there were some giants (three) guarding the top of the stairs, although they appeared bored and disinterested .. all the better.

In one section of the ruins, a couple of our party detected (by nose) what appeared to be a remains garbage pit. Don’t know if these were previous residents of these ruins, or creatures that wanted to cross to the top of the stairs and failed. But either way, it did remind us of the strength of a stone giant.

There were enough ruins in the side of the cliff itself that it appeared there may have once been a functional city here at the stairs in the distant past. Now, we decided, they would serve as good cover for our camp. Through a combination of fly and air walk and spider climb, the entire party wedged themselves into a not-too-ruined ruin and settled in for the night.

We settled in for the night.

Oathday, Sarenith 26

With the sun now rising in the morning, the optimal attack direction was from the east (with the sun at our back, blinding any opponents trying to look in our direction.) We again used a combination of air walk and fly to get everybody quietly to the top while escaping notice.

Or so we thought. One giant actually on the stairs this morning (what, doing stair drills to wake up??) called us out and the battle was on.

Here at the top there was a small amount of ruined buildings to hide among or in so we took cover from the blind rain of boulders coming from the giant who spotted us. None of them were hitting us, but they were large enough to be distracting anyway. Derel pulled his trick of running out into melee again … once too often. He got smacked hard by two separate giants and fell in a heap. No healers were close enough to help in time and his injuries were too great.

One giant looked down at his body, then picked it up and took it inside. We redoubled our efforts to reach him – who knows what atrocities they were about to do to his body – when the “chief” giant came out and asked “What are you doing here?”

Takkad came up with some quick thinking and convinced them we were on a mission for Mokmurian. Apparently, the seven-pointed star necklace that Derel had been wearing identified him as one of the faithful, so Takkad’s soliloquy convinced them maybe they’d made a big mistake. When one of the “lesser” giants said that if were dead, nobody would know of the mistake, both Takkad and I feigned contacting Mokmurian to let him know his instructions were not being followed.

Terrified, the remaining giants ran down the stairs and abandoned their posts.

Without the ability to resurrect Derel, we were left to disposing of his body and dividing up his goods. (He would have wanted it that way.)

• Sabin took the +4 belt of strength
• Sabin gave his old +2 belt to Avia
• Nolin took the +2 ring of protection
• Noling gave his old +1 ring of protection to Kane
• I took the +2 bracers of defense. They won’t stack with my magic armor, but they’ll be of great use for those times when I don’t have a chance to get it up first.

Inside the “guard area” we found filthy mattresses and a small amount of change: 37 gp, 200 sp, and 300 cp.

I flew straight up again to scout ahead. I could see a fairly obvious pass through the mountain in the distance — that was our goal.

We made a good distance before stopping for the night.

We held a memorial for Derel. Some expressed sadness, some stoicness, and others indifference. Myself .. well I bemoan the loss of one of the party. But Derel consistently would refuse to hold to the plan and jump into danger, putting not just himself but all of us into danger. While I think some are thinking “but for this” or “but for that” he’d still be alive, I think the man had a death wish and was destined to die sooner than later. I hope others don’t feel too responsible; the man was his own worst enemy.

Fireday, Sarenith 27

During watch last night, I thought I saw not one, not two, but three dragon-like figures cross the light of the moon on their way east. Three dragons? I find that hard to believe. I wonder if they were some dragon-like creature instead.

We reached our goal near evening. We are at the pass and can see a tall tower on the valley floor. It is surrounded by six or seven distinct camps of giants or giant allies.

As we were taking all this in, we saw a red dragon — it looked to me like the same dragon we’d seen in Sandpoint, but it’s hard to be sure — fly in from over the river, fly up to the side of one of the mountains and enter an apparent cave. We must be at the right place if the Welcome Wagon looks like a red dragon.

We were trying to decide whether we should do something about the dragon when we heard large footsteps approaching. We quickly took cover and >From their conversation it was apparent this was another clan or team joining the cause. With a loud blast from the watch tower in front of us, a group of giants came up and escorted the newcomers down. We decided we needed more information before staging an attack.

Not too long after sunset, one obviously female giant left the watchtower, declaring that rank had it’s privileges and headed down to the encampments, obviously to, uh, mingle freely.

Starday, Sarenith 28

About 5am the female giant staggered back, obviously having partied hearty. Over breakfast, Nolin and I mentioned we’d seen three dragonish figures again. We are coming around to the idea that these may be wyverns, although wild or working for Mokmurian we didn’t know. They seem to come out of the ravine formed by the river. Removing them might be doable.

A little observation and recon reveals that there appear to be five stone giant camps, one ogre camp, and one hill giant camp. Our earlier observation that the recruits tend to be young continues to be true, in general. Could this just be a teenage rebellion? We wondered if the elders would intervene to restore the order, or were being prevented from doing so.

Around the middle of the afternoon, the stone giants from one of the camps dragged another screaming to the big tower on the valley floor. Apparently he was guilty of some transgression, and he was admitted and his sounds stopped once the door was closed.

He did not return.

We will attempt to attack the wyverns tonight.

Sunday, Sarenit 29

Well okay, not last night. We did a little exploring of the caves around the area to be better prepared for both the wyverns and the dragon should he appear. There are some caves in the side of the river canyon that may lead underneath the valley tower. They may also be home for the wyverns.

We will attempt to attack the wyverns tonight.

Sunday, Sarenith 29, later

Since we were fighting in the caves and most of the battle would not be seen, fire was again an option.

Yes we found the wyverns.

Yes, they are vulnerable to fireballs. Two, if needed.

Yes, they have poison sting in their tails.

Yes, this poison affects people named Nolin. But …

People named Takkad have an awesome Heal spell better than any laying of hands, potion, or channeling. He was able to completely counteract the poison AND fully heal him.

There is a large fire opal sitting in the sand here, but whether reward or trap we do not yet know.

== Fireday, Sarenith 20, 4708; Lampblack River; evening ==

The sun has set and dinner finished as we are settled about the brightly burning camp fire discussing the journey ahead. Nearby, the Lampblack gurgles soft but incessantly on its languid approach to Ember Lake. There is the occasional bump of our barge against the tree stump to which it is moored, and the creaking of deck boards as the barge-man on watch shifts his weight.

We are one day’s journey north from Wolf’s Ear, where only this morning we had arranged for our horses to be taken to Galduria for long term boarding while we chartered a barge and crew to take us up the Lamplack River to the foot of the Storval Stairs.

Once underway we had little to do, other than offer a turn at the poles the barge-men use to move the vessel against the flow of the river. The day passed slowly in this way as the eastern border of the Churlwood slipped by on the left and a scrubby grassland opened up to our right.

We are about to prepare for our own watch and an evening of rest from a day of tedium.

== Starday, Sarenith 21, 4708; Lampblack River; evening ==

Another day on the river has passed much like the one before. By late afternoon the eves of the Churlwood on our left began to recede as the river turned eastward and a steep bank of bracken rose up in its place.

It is dark, and off in the distance we can see a camp fire flickering orange in the night. Our guides seem unconcerned, and say it is most likely just a band of Shoanti traders, with a glance in my direction.

We had entered the lands of my own people, the Shiikirri-Quah, or “Hawk Clan”, one of the seven clans of the Shoanti. And yet I have no recollections of this place, having left when I was but two.

My tribe are the great traders and diplomats for our race, keeping open the trade routes and relations between the Shoanti and the other Varisian peoples.

Our great caravans circle the continent of Varisia, with each circuit taking many years to complete. My parents’ caravan left these lands a quarter a century ago, and began the Long Trek. And they will not complete their journey until they have passed through the Velashu Uplands and then the Nolands to the far north. At last they will return to their home, and the responsibility of the following Trek will belong to the next generation, and so it goes in an endless cycle.

The last I heard from my family they had passed through Roderick’s Cove and were following the coast to Riddleport. There is at least some comfort in knowing they have passed from the these lands before the giant incursions began in earnest.

== Sunday, Sarenith 22, 4708; Lampblack River; evening ==

By mid morning we began to pass through a more civilized country, with tilled fields and vineyards on either side of the river. Simple farm houses and out buildings began to dot the landscape and by noon we had arrived at the village of Ravenmoor.

While about the same size of Wolf’s Ear, Ravenmoor has held up much better than its distant neighbor, which at first was a bit of a puzzle, considering its closer proximity to the giants’ homeland. There were only a few signs of recently damaged buildings, evidenced only by the new repair work that had already been completed.

The barge was tied up at a busy quay and our crew left a guard and disembarked to purchase provisions. We took advantage of landfall in civilization and went in search of food and drink. After that we planned to talk with the town elders to find from them the latest news about the giants in these parts, and to inform them of the recent events in Sandpoint.

Walking up the main thoroughfare from the river to the pub we saw traders, farmers, and merchants going about their daily business. They all had the look of hardy individuals who were used to fending for themselves in a rough land.

Ravenmoor’s single pub was well kept, and well patronized by locals and visitors alike. A group of Shiikirri-Quah traders were seated at a corner table and after looking over the party gave a curt nod to me. The pub also seemed to be a popular location from which to conduct business, which Nolin observed while discretely watching an unremarkable transaction.

The barkeep was a talkative fellow (perhaps related to Trask?) who spoke about the unusual nature of the current giant hostilities, and how odd it was for giants to work with ogres and trolls. He concluded that in the past the giants had been quite reasonable, and mostly stuck to their side of “the wall” (the locals’ name for the great escarpment jutting up to the Storval Plateau).

We asked about the local leaders, and in particular the local clerics, but oddly enough the locals, including our loquacious barkeep, always seemed to turn the conversation other topics when we strayed onto this path.

Kane then realized that he hadn’t seen any temples on the way up from the river, and after a moment of scanning the customers, Avia said that there seemed to be a lot more people here of the evil persuasion than usual.

Not the headache inducing, MUST KILL NOW level of evil we often encounter, but still enough to be noteworthy. We speculated that living here on the edge of the wild, caught between giants and brigands as they were, the locals picked up an every man for himself mind set as a survival instinct.

We did find out where the town elders met each day, and so Nolin, Avia and I went out to talk with them while the rest of our party remained at the pub.

(I later learned that Trask set out in search of other arcane magic users with which to talk shop, and met woman who took care of the community’s magical needs, but I gathered that the conversation did not go as well as Trask had hoped).

The elders (more evil than the regular citizenry, but still not alarmingly so) were polite and listened to our account of the giant’s attack on Sandpoint, and did take to heart our warning about worse troubles ahead. They also shared with us some additional information about giants in general and our destination in particular.

They were quite skeptical about the reported magical powers of Mokmurian, because it was rare, and in the past giants who have possessed these abilities were in some way deformed. I pulled out Barl Breakbones head and told them we had fought this giant in battle and had witnessed his use of magic first hand.

They were a little puzzled by this, because Barl’s head showed no obvious deformities (other than missing its body, for which we were responsible), but then one of them pointed out how Barl’s head was significantly smaller than the heads of most adult stone giants.

As for our destination, the Black Tower was an ancient Thassilonian ruin, and legend had it that the ancient magic was still present and active there. They recommended that we abandon or quest, if we wanted to live.

On the way back to the barge we noticed that in addition to temples, Ravenmoor was also lacking in hotels, inns (the pub offered no rooms) or any other place for overnight accommodation of visitors. We asked our guides about this and they said that only locals stayed overnight, and visitors made sure they were well away by nightfall. Interesting.

Back on the river we slowly pushed up stream and into the wild.

== Moonday, Sarenith 23, 4708; Lampblack River; evening ==

An uneventful day on the river. Around mid day we spied a long line of traders and their wagons off in the distance, but they were too far away to hail for information (or company).

We spent most of our time fishing, and for the first time since taking to the river were able to catch enough for all at dinner. Camp was a more festive occasion than it has been, with bottles of a fine white Ravenmoor wine brought out to help celebrate the bounty of the river.

== Toilday, Sarenith 24, 4708; Lampblack River; evening ==

Perhaps an hour after setting out this morning we passed a band of ogres who had been hiding in the scrub on the south bank. They watched us for a while, and some of them attempted to keep up with the barge as we all took to the poles to put some distance between us. After a while the ogres lost interest and turned back to whatever it was they were doing before we interrupted them.

I asked the barge-men about this reach of the river, and how often they came this way.

“There is regular trade between Wolf’s Ear and Ravenmoor, and so we often ply the lower stretch of the Lampblack, but there are always people who want to see the great fall and the Storval Stairs for themselves. Just last year a wealthy family from down south came up, children and all, just to gawk at the ruins around the stairs. The adults were telling their children the history of the place… although why they couldn’t tell them about it from the safety of their own homes rather than dragging them out here I can’t say. Anyway, the whole place was made in giant territory, by giant hands to be used by giants.

No fire tonight.

== Wealday, Sarenith 25, 4708; Storval Stairs; evening ==

We reached the water fall at mid day, and is was as breathtakingly beautiful as promised. Here the Lampblack rushed out over the abrupt end of the Storval Plateau and plunged down a thousand feet into the rocky pool at the base of the wall. It was a bright sunny day, but mists shrouded everything about the river for hundreds of feet.

The stairs were a good hike away, and so we bid our faithful crew farewell, telling them we would send a message when we were ready to be picked up. They seemed doubtful that they would ever see us again.

The cliff is a wall of red sandstone rising up in an almost vertical ascent to the heights above, but as we walked south it gradually dropped until we reached the stairs around mid afternoon.

Here hundreds of broad steps had been carved into the cliff, scaling up some four hundred feet in a couple hundred steps to the top. A pair of great statues had been erected on either side at the foot of the stairs, towering the full height of the cliff. They depicted the same image: a humanoid with a staff in one hand and a book with a sihedron rune on the cover in the other.

Ruins of an ancient giant city or fortress that had also been carved into the cliff were on the north and south side of the stairs, but those to the south bore the effects of time and the elements more severely than those to the north. The southern statue was also more damaged than its northern counterpart. With this in mind we thought the southern ruins might be patrolled less often or vigilantly than the north, and so would hold the best hiding place to camp.

Trask, with Kane clinging to his shoulders, flew up to the top of the stairs a hundred feet out and saw three giants standing guard (they looked bored), and a large building they were using as a fort. They then drifted over to the southern ruins and looked for a suitable place for us to spend the night.

Meanwhile Rigel and I explored the ruins near us, from which a horrid stench was wafting. We discovered a pile of troll and harpy bodies, all with their heads smashed in. No doubt these were the inhabitants the giants had displaced, and the relative freshness of the carnage indicated the giant guard had been recently established.

Using a combination of Fly, Spider Climb and Air Walk we scaled the southern cliff face to within a hundred feet of the top and set up camp for the night.

== Oathday, Sarenith 26, 4708; Storval Stairs; morning ==

The giants have been slain or have fled from the Storval Stairs, but Dereldon is dead.

It has been less than half an hour since we scaled to the top of the cliff and attacked the giants standing on guard. At first it went well, with one of the giants down the stairs wildly lobbing boulders towards us (hitting nobody and endangering his friends as much as us), and Avia and Nolin focused their attacks on one of the giants at the top of the stairs to good effect.

I cast Hold Person upon the nearest giant.

Derel then rushed over to keep the third giant busy when a fourth giant appeared next to him at the doorway to their fort. Before he could jump out of the way, or even call for help both giants had bashed him with their massive clubs, caving in the side of his head.

He was too far away for me to reach in time with Breath of Life, which would have saved him, and so he passed on while the battle raged around him. The giant standing in the doorway looked down at Derel, and I feared he would despoil his body on the spot, but instead he picked our fallen comrade up and carried him inside. Wild thoughts sprang to mind of what they could be doing — all of them unpleasant.

Just as I cast Hold Person upon a second giant, their leader ran out from the building and yelled “Halt!”, in giant, “These people may be working for us!”

“Who are you to be boldly wearing the token of Mokmurian?”, he demanded, indicating the amulet worn by Avia (Derel was wearing a similar device).

Thinking quickly, I answered back, “We are emissaries sent out by Mokmurian to spy on the human lands to the south. We were returning when we happened upon the raid of Sandpoint led by Taractynous, which ended disastrously with nearly of of the giants slain, no prisoners taken, and worse, no stones from the Old Light! We were making our way back to inform Mokmurian of Taractynous’ gross incompetence when we were attacked by these stupid imbeciles!”

I waved in the direction of the two held giants at the top of the stairs, both drooling uncontrollably, as the third made his way up from below.

The leader pondered for a moment before sullenly answering, “We will burn this body and you will not mention it to Mokmurian.”

“No, he is one of our comrades, and we must lay his body to rest following the proper rites. But we agree not to speak of this to Mokmurian.”

The other giant then stuck his poke in with, “If we kill them all, then Mokmurian will never know.”

I could see that the leader considered this the ideal solution to their problem, and so casting a Light spell on the boulder next to me I cried out, “Mokmurian, hear me! Your servants on the Storval Stairs have betrayed you!”

Trask had at the same time cast Burning Hands, which he used to make fire race up his arms as he chanted something obscure and obviously, to the giants, lethal.

A large dark stain appeared in the crotch of the leader’s leggings as he cried out, “They are all magic users, run way before they turn us into the same… or worse!”

And as quick as they could the three unrestrained giants ran down the stairs and off into the wilderness beyond.

Sabin and Rigel made sure the two remaining giants would pose no further threat (including the removal of their sihedron rune tattoos), while the rest of us gathered around Derel’s body.

We removed his possessions, and after carefully wrapping him in a cloak we placed his body in our bag of holding to keep it safe. We left the sihedron medallion hanging around his neck, which offered Gentle Repose protection until we could decide what to do with him.

I now have Derel’s haversack, which has considerably lessened the load I carry.

Searching the nearby building we found coins (37 gp, 200 sp, 300 cp), which we placed in the bag, but nothing else of interest. We came to realize that thus far all of the giants we had seen, from Barl down to this latest crew appeared to be young — as if Mokmurian’s appeal was limited to the sullen youth of his people.

Trask took to the air again and soared overhead several hundred feet to scout the lands to the east of us, where our path led. He reported that between us and the the Iron Peaks was a mostly flat and arid plane that climbed slowly to the foothills, and from there the pass through the mountains was obvious.

It is time to continue, eastward into the hazy hostile lands ahead, scorched by the sun and blurred by waves of ever mounting heat from the advancing day.

== Oathday, Sarenith 26, 4708; Foothills of the Iron Peaks; evening ==

Camp is a cold and quiet affair, with the risk of detection too great for a fire now that we are so near the Iron Peaks. We held a quiet memorial for Derel soon after sunset, with Kane and I performing the ceremony. Derel and I had joined the group at about the same time, but I feel that I never really got to know him, or what drove him in combat. He was always first in battle, often running out in front the rest of us to engage the enemy, trusting in his skill, or his deity, or fate… or us to back him up. In the end I feel that I let him down.

I still replay those moments of the battle over and over in my head. Had I been just a short distance closer or if I could move but a little faster Derel would still be alive and with us. It seems clear now that me being more fleet of foot would benefit us all, and I shall look into this at the next opportunity.

== Fireday, Sarenith 27, 4708; Iron Peaks; evening ==

Last night Trask reported seeing three dragon like creatures fly in front of the moon, heading east… towards our destination.

We marched hard all day long and finally reached the pass overlooking the valley of the dark tower. Although the sun has set we can make out a tall spire rising up from the valley floor. It is encircled by a wall set with five turrets, and within the ring are other buildings. Scattered about the circle are seven camps of giants — possibly holding upward of a hundred giants total.

Between us and the nearest camp is a tall watch tower, with a solitary giant standing guard.

The valley appears to end some distance beyond the walled ring and camps in a sheer drop — down into the Muschkal River, or so we assume. As we stared at the camp, thinking of ways to sneak in, we saw a red dragon fly in from over the river and land on a ledge high up on the far side of the valley, and then it entered a cave.

We discussed taking the fight to the dragon and sealing it in its cave so it could not escape when we heard the stomping of many heavy boots coming over the pass, and so we hid among the rocks. A band of about twenty young giants strode into view, and then marched on toward the tower, with shouts of “It’s about time!”, and, “It’s even more mighty than we were told!”

Obviously new recruits answering Mokmurian’s summons. There was a loud blast from the watch tower, and a group of giants came up from one of the camps and escorted the new comers down onto the valley floor.

Using Stone Shape I fashioned a natural looking rock blind to shelter us from the unfriendly eyes in the valley (and above), and we posted a constant watch.

Perhaps an hour after sunset the huge door to the watch tower opened, and a giantess walked out in the streaming yellow light, calling back, “Well boys, this is what rank is all about. You get to stay here for the night while I am off to have fun.” And then, with a purposeful stride, she set off down to the camps below.

== Starday, Sarenith 28, 4708; Iron Peaks; dusk ==

Once again last night Trask and Nolin saw three dragon like creatures flying about after dark. These “night dragons” seemed to be swooping down by the river and then soaring up overhead, hunting for whatever scant wildlife they can catch in these bleak, giant infested lands.

We discussed them at length this morning, coming to the conclusion (or hope) that they were in fact not dragons, but wyverns. Apparently these creatures are more like dumb beasts than their intelligent dragon cousins, and they do not breathe flames, or acid, or whatever it is that spouts from the nostrils of dragon kind. But they do have poisoned spikes on their tails.

Early this morning, just before sunrise, the giantess commander of the watch tower staggered back up from the camps. She looked as if she did indeed have a good time, and judging from the animal like grunting and squealing we heard overnight, morale among the troops was a little higher this morning.

We spent the daylight hours watching the valley, sketching the position of the black tower in relation to the other buildings, the ring wall and its towers, the watch tower, the surrounding peaks, the river, and the dragon cave. We saw no sign of the dragon itself.

The camps were segregated by races (and to to some extent sex). There was a hill giant camp, an ogre camp, an all female stone giant camp, an all male stone giant camp, and then three more stone giant camps, mostly male, but with some females among them.

Around noon we watched as some sort of punishment was carried out for a young giant who had violated some code. He was dragged, kicking and screaming, by a burly pair of giants up to the gate in the wall, where another pair of giants came out and took him. The original giant pair seemed relieved that their duties ended at the gate, and scampered back to camp quickly, while the shrieks of their charge intensified until the gate slammed shut.

Clouds are rolling in, and we have decided to move out from our current hideout to move further down the valley, but higher up in one of the caves that dot the surrounding mountains. We hope these caves are all interconnected, and will provide a means of moving around the valley unnoticed.

== Starday, Sarenith 28, 4708; Iron Peaks; night ==

The caves are just dead end holes, and so we moved on to a location near the edge of the cliff overlooking the Muschkal River. We can see the valley from here as well as the river. One thing we have noticed are a pair of dark holes peeping out from the cliff face at different points above the river. We are fairly sure the wyverns are using at least one of these as their home, but we think the caves might lead back up into a huge pit we saw near the base of the Black Tower.

== Sunday, Sarenith 29, 4708; Iron Peaks; late morning ==

After last night’s activities we plan to rest for most of today, keeping our usual watch for anything unusual. But other than the moving to and fro of the giants about the camps, thus far we have seen little of note, other than the presence of ettins in the watch tower.

Tonight we plan to enter the caves above the river.

== Sunday, Sarenith 29, 4708; Iron Peaks; dusk ==

We set out from our camp just at sunset, and using our usual combination of mobility spells made our way down to the first cave entrance, some 250 feet above the river. The smell was truly horrific, and the air was filled with a disturbing clicking sound. Sabin looked in and reported that the entire floor was carpeted with crawling and wriggling insects.

None of us wanted to go in, and so we moved down to the lower cave, which had a convenient ledge on which we could gather before moving inside. But we had barely entered when we heard the sound of scales over stone, and a wyvern crept out. It had a long snout, a pair of slender wings, and a sturdy set of back legs, but no fore limbs, like a dragon. It did, however have a nasty looking barbed tail.

It appeared unaware of us as two of its companions came up beside it, but that soon changed as Nolin, Sabin and Avia charged the creatures, while Trask set off a fireball on their back sides. I cast Prayer, and Kane stepped in with his usual wishing of luck and healing support, and Rigel stood on the ledge and shot arrow after arrow at the beasts.

Nolin lashed out and killed the first, but was rewarded with a prick from a poisoned tale, and he instantly began to feel sick.

Another fireball and another wyvern dropped dead, leaving Sabin and Avia to slay the last.

Nolin’s condition continued to worsen as we reviewed what healing abilities we had on hand to help. Unfortunately the spells used for directly combatting poison were of the same level as those we used to get us to the caves safely, and so they were not an option.

Instead I focused Pharasma’s energy into a powerful Heal spell, immediately removing all effects from the poison and bringing Nolin’s health completely back to normal.

Peering into the darkness, Sabin whispered that he saw a large fire opal partially buried in the sandy floor. Moving forward he could detect no magic, and Rigel could find no traps, but we are suspicious and have not yet dared touch the the beautiful shiny gem.

Oathday, Sarenith 19

The giants’ attack on Sandpoint was as bizarre as it was ferocious. As we have made our way across the plains towards Wolf’s Ear we have seen the signs of raiding and scouting parties– campsites, pillaged towns, even a makeshift grave– and heard many stories of the same, but none seemed as well coordinated as what we faced. Perhaps they were just more prepared since Sandpoint is large enough a city to have resources to defend itself, and such an assault cannot be done ad-hoc, but what we have learned suggests that it simply has the misfortune of having been built in an important place, one with ties to the Thassilonian age that is somehow important to a larger scheme. This makes Sandpoint special, and deserving of a level of attention that is sure to make life difficult there for the forseeable future.

The raid, as it was, seems to have served two purposes. The first was exactly what it appeared to be on the surface: attack the town and drag away valuables and people. The second, however, was an attempt to retrieve a piece of the old lighthouse, for purposes that are not yet clear. Our wizards tell us that there are spells for communing with stones, and they suggest that there is something that the artifact…witnessed?…that is of great importance.

It was through a combination of luck, skill, and trickery that we managed to stop them short of their goal. While we have fought a number of foes, we have not been in a position where we have had to defend so many fronts, and so many people, at one time since the goblin assault many months ago. Of course, this time the attackers were larger, stronger, and though fewer, much deadlier. Faced with only bad options, we split our party up into smaller teams to deal with each threat as it came, and some of us very nearly lost our lives for it. And as bad as each encounter seemed, with each new one the situation grew more dire.

I’ll admit to being frightened at the sight of, not one, but two dragons flying over the city. One red that breathed fire, and one white that I am told spread ice and frost. I later learned that the second dragon was, in fact, a clever and well-timed (if not poorly communicated) illusion from Trask, created to keep the real dragon at bay. In that, I can say that Trask was largely successful, as the dragon did little more than torch a few buildings, and only claimed a few lives. Yes, the damage was severe, but what was intended to be a vehicle of panic and fear was instead kept somewhat to the edges of the city, wary and mistrustful of its surroundings.

The giants and dire animals, in contrast, were very real. Fortunately, we were able to use our numbers and our knowledge of the city to gain the upper hand and quickly turn the tide. I am told the last giant was felled just a few hundred yards from the city walls.

From his interrogation we learned of Mokmurian, a sort of upstart, insurgent leader with ambitions of uniting all giants under his reign. His plan appears to be to whip up a frenzy with promises of retaking the human lands, and these widespread raids appear to be early rewards for his followers. While I do speak of it a little flippantly, I have no doubts that he is very dangerous and very capable, and he certainly has the mettle to make it happen. We are told that he has a great deal of magical talent, and was audacious enough to claim a taboo site in his homelands as his fortress. These are the signs of one who knows they have power, and knows how to use it to wrestle control from others.

Though we have so far been successful, sometimes comically so, in defeating the bands of giants as we come across them, I do worry about what is on the road ahead. After entering Jorgenfist, we will no longer be dealing with isolated raiding parties of overconfident and under-prepared adversaries. We will be quite literally surrounded by giants. Though our resources are numerous, they are not unlimited and even these small skirmishes have left us drained. And then, there is still the matter of the dragon, a creature that breathes fire and flies high where it is difficult to fight. I fear that we are neither prepared to defend against it– we can all be burned by fire as easily as we burn others– or to take meaningful combat to it.

I will raise this concern with the party in the morning. We need to think, and to plan.

== Moonday, Sarenith 16, 4708; The Devil’s Platter; noon ==

We took the time to identify the handful of magical items taken from the fallen giant leader, and immediately put one of these to use.

[604] +2 giant hide shirt
[605] +1 heavy dwarf bane pick
[606] +1 light pick
[607] +1 ring of protection (Sabin)

I found Mayor Devlin and asked her about her abducted cousin, the paladin Gavin. She said he and his brother, Brak, had settled in Sandpoint and opened the Two Knights Brewery forty years ago. Sadly, Brak was killed in the “late unpleasantness” some years back.

This was startling news, because that earlier disturbance in the town appeared (now) to have been related to the Rune Lords, as is (apparently) our latest problem with giants. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Meanwhile Trask and Avia were dealing with the survivors of the Scarnetti family, whom Trask managed to rescue by lobbing a fireball at a trio of giants that had been hauling them away.

After a little healing from Avia they all looked like they’d live, and the old woman found hiding in the ruins of the manor turned out to be the matriarch of family. She suggested that we hang around to help the family rebuild, but when Avia said we needed to pursue the giants, she pulled out a box and opened it. Within was a large and heavy translucent red gem, which she handed to Avia with a, “We Scarnettis always remember those who help us.”

[609] large, translucent red gem (ruby?) ~1500 gp

We were anxious to follow after the giants, but I thought it best if we gather additional information if possible. The slain leader would require a Speak with Dead spell, which none of us had memorized, and so we settled for talking with the living giant we had captured.

Sabin and I entered his cell, looking as conspiratorial as we could, and tried approaching him as an agent of Mokmurian ready to help. But the giant was far too suspicious, and so I quickly changed tactics. He was obviously very much enthralled by Mokmurian, and I was able to play off his obsession.

We found that the name of the invading giant leader was Taractynous, and blame was placed squarely at his feet for the failure of the assault, what with only puny little humans standing in the giants’ way.

On Mokmurian himself our giant gushed enthusiastically. Long ago great and immensely powerful lords of magic ruled the world, subjugating even the mighty giants. Most of the great ruins found about Varisia were built by the giants (the “sons of stone”). Occasionally a giant was born with the ability to use the same powers as their masters — even long after these overlords were overthrown and their empire reduced to dust. Mokmurian was one such giant who was born with the ability to wield this ancient power.

Mokmurian could turn his enemies to stone, while making his own skin into hard as granite armor. He could even make the very ground reject his foes, flinging them into the air.

He was so great that he defeated a mighty red dragon in power, and forced it to do his will. This was in fact the same dragon that had brought fiery ruin upon Sandpoint.

He had united all giants, ogres, trolls and ettins to a single cause of taking the lowlands from the puny scum that infested them.

Mokmurian had entered the forbidden Valley of the Black Tower (a place of ill omen in giant history) and claimed it for his own. Only one such as mighty as he dared to tempt fate. And there he built a magnificent fortress, which he called Jorgenfist after the entryway to the giant’s land of the dead. Truly a blasphemous act, but so powerful is Mokmurian that he need not fear the repercussions of his actions.

As far as the stones from the Old Light, Mokmurian had commanded that they be brought to him. The stones themselves would reveal great secrets that he would find useful in his plan to reclaim all the lowlands for the giants.

If memory serves correct, in one of Olithar’s journal entries he had mentioned that the local Sandpoint arcane expert and historian, Quink, had a theory that the Old Light may have been used as a mighty weapon in ancient times. Perhaps the secret of such a weapon is what Mokmurian wished to find.

I continued to question the giant about Mokmurian, and stated that I greatly desired to see this great Lord of the giants, and to visit his mighty fortress from which he controlled all of giant kind.

From a “Read Thoughts” spell Sabin was using, I later learned that the idea of what Mokmurian would do to us tickled the giant’s fancy, and so he proposed a deal. If we would take him to the Devil’s Platter, a hard scrabble of barren rocks to the south east of Sandpoint, and released him, he would tell us how to find Jorgenfist.

I stated that this might be an acceptable agreement, if we could arrange the details with the city officials. Sabin left at this point to confer with the rest of our group. It was my intent that they would set off ahead of us and set up an ambush at the Devil’s Platter, taking down the giant after he had given us directions.

Mayor Devlin had no objections to our taking the giant out from Sandpoint and doing away with it.

And so I agreed to the giant’s terms. Sabin and I would take him to the Devil’s Platter, unharmed, and there we would release him. Neither Sabin nor I would harm him or attempt to track him down afterward.

We returned in an hour’s time and left town with the giant. The large fellow was still in chains, because the townsfolk would have been enraged to see him walking freely out of Sandpoint.

As it was there were a few knots of people standing along the way to the gate, and they shouted insults and threw stones at the giant as we passed.

Soon we were a good distance from Sandpoint and we removed the giant’s chains, and continued on to the Devil’s Platter. Along the way I continued to question the giant about Mokmurian, both to glean additional information and to make sure we could be heard from far away.

I discovered that Mokmurian was regularly sending out scouting and raiding parties, which came down the Storval Stairs and fanned out into the lowlands to the south and west.

We reached the first round top of our rocky destination, and standing in the old campsite that the invading force of giants used on the way in we stopped and the giant looked around in all directions, and then waved eastward.

“There, in the very middle of the the Iron Peaks, you will find the Valley of the Black Tower, where Jorgenfist sits in all its splendor. Head east, and climb the Storval Stairs, that great and ancient work of giant kind, and continue east. Scale the mighty heights of the Iron Peaks and find the Muschkal River. Follow that river and it will lead you to the Valley and to Jorgenfist.”

We asked if the giant was heading back now, but he said no, he could better serve Mokmurian by spying out the lands for a while longer before returning.

At this point Sabin said, rather loudly, “Well then, we are off to Jorgenfist!”

And with that the other members of our party quickly sprang out from the surrounding scrubby brush and quickly killed the giant.

Interestingly Nolin had picked up a new skill and charged in on his horse, skewering the giant like a pig on a spit.

For our part, Sabin and I kept our words and simply walked away.

After the killing was done, and the giant dead, I searched the body thoroughly and found a sihedron rune tattoo on his right shoulder. It was the same tattoo we saw on citizens of Turtleback Ferry who were regular customers of Lucretia.

What could it mean? I have no idea, but I removed the patch of skin with a knife and am keeping it with Barl’s head.

== Moonday, Sarenith 16, 4708; Road from Windsong Abbey to Galduria; evening ==

The Storval Stairs is a well known landmark, though none of us had seen it. My home is on the vast Storval Plateau, and I have been at the northern most feet of the Iron Peaks, and of course Hook Mountain, where we had slain Barl Breakbones, is the southern most outlier of that range. I knew that the Muschkal River flowed out from the mountains and feeds into the Storval Deep, but I had never seen that river, and have only seen the northern and southern extremes of the Deep itself.

We decided to head down to the Lost Coast Road and try to pick up the trail of the fleeing giants. We suspected they were making for the Storval Stairs, and aimed to overtake them before they reached it.

Our path would lead us over to the town of Galduria, some three days distant, and then up to the settlement of Wolf’s Ear. We had already planned to visit these villages as part of our original mission from Magnimar, and so this way we could kill two birds with one stone.

We found the trail of the giants we were pursuing, which mostly followed the road to Galduria, and so we set off at a good pace.

Just before stopping for camp we came across the grizzly sight of a merchants’ caravan that had been waylaid by the giants, as they had made their way to Sandpoint some days before. The pulped bodies of the victims lay about, and we took the time to bury the remains.

== Toilday, Sarenith 17, 4708; Road from Windsong Abbey to Galduria; evening ==

The weather has held steady and if it weren’t for the urgency to overtake the giants before us I would have enjoyed the ride through the bright green undulating countryside. All trees, thickets and shrubs have given way to a rich grassland stretching away as far as you can see in wave upon wave of gentle rolling hills.

Just after lunch we spotted the lumbering forms of half a dozen or more giants up ahead, perhaps a mile away. We picked up our pace a little and debated our options for engaging the enemy.

I suggested we act like drunken and unwary travelers and entice the giants to come to us. We began to sing and laugh loudly, and sure enough, the giants — there were eight: a few with bags of loot, and two others holding onto ropes binding a string of half a dozen human prisoners — stopped and watched us as we approached. Four giants came rushing towards us, and so we all dismounted, except for Nolin, and made ready for combat, singing and laughing and calling out for the giants to join us.

They did not know what to make of us, and no doubt thought that four giants were more than enough to handle the eight of us.

Avia, Sabin and Derel all waded in against one, with weapons and fists flying, while Nolin charged another on his steed. Trask used magical attacks (involving plenty of fire, which was quite effective) while Rigel was peppering them with arrows. Kane and I provided healing as needed, and the occasional supportive spell, such as Prayer, or Kane’s special lucky touch.

One of the giants realized we were a little bit tougher than anticipated, and he called over to two of his companions that had remained behind and they came trotting over just as the first giant dropped. A second dropped before they backup pair arrived, which stopped them in their tracks with mouths gaping and drool puddling at their feet.

We were still singing and calling out to them in the friendliest of terms as the two remaining giants were being slaughtered. The third fell, and just as the fourth was thinking he might want to retreat I used Hold Person to keep him still while Avia finished him off.

Meanwhile one of the pair of reinforcements began to run, but was blocked by a wall of fire that sprang up courtesy of Trask. In the meanwhile Derel, who had earlier been made invisible, ran over to the two giants standing guard and began to cut the prisoners free.

Nolin charged the fleeing giant, while Sabin, Trask and Rigel swarmed another, turned and tried to join his companion by the wall of fire.

Concerned that the guard giants might slay the prisoners in desperation, Kane charged them, screaming wildly like a madman. Keep in mind that Kane is a halfling, and the giants were, well, giants.

A look of confusion and utter bewilderment crossed both of their faces as one turned to the other as if to say, “What fuck, Bob?”

They decided to flee, but yanking on their ropes they found that they were no longer tied to their prisoners. Derel tripped one of the giants as Avia showed up and chopped it into pieces and Derel pummeled it into giant juice. Likewise his companion only managed to flee a short distance before he too succumbed to the onslaught of the “crazy little people.”

Eight giants dead in about a minute’s time.

The prisoners looked to be in rough shape, and after Kane channeled some healing energy their way I called out asking if Gavin Devlin was among them.

He was, but he had no idea why he was abducted, nor any notion why his devotion to Abadar would single him out for special giant attention.

We surmised that since Abadar was the patron deity for merchants, and the invaders had explicitly demanded that the town surrender them or face destruction, that whatever was uniting the giants had a special need for or hatred of the sort of people who excel at this line of work.

Devlin was keen to lead the other five freed townsfolk back to Sandpoint, via Windsong Abbey, which he thought they could reach by nightfall if they left right away. And so we equipped him with some leather armor and a quality longs word, as well as handing out simple weapons to the others, and waved them off.

We would be relying entirely upon Kane and my spells for creating food until we reach Galduria because we sent them off with all of our travel rations.

I have confidence that they will make it back to Sandpoint unhindered. It seems that all wild creatures or robbers have been driven away from the road by the passage of the giants.

We encountered more rotting remains from the giant incursion by late afternoon, and one of the giants’ allies, an ogre, was among the victims. It too had a sihedron tattoo on its right shoulder, and I sliced it off and burned it later.

We rode until past dark, and set up camp next to the road. If we ride all day tomorrow we should just reach Galduria before sunset.

== Wealday, Sarenith 18, 4708; Galduria; evening ==

We started early and traveled hard throughout the day. By mid afternoon the tips of the distant Malgorian Mountains could be seen peeping above the eastern horizon. An hour later and we were making our way through the outlying farm lands and hamlets on the outskirts of Galduria.

Talk about the depredation of giants and their kind was found anywhere you lent a sympathetic ear. A farmer who had lost his son was lamenting the fact that if his boy had not been off gambling with his friends he’d still be around to muck out the pig sty. I wondered if young master Gregor had really been taken or if he had simply walked off, but the old man’s words gambling convinced me he was just the sort the giants were after.

We reached Galduria before nightfall, and hastily arranged for a meeting with the mayor. The town itself had been spared from all but a few raids, and these were simple loot and pillage affairs. Indeed the mayor took the issue rather lightly until we told him of Sandpoint’s recent encounter. But Galduria was even less defensible than its distant neighbor to the west, and so we advised that they set up alarms for early warning in case the giants decided to visit en masse.

Galduria is a nice town, somewhat larger than Sandpoint, and perched upon the western shore of Ember Lake. We watched the sun sink behind the mountains on the far eastern shore as we made our way to a comfortable inn just off the main street near the center of town.

The town has a reasonable sized garrison, and the watch seems alert and able, but we have still set our usual watch.

== Oathday, Sarenith 19, 4708; Wolf’s Ear; evening ==

As we rode northward on the way to Wolf’s Ear the land to the west became wilder and wilder. By early morning we met the first few stragglers of trees from the Churlwood to the north, and be mid afternoon the road had plunged into the forest itself, providing only glimpses of Ember Lake to our right.

Maybe half an hour from the town itself was a cairn by the road. It was giant sized, and pushing away some of the stones I saw a giant’s face stuck with spines like a pin cushion. “Manticore,” I heard someone behind me say. Moving a few more stones I discovered he too had a tattoo on his right shoulder. Yet another scrap of skin for the fire.

Wolf’s Ear would have been a quaint trading village on the edge of the wild had much of it not been burned out, torn down, or deserted. We found a village elder who claimed that the giants regularly passed through the town from the northeast on their way to parts south and west.

The worst of the traffic started up about a month earlier, and at first the giants would make a point of stopping in Wolf’s Ear to knock down a building, eat someone’s livestock, or snatch someone out from their house. But now everyone in the town kept an eye and ear open for them, and whenever anything larger than the blacksmith approached, the citizens ran off into the woods and waited for them to pass.

We were given an abandoned house in which to stay for the night, and we are on high alert. The towns folk confirmed that manticores and a host of other deadly creatures lurked in the Churlwood, but they mostly kept to themselves if you did not go out of your way looking for trouble.

Tomorrow morning we will begin our journey following the Lampblack River to the outpost of Ravenmoor, several days to the northeast. We then continue on even further still to the distant Storval Rise, and there, not far from where the river drops down in a thundering cataract from the plateau above, are the Storval Stairs.

It has been more than a year since I came down from my home lands on the Storval Plateau, but I have never ventured to the western ends of that high place. My family’s trade routes extend mostly to the east and south. And yet we share tales around camp fires about the horrors of the Gnashers, and what really lies beneath Chorak’s Tomb upon frigid Lake Skotha.

But our goal lies in the Iron Peaks to the south, and already I have cast my gaze too far ahead. There are many long leagues between us and the Valley of the Black Tower, where Mokmurian holds his sinister court.

Moonday, Sarenith 16

I can barely hold the quill as I write. I am still weak from laughter. I did not realize I’d signed up with a troupe of comedic bards; nor did I recognize how contagious such skills were.

In short, by appearing (quite convincingly, apparently) to be drunken buffoons, we managed to kill eight giants and rescue five hostages. And the good news is that since none of them escaped to tell of the tale, it may well work again!

But as usual, I must back up.

After the giants’ bodies in Sandpoint were gathered up, we were disappointed that we didn’t find more good to be resold. In fact, after identifying things, all we found worth mentinoning was

[604] +2 hide (giant sized)
[605] +1 pick, dwarf bane (giant sized)
[606] +1 light pick (giant sized)
[607] +1 ring of protection (being worn by Sabin)

In talking with the mayor, we learned the missing paladin (Gavin Devlin) was her cousin, and his brother Brak, who had helped him co-found the brewery, had died in the “late unpleasantness” several years ago. Interesting, in that this seemed to be yet another tie, even across years, to the Rune Lord mysteries we keep bumping into. The mayor mentioned that she was going to institute mandatory longbow practice and draw up evacuation plans. No telling when the giants may return, and while there was rebuilding to be done, it was also important that as much of the town’s people be protected as possible. The tunnels under the city may serve a good and useful purpose yet.

The woman that Avia and I had saved from the house was, in fact, a Scarnetti matriarch. Perhaps the Scarnetti matriarch; somehow I felt that I should not speak unless spoken to so I never got to ask directly. For saving her and their family, she succinctly (and yet almost warningly) said, “We Scarnetti remember those who help us out.” And they brought out a box, within which was a red jewel which turned out to be a ruby worth about 1000gp [609].

Sabin, after some contemplation, was able to tell me more about red dragons. Yes, of course they breathe fire; we picked up on that. Yes, they are particularly vulnerable to cold; makes sense. They are probably not magic resistant, and one probably doesn’t need magic weapons to hurt it … but then killing a dragon is no small feat.

So, Takkad said he wanted to interview the giant prisoner we had. He thought he might be able to get some information from it by “befriending” it. I was skeptical but he’d done it once before with the ogres so, no harm in trying I suppose. Sabin would be “bad cop” and Takkad would be “good cop”; I was to be backup “bad cop”.

I was not needed.

Takkad quickly realized the best way to this giant’s heart was through Mokmurian. The behemoth went on and on about Mokmurian’s splendor and the splendor of Jörganfist, the great vacation place and spa for right-thinking giants. He went on and on about how he had seen Mokmurian himself, and he had been to Jörganfist, and how the giants would take back the lowlands that were rightfully theirs anyway, and blather blather blather.

And Takkad hanging on his every word – Really? Could I see it? It sounds wonderful! Oh if only I could see it, I would certainly see exactly what you mean!

The giant was amused that a puny human should want to see Jörganfist, but equally amused at the thought of what would happen to a human entering there. He struck (what he thought was) an extremely lopsided deal. Let me go, he said, and I will tell you how to get there.

Takkad and Sabin agreed to find a plausible way to lead the giant out of town to the Devil’s Platter, and unchain him. They would not harm him. In return, he would tell them how to find Jörganfist. Careful phrasing meant that while they would not harm him, the rest of us certainly would.

Why did you want a rock from the Old Light? asked Takkad. Legends have it that it is possible to get information from stone. But I don’t know how to do that, he added.

Why the dragon? Mokmurion forced him into servitude. Mokmurion strong! Mokmurian can cause stones in the earth to reject intruders by flinging them into the air! He can turn his own skin into granite! To hear him talk, he’s a god. But I remember hearing similar stories about Barl Breakbones, and, well …

Having been informed of the plan we took off sufficiently early to get to the Platter about an hour before they would. There happened to be a large fire bowl where trees (yes trees, not branches) had been burned, probably by the giants on the way in. Provided a fair amount of cover. By about 3pm we were good to go.

About 5pm they reached the same spot and found it a convenient place to stop. Apparently the giant had been released from his chains earlier and he and Takkad had continued to yak on about Mokmurian and his splendiferousness. At this point, though, Takkad reminded him it was time to keep up his part of the bargain.

He said (paraphrasing a bit): Go to the valley of the Black Tower; that is where Jörganfist is. It’s technically blasphemy for Mokmurion to call it that because it isn’t really, but he’s cool enough and it’s cool enough that he can get away with it. To get to this valley, climb the Storval Stairs, go due east and cross the Iron Peaks. Find the Muschal River and it will lead you to the valley. There you will find your doom, er I mean be enlightened.

With a hearty, “well then, off to Jörganfist!” Sabin announced that we were done with him, and sure enough, the rest of us made short work of the previously injured giant. Nolin’s been practicing with a big pointy stick on his horse and was able to kebab the giant.

We huddled for a quick conference. The track was still relatively fresh and so far as we knew, the giants had hostages including the paladin brewmeister. The giants could take longer strides than we could, but were probably unaware they were being followed and we were mounted; if we pressed our mounts we thought it possible to catch up with them.

When we stopped for the night, we thought from the signs that we might be gaining ground. The tracks seemed a bit fresher. Still nothing in visual range though, even now at night. We kept our fire low.

Toilday, Sarenith 17

We rose quickly and resumed the chase. We were rewarded just after lunch by the distant sight of lumbering giants. We could pretty much guess from our conversations with giants how much respect they accorded humans — that is to say, none — and Takkad suggested we use that to our advantage. If we appeared to be easy marks, we might be able to pick off one or two at a time instead of all five or six that appeared to be in the group ahead of us.

We closed the gap and immediately started shouting like drunken soldiers: Heya! We still got some left if you want to come over. We’ll share and all, cuz that’s the friendly thing to do! Kane fell off his horse. “At least, I THINK we have enough,” I shouted, eyeing the giants. “How mush do ya drink ennyway??”

Four of the (now we could see) eight giants pointed, and chuckled and started walking over. Their companions stopped and watched. They too seemed amused. But as the group approached, Nolin’s clumsy handling of the lance and meandering of his horse suddenly because much crisper. A couple of the fighters dismounted from their horses, slapped their horses to the back line and sloshingly announced that the new guests looked positively huge! Giant like, in fact!

But about this time, a fireball exploded, engulfing three of them. One also got skewered by the galloping lance of Nolin. All four stopped, momentarily confused. I yelled, “Hey, do you have fireworks too?” as five magic missiles leapt from my fingers and struck a giant. The fighters moved in with their swords and the healers moved in with their healings and suddenly the four were in dire straits. Two more were pointing and laughing it up before they good-naturedly started over to help their obviously clumsy companions.

But giants started dropping. And just as two of them decided maybe this wasn’t so funny anymore, a wall of flame erupted near them to cut them off from their escape path. I had cast greater invisibility on Derel and in a flash he was over there cutting the ropes of the prisoners. The two giants holding on to the prisoners gave a sharp yank in an effort to retreat, only to find that there were no prisoners anymore. Derel gladly beat up on them and they looked confused as his invisible blows rained upon them. To add to the confusion, we kept a constant chatter of conversation and song, and for the full effect, Kane, the halfling, charged at two giants babbling nonsense.

They clearly had no idea what was going on.

In surprisingly short time (and using a very modest amount of magic) the giants were dead. Eight this time.

The prisoners were understandably grateful. The old paladin was among them, and even largely devoid of weapons and armor he volunteered to lead the rescued prisoners home by way of Windsong Abbey. I cast a mage armor upon him so he’d have some protection, and it seemed likely that would last for the duration of his journey there. There were bags of loot from the giants, but we surmised they were simply items all taken from Sandpoint so even though I did detect magic items among the bags, we sent them along with the townspeople and counted on the paladin to make sure that the right things ended up in the right hands.

With light left, we have continued on to Galduria. We likely will not reach it by nightfall, but stand a good chance of reaching it the next day.

Wealday, Sarenith 18

We reached the outskirts just before evening. While there was not utter ruin about, such as almost happened to Sandpoint, it took only light conversation to hear about the giants that had been appearing and raiding almost at will here. Not only livestock were affected — as with Sandpoint, people had also been lifted and taken away.

One farmer mentioned his son had been taking while gambling at a neighbor’s house. We were reminded again of the link to the gambling boat near Turtleback.

Upon arriving in town we hastily arranged for a meeting with the mayor. Having the credential of a giant’s dismembered head (ala Takkad) is a wonderful way to establish credibility. The mayor was happy for the help, but although this town is comparable in size to Sandpoint or perhaps a bit larger, it is not nearly so defensible. There are no natural barriers, nor a city wall, that could protect even a part of the city. There is a city guard and they are vigilant but we’ve seen how useless that can be against the giants when they are intent on a task.

We set up usual watches again, although we were able to spend the night in nicer than usual accommodations.

Oathday, Sarenith 19

Leaving Galduria behind, we headed north to Wolf’s Ear.

Along the way, Takkad found a cairn that contained a giant killed by a manticore.

We expected a much smaller town, but it seemed even smaller. Apparently it has been more frequently visited by giants and others, because I believe there was not a building in town that did not show signs of having been damaged, burned, or completely rebuilt lately. An elder in the town confirmed the frequency of destructive visitors and was happy to see some skilled protectors stop in. He also confirmed that the woods around did contain manticores as well as other ill-tempered creatures. We stayed in an abandoned house, and although slept uneasily, found that nothing bothered us overnight.

== Wealday, Sarenith 11, 4708; Sandpoint; morning ==

We came to warn Sandpoint of an invasion of giants and help her prepare against such ill fortune, but instead we found ourselves actually defending Sandpoint against the said expected force of marauding giants, plus a red dragon.

As I pen this I sit on the steps of the Sandpoint Cathedral, with ashes still falling around me, and the smell of charred wood still strong in the air. The moans and cries of the wounded, the afraid, and the confused mingle with the gentle crackle of dying embers from the ruins of the surrounding buildings.

Although the day is clear, the streets of Sandpoint are a mushy mess of water, ash and mud from the morning’s efforts to extinguish the town’s fires. Both Kane and I made ample use of the Create Water spell to help in the fight against the fires, but still part of the Cathedral complex has been burned to the ground, the magnificent theater a jumble of blackened beams and crumbled wattle and daub, and the western end of the docks and warehouses a forest of naked piles, badly burned and broken off near the water line.

There are many dead, and many more wounded, but although Sandpoint has suffered much, the town could have fared far worse.

The morning began with Kane and I casting Glyphs of Warding on the southern bridge before walking up to the town garrison to meet with sheriff Hemlock, mayor Devlin, and Father Xanthus. We had formed a simple plan for early warning and defense, which we were ready to share with Sandpoint’s elders.

The sheriff was waiting for us, but before the others arrived a loud “BOOM” echoed down from the north gate. We looked at one another for a split second before shouting out to Hemlock, “The giants are here — raise the guard and see to the defense of the bridges while we counter the threat at the gate!”

And with that we raced north to the gate with Dereldon, who can run like the wind, arriving first. Three stone giants were approaching the gate from the road, picking up large rocks and boulders along the way and tossing them at the fortified wall. A single sentry stood atop the battlements, with a bow held limply in his hand as the horror of the onrushing giants filled him with dread.

A giant shouted out in common, “Puny humans, come play!” and Derel answered with an arrow to its neck. Trask had mounted the stairs by this time and taunted them with, “Your mother had some ugly babies!” as he launched a fireball that engulfed all three.

Meanwhile Nolin, Sabin, Avia and I ran around the northern edge of the wall and Rigel and Kane quickly climbed to the top of the wall.

While we were busy engaging this first set of giants, a tremendous explosion to the south warned us that more giants were crossing the center bridge, and had triggered the Glyph of Warding I had placed there the evening before.

The group up on the wall looked southward and saw a handful of giants with dire bears in tow making there way into the town from the bridge head. Derel raced down off the wall in their direction as Trask and Kane (audibly annoyed with having one of the party race off ahead without waiting) followed as best they could.

Meanwhile Nolin, Avia and Sabin plowed into the first giant, ferociously slashing at it and driving it back to hide behind its companions. We pressed our attack with ranged support from Rigel, and quickly killed one of the giants. With only one healthy giant remaining the morale of the two attacking giants faltered, and as our group advanced they both turned tail and ran into the forest.

Rigel called down that she would guard the gate while we swiftly and ran full out towards the district west of the central bridge.

Having watched as Derel out-paced him in his dash to intercept the giants, Trask took to the air with a fly spell, and made good use of his altitude to spy on what the invaders were doing. The giants and dire bears were shouting out and inciting panic in the townsfolk, many of whom left the relative safety of their homes to run about the streets, where they were attacked by the bears or picked up by the giants.

The giants carried large sacks and were plucking people out of second story windows or off the street and stuffing them into the sacks.

Derel arrived at on intersection where two bears and a giant loomed over passerby, and attacked the giant, who began to pummel him as a bear tore at him with its dagger like claws.

Trask used a fireball to scorch the northernmost giant and bear pair as Derel did his best to stand up toe to toe with another. Help was yet some distance off, and it began to look as if Derel’s hasty dash might lead to an untimely death.

Kane arrived on the scene only to be bitten by a dire bear, blocking his attempt to provide aid for a reeling Derel.

The rest of us were still running pell-mell toward the sound of battle when we heard Trask call out from above, “Red dragon coming in from the east!”

A red dragon, and working with giants and dire bears? This did not bode well, but it was all we could do to deal with the threat near at hand. I did take a moment to cast Airwalk on Avia as Nolin and Sabin sped past and slew the dire bear. This allowed Kane to move in and heal a nearly dead Derel.

Avia began to run up into the air as the dragon passed overhead, turning south in an arcing flight path over the harbor district.

The sound of another loud blast from the southern bridge told of more giants pushing their way into Sandpoint. A loud guttural voice boomed out, “More prisoners! People of town give us your fat and greedy or we will destroy your town.”

Derel, Kane, Nolin, Sabin and I were pressing attacks against the knot of dire bears and giants near us when Trask swooped in and cast a haste spell on most of us. One of the bears, seriously injured by our fighters, ran off south toward the other giants, but a parting volley of Magic Missiles from Trask finished it off.

Walking on the air Avia climbed up and over a block of houses to start hacking away at a giant and dire bear just we were finishing off the giants and bears nearest us. Kane closed the distance to offer support for Avia.

But as things were looking up for us in our current skirmish, the dragon, which had been soaring above Sandpoint and harmlessly swooping around, dove towards the Cathedral, belching forth a gout of liquidly flowing flame, which engulfed the wood buildings that made up the north half of the temple complex. The dragon then landed on the stone roof of the Cathedral itself and roared out a challenge.

Trask took up that challenge and flew over toward the dragon, baiting it with insults (I remember “rodent eater” and “weasel face”) and peppering it with Magic Missiles. The dragon did not take kindly to either the insults or the missiles (or both) and an eerie beam of light shot out from one of its claws, fully striking Trask, who a moment later vanished.

Realizing there was little we could do against the dragon (unless it flew down to confront us on the ground), Derel, Sabin, Nolin and I ran south to intercept the most recent influx of giants. As usual Derel sprang ahead while the rest of us used alleyways to create a short cut, managing to step out in front of an advancing giant as Derel tried to stop it.

Avia and Kane finished off their giant and bear, and so Avia walked up into the air again and headed south, leaving Kane to hot foot it through the streets in pursuit of the rest of us.

From the direction of the southern bridge we heard giants shouting out, “Give us all beer now!” Apparently the brewery district was by the bridge, and at least one set of giants decided refreshments were in order as they began to chant, “Beer or death!” over and over.

The giant we now confronted was much larger and more burly than the giants we had seen thus far, and it seemed hell bent on a mission. It pushed past and tried to ignore us as it marched northward. But we would not be brushed aside, and Nolin, Sabin and Derel slashed, hacked and pummeled it. This giant was exceptionally hardy, and even I stung it with an icicle once (the only damage I inflicted on our enemies for the entire battle), but I was kept busy keeping our fighters healed under the crushing onslaught of the chieftain’s punishing blows.

Avia was busy chasing the dragon, as it continued to flit above the buildings, eventually swooping down over the theater and sending it up in flames. At about this time a new threat appeared in the skies above Sandpoint: a white dragon, which was substantially larger than the red flew overhead and screamed at the other. I caught a glimpse of this second dragon and remembering Trask’s earlier images of dragons, hoped that this too was one of his (although more refined and complete with sound). My thoughts seemed confirmed as the white dragon set itself in opposition to the red, and kept it distracted and at bay for a while.

Kane and Rigel arrived to join the fray as the large burly giant was beginning to sway, and perhaps sensing its own mortality, called out to two giants that had just turned the corner and were stomping towards us, “You two, go get the rocks!”

The rocks? Now what?

We managed to hack down the big brute as the other two giants stormed past us — or one of them did. Derel performed some sort of monk move and a giant stumbled and stopped by him. Derel was rewarded with a heavy blow for his efforts.

Sabin, Rigel and Kane ran northward to catch the escaping giant while Nolin, Derel and I dealt with the little giant left behind. And soon our little giant’s behind was kicked and it lay dead in the street. We turned and ran north.

Sabin and company discovered that they could not keep up with a running giant, but managed to keep it in sight as it charged out to the Old Light (ancient ruins of debatable purpose and origin at the northwest corner of town) and began to chip away at the rock-work with its pick.

The trio managed to seriously injure the giant as it picked up a large chunk of stone it had chipped away and began to run towards the north gate. Kane stopped it in its tracks with Hold Person while Rigel ran up and killed it.

Avia had realized she could not catch either of the dragons at the speeds they were swooping about and so returned to the ground near a retreating giant and hacked it to pieces.

The red dragon had landed on the beach to the southwest of the town and was fanning its wings and screeching out a challenge to the white dragon, which also landed on the beach and did the same. Something like a dragon face off ensued for a short while. Eventually the red dragon ran at the white, leaping in the air before it and circling round to set a ship and part of the docks alight before flying away to the east, from whence it had come.

We did not know where the giant Sabin and company had run off to, and so Nolin Derel and I ran north, and soon came to an intersection where the town guard, using bows and arrows, was holding off a trio of giants. To be fair to the giants I do not believe they were trying to get past the guards, but only keep them distracted.

Quite honestly I was quite surprised by how ineffective the town guard had proved. Perhaps they were useful for holding off lesser creatures… such as rabbits — I had heard rumor of an infestation of fluffy bunnies at a place called Thistlestop to the north — but then I wouldn’t necessarily bet against the rabbits in such a conflict.

Our duty was clear, and so we charged over to assist the guard.

At this moment Trask too had spotted the trio of giants and had his white dragon image land behind them. One of the giants took up a horn and gave a great blast, calling out “Retreat!” Then then ran forward and plowed through the guards as they ran to the north gate.

Trask launched a fireball at the departing trio as he landed before his white dragon and made some sort of show of dismissing it—a little grandiose, and really, was this the time for it? We still had three escaping giants.

But one Hold Person spell later and the lead giant was held in his tracks, and Derel ran up to confront the other two, receiving much physical punishment as a reward. Nolin joined in, and another Hold Person later saw a single giant still able to move, and it ran past us to the gate. A few moments later and the two held giants were dead, but oddly enough a wall of flame sprang up behind the retreating giant, protecting its escape.

Alarmed I looked around for some new spell casting foe that had but recently joined the battle, but only saw Trask looking rather sheepish.

In looking south I noticed thick plumes of smoke rising up from across the small bay — this is where the wealthier Sandpoint families had built their estates. Trask had already noticed it and was back in the air, flying south to investigate and aid as he could. Avia too was running to the south above the buildings.

The escaping giant reached the northern gate just as Sabin, Kane and Rigel arrived, and a short while later the giant lay still on the ground, tied in ropes (at first) and later chains.

Nolin hastily made his way to the stables and found the horses had been left alone and the stables ignored in the attack, and mounting his war horse he galloped about town, looking for remaining pockets of giants, and trying to correlate all that had happened that morning into a single cohesive tale.

I too ran southward, using Create Water liberally as I ran past buildings on fire, but my ultimate goal was the giant leader. I thought perhaps he had written orders or something else on his person that might serve as a clue as to where they had come from and what they were trying to accomplish. I found several interesting items, but nothing to explain the attack.

[604] Giant hide shirt (magic)
[605] Pick (magic)
[606] Light pick (magic)
[607] ring (magic)
[608] war horn

If the giant was not carrying his orders, then he must have memorized them, and I planned to have a conversation with him the next day, and so I had the town guard heft the body onto a wagon and haul it up to the garrison. I insisted it be placed under guard to prevent the townsfolk from exacting their revenge upon it, and thus making my job of extracting information from it that much more difficult.

To the south Trask found the Scarnetti manor in flames, and three giants walking into the woods with large sacks over their backs. A fireball later and they had dropped the sacks and were running away. Another fireball ensured that they would probably not try to come back to retrieve the sacks.

Trask found dying members of the Scarnetti household in the sacks — possibly members of the family itself. Nearby was a wagon filled with plunder from the manor. Avia arrived and together they searched the house, finding one surviver (a servant).

We gathered again a short time later, and Nolin revealed that witnesses at the brewery watched the giants take more than just beer. The Knight’s Brewery was owned and operated by a retired paladin, a relative of mayor Devlin, and as the giants came up to the building they saw the paladin’s holy symbol, and crying “That’s it!” two giants snatched him up and marched off eastward into the woods.

Obviously the giant attack had a set of specific goals, possibly one or more of which we thwarted (seizing the “rock” and capturing lots of townsfolk — in particular the merchant class), but some of which they achieved (capturing the paladin, or his holy symbol, or both).

That they had the assistance of a red dragon is not surprising (although its arrival certainly was)—Mokmurian appears to have a wide range of beings at his disposal (one of the giants spoke of Mokmurian, although not in a complimentary fashion).

We know the invaders came from the east—but how far east? And where are those who made away with the paladin (and possibly others) heading?

There is a sense of urgency to chase down the giants, but their trail should not be difficult to follow, and perhaps by spending a day gathering information we will be better prepared to meet whatever or whoever is at their final destination.

We have one of the invading giants held in captivity, whom we will question later on today. I have an idea for how we might be able to get him to answer our questions voluntarily, and old Barl might still be of use to us.

And we have the body of the giant leader, with whom we can speak in the morning. We must plan our questioning for this one well, for we will only get four questions to ask him.

And mayor Devlin should be of use as well. Who was this paladin relative of hers? Which faith did he follow? And the more she can share with us about him (or the more his coworkers or household can tell), the better the chance for a successful Scrying.

Fireday, Sarenith 10

Most people have completed their training and today we will be speaking with the mayor and sheriff about how best to prepare the town against an invasion of giants. I expect

• incredulousness
• disbelief
• denial
• and lastly, acquiescence

How fast we move through the list will be an indicator of our credibility in the town. If they take us seriously, incredulous to acquiescence should take about 20 seconds. However, I will add that I also expect us to make very little difference. Having seen and battled ogres and giants, I fear, as I look around “my” little town, that the same town that barely survived a plague of goblins would not do well against ogres or giants. While there is a wall at the north gate, there are only bridges to the east. Even if they were to arrange for the destruction of them in defense of the town, I believe giants and maybe even ogres would be able to ford the river in their absence .. and it would leave the townspeople unable to escape.

The priests will set up some glyphs of warding near the bridges which should both warn us and injure, to some extent, any approaching enemies. We’ve outlined some training the town guard might undergo to better prepare them for the possible battle. But as I look around at the wood frame buildings, and wooden bridges, I have to admit that the town would be but a playground if giants actually appeared. We probably should also speak of how best to evacuate the town, and send word of any problems to other towns to warn them. If poor Sandpoint is put under siege by giants it doesn’t seem very defensible even with an intelligently placed town guard.

Wealday, Sarenith 11

“My” town lies in splinters. Parts of it, anyway. And charred timbers (most of which aren’t my fault this time.) I see Tekkad sitting down and scribbling furiously as well – this is the first break we’ve had all day and putting quill to pen gives us a legitimate reason to sit down and try to catch our breath.

Well, me, anyway. I won’t put words in Tekkad’s mouth.

They came. Even before we could execute any of the defensive strategies (save a few glyphs of warding), they came. And “they” wasn’t one. Or two. We thought we were pretty good taking out two giants up in the mountains. Three or four would fairly test us, even with the town guard backing us up.

Try seven? Eight?

Our first clue that we’d start to remember goblins fondly was during our meeting with the sheriff and mayor. The mayor had not yet arrived when we heard loud booms from the northern gate. Fortunately, as part of the recommended precautions it was closed already, but we looked in horror at each other even as we thanked our favorite god that at least they’d chosen the fortified gate to attack. Giants were generally stupid and that might count in our favor.

We rushed to the gate, Derel getting there first. There were three giants there tossing rocks at the wall and gate, and issuing weak taunts like “human insects come out to play”. I got there in time to catch that last taunt so I tossed back that their mama threw ugly babies and smacked ’em with a fireball. As the others arrived, we heard a different kind of boom, more like an explosion, off to the east. Tekkad called out “the glyphs!” and sure enough, from my vantage point at the top of the wall I could see the bridges. And more giants — several more — were crossing the bridges and approaching the town. They brought with them what looked to be dire bears. Not only would we be facing more than two giants at a time, but we’d have to split up the group to do it.

On the plus side, looking at those, it appeared those at the north gate might either be juveniles or growth-stunted giants. Still, this was Not. According. To. Plan.

Quickly, those of us who were not directly engaging the northern giants (Derel, myself, Kane) rushed over towards the bridges. I flew (I’m going to like knowing a Fly spell) and the rest ran. Derel, of course, ran much faster and ran into trouble (fighting giants and dire bears with no support and no healer). Although with flight I could go in a straight line, my flight speed is slower than running speed, so ultimately the rest of the group reached the dire bears and giants before I did.

The giants were calling out for people to bring out their merchants and they would leave, but as I watched them reach in through second story windows and grab people, it became apparent this was not being done simply to frighten them. People we really being grabbed. Some were really being eaten.

All I could think of was how attractive goblins appeared right now. And how woefully underprotected this town was for this sort of assault.

And then Derel running off ahead. Both a giant and a bear attacked him viciously and it looked grim without a healer nearby. I managed to drop a fireball very precisely to scorch the giant and the bear but not Derel (but also, unfortunately, a nearby building).

Just then I happened to glance to the east and up and on the horizon I saw something that did not bode well at all.

A red dragon was approaching the town. Flying. I mean, really. A dragon too? And a red one meant he’d be immune to all my fireballs and fire spells. As I quickly ran through my arsenal I realized there was not a lot I could do to a red dragon, while I’m sure there was plenty he could do to me. Me, the only aerial combatant, I suddenly realized. And if I could see him …

“Red dragon from the east!” I yelled. While not everybody in my party heard me, some of the townspeople did and you could tell they were wishing they’d just stayed in bed that day. (But not a second story bed. Good day to have a bed in the basement.)

I saw Kane get attacked as he tried to reach Derel. But I also saw the fighters from the north wall approaching at a run. The giants there must have been killed or driven off. Fighting the dragon would be no mean trick but with the rest of our band here, perhaps the two giants and the three dire bears would be too occupied to be gathering townfolk.

Avia started walking in the air, as if on steps. I did not know this magic. Meanwhile, the dragon came in and began circling the town, and as you might expect, townspeople panicked. Thinking for a moment that maybe I was right and that this dragon was too much and might be an illusion, I smacked it with magic missile as it came by. It did not, unfortunately, disappear.

Boom. Another explosion. The south bridge. More giants. No additional dire bears. But how much magic did we really have in us? What worked in the past? Remembering, I flew down and got as many as I could in a haste spell to give them additional attacks.

By this time the ground forces had wounded much but actually taken out little. There was the dragon, there were two giants (plus three more now) and all three dire bears. I fired magic missiles at one that looked a bit ragged and it fell. But all this and only one invader down. And we were using magical healing a LOT. I myself had fared okay but almost everybody on the ground had gotten carved up at some point. Not a happy party.

Then the tide turned a little. A giant and another bear fell. We’d been pounding on these creatures for dozens of minutes (it seemed; really it had happened so fast that it had only been one or two) and finally we were getting the upper hand.

Then the dragon, feeling he as not getting enough attention, flew over the cathedral and bathed it in flame. All the wooden parts immediately caught as it swooped down to sit on the stone portion of the cathedral and screamed, almost like a challenge.

I wasn’t sure what I could do, but certainly the rest of our group was in no condition to take on the dragon. So I approached it and (not knowing if it understood Common or not) started yelling insults at it. “What are you, some sort of freakish flying weasel? Why don’t you go somewhere else to hunt for mice? You’re not needed here!” And his response was to cast a spell — a ray reached from a talon to me and I suddenly felt a WHOLE lot weaker. Thank goodness for always being lightly loaded. This was not good. But I needed the dragon to be worried, not me. So I made a point of shrugging, yelled “Hah!” and quickly cast greater invisibility upon myself, hoping the dragon had no means with which to see invisible. Just to be safe, I also flew 20 feet up after doing that so if he breathed fire at my old position I’d be safe. (It wasn’t until later I realized how this looked to my companions: dragon shoots something at me and I wink out.)

The dragon took to flight almost straight up, and then came down in a strafing run.

Meanwhile, Kane had called up his small fire elementals again and they were helping singe a dire bear.

The dragon swooped out of his dive bomb having breathed fire on the venerable old theatre. What could I do to stop him? I felt helpless. Nobody was powerful enough to drive him off other than … other than … another dragon! I smiled.

From the north came a screech. A white dragon, almost twice the size of the red dragon, was arriving. Since this was a Major Image, it had both the appearance and sound of a white dragon, but it would be unable to actually injure anything with its cold breath. I was hoping the red dragon knew enough about its brethren to be frightened. For my part, I only knew what I’d read after my discussion with Berik, so I hoped my dragon was visually accurate enough to fool the red dragon.

By this time, all the bears were down, the three giants at the north gate had been either killed or discouraged, and the two who had originally arrived from the east were also down. This was beginning to look possible. Except for the other three giants that had arrived via the southernmost bridge. And the dragon.

The white dragon definitely had drawn the red dragon’s attention. It seemed apprehensive of it, and it landed near the beach where it could keep an easy eye on it. The rest of the party was trying to convince the last three giants to leave but the apparent leader seemed quite strong and sword resistant. He told the other two to get the rocks, which meant nothing to us but apparently did to them as they headed off to the old lighthouse. Some of our group tailed them, while some stayed occupied with the apparent leader.

As I played with the red dragon, giants continued to fall. And yet, three more appeared. Eyeing my new friend nervously, the red dragon quietly withdrew from the battlefield and flew off, affording me the capability to help out elsewhere.

Meanwhile the rest of the group had finally managed to finish off the leader, and they found the other giants easier to kill. So, looking around at the carnage and discussion, I realized the town had been through a lot that day. 13 giants. 3 dire bears. 1 dragon. No scratch that, I realized, 2 dragons. They probably can’t tell that one of them was helping them. But I could fix that. Nothing like a little thespian skill to complete the illusion.

I flew down in front of the town guards, making myself visible as I did so. I caused the white dragon to fly down before me and I said, “I release you from your service, and your service will be both appreciated and remembered.” Then with a flourish I dismissed the dragon, and he flew away, finally disappearing at a range of about a hundred yards just as I ran out of spell. There were ooos and ahhhs from the crowd, which leads me to feel nobody will be held liaable for the damage here and that the prestige of our group just improved again.

I had noticed, during the middle of the battle, that the Scarnetti mansion across the bay seemed to be on fire. Avia and I hurried to check that out while our aerial spells were still holding out. The rest of the townspeople and the rest of our group began the arduous task of putting out fires, assisting the injured, and assessing the damage?

We found that the place had been ransacked and set aflame. No sign of the Scarnettis, although we did eventually find a maid hiding. Apparently giants here, too. We caught them taking a wagonload of stuff and so I used my last fireball spell to discourage them from doing that. We brought the wagon and the lady back to Sandpoint.

All told, there was far more prestige at stake here than goods. We managed to get only a magic hide shirt [604], a magic pick [605], a light pick [606] ; a magic ring [607], and a warhorn [608] from all the bodies.

‘Twill be a day not soon to forget, for many days to come.

 

Moonday, Desnus 19

It feels right to be leaving. Although technically we remain the owners of this fort, by virtue of Magnimar having relieved itself of the responsibility, in practice we’ve done all we can to make it self-sufficient. The new recruits are being trained, and I smile a bit as I see Jakardos chastise them. He had spoken of retiring from this business (and still does) but I can see from the manner of his step and the way he holds himself that his words do not match his actions.

Logically, I do believe he has convinced himself it’s time to move on. Emotionally — ethically, perhaps — he seems to still feel a conflict, as if leaving now would be abandonment. I do hope for his sake that a protege rises from these recruits that will allow him to actually do what he has reasoned it is time to do. But that will still be, at least, several months off.

Our destination is Magnimar. Many of us have additional training we’d like to undergo, and while we were able to piece together some training from various elders and skilled artisans in the region this last time, it is nowhere near the same as having a skilled master, who is also skilled at teaching, guiding you as you extend your capabilities.

 

Fireday, Desnus 23

Of course, coming from the direction we were we would have to pass through Sandpoint before reaching Magnimar. And yet it startled me to come upon familiar bridges and landmarks, because I feel so changed in the intervening times. When first I arrived at Sandpoint, I knew none of my companions and few of my spells. I mean, really, a handful of goblins gnawing at my leg could have killed me. Now, with a greater mastery of magic, crossbow, and even quarterstaff, I doubt the infestation we encountered would do more than annoy me and my companions.

Sigh. Korvosa will always be my home, but Sandpoint still holds a special place for me. I look forward to an overnight here, and not simply for the promise of better accomodations than a bedroll and an open sky. I do like nature, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. And too little of a better thing like warmth and well-built shelter.

There will be little time to socialize, but it will be hard not to run into at least a few people we know. I could see us returning here with purpose if the promise of the giants’ reclaiming of their homelands is true, because Sandpoint would certainly be in that area of dispute.

Oathday, Desnus 29

 
We arrived in Magnimar a few days ago, and although we all immediately went in different directions to accomplish different things, we find it … comforting is not the right word … comfortable to reconvene in the evening. Weeks of relying upon each other have established some old habits, and I feel like I’ve forgotten something if, before I retire, I’ve not accounted for everyone in the party. That is silly, of course; we’re in a place of safety and it’s not at all unusual for somebody in the party to be out late or away a bit longer than the majority of the party on any given night. And yet, it is how I feel.

Father never spoke to me of the camaraderie that is formed by a band of adventurers, but then I don’t believe he ever found himself in the company of such a large group. From his stories, he had the occasional companion or two, brought together by circumstance or common foe or problem, but I don’t recall him speaking of a regular coming together of the same group. I will admit (to none here, of course!) that I find the sameness a little comforting.

Comfortable, I mean. Comfortable. I wish it were possible to erase ink without ruining a whole page of parchment. Hmm. Perhaps there’s a spell for that.

And that brings me to my training. I found my usual tutor, Berik, shortly after arriving in town. After a day or two of instruction, he found me, in his words, “particularly adept” at this point in time. He warned that soon, possibly as soon as at the conclusion of this session, he might consider me more of a peer than a student. I considered that a bad thing, in the sense that it meant it would be harder to learn new spells and techniques, but he disabused me of that.

“Trask, a sorceror reaches a point,” he confided to me, “where your magical improvement hinges more on your creativity and ability to explore new areas with peers than your ability to read textbooks and burn down labs.” He smiled. “Not to say you have not been extraordinary in that capability. Never have I found my create water spell so useful as with you. But the day is soon coming when you and I will consider things as equals, and learn together. There are still sorcerors and wizards who know more in breadth than you or I, and yet are not suited to be tutors to us.” And with those words, we returned to what may be our last session as professor and student.

Fireday, Desnus 30

We have settled on several new spells that Berik knows sufficiently to teach me. And he has commented again that I am picking them up very quickly. Featherfall is a very easy spell that I’ve never had the time to learn before. The rope spell is a fascinating spell that I never knew existed until somebody in the party asked if I knew how to cast it. It is a surprisingly easy way to hide from enemies in a dimensional pocket and I was fortunate to find that Berrik could instruct me in it. Neither of those requires a particularly complex lab area.

The other spells I am learning are tougher, but I see them having great use in our missions. I am learning major image, which will allow me to cast very believable illusions. I am learning greater invisibility, which conveys upon the recipient the ability to remain invisible despite taking action against another. I might find that Rigel is my new best friend if she finds I can do this to her. The last is wall of fire.

Berik raised an interesting topic with me after instruction today. He asked if I knew the basis for my magical control, and I told him I got it from father. He looked annoyed and replied that yes, of COURSE I did, but where did he get it from? And his look told me that if I answered “my grandfather” he’d create a large amount of water right over my head. I must admit that I was confused by the question. He looked astonished. “You mean your father never told you?” I continued to look perplexed, and replied simply, “He said magic ran in the family, and that as I got older, aspects of that would make themselves apparent. But it was that heritage which gave me the control and left others unable to have the same control.”

Berik looked me up and down, and commented, “If I didn’t already know your age, I’d accuse you of being intentionally idiotic.” I smiled briefly, and then paused, and said, “Hey, wait a minute.” Berik gave a wry smile and said, “You ARE an idiot, you know? At least when it comes to why you are a sorceror and others are not. Most sorcerors are well aware of why they have the gift, and whether to hide that or flaunt it. Especially given that your father apparently was reluctant to brief you on the topic, I suspect I know what it is that gives you the magic.”

I sat down for a moment and looked at him. “What can you tell me? Does this help?” And I made the claws appear. And even as I did so, I stared at them. I’d not brought them out in several weeks, since as my magic grew, my need for hand to, er, claw combat had lessened. But they seemed, I don’t know, larger than I remembered. More powerful looking.

For his part, Berik proved he had an innate ability to jump, travelling at least three steps back before regaining control. “Great Light of Desna, you need to say something before you point those at somebody in polite company!” He quickly regained his composure and stared me down. “Given this, and your predilection and adeptness at playing with fire, I suspect there is a dragon in your ancestry somewhere. Given your father’s reluctance to discuss it, that introduction may not have been entirely voluntary.”

I stared at him. I stared at the claws. I stared at him again. “A … dragon? Does this make me evil? Does it make me a freak?”

“No, and yes,” he responded. “All sorcerors, myself included, are a freak if you consider introducing magic into a human bloodline to be a freakish thing. I myself have a bit of the fey in my bloodline. But whether you choose to use this talent for good or evil is still an individual decision, borne of both upbringing, genealogy, and will. Has your father told you what to expect as you progress?”

“Well, he has said there are certain family traits that will become apparent — the claws, for instance, I’ve had since I exhibited a flair for magic,” I responded.

Berik nodded. “That’s typical. And I’ve observed your augmentation of fire spells, which tells me you’ve a red, brass, or gold dragon in your lineage. We should be able to tell from your breath weapon. What form does it take?”

“WHAT?” I sputtered. “A breath weapon? You mean like breath noxious gas on people?”

Berik chuckled. “You’ve that, son, yes, but that’s simply due to poor oral hygiene. No, at a point in your development — and I’d judge that to be soon — you will indeed be able to breath – fire, I suspect – upon those who displease you. Have you tried?”

“How does one do that?”

Berik shrugged. “Do I look like a dragon? I already told you my magic is fey based, not dragon based.” He looked bemused. “I don’t know if it’s a cough, or an exhalation, or what. I presume it doesn’t hurt you, but I may be wrong. Did your father ever barbecue dinner without the use of wood, or sneeze and set the curtains on fire?”

I just stared a little goggle-eyed at him, until he smiled a little. “I wish I was an artist,” he said, “because the look upon your face is worthy of canvas.” He sighed. “I know something of what you may expect from speaking with other sorcerors I have known. Exactly how it works and when it happens varies from person to person and my own inexact understanding of other bloodlines. But I believe you should expect yourself to become increasingly resistant to fire itself. You should expect to find yourself with fire breath that you can use infrequently, like once or twice a day. Those claws you already know about. They will continue to get more vicious. I would guess you already have a hide that is tougher than the average human, although it still won’t break a blade or be as good as the armor a fighter wears. At some point you may develop wings, or at least the capability for them.”

I took a deep breath and stared into the distance. At that moment, my pride in my father was at an all time low. And yet, I was excited. Enervated. Angry. Sad. Frustrated. Quivering.

“Trask?” Berik broke a very long silence. “Do we need to take a break?” There was real concern in his voice.

Still in a bit of a daze, I looked through him, and then focused. “Yes, please. I’d like to call it a day if you don’t mind.”

He looked at me intently. “It is still a gift, you know,” he said softly. “Even if it isn’t wrapped as nicely as you might have wanted.”

I looked at him and a thought occurred to me. “Do sorcerors and priests control magic in the same way?” I asked.

Berik snorted. “Completely different. Priests are granted power from their deities. Sorcerors utilize naturally occurring magical forces to concentrate them in ways that produce the effects of the spells they cast. It’s all rather metaphysical and a complete understanding of it is an area of study all its own. Why?”

“So priests don’t manipulate the same energies by focusing them through their holy objects and intense concentration?”

Berik remarked, “You really are an idiot, you know. But you’re 18 or so, aren’t you? So there’s still hope.”

I gloomily looked at the ground. “I think I have some apologies to make to some priests.”

And I knew I had a long letter to write. And probably rewrite, before sending.

Toilday, Sarenith 3

Instruction is going well. Berik says I am learning more spells than he would normally ascribe to a sorceror of my skill, and he thinks that too may be due to my lineage. We did not intend to study either fly or fear, but a few times I almost “accidentally” cast those in reaction to lab events. The imprecise reactions I had make the almost-cast spells dangerous, but it is taking but a small amount of instruction to formally pick up on those as well.

I continue to compose the letter to my father. It has already been rewritten twice and remains unfinished.

Others are also training and restocking, but for now I’m simply keeping my share from the artifacts we’ve sold. I’m in an awkward state where I have too much coin for mundane stuff and not enough for truly useful magical stuff.

 

Sunday, Sarenith 8

 

The letter is still not complete, and while I’m normally pretty outgoing and talkative with the party, I’ve been rather contemplative of late. Others are telling of the new skills, languages, and spells they’ve picked up, but although I’ve done well and completed my training with Berik, it just seems to not be an interesting topic to me.

I thought I was doing fine, but I’m not. And I don’t know when I will be. Berik has given me much to think about.

We are part way to Sandpoint. We have decided we must make a circuit across the cities and villages that may be targets of the giants and their allies. It may happen next month or next year, but we need to consider it urgent that they be prepared … if only for the advanced warning the fall of one city may give the others.

Moonday, Sarenith 9

We are back in Sandpoint, and apparently are remembered, judging from smiles and waves.

In fact there is a celebration scheduled in a few weeks to commemorate the great Goblin invasion (and defeat). Seems like a bit of Chamber of Commerce marketing effort, but hey, tourism supports the town better than random travellers so who am I to complain?

We will meet with the sheriff and mayor later today or tomorrow to discuss what we know. In the meantime, it’s rooms at the Rusty Dragon and Amiko’s friendly smile.

While many greeted us openly, on our way to the mayor’s office, Avia thought she saw somebody watching us secretly. Our resident sneaky people were unable to turn the tables on this person so we know little of whether they really were following us or if they were, why.

We discussed the need for a plan, and Takkad looked frustrated at the mayor’s Sandpoint-centric view point. Glyphs of warding were suggested and a reasonable defense was discussed. There is no standing army here and never will be, but perhaps a reasonable defense can still be put in place for any small foraging parties (whatever a small foraging party may look like in the context of giants.)

 

== Moonday, Desnus 19, 4708; Fort Rannick; morning ==

Our gear and loot have been packed and loaded onto the horses (plus a floating disk for the massive giant armor), and we have broken our fast with the Hook Mountain Rangers. Although at the outset Jakardros stated he wanted to retire, he seems to have settled in as the de facto captain of this new troop of rangers.

We talked with him late into the evening in Lamatar’s former quarters, which Jakardros now uses as his own, recounting our adventure in the mountains, and our encounter with the ogres and Barl Breakbones. We warned him that although we had thwarted the immediate threat of an invasion of giant and ogre forces, something large and sinister was brewing, and the rangers needed to maintain constant vigilance. We recommended that the ranks of the Hook Mountain force be increased in order to effectively counter any such threat in this region.

Now that the ogres in the nearby woodlands and fields had been slain or driven off, I suggested that farmers and settlers should be encouraged to reclaim the land. There should be plenty of people from the ruins of Turtleback Ferry who would prefer a life on firm, dry land rather than down in the fens and swamps along the river, and he should also reach out to neighboring towns and villages with the offer of free land. Increased patrols through the new farmlands would be required to keep the new settlers safe and secure, but an increase in the area’s population would provide Fort Rannick with a base from which it could recruit more rangers, and with the basic provisions it takes to maintain a large garrison.

The horses are stamping and steaming in the morning light, and the sun has driven off the mists that clung along the stream we will follow down to the Skull River, and then we will ride on through the Sanos Forest, and all the long leagues back to Magnimar.

By my count we have been gone from that great city exactly three months from today, and I wonder what we shall find upon our return.

== Wealday, Desnus 21, 4708; the Sanos Forest; evening ==

The weather has been fair, with Spring making her fecund presence felt with each day more pleasant than the one before. In the shadows of the wood ferns unfurl their fiddle-heads, fresh bright greens blush at the tips of the trees, and flowers boldly push up and reach for the sun in glades dotted with a riot of yellows, whites, purples and reds.

It rained lightly the day before, but the sun is once again out this morning, and the path remains dry with a soft and springy clutter from the trees and undergrowth providing easy footing for our horses.

Tomorrow morning we shall leave the woods and reach Nybor before mid day. There we plan to rest for half a day in the comfort of an inn (we have had no fire while in the Sanos, and thus no hot food since leaving Rannick) and then leave for Sandpoint on the following morning.

== Oathday, Desnus 22, 4708; Nybor; evening ==

On the way out from Magnimar we arrived in Nybor late at night, and left before light the following morning, anxious to be on our way. I had noted then that the town must be quite picturesque, and lamented not seeing it by the light of day.

I was not disappointed. Nybor is one of the most charming villages I have ever seen, and if I were looking for a pastoral retirement, this is where I would choose to settle down.

Nybor is nestled on the southwestern shores of Ember Lake. The magnificent Malgorian Mountains rise up from the far side of the lake and their snow capped peaks are reflected in the deep blue waters. The Sanos abuts the village on the far side of the Ember River, across which a small ferry runs people and goods. To the west the peaceful, undulating land is carpeted with farms and hamlets.

The town itself is quite prosperous, serving as the agricultural hub of the region, as a mill town for the trees harvested in the Churlwood to the far north, and as the main port for the small fishing fleet that plies the waters of the lake.

And the citizenry of Nybor are at least as varied as its industries! I have never before seen such a wide variety of races all living and intermingling together in such harmony. Certainly one can find equal diversity in the large cities such as Magnimar or Korvosa, but there the populations of different peoples are mostly segregated, with isolated ethnic neighborhoods or ghettos. In Nybor there is but one neighborhood, and all are welcome.

We were truly fortunate and arrived on the day of their spring festival! Rooms were short, and we had to bundle together in a single, expensive, suite that we rented from a local guild hall (the inn being completely full), but it was a small price to pay to see the town and its people shine at their finest.

That afternoon the local temple had a ceremony dedicated to Desna, which I am sure Kane attended, but I spent most of the afternoon wandering the streets talking with the happy folks I met.

I was sitting on the dock, drinking a fine local ale obtained from a nearby pub and looking northward out over Ember Lake, as the sun sank and set the far way mountains ablaze with a rosy glow. I then realized with a start that the infamous Viperwall was at the foot of those peaks, and my thoughts strayed to the map of that fortress which I had found at Fort Rannick.

Some day…

== Fireday, Desnus 23, 4708; Sandpoint; evening ==

We arrived in Sandpoint after dark, and have fours rooms for the evening at the Rusty Dragon (my companions each have a long history in Sandpoint, and know the innkeeper well). We are weary after long days of travel, and will leave early in the morning, following the Lost Coast Road to Magnimar.

We have been mostly quiet on the road, but we discussed our short term plans for when we arrive in Magnimar. Of course training is high on the list of priorities, and we have a large collection of valuables to sell. Many of us plan to use our gains to upgrade our equipment, and Sabin has graciously offered to enchant items for us at cost.

The past day went by swiftly as we passed through the verdant farm lands of the southwest corner of Varisia. My people come from the cold lands of the Storval Plateau, and while there are farming communities, the land yields her bounty grudgingly, and the crops are limited to a handful of hardy plants.

My family were traders, and we traveled across the plateau on our way to and from the rich towns and cities to the south. I remember well the hurried trips across the barren Cinderlands — giving the shattered city of Urglin as wide a berth as possible — as we rode towards Kaer Maga and the descent down the Wall to the fertile lowlands between the Mindspin and Fenwall Mountains.

It was only recently that we sought to broaden our trade routes and headed west to Magnimar, which is what brought me to join with my companions.

== Wealday, Sarenith 4, 4708; Magnimar; evening ==

We have been in Magnimar for more than a week, and are all busy training. The first few days were especially busy as we also dealt with necessary mundane tasks, such as putting the town-home where we are living in order (a few gold coins bought the services of an industrious cleaning crew), selling our loot and purchasing equipment.

I obtained a fine light crossbow to replace the one I lost with my ill fated run-in with Xanesha, and a mithral chain shirt to replace the burdensome heavy steel chain I was wearing. Sabin then enchanted these two items, and while it cost me virtually all the coin I have, the investment should prove worth it.

The city seems much the same as we left it, although there are disturbing rumors of ogre and giant infractions in the rural outlying areas.

We shall look into these unpleasant tidings as time permits, but for now our training continues.

== Sunday, Sarenith 8, 4708; Magnimar; evening ==

During the last week of my training I began to research the mysterious words of Barl Breakbones after the battle of Hook Mountain. Often Sabin or the others would join me in these efforts, lending their knowledge and support.

I picked up the giant language during my training, and from that learned that Jorgenfist was the giants’ afterlife, or the entrance to the afterlife.

But who Mokmurian was remained a mystery, although the name sounded like it could be giantish.

I felt it was time to speak with both Barl and Lucretia to see if there was more we could glean from our dead adversaries.

The conversation with Lucretia went thusly:

Who is Mokmurian?

“My lord.”

What were you and Xanesha doing for Mokmurian?

“Gathering the souls of the greedy. They were easy to mark and easy to harvest.”

Why were you and Xanesha serving Mokmurian?

“The Lamia were compelled to obey Mokmurian and the ancient dark ones he serves.”

Where is Xanesha?

“Xanesha is in Magnimar.”

Of course the answer to the last question was only as good as what Lucretia thought when we killed her, and was no doubt out of date now. But the other information was useful, and quite disturbing. And still we were left seemingly with more questions.

And so I turned to Barl and questioned him:

Who is Mokmurian?

“Mokmurian is the great stone giant necromancer. He taught me much.”

Where is Mokmurian?

“Jorgenfist.”

What is he trying to accomplish?

“He seeks to reclaim the birthright of our people.”

Does your birthright include the Churlwood and lands to the south?

“Yes.”

Well, obviously none of this bode well for the western lands of Varisia, and so we took our concerns, along with what scant information we had, to the city council of Magnimar, but mostly spoke with the head of the city guard.

Needless to say there was great concern, and they also supplemented the rumors we had already heard of giant incursions in the surrounding areas with more stories of the same.

We urged that action be taken to warn and enforce the major towns and villages to the north of Magnimar. They assured us that they would send out scouts of the Red Tabards to raise the alarm, but asked if we too could set out and help prepare each of the towns for what might prove to be a giant invasion.

What could we do but agree to help?

We gathered back at the town house and made preparations to start early the next morning. We would retrace our return journey to Magnimar, with stops in Sandpoint and Nybor, and then we would turn north and follow the western shore of Ember Lake to Galduria and Wolf’s Ear and possibly beyond, depending on what we found along the way.

Time was not on our side, and we planned to spend at most one or two days at each town to both warn them of the impending danger and help them to organize their defenses.

== Moonday, Sarenith 9, 4708; Sandpoint; evening ==

We are back in Sandpoint. This time we rode into town before the sun had set, and many of the townsfolk waved as we crossed over the southern bridge. My friends had made a name for themselves here the previous year by saving Sandpoint from an invading horde of goblins and some sort of Lamashtu cult. They were local heroes, and everyone was glad to see them — almost unduly so.

Back at the Rusty Dragon we spoke to the proprietress and discovered why everyone had been overjoyed at our return: there was an upcoming festival to celebrate the defeat of the Thistlestop goblins, almost a year ago, and the town folk assumed my friends were returning to participate in the festivities.

We briefly informed Amiko of our real purpose in returning, and arranged for a meeting with the mayor Devlin. On our way to the mayor’s office Avia noticed someone from an alleyway watching us suspiciously — she thought he might be one of the Scarnetti family’s hired thugs. I was informed about the unscrupulous nature of this family and their reputation for using arson and violence to ensure a monopoly on their businesses. Kane and Rigel immediately vanished into the back ways of the town and we knew we would hear back later from them if anyone was following us.

We spoke with mayor Devlin about our adventures to the east, and of what we found there, and what we had learned since. Sandpoint, we said, was in danger along with all the other settlements between Magnimar and the Churlwood.

She acknowledged that there were quite a few stories circulating through the town about giants and ogres being seen in the area, and she was worried that Sandpoint would not be able to defend itself against an invasion of giants.

Sadly we realized that she was right: these towns could not afford to keep standing armies, and the town guards were simply not trained or equipped to handle such a threat (Sandpoint’s guard were not even able to handle an influx of goblins!).

I proposed that she have a three prong plan for if and when the giants came to Sandpoint. First they needed to have as early a warning as possible, and I explained how the local cleric, Father Xanthus, could place glyphs of warding about the outskirts of town that would only be set off by giants or ogres. Second they needed to have enough of a force to repel the invaders long enough until the town’s population to escape into a safe place — in this case the network of tunnels beneath the city would serve well (and they should begin to stock these tunnels with provisions for such an evil day). And finally they needed to have swift mounted messengers who could race off to warn the adjacent towns — in this case Magnimar and Nybor.

Devlin looked puzzled at this last point, and asked, “Why would we want to do this?” I explained that it was important to give the surrounding communities as much notice as possible that the giants were invading, so they could be better prepared. She then asked, “And what good will that do Sandpoint?”

Amazing, how could someone as dense and stupid as Devlin be mayor of such a major settlement?

“Because,” I answered, holding in check my mounting irritation and frustration at her short sightedness, “it is the right thing to do. And, because each of the other towns will do the same for Sandpoint. It could be your bacon that is pulled from the fire because another town wasn’t so myopic in its thinking as you.”

Honestly, politicians!

She did agree to arrange for a meeting with us, sheriff Hemlock and Father Xanthus in the morning, when we would review the city’s defenses and what preparations they could make to stand against the giant menace.

We stopped by the temple next, and asked Father Xanthus to prepare a couple of Glyph of Warding spells for the morning, and then started back to our inn. On the way back I set a glyph on the far side of the northern bridge.

== Toilday, Sarenith 10, 4708; Sandpoint; evening ==

It was a quiet night in Sandpoint, and the first thing I did after morning prayers was to set another glyph of warding — this one at the far end of the southern bridge. We are about to meet with Hemlock and Xanthus, and anyone else the mayor had invited to discuss the defense of town.

We plan to spend the full day here, making sure the town officials recognize the magnitude of the threat, and helping them begin to take the needed precautions.

We will leave for Nybor first thing tomorrow morning.

== Oathday, Desnus 15, 4708; Ogre Stronghold; night ==

I find it amazing how time passes almost unnoticed when trapped beneath the earth with no sun, stars or moon or changes of light to mark the advance of the day. And so rather than it being in the afternoon when I penned my last entry, it was in fact well into the evening hours!

Glark had left and we were in the forge, with thick smoke rising up from the still red hot fires of the smithies. A quick look around revealed a large array of recently (poorly) crafted weapons and armor — mostly made for giants, but some ogre sized as well.

We took the entire collection and placed them in the forge fires, warping and partly melting each until it was a worthless mass of metal.

Leading off from the forge chamber were three tunnels heading west, southwest, and southeast. Listening carefully we could hear the dull thud of hammer against rock accentuated with the occasional sharp clank of metal on metal. These sounds drifted in from the west and southwest tunnels, while the southeast was utterly quiet.

We crept down the southwest passage with Sabin in the lead (the only one of us who can see in these pitch black caverns) and the rest of us strung out along a rope we used to keep together. The tunnel twisted about and branched off into narrow side passageways, before ending in a chamber slightly wider than the tunnel itself. Four ogres were working within, and cursing at one another, the rock, and anything else that flitted into their thick heads. They were mining, and looked overworked, underfed, and generally ill used.

We decided these workers posed no serious threat and made our way down the western tunnel. This too led to an area actively being mined by more ogres in varying states of decrepitude. Again, no real threat.

The southeast tunnel branched once, and both passageways dead ended not far in. We noted that while it might be a dead end, this passage was also quite defensible, and could serve in a pinch as a place to bivouac.

We left the forge area and returned to the main cavern junction. We decided to explore the narrow passageway to the west before stopping for the night. It twisted about as it led up an irregular flight of steps. Once again Sabin was in front, and he paused as the passage opened onto a large chamber filled with body parts (we did not need Sabin’s dark vision to smell the stench of rotting flesh from beyond).

Peering back at Sabin was a large face, pock marked with weeping pustules and glistening with slimy sebaceous sweat. Voices, in common, echoed out to us.

“I wonder if they are coming this way?”

“I hopes they have children!”

“Oh you, stop thinking about your stomach — we have enough trouble as it is in this place with so few allies.”

“Shh, someone comes. Get your pet!”

And with that, Sabin, Rigel and Nolin, who were at the front of our party, found themselves trapped in some sort of cage where they could neither move forward nor retreat back to the rest of the group.

One of them cackled, “Sisters, I have them as captive as fleas on a drowning rat!”

With the element of surprise lost, Kane brought forth an ever burning torch and Avia’s sword began to shine with an inner fire.

Between us and our held friends we could barely make out a grid of bars, each bar perhaps half an inch wide with a half inch gap between it and its neighbor. We did not so much see the cage bars as we noticed a general nothingness where the bars were.

I cast Dispel Magic, but the bars remained.

Nolin moved to the back of the cage and began to hack at the bars with his adamantine sword, while Avia did the same from our side of the wall. But this too had no effect on the trap.

Peering through the cage into the dimly lit room beyond I could barely see three large female creatures. One had a large corpulent face, another was fat and had a humpback, and the third was skeletally thin.

“Come here my pet, come and play!”

A wight lurched forward from behind the hags and lunged toward the cave. Rigel responded by shooting it with an arrow, and Sabin pelted it with a magic missile.

The hags began to chant, which we knew could only mean unpleasant things for us.

I tried using Stone Shape to clear away enough rock from the edge of the nearest cage wall for an exit, only to find the bars extended deep into the stone.

Nolin shouted some sort of curse at the things, and one pointed at him and jeered, “You are brave now, but how brave will you be as a rabbit?” Nolin looked slightly puzzled, and the hag shrugged her shoulders as if to say “Never mind.”

Trask made good use of his affinity with fire and sent a flaming sphere into the chamber to burn one of the creatures.

The wight had staggered up to the cage, and we could see it had once been a ranger. We suspected we now knew the fate of Lamatar, the late captain of the Black Arrows. It feebly tried to bat at those in the cage, but the cage itself prevented it from doing any damage.

Likewise another of the hags tried to attack the group, only to be denied.

Finally the pustule faced hag screamed, “Enough!”, and the bars vanished. She pushed the wight aside and struck out at Rigel.

A blanket of fogged then filled the staired passageway just as the wight jumped forward and attacked Sabin.

Kane and I sent waves of channeled energy into the fog, dropping the wight, and possibly damaging the old crones.

We all backed slowly out from the mist shrouded hall and waited for the creatures to press their attack. But they did not.

From the floor, where the wight had fallen, a raspy voice croaked out, “Help me!”

Avia detected two evil beings in the fog, and nobody moved forward to help the fallen, dead undead ranger.

Trask sent another flaming sphere into the mists, and from the yelp that came out he apparently ran into something with it.

From the gap in the fog left from the flaming sphere we saw that the ranger wight was standing again, with its arms reaching out towards us as it pleaded for us to rescue it.

One of the hags loomed out from the fog and appeared to attack the ranger, but missed (how convenient). As a reward I shot a bolt of cold at the crone while Sabin thwacked it with his axe.

Our foes appeared to be retreating back into the chamber.

Another flaming sphere appeared, and the ranger jumped before the hag, and holding up its hands, as if protecting her, called out, “Wait, stop! Let’s talk.” The ranger then transformed into one of the creatures.

Meanwhile Rigel had found the actual fallen body of the ranger and hauled it back into the room with us. She noticed it wore the ring described to us back at Fort Rannick as belonging to Lamatar.

Trask replied to the hag who had asked for a parley with a fireball.

Nolin called in asking what the hags were doing here.

They replied that they were working with the giant Barl Breakbones against their will. They were his slaves and forced to help him with magic.

Breakbones was skilled in necromancy, and had tortured Lamatar. They took away his pain and memory by making him a wight. They were kind creatures and simply misunderstood.

I would not have been surprised if they had added, “Oh, and by the way, do you have any extra children you can’t use?”

We really weren’t buying the part of their story that they were innocent unwilling captives. They seemed far too delighted in their evil deeds to be acting completely against their wills. Still, I though we might be able to learn something to our advantage from them.

The others thought differently, and really, who could blame them?

Nolin and Sabin charged in with weapons swinging as Trask moved his flaming sphere onto one of the creatures, which dropped.

Just then Derrel showed up–he had completed his training a few days early and rushed up to Fort Rannick and then followed after our easily seen trail (just follow the troll and ogre bodies) to rejoin us. Even though he was tired from his long and hurried journey, he too launched into the fight.

There was just one of the things left standing now, and it perished as I stung it with a bolt of ice.

Sabin said that these creatures were called “hags” (and here I was simply calling them that as an apt descriptive term), and that they were able to join together in a small group to increase their spell casting abilities, which explained the mutual chanting.

Their chamber was littered with body parts, but nothing else. Even a scan with Detect Magic revealed nothing.

It was late and we decided to risk being trapped in the southeast corridor off of the forge. Using a Shape Stone spell Kane narrowed the entry way into the side passage we chose for our camp so that an ogre could not squeeze through.

Remembering how easily ogres had been able to smell us out back at Fort Rannick, we put several body parts onto the forge fires to mask our own scent.

We dumped all the remaining bodies (ogre and hag) into the deep pit near the entrance, and then Trask used an enlarge spell on Sabin, who left a set of large tracks leading out of the stronghold into the snowy waste outside. He then crept back in at his usual size. The hope was that if anyone suspected an intruder, they would spot the huge tracks leading out.

As usual I have the first watch (with Derrel), and I am sitting next to the narrow crack, listening for any movement out in the main hold. The hammer blows from the miners stopped a short while ago, and it is eerily silent.

== Fireday, Desnus 16, 4708; Ogre Stronghold; morning ==

The night for most of us passed without event. But Nolin and Trask reported an interesting incident during their watch.

A loud voice bellowed out, in giant, “Where did everybody go?! You lot make me come all the way from my throne room to clean up your mess? Who is on guard? I’ll have their heads! I’ll kill them! You and you stand guard. What? I don’t care what your job is, you’ll stand guard!”

Because nothing else happened, Nolin and Trask wisely let the rest of us sleep.

Somehow we know that this morning we will face the giant Barl Breakbones.

We will leave Lamatar’s body here, but have cut a finger off just in case we need to flee quickly.

== Fireday, Desnus 16, 4708; Ogre Stronghold; late morning ==

Before heading off in search for Barl we checked out the tunnels and caverns we had cleared or searched yesterday, thinking it prudent to take out any remaining resistance now rather than have them at our backs when we found Barl.

But there was nobody within. Not even the ogres was saw working the mines. Two forlorn and weary looking ogres were out in the large cavern entrance. They did not look like much of a threat, and so we let them be and returned to the main junction.

From there a wide hallway led north, from which a pale, dim light penetrated the gloom. Cautiously moving forward we passed a wide stairway leading up to our left before the main hall curved sharply to the right. It was from around this corner that the light came.

Carefully peeking around the corner we saw a vast hall stretching away to the east, climbing slightly as it gently curved south. On either side of the floor was an elevated shelf upon which were perched a series of giant statues. Near the far end the floor reached the level of the shelves, and there the entire hall opened onto a huge chamber that was open to the sky. The far eastern wall was broken into cracks and fissures that glinted icy blue.

There, against the southern wall was Barl Breakbones, sitting on a large stone throne. A single giant guard stood by his side.

We pulled back and swiftly prepared for battle, but when we looked around the corner again we saw that we were expected. Barl had floated up some twenty feet off the ground, and the guard was walking towards us.

Even I knew enough about giants to recognize these as stone giants.

Our basic plan was to focus ranged attacks at Barl and then have the fighters take care of any close in threats. We stuck to that plan as we sprang out into the hall.

Trask detonated a fireball at Barl’s feet.

Derrel must have missed the part of our plan about the fighters staying together as a unit, and he ran down to attack the oncoming guard, and the guard pummeled him for his rashness.

Barl gestured towards Derrel as a large, translucent hand materialized and sped towards him, but it appeared to have minimal or no effect.

Nolin and Rigel shot arrows at the guard as Avia lept to Derrel’s aide.

Another fireball toasted Barl again as our fighters regrouped around Derrel and began to bash the crap out of the guard.

Kane ran up from behind and channeled energy to heal their wounds (Derrel was looking none too healthy at this point, with blood oozing out from various wounds and seeping out from several orifices).

More magic was hurled at Barl, who flew over to the main fight, and pointed a wand at Avia. A sickly black ray flashed out from the wand and struck Avia, who staggered with its touch.

Trask enlarged Nolin, who hacked at the guard, which nearly dropped from the onslaught. But Barl himself remained high enough above us that our fighters could not reach him — not even Nolin in his ogre sized form.

Something needed to be done about that, and so I cast Dispel Magic against Barl’s Fly spell, and the giant slowly descended into the meat grinder that awaited him below.

Rigel finished off the guard with a well placed arrow through its eye.

Barl looked over and snorted, “It figures. Stupid little maggots are more trouble than they are worth.” He gestured towards the body of his slain guard, and it opened its eyes (the one good one, anyway) and wailed in the cry of the recently risen undead (metaphorically risen, as it was still laying on the ground).

Barl then did what all despotic leaders do when actually forced to confront their opponents alone: he ran away.

Nolin and Sabin chased after him as I cast Restoration on Avia, and she followed.

Cornered, Barl began to plead, “Wait, wait, I can help you!”, but the thought was cut off by another strategically placed fireball, courtesy of Trask. Barl’s life was over.

Derrel neatly finished off the and still prone undead guard.

We searched the bodies and found a variety of useful items (most of these from Barl).

From the guard:

[540] Great club (masterwork)

From Barl:

[541] earth breaker hammer (masterwork)
[542] wand of enervation (11 charges)
[543] ring of minor cold resistance
[544] sihedron medallion (like all the others)
[545] black onyx gems (worth 545 gp)
[546] spell book

As we searched Barl a lizard popped out from his clothes and scampered off, but Sabin killed it with a volley of magic missiles.

We cut off Barl’s head (as is tradition) and I put it in my pack (Avia once again has Lucretia’s head): I thought Glark might make use of it and claim leadership of the ogre clan.

We carefully walked back to the large stairway we had passed just before the battle with Barl (and guard), which led up into a good sized cavern. A shallow pit was near the far end, and against the far wall was a statue of a woman with three jackal heads: an altar to Lamashtu!

It looked as if the place had not been used in a while, but none of us wanted to leave the blasphemous place for future inhabitants.

We destroyed the altar, pounding it to rubble, which we tossed into the pit, and using a stone shape spell pulled a layer of rock over that. Kane and I then carved the symbols for Desna and Pharasma into the wall.

We then gathered the body of Lamatar and headed out to giant cavern that served as the entrance to the ogre stronghold.

The two ogre guards had fled, and the ancient massive giant, preserved by the sihedron medallion around its neck, stood as the lone sentinel. We gazed once again in wonder at its magnificent bejeweled armor and the deadly glave still clasped in its hand, but nobody wanted to chance disturbing the thing for fear that some unknown magic might bring it back to life again.

I used a Sending spell to notify Glark that Barl Breakbones had been slain, and we would hand over his head as proof. Within an hour Glark returned with two fellow ogres in tow.

Glark was quite ecstatic over the giant’s downfall, and he planned to take leadership of the Kreeg Clan, as we hoped. We reminded him that he had help in the overthrow of the clan’s oppressors, and we expected him to keep the ogres from attacking settlements of other peoples.

He reluctantly agreed to this, and Trask made use of another glowing hand to remind him that he was bound to his word.

Glark then asked something quite unexpected. He asked if we had recovered the sihedron medallion from Barl. He wanted it.

We wanted to know why.

Glark gestured to the giant figure before us saying that the the symbol was worn by the great father of the Kreegs, and that the symbol belonged to them.

We briefly discussed among ourselves about possibly giving Glark the medallion in the hopes that it would cement his leadership, and thus remove the threat of an overtly hostile ogre clan from the region (at least for a while). We were debating this when Kane asked Glark who had worshipped at the altar of Lamashtu.

When he replied that the Kreegs worshipped Lamashtu our debate ended.

I explained to Glark that the sihedron was an ancient symbol of power, and that we had seen it in ancient ruins across the lands, Glark became agitated, and began raging about how the symbol was the property of the Kreegs alone, and no others could have possibly possessed it.

When I provided specifics about where we had seen the symbol before, and what it really meant, and that Lucretia herself wore such a medallion, Glark went berserk. He frothed and fumed and sputtered as he stomped about before us, unable to accept what he had heard.

He once again gestured to the figure of the giant as he climbed up the gigantic thing’s armor and grasped the huge sihedron medal that hung there. He was screaming with rage about how the symbol was their’s alone, as he waved it about. He then lost his balance and yanked on the medallion, snapping the thin silver chain that held it about the giant’s neck.

As Glark fell to the ground, eyes bulging with horror at the medallion in his hands, the ancient giant crumbled into dust — its armor and helmet clanging loudly as it hit the ground.

Glark slowly stood up, and then sobbed, “Kreegs is cursed!”, before running out onto the snowy mountainside. His two companions wasted no time in leaving the scene of the fall of the house of Kreeg.

We gathered up the armor, helmet and glave (all estimated to be worth a small fortune), and using a floating disk that Trask summoned, prepared for our long march back to Fort Rannick.

[547] ancient giant half plate armor and helmet (both jewel encrusted)
400 pounds, estimated value ~$5,000 gp
[548] ancient giant glave 40 pounds

== Fireday, Desnus 16, 4708; Foothills of the Iron Peaks; evening ==

The hike down from the mountains to the wooded foothills below was long and tedious, but passed without event.

Mostly.

I had been thinking about all that I had seen and experienced since arriving in Magnimar and facing Xanesha. Almost everything we have done, and apparently most of what my companions had done before that, seem to be related… somehow.

And despite having had several victories under our belts, we seem no closer to understanding how it all fit together.

For the recent events, it seemed obvious that the fall of the fort was orchestrated by Lucretia, but how or why did she get the help of the Breakbones? And I was certain that Lucretia and Xanesha were working together on some larger project, but what it was I hadn’t a clue. Perhaps the rune tattoos on the townsfolk at Turtleback Ferry were significant: by itself tattooing citizens of a backwater town made no sense. Something bigger (and no doubt more sinister) must be in play. And why were three hags hiding out at the ogre stronghold, when even the ogres didn’t like them?

I was reminded of old Barl’s head in my pack as I slipped on a rock and my heavy pack banged painfully against my back.

I have an idea on how we might get a few answers, but it will have to wait until morning.

== Starday, Desnus 17, 4708; Foothills of the Iron Peaks; morning ==

The next morning after prayers, when the group was finishing up their cold breakfast, I wandered off into the undergrowth for a short distance. There I sat down and pulled out the head of Barl Breakbones. After casting Tongues and Owl’s Wisdom I got down to the business at hand and cast Speak with Dead.

The pale, blood spattered head of the giant just lay there for some moments, before the cracked lips parted as if the giant were still gasping for breath. It breathed out the barest whisper of a sigh, but whether it was in frustration or acceptance I could not tell.

“Oh mighty one, what compelled you to attack the fort and plan war against the peoples of the surrounding lands?”

“Jorgenfist. We prepare for the coming tide.”

“I could see why someone would want someone as great and powerful as you working with them. Who asked you to carry out these actions?”

“Mokmurian.”

“I am surprised you tolerated the presence of one as vile and loathsome as Lucretia. What purpose did she serve here? Was she acting alone or were her degenerate sisters involved as well?”

“Lucretia. Xanesha. Breakbones. All by Mokmurian’s will.”

And with that last whispered statement, Breakbones’ swollen tongue slithered out from the giants mouth and hung there limp and disgusting, like some huge black slug had oozed its way onto the former gang leader’s chin, and his head lay once again as still as the dead.

Joregenfist? Mokmurian?

I cast Gentle Repose upon the pulpy mass before me, and lifting it by the hair I walked back into camp. As the others turned to look I held aloft Barl’s head and said, “We need more answers,” and then proceeded to tell them what I had just learned.

== Starday, Desnus 17, 4708; Fort Rannick; noon ==

We pause briefly in Fort Rannick before heading to the Shimmerglens to return the body of Lamatar to his former lover, the fairy queen Myrianna.

We have updated Jakardros on the state of the Kreeg stronghold, and of our encounter with Barl Breakbones. We also left the ancient giant gear in a secure room to be picked up later (it is a bit heavy to carry around with ease).

As soon as we grab a quick bite to eat we will mount up and head out. It will be nice to travel on horseback again — and I even think my trusty steed,
Butters, missed me.
== Sunday, Desnus 18, 4708; Shimmerglens; after noon ==

We arrived back at the Willow Wood and found it as dark, dying and depressing as our last visit (if not more so).

Myrianna appeared, still looking nearly undead, and thanked us for bringing Lamatar back to her. She then raised her hands and a bright, yet softly glowing light floated from them to the body of Lamatar, completely engulfing the body.

When the light faded, a halfling lay on the forest floor. As the halfling opened his eyes, Myrianna faded into a ghostly apparition that dissipated among the naked tree branches overhead.

Speaking of naked, the halfling stood nude before us and coughed a few times before saying that he was Lamatar, who had been reincarnated as a servant of the forest. He vowed to serve the woodlands in memory of Myrianna to help make up for all of his earlier failures.

He bid us a fond farewell (and we to him).

On the way out Rigel broke the somber mood by cheerfully exclaiming, “I’m glad I took off those swamp boots of Lamatar’s before coming here!”

We are making our way back to Fort Rannick (I have been perfecting my ability to write on horseback), where we will collect our goods and make sure the new ranger corps is ready to resume the function of the now defunct Black Arrows.

From there I do not know where we will go. We have a lot of questions that need to be answered. I fret over the meaning of Barl’s last words to me, and cannot help but feel that others have been busy while we have been sent out here in the near wilderness.

I think a return to Magnimar is in order. We have a number of unique items that will only fetch a good price in a big city, and my companions apparently took ownership of a nice townhouse in one of the better districts.

And Magnimar was also where we last saw Xanesha. I fear we have not yet finished with her, and the best place to begin our search for her current location is at the place of the group’s last encounter with her.

Oathday, Desnus 15

Before leaving the forge room, we inspected the forges themselves. Acrid black smoke continued to pour from the now unattended forges and made its way to the entrance. Lying about were many completed and incomplete weapons, mostly swords and ogre hooks. The forges were still hot enough that dumping these weapons back into the forge was sufficient to warp and even melt most of them. So much for the war machine.

There were still the unguarded passages to the north. We all wanted to rest and recover spells, but we needed to know it was safe to do so.

From the forge chamber, we listened in all directions.

From the west we heard distant hammering sounds, of metal hitting stone.

From the southeast, we heard nothing.

From the southwest, we heard more hammering sound, somewhat louder.

The hammering sounds were likely miners, but how many? Best to deal with those closest first. To the southwest, then.

The passage here descended, heading down into what was obviously a mining area. Scouting carefully, we were able to see 4 ogres working. We left them alone for now.

Returning to the forge room, we next went west. This passage was long and twisty but had no branches. Eventually we quietly came upon three ogres harvesting ripe rocks. We also left these alone.

The passage southeast branched only twice, and seemed to contain no ogres. This showed promise as a resting place due to the lack of workers and the relatively low branching passageway.

But there was still, too, the passage to the west northwest in the room that lay between the entrance and the forge, and there was another passage that went due north. Trouble, reinforcements, or both might still lie in that direction. Even though we knew we were running low on magic, some felt we needed to check this out before resting. I was not among those, but I also had, I think, more magic left than most. Admittedly, I only had one or two fireballs left in me but hopefully that would be enough if needed at all.

Sabin, with his dark vision, led the way. There were stairs going up that seemed to lead to another cavern. Nolin and Rigel were close behind, Rigel ever vigilant for traps, snares, and gold. There was a distinct, putrid fragrance wafting from this room that those of us behind could detect quite easily without dark vision. And we also had no trouble making out the conversation: “I think they are coming this way.” “Might they have children?” “Shhh, get your pet!”

Then Sabin came upon a giant, pustule-pocked personage peering perniciously upon the group. As he saw it, it saw him, and suddenly an invisible cage was in place around Sabin, Nolin, and Rigel. Tekkad immediately tried to dispel it, but failed. With surprise no longer an option, we brought out the torches.

Three uglier creatures one could not imagine. I identified them as pustule-face, lumpback, and skeletor, although we occasionally heard them call to each other using proper names of some sort. The ‘pet’ seemed to be a ghast or a wight; it was hard to tell from the claws alone. However, it seemed entirely possible that this ghastwight was what remained of the former commander of the fort, Lamatar.

The creatures started chanting, and since they did not appear to be particularly musically inclined, this probably did not bode well.

Many things were tried to break our friends out of that cage. I gave Sabin Bull’s Strength, and two adamantine swords were also applied. Tekkad tried stoneshape to remove the bars from the stone, but apparently they extended farther into the stone than he thought. A magic missile was fired at the ghastwight. Several magic missiles and a flaming sphere were applied to lumpback.

One of them yelled at Nolin “Hah! How brave are you as a rabbit??” and then looked a little surprised when nothing happened. Impatient, skeletor yelled, “I’m done with this!!” and the cage disappeared as she clawed at Rigel viciously. I desperately wanted to toss a fireball into that room but wasn’t sure I could do it without enflaming my friends. So I contented myself with magic missiles and flaming spheres, which didn’t actually do too bad. Fighters, freed from the cage, attacked with their swords and rearranged themselves to be at the front.

Then an obscuring mist made it hard to see everything and we backed up to the chamber in back of us so we could better spread out. Once I realized everyone was out, I knew I was fireball-ready! There was a brief distraction as a voice from the fog croaked “help me”. Some in the group were concerned that Lamatar may have changed back to his normal self and needed rescuing, but I believed it to be a ruse so I threw a fireball into the mist. (I couldn’t see what I was hitting, but didn’t need to with an area effect spell!)

Turns out I was right but a few party members were dismayed that I hadn’t been more sure. I actually was pretty sure but I think they just didn’t believe me. The fireball did have the side effect of dramatically evaporating some of the mist.

We did see a ranger standing and urging us to stop and parley, but I was pretty sure ghasts and wights can’t turn back into the form from whence they came, so I continued with flaming spheres and magic missiles. Others started to move in as well as the creatures retreated into the cavern we’d found them.

Sweet! Another fireball. Poof.

They were not faring well any longer. They claimed Barl Breakbones had brought them here and held them here against their will and that if we but would let them go they would be grateful and gone. Our fighters and one of my flaming spheres sealed their fate.

About this time Derrell showed up. He caught up to us just as we were finishing off these hags. The cavern was littered with body parts, but little else. We tossed the hags into the smoldering body pit (how thoughtful to have one of those going) but found no magic available for us to lift.

NOW we were TRULY bereft of magic, and all agreed it was time to rest. Tekkad did a stoneshape to make it even harder to reach us in the mine passages, and we set guards and rested.

During my watch we heard a large giant bellowing. Nolin said he was complaining about missing guards and having to clean up after himself.

Fireday, Desnus 16

This would be the day we faced Barl Breakbones. We’d gotten used to killing ogres fairly easily, but a giant … ah, a giant will be a new test of our skills.

We made our way back to the northern corridor (despite the ruckus the night before, there appeared to be no guards) and peeked around the corner. “Sooner than we thought” ran through my mind, because at the far end, sitting on a throne, was a giant. Another giant (a guard, I suppose) was at his side. We strategized, decided on a plan, and rounded the corner.

Only to find we’d been seen. Barl was floating 15 ft above the ground and the guard was already halfway to us. Now the plan had been to use distance weapons (in particular, fireballs) until they were no longer viable, then utilize our big swords. But Derrell apparently had trouble following the script, and rushed out. He was pummeled severely by the guard, but having the guard focus his attack on the poor man DID insure he was not pummelling on anybody else.

I dropped a fireball under the floating Barl, followed quickly by a second, but it was almost impossible for me to get his guard, since Derrell and quickly some of our fighters surrounded him. Although they were doing well, and the clerics were channeling healing to them, the guard was still a formidable enemy. He was, after all, still a giant. About this time, Barl whipped out a wand and shot a black ray at Avia which caused her to get much weaker. Tekkad successfully cancelled Barl’s flying spell and I enlarged Nolin, both of which served to level the playing field considerably. Nolin’s next swing pretty much dealt the guard a death blow.

Barl, however, made a effortless gesture and suddenly we had an undead giant on our hands Still, Barl was on the ropes, and when he tried to run away, it seemed completely natural to give him a fireball to measure himself against. Turns out he was closer to death than anybody might have thought. Ooops. Gosh.

Searching the bodies, we found

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p style=”padding-left: 30px;”From the guard we got a [540] Great club (masterwork).

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p style=”padding-left: 30px;”From Barl we retrieved [541] earth breaker hammer (masterwork), [542] wand of enervation (11 charges), [543] ring of minor cold resistance, [544] sihedron medallion, [545] black onyx gems (worth 545 gp), and a [546] spell book.

A lizard popped off his body as we searched it, so we popped the lizard too. Wouldn’t do to have an angry (or depressed) familiar around.

At the top of some tall stairs (boy the steps were big in this place) in the last room we hadn’t checked, The clerics discovered a Lamashtu altar, and just couldn’t leave without paying their disrespects. They desecrated it in ways that would make Lamashtu proud, were they priests of Lamashtu, or really angry, were they not, which they were not.

The ogres were liberated! Wow, seemed weird to be thinking that. Normally we kill ogres, but there was one last thing we needed to follow through on, because after all we promised. We summoned Glark (via a sending spell by Tekkad). He was most happy to take over the stronghold again and seemed held in high regard by the remaining ogres, although not so high a regard as to remain anything other than skeptically neutral of us. Then, while making a point during our ongoing discussion, he unfortunately removed the giant sihedron amulet from the reposing giant in the entrance … and the one symbol of the Kreeg clan that had remained constant for dozens if not hundreds of years turned to dust and blew away.

Others considered this a curse, and clearly this would come up at his annual chieftain review. I think the Kreeg clan will be in disarray for a while longer.

However, it did leave us with some very valuable (historically and actually) giant sized armor, helm, and glaive. One of our party judged it might be worth several thousand gold pieces to the right party.

[547] armor + helmet (400 lbs, 5000+gp?)
[548] glaive (30-40 lbs)

We gathered our new artifacts, and we gathered our ghastwightbody, and off we headed to the forest to fulfill our quest. The two day trip was punctuated by Tekkad’s idea to speak with the dead head of Barl (Tekkad is accumulating quite a collection of macabre charms for his charm bracelet). His conversation revealed there was an even bigger player in the attempt to take over the fort, and gave us yet another loose thread to pull after visiting the Willowwood. Jorgenfist, or Mokmurian, if I recall correctly.

Sunday, Desnus 18

When we got there, Myriana was glad to see us, or at least as glad as an angry ethereal presence could be. Lamatar was resurrected as a halfling, and vowed to stay in the woods working to improve it, while Myriana’s mood improved dramatically and she returned to the plane where spirits dwell. We believe that the forest will recover from her despaired influence over the coming weeks and months. Lamatar will stay to assist for the remainder of his new life.

Okay, now THIS, Father, is more like the adventuring stories you told!

== Wealday, Desnus 14, 4708; Fort Rannick; noon ==

Dereldon was still training, and so we told him when he was ready to make his way to Fort Rannick, where we would leave word for him of our intended destination.

We are on our way to the Iron Peaks to try and find Lamatar, the lost captain of the Black Arrows, and former lover to the fairy queen. We’ve managed to get a description of him from Jakardros, but as I sit here rereading it over lunch I can’t help but think that it could match just about any one of the rangers we’ve met thus far.

The fort is in good shape, and new recruits continue to trickle in. Jakardros is working with them to rebuild the ranger corps, but the Black Arrows are dead, and we should give our band a new name to bolster morale.

But what to call them? With the dissolution of the Black Arrows on everyone’s minds I feel we should avoid any archery related names. Rannick’s Rangers sounds as dull as the Hook Mountain Marauders sounds diabolical. The Iron Skulls… hmm, well now that at least sounds more like what is wanted.

Jakardros has also provided us with a specific location in the mountains where the ogres and giants have been seen. The fairy queen was certain she saw the giants carry off Lamatar into the mountains, and so we have added cold weather garb to our gear and are about to head off.

The plan is to walk through the woodland trails of the northern Sanos Forest where it thins out somewhat among the foothills of the Iron Mountains. Once we travel far enough west we will begin the difficult climb up into the mountains themselves, looking for signs of ogres or giants as we go.

A walk through the woods sounds pleasant, but the few trips I have made through mountain passes have proved to be slow going and difficult.

== Oathday, Desnus 15, 4708; Foothills of the Iron Peaks; past midnight ==

Darkness had already spread beneath the fir trees when we finally made a cold camp at the end of a long day’s march. Dinner was a cheerless affair, but the sky was clearing and the soft pinpoint lights from the stars could be glimpsed between the boughs.

I had the first watch, and listened as my companions spread out their blankets and bedrolls and slowly fell to slumber. We had finally established a working order for our watches. I took the first usually uneventful hours just after nightfall alone. Then Nolin and Trask served together, followed by Avia and Rigel, and then Kane and Sabin. If more than nine hours is needed we simply repeat the order until everyone is fully rested. Once Derel rejoins us I will have company again during my watch.

The moon was just beginning to climb over the mountains when I was finally able to turn to the comfort of my own bedroll.

What seemed like moments later Nolin was shaking me, urgently whispering to wake up. From the moon’s position high in the sky I guessed it had been more than two hours since I had gone to bed. I quickly grabbed my belt with its pouches and components for spell casting and joined the rest of the party, which was already spread out in a defensive semicircle facing west.

From that direction we heard the sound of large creatures noisily approaching us. They were speaking the grunting pig-like language that I have learned to associate with giant, but we could already tell they were trolls.

There were three or four older (meaning larger, dirtier, smellier, and more dangerous) trolls followed by two youngsters.

Nolin later reported that as they approached he heard one of the elders saying, “Must now come far from the mountain to find food. We teach you younguns how to hunt.”

They were not looking for us in particular, but they guffawed and shouted with what I assumed were bellows of glee when they saw us clustered together beneath the trees.

Their glee was rather short lived. Nolin grew to twice his normal size (I later learned Trask used a spell to accomplish this), and he, Avia and Sabin began to slice into them with deadly effect. And while our fighters had Kane and myself to heal their wounds, the trolls were left to their own regenerative powers to heal.

Only of course we had already learned that the secret to keeping a troll’s wounds from healing was fire, and Trask loved to play with fire. Kane quickly summoned a trio of small fire elementals while Trask bathed our scaly foes in the warm embrace of a fireball. He then summoned a couple of flaming spheres to keep the injured trolls injured and the dead trolls dead.

Kane and I were keeping the fighter’s healthy while Rigel and Trask attacked from a distance. One of the trolls tried to charge about our right flank and attack Rigel, but a Hold Person spell put and end to that tactic as well as to the troll itself.

The two junior trolls stood by and watched their elders get hacked away before showing any signs of alarm, but by then it was too late, and they too ended up as greasy green charred lumps of stinking troll flesh.

The entire battle took but a few minutes, and we have once again returned to watch and sleep. In the morning we will see from whence these trolls came.

== Oathday, Desnus 15, 4708; Ogre Stronghold; afternoon ==

In the morning we followed the troll tracks up and into the mountains. A few hours later these tracks were joined by those of ogres, but while the troll tracks continued on further west, the ogre tracks led further up into the mountains. Knowing we needed to head higher up, we followed the ogre tracks.

The higher we climbed the louder the wind shrieked about us, pelting us with pellets of snow blown down from the icy crags above.

The way became more steep and the snow deeper. Progress became more difficult, and while the bitter cold did not seem to bother me nearly as much as my companions, I moved slower than the others on the steeper, more treacherous slopes.

Still following the ogre tracks we clambered up onto an ice sheet that clung to the side of a deep valley. On our left a sheer wall of rock rose up to unguessable heights. To our right the ice ended in a steep drop off to the rocky depths of the chasm below.

Up and up we slowly climbed until at around ten thousand feet we came upon an enormous cave on our left, plunging deep into the western arm of the mountain. A plume of thick sooty smoke wafted out from the cave where the wind caught it and blasted it into our faces. The stench of ogre and other unpleasant things mingled with the smell of wood smoke.

The ogre tracks continued on within, but we paused, and huddling close to the mouth of the cave heard the booming voices of ogres within… but they were speaking in common, which was unusual.

“Wake up, idiot! You saw what happened last time Breakbones caught a guard sleeping.”

We learned from the ensuing conversation that 1) ogres could be pretty whiny, and 2) word had reached this remote place of our recapturing of Fort Rannick, and the ogres here were on high alert.

Rigel peeped into the cave and saw two ogres within arguing with one another. We hatched a plan to lure the ogres out to us where we would wait in ambush, making quick work of them.

Using a Silent Image spell Trask created the scene of two rangers dragging a third, injured ranger between them. He paraded them at the cave entrance, and soon one of the ogres came trotting out. He called out when he saw us, and the other came bounding out with bow in hand to help. But the first ogre had dropped by the time the second arrived, and so it turned tail, running back into the cave and raising the alarm.

A silence spell and quick work from the team made short work of him, and after taking anything worthwhile we unceremoniously dropped the two corpses over the precipice.

[530] master work long-bow
[531] 2 potions of Cure Moderate Wounds (1 consumed by Avia)
[532] 2 +1 hide armor (1 given to Glark later)

We then turned our attention to the cave… or I should say giant cavern — the enclosed space was vast.

Kane, who had crept in ahead of the party, was standing halfway down the cavern, staring at the walls. As we came up to him we saw that he was actually gaping at the huge bones protruding from the walls. The bones glistened with an almost opalescent blue sheen, and had been worked over time with scrimshaw and other engravings ranging in quality from ornate to crude. Sabin thought they were from the rib-cage of a blue dragon.

As impressive as the dragon bones were, our attention was pulled toward the back of the chamber where a giant statue towered some forty feet above us. It had been carved from some odd black stone and was wearing full armor — real armor and not just a carving. Likewise it wore a massive helmet with a mask of a sneering devil, which hid its face. In its chunky right fist it grasped a wicked looking glave. Cracks had been skillfully carved all across its skin.

That the statue was wearing actual armor made us leery of any enchantments that might call this colossal golem into action. But after thoroughly scrutinizing the thing with numerous Detect Magic spells we realized that this was in fact the body of an actual giant — an immense giant, the likes of which no longer grace (or menace) the world today.

It wore a large pendant with a sihedron rune that radiated magic, and we understood that like the smaller versions we had already found, this one cast Gentle Repose upon its wearer.

The sheer size of the thing was stupendous… and yet its presence fit with what lore we had already learned about the Runelords and their alliance with a race of giants. Indeed the size of the creature before us was completely in scale with many of the massive Thassilonian ruins found about Varasia.

Reluctantly we turned our attention away from this wonder and towards the large, irregular steps that led up to a smaller cavern to the north. The smoke (and stench) we had encountered from without poured out from this opening along with a diffuse orange-red glow.

At the top of the steps the cave branched to the right and left. The glow came from the right, and I cautiously followed it to a circular chamber. In the center a giant pit had excavated in the rock which plunged straight down a hundred feet. Piles of ash littered the bottom of the pit along with charred and burning humanoid corpses, some still on fire, which provided the feeble light with which we were able to see.

An pungent smoke rose up from the pit and drifted out and into the large cavern.

We followed the western branch of the cave to another stairway, from the foot of which the slight sound of weapons being grabbed was heard. We could barely make out a large shape standing at the top of the stairs on the edge of our vision, but we heard other hulking creatures behind it. Trask illuminated the far end of the cave for a moment with a fireball, revealing three tough looking ogres advancing on us, with the rear two now looking seriously singed.

Nolin, Avia and Sabin rushed to the front and attacked the lead ogre, who fell under their devastating assault, surprising the other two, who called out for help. As the battle heated up Trask used Haste to greatly improve our effectiveness in combat.

As usual Rigel supplemented the damage dealt with her bow and arrows, while Kane and I assisted where and how we could.

A second ogre was slain, and the third seriously wounded when help (for them) arrived. Perhaps a dozen ogres quick stepped up from the south. But most of the new arrivals were obviously not fighters — in fact they looked worn out and ill treated, and had only the most basic weapons and no armor at all.

Two burly ogres, both well fed and well equipped, ran to the back of the line and yelled, “Come on, forge maggots, clean them up and get back to work.”

I am a healer, and while I can swat at a big nasty if it comes too near (and there is nobody else better equipped to deal with it), I leave the fighting to the fighters. Even my magical abilities are tailored toward healing, and the few aggressive spells I know do only minimal damage at best, and so I usually leave the offensive spell casting to others.

My specialization does have its advantages. A scrawny human running about the battlefield, speaking soft words and touching his comrades poses no discernible threat. I have no need for great armor or weaponry, which further lowers my perception as a risk to our enemies. Usually by the time the other side realizes that nobody on our side remains injured or fallen for very long, and that perhaps the innocuous looking man might have something to do with it, they are mostly dead or dying.

But every now and then I feel a quiet rage and have a great urge to hurt someone very badly. The two ogres in charge received the full force of my anger, but it amounted to nothing more than a shaken fist in their direction.

Trask, happily, does not suffer from my offensive limitations, and he placed another fireball in the midst of the new comers. When the blast faded only four ogres remained. The cowardly ogres in charge ordered the two remaining forge workers to fight us.

Nolin and I called out and told them that if the retreated we would not harm them. One of them saw the logic behind this and ran off south. The other charged at us and fell.

Finally! The two boss ogres were looking a little nervous, and I used Hold Person on one of them, whom Avia finished off, while the rest of us focused on the remaining ogre, who was seriously wounded by the time he fled south.

Sabin, Nolin, Rigel and I chased after him, and down the short flight of stairs to the south was a large chamber with great pits of fire, anvils and other metal working tools and equipment — a forge.

Standing in the forge were the smart ogre who had run away when told and the stupid ogre who liked to live off the sweat and pain of his fellow ogres. We killed that one. It felt good.

The one surviving ogre looked at us nervously, and glanced down uneasily at the crudely forged ogre hook in his meaty hand.

I told him we would not hurt him, but he was skeptical. He pointed out that we invaded the great ogre stronghold, and so what else were we going to do there but kill ogres?

Interesting. Already he was providing us with useful information.

I told him, truthfully enough, that we had no idea there was an ogre stronghold up here, and that we were searching for a man, or the body of a man, more than likely. Nolin thought to ask him for his name, to which he sullenly replied, “Glark.”

I then asked why he and the other ogres were speaking in the common tongue, to which he snorted in reply, “You speak giantish if you want giant to understand, and you speak other tongue if you not want him understand.”

“What giant?”

“Carl Breakbones. Him now leader of ogre clan.”

“What gives a giant the right to rule over ogres?”

“Him show up some months ago with tokens of ogre clan, claiming the right to battle our great leader. Our leader, powerful strong warrior, had to accept, and Breakbones killed him real quick.”

“Would the ogres be happier without Breakbones as their leader?”

“Um, well, yeah. But nobody want to challenge Breakbones.”

“What if we kill Breakbones?”

At this Glark burst into hysterical fits of laughter from which it took him some time to recover.

“Breakbones huge and strong and squash puny humans!”

I then pointed out that we had just fought a dozen and a half ogres in the past few minutes, and while all but one of them were dead, none of us were injured, or even breathing hard.

He grew thoughtful at that, when Nolin asked if the giant had arrived with a woman named Lucrecia. Glark nodded and said, “She great and powerful sorceress who helped ogres take mighty fort. It be she and Carl what ordered us to forge weapons and armor for great war where giants and ogres kill (and eat) all other peoples.”

And all this time my fellow travellers had teased me about keeping Lucrecia’s severed head stashed in a bag, and kept fresh with Gentle Repose. I took the bag out from my pack and pulled Lucrecia’s head out by the hair.

Glark’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“We too are very powerful, and we know how to deal with our enemies,” and here I paused and jiggled Lucrecia’s head a little for dramatic effect, “as well as how to reward our friends.” I looked Glark straight in the eyes and said, “If you help us find this man we are seeking we will pay you gold, as well as give you the really nice armor the guards were wearing. We will also deal with Carl Breakbones so the ogres will no longer be pawns in someone else’s affairs.”

For a moment it looked as though I had strung too many words together for Glark to follow, but he apparently got the gist of it and happily agreed to our terms.

We explained that the man we were seeking was a ranger: the captain of the fort the ogres had captured. Glark thought the man might have been given to “the sisters” to play with. He did not like to talk about the sisters, because they were mean to him, and so we are not quite sure who or what they are. Other than they can scare a full grown ogre in his own home.

Glark then promised to leave the ogre hold for a few days to avoid any combat (we’d hate to see him get hurt), and we paid him the 10 gold pieces we had promised. He also wanted Lucrecia’s head, but he accepted that we would need it for a while longer, but that he could have it should we prove successful in our quest.

The entire party had gathered around while Glark and I chatted, and as Glark agreed to stay away for several days, Trask reached over and touched him with a glowing hand, saying that his word was now bonded and he would be held to it as would we to ours.

Glark’s eyes got big again, only this time he pointed at Trask’s hand and said, “Me want the glowy hand too!”

I trotted up the stairs back to the bodies of the fallen ogres and took the hand from the slave driver and cast Light upon it. I then returned with the hand and gave it to Glark, explaining that it would stop glowing after and hour or so, but that when he came back in several days we would make it glow again.

Glark took his new possessions and proudly trotted out of the cavern with his glowing hand held aloft, much like a dog showing off a new bone.

Kane may need my assistance because he is laughing so hard that he appears to be having trouble breathing.

The others have gone over the ogre corpses and claimed what little of use or value there was.

The time for rest and reflection is over, and we must resume our exploration.

Wealday, Desnus 14

So, since she was seeming a bit moody, we were leery of asking the remains of Miriana any more questions. This left us the problem of “how do we recognize Lamartar’s remains when/if we find them?” We figured the remnants of the Black Arrow were probably our best chance of a reasonable description. Perhaps there was even a portrait of their fearless leader.

And so it was that we started the journey back to the fort. Having horses sure does make for a shorter trip. Jakardos was able to tell us about a ring Lamartar had, and he and Vale also gave a brief description of the man. If he’s been tortured or disfigured, however, that description may be of little use. I have a feeling it will be a forensic identification rather than a personal one.

From the fort it is 20-30 miles to Hook Mountain. The closer we get, of course, the more steep the terrain becomes. There’s a good chance that we will need to go far up the mountain, which rises up well over 10,000 feet.

We decided against taking horses, figuring they would just become ogre or animal fodder in short order. Walking out will make us move a little slower, but it also affords us greater options for stealth and battlefield strategy should we find ourselves under attack. We estimate we got about halfway before darkness neared and we set up camp. Watches were Tekkad, by himself, then Nolin and myself, Avia and Rigel, and lastly Kane and Sabin.

It was during my and Nolin’s watch that we heard noise in the distance. It was not subtle, it was not hidden, and it indicated that thw producer of that noise was not concerned about being overhead. The gutteral utterances sounded like the trollspeak we’d been hearing much of lately. Quickly, we woke the group and we prepared ourselves for the arrivals. There appeared to be 2 smaller trolls — children or teenagers, judging from their size — and 4 adult size trolls.

It’s times like this that I wish I had the night vision of Sabin, becase I could have launched a preemptive fireball if I were sure it was safe to do so. But I’ve been controlling my pyromaniacal urges really well of late, so I was able to realize that firing blind into the wood at a sound was probably not as good as I could do.

So I waited a minute or two until they came into view, and THEN I fireballed ’em. Near as I can tell, I toasted four of the six. This did not slow them down. To the contrary, it apparently made the hunt all the more exciting, because they rushed to us. By the time they figured out that we had fire and fighters, it was too late to turn around.

It seemed like a vicious battle but truth be told, it was over in less than half a minute. We’ve become very efficient at fighting as a group and skillfully combining weaponry and fire. I was able to add a new twist this time — I enlarged Nolin and suddenly he was on even footing with the large trolls (something Nolin very much seemed to enjoy!) Kane added a new twist too: three small fire elementals to attack the trolls too.

The trolls dispatched, we resumed watch, and others went back to sleep. Nothing else of import happened that evening.

Oathday, Desnus 15

In the morning, we inspected the bodies for goodies but found pretty much nothing. We were able to discern from the tracks that the trolls came from the direction we were heading, so we were marching into the teeth of the beast. Following this trail, there came a time when the troll tracks became intermingled with ogre tracks, finally splitting off in a trail that appeared to keep about the same elevation, while the ogre tracks definitely went up the mountain. Since we were pretty sure we had to have access to the upper reaches, we elected to follow the ogre tracks.

The weather worsened as we rose and while I was in no danger of frostbite or anything, it was nevertheless decidedly uncomfortable. Finally we spotted some thick greasy smoke rising ahead. We slowed and carefully crept up on the position.

The smoke was coming from a cave, and as we neared the opening, it definitely smelled of ogres.

A quick conference and we easily decided it would be easiest if we lured the ogres out into the open. A listen to their conversations told us they knew of the fort, and the loss of the fort, and that lent itself to several ideas. Ultimately, we used the wand of silent image to create an image of two struggling and wounded Black Arrow rangers helping drag a barely-alive third ranger past the cave opening. I assisted in distracting by using the hat of disguise to again appear like Lucretia. (And it served to distract them again!)

Like butterflies to a flower, out they came to take care of the “helpless humans”. However one was closer and got taken down first, giving the second an opportunity to turn and raise an alarm. We got him under silence and finished him off, but we had to assume now they knew of us and were preparing something.

We retrieved from their bodies

[530] masterwork longbow
[531] 2 potions of cure moderate wounds
[532] +1 hide armor

but were quickly drawn to the huge displays of scrimshaw in this cave. What appeared to be the ribs of a blue dragon were embedded in the walls and elaborately decorated. They looked like they’d been here some time.

This was further supported by the presence of a 40-foot tall statue that was also in this chamber. Er, wait, no, that is not a statue. It is a (very big) individual in gentle repose and we definitely don’t want it to wake up. How long has it been here? It has around its neck a 7-dided sihedron which we recognize and know to be capable of producing and maintaining a gentle repose. Avia did not detect evil, but nevertheless …

We took the steps to the upper levels, and quickly discovered that, yes, an alarm had been raised. After climbing the stairs behind us, we discovered that to the east was a huge smoking pit, responsible for the greasy smoke we’d seen. It appeared to be an incineration pit, where one threw bodies that nobody wanted any longer. To the west there was darkness, but we could hear noises.

Good enough for me! I threw a fireball into the darkness and in its brief illumination it showed us several ogres approaching from the west … before scorching several of them badly. This set the tone for what would follow … fighters fighting, clerics healing, me tagging the targets with burning spheres and possibly additional fireballs.

Although the ogres were weakened by the fireball, the battle was again on and it took a while for us to dispatch them. I helped with a judicious Haste for all our fighters. But as we finished off what we thought was the last one, here came another dozen ogres to fight us. But a close look at these new recruits made it apparent that they were, in fact, not trained warriors but simply workers with weapons. They fought clumsily and, even more egregious to some in our party, the two remaining true warriors stood back while pushing these untrained ogres in front of them as cannon fodder.

Well, they were still ogres of great strength, and even untrained they could damage our party. But even I was surprised when the subsequent fireball I threw killed almost all of the untrained warriors, and seriously singed the two overlords. Tekkad yelled out in common that if they did not attack us we would reward them. One glanced at our well-armored party and back at his now weakened but apparently still threatening overlords and, without great relish, moved to close with us. The other did run off.

The unskilled worker was easily dispatched. While some fighters engaged the two warriors, others of us rushed after the one who ran off. Glark, as history would record his name, was suspicious of our motives and of his chances of survival. After we killed a dozen and a half of his racial brothers, why, imagine that. Still, we pointed out to him, he was still alive and we had not killed him yet, had we?

Glark, it turns out, was not the brightest torch in the camp, but then, he was already handicapped by the fact that he was an ogre. Still, we worked on him and he came to trust Tekkad, especially.

We learned this is an ogre stronghold (in which we had apparently dispatched a good part of the guard already) and that a giant named Carl Breakbones had assumed leadership of the ogre clan through formal challenge of the previous chieftain. Giant vs ogre didn’t last very long, no matter how skilled the ogre. So this was less of an alliance and more of a political takeover.

We promised Glark we would kill Breakbones and return control of his clan to ogres, and he burst out laughing. Laughter on an ogre is a bit grotesque to experience, although I’m certainly happy we could raise his spirits so. He stopped laughing, though, when we showed him the (actual) severed head of Lucretia, which Tekkad has been carrying around for weeks hoping for just this sort of opportunity. I tell you, he was very smug for quite a while afterwards. Glark’s face paled when he recognized her and he decided perhaps he WAS dealing with some powerful people.

Having been shown how powerful we truly were, Glark was happy to take some gold now, more later, a special “blessing” (enhanced with a temporary light spell by me) and the enchanted armor we stole off the other ogres as payment for helping us find both Breakbones and Lamartar. He thought the latter may have been given to “the sisters”, which I’m thinking might be related to Lucretia.

Glark was particularly impressed with my “glowy hand” and so Tekkad cut off the hand of his former boss and made it glow for him and it was just like a birthday to him, what with all the cool presents he got. He agreed to lay low for a few days before we would hook up with him again.

The only thing of note we found in the dead ogres was another potion of cure moderate wounds, bringing our total to 3 claimed today. There were some magic ogre hooks, and masterwork bows, but those are not of much use to us.

There were several passages in the main chamber that could even now be bringing reinforcements. We’ll need to secure those and move further in. I’d like to rest and recover some spells, but I don’t think we have a safe place to do that, and some modicum of surprise is still on our side. Best to move on.