== Fireday, Lamashan 24, 4708; Xin Shalast; evening ==

By use of a Greater Scrying spell I kept an eye on the tattooed giant for the afternoon, noting how he was good at giving orders and telling others what to do, while actually doing very little himself.

Two other giants (sans tattoos) were always with him, acting as both servants and body guards.

Our primary goal was to obtain more sihedron rings, and because the giant was not wearing one, we assumed it was stored somewhere safe nearby. Rigel suggested that she and Kane make a stealthy foray to the giant’s abode to find the ring, thus avoiding combat and the potential of alerting others to our presence.

I continued to watch our giant, waiting for when he was occupied or otherwise distracted.

Presently Kane, who was keeping watch on the street below, announced that a pair of giants had just ridden up on crag spiders and were banging on the door of our giant’s house.

From my perspective I watched as our giant ordered a servant to open the door, and the two new giants entered.

The pair had dark skin with glowing red runes (fire giants — sort of), and the servant who had let them in practically cowered before them. Even our giant treated them with respect, which made them all the more interesting.

“There are reports of humans having been spotted in the city, but we have not confirmed this. If you or your force see anything unusual, be sure to report it right away.”

Our giant half grunted and half chortled in reply, “Well, if they are here, then between the lamia and the dragons they won’t survive long.”

With that, the two fire giants departed. I had been relaying this encounter to my companions, and vaguely recall hearing Trask say, “These guys sound important, and I am going to follow them in gaseous form.” Avia quickly followed up with, “Not on your own! I’m coming along to keep you out of trouble.”

Rigel’s opportunity came not long after the fire giants left, when our guy began demanding dinner, and paced back in forth in the kitchen while his servants turned spitted hunks of greasy meat over a fire.

Kane, Rigel and Sabin popped over to the giant’s place and quickly located his room, and the locked and trapped chest within. Rigel made quick work of the impediments and opened the chest. Some battered weapons and tattered clothing was on top. Using some fancy hand work they carefully searched the chest for anything of value, finding several bags containing around 110 gold pieces, plus a pair of magic rings.

Meanwhile Trask and Avia had drifted from our hideout and shadowed the fire giants, who were heading up the main road. It looked as if they were following their usual patrol route, and were in no hurry (so much for the importance of confirming the rumor of our presence). As they rode along on their crag spiders everyone gave them a wide berth.

Things was going well when Trask decided that now was a good time to experiment with how fast he could move while in the Wind Walk mode of gaseous form. He zipped up and down and around the fire giants, apparently delighting in his new found mobility.

Unfortunately gaseous form does not make you invisible, and the more you move about, the more likely someone will spot you. And while you will appear to be but a little puff of mist or cloud, wisps of water vapor do not fly about with purpose, and any such movement is bound to raise suspicion in even the most dense of observers.

The fire giants were not stupid, and they spotted Trask’s antics. One of them even commanded him in common to, “Come here and yield.”

Trask reacted by zipping away and flying back to us, leaving Avia floating above the giants and wondering what to do. It was obvious to her that we had been spotted, and our significant advantage of moving about the city unnoticed was about to be lost. She cautiously flew to the top of a ruined building on the side of the road.

At that moment, all of the giants in the area sprang to attention, and then spread out, as if they were searching for something.

The giant I was scrying paused with a vacant look in his eyes, and then shouted, “Get my battle axe!” as he sprang up from his chair and ran toward his room.

The others heard this commotion and quickly returned to our base camp (where only Nolin and I had remained). I explained that something bad occurred, and that Trask was on his way back to us, while Avia appeared to be changing to solid form.

I gave the precise direction and distance where Avia was to Sabin, who teleported over to Avia, and urged her to return back to our base camp.

Eventually we were all together again in the building across from our tattooed giant. Kane was keeping watch with Nolin, and they noted that while our giant had organized a search of the area, the giants were not well organized and it would some time before they made it to where we were.

After solidifying Avia glared at Trask and demanded, “What the hell were you doing out there?!”

Trask seemed confused by both her tone and the question, and replied, “I was experimenting to see how rapidly I could move in case we were discovered and had to escape.”

Avia fumed, “And all that moving about is why those two fire giants were able to spot you! You’ve thrown away both our element of surprise as well as our mode of transportation!”

“What? I thought I was invisible when in gaseous form. And it turns out that knowing how fast we could move in gaseous form came in useful!”

This odd twist in logic made sense in a certain, wistfully dim sort of way, but it left Avia sputtering in anger and utterly speechless.

I then took the opportunity to explain to everyone present (although my target audience was clearly Trask) how being in gaseous form did not make you invisible. You could wear white and reduce your chance of being spotted, or you could use any of the usual means to become invisible.

As incompetent as they were, the giants eventually made their way into our building, and so we decided to return to the coliseum, removing all trace of our encampment before we floated out.

As soon as we arrived (and took shape) Nolin said, “Let’s go kill a dragon.”

The entire city was in an uproar, and we needed to drop out of sight for a while. We knew that at least one dragon had made its home over in the temple district, and that the giants and lamia were likely to leave it alone.

Leave it to Nolin to find a way to turn chaos and paranoia to our advantage!

We cast longer term spells for protection from electricity (we knew at least one of the dragons was blue), plus a few additional buffs.

We had not enough teleportation spells left to spy out the dragon’s lair and pop in for a surprise attack, and so we did things the old fashioned way. We (once again) assumed gaseous shape and flew over to where we had earlier spotted the entrance.

Giants were running about in squads everywhere, and so we kept to our translucent state all of the way into the building before returning to solid form.

This had once been a fortified structure with towers on either side of a fortified entrance. But one of the towers was a ruin, and the entry gates and doors were missing. Thassilonian runes identified this as the former office of the royal tax collectors.

The floors were of polished marble, and the walls were stone set with steel trim. A portcullis blocked access through a normal sized doorway to our right, and a wide archway on the far side of the entry hall gaped invitingly.

I immediately cast Detect Magic, and much to my chagrin found that we had flown over a large magical area on the floor when we entered. We suspected some form of alarm spell, but had we set it off by flying in?

Apparently we had, and a bolt of lightening arced in from the archway, zapping both Nolin and I.

“Your mistake was that I know the Runelord does not employ humans,” the blue dragon taunted us in common.

We prepared for battle and moved toward the archway, but the dragon had backed away out of sight.

Rigel ran to the arch and peeped around the corner, calling out, “There is a large hallway here, but I don’t see the dragon anywhere.”

Oh goody, an invisible dragon!

We each moved over and into the hall, Trask casting his own form of see invisible by blasting the hallway before us with a fireball, and I using the more subtle effects of True Seeing.

There was no dragon in the hall, but it opened onto another chamber up ahead to the right, from which we could hear the muttering of arcane words of power.

Sedjewick had created an image of himself and moved it up through the hallway to act as a decoy, and I ran up ahead into a massive hall. I had no time to admire the decor, because at the far end was a relatively small dragon that wasted no time in sending a bolt of electricity my way, which I dodged.

More pressing was the very large dragon much closer by, who was hiding beyond an illusion of invisibility, which fortunately did not affect me.

I called out a warning about the two dragons just as Sedjewick blindly sent his illusionary self right toward the larger one. It reacted as if this were a real threat, and blasted it with a massive zot of lightening that zapped through the pseudo-Sedjewick and caught Trask and Nolin.

The others had been making there way up through the hallway, and Avia was the first to emerge, racing toward the dragon, which had become visible. We could see an energy field shimmering before it, and so Trask stepped up and blasted its back side with a fireball.

Using Greater Dispel Magic, I removed the energy barrier between the large dragon and Avia, and based on the growl of outrage from the creature, a couple of other spells it had depended on blinked out as well. I quickly stepped back to Nolin and Sabin, knowing what would come next.

The smaller dragon then flew into the fray and laded on the fake Sedjewick and tried to rend it with its teeth and claws. Kane rewarded its aggression with a Flamestrike. Sedjewick added to its woe by Shouting at it.

Sabin then used our reliable DD trick to put himself, Nolin and I next to the big dragon, and Nolin slashed at it.

The dragon bit Avia, clawed away at several images of Sabin, thrashed me with its wings, and took a swipe at Nolin with its tail (but missed).

Rigel had seemed unusually eager to participate in the encounter with the dragon when Nolin first suggested it, and we soon discovered why. Throughout this brief combat she had stealthily moved her way into the hall while invisible, with an arrow nocked and ready in her bow. This was no ordinary arrow: it was a Greater Arrow of Dragon Slaying. She now released her shot, which hit the large dragon in the center of the chest.

The dragon reared back and howled with pain and rage, but it did not die — at least not yet. But Avia was now within striking range, and its end was near.

Avia called upon her Holy Smite ability, and nearly sliced the head off the dragon, which fell to the ground in a squishy thud of gore and blood.

I turned to the smaller dragon, and used Destruction to consume its flesh in holy fire.

We then took a few minutes to search the bodies, and identify what we found here as well as the two rings stolen from the rune giant.

[1614] ring of Shield Other: half of a keyed pair. When one is activated it shields the wearer of the other.
[1615] ring of invisibility
[1616] sihedron ring (Nolin)
[1617] ring of greater cold resistance (30DR)

The dragon had been wearing a sihedron ring on one of his claws, and Nolin eagerly took it and slipped it on his finger.

We now have half the number of rings we require to get past the energy barrier atop Mhar Massif. How many more allies are there from whom we can expect to find such troves?

We have three sihedron medallions as well, but we know they make the wearer susceptible to scrying by Karzoug. Could we take precautions against this and still safely use them?

I know of various arcane spells that protect against scrying, but I do not have access to such magics. I do have Spell Immunity, but the duration of the spell is but 14 minutes, and only protects against the Scry spell itself. If Karzoug uses the greater variant of Scry, then the protection would be useless.

Perhaps the vulnerability to scrying is not a property of the medallions themselves, but due to Karzoug’s familiarity with them. If so, then Obscure Object would be a better choice for protection: it last 8 hours and would work on the medallion itself. We could set aside some time when we experimented with using Obscure Object on a medallion, and then have someone wear it while Sabin detected for scrying.

Even if the medallions can be safely used, we would still only have seven forms of protection, and need at least one more ring (or medallion) to infiltrate Karzoug’s fortress atop the mountain.

This course of action has the added benefit of robbing Karzoug of his most powerful allies in the city. I am surprised we have not yet found a giant or lamia bearing a ring — maybe not everyone who has one wears it, and we ought to rely on stealth and searching living quarters rather than open confrontations.

We searched the hall, which was huge with a large pool and dias at the far end, where Sedjewick found a secret door. This led to a rocky tunnel that ended in another door.

He could hear voices on the other side, and it was clear the search for us continued unabated. The hubbub died down as the giants moved their search elsewhere, but two voices remained, talking to one another in giant.

“Karn, hold a minute, my friend. The time is ripe for us to make out move. With all the uproar caused by the intruders we can start our rebellion and escape out from under the tyrants’ rule.”

“You are right. Let’s…”

And the voices faded as they walked away.

Interesting. If there is a rebellion afoot, then we can compound the turmoil and take advantage of the ever increasing chaos. Kane has got to be enjoying this.

There were three regular doors from the massive hall, and the eastern most of these opened onto a storage room, the far wall of which had collapsed. The dragon’s horde had been placed in here, and organized with an unexpected thoroughness.

128,000 sp
42,000 gp
1,040 pp

[1618] gold coffer filled with 70 gem stones (~20,000 gp)
[1619] silver bracelet
[1620] jade comb
[1621] glass box with a pair of red silk gloves stitched with gold thread
[1622] master-work mithral half-plate (medium)
[1623] master-work breast plate
[1624] +2 banded mail
[1625] wand of lightening bolt (23)
A leather bag containing:
[1626] frozen cure light wounds
[1627] frozen cure light wounds
[1628] frozen cure light wounds
[1629] frozen cure light wounds
[1630] frozen owl’s wisdom
[1631] +4 oil of magic vestment
[1632] bejeweled ivory scroll tube with 2 scrolls:

Keen Edge
Unseen Servant

[1633] ring of evasion
[1634] rod of extend metamagic (3x per day)

The other two doors opened onto office space, and from there another door led into one of the two towers we had seen out front. A small passageway led from here back to the entrance, and included the mechanism for opening the portcullis, which we left closed.

After a round of healing we decided to rest here for the evening. We know that there is at least one other dragon out and about, and we suspect it will eventually come here. We want to be here (and prepared) when it arrives.

Trask has created a rope trick, and I have placed a Glyph of Warding in the hallway that leads to this area. There may be another dragon returning to a couple of nasty surprises tonight.

Should we do something with the remainder of our day to encourage the giant revolt?