== 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.