It’s been several RL weeks since our heroes have moved a muscle, but they’re back in a BIG way after their brief hiatus.
First thing’s first – loot. The party examines the items that they took from Enga, the mercenary kobold, before they spared her life and sent her back towards the ravine outside Jorgenfist. She was packing some major heat: +3 shortspear, +1 buckler, and a +1 breastplate. Unfortunately, the necklace of fireballs was completely expended.
Krask carefully sneaks ahead to see what other obstacles might be in store for the party in these passageways. He moves towards the reverberating *ting ting ting* sound coming from the soundeast. Closer examination reveals a pair of stone giants forging weapons at a fiery forge.
They’re conversing, but Krask doesn’t understand Giant. How fortuitous, then, that Fyn is able to translate! What he’s able to gather is that one of the giants wants to kill some prisoners, but the other one won’t allow it. Not on Mokmurian’s watch, at least.
Fight at the Forge!
Fyn casts Invisibility on Krask and then casts Haste on the party as they get into position. The initial volley from Krask’s bow falls short, but the party is able to quickly converge on the stone giants before they even know what’s going on.
Richard, Trace, and Barnaby surround the furthest stone giant while the rest of the group swarms around the first. Krask’s second volley hits home for massive damage, causing significant bleeding. Which begs the question – is stone giant blood just pebbles and silt?
While Fyn unleashes his own barrage of magic missiles, using Lyergo’s formidable form as cover. What started out as a potential battle quickly turns into a slaughter as the element of surprise severely hampers the stone giants from getting any traction against their foes.
Barnaby eventually dishes out a staggering amount of critical damage and the stone giants fall. As the proverbial dust clears, the party sees five emaciated dwarves huddled in a set of iron cages in the corner.
The Resonant Guard
Driven by his alignment, Trace finally puts his ‘Good’ designation to work by securing the keys off the stone giants and unlocking each of the cages. The oldest dwarf thanks them profusely, introducing himself as Dorsead Shardbrow, Thrum of the World-Heart. Together, the dwarves make up the Resonant Guard, a regiment of highly-trained defenders of the World-Heart at Crystalrock, outside Janderhoff.
The Resonant Guard was sent from Janderhoff to investigate rumors of a second ‘Heart’ uncovered in the Wyvern Mountains, near Spindlehorn. Once they reached the mountain range, however, the dwarves were subsequently captured by the stone giants who ambushed them.
Dorsead’s chest has a slight glimmer of light emanating from underneath his threadbare shirt, which pulses with the rhythm of the World-Heart, miles and miles away. He lacks a distinctive heartbeat; the Thrum is one with the crystalline formation.
One other piece of intel that the dwarves relay is that they’ve heard terrible roars echoing throughout the cave system. Trace and Krask instantly think of the dragon formerly known as Longtooth, but the dwarves insist that they’ve heard the roars recently. This is likely something else entirely.
The dwarves apologize that they won’t be much help in an upcoming battle, but the party will always have a seat in the halls of Janderhoff. After receiving some much-needed food from the party, the dwarves pretend to lock themselves back in their cages. Once they’ve regained some strength, they plan on escaping to the nearest settlement. Ravenmoor, perhaps?
Hides in Plain Sight
As the party continues to the east, they pass signs of a tannery and disgusting giant beds. Overall, this network of tunnels is filthy; exactly what you’d expect from giants. Not all giants are gross, but so far the party hasn’t seen any indication of the opposite.
Eventually Fobias uncovers two sets of tracks. Troll footprints heavily dominate a corridor lined by thick, wooly hides. The other sign of life appears to be a large, snake-like creature veering off to the north. Thinking back, Fobias recognizes similarities to the lamia tracks that they followed outside Fort Rannick. Didn’t they take care of Lucrecia already?
Trace detects signs of evil and magic coming from behind the hides on both sides of the hallway. Wanting to gather more information, Barnaby goes invisible and peeks behind the hides, which cover narrow openings to smaller rooms on the opposite end of the rock wall.
He is face-to-face with a slobbering troll. It has an overflowing sack tied to its waist, stuffed full of round objects. The trolls is on the balls of its feet, clearly waiting to catch the party unawares. As Barnaby slips back to whisper to the party, the troll announces his presence.
The halfling should have kept his mouth shut!
What nasty treasures reside in the troll’s sack? Is there a second troll on the other side with the same nefarious intentions? Is it normal to tell dwarves to ‘follow the trail of bodies’ as an effective way of returning to the surface?