# Sniktch's Story Hour Prelude - From the Beginning (UPDATED 04/22)



## Sniktch (Oct 10, 2002)

I am now going to attempt to reconstruct the events that led up to our party entering The City of the Spider Queen .A brief introduction to our original cast of characters:

Welby Hilltopple – Male Halfling Barbarian 1
A fierce warrior from the Panther tribe, he has been separated from his people by the lizardfolk incursion into the Tangles.  Escaping with only his grandmother, who did not survive the journey north, he has vowed to return and drive the monsters from his homeland when he has the strength.  Despite his fierce appearance, Welby has a heart of gold, and will go out of his way to assist those in need.

The Royston Crow – Male Half-Elf Fighter 1
The “Royston Crow” is a man without a past.  Welby discovered the young warrior in an icy field choked with the bodies of men, horses, and orcs.  The halfling saved his life, but the “Crow” discovered he could remember nothing of his past before he awoke to find the feral halfling standing over him.  He follows Welby now out of gratitude for saving his life and in the hopes that he may find clues to his hidden past.

Stumpwater Jack – Male Dwarf Priest of Clangeddin Silverbeard 1
Jack hails from the mines of Karaz-a-Garodok, an ancient dwarf hold troubled by an old curse.  Karaz-a-Garodok is the richest source of mithral in the known world; else the dwarves would have abandoned it long ago.  Every so often, a pocket of metal is found that appears to be mithral, but when struck breaks open to ooze a foul-smelling oil.  Disaster and tragedy follow these discoveries within a week.  The dwarves of Karaz-a-Garodok are said to have the foulest tempers and worse dispositions of their race.  Jack is no exception.  He has journeyed to Travensburg with his companion Eli hoping to find clues to the nature of the curse in the ruined dwarf hold outside of town.

Eli Mournsong – Male Elf Wizard 1
A member of a tribe of griffon riding mountain elves, Eli’s clan is closely tied to the dwarves of Karaz-a-Garodok.  Long ago they signed a treaty of mutual support and aid.  At their coming of age, a young dwarf and elf will be paired together for training, learning how to best complement each other’s skill at arms or magical power.  Eli and Jack have been partners now for a dozen years, and Eli has grown to love his unpleasant companion in spite of himself.  When Jack announced he was journeying to the crumbling dwarven ruins outside of Travensburg, Eli immediately volunteered to go with him.

“Filthy” Ike – Male Half-Orc Rogue 1
Ichen Gar, better known to the world as “Filthy” Ike, wrote his own wonderful biography and turned it in to me before our first session.  I still have it, and will put it up as the next post.

They are joined very shortly by Artimas Sendant, a male human wizard (necromancer) 1, but he does not actually arrive until the second session.  Grick and Quinn were actually living in Philadelphia when the campaign began, and they don’t show up until they moved back to Hagerstown.  We’ll get to them a little later in the timeline.


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## Sniktch (Oct 10, 2002)

*Ichen Gar*

Filthy Ike began life in the orc village of Kershan Falls in the Eastern Crown Mountains.  Born to a human slave, he was raised by one of the scouts of his family and given the name Ichen Gar.  Growing up amongst the chaotic and warlike orcs, Ichen knew he was different.  And if he ever came close to forgetting, there were several members of the tribe who were more than willing to give him constant reminders.  Finally, when Ichen “came of age” on his 10th birthday and would normally be inducted into an Orc Warband, he questioned why he had to become a fighter when he didn’t see a good reason to raid the nearby human and dwarven settlements.  He thought the tribe could exist, and maybe even flourish, by hunting and mining for themselves rather than taking from the others.  No male had ever done such a thing before, and the elders couldn’t fathom why Ichen would, and wouldn’t forgive him his transgression.  He was immediately banished from the village, with the orcs stoning him all the way out.

Ichen, after wandering the wilderness for several weeks, finally came to Newburg, a large town, almost a city.  Slipping in at night to avoid the surly looking guards and the interrogation that would surely come, he found shelter in an abandoned warehouse.  The warehouse became his home, as he vainly searched for work in town.  Of course, the humans wanted nothing to do with him and shunned him, some silently, some in more violent ways.  It was during one such encounter that Ichen became an outlaw in the human world like he was in the orc world.  A mean-spirited farmer, seeing Ichen venture onto his property, attacked with a woodaxe without waiting for an explanation.  Defending himself, Ichen grappled with the farmer.  In the struggle, the farmer fell on his axe, suffering a mortal wound.  Naturally, the townsfolk wouldn’t listen to Ichen’s explanation, thinking him a barbaric murderer.  Once again, Ichen was forced to flee.  Taking some supplies from an outlying farm (Ichen’s first foray into thievery), he took to the trails again.

Disenchanted by his experiences with both orcs and humans, Ichen turned his back on the world, concentrating solely on protecting and providing for himself.  He became a highwayman, robbing human merchants travelling to and from the few towns in the Maarten foothills, west of the mountains where Ichen grew up.  Ichen did make a few acquaintances in this time, human and dwarven men who, outcasts like himself, took to robbery to survive, but never trusted anyone enough to call them a true friend.  Finally, after a particularly close encounter with a merchant who’s guard was better trained and armed than usual, Ichen decided it was time to move on from this part of the world.  Ironically enough, Ichen managed to get hired on as a travelling guard for a large caravan headed to the city of Ravensdale to the west.

Ravensdale was a wonder to Ichen, who had never seen a settlement of more than a few hundred people.  Fully 5000 people called Ravensdale home.  Humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and even a small gnomish community all existed together in this bustling metropolis.  Surely here Ichen could find acceptance, if anywhere, he thought.  Sadly, that wasn’t the case.  As tolerant as most were to the other, fairer races, everyone still held orcs in low regard and wanted little to do with them.  Shunned again, Ichen was forced to return to thievery to survive.

In a city of this size, Ichen found it a little easier to disappear from the normal perceptions of the everyday populace.  Living in the shadows, Ichen was able to survive, and even thrive a little, by stealing from the market, picking pockets of drunken revelers at large celebrations, and occasionally mugging a deserving fellow.  Ichen still didn’t believe in violence for the sake of violence, but if he noticed a particularly rude, and wealthy looking, patron of the market or inns mistreating any of the less fortunate, like Ichen used to be, he would have no qualms about knocking him over the head and relieving him of all of his valuables.  Then, after pulling off a surprisingly difficult pickpocket, Ichen’s life changed forever.

The purse Ichen had lifted didn’t belong to any ordinary person, Ichen soon discovered.  It belonged to Jordan Steele, an undercaptain in the Ravensdale Thieves Guild.  Now, Ichen had always avoided the guild, as he felt they wouldn’t accept him.  But, upon discovering who's property he owned, he knew he couldn’t keep out of their way any longer.  Rather than wait for someone to find him, he went in search of the guild leaders.  Using a combination of daring, skill, and blind luck, Ichen managed to break into one of the suites owned by Phillippe LaCroix, the second in command of the entire guild.  There, Ichen waited for Phillipe to come home, where Ichen promptly returned Jordan’s purse.  Claiming he did it on purpose to prove his worth, Ichen asked for entrance into the guild, knowing it was the only way he could continue to survive in Ravensdale.  Phillipe, rather than be outraged at the intrusion, was intrigued by the young half-orc.  Promising him immunity for his actions to this point, but admonishing him to never try it again, Phillipe sponsored Ichen into the guild.

Life improved seemingly overnight for Ichen.  He had contacts, he had a permanent residence, although he never gave up his boltholes throughout the city, he had resources.  He even had people he thought he might learn to call friend.  The other thieves even gave him a nickname after a particularly rough, but successful, job that required a trip through the sewers of Ravensdale, Filthy Ike.  Ike, as he preferred to be called now when among humans, started to settle down.  He thought he would stay in Ravensdale, and the guild, for the rest of his life.  He might have, too, if the Crusaders hadn’t come to town.

The Crusaders are a band of holy warriors from the capital of Umbria.  Intent on wiping out evil in all its forms wherever they found it, they quickly latched onto the Thieves Guild as their focus in Ravensdale.  The Crusaders are vigilant, relentless, zealous, and completely unforgiving of those they deem in the wrong.  They quickly made life difficult for the guild members, forcing them into hiding to avoid the public executions that occurred whenever one of them were caught.  Finally, the guild leaders, in a secret meeting, decided the only to ensure their survival was to temporarily disband the guild and scatter the members.  All guild members were advised to immediately leave Ravensdale, taking with them all knowledge of the guild and its operations, and not return for at least 2 years.

So, in the fall of his 16th year, Ichen Gar, better known to the world at large as Filthy Ike, found himself on the trails again, wandering the land without a home.


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## Broccli_Head (Oct 10, 2002)

Poor Filthy Ike.....


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## Sniktch (Oct 11, 2002)

*Prelude*

The man awoke to blinding whiteness.  In a panic he looked around himself, but he was aware only of whiteness and pain.  Someone’s hand grabbed him, shaking.  Dimly he heard a voice.  “Hey, you not dead.  Dead if sleep now.  Get up, I help you.”  Gradually the world became a little more focused.  He saw a fierce little man standing over him; a wild looking, child sized man dressed in furs, with feathers in his hair.  “Come on, get up now.”  The hands again, pulling at him.

He groaned and sat up, shaking his head to clear it.  It only made the throbbing worse.  The little man kept tugging at him, urging him to stand.  He scanned the area - he had been laying in a snowy plain, the stark white of the snow stained now with blood.  Dark shapes lay unmoving all around him, men, and horses, and some sort of monster, a horrible twisted parody of men with upturned noses, greenish tinged skin, and protruding tusks.

“What happened?” he asked the scowling figure urging him to hurry.  He honestly couldn’t remember.  Trying to dig deeper and further back, he found he honestly couldn’t remember anything at all!

“Orcs.  Kill all men and horses.  All but you.  You lucky.”  The small person paused a moment, then continued, “Welby,” and tentatively extended his hand.

The man accepted the hand and shook, then allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.  His head swam and he staggered, but Welby caught him and supported his weight.  The halfling, for the man seemed to think that Welby must be a halfling, although he wasn’t sure exactly what a halfling was, began leading him away from the battle site. 

“We must leave.  More orcs near,” the halfling explained.

“Thank you, Welby, I think you’ve saved me.  I’m not sure at the moment.  I seem to have forgotten quite a lot, frankly, including who I am.”  As they walked, he searched his pockets, his belt.  He wore a rapier, a nice weapon but without any sort of stamp or symbol, and a shirt of chain links.  He had a pouch with a few mixed coins in it.  He wore a quiver half full of crossbow bolts, so he must have been carrying a crossbow, and he could remember what that was and how to use it.  Finally, in his left boot he found a dagger.  It had a silver edged blade and the hilt was designed to resemble a crow, painted with loving attention to detail and with two obsidian chips for the bird’s eyes.

He was jolted by a brief vision; a small snatch of memory that teased him but revealed nothing.  He remembered buying this dagger, having it commissioned.  The smith was a master at his craft and the best smith in Royston.  That was it!  He had come here from Royston!  He had come here from Royston and for some reason he couldn’t go back.

It was not much but it would have to do for now.  He continued to let Welby lead him, wincing at each step.  To take his mind off of the ache his body felt he tried to start a conversation with the halfling.  “Well, my friend Welby, I still do not know my name, but you must have something to call me by if we are to travel together.  Perhaps my memories and abilities will appear again in time, perhaps not.  For now, however, I will choose a name.  You can call me the Royston Crow.”

Welby shook his head.  “Talk too much.  Save breath.  We have long walk.”

Probably very good advice, the man thought to himself.  He put all his concentration into placing one foot in front of the other, and the strange pair disappeared into the snow.


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## Sniktch (Oct 11, 2002)

*Prelude (cont.)*

Welby was worried about his companion.  The “Royston Crow,” as he referred to himself now, had remembered nothing new on their trek north.  Worse yet, the young man’s wounds had begun to fester and he had lapsed into delirium the past two days.  If Welby did not find help for him soon, he would certainly perish.  Then it would have been all for naught.  Still, he could not have left him in that field, where he had found this one living being surrounded by the dead.  

They had crossed over from the plains into a forest after a day, and Welby loved walking through the wood as it lay in the icy grip of winter.  The bare skeletons of the trees standing stark and naked against the background of gray and white had a harsh beauty, and triggered pleasant memories of growing up in the Tangles.  If he had had no other worries, Welby would have loved nothing more than to explore these woods and relish the crisp, clean air and slumbering country, but as it was he wished for the woods to end soon.  He did not expect to find aid for the Crow out here in the wilds.  

The trees thinned as night approached, and Welby thought he saw distant lights twinkling in the twilight.  Excited, Welby picked up the pace, eliciting a groan and a curse from his barely coherent companion.  Cresting a hill, Welby found himself staring down into a valley cleared of trees, a broad, snowy plain.  Nestled in the heart of the valley lay a village, no more than two dozen buildings.  Welby urged Crow to walk faster again, his hope growing as they approached the small hamlet.
______________________________________________

Stumpwater Jack and Eli Mournsong looked up as the door slammed open, admitting the howling wind.  Few were in the inn on this night, just the innkeeper and the few regulars who had braved the cold, in addition to Jack, Eli, and a cloaked figure who stayed in the shadows of the room.  Two figures, one short and one tall, both heavily bundled, staggered in.  The tall one immediately slumped to the floor as the other, child-sized figure forced the door shut.

“We need priest!”  The small figure pulled his hood from his face, revealing the most feral halfling anyone present had ever seen.  He pointed to the figure slumped next to him.  “Man hurt bad.  Where find priest?”

Jack rose and approached the halfling.  “I am Stumpwater Jack, a priest of Clangeddin Silverbeard, Dwarf Lord of Battle.  My healing abilities’re limited, but I may be able to help yer friend.  What ails him?”

“Fever.  Found him wounded in snow.  Clean wound, but not heal.  Wound turn bad, fever set in.”  The halfling knelt by the stricken man and began removing the heavy layers of clothing he wore.  He continued, “Me Welby.  Him say he Royston Crow.”

Jack knelt to examine the stricken half-elf.  He had a nasty cut on his forehead that was obviously festering.  Jack knitted his brow; he could stabilize the man, but he would still need a day or two to recover.  He muttered a prayer of healing and saw some of the swelling go down, some of the color return to the Crow’s cheeks.  He looked up at Welby and spread his hands.  “ I’ve done all I can fer now.  He should get recover, but it will take a day or two.”

Welby thanked him and procured a room at the inn, using a couple of coins he took from the Crow’s beltpouch, then Jack and Eli helped him carry the unconscious half-elf upstairs and lay him in bed.  An ominous growl rumbled through the small room.  Jack and Eli looked alarmed, but Welby merely held his stomach and blushed.  Chuckling, the tall elf led the way back down to their table.  Welby purchased a large bowl of rabbit stew and then joined them at the table.  Obviously not recognizing the purpose of his spoon, the halfling fell to devouring the stew with his small, pudgy fingers.

Eli tried to hide his distaste for the young halfling uncivilized eating habits.  “So, ahh, I don’t believe I have ever met a halfling of such a, ahh, interesting appearance before, Welby.  From whence do you hail and what finds you in Travensburg in the dead of winter?”

Welby stared at him blankly until Jack cut in, “He means where’re ya from and what’re ya doin here.”

“Oh.  Lizards come to home so me leave.  Me find Crow and he need help, so we come to town.”  He raised a thick, bushy eyebrow at Eli, “Why you here?”

Jack answered, “We came fer the ruins.  Jus two miles outside o town is the ancient dwarf hold o Duernfast.  My friend Eli and I reckon to search the ruins, see what we find.  Care to join us?  We could use another axe if anythin is still livin down there.”

“Hmm, ok.  Sounds fun, me go.”
__________________________________________

Ichen Gar sat in his corner, sipping a mug of ale and listening to the three new companions’ conversation.  He was intrigued – anything would be better than sitting in this bar all winter, waiting for the Crusaders to catch up to him.  Besides, it looked like they could use someone of his talents.  He rose and approached the table.

“Mind if I join you?”  His harsh growling voice cut through the discussion they were having.

Jack looked up to see a huge figure standing over them, dressed in black leather.  He was possibly the ugliest human anyone at the table had ever seen, with a piggish, upturned snout and long fangs protruding over his bottom lip.  He reached for his axe, forgetting that he had left it upstairs.  “Orc-blood!” he spat.

Eli grabbed his arm and restrained him, “Yes, Jack, obviously so.  And if I were so quick to judge a man by his appearance, I would have never traveled south with you and you would have died in the wilds.  At least hear what the man has to say.”  He turned to the newcomer, “Excuse my friend, he has never been the most tolerant soul.  Please join us; I would be glad to hear what you have to say.”

Ike stared at the dwarf a moment before taking a seat.  “I couldn’t help but overhear you speaking about the ruins outside of town.  I find myself at a bit of a loose end right now, and I’m sure I could help a lot with my skills.”

“Bah, and what’d those be?”  Jack rumbled.

Ichen opened his cloak and took a leather case from his belt.  Laying it open on the table, he revealed rows of small wires, picks, tumblers, and other strange tools.  He grinned an uneven, toothy smile over the table as he explained, “I’m a master locksmith.  I can find and disable any trap and open any lock you find in those ruins, or my name ain’t Filthy Ike.”

Jack snorted, “Ya mean yer a thief.  An orc-blood and a thief, why aren’t I surprised?”

Eli glanced sharply at Jack before turning back to Ike.  “Pay him no mind, his bark is far worse than his bite.”  Jack snorted again at this, but Eli cut him off, “You are correct, I believe we could use an expert on this foray.  Besides, as Jack just said, an extra swordarm is always good to have.  It will be good to have your company, Ike.  I am Eli Mournsong, and my companions Stumpwater Jack and Welby.  Rest for now; we will not be departing until the storm breaks.”
__________________________________________

The Crow was well enough to join them for breakfast the next day.  As they sat around the table, swapping stories and becoming better acquainted with each other, the door opened and an, imperious, well-dressed figure entered.  Removing his fine furs, the man came to stand before their table.  He was tall and approaching middle age, with gray beginning to enter into his beard and the hair at his temples.  He stood over the companions and caught them with a piercing, blue-eyed stare.

“Greetings and welcome!  I am Lord Alexei Travens, ruler of this village.  My men have told me that a band of young adventurers was staying in town, and I have a problem I believe you can help me with.  As you know, the winter has been especially harsh.  Unfortunately, this came after a poor harvest, and the village larders are nearly empty.  We were expecting a shipment of food from Ravensburg to arrive two days ago; in fact, I dispatched several of the young men of the village to meet the supply wagon yesterday.  They did not return, and we have received no word of them or the wagon.  It is possible they have merely been delayed by the storm, but this is a matter of life and death for many of our people.  I ask you, please, travel down the eastern road that runs past the ruins and see if you can discover the cause of the delay.  We are not a rich people, but I will reward you if you can bring the foodstuffs safely back to town.”

It took less than a minute for them to consider the proposal before they accepted.  Bundling themselves in their winter gear, the five bold travelers exited the inn and began to trudge across the snowfall covering the eastern road.


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## Sniktch (Oct 11, 2002)

*The supply wagon*

Welby crested the hill and held up his hand to halt the others.  Squinting into the wind, he could make out figures moving in the icy field below and he discovered the fate of the supply wagon.  A heavily cloaked figure struggled to lead an overburdened horse off of the road, his shouted curses just barely reaching Welby’s ears over the wind.  Two large brutish humanoids in fur lined scale mail stood watch with greataxes held ready.  The two sentries were distracted by the efforts of their companion, pointing at him as he wrestled the horse and laughing.  Around them in the snow lay the wreckage of the wagon and the corpses of the townsfolk who had been its escort.  Patches of crimson stained the otherwise pristine white plain.

Welby crept back behind the hill to the others.  He held up three fingers and explained, ”All people dead.  Two pig-snouts with axes watching third drag horse off road.  They not watch close.” 

The others considered this information.  Eli spoke first, ”If I understand our diminutive savage correctly, the bandits, for I assume they are such, will be easy to take unawares.  We should hit them hard and fast – though we outnumber them, orcs, as I guess them to be, are nothing to underestimate in battle.”

Ike spoke next as the others tried to comprehend the long-winded elf.  “I think I agree.  I think we should try to outflank them.  I’m sure Welby and I could sneak around to the side and catch them in a crossfire.  We should try to take them out with our bows if possible, it’ll be a lot less dangerous than facing those axe-men up close.”

Jack scowled, “Bah, I ain’t scared o any two bit orc swingin an axe.  Only three?  I say charge.”

The Crow joined the discussion.  “No, I agree with the others.  From what Welby told me, orcs are responsible for my current condition.  With the distance separating us, to charge would be to give away all the advantage we have.  I’m all for Ike’s plan.”

“Agreed,” Eli said, “Ike and Welby, try to take up position.  We will start firing on the creatures at the count of one hundred – wait until they are focused on us and then join in.”

Welby nodded, then he and Ike began creeping away as the others took up position near the top of the hill.
__________________________________________

Marsem Trember let out a stream of foul oaths as he struggled with the packhorse.  The ambush had gone flawlessly, the townsfolk falling quickly to his crossbow and his hired orc thugs.  However, this had to be the most stubborn animal he had ever encountered, and his bestial allies were absolutely no help now.

“Well, don’t just stand there gawking!”  he shouted at them. “Help me drag this stinking animal off the road!  We need to get out of sight.”

He triggered only more laughter.  These two were enjoying his discomfort far too much; he would have some words with their warboss when they returned to the cave.  Marsem Trember was not going to accept being laughed at by two simple brutes.  If his brother had been present, he would have already disciplined the pair, but Aldin had stayed behind to continue the excavations, and he did not trust the orcs’ loyalties enough to push them while he was alone.

What was that sound?  “Silence!” he snapped.  The orcs quieted and he heard it clearly, a faint battlecry coming from the low hill to the west.  He heard another voice briefly, “No, wait Jack, damn it!” and then a crossbow bolt cut through the air, plowing into the snow about ten feet short of their position.  Following the direction the bolt came from, Marsem saw an armored dwarf charging through the knee-deep snow, brandishing his axe overhead.  Behind him, partially shielded by the crest of the hill crouched two more figures, one furiously reloading a crossbow and the other aiming a longbow in their direction.

“Take that dwarf,” Marsem commanded the orcs, then dropped the reins of the horse and picked his already loaded crossbow off of the ground.  Training it in the direction of the longbowman, Marsem mumbled a string of arcane syllables, using magic to sharpen his eyesight and give him devastating accuracy on his next shot.  An arrow whistled through the air and ricocheted off one of the orcs scale mail vests, drawing a howl of rage, and then Marsem returned fire.  His bolt flew straight and true, and the archer fell back behind the hill with a strangled cry.  A satisfied grin spread his lips, and he began invoking the spell again as he hurried to reload the crossbow
________________________________________

“What a stubborn ass,” Ike mumbled to Welby as the battle began.  “I should’ve realized he’d be too prideful to allow this ambush to work right.”  Welby simply returned his gaze for a moment, then looked eagerly back to the fight.

The pair lay in a low drift, watching the action unseen from several yards away.  The two orcs had rushed to meet Jack’s charge, while the third figure had picked up a crossbow and began firing upon the Crow and Eli’s position.  Things were not going well.  Eli had gotten one arrow off before the man had taken him down with an amazing shot, both Ike and Welby hearing the hoarse scream from the elf.  The Crow’s first shot had come in low and he had not fired a second – Ike guessed that he was busy now tending to the wounded elf.  As he watched, the enemy crossbowman raised his bow and fired a shot between the two orcs.  It took Jack in his left shoulder, and the dwarf’s charge slowed as suddenly his shield arm hung weak and useless at his side.  Jack shouted a dwarven oath and urged the orcs to “come and get some.”                                 

Ike turned and whispered to Welby, “Alright, then – it looks like Jack is going to need some help against those orcs, the idiot.  Try and sneak in close and get involved in that combat, I’m going to go after the crossbowman.”

Welby started to run towards the combat in a sort of half crouch, trusting on his size to get him close to the combat unseen.  Ike turned his attention back to the reloading crossbowman and realized that he had spotted Welby.  He had reloaded the crossbow and brought it to bear on the scurrying halfling, and was chanting something in a strange tongue.  Ike felt a shiver creep up his spine.  Spellcaster!  At least his attention was diverted – maybe Ike would get close enough to strike unseen.  He dropped to his belly and began to wriggle closer through the snow.

Jack slowed at the last moment and accepted the orcs charge.  He parried the first axe strike out wide and sidestepped the second opponent.  Unfortunately, the movement carried him between his foes and he could no longer see the movements of his second opponent.  He quickly brought his knee up, driving it into the first orc’s groin, causing it to wheeze and double over.  His axe flashed and he buried it in the orc’s thick skull, then spun around, trying to pull his weapon free and raise a defense.

Too slow.  As he turned, the other orc brought its own axe in a wide sweeping arc that smashed into his ribs, driving the links of his chainmail deep into his flesh, tearing skin and fracturing ribs.  He collapsed gasping as the orc prepared to deliver an overhand strike that would surely end his life.  Why hadn’t he followed the plan?  It seemed now he would pay for his folly and pride with his life.

As the blow descended, a small form burst through the snow and caught the downward stroke on the blade of its own battleaxe.  Jack sighed in relief as he saw Welby standing over him, blood dripping from a crossbow bolt imbedded in his side.  The halfling seemed oblivious to the pain, and stood facing the orc with his face contorted with rage, blood-flecked foam spraying from his lips as he leapt towards the orc with a deep-throated roar.  The orc hesitated, stepping back from this fierce little demon, and then its chest erupted under the force of Welby’s stroke, the air filling momentarily with a warm red spray.  

Marsem Trember was afraid.  He let fly and saw another bolt imbed itself in the halfling warrior, knocking the small form backwards but not off its feet.  Now he was out of spells and would have to rely upon his own skill to fell the two fighters closing in on him, and he seemed unable to even hurt this small savage!  It was definitely time to return to his brother’s side and the safety of the rest of the orc band – these two could not catch him in a race now.  He dropped the crossbow and made about a dozen leaping steps before he saw the figure explode from a snow bank, crossbow leveled at him.  A scream of fright and astonishment burst from his lungs, then the crossbow bolt struck a glancing blow to his skull and darkness took him.


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## Broccli_Head (Oct 11, 2002)

My fav's are fast becoming Welby (I love the way he talks and the li'l barbarians ferocity!) and Ike--Nice pop up from the snow...

It'll be sad to see Ike go   since I don't recall him from the CotSQ thread....

What campaign world are you playing in? The place names sound like Erde?


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## Dungannon (Oct 11, 2002)

While Ike is not currently travelling with this particular band of ruffians & ne'er-do-wells, he may very well be working his back to their general location.  And if they do meet up, boy is he gonna have fun with the now-bald Welby


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## Sniktch (Oct 11, 2002)

*world setting*

yeah, sadly Ike left the group when he got married and had kids    That's OK, believe me, I understand, I just keep doing it anyway.  It looks like his schedule may open up a little sometime down the road, and you never know who may pop up in the Underdark  

We're not really playing in any particular setting, more of a homebrew world in progress.  Just my own little setting I cobbled from various places when 3E was released, with help from many sources.  I handed out a one page sheet a week or two before our first session (at our real first session when we played through the D&D box game to get used to the new rules), and it listed a few place names, but I hadn't drawn a map yet.  Ike handed me his background a couple of days later - I told him to feel free to fill in areas of the map for me, and as you can see, he was kind enough to oblige.

Since then, I've basically kept the map updated just a step or two ahead of where the group has desired to go.  In the other campaign I run, a totally different set of people and characters are running around in the next country over.  

I'm almost done writing up the aftermath of the fight and the next few scenes, but I'm getting cross-eyed at this point.  I still haven't recovered from my toddler's cold.  Should have more up by tomorrow or Sunday.


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## Sniktch (Oct 11, 2002)

*Aftermath and The Cave*

The battle rage slowly left Welby and he finally became aware of the two bolts sticking into his body.  He slumped to the ground with a stifled gasp.  Jack, having already seen to his own injuries, moved over to examine the wounds but the halfling waved him away.  

“Go…see…Eli,” Welby gasped, “he…hit…too.”

“Nonsense, Welby, you’re hurt bad.  Let me take care of it.”

Welby shook his head and pushed Jack away.  “No…fine…used to…pain.”

Jack shrugged and pulled Ike aside, telling him to keep a close eye on the brave warrior and call for him if he lost consciousness.  He turned and started trotting up the hill, calling for his friend.

The Royston Crow’s voice answered, “He can’t answer Jack, he’s hurt bad.  I think I’ve got him stabilized but he’s lost a lot of blood – I can’t say how he is.”

Jack broke into a run, moving as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.  He came to the top of the hill and found the Crow kneeling by Eli’s side, pressing against the side of his neck where the bolt had torn a ragged gouge through the flesh.  The elf’s chest barely moved, and his skin was turning an icy blue.  Jack cried out and rushed to his friend’s side, holding his hands to the wound as he called out to his god.

“Great Clangeddin, grant your servant the power to heal this warrior whose time has not come!  Give me the strength to heal my friend who paid the price for my foolishness!”

A warm glow enveloped Jack’s hands and spread into the cold flesh of the stricken elf.  The Crow gasped in wonder as he watched the torn flesh knit together before his eyes, the jagged edges of the wound growing back together and sealing over as if no injury had ever existed.  Eli’s breathing steadied and the color began to return to his face, and Jack choked, trying to stifle his sobs of relief.

Meanwhile Ike was finding that other casualties of the battle had, in fact, survived.  Kneeling to examine the man he’d shot down, he found that his bolt had only grazed his temple, injuring him and knocking him instantly unconscious, but sparing his life.  The man groaned as Ike hurriedly searched him, confiscating a dagger and a pouch that felt like it contained several coins.  He also found a holy symbol of silver under the man’s coat.  “The Morrigan,” he muttered disgustedly as he slid it into a pouch.  The Morrigan was an evil deity of war and pestilence whose followers were capable of any vile act in her name.

Glancing over at Welby, he saw that the small warrior did indeed seem to be doing fine.  He appeared winded, but he had cleaned and dressed his own wounds and was watching Ike silently.  The others all seemed to be on their feet, and were slowly making their way back down the hill.  The packhorse, forgotten in the combat, still stood in the road defiantly, seemingly daring anyone to try to move it.  

Ike yelled to the others, “We got one alive,” then proceeded to tear strips of cloth from the man’s clothing, bandaging his head and binding his hands and feet securely.  Welby had risen and was examining the nearby area.  As the others made their way over, Welby waved his arms, catching their attention.  He then pointed to a clear line of tracks leading away toward the edge of the Twilight Forest.

“They come that way,” he intoned solemnly.

Jack turned to Eli, “Lemme see that map,” then back to the others, “So, whatta we do now?  We oughter get this food back to Lord Travens, but these three mighta been part o a bigger group.”

“Obviously our first responsibility is to deliver the supplies to the village.  If we wake the prisoner, we can question him on the way back before we hand him over to the lord.”  Eli paused a moment before continuing, “Jack, according to the map, their tracks do head in the general direction of Duernfast.”

The Royston Crow spoke next. “Look, the town is only, what, a mile away at the most?  We should be able to deliver the supplies, drop off the prisoner, and be back here in less than an hour.  We need to hurry, though – if these three have friends waiting for them, they might start to get anxious for their return.”

Ike looked at the wreckage of the wagon and the scattered crates and sacks.  “Well, we can’t carry all of this.  I say we lighten the horse’s load and carry the supplies already packed into its saddlebags.  Then we just throw our bandit on the horse and we can lead the villagers back to collect the rest.”

Jack ran his thumb down the blade of his axe, drawing a bright bead of blood.  “Aye, and then we foller these tracks back to their source, and we slay any more scum we find there.”
______________________________

Welby pause at the edge of the woods, listening intently and scanning the trees for any sign of movement.  As the Royston Crow had predicted, the group arrived back at the scene of battle in a little less than an hour, a group of townsfolk following them to gather any scattered foodstuffs still lying around.  They had tried to question their prisoner about what they might find – how many allies he had, their purpose, where they were camped, etc. – but he had proved most unhelpful.  The only information he had imparted was that his name was Marsem Trember and they would pay for their transgression, that the followers of the Morrigan would “flay the skin from their bones and feed them to the orcs.”

Jack had been very unimpressed with the skinny, fanatical Trember and had to be restrained at one point lest they return to Lord Travens without a prisoner.  The man had also quickly offended Alexei, and soon he had been hauled off to the gaol until the time of his appointment with the gallows could be decided.  Lord Travens implored the companions to find the bandits’ camp and either kill or scatter them so they would no longer threaten the citizens of Travensburg.  Of course, they told him that had been their plan all along.

Now Welby scouted the trail, moving silently through the drifts about twenty paces in front of the others.  The trail had led them southeast from the road for approximately three miles, into the rugged hills bordering the outskirts of the Twilight Forest.  According to the map that Jack and Eli kept referring to, they should be very close to the entrance to the ruined mines of Duernfast.  It seemed quite likely that this is where the attackers had holed up.  Welby hoped so – he wanted to get indoors soon.  Normally he loved the cold, frigid air, but he had been hurt by the two bolts worse than he was letting on, and he was freezing.

He stopped, waving at the others to approach him.  The tracks ended at the entrance to a shallow cave.  The area at the mouth had been churned into slush and mud by the passage of many booted feet.  The air was quiet and still.  The companions regarded each other silently as they rested from the march, the air filled with the smoky trails of their hot breath.

The Royston Crow spoke first, “It would seem we have arrived.”

“Shhh,” Ike warned, “we don’t know if they’ve any guards.”

Jack peered at the hole before them.  “Don’t see anything in there,” he said. “I think anyone in there’s smart enough to go further back the caves where it’s warm.  C’mon, let’s get this done with.”  He shouldered his axe and began approaching the entrance.

Ike detected a hint of movement by the cave walls as Jack strode into the open.  “No, Jack, wait!” he yelled, but too late.  A volley of crossbow bolts already sped through the air towards the dwarf…

To be continued...


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## Broccli_Head (Oct 11, 2002)

There goes Jack again! Getting himself into trouble....

Gotta love the axe-wielding, battle hymn singing dwarf!


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## Dungannon (Oct 13, 2002)

Broccli_Head said:
			
		

> *There goes Jack again! Getting himself into trouble....
> 
> Gotta love the axe-wielding, battle hymn singing dwarf! *




Yeah, it's a good thing you love 'im Brocli, cuz it's awful difficult for us to.  We did discover that his hardheadedness is useful on occasion, though, like when we need to open a barred door.


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## Sniktch (Oct 14, 2002)

*The Cave*

The crossbow bolts raced through the air towards Jack, but he was not caught completely off guard.  He raised his shield and felt the bolts impact as Eli’s voice sang out in a melodic chant of arcane syllables.  He recognized the spell of sleep as Eli ended the cadence, and then he heard several distinct thuds from the cave mouth.  He hurried forward into the cave.

The rest of the companions rushed towards the dark opening as Jack disappeared inside, and arrived to find him dispatching the last of four sleeping orcs.  He looked up and grinned as they entered.  “Nice timing, Eli,” he said, “this coulda been a tough fight.”

Ike knelt to examine the corpses.  “They must have all just been paid - all their pouches are filled with silver.”  This statement was followed by a small cheer.

The cave itself was rough hewn and held nothing of interest save the sentries’ bodies.  However, a well-worn track lead to the back of the cave, where the walls gave way to a carved stone corridor that ended in a stout oak door.  Ike crept down the tunnel and began examining the door, with Welby following right behind him.  The others waited in the cave, Jack with readied axe and Eli and Crow carrying their bows.  

Ike found the door to be unlocked.  He reached into one of his pockets and extracted a small cone of metal.  Placing one end against the door and the smaller portion to his ear, he listened intently for several moments.  He could hear faint noises from the other side - someone pacing maybe, a short exclamation in the guttural tongue of his orcish ancestors.  He looked back at Welby and nodded.  “Several guards past this door,” he whispered.  “It doesn’t sound like they know we’re here.”

They sneaked back to the cave to discuss the situation with the others.  It was decided that Jack and Welby would lead the assault on the room and the rest would cover them with missile fire.  

On the count of three, Welby pushed the door open and went into a diving roll across the floor.  Jack followed him into the room and immediately stepped towards the side of the chamber.  A volley of arrows from the others passed him by, and one surprised orc sentry got struck in the shoulder and throat, collapsing in a quickly spreading pool of blood.  The room was filled with clutter, lined with boxes and barrels and tables covered with various tools and supplies.  The five surviving orcs in the chamber overcame their surprise and moved into action.  Two picked axes off the floor and charged toward Welby and Jack, while the other three grabbed crossbows and upended a table, taking shelter behind it.

Ike cursed under his breath.  The advantage of surprise had evaporated quickly, and only one of the guards had been accounted for.  Now Jack and Welby seemed locked in stalemate with their opponents, none of the combatants able to deal a telling blow, and the other orcs were too well sheltered behind the table to be hit.  He traded his crossbow for his mace and sprinted forward, weaving and tumbling to avoid the arrows flying back and forth.  Avoiding the melee, he ran straight towards the three archers.  As he approached the table he dove, feeling a stinging hit in his hip as he did so.  He rolled to a stop on the opposite side of the table, reached up and grabbed the edge, and pulled it down on top of himself..

The orc archers suddenly found themselves bereft of cover, and two of the three were immediately hit and killed by Eli and the Crow.  Meanwhile, Jack and Welby had finally dispatched their opponents, and the final orc lost his heart for the battle.  It sprinted towards an exit leading further into the cavern complex screaming for help but did not get far.  Jack dropped his axe and pulled a light hammer from his belt, flipping it end over end towards the fleeing orc.  The heavy mallet struck the orc in the back of its skull and it dropped with a sickening popping sound.  Jack strolled over and retrieved the weapon, then moved to Ike and bent to examine his wound.

A crossbow bolt protruded from the half-orc’s hip and he looked up in obvious pain, eyes glazed over and teeth clenched.  Jack shook his head with new-found respect, “Ike, I canna decide if that were the bravest or the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.  Unfortunately, I’ve nearly exhausted my healing prayers fer the day, but I c’n take some o the sting away.”

Jack suddenly glanced off to the side, “What was that?”  Ike looked away, distracted, and Jack grabbed the bolt and pulled it forth.  A scream bubbled from the half-orc’s lips, but before Ike had finished Jack had sealed the wound with a minor prayer and was applying a poultice to the wound.  He checked to make sure it was firmly in place before offering his hand and helping Ike back to his feet.

While Jack tended to Ike, the Crow took up watch in the exit and Eli rummaged through the room, making a catalogue of all the tools, supplies, and weapons he found.  The orcs and their masters obviously had some sort of mining operation going on, and he found many picks, chisels, and hammers, a large supply of rope and lantern fuel, and a crate of crossbow ammunition.  He also understood the monsters’ motive for the raid on the supply wagon; he found precious little food in the crates, and many of the containers were empty.

Welby was trying to take his mind off of his stomach.  He had risen before sunrise and raided a small building he’d discovered in the village that was just filled with fat, slow-moving chickens.  That had been good for a small feast; he’d had two birds and half a dozen eggs.  Then he’d breakfasted with the others when they woke, consuming a stack of delicious pancakes, but he had not eaten since.  He ached from his wounds and he was tired of walking, and he was hungry.  How the others could go three hours without showing any sign of hunger was beyond him.  Was that movement in the corner?

Welby jumped to his feet, shortbow in hand, and fired at the corner of the room, before dropping the bow and diving into the shadowy recess.  Eli saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and shouted in alarm, bringing the rest of the group running.  Welby emerged sheepishly from behind the crates and barrels.  In his hand he held an arrow, which had neatly skewered a rat.  “Hungry,” he explained, and then to everyone’s collective horror he took a bite out of the rat.

Even Jack turned a shade paler.  “Ahem.  Uhh, we should keep movin.  Might be more orcs about.”  He spun on his heels and marched out of the room.  Eli, Royston, and Ike were close behind him, but Welby took his time.  The others had a good lead by the time he entered the hallway, licking his fingers and making satisfied little smacking sounds.


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## Capellan (Oct 14, 2002)

*Unearthing the Past*

I'm enjoying reading an account of this Cliffhanger module, since I plan to run it for my own group in a few days' time!


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## Sniktch (Oct 14, 2002)

*Unearthing the Past*

Thanks, Capellan.  If you want another example of the adventure in play check out RatPunk's thread, as I believe his group also starts out in Travensburg.

I found it to be an excellent short piece to launch the campaign, and very convenient since I didn't have much time to cook up my own opener.  As you'll see coming up, I expand upon it quite a lot once they complete the published portion.


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## Sniktch (Oct 14, 2002)

*The story continues...*

They halted thirty feet down the hallway at a four way intersection.  Directly ahead of them the passage was blocked by another stout door, barred shut on their side.  The right tunnel had collapsed long ago and was choked with rubble, and the left continued past the range of their vision.  Jack regarded the closed door.

“Reckon we should take a look inside?”

Welby shook his head.  “Door shut for reason,” he managed around a mouthful of rodent.

Jack started to argue but the Crow interrupted him.  “The little guy’s got a point.  They might be trying to keep something in there.”

Jack persisted, “I don’ like leavin rooms behind me unexplored.  Might be leavin an enemy at our backs; might be leavin some poor prisoner in chains unaided.”

“You have a valid argument,” Eli spoke next.  “However, I’m inclined to side with the others at this time.  We can be reasonably certain that no threat is going to come at us from this direction, and the distinct possibility exists that the orcs were trying to keep something out.  Let us secure the rest of the complex; we can always return and examine this passage again when the orcs and their masters have been dealt with.”

Outnumbered, Jack was forced to agree.  They started down the left-passageway and moved forward about twenty feet before Ike called for a halt.  When they quit moving everyone could hear it, the sound of metal rattling against metal.  The sound seemed to emanate from just around a bend in the corridor.  Cautiously, they moved up to the corner and peered around it.  Here the tunnel ended, opening into a large square room contaning a large hole in the center of it’s floor.  An ingenious tangle of pulleys, catches, and gears hung suspended from the ceiling, all slowly spinning in place.  This had the result of pulling at a chain that rose from the hole, gradually winding it around a straight bar.  

Welby moved up to the lip of the opening and looked down, then jumped back and readied his axe.  “More orcs,” he warned.  “Coming up in metal box.”

Ike dropped to his belly and readied his crossbow, aiming it towards the hole.  The Crow moved around to the other side of the chamber, also readying his crossbow.  Jack, Welby, and Eli followed suit, readying their bows and slowly fanning out around the room.

Ike saw the orcs’ heads begin to appear above the floorline and pulled the trigger, his bolt taking an orc through the eye and causing it to slump silently to the floor.  Another orc started to yell a warning but it turned into a scream as an arrow and a bolt thunked into it’s chest and back.  Two more orcs remained on the lift, but they were cut down by steady fire before it finished rising.

Jack examined the lift mechanism while the others labored to clear it of bodies.  Ike once again noted that the monsters all had full purses.  Jack declared the lift to be obviously of dwarven manufacture.  “We got nearly the same things back home, though quite a few upgrades ha’ been made to the design since this’n were built,” he explained, showing them how to operate the device.  When he was satisfied that all of them now knew how to use the lift, they climbed into the metal basket and they started their descent into the shaft.

They came to a stop again one level below, in an identical square room empty except for a few support beams and part of the lift system.  A single exit led out of the room, and they cautiously filed out of the basket and into the hall.  They came to another four way intersection, but both the south and eastern passage were collapsed, leaving north as the only option.  

A room opened to the north, the door smashed from its hinges and laying in the hall.  Old, dry patches of blood stained the floor, and it appeared that two bodies had been dragged into the room.  Indicating that the others should wait in the hall, Ike and Welby moved into the chamber and searched it.  It contained the decaying remnants of old splintered furnishings in addition to the two corpses, but nothing else of interst or value.  The corpses were those of orcs.  They had been dead for some time but not so long that Ike could not tell they had died of strangulation, awful bruised circles ringing both orcs’ necks.  Something had fed upon the bodies afterwards, and large amounts of flesh had been gnawed away.

Ike shuddered.  The smell from the corpses nauseated him, and he and Welby hustled from the room to join the others.  “Nothing in there,” he sputtered, trying to contain his rising gorge.  “Just a couple of rotting corpses.”

“How did they die?”  Eli wanted to know.

“Strangled.  Their necks were bruised up pretty bad.  Something’s been eating at the bodies, though, so it’s hard to say more than that.”

“Why would they have been killed and left here?” Royston wondered.

“Who knows?  Could’ve just been infighting - it’s pretty common for my people to kill each other over petty disagreements.”

“Bah,” grumbled Jack.  “At any rate, there’s nothin here and no ways to continue.  Let’s get back on the lift and go down further.”

As they made their way back to the lift room, Ike lingered behind momentarily.  Something about the whole scene bothered him, something he couldn’t put his finger on.  It was like some sixth sense was screaming ‘Danger!’ at him.  Finally he shrugged and started to follow the others.  He did not see the tentacle that shot out of a loose pile of rubble behind him, but he soon felt it as it wrapped around his throat and yanked him off his feet.


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## Sniktch (Oct 15, 2002)

*The Choker strikes!  Aldin Trember.*

Welby paused.  He thought he’d heard something - yes, there it was again.  Not the soft footfalls of Ike padding along behind him, but a scraping, scuffling sound.  He glanced back over his shoulder and shouted in dismay and alarm.  A strange creature had emerged from the rubble blocking the southern hallway.  It looked like a ghoulish, emaciated halfling with tough, knobby gray skin and incredibly long and spindly arms and legs.  It had one of its tentacle like limbs wrapped around Filthy Ike’s neck, the half-orc vainly struggling, eyes bulging and skin taking a bluish cast.

Welby shouted again and charged towards the creature.  It dropped the half-orc to the floor, where he lay unmoving, and slapped at Welby’s head.  He barely ducked the blow and swung his axe at its midsection, but the creature’s movements were strange and fluid, its body seeming to roll out of the path of the blow and then snapping back as the monster renewed its attack with incredible celerity.  He managed a glancing blow off its ribs and then the creature caught him in one of its claws, its long tentacles wrapping around his throat and cutting into his windpipe.  He dropped his axe and tried to pull its arm away but the creature was amazingly strong for its size.  Too strong.  Black spots began dancing in his vision and he focused all of his will upon simply remaining conscious.

Jack charged in with the Crow just behind, deflecting a slap with his shield as he closed with his foe.  He swung his axe in a downward chop, reacting instinctively when the creature dodged at the last moment, and cutting hard into one of its legs, nearly severing it.  The Crow stepped in as the monster howled in pain and neatly skewered the arm holding Welby with his rapier.

It dropped the halfling and lashed out blindly in pain and rage, delivering a ringing slap to Jack’s helmet that drove the dwarf to one knee.  Welby remained on his hands and knees, gasping and retching.  Dazed, Jack swung wildly and missed but the Crow flanked it and delivered a killing hit, neatly piercing its throat.

Eli had watched the battle for several moments, waiting for an opportunity to put an arrow into the beast.  It soon became clear to him that he was far more likely to hit one of his friends than the small and agile monster they fought, so he dropped his bow and ran to where it had dropped Filthy Ike.  The half-orc’s throat already showed intense bruising and discoloration, and he did not appear to be breathing.  Thinking back to the few lessons he’d received on the healing arts, Eli tilted Ike’s head back, pinched his nostrils shut and exhaled down his throat, forcing air into his lungs.  After several tense moments Ike’s eyes shot open and he sat up, wheezing and coughing.

Jack used the last of his healing prayers for the day to fortify the wounded Ike and Welby.  It was not much, but for now it kept them on their feet.  His own skull still rang from the hit he’d taken, but he had only one more blessing today and that could only be used to augment his weapon.  They searched through the rubble that had hid the creature for a few minutes but found nothing, until Jack said, “Don’t seem to be anything down here other’n that critter.  Might as well keep headin down.  Won’t be safe to camp ‘til we know the orcs’re won’t be lookin fer who killed their friends.”

Battered and weary, they climbed back into the lift and proceeded down the shaft.  They dropped into a larger chamber that was relatively clear of debris, all of it having been piled in one corner of the room.  Two orcs lounged by a doorway and a third pushed a wheelbarrow full of rubble toward the mound.  One of the orcs looked up and recognized intruders in the basket, and picked up a crossbow as it yelled down the hall “Aldin!  Aldin!”

Ike fired his crossbow at the shouting orc, the bolt tearing into its cheek and burrowing into its throat.  The orc’s cries became a gurgle as it choked on its blood.  The one manning the wheelbarrow dropped its load and sprinted for its weapon, but Jack jumped from the basket before the lift stopped moving and cut it down.  The remaining orc dodged a fired bolt from Royston and launched one of its own, missing, before turning and fleeing the chamber.  Welby shot it in the back but it didn’t slow, disappearing around a corner.
___________________________________________

Aldin Trember looked up when he heard the first cries.  He rose from puzzle he’d been studying and grabbed his weapon, a beautifully crafted mace.  He called to his orcish companion and it ceased its digging, throwing down the shovel it held in favor of its axe.  A moment later another orc ran into the room shouting for him, an arrow imbedded in its shoulder blade.

“Aldin, dey’s introoders, lots of ‘em.  Da rest of da boyz is ded.”

“Silence, you fool!  With the blessings of Our Dark Mistress, we shall make short work of these fools.”  Aldin grabbed the arrow and yanked it free, ignoring the orc’s howl of pain.  He grabbed the spurting wound and called for his lady’s blessing.  It was a stupid creature and unworthy of the gift, but he needed its strength now to repulse this invasion.  The wound hissed and smoked as the divine power cauterized and sealed it.

“Now, both of you, kill the infidels!  I shall be right behind you.”  As the orcs charged out of the room Aldin chanted another prayer, raising a shield to protect himself from ranged attacks.  Thus protected, and armed with his faith, Aldin followed the orcs, certain of his coming victory.
___________________________________________

Jack and the Royston Crow entered the passage first to find two howling orcs bearing down upon them.  Behind the orcs approached a man surrounded by a glowing nimbus of multi-colored lights and carrying a wickedly flanged mace.  He roared “Clangeddin!” and rushed forward to meet the charge.  His first stroke destroyed an orc’s ribcage, but the other orc chopped deep into Royston’s side and the half-elf fell moaning to the floor.  He paired off against the remaining orc and waited for it to commit to an attack.

Eli hung back with Welby and Ike, who were too badly injured to risk the dangerous blades of the orcs.  His attention was focused on the figure with the chaotic aura, and he watched as his companions fired their bows at the man.  The arrows struck the field and were deflected into the floor.  Eli chanted the words to a spell, pointing his finger towards the man.  A thin ray of freezing cold shot out of his fingertip and knifed through the air, but Eli could only watch in dismay as it was refracted harmlessly into the wall by the shimmering field.

The last orc hesitated only momentarily before charging.  Jack sidestepped at the last moment, bringing his own axe in line with the orc’s neck and neatly decapitating it.  He spun to face the last adversary as he heard the body slump to the floor behind him.  The figure looked like an older and heavy set version of Marsem Trember, the sorcerer they had captured earlier today, his image strangely contorted by the lights dancing around him.  Reciting a prayer to the Morrigan, the figure beckoned him forward.  Jack raised his axe and charged.

Eli watched his friend move to combat the enemy priest.  As Jack drew near, the man finished his prayer and his hand began to emit a sickly black light.  He reached out and placed his palm on Jack’s mailed vest and the dwarf fell away gasping, icy fingers of pain clutching at his heart.  Eli yelled, “No!” and cast his final offensive spell.  A silver bolt of energy streaked toward his foe, this time punching through the protective field and striking him with a hiss.  Welby and Ike followed with another volley and this time Welby’s arrow flew true to his mark, piercing Aldin just above the knee.

Aldin staggered forward, cursing his enemies with every colorful oath he knew.  He swung his mace at Jack’s head, hoping to finish the dwarf before he recovered.  Steel rang on steel as Jack brought his axe up, parrying the blow.  Jack pushed upwards against his opponent’s weapon, at the same time kicking his opponent’s wounded knee with a heavy, mailed boot.

Aldin screamed in pain and outrage as his leg gave out from under him and he collapsed to the floor.  They would pay for the suffering and humiliation they had caused him this day!  He would make sure that their agony would last until they begged for the release of death.  He looked up to see a gleaming axe blade descending, but he did not have enough time to scream again before it struck.


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## Sniktch (Oct 15, 2002)

*Aftermath*

After the combat ended, Jack tended to the wounded half-elf while the others searched the bodies and explored the area.  The Crow was severely injured, several of his ribs laid bare by the vicious blow he’d received.  Jack wished he had a healing prayer available, but his magic was exhausted until tomorrow morning.  It was going to take all of his skill to keep the stricken warrior alive until then.

Ike knelt by the corpse of Aldin Trember, rummaging through his belongings.  He traded his own poorly made weapon for the master crafted mace the fallen cleric had wielded.  A couple of practice swipes later he was convinced that this was a far superior weapon, weighted and balanced perfectly.  He also retrieved Aldin’s coin purse and deposited it in his own pockets, and found a roll of parchment covered with strange symbols and runes.

“Hey, Eli!  What do you make of this?”  Ike called the wizard over to examine his find.

Eli accepted the scrap of paper and murmured a spell before examining it.  “Yes, it is magical, Ike, but I cannot read it,” he explained.  “See?  These runes place it as a work of divine magic, so it is not something I would be able to comprehend or make use of.  Take it to Jack.”

Ike took the scroll and brought it over to the dwarf.  Jack glanced at briefly before becoming excited and tearing it from the half-orc’s hands.  “Aha, look at this!  In defeat our enemies give us the means to care fer our own.  Thank you fer this good fortune, Clangeddin.”

He held the scroll in one hand, reciting the words as he placed the other hand over Royston’s wounded chest.  The parchment crumbled to dust as Jack unlocked the spell, and his other hand grew warm with positive energy.  Within moments the Crow was sitting up, blinking and looking around, the wound in his chest reduced to a simple scratch.

Welby returned from the hallway, where he had been scouting ahead.  “No more exits.  Big room, lots of boxes, no more orcs.  Odd carving in floor.”    He led the way down the short passage, passing a couple of collapsed side tunnels choked with rubble before entering a grand hall.  More boxes and crates of supplies stood stacked by the door, many containing religious implements.  An abandoned shovel lay on the ground beside a pile of debris that had yet to be cleared from the room.

Jack stopped them on the threshold of the chamber, pointing out a series of ruins carefully engraved into the arch.  “It’s in the dwarven alphabet,” he stated, then read aloud: “The dwarven spirit is filled with secrets."

As Welby had warned, the floor of the room held a puzzle.  In the middle of the chamber a circular indentation was carved into the rock.  Placed equidistant around the circle, six grooves formed channels leading up to and continuing under the walls.  Jack nodded, “This must be what the inscription’s referrin to.”

Ike agreed, “I think you’re right, but I also think this puzzle is beyond us right now.  Since we’re pretty sure we killed all the occupants of this cave, my vote is to go back to town, rest and resupply, and come back in a day or two.  I doubt anyone else is gonna find this place while we’re gone.”

Jack and Eli wanted to remain at the cave, but Welby and the Crow clearly sided with Ike.  In the end, Jack and Eli opted to remain behind and guard the cave until the others got back.  Welby, Ike, and the Crow bid them farewell, promised to return quickly, and departed for Travensburg.


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## Broccli_Head (Oct 15, 2002)

Exciting stuff, Sniktch!

Love the creativity of Ike and the methodical axe-grinding of Jack!

And Welby's taste.


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## Sniktch (Oct 16, 2002)

*The stranger*

Duncan Biggs looked up from his grim task.  He had been one of the villagers Lord Travens had charged with remaining behind to cart away the corpses littering the road.  It was hard work; even though the bodies had been lying out for less than half a day the freezing conditions resulted in them becoming nearly glued to the earth, and they had to work to pry each free before loading it into the cart.

He started as a figure appeared down the trail, slowly trudging in his direction.  An awful lot of traffic had been moving down this road of late, considering the season.  As the traveler grew near he beheld a man bundled in voluminous black furs, a scholarly looking, bespectacled gentleman with ice crusted in his neatly trimmed beard and moustache.

“Excuse me, good sir,” the stranger addressed him with a pleasant, amiable voice.  “Is the village you live in far from here?”

“On’y ‘bout a mile further, old one.  D’ya need assistance, then?”

“No, thank you, kind sir.  I am not so old as I appear to be, a hazard of my occupation, I’m afraid.  I am simply tired of walking through this weather and would have a steaming bowl of fresh cooked food and a warm bed to lie in before nightfall.”  The stranger examined the scene around him for a moment before continuing, “What has happened here?  Perhaps you are the one in need of assistance.”

Duncan looked down at the corpse he’d been working on and shook his head. “Nay, ‘twas bad business but’s done now.  Bandits on the road, y’know, but a group of heroes took care o’ them.  They left to chase ‘em back to their hideout ‘bout two or three hours ago – prolly no bandits left by now.”  He sighed deeply.  “But still got’s some clean up to do, can’t leave these poor souls just a-layin’ on the road ‘til spring.”

The stranger regarded him with piercing eyes that seemed too young to belong on his face.  Duncan shifted uncomfortably on his feet, and when it became clear to him the man was not going to speak, he continued, “Head down the road another mile and you should reach Travensburg.  I’d recommend The Foaming Mug – Ned’s fire’s usually blazin’ and ‘is cookin’ can’t be beat.”

The man nodded his thanks and continued down the snow-covered road.  Duncan shivered as he passed, remembering the penetrating gaze of those clear gray eyes, then bent to continue his work.  He soon forgot the incident as the figure passed over a hill and out of sight.
____________________________________

Ned Nebbly shivered behind the bar as the door of the Foaming Mug swung open and the wind swirled through the room.  A large form covered in black fur shambled into the room, shaking snow off as it entered.  The newcomer pushed the door firmly shut and ambled towards the bar, shedding garments as it approached.  The clothing peeled away to reveal a man approaching middle age, perhaps, with graying hair and tiny spectacles perched upon a slightly beaked nose.

The man stared at him with bright slate gray eyes.  “Do you have something warm for a traveler to eat?  Or perhaps a room?  Or both?”  The stranger’s voice was warm and friendly, and Ned instantly liked him.

“Yeah, sure.  Sure I do.  Nice coney stew - caught ‘em myself, young and tender.  And plenty of rooms, sir.  Noone’s on the roads this time o’ year, ‘cept for... well, what’re you doin’ out, sir, in weather like this?”

“My hobbies keep me moving, regardless of the weather.  I am a... scholar, a studier of old places from the time before.  I heard of the old ruins in the hills near this place, and I had to come and see for myself.”

“You’d not be the first to come poking around in those old mines.”  Ned cheerfully prattled as he placed a large steaming bowl of stew and a room key before the man.  He saw an eyebrow raise in interest, but he waited patiently for payment.  The man spun two gold coins across the table, which Ned quickly palmed then pocketed.  He described the dwarf and elf to the stranger while the man ate, and the three who had joined him, and the conversation he’d heard about “the old mines of Duernfast.”

The stranger finished eating without a word, then thanked Ned for his hospitality and climbed the stairs to his room, gathering his dripping garments before he went.
_________________________________

Artimas Sendant locked the door to his small room and sank into the bed, pulling the blankets over himself.  He cursed the fate that chased him to this small backwoods village in the dead of winter, but he had little control over the matter.  Besides, it seemed these ruins had already attracted other adventurers; they might be worthy of investigation after all.  He slowly sank into sleep, recalling the chain of events that had found him here.

Artimas grew up in the border town of Bolg Mor, the child of poverty stricken peat miners.  A local apothecary rescued him from a similar fate, a minor wizard who recognized Artimas’ talent and desired a helper in his shop.  Artimas took much from his apprenticeship, learning a good bit of anatomy and herblore and even a little spellcraft, though his true love was always for paintings and art.  He saved his small wage for years until he was able to afford entry into the local college.

University life proved more costly than he had accounted for, and he began to draw income in a sinister manner.  One day he overheard two medical students bemoaning the lack of “proper material” for their research.  During his years at the apothecary’s Artimas had developed a morbid fascination with death and the macabre, and he approached the students, offering to supply them with all the material they needed, at a price.

Thus began a lucrative, two year stint as a grave-robber, during which he learned more and more about the necromantic arts.  He spent his days in classrooms studying the classics and his night prowling about burial grounds increasing his inventory.  The pattern may have persisted indefinitely if not for those blasted elves!  Two diplomats from the High Court had stumbled upon his nocturnal activities and chased him from the town.  

He ran a long way, eventually coming to a stop in Ravensdale.  Then times had been good again, for awhile, as he had fallen in with a small cult that worshipped Arawn, the God of the Dead.  They taught him that all the souls of the dead went to Arawn’s kingdom after they died, and that it was not disrespectful to use the bodies of the deceased as tool if it bettered the lives of those still living.  He often considered entering the clergy, becoming a priest of Arawn, and still did.  Even after the Crusaders arrived in town his group had been left alone, as that group had expended all of its energy in persecuting the massive Thieves’ Guild in the city, but when the thieves finally cracked and fled, the Crusaders began to turn their eye upon other activities, and Artimas ran once again.

All of which led to him being here, in this village, in this room, in this bed, under this pile of warm blankets, and drifting rapidly to sleep...


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## Sniktch (Oct 17, 2002)

*Around town and a new friend.*

Welby woke before dawn, as usual.  He was disoriented for a moment until he realized where he was, back in his room at the Foaming Mug.  They had arrived back in town late the previous evening, ate a hasty meal, and retired immediately after.  His body ached all over from the beating he’d received the day before, and he would have simply gone back to sleep if he’d thought it possible.  The rumbling in his belly informed him not to even attempt it.

He rose and stretched, then dressed slowly.  It would be at least a couple of hours before Ned Nebbly started cooking breakfast and it was obvious to Welby what he needed to do.  He would pay another visit to that strange house of the chickens he had discovered the day before.  He finished dressing and forced his window open enough for him to squeeze through, then pulled himself onto the sill and dropped into a snow bank below.  Dusting himself off, he trotted off in the direction of an easy meal.
_____________________________

The Royston Crow opened his eyes suddenly, then squinted against the light streaming through his window.  He thought he’d heard a thump from somewhere nearby.  The noise came again; it seemed to originate from outside, but right up against the wall.  He staggered over to the window, hearing another thump as he went, and looked outside.  

Welby stood in the snow below his window, forming snowballs and then launching them toward his room.  A pair of chicken carcasses lay in the snow at his feet.  The Crow wrapped his cloak tightly around himself and then opened the window.

“Hey, what are you doing down there, Welby?”

“C-c-cold.  W-w-wall slick, n-no c-c-climb up.  D-d-door locked.  Throw r-rope, C-crow!  Welb-b-by need inside.”

The Crow smiled at his strange companion’s antics and retrieved his pack.  Pulling a stout hemp rope from the bag, he lowered it to the halfling and then pulled him up to the room.  Welby climbed in and stood shivering as the Crow closed the window again.

“So, is that your breakfast, Welby?”  he asked when the window was shut again.

“N-no, these f-for later.  Already eat t-two. “

The Crow smiled and shook his head.  In all likelihood, Welby would now come downstairs with him and consume another full meal from Ned’s kitchen.  The pair made a stop in Welby’s room, where the halfling pulled his window shut and dropped off the chickens, then they proceeded downstairs.
_______________________________________

Ike woke late to the smell of grease and spices wafting through the floorboards from the kitchen below.  Good, he was famished.  He would eat some food, but then he had matters to discuss with Lord Travens.  The more he thought about it, the more the way the noble had handled the situation with the supply wagon bothered him.  He kept picturing the icy field and the villagers’ corpses strewn about the wagon, and the two that Alexei had sent to find it were just boys.  Just boys!  Surely if he’d been truly worried about the fate of the supplies he could have sent some of the village guards, like those two men-at-arms that followed him everywhere.  Yes, Lord Travens had much to answer for in Ike’s mind, and he planned to find out what the answers were.

When he went downstairs he found Welby deep into his second stack of pancakes.  He asked where the Royston Crow was but received only a muffled reply of “Shopping” between mouthfuls.  The rest of the inn was empty save the proprietor Ned and a bespectacled old gentleman reading a book by the fireplace.  It seemed to Ike that the stranger kept glancing curiously in their direction, but he ignored the man, ate a hearty portion of ham, pancakes, and eggs, bundled himself in his winter coat, and left the inn.  He passed the Crow on the way out, who was just returning with several large bundles.

The Crow lugged the packs, which contained trail rations, up to his room and then rejoined Welby, who was starting on his third stack of pancakes.  The stranger closed his book and ordered a cup of hot water from Ned, then wandered over to their table.  

“Mind if I join you?  It is lonely in here today,” the man asked in a mellifluous voice.  He was of average height and build, with thinning hair rapidly turning from black to gray.  A petite pair of spectacles perched upon his slightly hawkish nose.  

Welby simply growled at him around a mouthful of food, but the Crow kicked him under the table and replied, “Be my guest.  Good company is as welcome as it is hard to find.  My name is, well, forgotten, but my friends call me the Royston Crow.  This little glutton goes by Welby when he isn’t buried in a pile of Ned’s flapjacks.”

The man sank down into a chair and fished a teabag out of his pouch, which he dropped into the steaming cup of water.  He sighed as the spices released their aroma into the air.  “Pleased to meet you both.  I am Artimas Sendant, a traveling scholar from Bolg Mor.”  

“And what brings a scholar out on the roads this winter?”

“Ah, the same thing that brought you, by my guess.  I am fascinated with the archaeology of the old places, and I traveled here with the intention of exploring the old ruins.  Ned informed me that a group of adventurers including a halfling, half-elf, and a half-orc had already gathered in town with the same purpose.”  The man had such a pleasant quality to his manner and voice that Royston found himself instantly liking him.  Even Welby must have been impressed, for he had quit growling and guarding his plate like a mother bird.

The Crow admitted that yes, they had found an entrance to the old ruins and cleared out the bandits who had taken up residence.  Two of his companions had remained in the old mines to clean them up from the battles they’d fought and make sure no other unwelcome guests poked around while the rest of them had returned to town to pick up provisions.  Artimas requested permission to join them in their exploration, confiding that in addition to the knowledge he had accumulated about such places in his college studies, he was also a dabbler in the magical arts and could probably help should they face any future conflicts.  Welby nodded his head at Royston, and he agreed to bring Artimas with them when they returned, the three new friends clasping hands over the table.  As soon as Ike concluded his business in town and returned to the inn, they would depart.
__________________________________

Ike rapped firmly on the door of Lord Travens’ dwelling and stood waiting for an answer, shivering in the chill air.  After a minute, a manservant opened the door, demanding his business.

“I was with the group who recovered the food supplies yesterday, and I had some unfinished business to discuss with his Lordship,” was Ike’s reply.

The servant disappeared for half a minute, then returned and admitted Ike.  He led him to a small parlor and motioned that he should be seated, indicating that Lord Travens would join him soon.

About half an hour later the nobleman entered, looking resplendent in a velvet housecoat lined with ermine trim.  When he saw the seated half-orc he broke into a broad smile and greeted him cordially.

“Yes, of course, one of the heroes of yesterday!  My village is in your debt.  To what do I owe the unexpected delight of this visit?”

Ike had many good qualities, but tact was not among them.  He began bluntly, “Why did you send boys out to die yesterday?  Obviously you were expecting trouble or you would have sent no one at all.  Wouldn’t it have been better to send trained fighters who might have stood a chance if they ran into danger?”

Alexei’s smile vanished instantly.  His reply was firm and cold, “Pardon me, but I was not aware that I needed to clear my decisions with you first.  I acted as I saw appropriate.  Think carefully before you proceed, friend, for it is not someone of your station’s place to question one of mine.”

Ike saw danger in the lord’s cold, glittering eyes, and he did consider his next actions for a long time before breaking the tension.  “I am sorry, Lord Travens.  I only felt grief for the boys’ deaths, and I let it effect my words.”  He reached into one of his pockets and slowly withdrew the pouch containing Marsem Trember’s gold.  He placed it in the noble’s hands, continuing, “Here, this is the gold the villain carried.  Give it to the boys’ families to help them through their loss.”

Alexei Travens deposited the pouch within his robes absently and turned to go.  It was obvious that the interview was over, and the doorman showed Ike the way back to the street.  

Ike was in a cold fury by the time he got back to the Foaming Mug.  He spoke hardly a word, pausing briefly to acknowledge the newcomer, Artimas, and headed upstairs to pack his bags.  Before sunset, the four adventurers were on their way to reunite with Jack and Eli.

Next:  The mines of Duernfast


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## Broccli_Head (Oct 17, 2002)

Ike should have let Lord Travens have it!

I would have replied, "With all due respect, Travens, that 'station' thing is really outdated. Your postition does not give you liscence to put innocents in danger...." 

or the like.  Mabye Ike will get him later?


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## Dungannon (Oct 17, 2002)

Ike may be a half-orc, but he ain't stupid.  He realized that any direct confrontation with Lord Travens, in his own house no less, would most likely result in the swift arrival of the Town Guards and his arrest or, more likely, death.  Don't worry, he hasn't forgotten the actions of that despicable, cowardly, petty pile of kobold dung, and he does have plans for him.  It will just take him awhile to prepare and for the proper opportunity to present itself.


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## Sniktch (Oct 18, 2002)

*Jack and Eli have some fun*

As soon as Jack and Eli finished disposing of the bodies, carrying them all some distance into the woods, Jack began pestering Eli about the barred door on the first level.

“C’mon, Eli, we’ll jes take a look.  Ya don’t even haveta go in, jes hang back ‘n cover me.”

Eli remained unconvinced.  “Jack, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea until the others get back.  Think about it – the Trembers and their gang of orcs just sealed it up, and they were more numerous than we.  What if we can’t contain or handle whatever is in that room?”

“Bah, I’m tellin ya, jes stand back wit yer bow and cover me.  I’ll jes open ‘er up ‘n have a look – if’n anythin’s movin in there, I’ll shut it again.”

This continued back and forth until Eli finally succumbed, more to preserve his sanity than because Jack had convinced him.  Actually, he was positive that this was a bad idea; most likely their friends would return to find their corpses and some hideous creature on the loose.  He let out a resigned sigh.  Oh, well, if that happened at least he would have some peace and quiet.  He nocked an arrow, pulled the string taut, and aimed at the door.

Jack approached the door with his axe ready and put his ear to it, listening intently for several minutes.  Hearing nothing, he shrugged and removed the bar, then jumped back, waiting expectantly.  When the door didn’t move, he shot Eli a smug look and grabbed the handle, pulling it open.  

A lanky form exploded past him.  It appeared to be a severely emaciated man with jaundiced, flaky skin stretched so thin his ribs threatened to burst free, long, greasy hair and wicked untrimmed fingernails that resembled claws.  Its head swiveled to stare at Jack with eyes glowing red with hatred, and it bared sharp, yellowed teeth at him as it emitted an unnatural hiss.  

Eli reacted at once, loosing the arrow he held ready, but it whistled past the beast.  He began chanting a spell.  Jack stepped in and caved in the left side of the creature’s chest with a brutal axe stroke, but it paid the wound no heed, pouncing upon him in a ferocious assault.  A swipe of its hand raked Jack’s cheek, opening four parallel lacerations that immediately began to sting and burn the dwarf terribly.  He started to bring his axe up for another stroke but his arm did not respond to his mental command.  All of his limbs felt leaden, stiff and he stood paralyzed, unable even to scream.  A ghoul!  One of the ravenous, flesh-eating undead that sometimes hunted in packs near his homeland.  Eli had been right about the door, and now his stubbornness had doomed them.

Eli finished his spell as the ghoul turned to face him, sending a streaking missile of force to explode on the side of the beast’s skull, ruining one of its eyes.  The ghoul howled in rage and charged towards him, but Eli was already mouthing the words of another spell.  He fell completely into the rhythm and pattern of the words, ignoring the pain as the creature leaped upon him and buried its fangs in his shoulder.  When he spoke the final word of the spell his right hand became wreathed in a crackling aura of blue electricity.  Grimacing now as the ghoul’s nails tore furrows in his flesh, he reached up and grasped the monster on its forehead, channeling the energy into its skull.  The ghoul exploded messily, its charred husk collapsing to the ground.

After they recovered, they examined the room the ghoul had been trapped in.  The room itself contained nothing but two moldering old coffins that held the half-gnawed skeletons of dwarven warriors.  The bodies had clutched axes whose handles had long ago rotted away, but Jack could tell that the steel axe-heads were dwarf-forged and still in excellent condition.  Jack insisted that they leave the bodies untouched and they left, re-barring the door.
_________________________

The others returned late that evening to find Jack and Eli recovering in front of a fire they’d built.  Both looked battered and scratched from the fracas with the ghoul.  Artimas introduced himself to his two new acquaintances, and Jack and Eli shared the story of their recently completed battle with the ghoul.  Tomorrow they would head down to the bottom floor again, and hopefully they would solve the mystery of the Great Hall and gain access to the mines below.  In the morning they would begin their adventure anew, but now they drifted into sleep…


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## Dungannon (Oct 18, 2002)

Ya know, as I relive the early adventures, it occurs to me that it is truly a miracle that Jack has survived long enough to brave the Underdark (see Sniktch's other story hour  Sniktch's Story Hour - City of the Spider Queen ).  He must truly be blessed by Clangeddin Silverbeard.  Either that, or the deity wants to keep Jack out of his realm as long as possible.


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## Jameumz (Oct 19, 2002)

My educated guess is on the latter.

If memory serves, I think I'll be showing up here soon.


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## Harp (Oct 19, 2002)

This story hour has shot straight to the top of my list for its sheer entertainment value and superior writing.  Not to mention that all of the characters have demonstrated distinct and interesting personalities in only a few short posts.  We can already recognize Artimas, for instance, as quite the creepshow, though he's barely appeared in a single scene.  A well wrought tale indeed and I'm anxious to read more.


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## Sniktch (Oct 20, 2002)

*Rats for breakfast and the puzzle solved*

Thanks, Harp.  If my readers are enjoying this as much as we enjoyed playing it and I enjoy writing it, then I can't really ask for anything more.

Anyway, on with the next installment:

Welby awoke before the others, as was his habit, and found that Artimas had also risen early, and scribbled in a book by a small flickering lamp, glancing up from time to time and studying the sleeping companions.  The shadows thrown across the scholar’s face by the lantern gave it a sinister bent, as if the old man was staring at him with seething half-lidded eyes and an expression of pure malice.  

Welby jumped up and gave a little yell, and Artimas seemed to actually see him now, dispelling the illusion.  The mage smiled and his face looked friendly and compassionate again as he beckoned the halfling to join him.

“Good morning, my little friend.  I apologize if my appearance startled you in some manner, or perhaps you are just used to being the first person up.  Why are you up so early?”

Welby scowled, little creases spreading across his childlike brow, “You first.”

“Fair enough,” Artimas extended his hand, offering the book to the halfling.  Welby glanced at the page and saw a picture drawn on it; Artimas had sketched him while he was asleep!  He wasn’t bad, either, Welby was forced to admit as he examined the picture closer.  It really looked just like him.

As Welby handed the book back a rumbling growl erupted from his belly.  He grinned at Artimas, explaining, “Me hungry.  Always hungry.  Get up for snack before breakfast.”  The halfling collected his weapons, slinging his axe over his back and readying an arrow before starting to creep softly into the cave. 

Artimas was puzzled.  “Welby, the trail rations are right over...” he began, but the warrior was shaking his head, cutting him off.

“Like rat better.”

Artimas put his book down, grabbed the lamp and started following Welby.  “Really?  Is it because its fresh?  Then we should go to the room where Jack and Eli fought the ghouls - rats and ghouls are nearly synonymous.”

They headed down the hall, unbarred the door, and stepped inside.  The air hung with a faint charnel reek of death, and a number of rats did run squeaking from their light.  While Welby hunted down as many as he could, Artimas examined the moldering old coffins and their skeletal contents.

“Hey, Welby, look at this,” he called, and the halfling turned to find him holding a beautiful steel axehead, still razor sharp even after its owner had rotted away.  He eagerly accepted the metal piece, and moments later pried the pitted, iron blade from his axe’s handle and replaced it with the steel dwarven craftsmanship.  He gave it a few practice swipes before slinging it over his back again, satisfied.

Artimas looked at the fruit’s of Welby’s hunt, a half dozen rats neatly skewered on the arrows that killed them.  Alright, so he was hungry and curious, but he was going to cook it at least.  “Welby, mind if I take one of these?”
____________________________

When they returned to the supply room the rest of the companions were moving about.  Ike prepared a meal whilst the rest studied spellbooks, strapped on armor, and exchanged light banter.  Welby was polishing off his third rat, raw of course, while Artimas delicately picked at his.  The mage had used one cantrip to hold the rodent suspended in the air and a second to roast it.

Jack stormed over when he saw Welby, a deep frown on his face.  “Ya little savage!  Disrespectin the dead!” He pointed at the new blade on Welby’s axe as he spoke.  Welby looked nonplussed, so Jack continued, “Ya stole one o’ them blades from the other room, ya filthy thief - ya stole from the dead!”

Welby shrugged.  “This one better, make trade.”

Jack was turning a deep shade of violet when Artimas came to the halfling’s defense.  “Look, it isn’t like the person he took it from needed it or is going to miss it.  That person is dead, and their spirit is in the afterlife, no longer burdened by mortal concerns.  Besides, isn’t that what adventurers do?  Steal from the dead?”  He paused for dramatic effect.  “If not, what are we doing in these ancient ruins?  Isn’t everything we gather from this place, in  a way, stealing from the dead?”

Jack sputtered, “That’s different!”

“How so different?  Because he took it right off their bodies or because they were dwarves?”

“Yes, because they were dwarves!  Stealin from yer enemies isn’t even theft - its well-earned spoils fer slayin scum!  But stealin from the interred remains o’ fallen honorable warriors is disrespectful and wrong.”

Eli joined the argument, laying a soothing hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “Come Jack, it is not prudent that we allow strife to grow among us.  Remember not all share your beliefs and values, and we must tolerate their freedom of will.”

Stumpwater Jack turned angrily and stomped away.  “I’ll be waitin at the lift, then,” he growled as he departed.  Eli raised his hands in silent apology before following.
__________________________________________

The next few hours passed very slowly.  They had all loaded onto the lift and gone back down to the third floor, then headed for the room with the hole in the floor.  In the center of the chamber, a circular depression several inches deep was engraved in the exact middle of the room.  Six grooves fanned out around it like spokes on a wheel, running up to, and, they discovered, continuing under, the walls.  A message inscribed on the archway leading into the great hall read, “The dwarven spirit is filled with secrets.”  

The tension grew thick in the air as each silently contemplated the pattern on the floor and the one clue they had, trying to put the pieces together and understand what it meant.  At one point Eli discovered that the floor sloped gradually upwards towards the center of the chamber, but they weren’t entirely sure what to make of that, either.  Finally, an exasperated Jack cried, “Look, I’m a dwarf an’ I’m tellin ya the only dwarven spirits I know is beer!”

Ike exclaimed, “Jack, that’s it!” and pulled out his waterskin, moving to the center of the room.  He dumped the contents into the hole, and they watched as it ran down each of the spokes and flowed under the walls.  Six distinct clicks were heard a minute later and then, as they waited anxiously, a lound grinding noise reverberated through the hall.  As they watched one of the wall sections, on the east wall, slowly slid and scraped out of the way, leaving a dark aperture in its wake.  Breathless with excitement they rushed over and found themselves standing at the top of a dark, dusty flight of stairs, leading further and further down...

Next:  the **** hits the fan


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## Sniktch (Oct 21, 2002)

*The Forges, pt. 1*

The steps lead to an abandoned and dusty hall of hewn stone, ten foot wide and running east to west.  The eastern path turned sharply about thirty feet away, but the western half of the hallway stretched beyond the limits of their vision.  An old rotting door stood facing the stairs.  All could tell that though this corridor was relatively free of debris it had not been traversed in quite some time.

“Dwarf stonework,” whistled Jack appreciatively.  

Ike examined the door, and finding it unlocked and barely standing, carefully swung it open.  He looked in upon an old guard post, still manned by its last command.  A great stone table dominated the center of the room, strewn with cups, dice, and scattered coins.  Seated around it in in twelve evenly spaced chairs were the skeletal remains of twelve dwarves, as if joined in one last everlong game.

The Crow peered over Ike’s shoulder and shuddered.  “That’s pretty creepy.  I wonder why they’re all just sitting there, like they were playing and drinking one minute and dead the next.”

“It’s possible,” explained Jack.  “Duernfast fell durin the great war before writin begins.  What legends the dwarves pass down tell that it were brought low by a betrayal an’ a great curse.”

“Well, we certainly need those coins more than they do now.  I’ll collect ‘em.”  Ike stepped inside and approached the table.  He reached over the table to scoop one of the small mounds of coins into a pouch, but stopped in terror, speechless, when one of the skeletons reached out a claw and grasped his wrist, preventing his intended action.  He stumbled backwards and tripped, falling sprawling to the floor as all around the table the ancient warriors stood and began to advance, bony fingers extended, seeking to destroy hated life.

Jack stepped up behind Ike until he was standing over the half-orc, one hand extended with his holy symbol securely grasped.  “Begone, foul ones!” he cried.  “By Clangeddin I canna stand the sight of ya!  Back!”  He channeled his faith into a divine shroud, anathema to the undead, and half of the staggering automatons fell to dust.

The others were ready for what was left.  Welby and the Crow charged past Jack, Welby leaping onto the table and batting the skull off a skeleton with the flat of his axe.  The Crow found things more difficult, stabbing ineffectually with his rapier.  Ike recovered and sprang to his feet just in time to avoid the bony hug of one corpse, dodging around it and smashing another’s backbone with his mace.  Artimas prepared a spell and waited for an opening, while Eli hung back in the hallway, confident in his friend’s abilities to handle the threat, and it seemed the battle would soon be over.

Unfortunately, things went against the Crow.  As Jack joined in the fray, cutting one undead in half, and Ike proceeded to smash the one he had just so nimbly avoided, the last two skeletons cornered Royston, outflanking him.  Skeletal hands did find warm flesh then, one skeleton grabbing his arm and digging painfully in, while the other gashed his side, tearing his leathers and drawing long angry weals on the skin.  Artimas saw his chance to pitch in and did, completing his spell and sending a ray of disruption towards one of the creatures, shattering it.  At the same time, Welby hurled himself from the table towards the last undead with a roar, crashing into it and reducing it to splinters.

“Did I mention this place may be cursed?” Jack asked as the dust began to settle again.  He moved over and tended the Crow’s wounds with two of his minor curative blessings to prevent infection, then bandaged them.  

Ike continued with his original task and gathered the coins from the table, Welby and Artimas lending a hand.  They counted a couple hundred coins, although most were copper or silver.  Artimas examined some of the coins and gasped, then called the others over to look.

“First of all these coins are nearly perfect; I see none of the minting flaws or irregularities that are common in coins of the modern age.  Second of all, look at this date - 2436.  Since the current calendar reaches only to 1432, I can only conclude that this was minted before recorded history.”

“Yeah, yeah, I already told ya the place were older than writin.  So we got enough cash to pay Ned ta keep our rooms now, let’s move on,” so saying, the surly dwarf went back to wait with Eli in the hall.

When the others emerged, they decided to go down the west tunnel first to see where it might lead.  It continued forward for about fifty yards before taking a sharp southerly turn, then went about fifty more feet.  After that it opened into a huge cavern bigger than any save Jack had seen before.  The far walls and ceiling all lay outside the range of lantern or Jack and Ike’s darksight.  The light did reveal several rows of small stone huts, each ten by ten with a doorshaped opening in one wall and a circular hole in the roofs.

Jack’s eyes lit up.  “The forges!  Has ta be.  If’n this cavern were lit, you’d see the chimney holes cut in the ceilin.  Let’s see what they left behind fer us.”  The dwarf began making his way down to the small buildings, the others trailing behind him.  

They stopped between the first two, Jack moving to examine the one on the left and Welby and Ike stepping into the one on the right.  Both rooms were basically identical, spartan chambers lined with shelves holding all manner of rusting tools, great anvils and rotting bellows below the round aperture in the ceiling.  Jack began a careful search of the scattered tools, issuing a steady stream of curses as he found everything to be corroded to the point of uselessness.

Eli urged him to be quiet. “Hush, Stump.  If anymore undead wait in these caverns we want to be able to hear them coming.”

The dwarf fell into a moody sulk, exiting the room and moving down to the next two.  Eli and Artimas fell into step behind him, but the Crow waited for Welby and Ike.  Ike started to leave the room he was in, but froze and started listening, his danger sense tingling.  Welby stepped past him, but the half-orc grabbed his shoulder and brought him to a stop, urging him to silence with a raised finger to his broken lips.

They both heard it then, a soft, leathery flapping sound in the air of the cavern above them.  Ike started to call out to warn the others, and that’s when the lights went out.  Plunged suddenly into complete and inky blackness that even his darkvision couldn’t penetrate, Ike fought to remain calm and to avoid panicking.  He groped blindly for the doorway with one hand while pulling the struggling halfling behind with the other.  As they stepped out onto the now dark avenue between the buildings, the screams and cries of their companions began to fill the air.


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## Sniktch (Oct 21, 2002)

*The Forges, pt. 2*

The Royston Crow had been standing alert, crossbow loaded, when the noises started, and he heard them too.  A soft squishing sound, strange, reminding him on one hand of a bat in flight and on the other of some deep sea creature.  Funny, he thought as he squinted futiley into the gloom above, I don’t remember who I am or where I come from but I remember the noises that flying rodents and swimming squids make.  Funny, he continued to think, but that looks a little bit like a flying squid coming down at me.

“Yaaaaa!” he came out of his reverie with a shout when he saw the beast coming towards him.  It was too dark to make out details, but it did look like a great and shadowy squid with webbing between the tentacles was floating down toward him.  He squeezed the trigger to his crossbow reflexively, but he was pitched into absolute darkness before he could see if he’d hit anything.  He reloaded frenetically and fired another shot into the air above himself where he’d seen the beast.  He was rewarded by hearing a wet, meaty thunk just above his head, and then the slimy tentacled weight crashed into him, bearing him to the floor.
____________________________________

Artimas and Eli were a few strides behind Jack when they saw him disappear, engulfed in a globe of impenetrable darkness.  Artimas threw himself to the side and between two of the buildings, and then he was surrounded by darkness, too.  He heard the whirring passage of some flying abberation behind him, followed by a loud smack.  The elf’s voice cried out in pain.

“Jack, help, it has me!  Jack, -- “ Eli’s voice broke off in a high-pitched, rattling scream.  Artimas stumbled along the wall, away from the noise, and soon cleared the darkness.  He staggered a few more steps from the wailing elf, hidden from his sight by the wall of darkness, and collapsed shaking to the ground, eyes darting all about searching for another attacker.

He heard Jack bellowing, and the mailed tread of his boots growing rapidly closer as the screaming subsided.
____________________________________

Stumpwater Jack put his head down and charged forward when the darkness fell.  He heard something whistle towards him, felt something solid smack against his chainmail, and then he cleared it, scooting to a stop on the other side.  Whirling around, he heard Eli’s cry for help and then his howl of agony.

Jack bellowed his rage, calling upon Clangeddin to imbue his axe with holy might.  The blade took on a magical silver glow as he plunged back into the globe of darkness, speeding in the direction of his friend’s fading cries.  Once again something attacked him as he ran, and once again he ignored the hit he received and continued past.  He came out of the globe of darkness for the blink of an eye before entering a second one.  

Just ahead now he heard the elf’s gurgling moans and another sound, a tearing, wet... chewing.  Jack’s eyes widened in horror and he lashed out with his axe in the direction of the noise, swinging it parallel to the ground and praying his friend did not lie in its path.  A shock ran up his arm as he hit something with brutal force.  His axe was torn from his grasp and he heard a body strike the floor.

Jack dropped to his hands and knees and searched the darkness.  He found Eli’s body, and even without seeing he knew his friend was horribly ripped and torn.  However, a low rattling hiss continued to issue from the elf as he labored to draw breath.

Ignoring the sound of the other beast bearing down upon him, Jack fell into prayer, calling upon the power of his god to save his friend from death’s door.
_________________________________

As he crossed the doorway Ike slipped in something wet and sticky and fell, taking the halfling with him, as he still held Welby’s shoulder tightly.  The barbarian gave a startled cry of pain and was wrenched from his grasp suddenly, and Ike heard something moving back into the building they had just exited..  He spun about and moved after the noise, readying his mace as he moved.

He banged painfully into the anvil and heard the noise shrinking away, above him now.  He climbed onto the anvil and stood, extending his arms toward the hole he knew to be there.  Jumping, he was able to reach the ceiling, and hoisted himself through the opening to the roof.  

When his he came through the hole he broke through the darkness, and saw another choker, one of the strange beasts that had ambushed him on a higher level, grasping a struggling Welby and leaping to the next rooftop.  The halfling was foaming at the mouth and raving, and he had managed to pull his dagger from his boot and hacked at the tentacle wrapped around his midsection, caring little whether his blows landed on the choker or himself.

Ike smiled grimly and gave chase, jumping the gap between buildings and swinging his mace at the choker.  His aim was good and his weapon connected with a solid crunch.  The choker howled in pain and threw the halfling off the roof, then turned and tore into Ike savagely.  He accepted the hits and swung again, striking a glancing blow to the creature’s skull.  The choker fled, screaming its rage and frustration as it hopped from roof to roof.

Ike jumped to the ground to see if his friend had made it through the ordeal intact.
_______________________________

Artimas methodically loaded his crossbow, eyes still searching every direction for any sign of movement.  He heard Jack’s battle cry and subsequent triumphant shout, then the dwarf’s rising chant as he called the favor of his deity.  At that instant he also caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye; a weird, flying squid-like monstrosity floating up into the inky depths overhead.

He raised his crossbow, mumbling a spell that gave him arcane insight into his next shot.  A moment later the beast reappeared, speeding toward the chanting dwarf.  Artimas pulled the trigger, the bolt smashed into one of the creature’s eyes, destroying its brain, and it flopped over oddly as it continued its descent.
________________________________

They had all survived the encounter, although some by inches.  When the darkness cleared they found Jack weeping quietly over his stricken friend, who still needed healing and rest before he would be on his feet again.  Artimas had killed one beast with his shot, and Jack had chopped the other nearly in two.  

They found the body of a third creature atop the unconscious figure of the Royston Crow.  His blind shot, in a moment of outrageous luck, had killed the creature as it charged him.  However, the body had still fallen onto him, knocking him off his feet.  Then, he sheepishly admitted, he had fainted from fright.

Welby and Ike were sore from their fight with the choker but none the worse for wear.  However, the beast had escaped them and probably lingered, near and out of sight.  They did not stop at this time to explore further.  Ike helped Jack carry the senseless elf and the others kept a close and nervous eye out while they headed back to the staircase and left the danger behind them, for a time.

They resolved to go back to town the next morning and rest until they had recovered.  This time no one remained behind, and they left their supplies in the puzzle room, trusting the bitter weather to discourage intelligent travelers and the lift to protect against any wandering beasts.  The secret staircase was sealed again.  In the meantime they would enjoy the fruits of their labor and live it up at Ned’s, for a couple of days at least.


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## Broccli_Head (Oct 21, 2002)

So is Eli dead?


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## Sniktch (Oct 21, 2002)

No, Eli survived the battle too; he is the "stricken friend, who still needed rest and healing."  Perhaps I have a vague pronoun reference in the paragraph, I apologize if the results weren't clear.  I will be very clear if and when a character does die - these tend to be rare and momentous events in our game.

In purely game mechanic terms, Eli was very close to death when Jack found him in the darkness - the darkmantle knocked him down to -6 hp before Jack came to his rescue, and he bled another 2 rounds before Jack found him and cast cure light wounds.   The healing spell stabilized him but left him at negative hp, thus the unconscious elf had to be carried back upstairs, and the group decided to go back to town for a couple of days until everyone was at full hp again.

At this point everyone was very close to achieving third level


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## Sniktch (Oct 23, 2002)

*Around town, part 2*

Filthy Ike woke up early in his room at the Foaming Mug and dressed quickly.  He had plans with how to spend his time before they went back to the mines.  His anger at Lord Travens had only grown during the last couple of days, and he planned to find a way to make the aristocrat pay for his callousness and snobbery.

A half an hour later found him crouched in the branches of a thick fir tree, giving him an excellent view of the Lord’s manor while concealing him from casual view.  He studied the house intently, looking to establish the early morning routine of the household and determine of an opportunity existed to break in.  

A rustling in the branches alerted him to the presence of another a few seconds before a small, agile form bundled in thick furs clambered up and sat on the branch next to his.  Welby tossed a dead chicken over the limb he sat upon and began devouring another.

“Welby, I’m trying to avoid notice!” Ike hissed.

“No worry, Ike.  No one see Welby.  Chicken?”

Ike turned down the offered hunk of raw meat.  “So what do you want then?  I don’t have time for games right now.”

“Welby want be sneaky.  Like you.  You teach Welby?”  The halfling focused his cherubic face upon Ike hopefully.

“Is that it?  Sure, Welby, I’ll teach you how to be stealthier.  Meet me behind the inn tomorrow morning after your chicken run and I’ll show you all about it.”

The small barbarian beamed happily at Ike for a minute before dropping back out of the tree and loping back toward the Inn.  Ike shook his head in amusement and went back to studying the silent manor house.

			*****

Artimas had also risen early, but spent the first hours of his day in prayer to Arawn and deep in the study of his spellbooks.  Finally, hunger roused him, so he grabbed his sketchbook and journeyed downstairs to break his fast.  The Crow greeted him groggily, raising a steaming mug of tea in salute and motioning for Artimas to join him.

“Morning, Art,” he mumbled amiably.  “Glad to have the company.  Eli isn’t quite well enough to get out of bed yet, and as you know, Jack stayed up most of the night, deep in his cups.  Our furry barbarian and our friend the half-orc have, as usual, already headed out, leaving yours truly to eat a sad and lonely meal.”

“You take that back, Royston!” Ned chimed in from behind the bar.  “If my company means so little to ya, you can cook yer own breakfast from now on!”

“Sorry, Ned.  What I meant to say, Artimas, is that were it not for our esteemed and congenial host Ned here, I would have eaten a sad and lonely meal.”

Art laughed at the playful banter and took his seat, ordering a hot cup of water and a bowl of oatmeal from the proprietor.  He wolfed down the cereal before it could grow cold, then mixed his tea and leaned back to relax and enjoy the companionship.  He chimed into the conversation from time to time, but primarily he focused on the pad before him and concentrated on finishing a portrait of his half-elven friend.

The tavern stayed quiet; due to the cold weather the regulars would not begin arriving until the late afternoon, if at all, and the companions were the only travelers currently staying at the inn.  Ike and Welby returned after a while, Ike joining in the idle chatter, while Welby ordered his customary stack of pancakes and started digging in.  

Shortly before noon the front door opened and admitted two strangers.  When they removed their winter gear, the two newcomers were revealed to be a female dwarf with gold thread and jewels braided into her long, luxurious beard, and a tall, muscle-bound half-orc wearing a simple monk’s outfit.  Everyone in the room merely gaped at this strange duo, and even the incessant chatter of Ned ceased momentarily.  The half-orc stooped to whisper to the female, waving tree trunk arms in the direction of the friends’ table.  She responded with a nod, and then the pair hesitantly approached.

			*****

Quinn Hammerknell started having the dreams at the onset of winter.  

At first the dream had been simple.  She would see the land spread out below here as if she were standing on a tall peak or flying on the wings of a bird, and the shadow would spread over the land.  Soon, even though the sun still shone bright in the air above her, the land below would appear cloaked in darkness except for a few bright motes of light which were overwhelmed and extinguished one at a time while she watched.

These dreams always left her feeling tired and chilled the next day, but she could not make sense of the vision and simply ignored it.  The dreams persisted and evolved as snow began to layer the ground.  She began to zoom in closer to the ground on her nightly flights, and she saw that the darkness was really a rolling mass of orcs, goblins, and the other evil races, lead by towering, terrifying behemoths of demonic visage.  The lands they passed over remained dark, stained with rivers of blood.  She would wake from these dreams in a cold sweat, heart pounding beneath her blankets.

The church elders could not explain the visions, but they did not try to deny their significance.  “Quinn,” they told her, “we have long feared the return of the forgotten evils that destroyed the civilization of before.  We fear that your dreams are a sign from great Dumathoin warning us that this indeed is coming to pass.”

“But why me?” she asked them.  “Why has Dumathoin in his wisdom chosen me to receive his blessing?  I am a mere novice; wouldn’t he have chosen one of the more experienced brethren?”

“You are right to question but do not try to understand.  Your faith is the answer and should be all you require until great Dumathoin sees fit to reveal more.  In the legends of the lost times it is foretold that when the shadow creeps once more across the land each of the good powers will select a champion to combat the darkness.  Perhaps you have been selected as Dumathoin’s champion – we have always believed that you were a special daughter of the church.”

The dreams continued, always growing in scope and detail.  Finally, the elders met and decided to send Quinn out into the world to find the meaning of the dreams.  “Our course is clear,” they told her.  “It is obvious to us now that the forgotten evils have entered or threaten to enter our world again.  It is also clear to us that Dumathoin has selected you to perform some special task in the dark days that lie ahead of us.  You are to go out into the world to try to find the purpose you have been given and fulfill it.  Find the roots of the wickedness spreading through our land and pull them into the light, where they will wither and die.”

So Quinn left, accompanied only by her “adopted” brother and constant companion Grick, the half-orc monk.  Once on the road, the visions altered, and now Quinn saw far off places and individuals, and felt she came to know these other people, and felt she needed to see these other places.  Some of them it was her job to befriend and some she would need to thwart.  It was all jumbled, surreal imagery she could not exactly make sense of, but she knew all would be made clear when the time was right.

The dreams led them slowly eastward, and finally one morning, into a small village nestled between a great forest and a steep range of craggy hills.  Quinn and Grick strolled down the road leading into Travensburg, confident that their purpose, for now, lay in the sleepy village.  

And now, in the Foaming Mug, she found herself face to face with three of the strangers who nightly filled her dreams.

“Your pardon, ma’am, is there something I can assist with?” came the friendly and polite question from the balding, bespectacled gentleman.  Yes, here was the one with the hidden heart, the good man who lived in the shadows.  And across from him the savage child, and next to him the forgotten one.  She did not recognize the fourth, a half-orc like her Grick, but that hardly mattered.  Here were the strangers who were meant to be here friends and traveling companions.

They were all staring at her and she realized she had not answered the question.  “Yes, I’m sorry, its just that – well, I feel like I know you from somewhere.  My name is Quinn Hammerknell, and this is my associate Grick.  We hail from the fortress of Dun Akbar to the west.  We came to Travensburg following a series of dreams I experience nightly.”  

She described her dreams to them, adding the interpretations of the elders.  The companions were silent until she finished, then Ike broke the spell, “Well, then, it seems the two of you will just have to join us.”

			*****

They stayed in town for three more days, until Eli was fully recovered from his wounds and could travel again.  Jack and the elf were introduced to the two newcomers, and while Eli seemed unimpressed, Jack was overjoyed to have another dwarf in the party, spending long hours with Quinn swapping tales by the fire.  Ike and Welby met every morning to work on the finer points of stealth, after which Welby returned to the inn for his customary stacks of pancakes and Ike continued his surveillance of Traven’s manor.   Artimas buried himself in his books and his sketchpad and the Crow convinced Ned to teach him how to cook.

Winter moved along outside, each day bringing them closer to the spring thaw.  A couple of days were even warm enough to melt a good bit of the snow blanketing the ground.  Finally, the day after Eli left his bed and joined them downstairs, they knew it was time to return.  

On a crisp, sunny morning when the westerly breezes hinted of spring they returned to the cursed mines of Duernfast.


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## Sniktch (Oct 25, 2002)

*Return to the forges.  Jack gets a new toy.*

They returned to the forges.  The area was still, the only change since they left the rotting stench of the darkmantle corpses.  Something had dragged one of the noisome squid-like carcasses about halfway across the cavern and eaten a large portion of it.

Ike prodded at the stinking pile and snorted, “Looks like our choker friend got a meal after all.”

They spent hours searching through the small buildings, huddled together and alert against another attack.  In each they found the same collection of rusting tools, the same anvil; in other words, they found nothing.  Finally, in the southeastern most pair of rooms, Eli made an exciting discovery.

“Look everyone!” he caught their attention. “The anvil in this area is on a sliding base.  If we find the catch and trigger it I believe we’ll find a hidden compartment.”  He groped around the base of the anvil, then, “Ah, here it is.”  A faint click followed, and then the anvil slowly slid away, revealing a small shaft leading downwards, a series of iron rungs arranged in parallel lines one foot apart providing hand and foot holds for easy climbing.

It was a tight fit, but Jack squeezed into the opening and lowered himself to the bottom of the shaft.  “There’s a passageway down ‘ere, but it’s a tight fit fer a dwarf ta squeeze through, so I’m not knowin if’n we’ll all fit.”

Ike thought for a few seconds.  “How about Quinn and Eli join you and you see where the passage leads.  The rest of us will wait for you to return.”

Eli nodded and started climbing down the shaft with Quinn behind him.  When they both reached the bottom, Jack started down the tunnel, leading them in narrow single file into the gloom.  The light from the lanterns died as they moved further into the cramped corridor, and Eli was forced to call a magical light so that he could see.  After thirty feet the tunnel opened into a small, round chamber six feet in diameter.  In the center of the chamber lay an ironbound box detailed with a series of dwarven figures in assorted positions.

Jack checked the chest and tried the latch.  “Not locked,” he said, then, “Yeowtch!”  He stuck his finger in his mouth and began sucking at the tiny wound, then gazed fearfully at the small needle sticking halfway out of the latch.  

Eli pulled the needle free and stared at it for a moment, then started to laugh.  “I think you will survive, Jack, unless you bleed to death.  Look.”  He held the pin forth for them to examine; while at one time the trap may have been deadly, it had been set so long ago that the poison had long ago dried off and flaked away.  

Jack started laughing too, a deep, rumbling chuckle that sounded like water rushing over stone, and knelt back in front of the chest.  Lifting the lid revealed a beautiful weapon, a steel battleaxe covered with inlaid runes of silver and gold that covered every inch of the blade.  The shaft was also all steel and decorated with circular gold runes spaced every few inches down its length.  The last part of the shaft was wrapped with a grip of landshark hide, and a steel ball with a single silver rune was attached to the very bottom.  The symbol was in dwarven script and Jack made it out to read “Voltare.”

Eli invoked a spell of magic detection, then cried out and fell back shading his eyes.  The elf babbled senselessly for a minute, explaining once he recovered. “The axe is enchanted, and stronger magic than I can currently comprehend.  I was stunned when I tried to discern what sort of magic the weapon might be imbued with.”

At that moment Quinn, who had been keeping watch, shouted in alarm.  A strange creature had crawled into view, dropping from a large crack in the ceiling of the tunnel they had not previously noticed.  It was about four-foot long and covered in a glistening, rubbery green hide.  The slug-like tail and body ended in a head straight from nightmare, a sharp, curving beak, two beady eyes imbedded in the flesh above the beak, and the whole head ringed by four tentacles covered with razor sharp barbs.

The beast undulated into the cramped confines and attacked.  Quinn smashed it with a powerful blow from her heavy mace, but the weapon simply bounced off the rubbery hide.  It responded by tearing into her with its tentacles, digging terrible wounds in her flesh and flinging her to the side.  Quinn collapsed against the wall, moaning and bleeding.  Eli did not have space to safely cast a spell, so he stabbed with his rapier.  The blade stuck the thick skin and bent, unable to penetrate.  Eli staggered back to the wall, a long gash running the length of his forearm.

Jack yelled a battlecry and grabbed the axe from the chest, moving to confront the beast.  It slashed at him with its tentacles, one digging painfully into his side and two others shredding the skin from his shield arm.  He struck it a glancing blow in return and was relieved to see that the axe did bite into its flesh, green blood welling up and oozing from the cut.  It screeched in pain and renewed its attack upon him, scoring several more hits on his midsection and tearing a flap of his cheek away.  Jack struggled to remain conscious and alert through the pain.

Remembering the rune he had read on the steel ball, Jack raised the axe and shouted “Voltare!  Strike true an’ cleave the beast dead!”  As he spoke, the axe flared into life and the dwarf felt a tingling, numbing sensation running up and down his arm.  Sparks and glowing arcs of crackling energy began leaping along the spidery runes traced all along the blade and shaft, surrounding the weapon with a blue nimbus of electricity.

Jack swung the sparking weapon with all his strength, driving it into the monster’s head.  As electricity conducted itself through the creature’s body it exploded, covering the three injured heroes with a layer of green ooze and cooked monster flesh.  Jack said ”Voltare” again and the blade returned to normal.  He turned his new weapon over and over in his hands, exulting in his newly found power.

*****

Meanwhile, the others were growing bored.  They had been waiting long minutes for the Eli and the dwarves to return, and they had begun discussing sending the halfling down the hole to make sure nothing had happened.  Welby really didn’t want to go; the dark hole made him feel claustrophobic.  None of the others could really fit comfortably, and the argument was now several minutes old – Grick and the Crow pleading with Welby to see what was taking the others so long, and Welby steadfastly refusing to enter the black shaft.

Artimas, tired of the argument, wandered off to inspect some of the forges on his own, and Ike tailed him to keep an eye on him.  The mage was inside one of the buildings now, poking through the rusty tools while Ike waited outside, watching for any signs of the choker.  Suddenly he heard a gasp from inside and a clattering.  Spinning around and peering into the room, he saw that the choker had moved onto the roof of the building and attacked Artimas, and was trying to pull the struggling wizard up through the aperture.

Ike shouted to the others, raising the alarm, and charged into the building.  The choker bruised his ribs with a crushing slam, but he continued forward and hit the beast on the tentacle wrapped around the kicking Artimas, forcing the choker to drop him.  Artimas rolled into the corner and sat up, pointing his finger at the monster.  He shouted a series of arcane syllables and a ray of blackness shot out and hit the beast.  As the spell of enfeeblement took effect the choker’s muscles sagged and wasted away right before the astonished half-orc’s eyes.  The creature screamed in terror and pain and tried to flee once again.

Grick heard Ike’s shout and reacted immediately, leaping to the roof of the closest building.  He saw the beast crouched on a nearby hut, engaged with someone inside of the building.  As he leaped from rooftop to rooftop, closing the distance, it let out a shriek and tried to flee, but it did not see the swiftly approaching monk.  Grick saw it heading towards a large pile of rubble in the southern portion of the cavern and angled to intercept.

The choker vaulted from the last building, its mind clouded with fear and pain.  If it could just reach its lair in the fallen debris it could hide from these hated intruders until they left again.  In midair a large form crashed into it, driving it earthward.  Grick grappled the small, slippery creature by its neck with his powerful arms and twisted sharply.  He was rewarded with a loud, sharp crack.  He landed on his feet and let the monster’s corpse fall from his fingers to the floor.

*****

Eli and the dwarves returned from the shaft once Jack had finished binding and healing Quinn’s wounds and she had returned the favor.  He showed off his axe with pride, yelling “Voltare!” once and swinging the crackling blade through the air.  The others congratulated him on his find; surely this weapon would prove very useful in any future battles.

They found nothing else in the forge area, and no way to proceed, so they returned to the hallway and prepared to enter the eastern passageway for the first time.  The tunnel turned south and continued fifty more feet before it ended in a large, ornate stone double door.  The door had been sculpted in the image of Moradin, chief of the dwarf gods, the crack separating the two halves running down the center of the god’s features.  In Moradin’s right hand he gripped a bar carved to resemble a mighty warhammer.  The head of the hammer rested in the god’s left hand, effectively barring the door shut.

The companions contemplated the sturdy portal, wondering what trials and adventures awaited them beyond.

Next: the Hall of Dwarven Kings


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## Sniktch (Oct 27, 2002)

*The Crypts*

Ike inspected the door carefully for several long moments before he declared it safe.  Beyond the door they found an octagonal chamber thick with dust.  The walls were lined with statues of stern dwarves, each with the same crown affixed to his head.  Plaques below each statue proclaimed these figures to be the great kings of Duernfast, and every king was represented, from the first to the twelth.  Directly across from the entrance was another door exactly the same as the one they had just opened.

Ike found that door to be safe also, and they stepped through it to find themselves in a great crypt, the walls lined with niches piled with bones and crisscrossing tunnels honeycombing the area.  They stayed on the main thoroughfare, and soon they came to a four-way intersection.  The left passage seemed to lead to more of the same – more confusing intersections and niches piled with bones.  The right passage was lined with doors.  A brief inspection of the nearest pair of doors revealed inscriptions bearing dwarf family names, “Ironfist” and “Hammerhelm.”  Jack said that these were most likely family vaults for the noble houses.  Directly ahead of them the main passage terminated in a third set of double doors bearing the graven image of Moradin.

“My guess’d be that we should stick ta the double doors,” Jack stated.

“I wouldn’t mind checking some of the doors in this hallway.  If they are the family crypts of Duernfast then valuable treasures might be interred with the remains,” Artimas replied.

This statement put Jack into an immediate foul humor. “Ye’ll not be disturbin any more o’ the dead here, wizard,” he snarled.

Artimas raised an eyebrow, “Oh, no?  And you will stop me if I do, I suppose?”

Jack ran his thumb down the blade of his new axe.  “Try me, wizard.”

Eli stepped in.  “Remember, Jack, we are looking for clues.  It might be a good idea to examine every nook and cranny, or can we afford to risk missing something that would aid our quest?”

Quinn also entered the argument. “Jack, you must take the high road and be more tolerant of others.  How can we expect to accomplish anything of good if we are constantly bickering amongst ourselves?”

Outnumbered, Jack simply snorted and sat in front of the double doors.  “Fine,” he spat, “But I still reckon the double doors are the way ta go, an’ I ain’t helpin’ to loot dwarven tombs.”  He glowered at Artimas when he finished speaking.

Eli nodded and turned to Artimas.  “Feel free to explore some of the side doors if you want.  I’ll wait here with Jack and any others who wish to remain behind and wait for you to finish.  We could use the rest, actually, my arm is still hurting from the the gash I received from that creature in the shaft.”

Welby stepped up next to Artimas and nodded to the Crow to join him.  The half-elf shrugged and sauntered over.  Ike chuckled, said, “I suppose someone should tag along to keep you out of trouble,” and also stepped down the right passage.  Quinn indicated that she could use a break, also, and Grick would not leave her, so the quartet began to methodically open the doors and explore the small tombs.  

They found nothing in the first dozen rooms they went through, simply coffins stacked upon coffins containing skeletal remains.  Artimas was nothing, however, if not thorough, and insisted upon continuing their search until all of the crypts had been checked.  Soon they had moved out of sight of the other four, who remained camped at the intersection in front of the double doors.

Not long after, Eli began to hear noises from the left hallway.  It was a faint, stealthy sound, but he was convinced that something or someone was moving toward them from the other passage, and taking pains to conceal the sound of their approach.

“Did anyone else hear that?” he asked, rising and moving in the direction of the passage.

Jack and Quinn had been having a heated discussion since the other half of the party had moved out of sight.  They quieted and looked to see what the elf was doing.  Eli cocked his head and then paled noticeably, drawing his rapier and running back to join them.

“Ghouls!” he cried.  “Sounds like a whole pack of them!”

Entering the hallway behind him were indeed a half a dozen of the undead creatures, gnawing on old split bones and gazing at the companions with baleful bloodshot eyes.

*****

Welby was getting tired of searching these little rooms.  They had opened at least a dozen of them and found nothing more interesting than old coffins filled with bones, rats’ nests, and cobwebs.  He was getting ready to tell Artimas to stow it, and he could tell Ike and the Crow were feeling the same way.  Just one more room, he told himself, and then I quit.

The chamber he entered looked like all the others he’d seen thus far.  Coffins were stacked in a moldering heap and scattered bones were strewn in the thick dust covering the floor.  He heard a rustling sound from the stacks of coffins and moved in for a closer look.  More rats, probably.

He was not prepared for what happened next.  The stack of coffins fell over, crashing just to the side of him.  From behind the pile came a hideous creature - a long, segmented worm with many sets of legs and a head ringed with hundreds of tentacles.  Welby yelled in alarm and settled back into a defensive stance.

*****

“Voltare!” Jack roared and charged toward the nearest undead.  Grick was faster and leaped into the fray, delivering a solid jump kick to one ghoul that slammed it back into the closest wall.  Jack arrived just behind him and chopped into a ghoul at its armpit, driving his axe entirely through the creature.  It dropped on the ground in two twitching halves.  He continued his powerful stroke into the next ghoul, which raised an arm to ward the blow, but Jack cleaved right through the arm and smashed into its chest, driving into the ground.  He delivered a quick overhead chop before the ghoul could recover and it lay still.

Two ghouls pounced onto Grick, drawing several long scratches on his arms with their filthy claws.  The one he had attacked ran past him, but Eli shouted a spell and a missile of force slammed into its skull, finishing it.  Grick went into a blur of movement, launching a flurry of punches at one of the ghoul’s heads that shattered its skull, but the other grabbed his shoulder and bit deep into his arm, paralyzing him.  At the same time the last undead clenched Jack’s weapon arm in its hands and bit into his wrist, freezing the doughty dwarf in place.

Quinn strode forward into battle, brandishing her holy symbol and calling on Dumathoin to banish these creatures of the night.  The ghoul attacking her half-orc friend let go and ran back down the tunnel gibbering in terror, but the one that had just injured Jack snarled in hatred and bounded towards her.  Eli sunk an arrow into the beast before it crashed into her, its wicked nails scratching uselessly at her strong splint mail coat.  She pushed it back with her shield and bashed it repeatedly with her mace until she was sure it would not rise again.

*****

The Crow was the first to arrive in response to Welby’s shout.  He found the halfling standing rigid and stiff, a weird, man-sized worm encircling his small body, mouth open wide to feed.  Royston shouted and lunged forward, sticking the beast with his rapier and attracting its attention.  Multiple tentacles brushed against him as the monster scuttled forward and he felt his body growing numb.

Ike and Artimas were next on the scene, crossbows in hand, and they discovered both of their friends standing paralyzed, the monster prepared to start feasting on the Crow.  “Carrion crawler!” Ike exclaimed. “I used to hate these things in the Ravensdale sewers!”

They both fired their crossbows, and though Artimas’ bolt merely grazed the creature, Ike’s hit solidly and embedded itself in the monster’s flesh in the segment just behind the head.  Ike dropped his crossbow in favor of his mace while Artimas backed off and started spellcasting.

The half-orc aimed his blow for the crawler’s head, but it dodged at the last minute and he only managed to crush a pair of its legs.  A beam of negative energy streaked over his shoulder and drew a line of discolored, rotting flesh along the monster’s length.  He tumbled backwards and just missed being hit by the questing tentacled maw, then rolled to the side and vaulted back in at a new angle.  This time he hit it above its left eye, ruining its vision on that side.  Unfortunately, this time the agile half-orc did not have time to recover from his swing and could only watch in horror as several tentacles wrapped around his forearm, immobilizing him.

Artimas was ready for this to happen.  While Ike occupied the crawler in melee, he had cast his mage armor spell and surrounded himself with an invisible protective force.  Now he cast his last spell for the day, firing a magic missile into the beast’s wounded eye.  It didn’t slow, and he raised his walking stick, ready to smash it down when the crawler got close enough.

*****

A short time later Artimas and the others reappeared, looking slightly battered and worse for wear.  They told their friends about their battle with the carrion crawler and how Artimas had brained it while the rest of them stood around unable to move.  In return, they were told about the pitched battle with the ghouls.

“Too many critters down ‘ere that freeze ya, in my opinion,” complained Jack.

The Crow said, “I’m sure we’ll all laugh about this someday when it doesn’t hurt so much.”

His comment broke the tension a little, drawing several amused chuckles and grins from his friends.  After the laughter subsided they pressed on, opening the double doors and stepping inside.


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## Dungannon (Oct 29, 2002)

I ask ya, is there anything worse than paralyzation?  Ya stand, or lay, depending on your situation, completely immobilized but still fully aware of what's happening around you.  Reminds me of a line from Jurassic Park, "The point is, you are still alive when they start to eat you."  Just gives me the shivers.


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## Sniktch (Oct 30, 2002)

Sorry about the delay in updating this thread - I have one more post to catch up with on the CotSQ, and then I'll be back to this one.


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## Sniktch (Oct 31, 2002)

*The Tomb of the Dwarven Kings*

The massive doors swung inward and the companions found themselves in a long tomb.  Twelve immense stone sarcophagi rested on slabs, the covers carved to resemble the same dwarves that had been depicted in the statues from the octagonal room.  Plaques at the bases identified each coffin as the resting-place of one of the kings of Duernfast.  A bare slab lay next to the twelfth king’s sarcophagus, presumably prepared for the thirteenth king’s interment.  Another door stood facing the entrance fifty feet away.  It had also been sculpted to resemble Moradin, but had been defaced at some point and was barely recognizable.

Jack and Quinn were struck with a deep sense of reverence, but Artimas seemed unaffected.  “Hey,” he said, “I bet they buried some good treasure here.”  The mage took a step toward the nearest coffin.

“Ya touch one o’ these coffins an’ I’ll carve ya in half,” Jack threatened, and Artimas stopped in midstride.

“I do get a sense of peace here, and great sorrow,” Quinn informed them.  “I believe that it would be safe to rest here for awhile, so that we can recover from our wounds and refresh our spells.”

The group agreed that they could use a break and set up camp.  Jack and Eli sat with Grick and Quinn, passing a flask of beer back and forth and discussing their respective homelands.  Welby hunted down several rats while Artimas built a small campfire and spoke with the Crow.  The Crow’s amnesia fascinated him and the necromancer kept poking and prodding the half-elf to see if he would remember some clue about his true identity, but unfortunately the conversation had proved fruitless thus far.  Ike kept apart from the others, remaining alert in case this room turned out to be less secure than Quinn had indicated.

Welby returned with half a dozen large crypt rats and tossed a couple to Artimas.  Royston excused himself and went to stand with Ike, his companion’s eating habits making him slightly queasy.  As the halfling voraciously tore into the raw rodent he held, the hairs on the back of his neck began standing straight up.  He looked up in alarm and saw that the flickering campfire had taken a greenish hue, and that thick smoke was rising from it.  

He screamed in alarm and hid behind the nearest coffin, while the rest of the group readied their weapons and turned to face the cloud of smoke as it resolved itself into the shape of a translucent aged dwarf.  They recognized Bori Duerngar, the twelfth king of Duernfast, as the apparition raised its arms in a gesture of peace.

“Hold friends, Bori does not come to harm ye lest ye be seekin’ to disturb Bori’s remains,” the ghost informed them.  “Many years have passed since last the warmth of the living graced our presence, and I be thankful, for I worried that the curse may never be lifted.”

Jack was in awe and fell to his knees in the presence of the ancestor.  “Oh, great king,” he replied, “we are your humble servants.  Pray tell us what we c’n do ta lift the curse of the hold, an’ we will be grateful fer the opportunity ta do good works.”

“Gather ye round then, and listen,” the spirit bade them.  When all had been seated in a semi-circle at his feet, he continued, telling them the story of the fall of Duernfast.  “Long ago the dwarves founded the hold of Duernfast, before the great wars that ravaged the land.  We traded works of mithral and steel with our neighbors and our craftsmen were applauded across the globe for their skill and craftsmanship.  The line of kings stretched twelve long, and we thought it would never fail, even after the darkness fell o’er the land.

“Unfortunately, me son was not the man his father was, nor would he e’er be the king I was.  His heart was filled with cruelty and avarice, and possessed none of the qualities which make a dwarf a dwarf.  I was long in beard when he was born, and I died before I could sire a rightful heir.  Although many hinted that I had been poisoned, I do not know if this is true or not, my son was still crowned as the thirteenth king of Duernfast.

“To my people’s horror, my son Gregor promptly forged an alliance with the enemy and permitted them access to the hold.  Needless to say the dwarves rose up against their unlawful ruler and threw him down, but the damage had been done.  He had already given the details of the many secret ways into or out of the hold to his malevolent allies, and now he came back to the hold, leading large numbers of them into the mines and throughout the hold, slaying every living dwarf that stood against them.

“When the alliance succeeded in breaking the power of the dark ones and drove them from the world, a curse was laid upon the names of Duerngar and Duernfast.  Gregor had never been made to pay for his crimes, and so the dead would not be able to rest easy within the hold until the changeling king had paid the price of his treachery and the taint he had brought with him expunged.  The mines were sealed with Gregor still hiding inside, and few have braved the mines since.  Ye are the first living beings I have spoken with since I found myself awake and unable to return to Moradin’s Hall.

“The task I would charge ye with is two-fold: First, my son Gregor still awaits justice.  He died long ago, but the curse has kept him trapped in his shell, unable to depart for the spirit realms.  He resides in the next room, the dreaded wight dwarf –“

The phrase seemed familiar and the Crow could not contain himself.  “White Dwarf?” he blurted out.  “Hey, I think I’ve heard of him!”

Bori frowned and shook his head.  “Nay, not White Dwarf – the wight dwarf.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” the half-elf looked even more confused than normal.

“Nay, ye are thinking of the dwarf who is white, and I am telling ye about the dwarf who is a wight.  Understand?”

“Uh, no, not at all, but please continue.  I am sorry to have interrupted.”  The Crow sank back down, looking disappointed.  He looked at his friends’ faces and saw annoyance at the interruption, but also the same confusion he felt mirrored on their faces.  Ah well, at least if he did not understand he was not alone in his misunderstanding.

Bori recovered and went on, “As I was sayin’, first the wight dwarf must be laid to rest.  Second, Gregor brought an ancient evil into the mines with him, which avoided the destruction of the demon armies.  It resides their still, devouring the souls of the few hapless fools that have braved the depths.  Slaying Gregor will allow the spirits to rest again, but the hold will not be clean of the stain of evil.  This other foul abomination must be destroyed before the living will be able to reside in these halls again.”

Jack strode forward and presented his hand. “We are honored to accept the task, great king.  These halls will be filled with the music of the smith again.”  He flushed in embarrassment and withdrew the hand as the spirit only regarded it mournfully.

The other companions all pledged their support and vowed to enter the next chamber after their rest.  Bori thanked them and slowly faded from view.  Jack turned to Artimas.

“And ya wanted to open them coffins.  Good thing someone with strong moral fiber is ‘ere to keep ya in line.”

Next:  The White, er, wight dwarf


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## Lazybones (Oct 31, 2002)

Just got caught up on this story; it makes a nice companion piece to the CotSQ story.  Now I understand why Jack is reluctant to loot crypts (this does seem to be a recurring theme in your games  ).  

One question: you noted that the lower tunnels dated back to before the dwarves discovered writing.  And yet there was writing above the arch, on the crypts, and on the haft of the axe.  Was it just that the dwarves were just there a really, really long time, and developed writing in the course of their civilization?


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## Sniktch (Nov 1, 2002)

Lazybones said:
			
		

> *Just got caught up on this story; it makes a nice companion piece to the CotSQ story. Now I understand why Jack is reluctant to loot crypts (this does seem to be a recurring theme in your games  ).
> 
> One question: you noted that the lower tunnels dated back to before the dwarves discovered writing.  And yet there was writing above the arch, on the crypts, and on the haft of the axe.  Was it just that the dwarves were just there a really, really long time, and developed writing in the course of their civilization? *




Ah yeah, I'm afraid with Jack's sometimes rough manner of speaking that isn't very clear.  In my setting written history only dates back about 1400 years, but that's because all earlier texts were destroyed in the great wars that savaged the civilizations existing in that time.  Duernfast dates from before any surviving written history, but not before the discovery of writing (although it may, but no one alive could say).  Sorry for the confusion  

As for the crypts, yeah, I have to admit I like them.  So does Artimas, and if he's willing to spring all the nasty undead and traps that you find in such places, I'm more than happy to oblige and put them there.  Although at one point the group does hit the road and we avoid tomb raiding for quite some time.


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## Sniktch (Nov 2, 2002)

*The wight dwarf*

The last pair of doors led to a half-finished room with no other exits. Immense slabs of stone were stacked all along the left wall.  Several blocks of stone had been stacked to form a raised platform in the center of the room and a makeshift throne had been constructed atop it from the skulls of countless dwarves.  Seated in the throne was a pasty-skinned, rotting dwarf that stood when they entered and shuffled jerkily toward them, arms raised before it, and dripping flesh and slime upon the floor as it moved.  One of its eyes held them in its malicious stare while the other hung useless and torn upon its cheek.

“Voltare!” roared Jack and charged forward with Grick right beside him.  The undead thing swiped at them with its arms, but they easily avoided the clumsy blows.  Jack responded by driving his axe powerfully into the undead’s midsection, chopping it clean in half.  The creature fell to the floor twitching and was soon still.

Grick looked down at the vanquished foe in consternation.  “Huh?” he said, “That was easy.”

Artimas concurred, “Too easy.  Something is extremely wrong with defeating a wight with one - look out!!”

Another figure appeared from behind the propped-up stone blocks.  This was also the figure of an emaciated dwarf with pasty white skin, but this one moved much more smoothly than the beast Jack had just destroyed.  It wore a suit of rusty chain links and had a gem-studded coronet upon its brow; its face was framed by wild black hair and its eyes glowed with an eldritch light.  It sprang between Jack and Grick and leveled a solid punch that drove the dwarf backwards, gasping.  Jack felt himself grow weaker at the touch, like a piece of his spirit had been taken from him, and the others could only watch in horror as he seemed to age before their eyes, while the aura of evil surrounding cursed Gregor became even more intense.  The fierce dwarf was more afraid than he had ever been in his life, and he sank to the ground weakly and started crawling toward the door.  Quinn pulled her mace and stepped in front of him to guard his retreat.

Grick launched a flurry of blows and heard the distinct crack of ribs as he landed one vicious knee, but the wight seemed unfazed.  It dodged to the side and avoided the halfling as Welby charged in swinging his axe wildly, then jumped forward and pushed Grick hard.  The half-orc flew across the room as he felt his life energy being drained away and his head cracked against the platform.  He dropped to the floor and did not move.

Quinn stepped before the monster with her holy symbol raised and called upon the might of Dumathoin to destroy the unhallowed being, but she had not yet the power to effect such a powerful undead and it backhanded her across the face, enraged at the reminder of the good gods.  However, her actions had provided a brief opening, and Welby and Ike stepped in from either side and got in a pair of solid hits.  The Crow thrust with his rapier and also scored a glancing blow, but then Gregor seized his arm with icy fingers and he dropped his sword from numb, lifeless fingers.  The wight dwarf lifted the half-elf by the throat and pitched him away to land unmoving on the ground.

Artimas and Eli had not been idle during this time, first taking the time to raise their protective mage armor to ward off attacks.  Now Eli launched a globe of silver force to impact upon the beast while Artimas simultaneously fired a ray of energy that disrupted the wight’s ties to the negative energy that animated it.  They repeated the attack as Gregor seized Ike by the hair and hurled him into the halfling, then bounded across the floor towards them.  Artimas stepped back and allowed Eli to receive the charge, and the elf screamed as undead fingers bit into his skin and absorbed his life essence.

Jack rose from his terrified stupor at the sound of his friend’s voice and examined the scene before him.  The two wizards were backed against the wall and the wight stood ready to spring.  Artimas was gesturing desperately while his voice shouted the words to disrupt undead again, while Eli merely parried weakly with his rapier.  Jack could see the awful bluish-white streaks on the elf where the undead fingers had clawed his skin.  Welby had regained his feet and ran towards the undead, while the rest lay cowering in fear or unconscious.

The barbarian saved Eli’s life then, diving forward and chopping the wight in the back before it could spring.  It roared and picked up the halfling with both hands, then spun and hurled him into Artimas and disrupted the necromancer’s spell.  The bravery of the little warrior awoke the old dwarven spirit in Jack’s breast, and he strode determinedly in the direction of the battle.

“Gregor Foulspawn!” he taunted.  “Ya were never a dwarf!  Ya was a goblin changeling and a twisted thing fro’ the start!  Come get a piece o’ a real dwarf so’s I c’n send ya straight ta hell!”

The creature turned snarling and bellowed its rage toward the foolhardy warrior, then charged forward at full speed.  Jack raised his shield and braced for impact, his axe held ready to swing.  He swung with all his might as he felt the brutal impact, and his axe was torn from his grasp as he toppled over with the creature above him.  His survival instinct screaming, Jack kicked and twisted to get free of the heavy weight pressing him downward, then realized that it no longer moved.  Slowly sliding from under the shield that had saved his life, Stumpwater Jack beheld Gregor in a state of final rest, the axe that killed him lodged deeply in the side of his skull.


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## Krellic (Nov 3, 2002)

Cracking tale, made by excellent characters, I look forward to the next installment.


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## Sniktch (Nov 4, 2002)

*Gel-o wrestling*

The second time they passed through the hall of statues Eli noticed something different.

Miraculously, they all survived the battle with the wight.  After they had dusted themselves off and the unconscious members of the group had been roused they exited the chamber to find Bori waiting to congratulate them on their victory.  They then camped a second time in the tomb of the kings, and fortified by the prayers of Jack and Quinn everyone managed to recover the strength the foul undead creature had drained from them.

Now, as they exited the crypt area, Eli called for them to halt and moved to examine the middle statue on the eastern wall.

“Look,” he said, “the design is different on this figure than on any of the others.  See how the arm is positioned?  It’s almost like you should be able to move it… like so…”

A loud click sounded through the chamber as the elf triggered the secret mechanism.  A grinding sound followed as the stone wall pivoted on its axis, revealing a ten-foot wide corridor leading into the darkness.  Unlike any other passage they had traversed before now, this tunnel was clean of dust and debris, the walls, floor, and ceiling were polished until the stone gleamed reflectively in the torchlight.

They proceeded with extreme caution and came to a branch in the corridor.  To the right the stone retained the clean, polished look but the left fork was once again dusty and littered with rubble.  They chose the dirty path and after about a hundred feet it ended in a stout oaken door, swollen with moisture and wedged firmly in place.

Not for long, though.  Grick backed up about ten feet and rushed the door, leading with his shoulder.  He hit the door with a loud crack and splinters filled the air as it broke from its hinges and split asunder on the ground.  They stood in the entryway of an old forgotten shrine to Moradin that had been desecrated long ago.  An altar stood on a raised dais across the room, spattered with dried blood and other encrusted filth, and the walls were covered in insane scrawling graffiti and demonic symbols.

The room also contained three bat-like creatures hanging from the ceiling, which unfurled their wings and dropped from their roost as torchlight flooded the chamber.  The Crow screamed like a little child when he beheld the hideous visages before them.  The resemblance to bats ended with the creature’s wings.  Suspended between each pair was a fiendish head with glowing green eyes, and pulsating tendrils and bumps in place of hair and beard.  The closest of the three monsters opened its mouth and let loose an unearthly shriek and nearly the entire party froze in terror.

Only Jack resisted the effects of the supernatural wail.  He charged into the room and brought his weapon around in a wide arc that cleaved one of the flying heads in two and chopped into a second, slaying them both.  Unfortunately, the third monster flew past him and over to Welby and planted a kiss full on the little warrior’s lips.  The halfling felt a silky brush as the beast forced its tongue into his mouth and tore away, dropping to his knees gagging from fear and revulsion, and Jack quickly dispatched the monster before it could seek out another victim.

“Ya alright, whelp?” the dwarf helped Welby back to his feet, holding him steady with a concerned expression on his face.  The others were slowly shaking off the effects of the monsters’ powerful screech.

“Fwah!” Welby groaned.  “Taste real bad, real bad.  Never taste good again.”  The halfling rolled about on the floor, scrubbing at his tongue with both hands and taking frequent mouthfuls of water that he gargled and spat upon the floor.

“Aha!” Ike cried from near the altar.  He found another secret catch that opened a small closet in the wall.  The closet was bare except for an armor stand, on which rested a beautiful suit of well-crafted platemail armor fitted for a dwarf and a large steel shield of fine quality engraved with the symbol of a hammer.  Since Quinn already owned a suit of plate Stumpwater claimed the armor as his own and enlisted the aid of Eli in fastening himself into the heavy suit.

Finding no other exits or anything else of interest they left the room and backtracked to the intersection, this time selecting the direction that had been cleared of dirt.  They passed an open archway and Ike stopped to examine the empty masonry arch.

“Hmm, this is strange,” he muttered.  “Everybody, look at this.”  

Evidently an oak door like the one Grick had recently smashed once blocked entry into the room, although no sign of it still existed.  The hinges were still driven into the wall undisturbed, and Ike could not even find a single splinter stuck in the metal fastenings, which also shined like they had been recently polished.  The room itself was bare and spotless; just a blank, empty, twenty by twenty foot chamber devoid of any other entrances or exits, secret or otherwise.

They moved on and the passage dead-ended before another bare masonry arch exactly like the last one.  This chamber also appeared to be empty, except there was a strange shimmering effect in the middle of the room, a layer of distortion that reflected the torchlight.  Eli pushed his way to the front of the group and approached the area of the effect.

“Hey guys, what’s this?  Aaaaiiiieeeeee…..”

The elf froze as he seemed to suddenly run into a semi-solid object.  The air shifted and a clear membrane of tissue extended and wrapped itself about him.  The gelatinous cube was now plain for all of them to see as it engulfed Eli and continued forward.  The others could only watch in horror while the acidic mass of the ooze went to work on their helpless friend and his clothing seemed to melt away, his skin beginning to bubble and blister as it became nourishment for the scavenger.

“No!  Eli!” Jack bellowed and leapt to attack the creature, hacking away furiously with his axe.  He ignored the touch of a pseudopod that brushed against his side and seared the flesh stretched over his ribs.

Welby and the Crow moved up beside the enraged dwarf and lent their aid to the assault, while Ike and Grick moved to hit the creature from the side.  Quinn raised her voice in prayer and the companions felt the blessing of Dumathoin guiding their sword arms and steeling their resolve.  Artimas stood in the doorway and pelted the cube with a flurry of magic missiles, then started dipping his crossbow bolts in lamp oil and igniting them before firing the flaming quarrels into the monster’s vast bulk.

The gelatinous cube was rapidly diminishing in size under the furious attack, and though it inflicted several grievous burning wounds upon the companions they did not relent.  Jack howled in anguish again and again as he watched his friend being slowly digested before his eyes.  Eli’s hair and eyes had been consumed along with the outer layers of skin, and now the ooze was working on the muscles and softer organs beneath.

Jack dropped his axe and lunged forward, grasping the elf by the arm and pulling him free from the now dying cube.  While the others surrounded the monster and methodically pounded it into slimy slush he knelt at his friend’s side and called upon his god to heal Eli one more time.

Nothing happened, and as Jack stared into the empty sockets where once the elf’s clear, sparkling eyes had danced with life he realized that his companion was dead.  He hugged the lifeless shell to his breast, ignoring the gore, and burst into tears, his sturdy frame continuously wracked by massive sobs.

Welby stared at the dwarf in his grief and reached up to scratch his scalp.  A funny, tickling itch had been building and he rubbed at it furiously to drive it away, then stopped and stared at his hand aghast.  He was holding a large brown tangle of hair that had simply pulled off at his touch.  He reached up and took hold of another handful and it also came free, pulling away from the roots as though it had never been attached.  A feeling of great apprehension overcame him then and he brought his hand up to stroke his chin.  Beneath the surface of the flesh he could feel hard, pulsing lumps, and he knew that the bat creature in the other room had done more than just kiss him; it had inflicted him with some form of hideous curse and he was now changing to become just like it.

Jack was too lost in grief to notice, but the others all jumped as Welby let out a horrendous yowl and ran out of the room holding his head.  Praying that his skull would stay attached and not fly right off of his shoulders, the little barbarian held on for dear life and sprinted for the exit.  Even after he rushed from the cave and felt daylight warm his skin he continued, turning towards town as he ran and ran…


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## Broccli_Head (Nov 5, 2002)

wow! Now I know whay Jack is so protective of the other elf in the othe story. 

Vargouilles are nasty!


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## Sniktch (Nov 5, 2002)

Yeah, but in all honesty, gelatinous cubes don't kill adventurers.  Adventurers that fail to take 10 on spot checks kill adventurers.  The DC to spot a cube is 15 (off the top of my head - no reference books available atm), which Eli could have made easily with a 10 + elf bonus + alertness + wis mod.  They all rolled, though, no one made a 15, and the elf walked right into the cube.  In fact, almost every time my group fails to take at least one 10 on a round of Spot checks they all roll pitifully low and I get to surprise them.

Jack managed to pull him out at -9 hp, but of course Eli failed the 10% stabilize check before Jack got a chance to cast any healing spells.

Vargouilles are fun.  Welby's just lucky it was daylight outside so that it halted the metamorphosis long enough for him to get back to town.  He's been bald ever since, and it is unknown whether or not he is even capable of growing facial hair anymore.  Whatever the case may be, no one has ever seen him shave.

EDIT:  While I'm thinking about it, we play with a house rule that increases the randomness and tension in combat and might help explain some of the sudden reversals we see in combat sometimes.  A long time ago I felt that attacks of opportunity were not being used to full potential in the game.  At the same time, I really wanted some sort of critical fumble rule but didn't really like the ones I'd read at that time.  

Thus, our house rule:  A roll of 1 on an attack is a critical fumble, which draws an attack of opportunity from the target of the attack.  I don't know about game balance or anything like that, but we've only had 2 PC deaths in 2 years because of this rule, and it certainly does seem to increase the suspense and excitement of combat.


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## Capellan (Nov 5, 2002)

Sniktch said:
			
		

> *Thus, our house rule:  A roll of 1 on an attack is a critical fumble, which draws an attack of opportunity from the target of the attack.  I don't know about game balance or anything like that, but we've only had 2 PC deaths in 2 years because of this rule, and it certainly does seem to increase the suspense and excitement of combat. *




I rather like the look of that rule.  Adds a negative effect to rolling a '1' in comat without introducing the completely arbitrary 'fumble' tables that marred so many campaigns in the past 

I might have to give some consideration to using it, though I'd probably add the rider that it must also miss by at least 4, or something like that: if the only way to miss is to roll a '1', then it's already bad enough to roll it, without being hit by an AoO as well.


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## Sniktch (Nov 6, 2002)

Eldred Moonthistle was out for his afternoon run with Blackfoot, the wolf that followed him everywhere, when he heard the disturbance in the woods.  It sounded like some sort of beast crashing through the underbrush while letting loose a keening child-like wail.  He was easily able to follow the sound to its source, and he stifled a chortle of amusement when he at last beheld the strange figure.  

A halfling ran through the woods alone, both hands clasped on top of his head as he screamed unintelligibly and his legs pumped along almost faster than the eye could follow.  Eldred stepped out in the path of the sprinting warrior and called, “Hold!” but the figure did not slow or change course and Eldred felt a crushing impact as the small man bowled him over and continued on his way.  Eldred lay winded for a moment before regaining his feet and staring curiously at the back of the departing figure.

He shrugged.  The halfling was moving too quickly for him to catch up now.  Besides, if he really wanted to know what had happened, he would probably have more success following the trail back in the direction from which the halfling appeared.  

“Let’s go, Blackfoot,” he said and as the wolf fell into step beside him he started off through the forest.

*****

The companions had a hard time getting out of the cave.  Welby did not stop running for an instant and the others were unable to keep pace, loaded as they were with Eli’s corpse and the loot they had gathered thus far.  Also, Ike discovered another secret door in the room that had contained the cube, this one leading to a flight of stairs that descended to a lower level, and Artimas argued that they should explore further before leaving since no one was really injured other than the elf and the barbarian.  When they finally convinced him that exiting now was in their best interest, they discovered that the halfling had taken the lift back to the surface and raced off without sending it back down the shaft.   In the end Grick was forced to climb the walls level by level until he reached the top then ride the lift back down to collect everyone else.  

They exited the cave perhaps an hour after Welby’s frantic shrieks faded into the distance.  His trail was easy to follow and made a beeline in the direction of Travensburg.  As they prepared to follow a tall elf with raven tresses wearing clothing of soft deerskin stepped into the clearing and regarded them silently.  A large black wolf interposed itself protectively between the elf and the party. 

“What d’ya want, elf?” Jack growled.  “Either state yer piece or get outta our way, ‘cause I ain’t in the mood fer games.”

The elf stared at them and saw sadness and weariness weighing down their hearts.  His gaze rested on the large misshapen bundle wrapped in a thick blanket that was soaked through with blood.  Finally, he spoke:

“Are you friends of the halfling that passed through not long ago?”

“You saw Welby?  Where is he and what did you do to him?”  The Crow’s voice was filled with worry for his little friend.

“He ran past me screaming about an hour ago.  I could not tell what was troubling him, but he would not slow to speak with me.  I backtracked along his trail looking for answers.”

“Yeh, he got kissed by some floatin demon ‘ead an’ he freaked out.  Speakin o’ answers, who’re ya an’ what are ya doin ‘ere?” Jack spoke abruptly.

“My name is Eldred, and these woods are under my protection.  Anything that happens in the forest is my business.  This noble animal is Blackfoot, my only and constant companion.”

“Are you a druid, then?” queried Artimas.  “Maybe you would consider joining us for a time, for we have found a great evil under the surface of your woods.  Also, you may have noticed that we just lost a companion,” he indicated the stiff bundle with a wave of his arms at this point, “and thus reinforcements would be welcome.”

“Yes to the first question,” the elf answered.  “For the second, I must admit to being a little intrigued.  If you say an evil lives within these boughs then it is my duty to discover its nature.  I will follow you for a time, but I cannot say for how long.”

“Welcome aboard, Eldred,” Ike stepped forward with a toothy grin on his face.  “Your life is now guaranteed to become more interesting.”

*****

When they got back to Travensburg Eldred excused himself from their company, explaining that he felt uncomfortable in settlements of any size and would rejoin them when they reentered the forest.  They entered the Foaming Mug and found Welby waiting for them, downing a large tankard of ale and animatedly describing their adventures to Ned and a group of farmers that had gathered.

“Welby, you’re alright!” the Crow exclaimed.  “What happened?”

“Priest say kiss was curse.  Want money to help but me convince him help free.  He pray and head stop itching.”  It was the most talkative they had ever seen the little savage, and they soon discerned the reason.  Welby was drunk.

“What do you mean ‘convince him help free,’ Welby?” Quinn inquired.  She found the statement rather ominous.

“Oh, that easy.  Like this.” 

Welby leveled a murderous stare at her, gripped his axe until his knuckles turned white, and growled fiercely.  She was startled by the change to her normally cherubic companion – for a moment she found herself frightened of him, and she understood how the poor village priest must have felt.

“Oh, Welby, that wasn’t good,” she chastised him.  “In the morning we will have to go back to the chapel so that you can apologize and we can properly reward the church for his aid.”

“Okay,” the halfling shrugged and turned back to his flagon.

The next day they all went to the local shrine.  Quinn forced Welby to make amends for his threatening behavior of the day before and then they obtained burial services for the fallen Eli.  The cost of the healing spell and the funeral nearly drained the resources they had accumulated.

Jack’s heartbroken sobs rent the air throughout the service and then he spent a silent and sullen night in the tavern drowning his sorrow.  In the morning he was still sitting downstairs nursing a mug of ale, although he looked his usual stern self again.

“C’mon,” he barked when they were all assembled.  “Its time ta get back – my axe is thirsty.”

Despite the complaints of Welby, who had time neither to raid the chicken coop nor to consume any of Ned’s famous pancakes, they packed up and hit the road again.  Eldred joined them as soon as they passed the village limits and soon they were ready to delve deeper into the hold of Duernfast.


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## Krellic (Nov 7, 2002)

Walking into a gelatinous cube is a hell of a way to go, yeuch!  A lot of fun for the DM though...


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## Sniktch (Nov 7, 2002)

*The unholy altar*

When they reached Duernfast they descended back to the site of Eli’s passing and readied themselves to continue further down into unexplored areas.  Blackfoot and Filthy Ike stayed behind with the supplies this time; Eldred was unable to convince the wolf to board the lift no matter how he coaxed and Ike complained about a touch of the grip and said he needed to rest.  With Welby and Jack in the lead, the others descended the secret staircase.

It ended in front of a sturdy double door.  Opening the portal and stepping through, they found themselves in a twenty-foot square chamber with three other doors leading onward.  A splintered table and chairs were strewn about the floor and the skeleton of a huge cave bear blocked the southern egress.

Jack snorted, “I’m gonna go knock that skellie apart an’ make sure it don’t come ta life.”

Thus, no one was really surprised when Jack entered the room and red lights flickered to life in the hollow pits of the bear's skull and the skeleton began rising to its feet.  The dwarf activated his axe and hustled forward, but the undead was surprisingly quick and launched him back across the chamber with a sweep of a paw.  The shorter Welby somersaulted under the blow and slashed at the skeleton, knocking a few chips of ivory off of one massive ankle.  Grick dodged forward and launched a powerful roundhouse kick that shattered several ribs and the Crow launched a crossbow bolt that imbedded in the bear’s skull, but it seemed to have no effect as the animated beast tore into Welby and Grick with its scything claws.

Artimas completed a spell and fired a ray of disruption at the creature, while Eldred produced a leather sling and launched one stone after another at the immense skeleton.  Quinn cast a blessing on her mace, temporarily enhancing it, and joined the melee, pulverizing one of its kneecaps.  Jack bounced back to his feet and came in at the bear’s back, severing its spine with a brutal chop.  The rear legs twitched and lay still, but the bear pulled itself forward with its front paws and bit deep into Quinn’s left shoulder, tearing through armor and muscle and causing her to stagger and cry out from the pain.  She retaliated with another swing of her mace, crushing the beast’s jaw and forcing it to release its grip.

As always, Grick was enraged by the sound of his dear friend’s suffering.  Ignoring his own wound, he raced back into the fray.  The bear lifted itself with one paw and attempted to brain the monk with the other, but Grick ducked the blow, caught the limb before the undead could recover, and jerked down with all of his strength, snapping both bones of the forearm and leaving the skeleton with only one useful limb.  The end came very quickly after that as Welby and Jack fell upon the beast and reduced it to splinters.

Quinn and Jack tended to the wounded while Artimas and Eldred searched the room.  The previously blocked door to the south lead to another staircase continuing even further into the depths while the other two exits both opened on long hallways containing multiple doors.  They selected the passage to the east and proceeded to the first set of doors.

The doors opened into what had obviously once been the hold’s primary chapel.  Overturned pews littered the ground and the walls were covered with tattered and rotting tapestries.  Across the room stood an altar decorated with typical symbols of dwarven worship.  As they entered the room, a ghastly spectral figure floated into view, coming right up through the floor.  It resembled a tattered black shadow of an old dwarven priest, who wrung his hands as he glided closer to the companions.  An eerie babbling whisper became audible as the shape drifted near.

Artimas gasped, “An allip!  Don’t let it touch you or you may share its madness!”

Quinn was already chanting a prayer as she pulled several large round stones from a pouch at her belt.  The stones began to glow softly, infused with the divine might of Dumathoin, and she threw them at the approaching shade.  Two of them passed harmlessly through the insubstantial form but the third harmed the undead and the whisper rose to a shriek.  Artimas joined in the magical barrage with a flurry of magic missiles that unerringly ripped into the allip.

Eldred grabbed hold of one of the half-orc’s arms and started to chant a spell.  Grick tried to pull away but the elf maintained his grip and completed the spell.  Releasing the monk, he explained, “I have called upon the Earth Mother to give you the power to harm the abomination.  Where once you would not have been able to harm the spirit your fists should now be able to strike it.”

Jack saw the wisdom in this and asked Welby for his axe, which he then blessed with a similar enhancement.  The allip was by this time drawing very near, despite the magical assault by Quinn and Artimas, so those with magical weapons moved forward to engage it.  Welby launched a powerful blow that unfortunately passed right through the monster and it clutched at him with spectral fingers.  The halfling heard the whispers directly in his mind as the icy fingers trailed across his flesh and he could feel his sanity slipping away.

Stumpwater quailed with fear in the undead’s presence and shrank from the combat, but then Eldred moved forward swinging his stout cudgel and bludgeoned the allip with a series of successive blows.  It dropped the halfling and turned to assault the elf, but Quinn pulled him out of its reach.  Artimas finished a spell at that moment and hit it with a ray that severed its binding to the physical plane.  With one last unearthly wail the spirit faded from view and the battle was over.

The only thing of interest in the room was the defiled altar, which had at one time been dedicated to Moradin.  Now it was covered with diabolical inscriptions and a large black gem was set in the granite surface, pulsing with an inner light.

Artimas examined the stone, expending a cantrip to detect magical auras, and turned to the others.  “It is obviously enchanted; the gem is layered with a great evil the like of which I have never seen.  It would behoove us to leave this matter alone.”

“Why?” demanded Jack, “So that more undead c’n come an’ desecrate the place?  This is what I think o’ leavin it be.”

He stepped forward, raised his axe, and brought it down with all his might square on the throbbing obsidian.  The gem shattered and a wave of black energy rippled outward from the altar, then a cloud of steam rose from the ruined stone accompanied by a horrible roaring sound, and then the room went deathly quiet and still.


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## Broccli_Head (Nov 7, 2002)

Mwhahahahaha! Good cliffanger!


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## darkbard (Nov 11, 2002)

just wanted to add my praise for this storyhour and its companion piece (city of the spider queen).  the writing is fantastic, the story and characters compelling and believable.  one of the best things about the writing, in my opinion, is the way you describe combat and spell effects.  out of curiosity, are your descriptions as vivid during gameplay, and do you have any special rules (beyond the core) adjudicating some of what's described (did the bear skeleton lose movement and attacks, for example)?

thanks again.  i'm breathlessly awaiting the next update (now that i'm finally caught up).


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## Sniktch (Nov 11, 2002)

BH:  Sorry to leave you hanging.  Had a rough weekend time-wise, never found a moment to sit down and write.  I hope you're not disappointed with where the cliffhanger leads to   (hopefully later today)

Darkbard:  Wow, thanks for the compliment.  All of you that have been reading and commenting are just swelling my head to immense proportions! 

I try to keep my descriptions this vivid during gameplay and get people into the proper mood, but you'd have to ask my players about whether I'm successful or not.  As for fights like the cave bear skeleton, I just adlib it.  I try to make combat more than 'OK, you do 10 hp of dmg, next' although it is easy to fall into that rut, and when I describe something like that I generally make up the effects on the spot.  

In the case of the bear I did reduce the movement but it was a smallish room and didn't effect the fight.  I kept the same number of attacks since I figured the jagged shards of bone where the claw had been would still be an effective weapon.  I never gave it a bite attack (this was before I'd ever seen a skeleton template and I was just using a huge skeleton - 2 claws) but described it that way for color, and until Quinn smashed the jaw a hit was just as likely to be a bite as a claw so the players would get the feel of fighting a big skeletal bear.


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## Sniktch (Nov 11, 2002)

*A difference of opinion*

The tension stretched for long moments as everyone waited to see what horror Jack had unleashed.  Finally, the dwarf snorted, “See?  That’s what ya do with evil glowin rocks,” and stomped off.  They searched the room but found little of value and no other exits, so they headed back into the hallway and continued to the next pair of doors.

Eldred examined the doors with his keen elven senses and declared them to be safe.  They opened onto a great hall, once the dining area of Duernfast.  Apparently a large battle had once been fought here, and many shards of bone and scattered skeletons lay intermingled with remnants of long tables and many chairs on the floor.  Jack and Welby crossed the threshold first, to be greeted by a loud booming voice that resonated through the room:

“Even in death you are still bound to the will of Nast’yrrh!”

At the sound of the voice the various incomplete skeletons animated and began hopping, crawling, and dragging themselves across the floor toward the party.  They saw hands scuttling through the debris like weird spiders, skulls that chattered their jaws as they rolled across the floor, and strange detached ribcages that clacked toward them like nightmarish centipedes.

Jack, Quinn, and Artimas pulled forth their holy symbols and called upon their faith in the face of these abominations.  Waves of holy energy rolled out from the two dwarves, turning the undead they passed through to dust.  Artimas’ prayers had an entirely different effect, however, and three of the scrambling hands and one of the skulls came to a halt and awaited their new master’s command.

The dwarves made short work of the mass of tiny skeletons, although they would be unable to influence the undead for the rest of the day.  Artimas strolled over to the surviving pieces of the horde and the skeletal hands sprang onto his robes and disappeared beneath its folds.  He scooped up the skull and regarded it thoughtfully as it continued to click its teeth together in his hand.

“Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well…” he started, turning to face the others with a wide grin on his face.  It died as he saw the looks of shock and concern directed toward him, and the terrible, terrible scowl Jack now wore.

“Necromancer!” Jack accused with a pointing finger.  “Now I ken why yer always pokin yer nose where it don’t belong.  Yer probly in league with them Trembers what we already kicked outta this place!”

“That’s ridiculous!” the mage replied.  “For one thing, as I told you, I am primarily a scholar – when it comes to magic I am a mere dabbler.  For another, where is the evil in this act?  Was it I who animated these bones?  No, I merely follow the teachings of Arawn and bring them under my control, to be used as tools and nothing more!”

“Bah!  Ya defile the dead by continuin their unholy life!”

“Not so, Jack,” argued Artimas.  “Their life is not continued; the spirits of these dead rest in Arawn’s realm at the bosoms of the Gods.  Or do you honestly believe that the soul of this dead man is somehow tied to this stupid, chattering thing?” He held the skull in front of Jack’s face as he spoke.  

“No!” he continued.  “This warrior is departed.  This skull is not animated through the binding of the man’s spirit, but by simple magic infusing the bone.  As Arawn teaches us, it is a tool for the use of the living, nothing more.  A tool is only evil if used for evil ends.”

The veins in Jack’s neck were beginning to bulge again.  He took several steps in the direction of the mage but found his path blocked by the halfling.

The barbarian shook his head solemnly at the dwarf, “Nice man Welby friend.  Like rat, too.”  

The Crow stepped up and laid his hand on Welby’s shoulder.  “And the friend of Welby is my friend, too, no matter how creepy they are,” he declared.

Jack turned to Quinn, but if he was expecting help in the argument he was sorely disappointed.

“While I believe the different viewpoints are fascinating, I hardly think this is the proper place or time for philosophical debate,” she stated.  “Anything living within a mile of this chamber has now been alerted to our presence.  Let us settle our differences when we get back to the Foaming Mug; we have other tasks to concentrate on now.”

Eldred nodded in agreement.  “Jack, I, too, find the presence of undead to be anathema.  They lie outside the boundaries of the natural order and so I will always strive to destroy them where I can.  However, Artimas does present valid arguments concerning the nature of death and undeath, so for now I must side with Quinn.  Let us continue this when we are removed from immediate danger.”

Frustrated, Stumpwater growled and headed for the only other exit to this room, a door that was bound to lead to the kitchen.  Artimas ordered the skull to remain quiet and slipped it into a deep pocket in his robe before following.


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## Dungannon (Nov 11, 2002)

Sniktch said:
			
		

> *All of you that have been reading and commenting are just swelling my head to immense proportions*




It's true, I've seen it.  His head is easily twice the size it was last month when he started this thing.  If this continues, I don't know what might happen.  Oh well, guess I'm just gonna have to stand by with an industrial strength needle at the ready to pop the swelling if it gets too bad.


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## Sniktch (Nov 12, 2002)

*The sad cook.*

The door did indeed lead to the kitchen, a rectangular room about fifteen feet wide and thirty long.  The far end of the chamber was dominated by a massive wood-burning stove; in between, the walls were covered with racks holding ancient pots, pans, knives, and other assorted cooking implements.  A wooden door hung from a single hinge to their left, revealing an empty larder.

Welby sniffed in disappointment at the lack of food but moved into the room anyway, his curiosity getting the better of him.  Grick and Jack moved in behind him, but the others remained in the dining hall to wait.

The halfling neared the stove and knelt to look inside.  As he did so, whoosh!  The flames sprang to life again.  At the same time, the temperature in the room dipped drastically and the three adventurers breath began to mist as it escaped them.  Welby felt the back of his neck creep and ducked when a large pot flew off the nearest rack directly at his head, narrowly missing him.

Jack cursed as a length of chain shot out from the wall and wrapped around his arms, immobilizing them against his sides.  A stream of expletives followed as heavy pans began flying off the shelves and bouncing off his helmet, driving it down over his eyes and blinding him.  

Grick started to go to the dwarf’s aid but was distracted by a meat cleaver that suddenly spun at him.  He ducked out of the way at the last second, grabbing the cleaver from the air and hurling it into the larder.  It bit deep into one of the old wooden shelves and vibrated as it tried to pull itself free.

Welby screamed in terror, the events taking place being too much for the superstitious halfling.  He tried to run for the exit but slipped in a patch of thick reddish liquid that was bubbling up from a crack in the flagstones.  The fluid, which bore a surprising resemblance to fresh blood, was seeping up in a square pattern around one of the floor tiles.  He felt around the stone and found that his fingers could squeeze into the crack, so with a great heave he lifted the stone free, exposing a dark hollow space beneath.

Looking up, the halfling saw Grick dodging a pair of long skewers and Jack stumbling around, a large pot covering his head with a meat tenderizer hammering on it, a chain wrapped around his torso, and a serving fork imbedded in his left shoulder.  A creaking sound came from behind him, and he whirled around just in time to see one of the racks pull free from the wall and crash down toward him.  Welby shrieked again, jumped into the hole, and was plunged into blackness.

He landed on something hard and jagged that cut into his skin and he panicked for a moment, flailing blindly at the darkness.  Finally he recovered his wits long enough to retrieve a torch from his pack and ignite it with his flint and steel.  The flickering light revealed a small round area at the bottom of a five-foot drop.  He had landed upon the yellowed skeleton of a dwarf and it had cut into his exposed flesh in several places.  Before the dwarf a padlocked iron strongbox was set into a small niche in the wall.

Welby pulled a shard of ribcage from his elbow and retrieved the chest.  Unfortunately, he was not skilled with locks nor had he room to swing his axe currently, so he stuffed it into his pack instead.  He started to scramble up the side of the shaft but stopped, gazing back at the sad remains of the dwarf.  Suddenly he had an epiphany.

He dropped back to kneel beside the skeleton and took one of its bony hands in his own.  “Welby know.  Welby take,” he said, lifting the body from the ground.  As he raised it over his head and toward the kitchen images flashed rapidly before his eyes, and Welby loosed a ragged cry as the vision took him.

*****

He was alone in the kitchen when the invaders struck.  They moved through the fortress with amazing celerity, and soon he could hear sounds of battle coming from the dining area.  He had never been a warrior, always preferring the company of his stove and spices, and all of his wars had been waged with grease and oil.

He moved over to his strongbox and packed his most loved possessions away, then lowered it and himself into his secret hiding area and sealed it from within.  Around and above him the din of battle continued for what could have been hours or days; he had no way to keep track of the time in this hole.  He never slept, held awake in paralyzed fear by the bestial roars and agonized screams echoing around him.

Finally the noises abated.  The minutes began to stretch and yet no sound reached his ears except for the sighing whistle of his own breath.  He reached up and tried to push the stone out of the way but it didn’t budge.  Worried now, he braced himself and applied all of his strength  to the task.  Nothing happened, no matter how he strained.

 Panicked now he called “Hello?” with increasing urgency, until his throat was raw and his voice a ragged whisper.  He clawed at the stone with his fingers until gleaming bits of ivory poked through the bloodied stumps.  His knife was in the locked box but he did not have the key with him; he searched himself several times before remembering that he’d left it in the kitchen.  Then his finger bones ground away against the unyielding stone and he had nothing left to do.

Maimed, hungry, and alone, he lay down on the hard floor and waited for death to take him.  Eventually it did, but that had not brought him rest.

*****

Grick was having serious problems.  He had managed to snatch the long skewers from the air and now used them to desperately parry the attacks of a half dozen kitchen knives and other implements.  Seeing that Jack was in even worse trouble, he flung the skewers back at the swarm of flying silverware and tumbled over to the dwarf.  Grick grasped the chain that bound the warrior with both hands and flexed his trunk-like arms, snapping the links and freeing him.

A skewer entered his side then, but Grick ignored the shooting pains radiating from the wound and hurled Jack towards the doorway.  The dwarf crashed into the archway and bounced off, but Quinn was standing ready and pulled him out of the kitchen.  The monk started to follow but halted when he heard Welby’s third cry.  The halfling had shouted earlier when he’d slipped in the reddish fluid oozing from the floor, then again just before the rack came crashing down and he was forced to jump into the hole he’d uncovered.  Now Grick recalled his fallen companion when the third yell welled up from the opening.

The half-orc altered his course suddenly and rolled to the pantry, ripping the hanging door from its remaining hinge and bracing himself behind it.  A number of blows impacted upon the wood a moment later, and he grunted with satisfaction as he beheld a number of glittering knife points sticking through the wood.

He flung the door away and bounded toward the fallen shelves but then just as suddenly as it had begun the activity in the room ceased, the various implements still floating through the air falling with a terrific clatter.  His companion climbed up from the hole looking pale and ashen and presented him with the skeleton of a dwarf.

“Cookie ‘lone.  Cookie ‘fraid.  Take Cookie home,” he proclaimed with wide and haunted eyes.

As Grick took the pitiful burden Welby ran to the stove and looked beneath it.  After a moment he nodded and withdrew a key.

They decided to head back up to their camp.  They were tired and hungry after their day’s explorations, and Stumpwater refused to go onward until the ringing in his ears ceased.  On their way to the surface Welby insisted they revisit the crypts, where he took the skeleton from Grick again and laid it amongst a pile of other dwarven remains.

The halfling seemed pleased.  “Now Cookie have friends,” he muttered, then rubbed his tiny hands together and turned to follow his companions.


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## Capellan (Nov 12, 2002)

Re: the Dwarven Cook / Poltergeist.

One word says it all:

**YOINK**


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## Broccli_Head (Nov 12, 2002)

That's why I like Welby!


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## Lazybones (Nov 13, 2002)

Very cool scene.  The characters are really starting to come into their own (it's interesting to shift back and forth between this and your CotSQ story, and see them as they are later).  Looking forward to more updates.


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## Sniktch (Nov 14, 2002)

*Intermission: Hanging at camp*

Eldred could not stand the confines of the cavern any longer.  He could handle it for short stretches, but he had no reason to remain underground when they weren’t actively exploring.  He excused himself from the company of his new acquaintances and headed for the exit as soon as the lift stopped.  He found Filthy Ike sitting in the supply room whittling a block of wood with a small knife to pass the time.  The half-orc looked up and nodded as the elf approached.

“Good hunting today?” rasped Ike’s gravelly voice.

Eldred was not in the mood for small talk and had but one thing on his mind.  “Where is Blackfoot?” he demanded.

“Ah, him.  Couldn’t keep him penned in here.  He caught a whiff of rabbit or something and took off hours ago.  I reckoned he could look out for himself and let him go.”

Eldred was walking away before the rogue finished speaking.  He ran out of the cave to find the large black wolf waiting for him, sunning itself on a broad, flat rock with its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth.  

“Blackfoot!” he cried, running over and throwing his arms around the great, shaggy beast and burying his face in the sun-warmed fur.  

The wolf responded in kind, knocking the elf to the ground and pouncing on top of him, licking at his face and arms.  They rolled around for several minutes before the elf finally disentangled himself and sat up, scratching behind the wolf’s ears.

“Yeah, I guess you missed me too.  C’mon, we’ve got some time before I need to rejoin the others.”  Together, the elf and wolf sprinted off, racing through the trees on the fresh spring day.  

*****

The Crow tagged along when Welby went on his next rat hunt, irritating the halfling to no end.  It was not that he minded the half-elf’s company, but he was trying to practice the stealth techniques Ike had been teaching him and the clumsy fighter just got in the way.

“Sssshhhh!” he hissed furiously.  “You scare off dinner!”

“I’m sorry, Welby, I really don’t mean to make so much noise.  It’s just that… well, I’ve been trying to think a lot lately, trying to remember something, anything that happened before you found me in that field.”

The barbarian tried to tune out his companion, listening closely for any sounds that would lead him to his next meal.

“This has been a heap of fun, and I love all you guys,” Royston prattled on, “but I just get the feeling that there’s something really important I should be taking care of, and I don’t know what it is!  Do you understand?” 

The halfling grunted, intent upon a rustling noise emanating from a pile of refuse at the end of the hallway.  Suddenly he sprang forward, grasping a foot-long crypt rat by its long tail and dashing its brains out on the floor before it could react.  He turned and offered the rodent to his friend, who paled and shook his head emphatically.  Shrugging, Welby bit a chunk of flesh from his kill and started to chew, occasionally pausing to pull a bothersome patch of fur from his mouth.

The Crow tried to ignore the smacking sounds and continued speaking.  “I feel like somehow I’m letting a lot of people down.  I somehow know that I have this enormous responsibility I should be focused on, but nothing makes sense anymore!  It’s like I was born in a snowy field with the body of an adult and fully clothed two months ago, as far as I’m concerned.  What do you think?”

“Dunno, Crow.  That rough,” Welby stopped to consider his friend’s predicament.  It occurred to him that perhaps his new friend might have some answers; after all, he was a wizard.  Maybe he could just magic the half-elf’s memories back.  “Talk to Arty, maybe he help.”

The Crow nodded and fell silent as the halfling ran off in pursuit of another tasty morsel that skittered past them.  Maybe he was correct; despite the recent revelation of Artimas’ necromantic activities he had grown to trust and value the wizard’s wisdom and keen wit.  He decided to broach the subject the next time the opportunity presented itself, then trotted off after his friend.

*****

It is time, thought the necromancer, all of the signs are perfect.  Rising, he excused himself from the others’ presence and headed back to the lift.  If he stayed he would only be embroiled in a long-winded religious debate he could not hope to win in the present company, and he had more important things to take care of.

The lift jerked to a stop on the bottom floor and he headed to the room with the secret door.  He paused by the circle in the floor and poured a cup of water into it, then waited patiently for the door mechanism to activate and open the way to the depths of Duernfast.  Next, he propped the door open with several heavy stones and began his preparations.

First he placed two small braziers on either side of the doorway and placed small blocks of incense in each.  With a cantrip he ignited them, and the thick, perfumed smoke wafted from the braziers and sank down the steps.  Next, he withdrew a pouch of powdered chalk and sprinkled it in a circle on the floor, taking a seated position in the center.  He fell into a trance then, his lips murmuring arcane syllables as his mind reached outward.

Far below something heard his mental call and took flight.  The furry black form winged its way through caverns unseen by man or dwarf for millennia and made its way gradually toward the surface.  Soon it detected a sickly sweet smell and knew that it was close to its goal.  It followed the cloying scent through a wide crack in the earth and then up a steep flight of stairs and reached its destination.

Artimas’ eyes flew open as the new presence entered the chamber.  He held his arm out and the creature landed on the offered perch.  I am here, master, he heard it speak inside his mind.

“Good, Nibbler, good,” he replied, stroking the small bat.  “I have a feeling we have much work before us.”

*****

Back at camp, Grick consumed his meal silently while he listened to the dwarves argue.

“I don’ like it, and I don’ understand why you’d take his side o’er mine,” Jack grumbled as he tapped a fresh cask of ale.

“Can’t you see that I’m not taking sides?” Quinn responded.  “I am not pleased with Artimas’ unsavory habits, either, but he has not shown himself to be our enemy.  What he has proven thus far is that he is a valuable and loyal ally, and so I think we should be more tolerant of our differences until he shows us a reason not to be.”

“I’m no’ sure I c’n take it.  Some o’ his actions fly in the face o’ everythin I believe in.  Someday he’s gonna push me too far an’ I’m gonna wring his scrawny neck.  What do we need him for, anyways?”

“Jack, I’m sorry to have to say this, but with the passing of Eli Artimas is the only one with any understanding of the arcane arts.  I’m afraid that is something we’ll have need of very badly in the days to come.”

Jack's expression grew pained at the mention of his fallen friend.  He started to reply heatedly, “Bah.  The day I need a wizard’s help – “

Quinn cut him off.  “Listen, we are together for a reason.  Remember the dreams I told you of?  Everything has a purpose, and yes, I’m afraid Artimas is included in that statement.  Now you have to try to control your temper; how are we going to survive if we constantly fight amongst ourselves?”

She rose and walked over, laying a hand on the angry dwarf’s shoulder.  “Trust me, Jack, I am on your side.  Rest assured that if anything serious ever happens I will support you fully.  But there is no good reason for this constant bickering, and I will not aid you to win petty disagreements with our fellow travelers.”

Jack sighed.  “I s’pose yer right, Quinn,” he said.  “I’ll do me best to control meself better next time.”

They fell silent and went to grab bowls of the thick stew Quinn had prepared earlier, only to find that the monk had finished off the last helping while they talked.  Grick smiled weakly and mumbled, “Sorry,” then ran quickly from the room to escape retribution.  The dwarves watched the retreating half-orc with outraged expressions until they caught a glimpse of one another, then sat down and laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks.

*****

That night Welby unlocked the iron box from the kitchen with the key he'd recovered.  Inside were the most treasured possessions of the long dead dwarven cook: a chef's knife that had been lovingly crafted from mithril and had a handle decorated with carvings of a great dwarven feast, a small rack filled with bottles of rare and exotic herbs and spices, and an aging yellow tome titled "Secrets of the Dwarven Chefs."

Welby transferred all the items from the box to his backpack, crying silently with the thought that the fallen dwarf had given his life trying to protect them.

(EDIT:  Argh!  I forgot all about this last scene when I posted earlier.  Sorry for the oversight.)


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## Krellic (Nov 14, 2002)

Good characters, good roleplaying, good story....


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## Sniktch (Nov 15, 2002)

*The Big Chicken, or Welby gets stoned*

The next day they returned to their exploration. This time the Royston Crow complained about feeling poorly and remained behind, but Filthy Ike was much better and rejoined the party.  The companions proceeded down until they came to the room where they had faced the undead bear, this time selecting the doorway on their left.

It led to a long hallway with doors on either side of the passage spaced about every thirty feet down its entire length.  They moved up to the first two doors and halted while Ike examined them.

“Seems clear to me – neither of these doors have been opened in years.  There’s some writing here but I can’t make out what it says.  I think it’s in Dwarven.”

Jack leaned down and examined first one door, and then the other.  “Says ‘Rocksteady’ an’ ‘Hammerhelm.’  I’d guess that these’re the old clan halls.”

They opened the door to what once had been the Rocksteady residence.  Inside they found a small area consisting of a den with a fireplace, bedroom, privy, small dining area, and smaller kitchen.  It was thoroughly ransacked, and they were about to give up hope of finding anything useful when Ike called out that he’d found a loose stone in the hearth.  Inside they found a small coffer containing four bars of solid mithral, which they let Ike hang onto for safekeeping.

Heartened by the find, they proceeded to search the clan halls of the Hammerhelms, the Ironfists, and the Undermounts, but found nothing else of interest.  They moved up the hall and stopped between two doors labeled ‘Silveraxe’ and ‘Ironhammer.’  They decided to explore the Silveraxes’ home first and immediately knew something was amiss by the rank stench that greeted them upon opening the door.  The odor seemed to originate from the bedroom area, the door to which was partially open.

The bedroom door flew fully open when Jack and Welby stepped into the abode and three ghoulish forms loped out and sprang to attack.  The horrible fetor washed over them even more strongly as the creatures approached and Ike and Eldred were overcome with nausea and fell to their knees retching and gasping for fresh air.  Artimas gave a strangled cry of “Ghast!” before he too was overpowered by the smell and retreated from the area gagging.

Jack squared off against the first undead and chopped it down as soon as it came within reach.  The second creature launched itself over the falling corpse and slammed into the dwarf, biting and raking with its claws.  Jack felt the ice of paralysis forming in his blood and fought against it, and this time his dwarven constitution prevailed and he remained standing.

The third beast went around the angry dwarf and tore into Grick, but the half-orc ignored the wounds he received and snapped his elbow into his foe’s face.  The ghoul’s head snapped back and Grick followed with a snap kick that crushed its abdomen and dropped it twitching to the floor.

Meanwhile, Welby and Quinn went to Jack’s aid against the last remaining undead.  From the miasma surrounding it, they guessed this beast to be the ghast.  Jack was having trouble landing a solid blow on the agile monster, while his face and forearms were now covered with angry red lacerations.  Quinn aimed a blow at its head but it ducked and knocked her sprawling back toward the doorway, but Welby had more success, dropping into a crouch at the last moment and hacking into the back of its leg just above the knee.

The ghast was knocked off balance for just a moment, but it was all the opening Jack needed.  “For Clangeddin!” he cried and smashed the blade of his axe into the creature’s face, ending the battle.

They searched, but the abode held nothing else of interest or value save the ghast’s treasure, a large mound of gnawed bones.  The party sealed off the room in disgust and moved to the next door.

Welby pushed the door open and moved inside.  The entry area was empty save for the wreckage of furniture and accumulated debris of centuries of neglect.  Welby entered, kicking a pile of loose stone across the floor.  Something struck him as odd about the stone he’d just kicked, and he picked it up to examine it more closely.  It was a rat!  A tiny sculpture of a cave rat, the attention to detail breathtakingly realistic.  Peering at the floor more closely, he saw that a myriad of tiny statues was scattered on the floor – rats, bats, lizards, and even a couple of large spiders.

Puzzled, the halfling passed the model back to his friends to examine and stepped further into the room.  Hearing a noise from further back in the abode, probably the bedroom area, he readied his axe and crept slowly forward.  As he neared the next room of the clan hall a curious creature stepped into view.  It resembled a rooster, except that it stood nearly three feet tall and had a long, reptilian tail.

Welby started to drool immediately.  “BIG CHICKEN!” he yelled, raising his axe and rushing forward.

Jack saw the target of the halfling’s attention and shouted, “Welby, no!” but it was too late.  The barbarian reached his target and gashed its side with a vicious swing of his axe.  The ‘big chicken’ responded by squawking raucously and pecking the halfling right on the nose with its large curved beak.

Welby stopped as a curious sensation overcame him.  He tried to lift his feet but they felt leaden and too heavy to move.  He looked down at his arms and saw them changing before his eyes to a gray stony color.  He found himself unable to move at all now and let out a scream of fright.

“Nooooooooo-*-,” the halfling’s cry was cut off as the transformation ended, leaving him cold, unmoving stone.


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## Broccli_Head (Nov 15, 2002)

Man! Welby always gets jacked!


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## Sniktch (Nov 15, 2002)

You're telling me, although honestly I think this is the last really bad thing that happens to him for awhile.  In the player's defence, this time it was good RP that got him into trouble - he knew full well that he was facing a cockatrice but Welby wouldn't have.  The halfling just saw the meal of his life and ran in.
EDIT:  I suppose it would help if his player could ever roll above a '5' on a saving throw.


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## Sniktch (Nov 15, 2002)

*The Big Chicken, pt. 2*

“Welby!!” Jack screamed, then snarled angrily, “Voltare!”

Grick was already past the dwarf and leaped over the newly formed statue, locking both of his fists together and bringing them down hard on the side of the cockatrice’s head.  The monster screeched in pain and tried to flutter away from the monk, whipping him with its tail in the process.  The sturdy half-orc resisted the attack easily and chased after the creature.

Artimas waited until he had a clear line of sight and then fired a ray of negative energy at the bird, scoring a hit and causing the skin to rot and fall away from the wound.  Jack caught up to it then and beheaded it with a single swipe of his axe.  The cockatrice fell to the floor and raced around for a minute with a fountain of blood spraying from the gaping wound before it finally collapsing and lying still.

Ike moved in and searched the area while the others regarded the still form of the halfling mournfully.  “What’re we gonna do ‘bout this?” he heard Jack ask, but no one answered.  Ike pulled the privy door open and made a surprising discovery.

“Uh, guys, I don’t think Welby is the cockatrice’s first victim,” he called over his shoulder.

Seated on the privy, with pants around his ankles, arms flung before him protectively, and an expression of shock etched onto his features, sat the stone form of a young dwarf.  Despite the situation, Ike couldn’t help but shake his head in amusement.  “Poor guy, I wonder if he got to finish his business before this happened.  By Gruumsh, what an embarrassing way to go.”

With some help from Grick and Jack, he managed to wrest the rocky dwarf from his perch and carried him out into the main room.  They set the statue beside Welby and then discussed what to do next.

“We have to head back and see what we can do for them,” Quinn stated brokenly.  “Oh, how are we going to tell the Crow?”

“We can’t do anything for them,” Artimas replied coldly.  “The magic needed to break such an enchantment is beyond any of our abilities.  Hopefully someone in Travensburg will be able to help, but for now I say we continue.”

Eldred was shocked by the mage’s callousness.  “How can you say that?  He is your friend.  Do you want us to just leave him here?”

“He will probably be as safe here as anywhere else.  Not much you can do to stone,” the necromancer retorted.  “Besides, we only have four more doors to explore in this section of the dungeons.  Makes sense to finish checking this area so we don’t have to come back.  As soon as we’re done, then we’ll carry the statues back to town and pray someone can undo this.”

His logic made a certain amount of sense, and they decided that Artimas presented the most practical course of action.  Grick joined Jack in the front rank as they moved to the next two doors, the ‘Blackstone’ and ‘Rockhand’ residences.  The ‘Blackstone’ clan hall proved to be deserted, but the old ‘Rockhand’ home was filled with thick layers of webbing.  Jack and Grick kept a close eye on the ceiling as they crossed the threshold, and thus were not surprised when the pair of man-sized spiders dropped from the roof and attacked.  

The pair made short work of the over-sized arachnids, receiving not a scratch in the ensuing scuffle.  Grick asked Artimas to pass him the torch and set fire to the webs, noting several dog-sized spiders that scurried up the chimney before the flames spread.  When the blaze died down, he informed the others of what he’d witnessed and volunteered to give chase.

He stepped into the hearth and gazed up the long shaft to the surface.  A thick clump of debris or webbing blocked his sight about forty feet from the opening.  Grick sighed and flexed his enormous arms before starting the ascent.  Several feet up he came to a carved niche in the wall containing a small chest… and the spiders.  They leaped upon him, fangs dripping poison, and he gave a cry of alarm and dropped back down to the floor.

Ike, standing next to the fireplace, saw the monk come crashing down covered with half a dozen large hairy forms.  At least one had been crushed in the fall but the other vermin swarmed over Grick, biting him repeatedly as he struggled and thrashed in pain.  Artimas barked a command word and fired a silvery bolt that killed one of the insects while Ike slapped one of the monk’s shoulder and crushed it before it could scamper away.  Grick rolled over and squashed another beneath him, at the same time pulling the last spider free and crushing it between his hands. 

The monk seemed to be alright after his ordeal, but he was left feeling weak and dizzy from the multiple bites.  Quinn gave him a vial of antitoxin to drink to combat the effects of the toxins in his blood, while Ike took his place in the chimney and started to climb.  He stopped at the alcove and retrieved the chest, dropping it to the floor before continuing his ascent.  He continued upward until he reached the blocked area and found it to be a desiccated human skeleton lodged in a nest of webs, still wearing a suit of fine studded leather armor in remarkable condition.

Ike slapped several small spiders away and cut the corpse free, carrying it on his shoulders back to the ground.  The others marveled at the superb condition of the armor and Jack chanted an orison and confirmed that it was enchanted.  Ike claimed it for his own and changed out of his ragged old leathers, amazed by how the new suit changed its shape and expanded to fit him perfectly.

The chest contained two small rubies and four nuggets of gold, but it was the last treasure they'd uncover in this section of Duernfast.  The last two doors held nothing of interest except for a nest of large centipedes that they quickly destroyed.  Satisfied that they had now explored this entire wing of the dungeon, they collected their two heavy burdens and headed back for the surface.

Quinn had accurately predicted the Crow’s reaction to his friend’s condition.  The half-elf broke down when he saw the small statue, embracing it and sobbing, “My friend, I’m so sorry.  I should never have stayed behind – I should have been there to watch your back.”

“There, there, boy, wouldna been nothin ya coulda done.  See, we all knowed it were a ‘trice when we seen it but Welby.  He jes’ seen a dream come true – the biggest chicken i’ the world.” Jack consoled the grieving warrior as best as he could.

It took about an hour for Royston to recover sufficiently to make the trek back to town.  In the meantime, the others fashioned two makeshift sleds out of old crates to make hauling the statues easier.  The trip took about three times as long as normal, and it was past midnight by the time they staggered into the Foaming Mug and informed Ned that they’d be spending the night.  None save Artimas rested easily that night, too worried about the halfling to sleep.  They all hoped that in the morning they’d find someone capable of returning their companion to his normal state.


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## Sniktch (Nov 21, 2002)

*Vacation*

Well, I go on vacation tomorrow and I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to update this thread while I'm away.  I'll do my best to get on a couple of times while I'm gone but let me give it a BUMP to the top just in case I can't.  At least I'm caught up on CotSQ.


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## Sniktch (Dec 4, 2002)

*Welby saved!*

Brother Duncan Rolwit was busy in the garden when the adventurers arrived.  It was a beautiful spring day, one of those rare gems when the chill breath of winter still rode the wind but the sun shone clear and bright.  A perfect day for gardening, one of the head priest’s favorite pastimes.  

“Brother Rolwit, Brother Rolwit!” he was interrupted in his work by the call of Brother Montone, one of the three acolytes who served under him at the chapel.  He pulled his gloves off and ran a chubby hand through his thinning hair before answering.

“Over here, Brother Montone,” he replied, thinking what now?  

The youth raced over to stand over him, appearing very anxious about something.  “Uh, visitors to see you.  Its them, you know, the heroes from the wagon.”

Duncan’s gloves slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers.  Oh, no, he trembled inwardly, not them!  Not that nasty little savage.  He could still remember his last run-in with the group of travelers clearly; how the halfling showed up one day, banging on the door and growling and menacing him with that axe until he had lifted the curse the little one was under.  The barbarian’s companions had brought him back later and forced him to apologize for his behavior and pay for the healing, but the damage had been done.  He did not like that halfling and he could not help but feel intimidated in the feral warrior’s presence.

“Brother Rolwit?” Brother Montone still stood over him, an expression of concern on his face.

“Yes, Brother,” Duncan rose with a sigh and motioned for the acolyte to lead the way.  “Take me to our guests and we will see what aid they require.”  He fingered his holy symbol nervously as he followed his subordinate back indoors.

The strangers waited for him in the chapel, and they seemed to have increased in number, another dwarf and half-orc having joined the company.  They wore grim expressions and were gathered in a cluster around a pair of statues, a detailed carving of a dwarven youth and…

The priest was forced to stifle a chuckle of relief when he beheld the frozen form of Welby Hilltopple.  So the barbarian had gotten into trouble again, but this time he couldn’t come waving his axe around and threatening Duncan with dismemberment and worse.

“Good abbot,” one of the dwarves had stepped forward, a female he would guess by the voice and figure, although it was far from obvious from the face and braided whiskers.  This one was a priest too, he guessed by the silver symbol of Dumathoin hanging about her neck.  “Our companion Welby has unfortunately fallen afoul of a cockatrice and needs your aid,” the dwarf continued speaking.  “After defeating the beast, we also discovered one of its previous victims in its lair, and now we must beseech you to restore these two to their natural condition, if it is at all within your power.”

Duncan mentally chastised himself for the joy he felt, knowing that his thoughts were not proper but unable to keep them from flooding his mind.  He spread his hands and shook his head dolefully, apologizing, “I am sorry, but the curse of stone is beyond my poor abilities to lift.  I believe the closest temples that would house priests of such power are located in Ravensdale.”

Filthy Ike jumped in at the mention of his last place of living.  “Ravensdale?  Surely we can find help without going there.”

“Yes,” Artimas concurred, “that town is a mess right now and under the complete martial law of the Crusaders.  We would be better off journeying to Greystone, even though the capital is twice the distance.  Are you sure you can do nothing, good sir?”

“Alas, I am but a poor country friar.  It is rare to find someone with the ability to properly perform such a difficult ritual outside of the city walls.  Believe me, if there was anything I could do –“

The younger priest, Brother Montone, cut him off.  “Brother, what of the scrolls?” the acolyte whispered to his superior, although several of the companions overheard.

“Yeah, brother, what of the scrolls?” Jack’s gravelly voice held menacing undertones.

“Um, yes, well, there is that,” Brother Rolwit shot his subordinate a venomous stare as he explained.  “What Brother Montone refers to are the last works of the greatest scribe of our order, Saint Markham.  The saint retired to Travensburg in his dotage and spent the remaining years of his life building up a large stockpile of magical scrolls so that the villagers could continue to benefit from his good works even after he departed the earthly realms.  The store has been greatly depleted over the centuries, but it is possible that we may find what you need among what remains.

“I’m sure Brother Montone would be good enough to entertain you while I go the library and peruse its contents.”

The rotund priest took his leave, abandoning the young acolyte to the group of fierce strangers.  He did not notice the furry black form of the bat that flapped lazily after him in the shadowed recesses of the ceiling.  Entering the library, Duncan immediately proceeded to a specific bookshelf and flipped a switch that caused a hidden panel to swing outwards.  Within the exposed alcove were stacks and stacks of old scroll tubes, each carefully labeled with an identifying tag.

He quickly located the two he needed but paused, reluctant to return to the adventurers’ presence.  While he stalled, the tiny bat silently exited the room and flew back to the chapel to rejoin its master.  Finally, Duncan gathered his courage and wits and slowly meandered back to his visitors.

“So you’ve found what we require?” the elderly, scholarly-looking gentleman demanded as soon as he re-entered.  “The scrolls you’ve brought back will aid these two?”

“Y-y-yes,” he stammered, startled by the man’s insight.  “I have found two scrolls that should be able to break the enchantments.  Now, all that is needed is to discuss a suitable donation to the church.  As you well know, I am not authorized to dispense aid or part with Saint Markham’s work without the proper compensation.”

Negotiations followed and in the end the group was able to procure both scrolls, although it cost them nearly all of their accumulated wealth thus far.  As Ike and Artimas counted out the coins and handed them to the young Brother Montone, Duncan handed the two aged scraps of parchment to the dwarven priestess and stood back, waiting.  Quinn studied the papers for a long time and then indicated that she believed she would be able to successfully unlock the prayers contained within and restore the halfling and dwarf.

Everyone watched with held breath as Quinn stepped before the frozen form of Welby and began intoning the words from the scroll, her hands tracing mystical symbols in the air.  When she finished the parchment burst into flames and fell to the floor, rapidly consuming itself until only a faint trace of ash remained.  Nothing happened for a moment, and then the halfling’s skin changed back to its normal, pinkish hue and he fell back, roaring, “No! No!  Bad chicken, bad!”

The Crow rushed forward and embraced the struggling figure in a crushing bear hug.  “Welby, you’re back!”

“Let go me.  Can’t breathe!” The halfling managed to squirm free and repeatedly insisted that he was alright as the other members of the party took turns fussing over the restored warrior.  At last they calmed down and then turned to the second statue, again forgetting to breathe as Quinn stepped towards it and began reading from the second scroll.

As she completed the incantation cracks formed and spread across the surface of the stone figure, then the outer layer of stone crumbled away to expose a young, wary dwarf standing in the center of the room, kneading his arms and legs as if he could not believe that they were indeed flesh again.  Shocked that it had actually worked, no one spoke for long minutes, and the silence was eventually broken by the dwarf when he finished his self-inspection and noticed their presence for the first time.

“Ho, burr, oim a-roit glad t’bay meself agin.  Oi thankee fer rescoon me.”  The squat figure extended a hand and continued, “Fredegar Ir’n’ammer, atcher service.  Oo’re yew?”


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## Hoju (Dec 14, 2002)

> BIG CHICKEN!




ROTHLMAO...

Some more praise for Sniktch, I've never read any of the story hours before and popped in to see how someone is running COTHSP and man I'm hooked, keep up the good work and am looking forward to more exploits.

PS. Welby has to be my fav PC, lots of smiles from him and a couple of laugh out louds.


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## Sniktch (Dec 14, 2002)

*Thanks!*

Thanks a lot, Hoju, I'm pleased that I could hook you.  I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to update this thread lately but between illness, CotSQ, and Fred's accent I've fallen behind.  CotSQ is just about up to date now, so look for the further early exploits of the group soon.


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## Dungannon (Jan 10, 2003)

Good lord, man.  This was almost down to Page 3!  Might I suggest an update before people forget about us?


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## Stumpwater Jack (Jan 11, 2003)

*Page 3*

well you might be able too if you can get him out of the Hivemind for more then 5 mins


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## Dungannon (Jan 12, 2003)

*Re: Page 3*



			
				Stumpwater Jack said:
			
		

> *well you might be able too if you can get him out of the Hivemind for more then 5 mins  *




I keep trying, but his implants always seem to override my hypnotic suggestions.


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## beargrzlr (Jan 24, 2003)

*Bump*

UPDATE THIS THREAD!!!!!!!!


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## Dungannon (Jan 24, 2003)

*Re: Bump*



			
				beargrzlr said:
			
		

> *UPDATE THIS THREAD!!!!!!!!  *



Hey, I can only bug him about it at work, it's up to you guys to keep on him when he's at home.


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## Sniktch (Feb 1, 2003)

*Fredegar*

So sorry this update has taken me so long to write; I've just taken on too many things at once and something had to suffer for it.  Unfortunately, this story hour seems to have taken the brunt of my lack of time.  Anyway, better late than never - here it is and I'll posts more as fast as I can get it typed:

*****

The companions simply stared at the strange dwarf for a moment in stunned silence.  Most of them had not really understood the words he’d just uttered and were still puzzling them over in their heads.  Jack stepped forward first, somewhat familiar with the accent.

“Name’s Stumpwater Jack, but ya can call me just Jack if’n ya like.  These’re me friends in arms.  We found ya in Duernfast durin’ our explorations, an’ I couldna in good faith leave a fellow dwarf in such a condition.”

“Oi be much obloiged to ‘ee then.  Wot year izzit? ‘Ow long ‘ave I bin loike ‘at?”

“Mmm, couldna tell ya.  But the year is 984, if’n that tells ya anythin.  I notice ya said yer name is Ironhammer, an’ if’n I’m not mistaken that were the name on the door of the clanhome we were checkin.  Are ya really from before the Fall?”

“Oh, hurr, hurr, no.  Moi clan ‘ailed fro’ Doornfast once, but Oi be fro’ a groop no’ unloike yer owen.  Oi ‘eaded there in noine-sitty-too to foind me roots, an’, hurr, yoo seen wot ‘appened.”  The dwarf shrugged.  “Moit as well keep at it, if yoo’ll take me.”

Welby tugged at Artimas’ robes and the mage looked down at him.  “What he say?” the halfling asked.

“Wish I knew.  I think he’s speaking Umbrian but the accent is very thick.  Jack and Quinn seem to understand him, so it’s probably a dwarf thing.”

Jack glared at the mage.  “We’re standin right here, y’know,” he growled.  “This here’s Fred, wants ta join the group.  I say we let ‘im.”  Jack stepped back and glowered at the scholar.

Artimas waved his arms in a non-committal manner.  “Suits me fine if no one else objects.”  No one else did, and Fredegar was added to the ranks of the companions.

*****

The next day at breakfast the companions were gathered around the largest table in the Foaming Mug when a female halfling strolled into the inn.  She was dressed in traveling leathers and wore a long dagger on her belt, but otherwise she appeared to be a dainty and pretty little thing.

She approached the bar and spoke quietly with Ned for several minutes, then scanned the rest of the room and seemed to notice the companions for the first time, her eyes coming to rest on Welby.  The barbarian was currently seated in front of an enormous mound of pancakes that he was trying to shovel down his throat as fast as possible.  Smiling, she nodded and skipped lightly over to stand beside him, waiting for him to come up for air and then sticking her hand in front of his face.

“Hi!  I’m Anemone, and its nice to meet you, good looking.  I just got here from Ravensdale, stupid Crusaders chased me outta town, but hey!  At least I got away, right?”  She paused and waited but none of the party members acknowledged her presence, particularly the bald halfling, who stared at the hand in his face (and between him and his plate of food) with an expression of mingled bemusement and mounting anger.

Anemone shrugged and continued, “So, any of you come from Ravensdale, too?  Terrible what’s happening there, just awful.  Used to be such a fun town, but now its just dull.

“Say, that looks good.  Mind if I share with you, big guy?” the pretty halfling asked teasingly and reached towards Welby’s plate. 

The effect on the warrior was frightening.  As her hand approached his meal a low feral growl erupted from his throat, freezing Anemone in her tracks.  She stared at Welby uncertainly, perhaps expecting him to be joking, but he growled again and grabbed his axe in a white-knuckled grip.

“Don’t touch food,” he managed to voice around his mounting rage.

She stepped back, alarm showing in her large hazel eyes.  “But I...  I didn’t mean...”

“Don’t touch food!  My food!” Welby shouted, standing and raising his axe.  His body was held taut with tension and his small muscles stood out like knotted cords of rope.

The female continued to shuffle away from him, the fear growing on her features.  “You big bully, how could you?  I have friends to you know, and when they get to town you’ll be sorry, you will.  They’ll teach you how to treat a lady.”  She spit out the last few words and spun on her heels, racing for the open door and disappearing into the daylight.

The Crow could contain himself no longer and started laughing uproariously, upsetting his beer.  “Haha, now that’ll teach her!  Never come between Welby and a meal!”

The companions shared a hearty laugh over the incident, Welby calm again now that his plate wasn’t being threatened.  When they had all finished they rose and went upstairs to pack their supplies.  By midday they were on their way back to Duernfast, looking forward to the adventures that lay ahead.


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## Dungannon (Feb 1, 2003)

*Re: Fredegar*



			
				Sniktch said:
			
		

> *Anemone shrugged and continued, “So, any of you come from Ravensdale, too?  Terrible what’s happening there, just awful.  Used to be such a fun town, but now its just dull."*



Tricky li'l wench.  Such an obvious ploy to try and find refugees from the Ravensdale Thieves' Guild.  Ol' Ike was too smart for her, though, kept his mouth shut.


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## Dungannon (Apr 26, 2003)

Just making sure this thread doesn't get lost.


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## DragonOfIntellect (Mar 27, 2004)

This is a very, very good story.  Please continue, if at all possible.


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## Sniktch (Mar 27, 2004)

Flattery will get you everywhere, DragonofIntellect - and thank you for digging this old thread up!   It certainly is possible to continue, though I can't promise anything resembling regular updates, especially with two other Story Hours to work on.  But I'll set a goal of trying to move forward at least one update a month at the very minimum.

Seeing this thread on the first page again gave me a little inspiration, and I typed up a post to get it moving again.  I've basically glossed over the return trip to the mines, as looking at my notes the fights were fairly repetitive encounters with rats, spiders, scorpions, and darkmantles.  I certainly don't recall this being a very exciting leg of the adventure, and not very profitable either, though Welby did find a magic backpack on an old corpse buried beneath some rubble.  Anyway, without further delay, here's what happened next:

*****

They descended the broad steps they had found before and entered the cursed mines of Duernfast.  The large entry chamber had not been disturbed by man or dwarf in many long years, and was strewn with aging carts and wheelbarrows, rusting mining equipment, and broken rock from the crumbling walls.  Three open tunnels, roughly hewn from the rock, led out of the area and into the mines.  Jack entered the area carefully, motioning for the others to hold back as his eyes scanned the stonework.  Finally, he nodded, satisfied; despite the years of neglect, the room was not in danger of immediate collapse.  He waved the others to enter, turning to them with a smug grin.

"Now that's dwarven workmanship for ya," he stated, planting his hands on his hips.  But he saw Welby's eyes grow wide with alarm and turned just in time to see several scorpions grown to more than a foot in size scuttling from beneath the debris and skittering across the floor in their direction.

The battle was brief and one-sided.  The adventurers outnumbered the insects and worked in pairs to kill them as they came in - one concentrating on keeping the poisonous stingers at bay while the other focused on finishing the beast.  

"Well, that was simple," Jack grunted, cleaning the ichor from his blade.

"Let us hope that is the worst we have to face in the mines.  Though I fear far worse than vermin lurks in the darkness," predicted Artemis.

"Which way?" Welby stamped his feet, impatient  to get on with the exploration.

"Reckon any's as good as t'other," Jack pointed to the western most tunnel, the closest to where they stood, and they filed through the chamber to the exit.  The tunnels were all rough, unfinished, but generally had smooth floors that were at least wide enough to allow an orecart passage.  Artemis' fears proved unfounded however, as the mines proved to be inhabited primarily by rats, bats, more vermin, and small scavengers that were wary of attacking such a large group.  In less than an hour, they had explored the current level and stood in a small room containing a shaft that led deeper into the mines.

The shaft had been sealed with a sturdy iron grate, silver runes engraved into every inch of the thick bars.  A deathly chill emanated from the opening.  The companions gathered around the hole and peered through at the room below.  The Crow lit a torch and tossed it down, illuminating another small chamber with several tunnels branching out into the darkness.  There was movement at one of the openings; the cold grew stronger and more intense, the torch sputtered and died, and a thing of darkness inched into the room, standing out as a patch of black purer than the unlit depths, paralyzing the onlookers with terror.

There was a hiss as Artimas inhaled sharply.  "Arawn preserve us," he breathed.

"What in the name of Dumathoin is that thing?" asked Quinn.

"The Course o' the Moines - Oi ne'er b'leev'd," wailed Fredegar.  "Flee!"  

But fear held them, and their legs seemed frozen to the floor.  Then the thing reached up and pressed against the grate - the silver runes flared to life, shining light through the chamber, a terrible cry erupted from the monster, and the companions were suddenly in control of their limbs again, running and stumbling headlong to the mine entrance, up the stairs, not stopping until they had exited Duernfast again, where they collapsed gasping into the grass and lay until the terror subsided.

*****

An unpleasant surprise awaited them upon their return to Travensburg.  A sizeable group of men-at-arms stood in the Foaming Mug, engaged in animated conversation with an agitated Ned Nebbly.  As the group stumbled wearily into the bar, a pixie-like voice exclaimed, "There, thats them!  The ones that threatened me!"  

It was the halfling girl Anemone.  The men turned, revealing tabards emblazoned with crimson and gold crosses.  Ike gasped; the Crusaders had arrived in Travensburg.

Next: Bar fight!


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## Dungannon (Mar 27, 2004)

Ooooh, Ike _hate_ Crusaders!  More importantly, Crusaders hate Ike!  Now if I can only remember what we did next...


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## DragonOfIntellect (Mar 27, 2004)

Well, I am glad you still have more of this story to tell.  The writing is excellent, and the characters are fascinating.  So far Ike and Jack are my favorites.  By the way, I was meaning to ask, if the dogma of Arawn is correct, and souls of the departed are not affected by necromantic spells, why would those spells still have the [Evil] tag in the game?


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## Sniktch (Apr 22, 2004)

Er, hmmm.  To be honest, we never really thought about it - we just used the spells the way they were listed in the PHB...

*****

Upon seeing the halfling girl again, Welby went berserk.  “You die now, food-thief!” he roared, hefting his axe and charging Anenome.

“Eeeek!” she squealed and dove beneath a nearby table and started scrambling across the floor.  Welby changed directions but one of the Crusaders stepped in his path, sword drawn, and the battle for Ned’s bar was joined.  Unthinkingly, the barbarian shoved forward with his axe, crushing the man’s groin with the heavy steel head.  He groaned and doubled over, and Welby hacked his left leg off just above the knee, then ran past the falling, screaming man, smashed a table that was in his way, and pursued the fleeing Anemone with single-minded murderous intent.

Ned yelled, “No! No!  My bar, my poor bar!” and ducked down out of sight, occasionally shrieking in dismay at a loud crash or the sound of glass breaking.  By the bar a stout man dressed in wizard’s robes began waving his hands in arcane gestures and spouting the words to a spell, but Ike whipped out a dagger and flung it at him, and the mage’s spell died in a wet gurgle as the blade sunk in to his throat.

Grick jumped up and tumbled over a table, knocking a mug into the air and just barely deflecting a sword swipe aimed at his head.  He fell into a crouch on the other side facing a young female in simple white robes.  “Ah, interesting – a half-orc trained in the dwarven martial arts,” she said.  “However, my kung fu is superior to yours, as you will see.”  She cracked her knuckles and smiled in anticipation.  The half-orc faked a punch and then spun low, throwing out his leg and attempting to sweep his opponent from her feet.  She easily hopped over the ill-timed blow and landed an elbow to the side of Grick’s head.  Bright flashes of pain obscured his vision and the monk fell to his knees, shaking his head to clear his senses.

Above him the woman raised her hand for a brutal, finishing chop.  “Told you,” she gloated, then suddenly there was a crunch and her eyes rolled up in her head, her knees became rubbery, and she collapsed at Grick’s feet.

Behind her, Quinn regarded the clumps of hair and scalp stuck to her weapon.  “My mace is stronger than your kung-fu,” she quipped, then offered her friend a hand and helped him back to his feet.

In the middle of the tavern, Jack, Fred, Ike, the Crow, and Artimas battled back-to-back as the Crusaders surrounded them.  A couple had already met their end on the edge of Jack’s axe and the floor grew slippery from spilled blood and entrails.  The heroes also bled from several shallow cuts but the odds were rapidly tilting in their favor.

Then Artimas found himself face to face with the man who seemed to be their leader, a tall, stern looking individual with heavy sideburns and a prominently displayed holy symbol of Nuadha, god of justice.  A glimmer of recognition flickered in the man’s eyes, “And what do we have here?  Foul necromancer, I had hoped our paths would cross again.  You eluded me in Ravensdale; you will not escape me here!”

“Zealot,” sneered Artimas.  “You talk too much.”  He opened his mouth again and uttered a string of obscure syllables.  His opponent took advantage of the opening and hammered the wizard in the ribs with his mace, but Artimas gritted his teeth against the pain and kept speaking, his concentration never wavering.  As he completed the spell he reached forward and touched the man.  The Crusader was seized in the grips of a magical paralysis and froze in mid-swing, an expression of righteous fury frozen on his face.  He also began to give off a rank foetor like an open grave, and his companions wavered and stumbled back.  “Much better,” sniffed the wizard as he began hammering the man’s skull in with his walking stick.

The death of their leader took the fight out of the remaining Crusaders, who broke ranks and ran for the door.  Ike knocked one down with his mace as they ran by, and he did not get up again.  In the corner of the room there was a crash as a window broke and Anemone leapt through, closely chased by a snarling Welby.  The Crow yelled and ran after the halflings.  Jack started to pursue the fleeing men-at-arms, but Ike laid a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

“Its not worth it, Jack.  We can’t catch ‘em all and one or two more isn’t gonna hurt them any.  No, I think we’d better just leave town before they come back with more friends.”

“Even better, before Lord Travens or any of his watch show up,” stated Artimas.  He moved to the bar, behind which Ned could be heard whimpering, “my bar, my poor beautiful bar.”

“For your troubles, friend Ned,” the wizard declared as he slammed a sack of coins on the polished surface.  “And now I’m afraid we must bid you farewell.”

The companions left and stumbled into Welby and the Crow.  The halfling was spattered with gore and seemed satisfied with himself.  “She steal cake no more,” he announced, pointing to a small mangled form in the grass nearby.

*****

The companions camped in the fields southeast of town, on the edge of the Dark Wood,  while they debated what course to take next.  So far the consensus seemed to be in favor of leaving Travensburg and journeying towards the capital of Graystone, but there was one very loud voice of dissent.

“I don’ like leavin’ Duernfast.  We promised the old king we’d break the curse,” Jack grumbled.

“Jack, the creature that lies below the protective seal is far beyond our abilities to face right now.  We must gain strength and knowledge before we could hope to stand against such a creature,” Artimas reasoned.

“Bah!  So ye’re scared, necromancer.  That figures, but dwarves are made o’ sterner stuff.  I’m fer stayin’.”

“I hate to say it, but Artimas is right,” Quinn tried to reason with him.  “We will return and uphold our promise, but its not something we can accomplish now.  And with the Crusaders moving in on Travensburg, perhaps its best if we leave the area until it settles down.”

“You too, then?”  Jack gazed at the priestess in disbelief.  “Alright, I can’t argue with the whole lot of ya.  Le’s do it yer way, then – but I am comin’ back t’do what’s right, with or withou’ the rest of ya.”

“No one’s arguing with that, Jack,” rumbled Filthy Ike.  “I keep my promises too.  We will return, my friend.”

In the morning they would set out, none of them dreaming of the adventures that lay ahead.

Next: The Born Again Ogres of the Blinding Light


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## Dungannon (Apr 23, 2004)

Ahh, here is where I grow sad.  Alas, I was forced to abandon the gaming group due to circumstances beyond my control and Filthy Ike continued as an NPC for a short while before leaving to follow his own path.  Maybe someday he'll return...


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## Sniktch (Apr 23, 2004)

Which you'll see as Ike takes a less and less active roll from this point further.  Curse that late weekend shift!

It should also be noted the the Royston Crow got married around this time and also ceased to be an active member of the gaming group.  And after the plans I'd made for that amnesiac half-elf!


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