» Forgotten Realms Calendar / Campaign Timeline     » Amassed Loot     » Monster Roster     » Current Party Stats    

June 9, 2005

More of Them

Theona's Journal

Eleasis 7, 1373 DR, near giants’ fortress

They are drawn to us like moths to a flame.

Our camp was rather solemn, for as soon as we safely made it back, Beowulf’s wolf expired, having followed his last instructions to the letter. During my watch, I accepted the onerous task of dividing up what the late druid had been carrying among my companions. I didn’t take anything myself, but it would be impractical to bury it with him. In the morning, I wondered aloud to Tyan why he managed to stay alive as long as he had, and then I remembered he’s been with us less than a week himself. That rat is always whispering stuff to him; survival tips, perhaps.

I turned to Deitricha for a moment and asked if she could commune with her goddess or something before we stormed the fortress again. When I turned back to the sorcerer, there were four more human males standing around him, apparently attracted to the Evermoors by some tales in a tavern in Yartar of the surviving human males from the caravan we’d been tracking. Oddly, they were there to offer their services to us and seemed to think we were rescuing the caravan. They had not passed Rosorc and the caravan survivors in the swamps however.

One seemed to be doing all of the talking— a fellow that called himself Ebin Starsliver who claimed at times to have elven parents. He does not seem to understand the elven language though, which is just as well, since I don’t trust him. He played dumb when I asked him about Zhents in the area, and everyone that has spent any time in the Silver Marches would know about Zhents. Beowulf lived alone in a forest and had even heard of them. Areon assures me that Ebin is just simple-minded— he doesn’t even seem to know where he comes from.

Between arguing with this new human and learning of Deitricha’s possibly-successful divination as to the location of the silver tiger: “beyond the path of water resting with the dead that seeks the living” (why on earth does it have to always sound so cryptic?), Areon had to point out that the three quieter humans (Anders, Marius and Geth) and Tyan had left the camp and were scaling the side of the fortress. Ooops.

We ran to catch up as they were reaching the top— which was actually only a few feet up to what had once been a second story. They’d found a stairwell leading down, but it was completely filled with boulders. We were able to pull away enough for Glitch to squeeze his tiny rodent body into the stairwell so he could look around for us.

The rat described a 30’ by 30’ room with two hill giants in it, clearly watching the stairwell— no doubt they had heard us moving the boulders. They did not see Glitch however. He noticed a door in the distance too, but Tyan called him back up as we had come up with another plan.

Tyan and Deitricha worked out a way of flying us all across the river, over the bridge— he could levitate us, and she had a spell that allows her to fly— so we were levitated by the sorcerer and then pulled by the flying cleric across the water. We arrived safely on the other “tower” and found a stairwell leading down, and also filled with boulders. We moved out enough for Glitch to squeeze through. He got down the stairs without incident, then under a door and, unfortunately, was teleported to a cell elsewhere! We know this because, thankfully, he was uninjured and still able to make contact with Tyan, who in turn started to blast chunks of the roof off to find a faster way into the fortress. I was about to suggest that I talk Glitch through picking the lock to his cell via his human when someone yelled that we were being attacked from the bridge. Firing arrows and bolts did little to slow the hill giants, hobgoblins, and the tentacled blue cats (which I could not hit— they must have been displacer beasts) that were heading our way. I was hit by something hard— by a boulder perhaps— and everything went black.

I came to while being jostled across the roof, apparently Areon had seen me fall and was planning to stash me somewhere safe. Deitricha was somehow managing to keep up with him and heal me; since I was being carried I took the opportunity to use the healing wand on Areon, who, truth be told, looked as bad as I felt. Of course, he put me down when he realized I was conscious.

Tyan was the only one left standing against the onslaught, which now included the ogre mage, and we simply could not leave him there, so we regrouped and ran back towards the fight. The fact that the human male was doing so well against such an opponent may have given me the will to fight harder. Though I rarely engage in melee combat of any sort, I tumbled past the horrid cat creature and stabbed it through the back with my rapier. It dropped on the spot. I turned and pulled out my crossbow, and was able to slay an already quite beaten hill giant. My comrades were having similar successes; even the ogre mage had been slain— or rather, was down for the count. I looted its body quick before dropping a flask of alchemist’s fire on it— the only way to be sure it would stay dead, as it had the ability to regenerate like a troll.

While my friends were chasing the last of the hill giants off the roof, I saw Ebin (who I assumed had died) stagger up from where he’d been laying, throwing back healing potions like they were dwarven ale. I was more surprised that he was alive than he was that his three companions were not— he didn’t seem to notice, in fact.

Posted by Kristin at 21:48 | Theona’s Journal