Could have had a TPK when I rolled up "giants" on the outdoor wandering table, 3 Frost Giants. Luckily the reaction roll was a pair of 6's so the giants were apt to be friendly to the group and the party let the dwarf talk to them.
They did make it to the cave and it is here that they are going to go "spelunking". I wish them well, because the cavern could be fucking dangerous!
Write up follows:
The party spent some time going over the Deed of Yngvi, opting on a course of action. We would go to the caves as marked to the northwest of Njor and hope that it joins up with the other caves northeast of that, beyond Snorri’s Pipe. There is a body of water there labeled Freyslik that we assume is mentioned in the Deed as the shore and the runemaker.
We spent the rest of the night going through the place, raiding the larder for supplies and foods, eventually loading not only the sled, but all 4 travois with gear and provisions. In addition we hollowed out a section of the outer tower wall and magically skinned it with a couple of stone shape spells, allowing us a possible way to reenter the citadel should we need to in the future.
We awoke just before the sun rise on the 8th day and after breaking our fast and praying, we left about an hour after the sun turned on. It was snowing, adding cold powder to the world and the visibility was no better than a third of a mile. Detheron had prepared the party with a variety of endurance spells to keep us warm and we arranged the party so that both Smokey and Jerrig were trailblazing with the party trudging behind. In addition, Norris has using his bardic powers to make the entire party invisible.
The hours passed until we noticed that the party was being shadowed. We had been walking for about 4-5 hours and whatever was following us, was following the displaced snow, as well as the disembodied sled and travois tracking behind us. We stopped, arranged ourselves in a better layout to face whatever was coming, and took our time with weapons and prep.
What was coming was almost a dozen white and black, 450 lb, Siberian tigers. And they were stalking the group. They slowed at a couple hundred feet away and crept closer, dividing into 3 groups and encircling the sled and party. We stayed quiet and hoped that our scent and lack of visibility would confuse them. And then the groups sprung.
Detheron called out a charm animal spell and Thurin attempted a charm monster – taking 2 of the tigers out of the mix. Then it was bounding leaps and Gwyn and Guyus (on his steed) took the next brunt of the attacks, getting mauled pretty badly during the exchange.
The tigers charged forward at the rapidly “appearing” party but the presence of the two charmed ones intercepted two others. Smokey beat the hell out of one of them but our own Jerrig was battered badly and we lost him. Guyus was getting pretty chewed up before we dropped enough of the tigers that one managed to escape, the others broken. Detheron adopted the charmed tiger as “Jerrig 3” (the one he had assigned the suffix “2” had also died during the melee) and we passed out healing. Some of the meat was taken but mostly we allowed our three animal companions to eat until full.
We marched onward for another 3 hours of so. The land had changed into hills, some of them cresting to almost 600 feet and a decent slope of 30 degrees. We heard a voice calling us and coming around the bend of one of the hills were 3 frost giants. They had some tigers and a bear with them and they spoke to Gwyn, the giants conversing in dwarvish. They were on their way back to Hanin (on the map) to meet with the Grylians there and trade some food and skins.
We had some conversation with them and learned that although Dritka are occasionally sent out, it is not common. They referred to Detheron as “Freytouched” and were friendly enough assuming that we too were from Hanin. Gwyn was able to convince them that we needed to get to some “big caves” in the area and the giants led us over the hills northward to what they referred to as the “Gullincaves”.
We arrived about 2 hours after sunout and bid the frost giants farewell. The caves were massive – 20’ wide, 15’ tall. Bones, lots of bones, were outside and the cave seemed warmer than the air around it. We entered, travelling over 300 feet in and down as the corridor sloped until we felt warmer. From here we set up camp and rested for the night.
During Mebali’s watch he awoke Draugmore and pointed to the ceiling, saying something was moving. Sure enough, one of the stalactites was moving oh so slowly across the surface, getting closer to the group. In fact, it was almost over Thurin. The decision was made to “wake everyone up” and Thurin was grabbed by the legs and yanked across the floor – moments before the strange stone-like thing crashed down.
Was it for real? It was a piercer, a mollusk-like dungeon creature that drops from the ceiling and impales unsuspecting creatures below. We knocked it back over twice when it tried to upright itself and then “killed it” by stabbing at the underside where there was no stone covering. At this point Thurin was going to cast Rope trick and was going to hide up there to rest the remainder of the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment