Write up follows:
The party fell into an exhausted sleep except for Dizzy who was awake and took the watch. It was during his watch that a Cyclops came to the tent, made shushing noises, and came in to sit and talk to the dwarven cleric. He said that he saw Dizzy in a dream and that his appearance was important – because according to the Cyclops’ vision, it meant that he was going to some sort of shield called “Ironbind”.
Dizzy wanted to talk to the young male Cyclops who was called Shortfeet, and had him describe what he saw. A big cyclopean sized metal shield in a room of darkness filled with K’Morat young. Dizzy takes the shield, comes back to the Cyclopean city and meets Shortfeet giving him the shield – and Shortfeet eventually helps to overthrow the Ogre control of the clan.
Dizzy made noises that he’d do what he could and then Shortfeet left. The Cleric was insulted; the idea of “doing it” for Shortfeet offended his Sifian sensibilities; one is supposed to show personal excellence – not have a vision and then get someone else to do the work.
The group awoke the next morning, we prepared a few spell scrolls, ate the food the Cyclopes brought to us to eat, and then by 8 AM, were ready to go. Yuntwun, the elder Cyclops seer met us and leaning on her long staff, we walked out of the camp and on our way to K’Morat Warren. As we walked the seer tried to explain to Dizzy and the others how visions work and how you cannot just accept what you see at face value. A good seer can take a vision and work it beyond the obvious answer. There is a nuance to it that is generally answered after the fact when more information is available. What she tells us though is that the Norns have already woven us into the skein of life and if it our time to go, stay, die, live, be heroic or just part of the background – it’s already written and our parts are there.
We arrived at the walls and looked around. The doors under the barbican were open, but the second portcullis was down – only maybe 2 feet open at the bottom. There was 1 or 2 kobolds in the barbican, and it looked like a dozen crows were flying around watching to see if anyone approached. Yuntwun cast her spell and the party turned invisible – we had 20 minutes until we did an aggressive action. It was time.
As the group walked to the barbican moving quietly, Sybil took a wandering path, spreading tainted soporific bread we had taken from Lysil’s castle all about the ground to entice the crows flying around, the bread turning visible as it left her hand. At the Barbican a few of us tried to crawl underneath but eventually it was backpacks and armor that had us getting hung up on the portcullis. The kobolds above were watching the group but did not see anyone.
Meanwhile Dizzy had crept to the end of the interior Barbican wall and was watching for the pig with a loaf of poisoned bread at the ready. There was a door that lead UP to the barbican here but we didn’t use it yet as Einar had gotten caught beneath the dropping portcullis. Unable to extract himself he “raged” and shoved the portcullis up, bending the end to jam it in place. While all this was going on the crows above were falling asleep in the field outside the walls after eating the bread and it was freaking the kobolds out. One of the kobolds then ran for the shaman and the pig began to close – and we were all still invisible. We tossed some bread into the doorway as the pig arrived and was sniffing at the bread, eating it whole. It then forced itself into the narrow opening and ate more bread while the lone kobold up top was yelling at the pig to get away.
We crossed the Bailey to the door of the keep and entered, back into the great hall. Time was ticking and we had only a few more minutes of invisibility to go. Merica and Avulstein used their helmets – getting 6 kobolds upstairs and no birds. So we went to the end of the hall, climbed the steps carefully, and entered the former Solar of the keep. The ceiling and walls had once been glass held in place by lead stays but the glass had long ago broken away and there was nothing left up here except for some scraps of wood and plenty of bird shit. We circled out of the Solar – to the east was the causeway to the parapet, and just past the stairs on the north wall was a corridor that turned left and went for some distance with a “T” running to the north halfway down, and the end of the hall with a door blocked closed on this end.
The two thieves took point with Hjalgrim right behind and they snuck down to the “T” and looked. Maybe 50’ long corridor, two doors on each side and a door at the end open and ajar. Voices could be heard there. Another Helmet look by Merica revealed more kobolds up here – and the guess was there were more, just not in range of the helmet.
Closer to the “T” they listened and sure enough, according to Sybil, they could hear the kobold from the Barbican trying to get a commanding kobold to respond and get the shaman, and the commanding kobold kept coming up with reasons to leave the shaman alone. Frustrated the barbican kobold was ordered to return to his post and the group ran back down the passage to the “T” and took each flank. The one kobold came closer and closer and when he turned the corner, got “f-pwa’ed” by the thieves and killed. His body was passed back and once it was clear, we heard noises in the closest door or running water and a kobold humming.
Readying ourselves again he stepped out, turned our way..and was “f-pwaed” to death. Two down, 11 to go, 9 in this area. We went to the next door and after trying to lure some of the out and it failing, the door was opened and multiple stabbings went off, but one of the managed to call out for help, and the doors around the castle bust open and the other 9 kobolds assaulted us. The narrow hall did not help so we gave ground and backed up, Thalin taking a different angle to try a spell. Meanwhile the Shaman was calling out for his crows and a small murder was flying over to us.
Einar filled the air with obscuring mists but not before Bruce took off and using his echolocation, slammed into the large crow and took off into the air, the murder giving ground to avoid slamming into the walls of the Solar.
Thalin fired off a sleep spell and 5 of the kobolds dropped, freeing up the hall for the group to surge to the”T” and go toe to toe. The fight was blasting back and forth and the Shaman used a bit of Cashandra to summon a Dire Rat which held off Hjalgrim for a bit. Dizzy called on his own giant rat and the Shaman also summoned a hyena but Thalin dropped it to sleep. The Altern leader of the kobolds eventually went down and after that the fight degenerated against the kobolds and it was the Shaman against everyone – and then it ended. No living kobolds anywhere in range.
The mists cleared and Bruce had beaten the oversized crow and we doled out healing. We wanted to find the underground area and take out the nest if we could so we dragged the bodies to the bathroom and left them in there after cleaning ourselves up a bit. Then we looked out of the Solar at the area and realized we left a kobold IN the Barbican. So the group went to the end of the Solar, drew bows, and shot the kobold from 70’ away, killing it. The pig seemed to be asleep jammed into the narrow door opening.
We went back to the main floor and headed near the dining room area. From there we went around and saw a slew of doors, a set of stairs going UP to the roof, and another going down to the basement. Bingo. We looked down and smelled burnt pepper and wet meat, along with the sound like yipping cicadas. The room was bathed in wavering shadowy yellowy light and we couldn’t see, but around the back area of the stairs was the larger cellar and maybe the 340 all over the place immature kobolds. The stairs was blocked off by a metal, tin, and stone barrier like a gate 4’ tall and sharp on top to stop the kobolds from climbing over. We then went back up to the first floor and spent some time discussing lots of plans to take out the kobolds below, arguing them and discarding them as fast as we could formulate them.
No comments:
Post a Comment