With Derrywinkle the 3rd’s death, the remaining berserkers (currently eating the dead Derrywinkle) proclaimed that Cara, who had been identified as Duchess not 10 minutes earlier, their leader for now. So we talked to them for a bit, getting a lay of the land as well as some of Derrywinkle’s managing style.
There were 7 of them at 1 point, had been sent here from Jector to scout a place for a keep 6 plus years ago. Instead they followed some goblins they had captured and tortured to this place where they had been told great treasure was. They pissed off 2 witchy women by taking their vegetables and laughing at them, getting told they would find their riches but then die there never to leave.
They did find the monastery and eventually got into a protracted battle with the goblins before falling down to here. 1 of their members had died in the combat. Then they explored around here for a while and lost another member and most of their magical weapons and armor and items in the Cave of the men who eat men.
There was a Monster in the dark that hunts but they avoid it. A corridor with giant flies and big maggots. They had a decent idea of the layout of many places but never found a way out. Derrywinkle figured it was either in the cave beyond the monster in the dark because there was a deep pool of water there. Or it was in the second octagon room where a corridor leads to an underground river but none of the berserkers could swim and never wanted to risk it.
We ate dinner and rested. The Berserkers seemed to have a distrust of the group (maybe mostly Gun.or not, hard to tell). They were Cheese, Leggily, Fantas, and Neal. We each took watches and made sure that at no point were the berserkers alone being up without one of us.
It was the next day, Icemonth the 17th and we discussed going to the Cave of men who eat men and get the magic items there. Yandr tried to get more information out of them but Cheese didn’t have much more to say. “They are men. Bad men. And they eat other men!”
We pulled the gate back and left the Berserker’s area. We wandered up the northeastern hall to the pool where we refilled our skins. From there it was back to the octagon room and we took the western door. It was an hour of slow walking and mapping. Passage went west, meandered north and then south, west some more and then a long slow passage north, north east. Eventually the passage came to a 4 way split.
According to Cheese and the others, the cave of men who eat men was to the west. The other 2 to the east, the south east one went to an area where there were a handful of bugbears who had been down here a year, and the north east one went to an area where sweepers were sometimes spawned from (Sweepers? We guessed it was the gelatinous cubes).
So we headed west. The passage widened and the smell of unwashed bodies and raw meat began to permeate the area. Bits of bones, trash, and garbage were on the floors and near the walls. The ceiling was slowly rising and the floor had a slope to it. Eventually the passage was approaching 25’ wide and running south and then west. The ceiling was 14’ up, and Nevah assured us the slope ahead was subtly steepening. Also, the effluvia from the rotting meat was making an oily sheen on the ground, meaning down is ok, but coming back up this way would involve some slipping.
We decided to find a place and drive a piton into the wall. Hrimvar had a couple of lengths of rope that he was going to tie together for us to make climbing easier up and down. However, on driving the piton, it made a hell of a lot of noise. Which had some screeching noises coming from down the corridor ahead of us. We drew up at the top of the slope, weapons out, ready to fight.
And coming around the corner were 4 man like figures. They were dirty, scabrous, mostly naked and had long nails. Two were loping across the floor, a short word and shield on their back – and 2 were running at use – across the damned ceiling. And each of them had a crossbow dangling on straps there. “Are you guys seeing this?!”
And then we fired. Gun and Nevah let bolts and arrows fly – at the ceiling running ones. And they were batted aside with ease. And in one case. . one was actually thrown back AT the party. “Are you SEEING THIS!?!”
They were also fast. Faster than most of us. Nah – we broke, running away. Hrimvar and Cara scooped up Nevah and Gun and we ran as the ghoulish figures were hooting and shrilling screaming behind us. Eventually at the 4 way split we ran a bit down the southeast corridor until we were sure we were not being chased and finally rested a bit. “Forget to mention something to us?” Yandr asked with anger.
“What? They were in a cave of men who eat men!?!” Cheese replied, hands pointing. “What did you expect? Derrywinkle always told us to just move on and accept the items were lost.”
“Whatever.”
We voted quickly and decided to take out the bugbears. “Straight fight. We’re good on fighting bugbears now”. We kept walking down the passage that traveled a bit to a “T intersection. Across from us in the “T”, was a cave. Cheese pointed to it and said the bugbears used that cave as their home. A detect evil got nothing. So we risked crossing and taking a look.
Definitely a warren. 3 bugbears would stay here, right now they were gone. We were thinking of messing with their stuff but decided it was best to leave it alone. So at the intersection, we could go north to the faint vinegar smell and maybe the sweeper area, or south which should take us back to the octagon room according to Gun. It was about 11 and we opted south. Sure enough, Gun’s map was right, we came out of the northeast door.
We broke for lunch and went over plans.
The thought was to go back to the other octagon room and go down the hall that had the evil behind it and maybe a secret door. So by 12:30 we were on the way. We took the south door around and past the corridor with the water. Then from there we followed the long sweep until we arrived at the other octagon chamber. We squared up to go through the south door when Cheese stopped us.
Listening he mouthed “Ogre” and we knew there was one down here. So we got our weapons out and were ready. The door opened and the ogre was there – not expecting us. It took a 2 count of arrows to the face, then a spear, sword, and a variety of other weapon hits. It was staggering and tried to shake it off, swinging its maul around to attack. But we were ready (and got initiative), and really tore into the ogre, killing it within a minute and a half. We went through its belongings (a few coins), its weapon was too big and awkward to use, so we headed down the hall after dragging it a bit out of the way.
The hall was very long and ended some distance away. The north wall was obviously a different type of wall (smooth, not rough) but no one could find the secret door (we all failed again). So it was sledge hammer time. We beat and smashed at the wall, chipping it and cracking stone. Yandr tried to point out the best place to hit it and the swingers admitted to hearing him but not striking that section of the wall.
It was 2:30 when we finally smashed through the mechanism, breaking it, and forced the door open. And it was back at the Berserker’s lair. “Are you…”
Cheese and Leggily looked around. “Huh! Didn’t know this lead here? Neat!”
Gun was checking his map and nodded. “Yeah. This makes sense. I can see how that passage led here.”
Yandr was incensed. “And you didn’t think to mention this before we walked all over the damned place?”
“Son, mapping isn’t always an exact science.” Gun lowered his hat and gave the paladin an up and down glower.
We figured while here, we’d take a look at the lair of the monster in the dark next. Gun and Fjord were going to check it out but Nevah wanted to come. “Can you walk quietly, boy?” “Yep!” “Brian…are you sure?” “Sure can. I’m Helping.”
The 3 of them went, and halfway down the hall after Nevah made his 5th inadvertent noise, they tried to get him to stop but he demurred. They were sure that something wasn’t there now, but infravision showed something big WAS just here and went south further into the cave. They headed back and we discussed it with the party.
We agreed to go together, weapons out and ready. Down the hall we went and then racing out of the dark was a 1600 lb ursine with a twisted beak and huge eyes, covered in diseased looking feathers. “Ah!!” Fjord screamed, falling over unconscious. “A bear! And an owl!” Even Thobar was frozen in terror.
It ignored our first missile attacks and took less damage from the blows that did hit. It swept its claws out and tore into Cheese, then its beak ripped his chest open. And as he was bleeding and screaming, it lifted him up, hugged him, and ripped him in half, showering itself and the entire front 2 ranks in the berserker’s blood and entrails. “HROO HAA!!”
Round. 2. Icemonth the 17th, 3:31 PM.
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