Captain Arlaggath had wondered if we were going to seek the fishers immediately but I was insistent that we wait and depart on the morrow as I would rather us be fully prepared – especially as we had just had an encounter with a ghost. We agreed to meet with her again in the morning and obtain any supplies we need for this quest.
We returned to the White Lady Inn and to my annoyance the halfling Rinaldo was there waiting for us, eagerly asking if we were off to find the treasure. I was hoping we could get on with the task of finding the fishers without this annoying cretin but it seemed that my desire here was not going to happen. Gwindor explained to him that we were going to depart in the morning and look for four missing fishers. Rinaldo was like a little kid wanting to come as we ‘might find treasure’. I think the group could tell by my face that his attendance on this quest was really not a good idea – not only are bringing a bard with zero experience in questing with us, it would be like trying to protect a child while travelling through dangerous territory. Who knows? Maybe we can sneak out in the morning right after breakfast and avoid him, and thus avoid getting him killed.
The following morning…
Thankfully I had a good night’s rest and realigned my prepared spells thanks to my morning prayers and the good lord. I hoped that we could have our breakfast and then move off to the docks where the captain was going to meet us. To my horror, Rinaldo was waiting for us and came over as soon as we finished eating. His childlike enthusiasm was amusing to Phinaeous but not to me.
I feel I must introduce Phinaeous here as my diary entries don’t really contain entries with him. Don’t ask his name – you will die of old age as he seems to want to include every good or crazy deed he has ever done as a part of his name. Perhaps this is the character of paladins but listening to it is rather tedious and unless you are the kind of person that enjoys listening to exploits unnecessarily, you will switch off. I like to call him by his name and one deed: Phinaeous the Pious, finder of traps. I think this is more befitting seeing as he did indeed find a trap when we were dealing with duergar a few months ago. Falling into said trap and then being paralysed by the carrion crawler the duergar were using as a pet – or at least a treasure guardian. He is a jovial fellow, likes to keep his armour shiny and bright, his longsword shiny and bright, his helmet shiny and bright, all his trinkets shiny and bright – we call him ‘the shiny one’…
Arlaggath told us that she would provide a boat and supplies for the quest which is why we agreed to meet her before leaving. I was not wearing my armour as I had taken her advice regarding areas of thin ice and being careful. You can imagine my surprise when the shiny one joined us, wearing full plate and enthusiasm. And Rinaldo was with us.
What could possibly go wrong?
As we approached the docks, I told Phinaeous about the events of the previous day and knowing we may encounter more undead in the form of zombies or possibly skeletons due to the presence of a hag in the area, I offered him the use of a flail I had acquired as these entities seem to suffer more wounding from a blunt instrument than a sword. Phinaeous asked me if it was shiny, I merely responded that it was not a narcissistic flail.
As we approached the docks, captain Arlaggath approached us and showed us where to find the boat she had procured. She also gave us rations that would help sustain us if we were away from Easthaven for any length of time. After some pleasantries, the five of us plus the weasel made our way across the ice to the boat that seemingly would just about manage to carry six people. I am glad the weasel is a halfling – throwing him out when he annoys me will be a lot easier.
We dragged our boat to near the ice edge but then pondered on two things: how we get it in the water without losing it and then, more importantly, how do we get in it when we do?
Fortunately, we weren’t the only people dragging boats to the edge of the ice and Galen approached a couple of fishers preparing to depart the ice and go looking for knucklehead trout. They looked us over, and with an obvious smirk told us to do what they were about to do. Clearly, someone wearing full plate could be a disadvantage here.
We watched as they dragged their boat to an inlet that had clearly been hewn from the ice in a boat shape, and then, once the boat was in the icy water, they climbed in from one of the sides. This looked easy enough.
Now it was our turn. Seeing as Rinaldo was the smallest, we (or rather he) decided he should get in first. The boat was pushed into the water with Pherios keeping hold to avoid it floating off into the lake, and then Rinaldo eagerly jumped in. We all threw our packs into the boat and I also dropped my armour at the back to avoid boat movement. Next up was Galen, as expected of our highly dextrous assassin, easily added himself to the inventory within the vessel. Gwindor followed, also without a hitch, then it was Phinaeous. My head was in my hands at this, watching a fully clad warrior avoid slipping on the ice, having to grab the side of the boat, possibly pulling it over and then having to somehow rescue everyone now in the icy water. Our quest could end in disaster right there. Incredibly, our shiny one managed to get into the boat and for the next minute or two his face was wearing one of his big grins as if to say ‘ta daaaa!’
Pherios was having some difficulty keeping hold of the boat now and all that extra weight was not helping, so I made my way over and succeeded in getting in without causing any more waves (pun intended). We dragged Pherios in and then four of us proceeded to row out into the lake.
Arlaggath had said that no one knew which direction the fishers had gone once they were on the lake so we had a choice: travel north west or north east. We chose north west as this was the closest route to the shoreline where our missing fishermen may be.
Phinaeous was already giving orders to Rinaldo, as if he was his personal servant – he must carry and look after his back pack. I just let him get on with it and carried on rowing with the others. Rinaldo seemed happy with this as his annoying enthusiasm continued to plague us (well, me anyway). He decided to pull out his lute and sing us a song. This act of folly clearly showed that good decision making was not his strong suit.
He pulled off his fur mittens, prepared the lute and then proceeded to attempt singing while plucking everything but strings as his fingers froze in the minus twenty breeze that we had to contend with. After only a few minutes, we all told him the noise was a bit too much and unless he was hell-bent on having frost-bitten hands, he should put the lute away and cover up. Thankfully, he agreed.
Phinaeous then decided upon a very paladin act and gave us a magical pep-talk, or rousing speech as he called it. I knew what was coming – and actually welcomed it. By the end of his speech, we all felt as though we could take on anything before us – something that really went to the head of our annoying halfling guest, as we shall see later on.
The exercise of rowing was actually keeping me warm as we were making some significant progress. My face was cold but I think we are all used to that. I don’t know how long we had been rowing – but I think we had a stroke of luck. I am not sure who spotted it but another boat came into view, it was next to the ice along the shoreline. Could this empty boat have belonged to our missing fishers? We decided to investigate.
It took no time at all to reach the empty boat and thankfully, it was sitting in an inlet not unlike the one we had used to get into our boat earlier that morning. We pulled alongside and secured both vessels. There was no sign of life and so we decided to get out and see if there were any areas for camps or even a cave perhaps. Knowing how dangerous unpatrolled territory is, I wanted to don my armour as soon as I was out of the boat.
Getting out of the boat was easier than getting in and we all made it onto the ice without any problems. Phinaeous immediately asked Rinaldo to carry his back pack for him and I then made a Rinaldo style decision – clearly this guy is affecting my judgement now. In opening my cold weather gear and getting ready to don my armour I received a stark reminder of the conditions here and so gave up on that idea for now, which was a nuisance as we soon discovered we were not alone here.
As ever, sharp-eyed Galen spotted two beings flying down from the cliff tops towards us. These were not birds and they were human sized. The closer they came, the more features we could make out – flying humans perhaps? Then we heard it – both were singing, well, one was singing, the other was more like a melodious screech.
Harpies.
These things are bad enough when you are prepared for them, however they are a lot worse when you are not. And physically, I was not. I had my shield ready and prepared my senses for the inevitable attack of the harpy song. My elven blood was used to the effects of charms and other such mind controlling assaults.
Then the luring wave hit us like a mind-numbing slumber energy that spreads through the brain. To my dread, both the dwarf and our beloved shiny one succumbed to their charm and immediately proceeded to walk towards the incoming clawed beasts. I glanced across at Phinaeous, striding toward would could well be his doom, wearing a smile that said ‘come to me my darling, my love, hugs and kisses..’. Pherios was equally entranced and we had to act quickly.
Galen, Gwindor, myself and incredibly the weasel, had managed to resist their lure and as ever Galen was really quick to act, scoring an almost instant hit with an arrow on the harpy advancing quickly toward Phinaeous. I must say I love that guy – he almost never misses. Knowing the harpy was injured made my decision for me and I unloaded toll the dead on the same harpy, I don’t know why but anything injured suffers a greater wound when it hits. As ever I shouted ‘ring the bell’ and the sound of a tolling bell could be heard in the distance – divine necrotic force struck the harpy but was really a glancing hit, as the wound did not slow her down at all. I am not sure what these things are made of but a kind of half human, half eagle and half nasty flesh-eating beast that sings, makes these a bit of a tough nut to crack. And yes - that adds up to one and a half for a reason!
Gwindor cast one of his offensive collection of spells, managing to target both of them. I wasn’t paying much attention to his actions but I did see energy strike both of the harpies – which was good for us as they were both injured now. I am not sure but I think even Rinaldo managed to get in on the action, something else hit the second harpy which made it squawk – I looked around to see Rinaldo was holding a sling.
Then they were on us. The first harpy wrapped everything it had around Phinaeous, he was acting as though he was madly in love, while the harpy was busy doing its best to rip his face off and he’ll have a lot of scratches in that shiny armour to fix, that is for sure. The second harpy sunk her claws into Pherios easily while we were seemly powerless to stop them.
While I was watching the horror unfold, Galen had quickly closed the distance and managed to get behind the harpy which was trying to give our paladin the French kiss from hell. One expertly delivered thrust of his blade and the harpy shrieked in pain, letting go of Phinaeous and attempting to flee. Galen took his chance and once again struck home on her open back, killing her.
I think Rinaldo saw this as the ideal way to deal with harpies and immediately charged the second creature assailing Pherios. Stupid boy.
The harpy immediately attacked him, nearly killing him outright – something that would surely have happened if it were not for the magical rousing speech Phinaeous had given a couple of hours before. Gwindor hit the harpy with another spell – I know not which, but, like its partner in criminal beguiling, it attempted to flee. I rang the bell on this harpy and successfully shot her out of the air.
We came together as a group and collectively healed wounds that had been received. Rinaldo was now minus the bonus Phinaeous had provided and so was very vulnerable – and an even bigger protection headache than before. I asked Phinaeous ‘How was it for you? I have heard of very angry sex – but I think that took the biscuit.’ He seemed more concerned with his armour – at least he was still in one piece.
We performed some feather plucking from the dead harpies – their feathers are worth a lot to magical artificers and I need the money as components for some spells are very expensive. As we found out earlier in the month – reviving someone will cost you an expensive diamond.
While keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings in case of further flying delights, we looked for any location the fishers may have ventured into, which didn’t take long as there seemed to be a pool of steam rising from an area of ice next to the cliff edge around one hundred yards away. With a collective nod, we made our way over.
As we approached, our confident strides slowed to almost no movement at all. The steam was coming from a small river of warm water flowing from a previously concealed cave. Floating in the water was the corpse of a giant. I think it was Gwindor who said it was a frost giant but seeing as I wasn’t from this region I had no idea. What was troubling was the fact it was there at all. Was it a very old corpse that had somehow been frozen for centuries and now thawed by chance? Was it a giant that had recently died by falling from the cliff? Had it been killed by some other entity? That last thought brought the most chills – harpies could not have done this. Even if charmed, I am sure this giant would have beaten the charm eventually and then thrown the harpies around like confetti. So – how did it die?
We examined the cave before us. There was a walk-way – well trodden it would seem - and three smaller cave openings above. I approached the first opening and looked up. Although slimy and rather weird looking, there were plenty of hand-holds which allowed for easy climbing. I was sure these were all there deliberately. The temperature here was significantly warmer than out on the ice, so I took the opportunity to change and put my armour on. Feeling a lot more confident now in my own safety, I took advantage of the hand holds and climbed up to the first opening.
The smell from the cave was musty, dank and kind of ‘old’. The scene itself was also weird, mud or a form of earth that you would not expect in a cave, a tree stump and the placement of other ‘earthy’ oddities adorned the floor and walls. I thought it looked like someone was trying to grow mushrooms.
The group called up and asked if I could see anything significant, I secured a rope to assist them climb while telling them about the scene before me. Then, one by one my friends joined me in what really was the weirdest cave I have ever been in.
We decided to venture forth and upon a fork in what appeared to be a pathway, we examined another cave chamber to our left. This too was equally weird with the same dank smell, however on the northern most wall someone, or some people had painted a depiction of what appeared to be fire giants visiting these caves and drowning themselves in a warm or hot pool of water. Things just get weirder – why would they do that? Still – this gave us some insight into this cave complex and also explains the warm water flowing from here - there is a hot spring in here somewhere.
We moved on from this little side cave and found ourselves
in a bigger area that seemed to have (possibly?) fungus spores on the floor -
and sounds of a moaning man.
Moving further into the room we could see a man, clearly in pain and possibly not in his right mind. I tried having a conversation with him but he seemed more concerned with finding a gift he had been given but had now lost. Looking at him closely – we saw that he was missing his eyes. This was a gruesome sight. Thankfully one of the group managed to get him to speak his name – Fellos. This was one of the fishers we were looking for.
All attempts to get him to come with us failed as he was determined to stay where he was and find the gift he had lost, despite forgetting what it actually was. He was clearly befuddled and magic was in play here.
As I pondered our next move, a cackling laugh seemed to float through the air and land in my ears, causing me to turn around. I remember immediately saying ‘please tell me you all heard that too’ to the rest of the group. They all nodded. Then Rinaldo spoke.
“Are we having an adventure?”
I wanted to kill this twit myself. In my mind I responded ‘We are adventurers – you are following your death wish.’ I decided upon saying nothing except ‘someone shut him up.’
Then, incredibly he spoke again:
“When this adventure is over, I shall write a song about it!”
I responded “You won’t, but if one were written, it would go like this:
There once was a bard with a
bag,
Who sought gold and silver and
swag,
He thought he could sing,
And use a sling,
But was killed by a
bloodthirsty Hag!”
The cackling laugh floated through the air again. We were certainly not alone in this cave complex…
Part 2
Again, with that cackling laugh! We needed to move from here. Leave Fellos for now and come back for him later. This was our agreement.
As we turned to leave, Fellos started to call out – “Please
don’t leave me here.”
We assured him that we had no such intention and would return once we had found
the rest of his crew. Despite this, he
still tried to follow, fumbling in his darkness.
The heat in the cave was beginning to get to us and wearing severe cold weather clothes in a place akin to a light sauna would inevitably lead to some major problems – especially if we ended up in combat. The group decision was to doff all such items and store them in the current location – to be collected later, should we all survive this cave complex.
Again, Fellos tried to follow us. I threw a rock into a corner of the cave to distract him and he immediately moved toward the sound. Then, something strange occurred – the pile of what looked like mould near to where the stone landed, reached out and grabbed it. Fellos moved very close to the same location and it grabbed him also. With a scream of pain and terror he cried for us to help him. I immediately rang the bell on the mould pile, unknowingly killing it in the process. I followed up with radiant flame in case it was immune to necrotic damage but only then did I see it was already dead. Fellos was burned slightly and the shiny one took pity on him and provided healing. Sadly, his befuddled mind still giving us weird instructions we couldn’t fathom and we discreetly left him there – for now at least.
To the south of this particular cave there was another exit which we followed, only this time in combat formation as we had no idea what to expect in such a strange place. Being of the human persuasion, the shiny one could actually see nothing in front of us, so I cast light on his shield. This would last for an hour and give us plenty of time to advance.
We reached a sort of cross-roads, so to speak. Turning right took us to another main entrance of the cave complex, turning left took us deeper in. Our paladin then noticed something and ventured to the cave mouth. We were sure the time was not yet passed mid-day and yet, outside was dark – no light at all. Gwindor thought this could be a trick of the caves and climbed down to the walkway that initially provided a way in to the complex and reported that, yes – it was still dark. I think we could have predicted that but these are strange times and the rime itself is nothing but warped divine power put to bad use.
We decided to travel further into the caves and follow the path east, past the cave area where Fellos could be found.
It didn’t take long before we arrived at a natural bridge over slowly flowing water below. The smell drifting up to our nostrils was rank, the water covered in brown gunk and other such items seemed to be floating and bobbing about. I have to say, before coming and committing suicide in the hot pool here, did each fire giant take massive dump in the water first? Perhaps this is what rotting flesh, rotten vegetation and turds smell like? It made you want to heave. This certainly was ‘a bridge over turd-filled waters.’
Across the other side of the bridge, we could see a cave and decided to venture forth. As we crossed, I spied another cave entrance – this was at the level of the water below and judging by the brightly burning torch we could see, this was probably occupied. We decided to investigate that later and proceeded over to the cave in front of us.
Upon entering we saw a strange pool of water, a bedroll, a burned out camp fire and parts of a journal. I forget exactly what little scraps of information we could glean except for discovering it was a dwarf that had written the journal and he didn’t like the song that he would occasionally hear, which was always followed by a cackling laugh as if an old woman thought the song (or its effect?) was funny. We saw no other sign of the dwarf so can only assume he made a hasty retreat from the place (or was found and had a gruesome death elsewhere in the cave?).
Gwindor extracted some black liquid he had found and decanted it into a vile for us to examine later. Who knows – this could be a good find.
We decided to move back over the bridge and see if we could find a way to reach the cave we saw to the south. Fortunately, there did seem to be a way there which was not obvious to us upon our first crossing. Near the northern part of the bridge on the ‘main’ pathway, someone had attached a rope-ring into the rock face. There was a rope already in place but this seemed old, definitely smelly and probably rotten. We could just imagine what could happen if our fully clad paladin were to attempt to climb down and the rope snapped.
This, of course, is where disaster nearly struck. Rinaldo decided that, to cheer us all up, he would play a tune and pulled out his horn. He blew one loud note before I grabbed the horn from him and told him that if he tried that again I would ram the damned thing down his throat. I had previously told him that attracting the attention of anything in here could lead to a life and death situation and he must remain quiet. I followed up by telling him I could kill him with a word (which is true) and would do so if he put the party in a perilous situation. He mumbled something about someone not appreciating good music. The mind boggles.
Phinaeous called him over and told him to stay near him. And carry his bag (so no change there then). He had also volunteered to climb down and investigate the route to the cave but we all agreed to change the rope as the existing one could result in him taking up residence on the bottom of the smelly water.
So, he asked Rinaldo to tie a new (shiny) rope to the hoop after removing the old one.
He asked Rinaldo – Captain Cretin – to tie the rope. Yes, I repeat myself here.
Once the rope was in place, the shiny one proceeded to climb down. It was at this point I started to wonder why Galen wasn’t doing this – he was the most acrobatic amongst us and getting around stealthily ‘was his thing.’
About half way down the twenty-foot distance to the sandy area below, the knot untied. The incredibly useless halfling wasn’t good at tying knots. Phinaeous fell the final ten feet, landing awkwardly, fell into the cesspit of the river and disappeared from sight.
Fully clad in armour, he would drown for sure. Thankfully, Galen actually made it down to the riverside and proceeded to part the smelly contents looking for the glow of our paladin in the mirky water below.
I shouted something that sounded like Arthur Pulse Ache to everyone else and tried two actions simultaneously: tying another rope to the rope ring (I had it in hand in case it was needed) and throwing the agonisingly annoying halfling off the bridge and into the water below. Thankfully I succeeded with the first action but the little tyke managed to stay on the bridge (damn it!).
Gwindor threw the other end of the rope down to Galen, who immediately dived into that cesspit of shit and found Phinaeous.
Even we were holding our breath while we waited. Thankfully, Galen emerged and yelled ‘pull!’. Gwindor, Pherios and I pulled the rope and our shiny one made it out of the water – except he was now the smelly one.
With Phinaeous now out of danger we all took a breath and kept quiet, listening for anything that could have been alerted to our presence. Galen reconnoitred the riverside and agreed to take the lead in this rather dangerous area (well dangerous for those of us in armour). Thankfully, he found a path to the cave entrance, we had to tether ourselves to each other to be sure of safety but then followed the route over to the cave entrance – one by one.
All the while, Phinaeous was pulling weeds, rotten vegetation, ‘objects’ and other associated crap out of his now smelly armour.
Upon reaching the cave entrance we regrouped and once again moved into battle formation. I looked at Rinaldo – he understood (I think) that he should be quiet and stay at the back. I then told the whole group: if we encounter any undead and I successfully turn it – do not cause any damage to it/them until I say so. Turns end when the time limit is up, or damage is taken. The main group know this but the halfling from hell probably didn’t.
We proceeded forward into the cave – at which point Pherios stopped and seemed to be taken over, for a moment only and spoke in a different voice ‘I tried to warn you – her minion will kill you.’
These are words we all felt and heard at the same time.
Looking ahead we could see blood stains everywhere, red blood, not brown or black with age but seemingly fresh stains. Caution is warranted here.
As we moved further in, we could see piles of bones, human sized and giant sized. It was a very strange scene. One pile seemed to be a complete set, laid out on the floor -and of course, this was giant sized.
Then the jaw in the skull started moving. Was this thing about to animate? I asked the smelly one to take the flail and not use his sword as he had a greater chance of success against skeletons – should it animate. He looked at the flail. I said just use it – I promise to buy you a narcissistic one later if we get out of this but for now, I suggest you go over and smash that skull in case the entire skeleton has any desire to stand up and ‘do stuff to us.’
He strode over to the skeleton, it’s head now clearly in a different position from before, and proceeded to hit it with the flail. Good solid hits and casting one of his smite spells into the bargain. Incredibly, the skull did not shatter and the radiant damage did nothing to it – powerful magic was in play here and this was obviously a fallen fire giant. If radiant energy could not damage it, then fire would not either.
Pherios went up to it next with his war hammer – and missed. How do you miss something that is right there and not moving?
Gwindor then let fly a spell. Firebolt.
FIREBOLT?!
As expected, the fiery energy simply bounced off this fire giant skeleton. All the while, its bones were beginning to knit back together.
I went through my list of capabilities in my mind: fire, radiance, fire, radiance – the one bane of a light cleric is coming up against something like this. Thankfully, my go to cantrip provided the only offensive capability I had in this situation and, as ever, I rang the bell. Necrotic energy sank into the giant skeleton, clearly dishing out some damage. I followed up by summoning a spiritual weapon, shaped as a two-handed grand hammer. On this occasion, my attack missed but I placed the weapon between me and the slowly animating giant skeleton.
Galen had taken up a position away from the main group – this was a wise move as I suspected that when that thing was fully knitted together, it would probably have a cone of cold style breath weapon – only we would be up against fire. Spreading out was a must.
Rinaldo pulled out his lute and started singing a song. We were well past the point of telling him to be quiet and to be honest, it seemed that for the first time (in his life?) he actually did something right and his magical song gave us more gusto for the fight ahead.
Phinaeous hit the skeleton again, a really solid hit. He also grabbed one of the thigh bones in an effort to stop the animation from completing. Unfortunately, this only resulted in him being pulled closer to the ever-growing monstrosity before us. Pherios tried the same thing – he, however, was successful and effectively made off with its right leg.
I once again hit the growing skeleton with necrotic energy, this time it took a lot but incredibly was absorbing it all.
Galen then managed one of his heavy hitting ranged attacks. Against this sort of foe (one with built in holes -the way all skeletons have), the damage he caused was much reduced – however, we could see now that it was indeed taking a beating and could be destroyed. We needed to do this soon though, as fire had now started to sprout from all the bones – this animated entity was now in final preparation for combat and none of us knew what it was capable of.
Phinaeous hit it again, once more a solid hit. He also took fire damage from the leg he was still holding on to.
I called to Pherios and told him to throw the femur as far away from the skeleton as he could – this would buy us even more time to damage it. With only one leg, it would move slowly and quite probably be at a disadvantage during combat (perhaps falling over and having to get up?).
I could see that even in its present state, it was ready to strike somehow so I attacked once again with the spiritual weapon, clearly damaging it and then held up my holy symbol and commanded this undead to turn.
The power of Lathander was greater than the power controlling this animation and the creature turned from me. I yelled at everyone – do not attack until I say so. For I have a plan…
Part three
The creature stood there, all twelve feet and one leg of it. The damage it had taken clearly showing and yet the power within it was still building. I could see it tried and failed to do anything other than move from me, so I instructed the others to attack. The divine turning against it would end but as it was (fortunately) slow, my group would get in attacks before I performed the second part of my plan.
The paladin swung again, missing his first attempt and then striking with his second, Pherios charged and swung with his war-hammer, and missed. Perhaps because he was a dwarf and he was attacking a dead giant? Perhaps because the part he could have hit was still not attached to the skeleton but was making steady progress onward to reconnect?
Gwindor surmised that if he could hit it with cold damage, we would defeat it a lot quicker, so came in close for a chaos bolt, hoping that fate would provide a cold present for our huge adversary. It wasn’t cold but acid that hit the creature – thankfully, this did seem to have an effect.
Galen, as ever was accurate and scored a hit despite all the holes in the large skeleton, his arrow finding its mark, even though the damage taken would be minimal. All the while Rinaldo kept singing his bardic tune in an attempt to inspire us to victory.
I then attempted my most bold move to-date, and cursed the creature. The curse landed and thence forward caused the creature to take no action against us. This was a blessing as I am sure this thing was capable of much damage.
Phinaeous struck again, very heavy hits going in now, Gwindor followed up with another attack, but then stepped away, giving the creature the opportunity to deliver a huge hand, back-hander. He’ll have a sore head for a while and that’s for sure.
Pherios swung again and this time hit the leg that was attached to the creature – and this was all it took, and the creature went down.
And exploded.
Shards of hot bone flew in all directions causing the party to dive for cover amongst the piles of bones already scattered everywhere in this ossuary. Fortunately, our reactions were just fast enough to avoid a sharp thigh bone entering some unfortunate places.
We picked ourselves up and the group started to examine the masses of bones for clues of the missing fishers and, of course, for anything they could use or sell later.
Galen discovered a rather nice sword. The scabbard was old and rotting but the sword itself was of a quality design. Galen could read the elven runes, which said something like “use me at the end” – perhaps this could resurrect its user?
Gwindor found a nice dagger. Very ornate and with a blue (and glowing) blade. Interesting.
We gathered ourselves together and started to examine the cave. Phinaeous found that one wall wasn’t actually there and Galen confirmed that this was an illusion, so to advance our attempts to find the fishers, our paladin bravely walked through to the other side.
He could see this new cave forked left and right and urged us through.
We joined him and could see strange trees, almost rotten and a kind of liquid floor. To our right there was a light coming from another cave, with what seemed like a dry floor, so we took the decision to move in that direction.
Walking was difficult, it was a quagmire of weird gunk. We were not stopped but somewhat slowed by this strange carpet of slime.
Phinaeous reached the new cave first, followed by Galen and Gwindor. I arrived last, keeping a close eye on our foolhardy bard. A voice spoke out, in a strange accent, it was offering the paladin pleasantries but when I entered the cave, I could see it was the hag that everyone had warned us about. These things are clever, and charming and possessed the same level of beauty as a horse’s arse.
I enquired about the fishers but the hag merely said they didn’t want to pay a price. And referred to the bubbling cauldron in the middle of the room – which I must admit, had the most wonderful smell of Sunday lunch coming from it.
What about Tellos? Phinaeous asked. I followed up or even Fellos? Unhappy with my correction of the name, our Paladin merely repeated the question, but with the correct name.
The hag talked about allowing him to see, which made no sense as he now had no eyes. I reminded the group that these things are chaotic, evil and will give you a problem eventually – and that we were commissioned by the town to find and recover the fishers. All I could see was a hag, Sunday lunch, and three dead bodies on benches around us. And three makes four – these were the fishers, now dead. I instructed Gwindor to unload a fireball that the fey creature – hoping to catch anything else we could not see that would probably come to her aid.
This, however, is a hag’s layer and as soon as Gwindor moved to go on the offensive, she caused the room to react, which was disconcerting for us. I told Rinaldo to start singing as the hag became invisible. Gwindor loosed the fireball in the direction of where she was standing but although we know she was caught in the blast, the fiery explosion caused her minimal distress.
We moved into the room but the vents in the floor spewed out extremely hot steam in a large radius, catching Gwindor, Pherios, the Paladin and myself. Luckily, we were not ‘steam burned’ too badly. I told Rinaldo to retreat to the quagmire for his own safety, and thankfully, he did so. I then unloaded Faery Fire – and nothing showed itself, clearly avoiding the effects of the spell or moving out of range.
The hag spoke again, but I made no sense of it but Galen used his keen senses to shoot by sound alone, and incredibly hit the invisible hag with an arrow. This time the target was not a creature full of holes, so the ugly fisher of fishermen would have experienced some real pain.
The steam rose from the vents again but we were wise to this now. I urged everyone forward – we had to find this evil fey.
Battle was then joined by a will-o-the-wisp. Stupid name for a ball of light that has resistances to everything. Pherios, the Paladin and Gwindor all took a swing at the creature, striking it and clearly hurting it. I sent in another spiritual weapon, which hit home but didn’t cause it too much distress. Phinaeous hit it once more, then stood aside as our marksman of the hour loosed another arrow, scoring one more deadly hit. The creature farted like a whale that had bottled up all its gas for buoyancy purposes and then fell to the floor.
The chase was on, I dashed through the steam in order to try and find this hag – casting see invisibility as I went, Phineaous, Perios and Galen also charged forward. Gwindor heroically took the lead and charged through the exit to the north of the cave, hoping to see the hag, and having to contend with a new quagmire as he did so.
I attempted the same but was attacked by Sunday lunch. Yes – as I ran past the cauldron, it spewed out vegetables, Yorkshires (I don’t know where Yorkshire is), gravy and all the trimmings. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough, and the attack of the Sunday lunch hit me. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad, and apart from not really slowing me down, I could eat my attacker.
The hag was still nowhere to be seen, but she did send in a couple of delightful entities. These were some form of undead. Zombies maybe? They covered the carpet of quagmire faster than any of us could, and one even came close to Gwindor. Sorcerers are not tanks – and Gwindor’s armour may well not save him from the attacks that were coming, mainly because he does not wear any.
I sent sacred flame at one of these undead, and Pherios attempted to turn them both – succeeding against the one I had already damaged. Clearly, the fight against this hag and her minions was going to continue, and I pray she doesn’t have many of these ‘helpers’
Part Four
As we continued to batter these ghoul helpers, I couldn’t help but feel that the delightful Maud was a combination of frightened by us and bored with us. I fully expected her to circle back and re-enter her lair, but this didn’t seem to happen. Meanwhile, the fight with the ghouls continued.
Gwindor was doing his best to be a front-line fighter, you know, exactly how a sorcerer is supposed to be (NOT!) and attempted to grab the ghoul in front of him, then send a shockwave of lightning, to sparkle through its undead form. He succeeded in his attempt, as expected, our foe shrugged it off and then proceeded to try and eat him.
My attempt at dropping radiant damage on the ghoul failed, as, even though it had a mouthful of Gwindor, it merely dodged to the side, and the radiant light made a pretty pattern on the mud. Thankfully, my spiritual weapon was still active and smacked it from behind, at least causing it some more discomfort.
Our second ghoulish foe continued to flee from Pherios and eventually disappeared.
Mr Reliable, our expert assassin rogue, sent an arrow at the ghoul, but caused it minimal damage. The shiny one charged into the action (if you can call it charging when wading through mud) and managed to reach Gwindor’s position. As ever, he preferred to use the shiny weapon rather than something that would cause the ghoul some grief, but hey ho, that is the consequence of having to make snap decisions in the midst of battle.
Maud (the annoying – new name) sent her usual cackles through the air, but it didn’t bother us much, as we are all used to that now. She did do something to Pherios, though, probably something to do with an invisible broomstick, as he became fixed in place, refusing to move and also refusing to speak, while wearing a “what’s up my butt’ expression on his face.”
Rinaldo rejoined us and carried on singing, which benefitted some but not others.
Gwindor tried again with is
front-line tactics. Please give up on
that – long-range spells are a better option for a sorcerer, especially ones
that can be twinned…
Once again, my radiant damage was dodged by this wily ghoul, probably the sustenance helping him, eating a Gwindor seems to work (well – for ghouls). Thankfully, my spiritual weapon attacked once more and sliced the creature in two.
It was at this point that another voice entered our ears, asking whether the sounds we were making were, in fact, Maud. The rocking chair next to Galen moved, and the sound seemed to come from there, so Galen wasted no time in turning and shredding the back of it.
Maud (from somewhere) shouted out that the chair was a present from her father.
I nearly shouted back “bullshit” as we all know they don’t have fathers; they merely steal other people’s children (girls), eat them and then vomit them back again as a new hag. But I just couldn’t be bothered.
Then the mud boiled, and the steam from the vents shot out again. Those of us in the room were ready for this; those in the mud had their feet boiled.
The Sunday lunch and the cauldron vanished from sight, and I don’t know how or why, because I was constantly looking around to avoid surprises. On close examination, we found a shoot below the position previously occupied by the cauldron, so I dare say, Maud the Annoying pulled a lever and took her cauldron (question: why?). I hope she was at the bottom of the shoot and ended up covered in dinner. She sent us a parting message, but we were all mainly preoccupied with getting the hot, mud-covered members of the party to the safety of the main lair.
Once the mud cooled, I merely looked around the room to see if anything we could use or examine caught my eye. While doing this, I saw the shiny one examine a door near Gwindor’s location. As expected, it was locked, so rather than call Galen over to examine it properly, he decided to try to get it open himself. He failed to see the trap, failed to put himself in a position to avoid trouble, then failed to dodge out of the way when a long, poisoned needle shot out and stabbed the poison into his arm. Good job. So now we had to watch to see how long the poison would affect our delightful Paladin. Thankfully, a restoration was not required as I was low on spells (Pherios might need help).
Galen examined a part of the muddy area and found a door behind an illusion. This time, he was well prepared for the inevitable trap and, as is his way, with a shiny twinkling smile, deftly disarmed the trap and opened the door.
Behind the door, we found a store room that was too small for us all to fit in, but had barrels of, well, stuff. We found a couple of interesting and weird ledgers of debts owed and paid.
The shiny one went to take a closer look at the hot lagoon, seeing various skeletons at the bottom. There were several giant skeletons present, clearly the remains of those who decided it would be an awesome idea to come here and commit suicide. Amongst the bones we spied a shiny object. Now, what is the rule with shiny objects? That’s right: don’t go chasing shiny objects. But, of course, this is him, so we stopped him from trying to wade into the water and decided to test the pool first by throwing the dead ghoul in. It was devoured seconds later by fast-moving creatures with, presumably, lots of sharp teeth.
Still not giving up, we asked Pherios to fashion a grappling hook out of rope and one of the rocking chairs. Wood floats though – so we gave up on that.
After a time, we decided to rest up as we had now been through two battles, and energy was running low. Avoiding any kind of fight right now was probably prudent.
So with that in mind, we all made our way back to the lair room and began to settle in for the night. Gwindor, once again, true to form, said he would examine one of the coffins we could see in there.
Two of us shouted out, “Don’t open the coffin—OH SHIT!”
Part Five
We are really good at cretinous moves. As soon as Gwindor had taken the slightest peek inside the coffin, two ghouls sprang at us, faster than you could say “Oh mi good god Terrance.” The second ghoul came from the other coffin that Galen was looking at.
At least Gwindor was used to this now. Ghoul turns up, ghoul gets close to Gwindor, ghoul tries to eat Gwindor. You could say that in the restaurant of Maud, the main menu item for Ghouls is Gwindor Surprise.
As ever, amongst swear words, we leapt into action, and incredibly, Gwindor was the first to strike and sent electric shockwaves through the ghoul, doing its best to begin its evening starter before the main course. Galen, deftly as ever, swung at the other ghoul with his rapier, pointing out that he was not on the menu. I moved closer to the melee and once I had judged the distance, brought down radiance, frying both ghouls.
The undead monstrosities fought back, but thankfully, they were as inept at fighting as we were at avoiding daft confrontations. Gwindor and Galen managed to finish off their respective opponents without further assistance from me. They then decided to search the coffins, where they found dirt. We won’t be taking that back with us.
At this point, we all decided to call it a day, stick someone on watch and take a rest. Gwindor volunteered for the first shift as he is one of those who only need to meditate for four hours to feel rested. I don’t.
His shift was uneventful, but when it was Galen's turn, I think he got the jitters. He thought that dead bodies were moving and chairs were talking, so he woke me up. Damned nuisance, as I was having a lovely dream about being in a faraway place that was warm and lovely, with lovely company. Being woken up to realise you are still in a cave, occupied by one of the ugliest fey creatures in existence and that cave is located in, of all places, Icewind Dale. The name says it all, doesn’t it?
Galen was convinced that something was amiss, so we went over to one of the dead fisher bodies. He performed one of his elite examinations, and I cast Guidance (and with maximum energy) to enhance his chances of finding anything untoward. After his examination, we did indeed discover that the dead fisher was truly dead.
Another one of those ‘shaved gibbon’ moments. I went back to sleep, tired of all this nonsense. Or, at least I tried to. One of the chairs started rocking, and Galen was convinced that he heard a voice – in his head at least. We decided to move the chairs and burn everything, including the dead undead ghouls, their coffins and anything else that would annoy me. So it was all piled up away from us and set alight. That’s when we noticed two sigil circles where the chairs were. Clearly, this is where the voices came from. Despite this, I went back to sleep.
Except for another chair moving across the cave by itself, nothing else happened, so we thought (finally), time to leave. Going back the way we came seemed to be impossible, so we looked at the door and stairs leading upward – these were where the shiny one managed to get poisoned.
The further up we went, the colder it became, and seeing as our cold-weather gear was elsewhere in the complex, we had a vote that Gwindor lost. His ring of warmth would keep him warm, so we said, “off you go.” Hopefully, he would find another way back to the cave entrance and either retrieve cold weather gear for us or find a way past the now blocked passage.
Then time passed.
In our boredom, we decided to take another look at the way we had come. Galen, to my surprise, found a switch or lever (or something) and pulled it. Well, what do you know, passage way no longer blocked!
We went back through the ossuary, past the one-legged skelly-monster we had smashed, back past the river of stench and climbed up the rope to the bridge. All the time, not wondering where Gwindor was at all.
I forget who it was, but Galen or the little twerp Rinaldo could hear sounds of a struggle, so fearing it could be Gwindor, we ran to the cave entrance.
From my vantage point, I could see Gwindor in a boat, being given a bear hug by water (do water bears exist? I mean, we do have Owlbears, so nothing is off the table here). He was clearly struggling. I saw some electrical discharge, so I figured that was one of Gwindor’s attempts to get the water bear to end the bear hug. He did seem to affect it, so maybe he might have succeeded? I didn’t wait to find out and, from extreme range, hit the creature with Guiding bolt, killing it.
We waited for Gwindor to join us, then retreated into the caves as the cold was beginning to affect us. Gwindor told us the creature was a Water Weird and he had everything under control. We didn’t believe him.
The cold was getting to Rinaldo so much so that he was on the point of death very quickly – a running theme on this trek.
We donned our cold-weather gear and collected Fellos, who gladly came with us. The plan, as ever, was to get out of there, but then the usual hive mind of stupidity kicked in, and we decided to examine a hidden door. While Galen examined a way through, the rest of us chatted about the magic sigils we found. Personally, I believe they are used so that the hags can moan to each other. I mean, with a mouth like that and two hundred teeth, the price of their dental plan must be horrific.
Galen found a way through and past the illusions that were present. We could all hear something breathing heavily on the other side of the second door we came to. So, in good, time-honoured fashion, we decided it would be a good idea to open the door.
The door opened about six inches and bashed into whatever was sleeping. Then it wasn’t sleeping anymore. Galen stuck his head around the door to see a dire wolf looking at him.
Heroes that we are, we asked Pherios to go in there first with his big axe. He cast Bless on a couple of us, and like a good chap, in he went. Followed by Galen and then yours truly.
That’s when we found there were two huge wolves in there.
Pherios hit the first wolf, which attempted to bite him back but missed. Galen stabbed the same animal with his rapier, causing significant damage. I followed up with what I thought would be a decisive move and hit both wolves with a fireball.
And they brushed it off like confetti.
Thankfully, Pherios and Galen (and I think Gwindor) managed to kill the two wolves quite quickly after that. The cave that the two wolves were in was barren of anything except bones, so we decided to leave and head for the boat back to Easthaven.
Epilogue
Our walk back to the boats was, thankfully, uneventful. We decided to place Fellos and Rinaldo in one boat, and we would get into the other. Some questioned the wisdom of placing a blind man in the care of a cretin, but we were all too tired to care.
Thankfully, despite some of us wearing armour, we all seemed to get into the boats in a manner that suggested we were all gymnasts. We cast off and headed back to Easthaven, hoping to have no encounters along the way.
After an hour of rowing and dragging the two behind us, we heard fits of laughter coming from their boat. Closer examination from Galen confirmed they were completely pissed. We didn’t know it before, because we stupidly didn’t search the boat, but there was a stash of alcoholic drinks onboard, which Fellos and Rinaldo were merrily working their way through.
We thought we would leave them to it until that cretin started throwing empty bottles at us. I really wanted to stop the boats, pull them closer until I could grab the moron and then give him a swimming lesson. You know, the kind where you throw someone into icy water and hold them below the surface until they stop moving. We were tired, though, so we decided to deal with him later. Gwindor did consider throwing a torch back at the other boat. This, too, I was in favour of.
Another hour of rowing, and we all started turning into kids with rounds of “Are we there yet?” being spoken.
We finally arrived at Easthaven, and when we looked into the other boat, both Fellos and the cretin were fast asleep. Gwindor shook their boat violently to wake them up. Rinaldo, realising we were back, and in his drunken stupor, thought he would try a heroic leap onto the ice. We watched with amusement as he faced the lake and jumped into the icy water.
To my annoyance, the Shiny one threw a rope into the water, thus saving the little shit. We pulled him out and thought that once this particular adventure was over, we would be glad to see the back of him.
The wind had really increased to an intolerable level, so we decided to get off the ice and into town as quickly as possible. Many people were looking at us, and others were muttering amongst themselves. I have to say, despite the weather conditions, there were more people about than I expected.
Reaching town, we saw a dead red yeti hanging upside down. I think some adventurer had been seeking to hunt one; clearly, he succeeded.
As we were looking at the beast, someone mentioned a broad-shouldered and unshaven man walking towards us. I looked up and could see that it was Captain Arlaggath. Now, I know my memory is not that bad. Arlaggath is a woman, or at least was when we left. Perhaps she is a relative of those you see in circuses, the bearded lady types? From now on we decided she was a man woman, in order to ensure the descriptions we received were accurate.
Arlaggath told us that more Duergar were in the town, continually stealing Chardalyn and sending it south. A council meeting was in full swing, and she wanted us to accompany her to the council chambers and report on what we had found and the fate of the four fishermen.
When we arrived at the meeting, we saw Speaker Danath and Speaker Wailan, along with many other council members, all in deep discussion. I can’t remember who it was, but one from the council looked up and saw us, and spoke in derisory terms, basically not thinking we were any good and describing the cretin, who was still with us, as the ‘minstrel who can't hold a tune.’ He got that bit right.
The councilman, I think it was Wailen, explained that the raids had increased, there were gnoll raiding parties at large, and the duergar were sending the items they were looting to a destination in the south. We were asked to explain our activities and how our expedition to find the fishers went.
It’s incredible how some people react to bad news. I fully understand now why being a messenger is one of those professions that should carry a salary which includes danger money. Shooting the messenger is an activity that seems to be thriving. Wailen, or someone, as I was rapidly losing interest in this crowd, called our expedition a failure, as we had not returned with the fishers. I reminded him that we did, in fact, bring back one of them, but were not in the habit of transporting dead bodies. The other three were already dead when we found them.
He wasn’t happy with this, but then, I suppose there is no pleasing some people. We produced a ledger of entries which made it plain that Maud was feeding the town, or at least some of them, in exchange for payment. What the payment was, we don’t know. The councillor, who must clearly be related to Rinaldo and wears the cretinous gene openly on his arm, was not happy with that either.
The one thing he did say that was actually on the money was that a witch was running a food supply network.
We were dismissed after that. No mention of payment, no mention of ' at least you found one man, no thank you, no ‘kiss my arse’, nothing. Gwindor went up to man-woman Arlaggath, and mentioned this fact. Begrudgingly, she handed over a magic bag of some sort. We’ll discover its secrets later.
Fellos was led away to another part of the town, presumably to somewhere with a cleric who could restore Fellos’s sight. Sadly, I would have done that for him if I had the experience and expertise to do so.
That’s when the inevitable Gwindor moment arrived. He had left his cold-weather gear with Fellos! Time to go shopping again.
We ventured into the shopping district and glanced through a window. The shop contained the shiniest weaponry and armour I have seen so far, and the shiny one was captivated. He really wanted to have a look, so in we all went.
A typical, get-rich-quick kind of guy started serving Phineas, who was looking for a nice shiny flail. Not the grubby, usual kind I had given him. I think the shop owner couldn’t believe his luck and produced a golden flail, inlaid with silver. I must say it did look rather spectacular, and possibly had magical properties. Phineas’ face lit up. I turned to Gwindor and said, “Look at that, he is in love – the right narcissistic flail finally came along.”
Apparently, this thing is called the Flail of Mercurios, and Phineas really wanted it, so much so that he signed away all his current gold as a deposit on it. Payable in a week. I really don’t think he will be back in time to buy the magnificent weapon, but hey ho.
We decided to rest up at the White lady and make our way back to Bryn Shander where Galen and I wanted to sell the feathers we had collected. We were promised 2000 GP per feather – especially as they were harpy feathers. With this money, we could ensure Phineus would have his latest love interest, and we could buy some better gear – we are on the trail of a deity after all, and that will not be easy to deal with.
When the morning came, I expected to see Rinaldo getting in our way. He was singing all the previous evening, but strangely, he was nowhere to be seen. With all the talk of a food network, supply chain and regular payments, I have to say that perhaps we were duped all along, and this cretin, just MAY be a planted agent working for Maud secretly. After all, he was closest to the cave switch that sealed off the area before Maud’s chamber. Just a thought, but we shouldn’t rule it out.