Entry 105 – Wolves and Things

We were given a heavy sack, which contained ten blue potion bottles. These are health potions, so we took two each. These might be useful later. Yeah – silly comment, of course we will need them later…

We followed the trail south toward where we believe these duergar are coming from and found a rather nice vantage point to rest for the night. Galen or Gwindor, I can’t remember which, decided to take it in turns to do their four-hour trance thing. This is great as the rest of us get to sleep for eight hours and recoup.

Only we didn’t.

“Something is coming.” Was the call, just as I was getting into a lovely dream about a couple of people I was about to have fun with. Ho hum. What have we got?

The sound of duergar was coming our way, following the same trail we were following. From what we could see, there were two duergar and something they were ‘encouraging’ to move with them. We can handle them, we thought, so—ambush time!

At the appropriate time, we spring the surprise. I cast Daylight above the ambush site. If there is one thing I love about duergar is their aversion to light of all forms and what daylight does to them – especially when they want to attack something. Mace in one hand and the other covering their eyes—they won’t hit a barn door doing that.

That’s when we discover we are actually up against four duergar (easy) and four Ice Trolls (oh hell).

Fireball or acid! I shout.

So Gwindor uses a lightning bolt. The phrase ends in ‘sake’. Yes, he hit three of the trolls, but they start regenerating immediately… Here we go again for a nice long-haul fight.

We have full surprise, so I get to unload a fireball, hitting two of the trolls, two of the duergar and also hitting the sledge they are pulling. Galen and the shiny one get stuck into an ice troll, but do their best to keep away from those flailing clawed arms.

One troll takes a swing at the Shiny one, but I countered that with a warding flare.

Gwindor gets with the program and launches a fireball, killing one troll (already injured), severely damaging another and setting the sledge on fire.

The melee continues with Pherios, Galen and The Shiny one keeping the duergar at bay and reducing the trolls’ health while we fire dealers prepare to finish them.

Then the sledge exploded.

Apparently, once chardelain reaches a certain temperature, it reacts. The massive necrotic explosion removed the remaining duergar, killed two of the trolls outright and also made Gwindor feel rather unwell.

It didn’t take much to finish off the final troll, at which we took a breath. Then, remembering that “troll bits” are valuable, we cut off Hearts, lungs, hands, fingernails, ears, teeth, toes, fangs, hair, fur, and skin. Then decided to head for Dougan's Hole. Which I hope is a place and not an appendage.

After finally finishing our rest, we moved off in the direction of this town. We have never been there, but that has not stopped us from exploring. As ever, our path is not an easy one as we encounter four-legged dogs with a face full of knives.

As ever, these things move in on us, some wolf-sized, some dire wolf-sized, and some dire wolf sized and a white colour.

Oh joy – these can only be Winter Wolves. Again.

They are on us, and once I am happy the whole group can be reached, I pull down Radiance of the Dawn, fry all of them – killing a couple of smaller wolves and making the big ones annoyed. Such is life and death.

One dire wolf jumped on our sledge dogs, killing some of them. Gwindor hit it with some fire spell, only to get attacked up the butt by another big wolf. An interesting spectacle, which would have merited further study, only we didn’t have the time.

We fought off this attack, with the remaining wolves retreating but keeping us in sight. This is where the shiny one evolved into the exact opposite of a main character from International Rescue. And hence forth earned the additional title of No Brains.

Using his trusty summoned steed, he charged off, north from the camp, going after a single wolf. Ah – the glory, the expertise, the cleansing. Once he was sufficiently away from where we could help him with anything other than fireballs, two more huge wolves of the Winter variety and another dire job descended on him like flies to... well, I get the picture.

Our misadventures continue. I could see it in Gwindor’s eyes: “To help or not to help? That is the question.” Help, of course, would require a spell that could actually reach. Fireball could reach. But, there is the usual problem with that and seeing as neither Gwindor nor I are evoker wizards, our help would certainly fry No Brains, the paladin.

So we watched, hoping the wolves would bounce off the shiny armour or eat the horse instead. That strategy sort of worked, and we gave him marks out of ten for making it out of that situation, still with his horse.

At this point, we see yet another wolf. This is the size of a detached house. I must curb my drinking; I am sure it is now affecting me.

This new type of wolf dropped six new, normal-sized wolves. A carrier we proclaim, and Gwindor and I instantly fireball the wolves and the big wolf-thing. They die. It gets bigger.

Oh, Joy upon joy. Perhaps staying in Baldur’s Gate amongst mind flayers, dragons and a navy of weird illithis ships would have been the right move after all—I mean, at least the dragons were fighting the bad guys!

Then the wolf thing turns into a giant. A green giant, with green skin, green hair and green eyes. This wasn’t a jolly green giant, though. I don’t know if it was he or one of the wolves that pointed at Gwindor and said “You!”

“Him?” I thought, then watched, intrigued at what happened next.

The Not Jolly Green Giant, AKA “Hrothgar”, walks up to Gwindor and says, “Why do you stand?” I am guessing that we are supposed to kneel at this point, but none of us is bright enough to work that one out. I fall over at this point so I miss what happened next.

When I stood up again, the Not Jolly Green Giant was walking away from Gwindor, and Gwindor had a large cut/scratch on his cheek.

I have to say, I have seen better looking love-bites, but hey, whatever flicks you switch.

I cast detect magic to see if there was anything wrong with Gwindor and apart from displaying the usual (and there is a lot), we now know the word “Kinslayer.” What this means and why Gwindor is Kinslayer we don’t know.

We camped for the night and found four wolves, north, east, south and west. All keeping their distance. Gwindor puts his fancy helm on and says they were apparently guarding us.

Well, that is a change in events. Why?

I think Galen was the one to tell him he had a scar on his cheek, but we didn’t have a mirror for him to admire it.

We pressed on to Dougan’s Hole.

What a dump. It is such a dump, there is nowhere to take a dump. It is that bad. Please tell me why we came here again?

We approached the town hall, or rather, the building that looks the least dilapidated. A woman takes one look at Gwindor and says, “You are his.” And runs away. Something tells me we won’t get much in the way of help here.

No one wanted to talk to us until Gwindor turned on the charm, political diplomacy and common sense. He told them that if no one would talk to us, he would fireball the place. Interestingly, that tactic worked, and we managed to speak to the town speaker. Well, by “we”, I mean everyone except Gwindor; he was not allowed in the building.

The speaker doesn’t look as inbred as the others, so she is probably the one with the brain cell. She tells us of the problem they have here. Wolves that can speak arrive and steal people. And they never see them again. I must admit, I think I know where this is heading.

As ever, we decide to help with this problem. When don’t we?

What else do we know about these wolves? I asked.

We were told they ask for sausages. Two people went looking for missing people with sausages. They haven’t been seen since. I am not taking sausages.

This occurs every two weeks or so, and the village people don’t know what to do about it. They put us up in a ramshackle place, which must be their YMCA, and from there we rested and planned how to help them. They did tell us that this Hrothgar bloke marks people and then comes to get them, and they have to take meat and vegetables to the stones on the outskirts of the village.

Around this time, Gwindor saw a dog. The dog told him that he would be joining them soon, “brother.” I have remove curse, ready, just in case.

We ask when the wolves come, and all the locals said, “Mostly they come at night. Mostly.”

At midnight, we went up to the stones, a small henge with a central stone ringed by others. It was dark up there when two large wolves of the winter variety arrived. Followed shortly by an army of other wolves that these winter jobs did not like.

As ever, the punch-up started and seeing as we could see precisely jack-shit, I cast Daylight over the central stone, revealing the additional wolves were not… normal. Indeed, we found out later they were made of Chardelain.

Seeing as these non-wolf wolves looked like they were there to attack everyone, we joined the side of the two winter wolves and started sending spells, fireballs, arrows, and all other weapons into the melee. Two extra huge non-wolves arrived, just to make the fight even more interesting. And these were just delightful – from a full 30 feet, the necrotic breath weapon nearly removed me from existence. Note to self: these damned things can one-shot you.

After a prolonged fight, the evening went our way. Leaving one of the village people dead, meaning they would need a new recruit, and the others had fled. One of the non-wolves has escaped into a hidden fissure, promptly chased by Galen and Gwindor. They found the wolf and killed it. Then Galen could hear the cries of what he thought was a child coming from… somewhere.

At this point, we decided to stop and rest up, especially as No Brains was absent; it had been a hard day the previous day, running around on his steed and probably shouting, “It’s cool for cats.”

To be continued…