Embedded Files
PREVIOUSLY - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 47 - BATTLE OF FIREHAMMER HOLD
When last we left our heroes, they had infiltrated Firehammer Hold, searching for the dwarf named Jekk, a friend of Sir Isteval who now seemed to be missing. They snuck through a hostel in the cliff walls of the mountain complex and found a secret passage.
They engaged in a fight with duergar, otherwise known as "gray dwarves", beings who inhabit the underdark realms of Toril. Having defeated half their foes, two of the duergar become invisible, and the party frantically searches for them to prevent their wider discovery and any potential alarm.
Seeing Atlas running down a hallway while swinging her sword wildly, Nowhere assumes after one of their unseen enemies and casts spike growth on the floor further up the hall. The floor instantly twists into brutal spikes and gullies nearly unseen due to magical camouflage, and the floor instantly starts showing the passing of the invisible duergar by evidence of a bloody trail on the spikes.
The fleeing duergar turns visible, just as Atlas races to his position, but the duergar starts magically enlarging, and swings at the dark-haired female monk with a now-giant war pick. Caught off guard, the strike hits home and slashes Atlas brutally, sending her reeling with a gout of blood across the chest.
Immeral steps down from the protection of the southern stairs, moving forward to get closer to the northern hallway and their enlarged duergar who stands before Atlas in front of a pair of double-doors. Immeral shoots a ray of frost, striking the duergar with a frigid beam of cold.
From the same room, K'ronk casts fire bolt and immediately strikes their opponent with motes of fiery magic, causing the enlarged duergar to howl in an unnaturally deep voice.
Dain rushes into the hallway and swings his great axe, but the blow glances off the armor of the gray dwarf. He swings back around with a second strike and connects into the chest of the frozen-burnt enemy.
Atlas unleashes a flurry of blows enhanced by her magical gauntlets, and she knocks out the massive dwarf. She does not stop as he falls, pounding him into the spiked floor and killing him. His body quickly shrinks down to normal size.
Atlas clutches her wounded chest and says to the panting Dain, "should I take his skull?"
"For what?" Dain asks.
"Maybe for a tavern?" Nowhere smirks.
Dain says "Gray dwarves are basically my cousins. That wouldn't be a welcoming tavern."
Atlas looks at the corpse and says "There's your trickle-down life, bitch!" She starts checking his pockets and finds ten gold pieces.
"We have bodies to hide" says Seraphina.
Meanwhile Immeral sends Syldan, his hawk familiar, flying through the room to the north to spy any potential problems.
The 30-foot-high ceiling of this large room is supported by two square pillars. A 10-foot-tall statue of an armored female dwarf wielding a great sword wreathed in two spirals of flame stands in a recess in the northern wall. The southwest and southeast corners contain stools and benches arranged before two burning fireplaces. Halls exit the room to the northwest, south, and west. The eastern wall has narrow 3-foot-tall niches starting 3 feet off the floor.
There is nobody in the room, and the group considers sneaking into that northern room, but Atlas asks "shouldn't we check out the rooms closest to our exit first, that way we don't get cut off?"
"Good point" Immeral says, turning back to the single door to the west. "Besides, the spike growth will not dissipate for another fifty minutes or so."
They drag the duergar body from the double-doors, away from the spiked floor, and into the square room to the south.
Orryn stealthily opens that door and peeks in, seeing nothing scarier than a thirty foot long hallway heading west with another heavy stone door at the opposite end.
He approaches the second door just as cautiously, peeking in, and hears some scratching, pausing, but not being able to see much, but he has to open the door further.
The room appears to be an armory and inside are three snoozing giant lizards who must be actings as some sort of guards. As The League prepares to jump into the room and fight, the lizards spring up. The first barrels though the doorway and dives at K'ronk, but the wizard moves out of the way and it smashes into the wall, bruised from the failed attack.
The next two dive at Atlas who pushes off the first, right into the bite of the second, drawing blood from razor-sharp teeth.
Nowhere swings Icerazor in the cramped quarters, slicing into the leg of the one attacking K'ronk, and swinging again and slicing its other leg is hobbling it. The tiefling ranger swings again, hitting the skull of the lizard with her pommel and knocking it out.
Seraphina swings Lightbringer, but misses.
Worried about the close-quarters fighting, Orryn launches a salvo of four magical darts from his wand of magic missiles, which fly infallibly to two of the monsterous lizards. The bolts of purple light wound the lizards even further and they writhe in pain.
Atlas launches a flurry of blows and beats one unconscious, flipping around with her blinding speed, battering another one, and knocking it prone.
K'ronk swings his goat staff and hits the scrambling lizard and knocks it unconscious, and Dain finishes it with his great axe.
They drag the lizards back into the armory room and Nowhere spends the time to gather a trophy, a giant lizard head, dropping the bloody head into their bag of holding.
In the armory they find an assortment of spears, common swords, shields, bows, crossbows, slings, battle axes, arrows, bolts and sling bullets. Atlas and Nowhere pick up slings and bullets. Nowhere looks somberly at the bows, but decides to pick up a crossbow, and throws together a quiver and bolts. The others watch as the bow-avoiding tiefling gathers these materials, knowing that arrows are a painful subject for the ranger.
They spend a few minutes looking for secret passages, and finding none, they go back and pull the corpses of the dead duergar into the armory, shutting the doors behind them.
They go back to the double-doors to the north, which are dressed with carved scenes of dwarves in battle with various foes. Orryn tries to stealthily open them, but the doors grind loudly. Fortunately, no one is beyond them, so they enter.
There is a 30' long and 20' wide entry hall with another pair of carved double doors opposite the entry. There are ornate brass torch sconces which are lit and glowing, illuminating particularly impressive friezes of azure slate that depict dwarves fighting dragons, including a battle with Tiamat, the legendary dragon-god.
Orryn listens and hears nothing at the next doors, and is able to open them near silently. Two rows of four square pillars support the 30-foot-high ceiling in this chamber. A 10-foot-wide effigy of an ancient dwarf king, carved into a disk of azure slate, adorns the east wall between two fireplaces with mantles covered in shiny brass plates. The walls are decorated with bas-reliefs depicting feasting and carousing dwarves. A massive stone table with high-backed chairs fills the space between the rows of pillars. The western double doors and a door to the south are the room’s only exits. There are torches lit in sconces on the walls.
The party creeps into the room, the party is blasted by a spray of fire coming from the north wall.
Nowhere is blasted - but is resistant to fire, Seraphina ducks under most of the flame, Orryn dives under a table, Atlas dodges, and Immeral and K'ronk take the the brunt of the fire as Dain shields himself from the blast. They quickly pat out the flames, and while they are gathering themselves, they hear several deep, heavy gong sounds somewhere from the north. Subtle sounds of cackling laughter comes dimly from the east.
Atlas assumes the cloak of elvenkind, drinks a healing potion, and hides against the wall while Seraphina casts mass healing ward on her party, restoring some of their damage, although hair and clothing is still singed. Immeral ducks behind a pillar and pulls up his cloak of stars, flipping into the mirror world - the ethereal plane. He sees nothing of interest, so steps over and pushes incorporeally through the door to the south.
In that room he sees a 30'x30' room with two duergar guards and what looks to be two duergar priests who are doing some planning. The guards are looking at each other inquisitively, likely at the sounds of the gongs which the priests seem to be ignoring.
Immeral takes his hood off, signing to the others that there are 4 beings in the next room, just as a blast of flame flows over them from the east side of the room.
Seraphina and Dain are caught squarely in the blast - taking heat damage and some of their clothing catches fire. Nowhere, Orryn, Atlas, K'ronk and Immeral dodge the flame only taking minor damage. Laugher can be heard from behind the eastern wall.
Wanting to get out of the room before facing more flames, K'ronk suggests "if we go after the priests, I have my staff of frost."
Immeral nods "They won't flame their own priests, let' go!"
They gather at the door and rush in, and have but a moment to take in the room. The walls are covered by slate bas-reliefs depicting ancient dwarf kings and queens. An ornate, high-backed throne of azure stone stands in the middle of the east wall. A fire has been lit in a fireplace with a brass-plated mantle in the middle of the south wall. A kite-shield-shaped black banner showing a broken crossbow bolt in red hangs from the mantle. Four bedrolls are spread before the fireplace, and a silver bowl sits on the floor near them, holding down several unrolled scrolls.
K'ronk sends in a cone of cold from his staff of frost, sending in a stream of magically cold air that freezes their enemies in the room. All the duergar are caught frozen in place and fall unconscious. The Owlbear League races in and kills all of the duergar except one.
Dain looks around for anything interesting. He finds a silver bowl with seven gems in it, along with several human and halfling teeth. He grabs the bowl, and pockets the gems. There are inkpots, quills, chalk, and a scroll, of which he only takes the scroll.
Atlas does a quick prayer to Mizar for their safety. Immeral hears a sound from behind, and spies a secret passage opening in the north wall of the drinking hall. Armed duergar start streaming out, and Immeral shuts and bars the door. "We have company!"
Nowhere performs a rope trick spell, creating a pocket dimension in the air high in the room with a rope hanging below to enter it. The League all scramble up the rope, pushing the lone unconscious priest up into the space too, and pull the rope in behind them.
From this magical space, they can watch the duergar below break down the door and enter the room, appearing greatly confused at the party's disappearance, and they start tapping on the walls, looking for secret passages and up the fireplace. Some way the party might have disappeared. For about 15 minutes the duergar mill around. Finally some sort of boss duergar makes his way into the room, ordering the bodies of their fallen to be hauled away. They address him as Borregon, and he gathers up the plans the priests were working on and orders everyone out of the room. They follow and he orders guards posted at the door.
With only about 45 minutes left before the pocket dimension collapses, they decide to interrogate the priest. They tie the priest up and Dain positions himself to cover the priest's mouth, then Nowhere casts goodberry, and puts a few in the unconscious duergar's mouth and Dain makes him chew.
Suddenly the priest's eyes pop open in wild alarm and Dain clamps his hand over his mouth. Nowhere goes to hand out the rest of the berries to her comrades for healing, but the Duergar suddenly starts growing, breaking the ropes that bind him, and crushing The League against the invisible walls of the space. The mad duergar kicks and writhes and batters The League against the walls.
Dain tries to choke out the duergar, but his throat is too big.
Seraphina tries to cast dispel magic, but she is unable to make the movements required to execute the spell.
Nowhere casts hellish rebuke, and the blast of fiery magic kills the duergar, and it starts shrinking immediately.
In disgust, they kick the dead duergar out of the pocket dimension and his roasted body falls to the floor. The guards cry out startled and back off into the northern drinking hall. They talk to each other in Dwarvish "What the hells is that?" one says. "Where did it come from?" says the other. They call out for others to get Borregar and they start barricading the doorway with tables from the drinking hall.
The League laughs for a moment at the duergar's fright, but then realize they are trapped.
Having a safe quiet moment, Seraphina spends the time to cast prayer of healing on her friends, restoring all of them to full health.
Meanwhile, they discuss what to do next.
They then climb down the rope into the barricaded room.
Immeral uses his cloak of stars to move into the border ethereal where he can see there are six duergar guards outside the barricade. The secret passage which they likely came from is now closed.
Immeral returns to his friends and tells them the situation. They look around a bit for secret passages, but find none.
Orryn eyes the chimney whose fire has gone out, and recalls how he originally met the Owlbear League sneaking into Quasqueton through a chimney vent.
"Let me see if I can find a way out..." and the diminutive gnome starts climbing up the fireplace flue.
It takes about 10 minutes for Orryn to emerge in the steep wooded hillside above the fortress. The air is briskly cold, but refreshing. Orryn makes his way carefully downhill and comes to the road before Firehammer Hold in another few minutes. He draws out his horn and blows the call used to bring Lady D. He sits on the ground and rests, brushing off the soot for about 10 minutes, waiting for his beloved owlbear, giving her a hug upon arrival.
They enter the hostel where they found the secret passage and shortly realizes that she cannot fit into the secret passage. The idea for a distraction with Lady D. suddenly falls apart.
While Orryn works on a new idea, the rest of the League supposes several ideas if Orryn is not back soon. Nowhere says to Immeral "I have a potion of invulnerability, you would swig that, bust on through and have them chase you, and then at the last second use your ethereal cloak to disappear."
"Me?" Immeral says, aghast. "I could if you move the door."
Atlas says "I would do it. I'm faster. You will have to chase them down behind me though."
K'ronk says "Orryn could have shuttled us out one at a time with the bag of holding."
Nowhere says "That's safer than some sort of distraction."
K'ronk says "I could reach Orryn with a sending spell."
Atlas says "I don't
Immeral says "Do it."
As Orryn is complicating feigning that he needs help from an owlbear attack, K'ronk's mind reaches him and communicates "Bring us out through flue with bag of holding."
Orryn quickly backs away from the doors he was about to start pounding on, he leaves Lady D in the hostel, and scrambles up the steep hillside. It takes him the better part of an hour, but he makes his way down the chimney, barely able to find the flue in the dark woods. The descent is much easier than the climb.
Over the next hour Orryn shuttles the trapped heroes up into the cold night air, and Nowhere uses her forest abilities to lead the team down the hill and back to the road by Firehammer.
They have engaged the enemy, but didn't get any answers on where Jekk is, or the former residents of Firehammer Hold. It is late, and they want to sleep, but there is work to be done.
NEXT - Campaign Journal 49 - Second Invasion
This adventure used material from the D&D Module "Scourge of the Sword Coast".
Google Sites
Report abuse