Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 3, 2007 21:01:44 GMT -5
The cave appears to be a den for the wolves. No human furnishings are present, though several pegs on the wall holds fur clothing and some leather working equipment. In the far end of the cave, several empty flasks lie on the floor, the remnants of the liquid in them smelling somewhat astringent. On the large wolf is a harness and a bandoleer. Several metal and ceramic flasks are in the bandoleer, while the harness holds a small sack of silver and copper coins, a mixture of mints from the Yeomanry and Sterich.
Saddened by the loss of the wolves, Cedrus and Otto make redress as well as they can. Cedrus, feeling that the loss of Snookums, his animal friend, and now these wolves, may put him in a bad light with Ehlonna, uses a scroll of atonement that he has been carrying with him all these days. He feels much better afterwards and recommends to Otto that he take good care of the animals in his care. Especially the raven, Bran, that he has taken to traveling with.
Otto leads the others back to the Davish, and they follow it further upriver. The river narrows again as it goes through a canyon, and Otto spies a stray boot print, up on the ledge where the ogre must have stumbled, indicating that they are still on the right track. Before trying to push past the narrow point, where the Company may have to use ropes to get along the ledge or be pushed into the now quickly flowing river, they decide to rest and recuperate.
In the morning, the Company prepares for its assault, suspecting the headwaters are nearby. Strength enhancing magics are doled out to the warriors by Oaklock. Then the narrow canyon is bypassed. Indeed, it takes some effort and some safety ropes to get the Company around the bend to where a new landing becomes accessible. Otto, walking over the water, is easily able to attach them to the walls and help the others along. The new landing shows signs of ogre traffic. Apparently the ogres take no care in hiding their tracks past this point, relying on the break in the ledge to impede any tracking.
The Company hikes up the ledge for several hours as the river narrows and narrows. Casually striding around a bend in the river, the Company is suddenly faced with the ogres’ camp. The headwaters of the Davish flow out from underneath the mouth of a cave, spouting out like a fountain. Standing in front of the cave are a group of ogres, almost a full dozen, each clad in impressive splint mail and wearing a short tabard emblazoned with a large white axe on a black triangle, tip pointing downwards. On the opposite side of the river is a series of terraced landings, set in height so that an ogre might be able to climb them as ramps up the side of the canyon the river flows in. At the very top of the canyon, almost sixty feet up, a thick beam can be seen jutting out over the canyon.
“Halt! You no go here!” shouts one of the ogres, perhaps a leader, in a barely understandable dialect.
“We’ve got a special message to give to your leader,” replies Otto quickly, while walking slowly forward.
“No come closer! Who most powerful one?” shouts the ogre, as the other ogres draw their weapons from their sheathes.
“Mountain King Groorg most powerful one.” replies Otto, nodding meaningfully to Diego.
“What’s the message?”
“Give them the message Diego,” orders Otto. Perhaps Otto expected Diego to feather some of the ogres, perhaps he didn’t. Diego instead grabs a small sack off his belt, whips it one-handed around his head twice, and then throws it at the ogre leader. It bounces into the ogre’s arms. The ogre dumps the contents of the sack out onto the ground. Kennith, the Nerullite priest, stares back at him. “Time to go!” shouts Otto, as he sprints over the waters of the river towards the ogres.
Oaklock summons fire on the cave, attempting to catch the ogres in it while not burning Otto, as the others run forward. Diego shoots a single arrow into one of the ogres, letting the others pass him by as he carefully reaches wider, drier land. The ogres attempt to defend, but immediately fall into disarray. Otto hacks the leader in three pieces and then dismembers the next nearest ogre. Those burnt by Oaklock flee into the cave, perhaps seeking safety within. Diego, now on firm ground, fills the nearest ogre with arrows, slaying him. The ogre faced by Adrienne and Cedrus retreats as well, seeing that the battle is lost.
The Company enters into the cave and sees that ogres must live here. Bed furs lie in mounds off to one side. Bones and large barrels line the other side. A glowing pool of water is in the back of the cave, and two passages leave the cave, one to the right and one to the left. Otto, the first into the cave. is immediately struck from above and behind. Standing on a ledge twenty feet above the entrance to the cave are two ogres, each holding large boulders. “Diego!” shouts Otto, as he moves into the cave. The ogres throw rocks at Otto, pummeling him ceaselessly, until Diego and Oaklock combine their arrows and magical bolts to slay them.
The blood trail from the injured ogres goes into the right tunnel, so the Company follows it. The tunnel curves to the left, and, as the Company tromps down the tunnel, the Company comes face to face with a large stone mantlet. Three ogres stand behind the mantlet and throw spears at Otto and Diego, the two who are in the front of the Company. Diego is sorely injured, while Otto is merely grazed. Otto runs up and tries to attack over the mantlet while Diego tries to fire around it, but the mantlet is well designed. It provides maximum cover while still allowing those behind it to attack. Otto is pierced by the spears the ogres hold, painfully poking through him.
“Back off! Summoning fire!” yells Oaklock as he steps into the gap formed when Otto ran forward. Again a sizeable gout of fire explodes from behind the mantlet. Otto staggers back to the Company where both Adrienne and Cedrus pray for him. The ogres though, they are quite cooked, and they abandon their mantlet to fall back further into the cave tunnels.
Once the mantlet is no longer manned, it is easy to bypass, and the Company merely climbs over it. The tunnel continues onwards until suddenly the floor drops out below Otto and Al. They sail to the floor thirty feet below and are bruised and battered when they hit bottom. A lumbering, clanking sound is heard behind the Company, and Adrienne and Cedrus turn to see five ogres with long spears bearing down on them. Adrienne and Cedrus hunker down behind their shields preparing for the assault. Oaklock sends a bolt of lightning down through the ogres, and Diego shoots three of them with an arrow each. Three of the five ogres fall to the ground, dead, while the other two turn and flee back up the passage.
Diego and Oaklock lower a rope and haul out the warriors. Taking advantage of the respite, Adrienne prays for vision to see such hidden traps in the future. Once the warriors are out of the pit, she steps forward and treads on a large handle near the floor. The pit closes again. Otto and Al are quickly healed of the worst of their injuries, and the Company continues forward, where the ogres’ blood trail continues. The passageway ahead, still curving to the left, branches, with a corridor extending to the right. “Wait!” shouts Adrienne, waving her arms. The Company stops. Adrienne steps on a large handle near the floor. “Ok, go!” she commands.
Otto stops at the intersection to see where the blood droplets lead and is deluged by a flight of javelins. Now not really caring where the injured ogres went, he turns and charges the group of a dozen ogres before him. The ogres stand within a large smithy. Ogre-sized weapons and bits of platemail armor are strewn about. A lit forge is against one wall, and crafting tools, anvils, buckets, kegs, and tables dot the room. A stone doorway lies closed in the back of the room. The ogres roar at the Company, beckoning them onwards. As the rest of the Company enters the room, he notes that many of the ogres’ high-quality armor bear marks from Oaklock’s summoned flames, but the ogres themselves are hale. “This bodes poorly,” he thinks.
Al proves that his dwarf training is good still, dodging between and around the legs of the armored ogres, hacking at their extremities. Otto plows through those ogres foolish enough to close with him. Oaklock, by now running low on magics, draws his longsword. Cedrus and Adrienne continue to heal those injured. Diego, on the other hand, fires deadly arrow after deadly arrow.
A strange horned ogre, clad in ornate, polished armor and wielding a great glaive, appears from nowhere, standing near the forge. A beam of cold emanates from its outstretched hand, catching the Company in the midst of it. The entirety of the Company is coated in hoarfrost and rime, and the ogres chortle a great laugh before re-engaging with the Company. Oaklock returns the favor, using the last of his magic as magical bolts sent into the emergent ogre mage. As the ogres run in, the horned ogre looks oddly at Diego, who appears stunned.
Three ogres, each in remarkably fine armor, attack Otto and two attack Al, drawing blood and grievously wounding him. Al returns the favor, slaying one of his enemies and grinning bloodily at the other. Otto, seeing that a mere two ogres stand between him and this fearsome ogre mage, whips the bastard sword around in a strange arc, slicing through the throat of the first ogre, and then quartering the remaining barrier to his enemy. Stepping through the four steaming quarters of the ogre, Otto hacks repeatedly at the ogre mage, lopping off first one arm and then severing the opposing leg. The ogre mage keels over, quite dead.
Diego, somehow enthralled by the ogre mage, responds poorly to the death of his master. He puts three arrows into Otto’s back. Otto also keels over, quite dead, landing face first in the forge. Cedrus and Adrienne leap at Diego, certain that if he is not stopped, he will slay them all. Cedrus is able to get one arm around Diego, through his short bow, and wrestles him to the ground. Al quickly finishes off his enemy and then pounds on Diego’s head with his mailed fist, slowly driving him into unconsciousness.
The last remaining ogre looks around confusedly. What was supposed to be a certain battle, supported by all his healed and hale brethren and backed by the power of a mage, has turned into a debacle, with him the only survivor. Now, before he is killed by any of the powerful warriors before him, they all fall among themselves fighting over nothing. Humans are strange, so he doesn’t take time to worry about it, instead lumbering off for the exit.
Oaklock gives chase, cursing the fact that he wasted the last of his magics on that creature that Otto so easily pureed. The ogre is not fleet of foot, but knows the ins and outs of the cavern better than Oaklock. Oaklock is unable to catch up to the ogre. Indeed, the ogre even goes so far as to start climbing up the terraces to the right of the Davish headwaters. Oaklock, cursing at his wasted magics, shakes his longbow off his shoulder and begins firing at the ogre. Cedrus, having held Diego only so long as he was conscious, joins him at the edge of the cave.
The ogre climbs up the terraces, increasing the range between him and Oaklock, and Oaklock’s shafts fall heartbreakingly short. Cedrus, seeing the problem, calls down Ehlonna’s blessings on Oaklock, and his aim becomes more true. One, then another, and finally a third arrow sinks into the ogre, toppling him just as he reaches the edge of the canyon. As the ogre plummets back down to the canyon floor, Oaklock and Cedrus await the arrival of reinforcements from above, but none come.
When they return to the smithy, Oaklock has to hurry and stop Al from feeding the ogre mage’s corpse into the forge! Not that Oaklock has anything against it eventually, but he’ll need to carve out a variety of samples and organs for Winthrop and his future experimentation. While Oaklock busies himself, Cedrus and Adrienne restore the health to the corpse of Otto, Myrick’s ring keeping his flesh living even through the greatest of punishment. While prayers are said, the others truss Diego, search through the ogre corpses, and prepare to tackle the stone door.
An assortment of valuables is found among the ogres and the ogre mage. The ogre mage wore a fine gold and onyx necklace, and the ogres themselves carry a collection of coinage, the vast majority of which is of either Sterich or Keoish minting, or is Freecoin from the Yeomanry. The symbol on the tabards, Adrienne notes, is not a white axe on a black triangle, but instead a white axe on a black inverted ziggurat.
Al is fairly certain that no pits or falling blocks are connected to the door. He and the now-haler Otto repeatedly slam themselves against the vast stone door until it begins to creak and shake. Finally, the hinges give way, and the stone door crashes inwards, revealing a small cave packed with crates and bags and containing a small, burbling pool. The stone door protected the treasure room of the ogres, and it is a sizeable treasure.
The crates contain armor and weapons of ogre size, all fine and well made. The bags seem to be mainly human coins, but a large sack contains gold coins of strange shape and size. Even larger than the giant-sized coins found before, these gold coins bear a large axe on one side and a broad, almost dwarf-like face. The Company has never before seen their like. A small cache of coin and gems are located inside of a fine teak coffer. Two other objects, sitting adjacent to the coffer, capture the Company’s attention though.
The first is an ebony scroll case. Hesitating at pushing his luck further, Oaklock is unwilling to open the scroll case without Adrienne or Cedrus first determining that it is untrapped. No one else rises to the challenge, so it is placed into Otto’s backpack.
The other is a set of four gem-encrusted chalices, huge golden goblets sized for ogres. The chalices contain settings for sixteen gemstones: four emeralds, four rubies, four quartz, and four agates. Only one of the chalices contains all sixteen stones. The others have a mixture of gemstones still in their settings. Otto, acting on a hunch, compares the gems found in the ogre mage’s belongings with the settings on the chalice. Not being a gem-cutter or a jeweler by profession, he is not certain, but, to his untrained eye, they are a good match.
Once Oaklock has finished collecting his samples, the ogre mage’s body goes into the forge and is charred. The Company sits down to count and stack their newfound riches, setting a watch on the entryway. Cedrus, worried a bit about the bound, unconscious Diego, prays to Ehlonna for enlightenment and then attempts to discern if any mind-affecting magics still plague the horse archer’s psyche. With the death of the ogre mage, the residual effects of its magics seem to have faded from Diego’s mind, and he appears to be of his own mind and spirit. When awoken, Diego is somewhat chastened by the whole experience, this being the third time he’s been enthralled into attempting to slay the others of the Company.
Saddened by the loss of the wolves, Cedrus and Otto make redress as well as they can. Cedrus, feeling that the loss of Snookums, his animal friend, and now these wolves, may put him in a bad light with Ehlonna, uses a scroll of atonement that he has been carrying with him all these days. He feels much better afterwards and recommends to Otto that he take good care of the animals in his care. Especially the raven, Bran, that he has taken to traveling with.
Otto leads the others back to the Davish, and they follow it further upriver. The river narrows again as it goes through a canyon, and Otto spies a stray boot print, up on the ledge where the ogre must have stumbled, indicating that they are still on the right track. Before trying to push past the narrow point, where the Company may have to use ropes to get along the ledge or be pushed into the now quickly flowing river, they decide to rest and recuperate.
In the morning, the Company prepares for its assault, suspecting the headwaters are nearby. Strength enhancing magics are doled out to the warriors by Oaklock. Then the narrow canyon is bypassed. Indeed, it takes some effort and some safety ropes to get the Company around the bend to where a new landing becomes accessible. Otto, walking over the water, is easily able to attach them to the walls and help the others along. The new landing shows signs of ogre traffic. Apparently the ogres take no care in hiding their tracks past this point, relying on the break in the ledge to impede any tracking.
The Company hikes up the ledge for several hours as the river narrows and narrows. Casually striding around a bend in the river, the Company is suddenly faced with the ogres’ camp. The headwaters of the Davish flow out from underneath the mouth of a cave, spouting out like a fountain. Standing in front of the cave are a group of ogres, almost a full dozen, each clad in impressive splint mail and wearing a short tabard emblazoned with a large white axe on a black triangle, tip pointing downwards. On the opposite side of the river is a series of terraced landings, set in height so that an ogre might be able to climb them as ramps up the side of the canyon the river flows in. At the very top of the canyon, almost sixty feet up, a thick beam can be seen jutting out over the canyon.
“Halt! You no go here!” shouts one of the ogres, perhaps a leader, in a barely understandable dialect.
“We’ve got a special message to give to your leader,” replies Otto quickly, while walking slowly forward.
“No come closer! Who most powerful one?” shouts the ogre, as the other ogres draw their weapons from their sheathes.
“Mountain King Groorg most powerful one.” replies Otto, nodding meaningfully to Diego.
“What’s the message?”
“Give them the message Diego,” orders Otto. Perhaps Otto expected Diego to feather some of the ogres, perhaps he didn’t. Diego instead grabs a small sack off his belt, whips it one-handed around his head twice, and then throws it at the ogre leader. It bounces into the ogre’s arms. The ogre dumps the contents of the sack out onto the ground. Kennith, the Nerullite priest, stares back at him. “Time to go!” shouts Otto, as he sprints over the waters of the river towards the ogres.
Oaklock summons fire on the cave, attempting to catch the ogres in it while not burning Otto, as the others run forward. Diego shoots a single arrow into one of the ogres, letting the others pass him by as he carefully reaches wider, drier land. The ogres attempt to defend, but immediately fall into disarray. Otto hacks the leader in three pieces and then dismembers the next nearest ogre. Those burnt by Oaklock flee into the cave, perhaps seeking safety within. Diego, now on firm ground, fills the nearest ogre with arrows, slaying him. The ogre faced by Adrienne and Cedrus retreats as well, seeing that the battle is lost.
The Company enters into the cave and sees that ogres must live here. Bed furs lie in mounds off to one side. Bones and large barrels line the other side. A glowing pool of water is in the back of the cave, and two passages leave the cave, one to the right and one to the left. Otto, the first into the cave. is immediately struck from above and behind. Standing on a ledge twenty feet above the entrance to the cave are two ogres, each holding large boulders. “Diego!” shouts Otto, as he moves into the cave. The ogres throw rocks at Otto, pummeling him ceaselessly, until Diego and Oaklock combine their arrows and magical bolts to slay them.
The blood trail from the injured ogres goes into the right tunnel, so the Company follows it. The tunnel curves to the left, and, as the Company tromps down the tunnel, the Company comes face to face with a large stone mantlet. Three ogres stand behind the mantlet and throw spears at Otto and Diego, the two who are in the front of the Company. Diego is sorely injured, while Otto is merely grazed. Otto runs up and tries to attack over the mantlet while Diego tries to fire around it, but the mantlet is well designed. It provides maximum cover while still allowing those behind it to attack. Otto is pierced by the spears the ogres hold, painfully poking through him.
“Back off! Summoning fire!” yells Oaklock as he steps into the gap formed when Otto ran forward. Again a sizeable gout of fire explodes from behind the mantlet. Otto staggers back to the Company where both Adrienne and Cedrus pray for him. The ogres though, they are quite cooked, and they abandon their mantlet to fall back further into the cave tunnels.
Once the mantlet is no longer manned, it is easy to bypass, and the Company merely climbs over it. The tunnel continues onwards until suddenly the floor drops out below Otto and Al. They sail to the floor thirty feet below and are bruised and battered when they hit bottom. A lumbering, clanking sound is heard behind the Company, and Adrienne and Cedrus turn to see five ogres with long spears bearing down on them. Adrienne and Cedrus hunker down behind their shields preparing for the assault. Oaklock sends a bolt of lightning down through the ogres, and Diego shoots three of them with an arrow each. Three of the five ogres fall to the ground, dead, while the other two turn and flee back up the passage.
Diego and Oaklock lower a rope and haul out the warriors. Taking advantage of the respite, Adrienne prays for vision to see such hidden traps in the future. Once the warriors are out of the pit, she steps forward and treads on a large handle near the floor. The pit closes again. Otto and Al are quickly healed of the worst of their injuries, and the Company continues forward, where the ogres’ blood trail continues. The passageway ahead, still curving to the left, branches, with a corridor extending to the right. “Wait!” shouts Adrienne, waving her arms. The Company stops. Adrienne steps on a large handle near the floor. “Ok, go!” she commands.
Otto stops at the intersection to see where the blood droplets lead and is deluged by a flight of javelins. Now not really caring where the injured ogres went, he turns and charges the group of a dozen ogres before him. The ogres stand within a large smithy. Ogre-sized weapons and bits of platemail armor are strewn about. A lit forge is against one wall, and crafting tools, anvils, buckets, kegs, and tables dot the room. A stone doorway lies closed in the back of the room. The ogres roar at the Company, beckoning them onwards. As the rest of the Company enters the room, he notes that many of the ogres’ high-quality armor bear marks from Oaklock’s summoned flames, but the ogres themselves are hale. “This bodes poorly,” he thinks.
Al proves that his dwarf training is good still, dodging between and around the legs of the armored ogres, hacking at their extremities. Otto plows through those ogres foolish enough to close with him. Oaklock, by now running low on magics, draws his longsword. Cedrus and Adrienne continue to heal those injured. Diego, on the other hand, fires deadly arrow after deadly arrow.
A strange horned ogre, clad in ornate, polished armor and wielding a great glaive, appears from nowhere, standing near the forge. A beam of cold emanates from its outstretched hand, catching the Company in the midst of it. The entirety of the Company is coated in hoarfrost and rime, and the ogres chortle a great laugh before re-engaging with the Company. Oaklock returns the favor, using the last of his magic as magical bolts sent into the emergent ogre mage. As the ogres run in, the horned ogre looks oddly at Diego, who appears stunned.
Three ogres, each in remarkably fine armor, attack Otto and two attack Al, drawing blood and grievously wounding him. Al returns the favor, slaying one of his enemies and grinning bloodily at the other. Otto, seeing that a mere two ogres stand between him and this fearsome ogre mage, whips the bastard sword around in a strange arc, slicing through the throat of the first ogre, and then quartering the remaining barrier to his enemy. Stepping through the four steaming quarters of the ogre, Otto hacks repeatedly at the ogre mage, lopping off first one arm and then severing the opposing leg. The ogre mage keels over, quite dead.
Diego, somehow enthralled by the ogre mage, responds poorly to the death of his master. He puts three arrows into Otto’s back. Otto also keels over, quite dead, landing face first in the forge. Cedrus and Adrienne leap at Diego, certain that if he is not stopped, he will slay them all. Cedrus is able to get one arm around Diego, through his short bow, and wrestles him to the ground. Al quickly finishes off his enemy and then pounds on Diego’s head with his mailed fist, slowly driving him into unconsciousness.
The last remaining ogre looks around confusedly. What was supposed to be a certain battle, supported by all his healed and hale brethren and backed by the power of a mage, has turned into a debacle, with him the only survivor. Now, before he is killed by any of the powerful warriors before him, they all fall among themselves fighting over nothing. Humans are strange, so he doesn’t take time to worry about it, instead lumbering off for the exit.
Oaklock gives chase, cursing the fact that he wasted the last of his magics on that creature that Otto so easily pureed. The ogre is not fleet of foot, but knows the ins and outs of the cavern better than Oaklock. Oaklock is unable to catch up to the ogre. Indeed, the ogre even goes so far as to start climbing up the terraces to the right of the Davish headwaters. Oaklock, cursing at his wasted magics, shakes his longbow off his shoulder and begins firing at the ogre. Cedrus, having held Diego only so long as he was conscious, joins him at the edge of the cave.
The ogre climbs up the terraces, increasing the range between him and Oaklock, and Oaklock’s shafts fall heartbreakingly short. Cedrus, seeing the problem, calls down Ehlonna’s blessings on Oaklock, and his aim becomes more true. One, then another, and finally a third arrow sinks into the ogre, toppling him just as he reaches the edge of the canyon. As the ogre plummets back down to the canyon floor, Oaklock and Cedrus await the arrival of reinforcements from above, but none come.
When they return to the smithy, Oaklock has to hurry and stop Al from feeding the ogre mage’s corpse into the forge! Not that Oaklock has anything against it eventually, but he’ll need to carve out a variety of samples and organs for Winthrop and his future experimentation. While Oaklock busies himself, Cedrus and Adrienne restore the health to the corpse of Otto, Myrick’s ring keeping his flesh living even through the greatest of punishment. While prayers are said, the others truss Diego, search through the ogre corpses, and prepare to tackle the stone door.
An assortment of valuables is found among the ogres and the ogre mage. The ogre mage wore a fine gold and onyx necklace, and the ogres themselves carry a collection of coinage, the vast majority of which is of either Sterich or Keoish minting, or is Freecoin from the Yeomanry. The symbol on the tabards, Adrienne notes, is not a white axe on a black triangle, but instead a white axe on a black inverted ziggurat.
Al is fairly certain that no pits or falling blocks are connected to the door. He and the now-haler Otto repeatedly slam themselves against the vast stone door until it begins to creak and shake. Finally, the hinges give way, and the stone door crashes inwards, revealing a small cave packed with crates and bags and containing a small, burbling pool. The stone door protected the treasure room of the ogres, and it is a sizeable treasure.
The crates contain armor and weapons of ogre size, all fine and well made. The bags seem to be mainly human coins, but a large sack contains gold coins of strange shape and size. Even larger than the giant-sized coins found before, these gold coins bear a large axe on one side and a broad, almost dwarf-like face. The Company has never before seen their like. A small cache of coin and gems are located inside of a fine teak coffer. Two other objects, sitting adjacent to the coffer, capture the Company’s attention though.
The first is an ebony scroll case. Hesitating at pushing his luck further, Oaklock is unwilling to open the scroll case without Adrienne or Cedrus first determining that it is untrapped. No one else rises to the challenge, so it is placed into Otto’s backpack.
The other is a set of four gem-encrusted chalices, huge golden goblets sized for ogres. The chalices contain settings for sixteen gemstones: four emeralds, four rubies, four quartz, and four agates. Only one of the chalices contains all sixteen stones. The others have a mixture of gemstones still in their settings. Otto, acting on a hunch, compares the gems found in the ogre mage’s belongings with the settings on the chalice. Not being a gem-cutter or a jeweler by profession, he is not certain, but, to his untrained eye, they are a good match.
Once Oaklock has finished collecting his samples, the ogre mage’s body goes into the forge and is charred. The Company sits down to count and stack their newfound riches, setting a watch on the entryway. Cedrus, worried a bit about the bound, unconscious Diego, prays to Ehlonna for enlightenment and then attempts to discern if any mind-affecting magics still plague the horse archer’s psyche. With the death of the ogre mage, the residual effects of its magics seem to have faded from Diego’s mind, and he appears to be of his own mind and spirit. When awoken, Diego is somewhat chastened by the whole experience, this being the third time he’s been enthralled into attempting to slay the others of the Company.