Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 3, 2007 21:53:49 GMT -5
The directions given to the griffons’ lair are very clear, especially as the peak bearing the god-bird is visible from quite a distance away. Otto leads the Company through the mountains to the base of the peak in good time. The area around the base of the mountain is not well sculpted, instead being mainly broken, impassible crags and crevasses. The one exception is where the griffons have made their home. A long, broad canyon rises up into the side of the mountain, and a large cave is at the far end of the canyon. Above the cave mouth, about as far above as the aerie was from the mesa the previous night, is the god-bird’s nest. As the Company plans their approach up the canyon, Winthrop watches the nest through his telescope. While lacking the resolving power of Dell’s telescope, Winthrop’s telescope is a perfectly reasonable magnifier. The chicks of the god-bird appear misshapen to him, as if they have extra appendages. “Harpies. Should have known this was too easy,” he mumbles to himself. The others look at him in alarm. Sighing, he bends over and digs through his pack, pulling out a thick beeswax candle. He begins pulling wads of wax from the candle and handing it to the others. “You’ll want to block your ears, just in case,” he cautions.
The Company, now quite trepidatious about being attacked while deaf, quickly advances through the canyon, hoping to trade stealth for speed. The mouth of the cave is quickly gained, and the Company begins pulling wax from their ears. The screeching roar of the griffons, aptly named as lion-birds, echoes through the air. The floor before the Company is coated in a thin carpet of bones. Winthrop immediately begins chanting arcane words the moment he enters the cave, and all the warriors hang back, expecting a blistering attack of summoned fire. Instead, great piles of webbing fill the cave, thickening as Winthrop gestures. Large winged forms throw themselves at the webbing, but it holds, and Winthrop continues to pour it on, layering the webbing wall into a gray haze.
Winthrop gestures presumptively at Raven and Diego, directing them to guard the entrance to the cave. “Can you speak to them, Jasper?” he asks. Jasper tries some different feline and avian tongues, but obviously can’t quite get through. Apparently like the manticores, Jasper can understand only a thin layer of meaning from the griffons. In this case, they are angry and a bit frightened. “How about you, Cedrus?” asks Winthrop next. Cedrus calls upon his woodland goddess, and then tries, like Jasper, a series of languages to no avail. “Alright then, my turn.”
With those words, Winthrop casts a glamour like that he used to speak with the bird-people. Squawking and roaring like a madman, Winthrop shouts through the webbing. Otto and Al, not believing that such a din could not bring down the harpies, the god-bird, and perhaps a landslide or two, join Diego and Raven in guarding the entrance. The strain of speaking the high-pitched, loud griffon language shows on Winthrop’s form. His breathing becomes tight and labored, and his face turns an awful shade of red. Winthrop, never a light man, seems to be in more danger from speaking a foreign tongue than from the exertion of clambering around mountains.
Finally, Winthrop squawks a final, somewhat defiant sounding, squawk and grates out, “Let’s leave now, while we can.” The Company replugs their ears, the quiet blessed, and then warily heads down the canyon. Several of the “chicks” are stirring, circling the nest, but the massive form of the god-bird does not rise out of the nest. The harpies opt not to investigate the creatures fleeing the griffon cave, and the Company succeeds in leaving the canyon unmolested.
Once a safe haven is reached, Winthrop drinks some water and, with a gravely voice, explains. “The griffons have been pushed out of their hunting ground by a dragon, a blue one by the sound of it. This is not the only dragon in the area; the griffons were forced out of their first hunting grounds by a metallic colored dragon. The griffons do not fear the bird-men, having eaten several of them, nor their magic. The griffons claim their talons rend the magic apart. In any case, if the blue dragon is slain, the griffons will reclaim their hunting territory, putting them out of the reach of the bird-people. I’ve committed us to doing this. The griffons will wait three days before eating another bird-man while we travel to their old hunting grounds and slay the dragon. The griffons explained where their hunting grounds were, about two days further into the mountains from here, though I think more to the north, and what to look for to spot the dragon.” With that, Winthrop seems to run out of steam.
Otto is incensed at the idea that the Company is going to just start hunting down dragons! Not only are they huge and deadly, but it is totally outside of the point of why they are in the mountains: the giants! “Easy does it,” comments Raven. “We’ve killed dragons before. I can’t help it that this will be your first. They go down pretty easy.” Otto goggles at him, but Raven seems entirely serious. “This will be what, the third one? Swamp one and green one and now a blue one?” muses Raven. Al holds up another finger. “Oh, right, the red one down under Beoll-Dur was the third one. See, no problems.”
The Company heads north northwest around the god-bird’s nest and up into the mountains, searching for the griffons’ old hunting grounds. The further the Company goes into the Crystalmists, the wilder the terrain becomes. The mountains show signs of never having been logged, old growth trees collapsed in through the newer. Tracks of great creatures that Otto can only guess at appear in the ground. After a healthy hike, Winthrop points at a peak rising up out of the mountains ahead as where the griffons believed the dragon to lair, somewhere above the tree line.
The Company makes good time towards the peak, Otto again choosing the best and quickest terrain to cut through to reach their destination. The Company doesn’t see any place that a dragon might make its lair while approaching the peak, but the top of the peak is wreathed in thick mist that never seems to let up. Rather than try to divine the location of the dragon lair, the Company decides to take a more direct approach of hiking up into the trees and searching the area from just below the tree line.
This proves to be a bad idea. The Company is hiking along through the forest when a great cracking sound echoes from somewhere ahead of them. Everyone freezes and looks at each other, wondering what the noise presages. A great wind blows through the forest, and a huge tree plummets out of the sky, narrowly missing landing directly on Raven. Instead, only some of its limbs and foliage smash him to the ground and roll over Al. Massive tree limbs, rocks, and whole trees begin to fly down upon the scurrying Company as they search for cover from the barrage. “Niggling mortal worms! How dare you think to sneak up onto my mountain and try to catch me unawares! Do you think I am as dumb as you?” resonates through the air as a massive voice shouts down on them. Winthrop floats up into the air and then disappears from sight as more branches and debris pelts the Company.
The dragon, indeed a blue one, is suddenly engulfed in flame as a floating Winthrop summons fire on top of him. Oaklock, flying up towards the dragon as well, lets loose with a barrage of magical bolts. The dragon appears quite displeased by these attacks and swoops down on Oaklock, who is unable to avoid the dragon’s massive bulk. Oaklock is caught within and punctured by the dragon’s talons. Having a prisoner, or perhaps dinner, the dragon banks and flies away from the Company, presumably towards its lair.
Otto yells at Winthrop, “Use that sword of yours and get Oaklock back!” Winthrop realizes that this is a pretty good idea and draws out Foebiter. With a flourish, Winthrop parts space and exits close enough to the fleeing dragon to strike it with chunks of ice from above. Oaklock, oddly sheltered by the bulk of the dragon, avoids the worst of it, but the dragon drops Oaklock to increase his speed. The battered and bleeding Oaklock sees the treetops racing up towards him and tries to concentrate on his magics, slowing his descent and landing limply between the trees before succumbing to his wounds.
The dragon speeds off, clearly injured and unwilling to face another barrage of magic from unseen foes, so the Company hunts through the forest for their injured compatriots. Finding Oaklock, Al, and Raven is a relief to them all, and they immediately flee the area to foil a return attack by the dragon. The Company finds a small overhang, providing some protection from sight and aerial attack, and camps for the night.
The priests are able to restore health to the others over the next day, and the Company is ready to travel again. Otto spends a lot of time staring up the mountainside, towards the mountain’s peak. The constant mists and fog that cover the peak frustrates Otto, as he is certain that the dragon must have some egress out over the mountainside.
The Company doesn’t hike up the mountain towards the peak, but instead again follows the tree line around the mountain. After two days of cautious hiking, with much more attention paid to the sky and little travel after dark, their goal is possibly in sight. Above the tree line, a large rockslide, possibly intentional and somewhat recent, has blocked a rather large cave. In the flow of the rock, a large, flat boulder has wedged itself in the cave mouth and prevented the entire cave from being blocked. Instead, a small opening, barely large enough for a human, leads back into the mountain. It appears as if the dragon attempted to bring the roof down on its entrance and block the Company from it, but failed to completely collapse the tunnel.
With the mages watching the air, Al and Otto investigate the cave mouth. Al is fairly certain that the rock and the rockslide will not move; they do not appear easily shifted to him. Otto shines his light into the tunnel, revealing a narrow passage filled with small rocks and significant stone dust. The passage winds out of sight, a tight fit for the armored warriors.
The Company puts their heads together. Passage down the tunnel seems constricted at best. All the warriors but Al would be very hindered trying to get through the passageway. No one thinks this is a good idea, so they try to come up with a different option. Eventually, a plan is agreed upon. Winthrop will use the power of Foebiter to bring Otto and Raven deep within the mountain, hoping to bypass the tunnel and appear in the dragon’s lair. Oaklock will open a door through adjacent dimensions to bring Diego in as well. The others will charge down the tunnel, Al leading. In this way, three waves of attacks will be made by the Company, hopefully confounding the dragon in its lair.
Once the Company is prepared, they set their plan in action. Winthrop grabs hold of Foebiter and draws close to Raven and Otto. With a flourish, they disappear through a glowing point in space. Exhaling suddenly, they reappear in a long, narrow cavern somewhere deep inside the mountain. A brisk wind whips through the cavern, streaming down through a large natural chimney. Rock formations extend from the walls in odd patterns and coinage of a variety of types pools along their bases. Crouching in the middle of the cavern is a dragon, blue in color, who seems somewhat prepared for the Company’s non-conventional arrival.
With a sudden cracking sound, the dragon stretches its maw wide and sends a bolt of lightning forking through the three of them. The smell of ozone is punctuated by that of melting flesh, burning paper, and dissipating metals. Otto and Winthrop both are thrown into the air by the force of their muscles twitching and spasming from the electricity. Otto’s scalpel, held carefully since the Fortunate Son, arcs through his armor, the blade shearing straight off. The armor suffers almost as catastrophic a failure, becoming paper thin and lacking any protective value. Winthrop’s equipment suffers as well. His boots blacken and char as he grounds through them, and his backpack, made of the hide of a different dragon, bursts open, one of his spellbooks blazing brightly with multicolored flames as the pages and inks ignite.
Raven, who has weathered the bolt better than the others, calmly shoots the dragon in the face. Three shafts fly out, the first ricocheting off of the thick scales on the side of the dragon’s head. The other two arrows do not miss. Plunging into the ear and eye of the dragon, the arrows dig deep into its skull, and the dragon falls over, dead.
Oaklock and Diego come running up out of the tunnel, eyes wide from having seen a bolt of lightning fill the tunnel before them. The sight of the dead dragon impresses them both, since they expected the others to be dead, not the dragon. Of course, the sight of the unconscious Otto and burning Winthrop confirms to them how close the battle actually was. Oaklock drags out Winthrop’s spellbook, a total loss, before the other spellbooks can be damaged.
When Al and the others run up, echoing loudly through the narrow tunnel, several minutes later, Otto and Winthrop are revived and the dragon’s horde searched. Winthrop is, of course, besides himself about the loss of his spellbook and boots, and hopes that the dragon’s horde will be filled with magics of greater power and might. A quick search disabuses him of that notion as only two items, a scroll and a javelin, radiate an enchanted aura.
The Company settles in to count and investigate their findings, plus re-shoe Winthrop. The horde is actually more meager than first glance might reflect. Most of the coinage is copper or silver coin from the surrounding lands, the Yeomanry and Sterich. Only a few hundred of the ten thousand coins are made of gold or platinum. The assorted gemstones found spread throughout the coins are likewise a disappointment, mainly low quality agates. Only a few items, possibly belonging to a single person, are of special value: a jeweled cup, a silver dagger, and a handful of emeralds.
Adrienne enchants her vision to detect trapped objects and finds the scroll is safe to open. Winthrop does so and is pleased to find that the scroll contains magical writings. Some memorization and a mild enchantment later, the writings are revealed as powerful enchantments scribed by a master magus capable of twisting reality. Otto looks over at Winthrop and says, “I hope that makes up a bit for the loss of your books and boots.” From the look on Winthrop’s face it goes at least partway.
While the Company recovers from the battle, Winthrop and Raven pore over Kennith’s papers again. Winthrop shows Raven how the papers are written in a substitution code and have names listed on them. On a hunch, Raven pulls out a map of Sterich and compares the names to those written on the map. Indeed, some of the place-names are smaller towns within Sterich and the northern Yeomanry. If these are lists of Nerullites, it divulges most, if not all, of the foul, death god’s network in the country of Sterich.
The Company, now quite trepidatious about being attacked while deaf, quickly advances through the canyon, hoping to trade stealth for speed. The mouth of the cave is quickly gained, and the Company begins pulling wax from their ears. The screeching roar of the griffons, aptly named as lion-birds, echoes through the air. The floor before the Company is coated in a thin carpet of bones. Winthrop immediately begins chanting arcane words the moment he enters the cave, and all the warriors hang back, expecting a blistering attack of summoned fire. Instead, great piles of webbing fill the cave, thickening as Winthrop gestures. Large winged forms throw themselves at the webbing, but it holds, and Winthrop continues to pour it on, layering the webbing wall into a gray haze.
Winthrop gestures presumptively at Raven and Diego, directing them to guard the entrance to the cave. “Can you speak to them, Jasper?” he asks. Jasper tries some different feline and avian tongues, but obviously can’t quite get through. Apparently like the manticores, Jasper can understand only a thin layer of meaning from the griffons. In this case, they are angry and a bit frightened. “How about you, Cedrus?” asks Winthrop next. Cedrus calls upon his woodland goddess, and then tries, like Jasper, a series of languages to no avail. “Alright then, my turn.”
With those words, Winthrop casts a glamour like that he used to speak with the bird-people. Squawking and roaring like a madman, Winthrop shouts through the webbing. Otto and Al, not believing that such a din could not bring down the harpies, the god-bird, and perhaps a landslide or two, join Diego and Raven in guarding the entrance. The strain of speaking the high-pitched, loud griffon language shows on Winthrop’s form. His breathing becomes tight and labored, and his face turns an awful shade of red. Winthrop, never a light man, seems to be in more danger from speaking a foreign tongue than from the exertion of clambering around mountains.
Finally, Winthrop squawks a final, somewhat defiant sounding, squawk and grates out, “Let’s leave now, while we can.” The Company replugs their ears, the quiet blessed, and then warily heads down the canyon. Several of the “chicks” are stirring, circling the nest, but the massive form of the god-bird does not rise out of the nest. The harpies opt not to investigate the creatures fleeing the griffon cave, and the Company succeeds in leaving the canyon unmolested.
Once a safe haven is reached, Winthrop drinks some water and, with a gravely voice, explains. “The griffons have been pushed out of their hunting ground by a dragon, a blue one by the sound of it. This is not the only dragon in the area; the griffons were forced out of their first hunting grounds by a metallic colored dragon. The griffons do not fear the bird-men, having eaten several of them, nor their magic. The griffons claim their talons rend the magic apart. In any case, if the blue dragon is slain, the griffons will reclaim their hunting territory, putting them out of the reach of the bird-people. I’ve committed us to doing this. The griffons will wait three days before eating another bird-man while we travel to their old hunting grounds and slay the dragon. The griffons explained where their hunting grounds were, about two days further into the mountains from here, though I think more to the north, and what to look for to spot the dragon.” With that, Winthrop seems to run out of steam.
Otto is incensed at the idea that the Company is going to just start hunting down dragons! Not only are they huge and deadly, but it is totally outside of the point of why they are in the mountains: the giants! “Easy does it,” comments Raven. “We’ve killed dragons before. I can’t help it that this will be your first. They go down pretty easy.” Otto goggles at him, but Raven seems entirely serious. “This will be what, the third one? Swamp one and green one and now a blue one?” muses Raven. Al holds up another finger. “Oh, right, the red one down under Beoll-Dur was the third one. See, no problems.”
The Company heads north northwest around the god-bird’s nest and up into the mountains, searching for the griffons’ old hunting grounds. The further the Company goes into the Crystalmists, the wilder the terrain becomes. The mountains show signs of never having been logged, old growth trees collapsed in through the newer. Tracks of great creatures that Otto can only guess at appear in the ground. After a healthy hike, Winthrop points at a peak rising up out of the mountains ahead as where the griffons believed the dragon to lair, somewhere above the tree line.
The Company makes good time towards the peak, Otto again choosing the best and quickest terrain to cut through to reach their destination. The Company doesn’t see any place that a dragon might make its lair while approaching the peak, but the top of the peak is wreathed in thick mist that never seems to let up. Rather than try to divine the location of the dragon lair, the Company decides to take a more direct approach of hiking up into the trees and searching the area from just below the tree line.
This proves to be a bad idea. The Company is hiking along through the forest when a great cracking sound echoes from somewhere ahead of them. Everyone freezes and looks at each other, wondering what the noise presages. A great wind blows through the forest, and a huge tree plummets out of the sky, narrowly missing landing directly on Raven. Instead, only some of its limbs and foliage smash him to the ground and roll over Al. Massive tree limbs, rocks, and whole trees begin to fly down upon the scurrying Company as they search for cover from the barrage. “Niggling mortal worms! How dare you think to sneak up onto my mountain and try to catch me unawares! Do you think I am as dumb as you?” resonates through the air as a massive voice shouts down on them. Winthrop floats up into the air and then disappears from sight as more branches and debris pelts the Company.
The dragon, indeed a blue one, is suddenly engulfed in flame as a floating Winthrop summons fire on top of him. Oaklock, flying up towards the dragon as well, lets loose with a barrage of magical bolts. The dragon appears quite displeased by these attacks and swoops down on Oaklock, who is unable to avoid the dragon’s massive bulk. Oaklock is caught within and punctured by the dragon’s talons. Having a prisoner, or perhaps dinner, the dragon banks and flies away from the Company, presumably towards its lair.
Otto yells at Winthrop, “Use that sword of yours and get Oaklock back!” Winthrop realizes that this is a pretty good idea and draws out Foebiter. With a flourish, Winthrop parts space and exits close enough to the fleeing dragon to strike it with chunks of ice from above. Oaklock, oddly sheltered by the bulk of the dragon, avoids the worst of it, but the dragon drops Oaklock to increase his speed. The battered and bleeding Oaklock sees the treetops racing up towards him and tries to concentrate on his magics, slowing his descent and landing limply between the trees before succumbing to his wounds.
The dragon speeds off, clearly injured and unwilling to face another barrage of magic from unseen foes, so the Company hunts through the forest for their injured compatriots. Finding Oaklock, Al, and Raven is a relief to them all, and they immediately flee the area to foil a return attack by the dragon. The Company finds a small overhang, providing some protection from sight and aerial attack, and camps for the night.
The priests are able to restore health to the others over the next day, and the Company is ready to travel again. Otto spends a lot of time staring up the mountainside, towards the mountain’s peak. The constant mists and fog that cover the peak frustrates Otto, as he is certain that the dragon must have some egress out over the mountainside.
The Company doesn’t hike up the mountain towards the peak, but instead again follows the tree line around the mountain. After two days of cautious hiking, with much more attention paid to the sky and little travel after dark, their goal is possibly in sight. Above the tree line, a large rockslide, possibly intentional and somewhat recent, has blocked a rather large cave. In the flow of the rock, a large, flat boulder has wedged itself in the cave mouth and prevented the entire cave from being blocked. Instead, a small opening, barely large enough for a human, leads back into the mountain. It appears as if the dragon attempted to bring the roof down on its entrance and block the Company from it, but failed to completely collapse the tunnel.
With the mages watching the air, Al and Otto investigate the cave mouth. Al is fairly certain that the rock and the rockslide will not move; they do not appear easily shifted to him. Otto shines his light into the tunnel, revealing a narrow passage filled with small rocks and significant stone dust. The passage winds out of sight, a tight fit for the armored warriors.
The Company puts their heads together. Passage down the tunnel seems constricted at best. All the warriors but Al would be very hindered trying to get through the passageway. No one thinks this is a good idea, so they try to come up with a different option. Eventually, a plan is agreed upon. Winthrop will use the power of Foebiter to bring Otto and Raven deep within the mountain, hoping to bypass the tunnel and appear in the dragon’s lair. Oaklock will open a door through adjacent dimensions to bring Diego in as well. The others will charge down the tunnel, Al leading. In this way, three waves of attacks will be made by the Company, hopefully confounding the dragon in its lair.
Once the Company is prepared, they set their plan in action. Winthrop grabs hold of Foebiter and draws close to Raven and Otto. With a flourish, they disappear through a glowing point in space. Exhaling suddenly, they reappear in a long, narrow cavern somewhere deep inside the mountain. A brisk wind whips through the cavern, streaming down through a large natural chimney. Rock formations extend from the walls in odd patterns and coinage of a variety of types pools along their bases. Crouching in the middle of the cavern is a dragon, blue in color, who seems somewhat prepared for the Company’s non-conventional arrival.
With a sudden cracking sound, the dragon stretches its maw wide and sends a bolt of lightning forking through the three of them. The smell of ozone is punctuated by that of melting flesh, burning paper, and dissipating metals. Otto and Winthrop both are thrown into the air by the force of their muscles twitching and spasming from the electricity. Otto’s scalpel, held carefully since the Fortunate Son, arcs through his armor, the blade shearing straight off. The armor suffers almost as catastrophic a failure, becoming paper thin and lacking any protective value. Winthrop’s equipment suffers as well. His boots blacken and char as he grounds through them, and his backpack, made of the hide of a different dragon, bursts open, one of his spellbooks blazing brightly with multicolored flames as the pages and inks ignite.
Raven, who has weathered the bolt better than the others, calmly shoots the dragon in the face. Three shafts fly out, the first ricocheting off of the thick scales on the side of the dragon’s head. The other two arrows do not miss. Plunging into the ear and eye of the dragon, the arrows dig deep into its skull, and the dragon falls over, dead.
Oaklock and Diego come running up out of the tunnel, eyes wide from having seen a bolt of lightning fill the tunnel before them. The sight of the dead dragon impresses them both, since they expected the others to be dead, not the dragon. Of course, the sight of the unconscious Otto and burning Winthrop confirms to them how close the battle actually was. Oaklock drags out Winthrop’s spellbook, a total loss, before the other spellbooks can be damaged.
When Al and the others run up, echoing loudly through the narrow tunnel, several minutes later, Otto and Winthrop are revived and the dragon’s horde searched. Winthrop is, of course, besides himself about the loss of his spellbook and boots, and hopes that the dragon’s horde will be filled with magics of greater power and might. A quick search disabuses him of that notion as only two items, a scroll and a javelin, radiate an enchanted aura.
The Company settles in to count and investigate their findings, plus re-shoe Winthrop. The horde is actually more meager than first glance might reflect. Most of the coinage is copper or silver coin from the surrounding lands, the Yeomanry and Sterich. Only a few hundred of the ten thousand coins are made of gold or platinum. The assorted gemstones found spread throughout the coins are likewise a disappointment, mainly low quality agates. Only a few items, possibly belonging to a single person, are of special value: a jeweled cup, a silver dagger, and a handful of emeralds.
Adrienne enchants her vision to detect trapped objects and finds the scroll is safe to open. Winthrop does so and is pleased to find that the scroll contains magical writings. Some memorization and a mild enchantment later, the writings are revealed as powerful enchantments scribed by a master magus capable of twisting reality. Otto looks over at Winthrop and says, “I hope that makes up a bit for the loss of your books and boots.” From the look on Winthrop’s face it goes at least partway.
While the Company recovers from the battle, Winthrop and Raven pore over Kennith’s papers again. Winthrop shows Raven how the papers are written in a substitution code and have names listed on them. On a hunch, Raven pulls out a map of Sterich and compares the names to those written on the map. Indeed, some of the place-names are smaller towns within Sterich and the northern Yeomanry. If these are lists of Nerullites, it divulges most, if not all, of the foul, death god’s network in the country of Sterich.