Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 20, 2007 22:08:59 GMT -5
With Diego on watch, the Company develops a plan. Since they have, for once, been unobserved, Raven suggest a stealthy approach. As was attempted with Nosnra’s steading, Winthrop should make the others invisible, but rather than the entire Company approach, as was attempted at Nosnra’s steading, just Raven will approach the cave. Raven, while not stealthy, is fairly certain that he can slay all four of the orcs without them raising an alarm. Then, once the guards are slain, the others can join him, and enter the cave. Dell and Adrienne, who have fallen ill during the hiking that day, will remain behind as a rear guard. The others agree that this is a good plan and adopt it.
Winthrop and Dell increase the strength of the warriors and cast various wards on themselves. After Winthrop casts his vision-altering glamour, Raven hikes carefully down to within thirty feet of the orcs. The large banners behind them, of a pus-oozing eye impaled on a jagged knife, are tribal decorations, so more orcs must be within. In a sudden burst, Raven appears, firing arrows into the orcs. The orcs are stunned by his sudden appearance and stand flat-footed as Raven fills them full of arrows. The orcs do not stand a chance and fall down dead, each pierced through by multiple arrows.
Raven, now visible, waves his arm, directing the Company forward. A quiet clanging and shuffling sound is heard as the others approach. Raven does find it a bit weird, having conversations with people he can’t see, when they can so clearly see him. “Are they making faces at me while they converse?” he ponders.
The cave between the banners seems to head deep into the mountainside. The Company enters, with Raven and Diego in the front, followed by Al and Otto. Eschewing lightstones for the moment, the Company sneaks into the gloom, finding a rough hewn tunnel, the floor smoothed by many booted feet, leading away from them. Raven’s success at slaying the guards outside seems to have given the Company an edge, since, at the next intersection, a smoky torch sputters, and two bored orcs stand guard under it. Diego and Raven slay the sentries, but not without sound, the sentries’ weapons collapsing to the ground with a clatter. Jasper pipes up, “I hear somebody running,” and the Company knows their presence has been noted.
The Company charges forward, always following the left hand wall in case of a maze-like warren. They blunder into another intersection where the orcs are beginning to mount a defense against something, likely them. A row of orc soldiers blocks the corridor with a larger orc, perhaps a clan chieftain, urging them into formation. The orcs are startled by Raven and Diego’s entry, and then even more so by the appearance of Otto and Al, who snap into being while charging at the orcs, weapons upraised. Diego and Raven let fly with a flurry of arrows, firing over and around their charging compatriots, and, by the time Otto and Al have reached the orcs, none of the orcs are left standing. “Show offs,” grates Al to the archers.
Still following the left wall, the Company pushes forward and finally meets with the main force of the orcs. A barricade made of large tables, likely from a barracks or dining hall, blocks the corridor, and orcs support it, waving spears and other weapons at the Company from behind it. The orcs throw flasks into the corridor between them and the Company, flasks that break and discharge a clear fluid, likely oil. Quick work with an orcish torch sets the pool of fluid on fire, delaying the Company’s assault.
The smoke from the burning oil rises up in front of the Company, but it doesn’t dissuade them at all. Winthrop pops into vision as he sets a small stone in orbit around his head, while Raven simply walks into the fire, shooting arrows at the orcs manning the barricade. Otto, on the other hand, attempts, unsuccessfully, to quench the flames with his cold-burning bastard sword. The orcs are clearly terrified of the Company, but there are many of them behind the barricade, and they do not give up hope. Instead, they toss spears and fire the occasional arrow at Raven as he stands among the flames, unharmed.
Dark black smoke begins to fill the corridor behind the Company, as if a large oily fire had been lit somewhere in the tunnels they have just traveled through. The others are unsure what to take from this, but the smoke is thick and heavy and moves slowly towards them. With the archers providing cover, Otto still tries to put out the flames with his sword, eventually succeeding. The delay has given the orcs time to organize, and the elements of surprise and shock are long lost.
The warriors charge forward against the barricade, through the quenched oil fire. The orcs feverishly try to hold their position, but are unable to against the augmented warriors. The barricade cracks and then is thrown over by the might of the Company. A great swirling fight takes place in the large room beyond. Several corridors lead out of the room, and the orcs try to push the Company down one of them, restricting their ability to move and fight. Once bottled into the corridor mouth, a second force of orcs, led by a chieftain of some sort, charge into the flank of the Company, screaming an orcish war cry as they do so.
The orcs are only dangerous to the Company because of their sheer numbers. The smarter orcs attempt to drag down the Company, so that they might be stabbed to death while held prone, while the fools among them futilely thrust their spears at the heavily armored Company. With an attack on two fronts, the Company is forced to quickly tactically rearrange themselves, with Al and Diego passing through the Company to hold off the second force and Otto and Raven dealing with the mass of orcs in the barracks room. Winthrop, seeing that reinforcements are needed, begins summoning creatures to aid him in battle.
Cedrus and Hugh pop into vision as they both call down prayers and blessings on the Company, increasing their fighting prowess. Oaklock, seeing that even more orcs are joining the fight, begins using his magics, appearing amidst the Company, spraying magical bolts through the orcs fighting Al and Diego. The magical bolts slay those they touch, and Oaklock is profligate in their use.
The orcs are whittled down, a handful dying each minute, but suddenly the battle shifts. Otto cries out and collapses, twitching on the ground. A large bolt protrudes from his neck, and an unnatural purple hue suffuses the area near the bolt, slowly expanding through his flesh. Raven looks for the archer among the orcs before him, but is unable to spot him before more orc soldiery piles onto him. Disengaging from the masses, he slays two of his opponents before he is also struck down, a bolt penetrating his chest through his armpit.
Cedrus and Hugh, seeing both of the warriors drop to the ground, dead or unconscious, step up to hold the line. Winthrop starts summoning magic and searches for a target to release his fire upon. At the far end of the room, where the other corridor leads out of the barracks, two large orcs, one armored in splint mail and the other carrying a great flail, are protected by a group of orc bodyguards. The armored one raises his crossbow and fires at Winthrop, the bolt ricocheting off of Winthrop’s wards. Winthrop leers as he focuses his summoned magics onto the orcs, burning the flesh from their bodies. A series of small coronas coruscate over the armored orc’s body as he falls to the ground, charred.
The summoned flames have decimated the orcs in the barracks room, and they would likely have fallen back if reinforcements had not arrived at just that moment. A small horde of orcs, backed by armored humans wielding crossbows, charge into the room. They crash against the Company, pushing against the clerics. The creatures summoned by Winthrop shimmer into being, three foul ghouls. Fortunately, Al is not in sight, as ghouls seem to have a taste for his flesh. Instead, they fall upon the orcs and men.
The ghoul attack is a welcome respite that gains several minutes of time for the Company. Al, Oaklock, and Diego slay those orcs bedeviling their flank and rotate to the front of the Company, providing a new fighting line. Otto, who is clearly dead from the poisoned bolt, is dragged back, while Raven, who has resisted the poison, is restored to consciousness, though he is very weak. The Company is not yet prepared to face the orcs and archers in battle, so once the orcs have dispatched his summoned ghouls, Winthrop fills the room before him with webbing, wrapping it around the orcs and archers. Even though it can easily be burnt off, doing so will gravely harm those within. The Company hurriedly prays for health and prepares for battle. Only a modicum of health is restored before the webbing suddenly catches fire, scorching those within, but allowing the fight to be taken to the Company again.
As the Company invisibly marches down to the cave where the sentries stand, Dell grabs Adrienne’s arm, holding her back. Once his keen ears can no longer hear the others’ footsteps, he speaks, “Horrible plan. No escape plan. No contingency planning. Plus, they never listen to me when I have a brilliant insight, so we’ll wait and back them up when they get into trouble, as they always do.” Adrienne’s body language is tense, as if she feels some concern about Dell’s duplicity, but doesn’t voice her doubts.
The two of them sneak down to the cave and watch the Company go in. After ten minutes or so, it becomes clear that something is going wrong. Smoke begins to eke out of the cave mouth and then three orcs run out of the cave and down the canyon, away from where the Company came from. “See, no contingency planning,” whispers Dell to Adrienne. Fifteen minutes later, a large force of orcs and humans, led by two large orcs, one in splint mail and one carrying a large flail, and a human warrior, trots up the canyon towards the cave, heading straight in. “Give them a few minutes, and then we’ll go in,” declares Dell.
Dell and Adrienne sneak into the cave mouth, avoiding the dead bodies. The air in the entryway is quite clear, but a thick plume of black smoke flows down from an intersection ahead of them. The plume appears quite unnatural, curving through the air to flow against the wind. The two of them sneak up to the intersection and around it, peering down the long corridor. About eighty feet from them is an orc, likely a shaman or witchdoctor by all the bones and skulls dangling from his unarmored frame, standing behind two large smudge pots. An unnatural amount of smoke flows from them and is directed up the corridor a the witchdoctor’s command.
The witchdoctor has powers beyond the normal ken, as he sees Adrienne and begins arcanely gesturing towards her. Adrienne, not one to like evil priests, charges him, while Dell sneaks around to strike from behind. Between the two of them, the witchdoctor has little chance, and falls over, punctured and dying from multiple blows. Dell looks around for and finds the lids of the pots and carefully covers them, cutting off the smoke.
Stealthily sneaking up to the corridor where the smoke flowed, Dell leads Adrienne into the occluding smoke. Their fine half-elven senses detect the noise of several people in the corridors ahead of them, and Dell can hear an intense discussion in pidgin common between a human voice and an orcish one. Their men seem trapped in some sort of webbing, and they are concerned about the effect that lighting the webbing might have.
Dell grins and summons lightning, filling the corridor before him with jagged bolts. The orcs and men scream in pain, and the sound of quick burning flames reaches his ears. He chuckles, sidles forward, and focuses his magics before him again, emitting a cone of primal energy designed to prey on the mind. Fevered moaning and shrieks of horror reach back to him, as those within the energy cone relive their deepest fears and flee them. Through the smoke barrels a small handful of people, mainly humans, who Adrienne quickly grasps in Lydia’s powerful vision.
Dell moves up to disarm the paralyzed humans as he hears the clicking sound of talons on stone. He turns as a great ogre mage, eight feet tall and horned, appears out of the smoke, hand outstretched. Dell shouts a futile warning to Adrienne and dives behind a paralyzed warrior as a wave of utter cold fills the corridor. The paralyzed men freeze in place, their skin turning white and cracking in great wounds, while Adrienne throws herself to the ground, covered in hoarfrost.
Dell stands back up from behind the now-dead man, and the great ogre mage flees. Rather than chase after the ogre, Dell checks on Adrienne, finding her still breathing, but very, very cold. Winthrop comes upon them, and Dell waves down the corridor, saying the ogre mage fled that way.
When the webbing caught fire and burnt, the Company was uncertain if this was a good or bad thing. Otto was temporarily slain, the poison and the deadly bolt too much for his magical ring to quickly overcome. Raven was sorely injured, and the others bore their share of nicks and scratches. The orcs and humans were released from the webbing as a great electric discharge was heard, and, if fresh reinforcements had charged past the injured, the fight might have gone agains the Company. Instead, the injured had retreated from and then suddenly run towards the Company, gibbering and unable to defend themselves. The most difficulty the Company had was keeping up with the fleeing warriors while hacking them down. The battle had gone from a near thing to a sure victory in a matter of minutes.
With the others picking themselves up, Winthrop charges after the ogre mage. The air is thinning; the dark cloud losing cohesion. Winthrop chases the ogre mage out the mouth of the cave and sees it flying up the far side of the canyon, where the ground is scree-covered and dangerous to climb. Winthrop runs to the base of the canyon wall, where the ogre mage hovers just out of sight, and jeers at the ogre mage, trying to get it to engage him in combat. The ogre mage casts something, possibly an enthralling glamour, but Winthrop’s wards reject it. Winthrop returns the favor, sending a long bolt of lightning up and through the ogre mage. The ogre crashes to the ground, sliding in the scree, but its wounds knit before Winthrop's eyes. Before Winthrop can determine how to climb up to the injured ogre, the ogre mage has regained his feet, mocking Winthrop once more. Frustrated, Winthrop goes so far as to turn his back on the ogre mage, drop his trousers, and show it his bare ass.
From this somewhat precarious position, Winthrop sees two riders with a long train of horses thunder down the canyon. Coming from the end of the canyon not yet visited, the two riders appear similarly garbed to those humans slain inside the cave, and they lead a good two dozen horses at full gallop, trying to escape the Company’s assault. Affixing his belt again, he casts a last disparaging glance at the retreating ogre mage and then runs to try to cut off the train of horses. Winthrop is not a fast man, and the horses are quite sturdy. It becomes clear that Winthrop will not be able to get in front of the horse train, nor even on its flank. Frustrated, Winthrop summons the last of his major conjurations and extends a line of flame, ten feet wide and twenty feet high, towards the horses, catching the last one in fire.
The horse whinnies in panic and fear as the fire rushes down on it and neighs in pain as the fire devours it. The other horses in the train go mad with fear as the fire chases them. They break free of their leads and run in different directions, scattering from the long train. Even the horses ridden by the humans seem panicked by the fire, and they begin to buck, successfully throwing their riders, often into the paths of the panicked herd. The flames burn hot and high as Winthrop strides down on the fallen riders, but neither stirs. Their horses flee up and out of the canyon, the riders lie broken and trampled. “Gotta come up with an explanation for Cedrus,” thinks Winthrop, as he looks at the charred equine. The ogre mage has taken this opportunity to disappear, and Winthrop holds the canyon himself.
Winthrop stands near his wall of fire, toasting himself against the mountain chill and idly tossing sticks into it, until the Company comes out of the cave. Otto looks unhealthy, but functional, and Adrienne no longer is blue and frostbitten. Cedrus looks at the wall of fire and the dead horse and frowns at Winthrop. A tongue-lashing is definitely in Winthrop’s future.
The Company walks and staggers down the canyon. At the far end of the canyon, around a corner and out of sight of the entrance to the orc cavern, is a rather large camp. A series of small, two person tents are neatly arrayed along one side of the camp and a large pavilion dominates the center. A corral, now empty, held the horses in close proximity to the camp, but Otto’s keen eyes pick out another trail, one that leads up towards the side of the mountain.
While the others search through the pavilion and the tents, Otto, Hugh, and Winthrop follow the trail up to the mountainside. Another cave, this hidden behind large rocks, is dug out of the mountainside, but rather than holding orcs, the mouth of this cave is blocked by large branches and sharpened sticks. Otto squints through the wood piled in the mouth of the cave and discerns large, horse-like animals huddled in the cave. “Why would one keep horses locked in a cave?” mutters Otto to himself. Otto pauses and then looks up the side of the mountain, trying to see the peak of the mountain. Several large creatures circle the mountaintop, hovering in the air. “They were capturing hippogriffs and penning them in here,” says Otto, gesturing at the cave.
“What!” exclaims Hugh. “Such injustice will not stand! Creatures of the air should not be penned, but instead fly free in the air. Come, we must free them now, since they understand their confinement even less than the oppressed do.” Hugh’s vehemence is a bit of a surprise to Winthrop and Otto, who were thinking about how a hippogriff willing to serve as a steed would be of great help in traveling. Otto looks like he is about to attempt to discuss this with Hugh, but Winthrop lays his hand on Otto’s arm and shakes his head.
Winthrop, Otto, and Hugh drag the branches aside, creating a clear space big enough for a hippogriff to climb through, and then stand far back from the cave. After a delay, a hippogriff comes out through the gap. The hippogriff is bruised and abraded, whip marks marring its flanks. The hippogriff looks about, staring at the three of them. With a raucous cry, it takes a position outside of the cave, and three more hippogriffs exit, each cowering and twitching, two of which are, from their size, likely fledglings. As they take to the air, a last hippogriff exits, squawking at the first hippogriff. Turning a baleful eye on the humans, the pair of hippogriffs leap into the air, following their beaten young up into the air. Above the camp, more hippogriffs launch into the air from the side of the mountain, joining their freed brethren. Satisfied that no more hippogriffs will exit the cave, the three of them hike back down to the camp to see how the search goes.
Half the Company has been detailed back to the orc caves to search through them and find what valuable items remain behind. The others have been systematically searching the camp, collecting items of note or interest and placing them in large sacks to be gone through by the group as a whole. Winthrop, Otto, and Hugh join in and the search is completed fairly quickly. Hunting through the warrens of the orcs takes longer, and separating the dross from the valuable is much harder among the orc belongings. Eventually, a large pile of coins, objets d’art, and papers is made, and the magical items among them discerned.
The orcs had a collection of human coins of low value, all from Sterich, spread among them and hidden in a crude stone chest, likely in the chieftain’s room. The chieftain had a collection of banded agates as well, while the shaman’s chambers had a variety of holy paraphernalia, mostly chased with silver. The ogre mage had three color-coded flasks hidden under a pile of armor, and they radiate magic.
The humans, oddly enough, seem to carry much more coin than the orcs, and the coinage is giant in size, bearing the mint of an axe and dwarfish face. An assortment of minor jewelry and uncut quartz were collected as well, but only the splintmail of the assassin and a shield wielded by one of the humans radiate magic. Any others seem to have not survived the ball of fire summoned by Winthrop. Since the man in the splintmail was decimating the Company with poisoned bolts at the time, no one complains.
What is more interesting are the papers and the mundane equipment found by the Company. In the camp were many sets of lice-infested furs, leathers, and spiked shoes. They appear to have been used by the humans in the camp to protect themselves against much colder temperatures than are present in the mountain valley.
Also, three sets of documents were recovered, two from the orc caves and one from the large pavilion. One set of papers is written in orcish and seems to detail some transactions between the orcs and others. Dell, Al, and Adrienne pore over the papers, with Diego occasionally glancing over their shoulders. “Ledger book,” says Diego. “Probably selling or trading something as a middleman.” Everyone looks at Diego. “What? You don’t think that you become a bodyguard in the Wild Coast without learning orcish, do you?” he asks.
“It’s not that,” says Al. “It’s that you understanding accounting.”
Diego turns a bright red color. “Mother wanted me to have a future in the family business,” he mutters and then walks off, kicking an empty helmet down the corridor before him. Looking at the papers as a transaction ledger clarifies things. Some of the notations in the ledger, especially where money would be coming in, are derogatory, referring at some points to “snow fairies” and terms similar to the word for “elf.” From the frequency of the shipments, each shipment occurs every three or so months, the most recent one having returned a few weeks earlier.
The other book found in the caves is in a strange language, the letters full of impossible curves, almost calligraphic in style. While not magical, it misleads the eye and has no up and down. How the pages are to be read is not at all clear. Winthrop posits that this is the language of the ogre mages. Dell tries to discern a pattern in the writing, but it defeats even his superior intellect. Frustrated, he tosses it in the corner of the room.
The third book, that found in the pavilion, appears to be a diary of some kind, written either by the leader or his lieutenant. The diary is written in third person, referring to “the Boss” and “Number Two,” so it is unclear who the author was, but it is plain that the author had some severe problems coping with the world. The diary covers several years in varying degrees of detail. Some days simply sparsely denote the weather, while others have pages of crabbed scrawl discussing the events of the day. What strikes the attention of the Company is a section describing the capture of hippogriffs and their sale. “The Boss” had contacted a group called the Bergheim Mercenaries to sell them tamed hippogriffs. Three times a year the Bergheim Mercenaries would come collect their tame mounts. It would be several months before the mercenaries would arrive, seeming to preclude laying a trap for them.
The diary also discusses in plain speech the selling, every few months, of ogre-made, giant-sized armor to elves that live on a glacier. One long section discusses the development of a great snow ramp to gain access to the glacier, the position of the wagon storage, and how the author had to collect new, warmer furs because of the great cold on the glacier.
The Company puts the pieces together. It appears that the orcs received armor shipments from the ogres at the Davish headwaters and transferred them to the humans taming the hippogriffs, who then carried them up to the glacier. There, they are traded to elves on the glacier, who probably paid in giant-sized coin. Since the humans have much more gold coin than the orcs do, it even appears that the humans were shorting the orcs of their share.
Otto wonders what he saw on the glacier. Was it these snow fairies? Was it the humans? Even with the telescope, the most he could resolve was the motion of the large sleds against the white backdrop of the glacier and that perhaps some of the creatures were larger than the others. The lack of certainty frustrates him. At least with the diary, the path up the glacier to find out will be easier to follow.
Winthrop and Dell increase the strength of the warriors and cast various wards on themselves. After Winthrop casts his vision-altering glamour, Raven hikes carefully down to within thirty feet of the orcs. The large banners behind them, of a pus-oozing eye impaled on a jagged knife, are tribal decorations, so more orcs must be within. In a sudden burst, Raven appears, firing arrows into the orcs. The orcs are stunned by his sudden appearance and stand flat-footed as Raven fills them full of arrows. The orcs do not stand a chance and fall down dead, each pierced through by multiple arrows.
Raven, now visible, waves his arm, directing the Company forward. A quiet clanging and shuffling sound is heard as the others approach. Raven does find it a bit weird, having conversations with people he can’t see, when they can so clearly see him. “Are they making faces at me while they converse?” he ponders.
The cave between the banners seems to head deep into the mountainside. The Company enters, with Raven and Diego in the front, followed by Al and Otto. Eschewing lightstones for the moment, the Company sneaks into the gloom, finding a rough hewn tunnel, the floor smoothed by many booted feet, leading away from them. Raven’s success at slaying the guards outside seems to have given the Company an edge, since, at the next intersection, a smoky torch sputters, and two bored orcs stand guard under it. Diego and Raven slay the sentries, but not without sound, the sentries’ weapons collapsing to the ground with a clatter. Jasper pipes up, “I hear somebody running,” and the Company knows their presence has been noted.
The Company charges forward, always following the left hand wall in case of a maze-like warren. They blunder into another intersection where the orcs are beginning to mount a defense against something, likely them. A row of orc soldiers blocks the corridor with a larger orc, perhaps a clan chieftain, urging them into formation. The orcs are startled by Raven and Diego’s entry, and then even more so by the appearance of Otto and Al, who snap into being while charging at the orcs, weapons upraised. Diego and Raven let fly with a flurry of arrows, firing over and around their charging compatriots, and, by the time Otto and Al have reached the orcs, none of the orcs are left standing. “Show offs,” grates Al to the archers.
Still following the left wall, the Company pushes forward and finally meets with the main force of the orcs. A barricade made of large tables, likely from a barracks or dining hall, blocks the corridor, and orcs support it, waving spears and other weapons at the Company from behind it. The orcs throw flasks into the corridor between them and the Company, flasks that break and discharge a clear fluid, likely oil. Quick work with an orcish torch sets the pool of fluid on fire, delaying the Company’s assault.
The smoke from the burning oil rises up in front of the Company, but it doesn’t dissuade them at all. Winthrop pops into vision as he sets a small stone in orbit around his head, while Raven simply walks into the fire, shooting arrows at the orcs manning the barricade. Otto, on the other hand, attempts, unsuccessfully, to quench the flames with his cold-burning bastard sword. The orcs are clearly terrified of the Company, but there are many of them behind the barricade, and they do not give up hope. Instead, they toss spears and fire the occasional arrow at Raven as he stands among the flames, unharmed.
Dark black smoke begins to fill the corridor behind the Company, as if a large oily fire had been lit somewhere in the tunnels they have just traveled through. The others are unsure what to take from this, but the smoke is thick and heavy and moves slowly towards them. With the archers providing cover, Otto still tries to put out the flames with his sword, eventually succeeding. The delay has given the orcs time to organize, and the elements of surprise and shock are long lost.
The warriors charge forward against the barricade, through the quenched oil fire. The orcs feverishly try to hold their position, but are unable to against the augmented warriors. The barricade cracks and then is thrown over by the might of the Company. A great swirling fight takes place in the large room beyond. Several corridors lead out of the room, and the orcs try to push the Company down one of them, restricting their ability to move and fight. Once bottled into the corridor mouth, a second force of orcs, led by a chieftain of some sort, charge into the flank of the Company, screaming an orcish war cry as they do so.
The orcs are only dangerous to the Company because of their sheer numbers. The smarter orcs attempt to drag down the Company, so that they might be stabbed to death while held prone, while the fools among them futilely thrust their spears at the heavily armored Company. With an attack on two fronts, the Company is forced to quickly tactically rearrange themselves, with Al and Diego passing through the Company to hold off the second force and Otto and Raven dealing with the mass of orcs in the barracks room. Winthrop, seeing that reinforcements are needed, begins summoning creatures to aid him in battle.
Cedrus and Hugh pop into vision as they both call down prayers and blessings on the Company, increasing their fighting prowess. Oaklock, seeing that even more orcs are joining the fight, begins using his magics, appearing amidst the Company, spraying magical bolts through the orcs fighting Al and Diego. The magical bolts slay those they touch, and Oaklock is profligate in their use.
The orcs are whittled down, a handful dying each minute, but suddenly the battle shifts. Otto cries out and collapses, twitching on the ground. A large bolt protrudes from his neck, and an unnatural purple hue suffuses the area near the bolt, slowly expanding through his flesh. Raven looks for the archer among the orcs before him, but is unable to spot him before more orc soldiery piles onto him. Disengaging from the masses, he slays two of his opponents before he is also struck down, a bolt penetrating his chest through his armpit.
Cedrus and Hugh, seeing both of the warriors drop to the ground, dead or unconscious, step up to hold the line. Winthrop starts summoning magic and searches for a target to release his fire upon. At the far end of the room, where the other corridor leads out of the barracks, two large orcs, one armored in splint mail and the other carrying a great flail, are protected by a group of orc bodyguards. The armored one raises his crossbow and fires at Winthrop, the bolt ricocheting off of Winthrop’s wards. Winthrop leers as he focuses his summoned magics onto the orcs, burning the flesh from their bodies. A series of small coronas coruscate over the armored orc’s body as he falls to the ground, charred.
The summoned flames have decimated the orcs in the barracks room, and they would likely have fallen back if reinforcements had not arrived at just that moment. A small horde of orcs, backed by armored humans wielding crossbows, charge into the room. They crash against the Company, pushing against the clerics. The creatures summoned by Winthrop shimmer into being, three foul ghouls. Fortunately, Al is not in sight, as ghouls seem to have a taste for his flesh. Instead, they fall upon the orcs and men.
The ghoul attack is a welcome respite that gains several minutes of time for the Company. Al, Oaklock, and Diego slay those orcs bedeviling their flank and rotate to the front of the Company, providing a new fighting line. Otto, who is clearly dead from the poisoned bolt, is dragged back, while Raven, who has resisted the poison, is restored to consciousness, though he is very weak. The Company is not yet prepared to face the orcs and archers in battle, so once the orcs have dispatched his summoned ghouls, Winthrop fills the room before him with webbing, wrapping it around the orcs and archers. Even though it can easily be burnt off, doing so will gravely harm those within. The Company hurriedly prays for health and prepares for battle. Only a modicum of health is restored before the webbing suddenly catches fire, scorching those within, but allowing the fight to be taken to the Company again.
As the Company invisibly marches down to the cave where the sentries stand, Dell grabs Adrienne’s arm, holding her back. Once his keen ears can no longer hear the others’ footsteps, he speaks, “Horrible plan. No escape plan. No contingency planning. Plus, they never listen to me when I have a brilliant insight, so we’ll wait and back them up when they get into trouble, as they always do.” Adrienne’s body language is tense, as if she feels some concern about Dell’s duplicity, but doesn’t voice her doubts.
The two of them sneak down to the cave and watch the Company go in. After ten minutes or so, it becomes clear that something is going wrong. Smoke begins to eke out of the cave mouth and then three orcs run out of the cave and down the canyon, away from where the Company came from. “See, no contingency planning,” whispers Dell to Adrienne. Fifteen minutes later, a large force of orcs and humans, led by two large orcs, one in splint mail and one carrying a large flail, and a human warrior, trots up the canyon towards the cave, heading straight in. “Give them a few minutes, and then we’ll go in,” declares Dell.
Dell and Adrienne sneak into the cave mouth, avoiding the dead bodies. The air in the entryway is quite clear, but a thick plume of black smoke flows down from an intersection ahead of them. The plume appears quite unnatural, curving through the air to flow against the wind. The two of them sneak up to the intersection and around it, peering down the long corridor. About eighty feet from them is an orc, likely a shaman or witchdoctor by all the bones and skulls dangling from his unarmored frame, standing behind two large smudge pots. An unnatural amount of smoke flows from them and is directed up the corridor a the witchdoctor’s command.
The witchdoctor has powers beyond the normal ken, as he sees Adrienne and begins arcanely gesturing towards her. Adrienne, not one to like evil priests, charges him, while Dell sneaks around to strike from behind. Between the two of them, the witchdoctor has little chance, and falls over, punctured and dying from multiple blows. Dell looks around for and finds the lids of the pots and carefully covers them, cutting off the smoke.
Stealthily sneaking up to the corridor where the smoke flowed, Dell leads Adrienne into the occluding smoke. Their fine half-elven senses detect the noise of several people in the corridors ahead of them, and Dell can hear an intense discussion in pidgin common between a human voice and an orcish one. Their men seem trapped in some sort of webbing, and they are concerned about the effect that lighting the webbing might have.
Dell grins and summons lightning, filling the corridor before him with jagged bolts. The orcs and men scream in pain, and the sound of quick burning flames reaches his ears. He chuckles, sidles forward, and focuses his magics before him again, emitting a cone of primal energy designed to prey on the mind. Fevered moaning and shrieks of horror reach back to him, as those within the energy cone relive their deepest fears and flee them. Through the smoke barrels a small handful of people, mainly humans, who Adrienne quickly grasps in Lydia’s powerful vision.
Dell moves up to disarm the paralyzed humans as he hears the clicking sound of talons on stone. He turns as a great ogre mage, eight feet tall and horned, appears out of the smoke, hand outstretched. Dell shouts a futile warning to Adrienne and dives behind a paralyzed warrior as a wave of utter cold fills the corridor. The paralyzed men freeze in place, their skin turning white and cracking in great wounds, while Adrienne throws herself to the ground, covered in hoarfrost.
Dell stands back up from behind the now-dead man, and the great ogre mage flees. Rather than chase after the ogre, Dell checks on Adrienne, finding her still breathing, but very, very cold. Winthrop comes upon them, and Dell waves down the corridor, saying the ogre mage fled that way.
When the webbing caught fire and burnt, the Company was uncertain if this was a good or bad thing. Otto was temporarily slain, the poison and the deadly bolt too much for his magical ring to quickly overcome. Raven was sorely injured, and the others bore their share of nicks and scratches. The orcs and humans were released from the webbing as a great electric discharge was heard, and, if fresh reinforcements had charged past the injured, the fight might have gone agains the Company. Instead, the injured had retreated from and then suddenly run towards the Company, gibbering and unable to defend themselves. The most difficulty the Company had was keeping up with the fleeing warriors while hacking them down. The battle had gone from a near thing to a sure victory in a matter of minutes.
With the others picking themselves up, Winthrop charges after the ogre mage. The air is thinning; the dark cloud losing cohesion. Winthrop chases the ogre mage out the mouth of the cave and sees it flying up the far side of the canyon, where the ground is scree-covered and dangerous to climb. Winthrop runs to the base of the canyon wall, where the ogre mage hovers just out of sight, and jeers at the ogre mage, trying to get it to engage him in combat. The ogre mage casts something, possibly an enthralling glamour, but Winthrop’s wards reject it. Winthrop returns the favor, sending a long bolt of lightning up and through the ogre mage. The ogre crashes to the ground, sliding in the scree, but its wounds knit before Winthrop's eyes. Before Winthrop can determine how to climb up to the injured ogre, the ogre mage has regained his feet, mocking Winthrop once more. Frustrated, Winthrop goes so far as to turn his back on the ogre mage, drop his trousers, and show it his bare ass.
From this somewhat precarious position, Winthrop sees two riders with a long train of horses thunder down the canyon. Coming from the end of the canyon not yet visited, the two riders appear similarly garbed to those humans slain inside the cave, and they lead a good two dozen horses at full gallop, trying to escape the Company’s assault. Affixing his belt again, he casts a last disparaging glance at the retreating ogre mage and then runs to try to cut off the train of horses. Winthrop is not a fast man, and the horses are quite sturdy. It becomes clear that Winthrop will not be able to get in front of the horse train, nor even on its flank. Frustrated, Winthrop summons the last of his major conjurations and extends a line of flame, ten feet wide and twenty feet high, towards the horses, catching the last one in fire.
The horse whinnies in panic and fear as the fire rushes down on it and neighs in pain as the fire devours it. The other horses in the train go mad with fear as the fire chases them. They break free of their leads and run in different directions, scattering from the long train. Even the horses ridden by the humans seem panicked by the fire, and they begin to buck, successfully throwing their riders, often into the paths of the panicked herd. The flames burn hot and high as Winthrop strides down on the fallen riders, but neither stirs. Their horses flee up and out of the canyon, the riders lie broken and trampled. “Gotta come up with an explanation for Cedrus,” thinks Winthrop, as he looks at the charred equine. The ogre mage has taken this opportunity to disappear, and Winthrop holds the canyon himself.
Winthrop stands near his wall of fire, toasting himself against the mountain chill and idly tossing sticks into it, until the Company comes out of the cave. Otto looks unhealthy, but functional, and Adrienne no longer is blue and frostbitten. Cedrus looks at the wall of fire and the dead horse and frowns at Winthrop. A tongue-lashing is definitely in Winthrop’s future.
The Company walks and staggers down the canyon. At the far end of the canyon, around a corner and out of sight of the entrance to the orc cavern, is a rather large camp. A series of small, two person tents are neatly arrayed along one side of the camp and a large pavilion dominates the center. A corral, now empty, held the horses in close proximity to the camp, but Otto’s keen eyes pick out another trail, one that leads up towards the side of the mountain.
While the others search through the pavilion and the tents, Otto, Hugh, and Winthrop follow the trail up to the mountainside. Another cave, this hidden behind large rocks, is dug out of the mountainside, but rather than holding orcs, the mouth of this cave is blocked by large branches and sharpened sticks. Otto squints through the wood piled in the mouth of the cave and discerns large, horse-like animals huddled in the cave. “Why would one keep horses locked in a cave?” mutters Otto to himself. Otto pauses and then looks up the side of the mountain, trying to see the peak of the mountain. Several large creatures circle the mountaintop, hovering in the air. “They were capturing hippogriffs and penning them in here,” says Otto, gesturing at the cave.
“What!” exclaims Hugh. “Such injustice will not stand! Creatures of the air should not be penned, but instead fly free in the air. Come, we must free them now, since they understand their confinement even less than the oppressed do.” Hugh’s vehemence is a bit of a surprise to Winthrop and Otto, who were thinking about how a hippogriff willing to serve as a steed would be of great help in traveling. Otto looks like he is about to attempt to discuss this with Hugh, but Winthrop lays his hand on Otto’s arm and shakes his head.
Winthrop, Otto, and Hugh drag the branches aside, creating a clear space big enough for a hippogriff to climb through, and then stand far back from the cave. After a delay, a hippogriff comes out through the gap. The hippogriff is bruised and abraded, whip marks marring its flanks. The hippogriff looks about, staring at the three of them. With a raucous cry, it takes a position outside of the cave, and three more hippogriffs exit, each cowering and twitching, two of which are, from their size, likely fledglings. As they take to the air, a last hippogriff exits, squawking at the first hippogriff. Turning a baleful eye on the humans, the pair of hippogriffs leap into the air, following their beaten young up into the air. Above the camp, more hippogriffs launch into the air from the side of the mountain, joining their freed brethren. Satisfied that no more hippogriffs will exit the cave, the three of them hike back down to the camp to see how the search goes.
Half the Company has been detailed back to the orc caves to search through them and find what valuable items remain behind. The others have been systematically searching the camp, collecting items of note or interest and placing them in large sacks to be gone through by the group as a whole. Winthrop, Otto, and Hugh join in and the search is completed fairly quickly. Hunting through the warrens of the orcs takes longer, and separating the dross from the valuable is much harder among the orc belongings. Eventually, a large pile of coins, objets d’art, and papers is made, and the magical items among them discerned.
The orcs had a collection of human coins of low value, all from Sterich, spread among them and hidden in a crude stone chest, likely in the chieftain’s room. The chieftain had a collection of banded agates as well, while the shaman’s chambers had a variety of holy paraphernalia, mostly chased with silver. The ogre mage had three color-coded flasks hidden under a pile of armor, and they radiate magic.
The humans, oddly enough, seem to carry much more coin than the orcs, and the coinage is giant in size, bearing the mint of an axe and dwarfish face. An assortment of minor jewelry and uncut quartz were collected as well, but only the splintmail of the assassin and a shield wielded by one of the humans radiate magic. Any others seem to have not survived the ball of fire summoned by Winthrop. Since the man in the splintmail was decimating the Company with poisoned bolts at the time, no one complains.
What is more interesting are the papers and the mundane equipment found by the Company. In the camp were many sets of lice-infested furs, leathers, and spiked shoes. They appear to have been used by the humans in the camp to protect themselves against much colder temperatures than are present in the mountain valley.
Also, three sets of documents were recovered, two from the orc caves and one from the large pavilion. One set of papers is written in orcish and seems to detail some transactions between the orcs and others. Dell, Al, and Adrienne pore over the papers, with Diego occasionally glancing over their shoulders. “Ledger book,” says Diego. “Probably selling or trading something as a middleman.” Everyone looks at Diego. “What? You don’t think that you become a bodyguard in the Wild Coast without learning orcish, do you?” he asks.
“It’s not that,” says Al. “It’s that you understanding accounting.”
Diego turns a bright red color. “Mother wanted me to have a future in the family business,” he mutters and then walks off, kicking an empty helmet down the corridor before him. Looking at the papers as a transaction ledger clarifies things. Some of the notations in the ledger, especially where money would be coming in, are derogatory, referring at some points to “snow fairies” and terms similar to the word for “elf.” From the frequency of the shipments, each shipment occurs every three or so months, the most recent one having returned a few weeks earlier.
The other book found in the caves is in a strange language, the letters full of impossible curves, almost calligraphic in style. While not magical, it misleads the eye and has no up and down. How the pages are to be read is not at all clear. Winthrop posits that this is the language of the ogre mages. Dell tries to discern a pattern in the writing, but it defeats even his superior intellect. Frustrated, he tosses it in the corner of the room.
The third book, that found in the pavilion, appears to be a diary of some kind, written either by the leader or his lieutenant. The diary is written in third person, referring to “the Boss” and “Number Two,” so it is unclear who the author was, but it is plain that the author had some severe problems coping with the world. The diary covers several years in varying degrees of detail. Some days simply sparsely denote the weather, while others have pages of crabbed scrawl discussing the events of the day. What strikes the attention of the Company is a section describing the capture of hippogriffs and their sale. “The Boss” had contacted a group called the Bergheim Mercenaries to sell them tamed hippogriffs. Three times a year the Bergheim Mercenaries would come collect their tame mounts. It would be several months before the mercenaries would arrive, seeming to preclude laying a trap for them.
The diary also discusses in plain speech the selling, every few months, of ogre-made, giant-sized armor to elves that live on a glacier. One long section discusses the development of a great snow ramp to gain access to the glacier, the position of the wagon storage, and how the author had to collect new, warmer furs because of the great cold on the glacier.
The Company puts the pieces together. It appears that the orcs received armor shipments from the ogres at the Davish headwaters and transferred them to the humans taming the hippogriffs, who then carried them up to the glacier. There, they are traded to elves on the glacier, who probably paid in giant-sized coin. Since the humans have much more gold coin than the orcs do, it even appears that the humans were shorting the orcs of their share.
Otto wonders what he saw on the glacier. Was it these snow fairies? Was it the humans? Even with the telescope, the most he could resolve was the motion of the large sleds against the white backdrop of the glacier and that perhaps some of the creatures were larger than the others. The lack of certainty frustrates him. At least with the diary, the path up the glacier to find out will be easier to follow.
