Post by Dead Greyhawk on Nov 19, 2007 20:57:55 GMT -5
The Company, of course, wants to know what happened, and Alouicious savors the spotlight for once. He tells the others how he and the Warriors of the Horn chased the two giant goblins, bugbears he calls them, up the ramp through a series of doors. One of the bugbears tried to hold the door against the Warriors of the Horn, and while he succeeded in slaying one of the Warriors, it was at the cost of his life. His delaying action was not without purpose, as the other bugbear widened the lead he had on Alouicious and the Warriors of the Horn. The foul creature ran past the doors and then turned to face Alouicious and the Warriors. Alouicious mocked the bugbear's ancestry, but the bugbear seemed confident, almost content, and that raised Al's concern.
Alouicious quickly directed the Warriors to prepare for an assault, and his instinct was a good one. The door behind them opened and strange, green-scaled creatures came forth, charging along the walls and ceiling to assail them. Al can not honestly say if the creatures before them appeared out of nowhere or came from the far door, because they closed so quickly. He did see the bugbear dash into the furthest door on the right, and Al planned to take the fight to him there.
The battle in the corridor was a vicious brawl. The spears of the Warriors of the Horn were a blessing. When the Warriors began to fall, the others were able to scoop up their weapons and throw them into the scrum further up the passage. Alouicious, holding off the attacks of the green-scaled creatures that came from the far end of the passageway, was sorely injured, and the healing elixir that he had saved for a situation such as this turned out to be weak and ineffectual. By the time the green-scaled creatures were routed, two of the Warriors were dead.
The green-scaled creatures fled back into the rooms on the right side of the passage, and Al and the remaining Warrior of the Horn chased them down. One was caught in the dining area and hacked down. The rest were caught up with in the room where the Company now sits. The curtains occluded vision, and the green-scaled creatures used them to their advantage. The dodged in and out of the curtains, more bugbears joining them with reinforcements! The Warrior of the Horn avenged the deaths of his brethren, while Alouicious hacked down attacker after attacker.
Wounded and nigh on to death, Alouicious finally faced the last of the bugbears. Surrounding a large bugbear, a subchieftain of some type, the bugbears faced Al, streaming blood from dozens of wounds, and his inchoate, screaming ally, whose face he had daubed in blood and gore. The morale of the bugbears was weak at best. None of the creatures appeared ready to face him, even as wounded as he was. The bugbear subchieftain, knowing that Alouicious spoke a variant of the goblin language, taunted him, telling him that if he surrendered now, he would be taken prisoner and not eaten like his dead compatriots would be. If not, the bugbear would set his green-scaled pets upon him, and Alouicious would die. Alouicious is no fool. He knew that surrender meant death, but he waited, hoping for a moment that the Company would come up behind the bugbears and open the door. It soon became clear that no miracle was going to take place.
Appearing as if he was considering the bugbear subchieftain's words, he lowered his battle axe to his side, freeing one hand. "I think not," said Alouicious, grabbing Dulfek's throwing axe and hurling it into the skull of the bugbears' subchieftain. With a high-pitched scream, the bugbear subchieftain spun about, blindly groping at its forehead and the axe haft jutting from it, and then keeled over dead. "It is your turn to surrender," menaced Alouicious. "I promise we will just shave all the hair from your body and tattoo coward on you before releasing you to your kin." The rest of the bugbears, rather than erupting in range, were thoroughly cowed and bolted out the door, slamming it behind them.
Deeply tired, Al decided to lie down for a while and let the Company catch up with him, certain that Hugh and Otto would be able to follow the trail of death and blood to him. Chasing the bugbears up into the tree would be work for the whole Company, not just him.
The Company is astounded at the story that Alouicious tells. If it came from almost any other member of the Company, they would have dismissed it as fabrication,. From Al, the most honest and law-abiding of them all, it must be the truth as he recalls it. The Company is deeply impressed. Hugh finishes his ministrations, using almost all of his prayers to return Alouicious to fighting prowess.
Otto grins at the dwarven warrior. "I guess Myrick's ring makes us all headstrong," he says. "That feeling of immortality is hard to match." Al smiles back at him. Myrick's ring shines dully through the blood caked on his hands.
The Company returns to the scene of the battle and finds that the Warriors of the Horn have faded from sight, even their blood no longer staining the wood of the Great Tree. The two doors on the opposite side of the corridor are still closed. Otto, Raven, and Diego quickly open and look behind them. Both doors lead to corridors descending into the tree, though at angles that diverge from each other. "Upwards," declares Winthrop. "Whatever has contaminated this place must lie upwards." Though he has nothing concrete to base his opinion on, it seems likely to the others as well, and they agree to ascend, rather than descend.
Otto leads the others forward, looking at the wood floor of the Great Tree as he does so. His keen eyesight and experience shows that the general wear and footprints that have marred the wood of the passage suddenly cease. The trail beyond this point being diffuse and vague. "A hidden passage is here," he relays. "No one goes forward; they must go around." Perrin turns out to have a knack at finding such hidden passages, spying out the hairline crack that hides the piece of wood that folds inwards to reveal the passage.
Whatever this hidden passage bypasses is unknown, but the Company chooses not to find out. Instead, they file through the hidden passage until they reach a dead end. Perrin finds the catch that releases this hidden door, and the Company exits into what appears to be the same ever-ascending passage along the circumference of the Great Tree. After more climbing, the air, which has kept its fetid odor from below, changes in flavor. It becomes cleaner and seems to move more freely. The Company climbs forward and finds that they are can see into the night air. Stars are visible through a doorway-sized hole in the wall of the Great Tree. The ramp leads up onto one of the branches of the Great Tree. The Company must be at least a hundred feet above the ground.
Otto spots what appears to be a snare of some sort dangling near the hole. It appears to snatch at the unwary and throw them off the branch, presumably to their deaths. An odd trap for the current inhabitants, Otto postulates that it is left over from when the druids were in control. He warns the others not to stray near it. "It's a long first step," he cautions.
Winthrop looks down over the edge of the branch while Perrin and the others search for and find another hole that leads back into the Great Tree. Far below, he can see a small area of light that paces about. "I'll be right back," says Winthrop. "I think I can get Antonus now. He seems small again." Winthrop writhes in shape into a gargoyle and sails towards the earth. Winthrop swoops out of the night, hoping to at least startle, if not frighten the apprentice mage. Instead, he seems only to have given Antonus indigestion. Antonus clasps at his side and turns to Winthrop, grimacing. "If your head's back down to its normal size, I can take you up to the others," grates Winthrop.
"I'd be happy to add my intellect to a group that sorely needs it," retorts Antonus. Winthrop scowls and transforms into a hippogryph. Antonus is a much poorer rider than Otto, but Winthrop is able to bring him up to the branch by exercising extreme care. Antonus scampers up onto the branch and into the second hole, where the Company waits for him. Once Winthrop has transformed into himself again, the Company resumes their march upwards.
The passage continues to climb and wends an irregular path until a door is seen off to the right side of the passage. This door, upon investigation, is different than the others. The door to this room is made of a wicker and metal weave. A sliding panel is embedded in the bottom of the door. The sounds of scurrying rats echoes from beyond the door. "They are hungry," says Jasper, his ear pressed against the woven metal and wood.
"Let's bypass this one," says Otto, rubbing the scar on his face. Faced with disagreement from the warrior in the front, the Company decides to follow his lead. He pushes on up the passageway until he sees another large hole that leads out into the starry sky. An irregular, sharp-lined feature partially blocks the hole at a distance. He leads the others up onto the branch, far enough to see that thirty feet from the opening is an assortment of twigs and small branches, probably a nest of some sort. Ten feet before the nest, a rope bridge leads from this branch off to presumably the next branch. Further investigation is interrupted by orders barked in a goblinoid language and an onslaught of arrows.
Otto, with his great speed, dashes back into the corridor, but the last Warrior of the Horn, who has insisted taking the point, is not so fast. Shot through by numerous shafts, he flies backwards off the branch into the air, sailing down towards the ground far below. Raven and Diego charge out, returning fire blindly. Winthrop quickly wards himself against such missiles, becomes a gargoyle, and takes to the air. Surprisingly, Perrin runs out onto the branch, strumming the banjo fiercely, only to find himself limned in a soft orange light. Letting out a surprised sound, he runs back into the cover of the passage.
The fire of the giant goblins is remarkably inaccurate, but that of the Company is equally so, since not even the faintest figure can be seen in the darkness. Worse, the sound of chopping is heard, and the rope bridge sags as one of the restraining ropes is cut through. "Oh no you don't," grates through the darkness as a bolt of lightning erupts from the calm sky. Four figures are lit up by the bolt of electricity; all but one fall to the limb or off the limb to the ground far below. The last staggers to the end of the tree limb and a door there, closing it after passing through.
Winthrop chuckles to himself and reties the cut rope, the easy hitches of his childhood on the docks performed even with blocky, stony hands. The rope bridge is reset, and he yells over to the others, "It's safe now. Stop shooting those silly arrows at me. You know even my wards get tired after awhile."
The Company gathers on the branch bearing the nest and investigates it. The nest is plainly that of the giant owls below. Owl down is embedded in the twigs and sticks that the nest is made of, and two large white owl eggs sit in the bottom of it. Further along the branch, the nest of the harpy can be seen, bedecked with hair and furs. Herbert frets over the large eggs, placing his hand near the eggs to measure their heat. "Don't touch them," says Antonus. "The parents will smell human on them and reject them."
"A bird's sense of smell is for hunting, not for its eggs," replies Herbert. "Give me your bedroll and cloak. These will need to be kept warm until we can bring the giant owls back up to their nest." Herbert collects the Company's bedrolls and cloaks while the carefully make it across the rope bridge, one at a time, and swaddles the large eggs.
The next branch, where Winthrop cleared the enemy archers, has several dead bugbear on it and a door back into the Great Tree. With the escape of the archer back into the Great Tree, following up on their advance becomes more important. Otto puts one shoulder into the door until it finally breaks open. A long rising passageway curls around the circumference of the Great Tree. "I think I found the druids," says Otto.
The passageway up into the tree is an unpleasant one. All along the left hand wall are bodies, slowly decaying and desiccating. Manacles and spikes have been driven into the wall, and the bodies hang from them, crucified in a spread eagle position nto the wall of the Great Tree. Most of the bodies that can be seen are humans, dressed in the remnants of robes.
The Company carefully walks up the sloping passage, recognizing that bugbears have escaped up the ramp before them. Their lightstones reveal more and more dead, but further ahead are several bodies chained into the wall that appear different. Several appear to be garbed not in robes but rather traveling gear, and at least one looks to be not human, but rather shorter, possibly a halfling or a dwarf.
As the Company cautiously approaches the anomalous prisoners, they see an open doorway in the right wall just past them. Otto and Raven go up to the door to check inside it, while Herbert and Hugh take cover behind them and examine the four prisoners. Otto and Raven peer through the door to see a sparsely furnished, irregularly shaped chamber, likely another cyst in the Great Tree.
Arrows slam into Raven and Otto's back, shot from further up the ramp, Raven returns fire, and the sound of running footsteps echoes down to them. "How are the prisoners?" asks Raven, his eyes searching up the passage for a target.
"The halfling is dead. So is this man. The two women, the ones with the elven blood, are alive but in a bad way," replies Hugh. "It looks like the bugbears stabbed them as they retreated. I've stabilized them, but we need to get them down from the wall."
Otto motions the slowly healing Al and Diego to the forefront, and he steps back to where Hugh and Herbert stand. Sheathing his weapon and stowing his shield. He reaches for the chains, places one foot against the wood of the Great Tree, and heaves. With a thunderous crack, the spike driving the chains into the Great Tree comes flying free. After a few more tugs, the prisoners are liberated, though who they are, and why they were here, remains a mystery to all.
Alouicious quickly directed the Warriors to prepare for an assault, and his instinct was a good one. The door behind them opened and strange, green-scaled creatures came forth, charging along the walls and ceiling to assail them. Al can not honestly say if the creatures before them appeared out of nowhere or came from the far door, because they closed so quickly. He did see the bugbear dash into the furthest door on the right, and Al planned to take the fight to him there.
The battle in the corridor was a vicious brawl. The spears of the Warriors of the Horn were a blessing. When the Warriors began to fall, the others were able to scoop up their weapons and throw them into the scrum further up the passage. Alouicious, holding off the attacks of the green-scaled creatures that came from the far end of the passageway, was sorely injured, and the healing elixir that he had saved for a situation such as this turned out to be weak and ineffectual. By the time the green-scaled creatures were routed, two of the Warriors were dead.
The green-scaled creatures fled back into the rooms on the right side of the passage, and Al and the remaining Warrior of the Horn chased them down. One was caught in the dining area and hacked down. The rest were caught up with in the room where the Company now sits. The curtains occluded vision, and the green-scaled creatures used them to their advantage. The dodged in and out of the curtains, more bugbears joining them with reinforcements! The Warrior of the Horn avenged the deaths of his brethren, while Alouicious hacked down attacker after attacker.
Wounded and nigh on to death, Alouicious finally faced the last of the bugbears. Surrounding a large bugbear, a subchieftain of some type, the bugbears faced Al, streaming blood from dozens of wounds, and his inchoate, screaming ally, whose face he had daubed in blood and gore. The morale of the bugbears was weak at best. None of the creatures appeared ready to face him, even as wounded as he was. The bugbear subchieftain, knowing that Alouicious spoke a variant of the goblin language, taunted him, telling him that if he surrendered now, he would be taken prisoner and not eaten like his dead compatriots would be. If not, the bugbear would set his green-scaled pets upon him, and Alouicious would die. Alouicious is no fool. He knew that surrender meant death, but he waited, hoping for a moment that the Company would come up behind the bugbears and open the door. It soon became clear that no miracle was going to take place.
Appearing as if he was considering the bugbear subchieftain's words, he lowered his battle axe to his side, freeing one hand. "I think not," said Alouicious, grabbing Dulfek's throwing axe and hurling it into the skull of the bugbears' subchieftain. With a high-pitched scream, the bugbear subchieftain spun about, blindly groping at its forehead and the axe haft jutting from it, and then keeled over dead. "It is your turn to surrender," menaced Alouicious. "I promise we will just shave all the hair from your body and tattoo coward on you before releasing you to your kin." The rest of the bugbears, rather than erupting in range, were thoroughly cowed and bolted out the door, slamming it behind them.
Deeply tired, Al decided to lie down for a while and let the Company catch up with him, certain that Hugh and Otto would be able to follow the trail of death and blood to him. Chasing the bugbears up into the tree would be work for the whole Company, not just him.
The Company is astounded at the story that Alouicious tells. If it came from almost any other member of the Company, they would have dismissed it as fabrication,. From Al, the most honest and law-abiding of them all, it must be the truth as he recalls it. The Company is deeply impressed. Hugh finishes his ministrations, using almost all of his prayers to return Alouicious to fighting prowess.
Otto grins at the dwarven warrior. "I guess Myrick's ring makes us all headstrong," he says. "That feeling of immortality is hard to match." Al smiles back at him. Myrick's ring shines dully through the blood caked on his hands.
The Company returns to the scene of the battle and finds that the Warriors of the Horn have faded from sight, even their blood no longer staining the wood of the Great Tree. The two doors on the opposite side of the corridor are still closed. Otto, Raven, and Diego quickly open and look behind them. Both doors lead to corridors descending into the tree, though at angles that diverge from each other. "Upwards," declares Winthrop. "Whatever has contaminated this place must lie upwards." Though he has nothing concrete to base his opinion on, it seems likely to the others as well, and they agree to ascend, rather than descend.
Otto leads the others forward, looking at the wood floor of the Great Tree as he does so. His keen eyesight and experience shows that the general wear and footprints that have marred the wood of the passage suddenly cease. The trail beyond this point being diffuse and vague. "A hidden passage is here," he relays. "No one goes forward; they must go around." Perrin turns out to have a knack at finding such hidden passages, spying out the hairline crack that hides the piece of wood that folds inwards to reveal the passage.
Whatever this hidden passage bypasses is unknown, but the Company chooses not to find out. Instead, they file through the hidden passage until they reach a dead end. Perrin finds the catch that releases this hidden door, and the Company exits into what appears to be the same ever-ascending passage along the circumference of the Great Tree. After more climbing, the air, which has kept its fetid odor from below, changes in flavor. It becomes cleaner and seems to move more freely. The Company climbs forward and finds that they are can see into the night air. Stars are visible through a doorway-sized hole in the wall of the Great Tree. The ramp leads up onto one of the branches of the Great Tree. The Company must be at least a hundred feet above the ground.
Otto spots what appears to be a snare of some sort dangling near the hole. It appears to snatch at the unwary and throw them off the branch, presumably to their deaths. An odd trap for the current inhabitants, Otto postulates that it is left over from when the druids were in control. He warns the others not to stray near it. "It's a long first step," he cautions.
Winthrop looks down over the edge of the branch while Perrin and the others search for and find another hole that leads back into the Great Tree. Far below, he can see a small area of light that paces about. "I'll be right back," says Winthrop. "I think I can get Antonus now. He seems small again." Winthrop writhes in shape into a gargoyle and sails towards the earth. Winthrop swoops out of the night, hoping to at least startle, if not frighten the apprentice mage. Instead, he seems only to have given Antonus indigestion. Antonus clasps at his side and turns to Winthrop, grimacing. "If your head's back down to its normal size, I can take you up to the others," grates Winthrop.
"I'd be happy to add my intellect to a group that sorely needs it," retorts Antonus. Winthrop scowls and transforms into a hippogryph. Antonus is a much poorer rider than Otto, but Winthrop is able to bring him up to the branch by exercising extreme care. Antonus scampers up onto the branch and into the second hole, where the Company waits for him. Once Winthrop has transformed into himself again, the Company resumes their march upwards.
The passage continues to climb and wends an irregular path until a door is seen off to the right side of the passage. This door, upon investigation, is different than the others. The door to this room is made of a wicker and metal weave. A sliding panel is embedded in the bottom of the door. The sounds of scurrying rats echoes from beyond the door. "They are hungry," says Jasper, his ear pressed against the woven metal and wood.
"Let's bypass this one," says Otto, rubbing the scar on his face. Faced with disagreement from the warrior in the front, the Company decides to follow his lead. He pushes on up the passageway until he sees another large hole that leads out into the starry sky. An irregular, sharp-lined feature partially blocks the hole at a distance. He leads the others up onto the branch, far enough to see that thirty feet from the opening is an assortment of twigs and small branches, probably a nest of some sort. Ten feet before the nest, a rope bridge leads from this branch off to presumably the next branch. Further investigation is interrupted by orders barked in a goblinoid language and an onslaught of arrows.
Otto, with his great speed, dashes back into the corridor, but the last Warrior of the Horn, who has insisted taking the point, is not so fast. Shot through by numerous shafts, he flies backwards off the branch into the air, sailing down towards the ground far below. Raven and Diego charge out, returning fire blindly. Winthrop quickly wards himself against such missiles, becomes a gargoyle, and takes to the air. Surprisingly, Perrin runs out onto the branch, strumming the banjo fiercely, only to find himself limned in a soft orange light. Letting out a surprised sound, he runs back into the cover of the passage.
The fire of the giant goblins is remarkably inaccurate, but that of the Company is equally so, since not even the faintest figure can be seen in the darkness. Worse, the sound of chopping is heard, and the rope bridge sags as one of the restraining ropes is cut through. "Oh no you don't," grates through the darkness as a bolt of lightning erupts from the calm sky. Four figures are lit up by the bolt of electricity; all but one fall to the limb or off the limb to the ground far below. The last staggers to the end of the tree limb and a door there, closing it after passing through.
Winthrop chuckles to himself and reties the cut rope, the easy hitches of his childhood on the docks performed even with blocky, stony hands. The rope bridge is reset, and he yells over to the others, "It's safe now. Stop shooting those silly arrows at me. You know even my wards get tired after awhile."
The Company gathers on the branch bearing the nest and investigates it. The nest is plainly that of the giant owls below. Owl down is embedded in the twigs and sticks that the nest is made of, and two large white owl eggs sit in the bottom of it. Further along the branch, the nest of the harpy can be seen, bedecked with hair and furs. Herbert frets over the large eggs, placing his hand near the eggs to measure their heat. "Don't touch them," says Antonus. "The parents will smell human on them and reject them."
"A bird's sense of smell is for hunting, not for its eggs," replies Herbert. "Give me your bedroll and cloak. These will need to be kept warm until we can bring the giant owls back up to their nest." Herbert collects the Company's bedrolls and cloaks while the carefully make it across the rope bridge, one at a time, and swaddles the large eggs.
The next branch, where Winthrop cleared the enemy archers, has several dead bugbear on it and a door back into the Great Tree. With the escape of the archer back into the Great Tree, following up on their advance becomes more important. Otto puts one shoulder into the door until it finally breaks open. A long rising passageway curls around the circumference of the Great Tree. "I think I found the druids," says Otto.
The passageway up into the tree is an unpleasant one. All along the left hand wall are bodies, slowly decaying and desiccating. Manacles and spikes have been driven into the wall, and the bodies hang from them, crucified in a spread eagle position nto the wall of the Great Tree. Most of the bodies that can be seen are humans, dressed in the remnants of robes.
The Company carefully walks up the sloping passage, recognizing that bugbears have escaped up the ramp before them. Their lightstones reveal more and more dead, but further ahead are several bodies chained into the wall that appear different. Several appear to be garbed not in robes but rather traveling gear, and at least one looks to be not human, but rather shorter, possibly a halfling or a dwarf.
As the Company cautiously approaches the anomalous prisoners, they see an open doorway in the right wall just past them. Otto and Raven go up to the door to check inside it, while Herbert and Hugh take cover behind them and examine the four prisoners. Otto and Raven peer through the door to see a sparsely furnished, irregularly shaped chamber, likely another cyst in the Great Tree.
Arrows slam into Raven and Otto's back, shot from further up the ramp, Raven returns fire, and the sound of running footsteps echoes down to them. "How are the prisoners?" asks Raven, his eyes searching up the passage for a target.
"The halfling is dead. So is this man. The two women, the ones with the elven blood, are alive but in a bad way," replies Hugh. "It looks like the bugbears stabbed them as they retreated. I've stabilized them, but we need to get them down from the wall."
Otto motions the slowly healing Al and Diego to the forefront, and he steps back to where Hugh and Herbert stand. Sheathing his weapon and stowing his shield. He reaches for the chains, places one foot against the wood of the Great Tree, and heaves. With a thunderous crack, the spike driving the chains into the Great Tree comes flying free. After a few more tugs, the prisoners are liberated, though who they are, and why they were here, remains a mystery to all.