Post by Dead Greyhawk on Mar 8, 2008 13:03:29 GMT -5
The stairs form a natural bottleneck for both the Company and the bugbears. Unfortunately for the bugbears, the Company's warriors are more powerful than the bugbears' warriors, and the Company archers are more skilled than the bugbears' archers. The sudden deaths of a half dozen bugbears in a moments notice forces the bugbears to change their strategy. They howl up the stairs to their compatriots, a howl quickly translated by Al.
"Worgs and shamans," he warns. "Prepare yourselves." He does so himself, but in a surprising way. Pulling forth his iron horn, he winds it, a long echoing note, summoning forth a band of barbarian warriors. They appear, clad in their stinking leathers, spear and shield in hand and immediately join into the fight against the bugbears.
A pack of huge leering worgs, unnatural, foul wolf-like creatures, slinks through the press of bugbears, leaping through combat at the Company. The worgs and bugbears work well together, showing obvious training, and the worgs seem smart enough to adapt to the circumstances the bugbears find themselves in. The dynamic of the fight changes for the worse. It becomes even worse when a hulking bugbear, a fetish-covered shaman chants encouragement to his fellow bugbears and curses upon the Company. The shaman is no stranger to battle, and he wades into combat with Otto, smashing him with a chained and studded mace. Otto finds the shaman a powerful enemy, strangely able to entangle Giantslayer with the chains and studded ball of the mace and equally resilient to Otto's massive blows. While Otto is confident of his ability to defeat the bugbear shaman, doing so while being harried by three worgs and two bugbear warriors will be more of a challenge.
Respite comes in the form of the clerics. Hugh, waving Flametongue before him like a brand, pushes back the worgs by the archers, and Perrin and Adrienne join forces to create a small pocket from which the three mages can cast. Dell raises his hands and launches a bolt of greenish acid into the face of the largest bugbear warrior, a splint mail-clad brute who is directing the battle from back on the stairs. Winthrop raises his voice and sends streams of magical energy out into the dire wolves, flaying them. Antonus raises his hands and voice and cheers the others on. "That's right! Show them who's the boss!" he yells to the others.
Diego looks feverishly about and realizes that the bugbears and the worgs are massed wonderfully. "If only the mages would use magics with broader effect!" he grouses. "The javelin!" Diego recalls his magical javelin that converts into a bolt of lightning, held by him since the Company trekked out of the Crystalmist mountains, his share of the blue dragon's hoard. Diego stops firing his short bow and draws out the javelin. With a heave, he throws it into the midst of the nearest pack of worgs and bugbears. It does turn into a bolt of lightning, electrocuting his enemies, but the bolt of lightning grows, flying backwards straight at Diego. As the lightning stretches towards him, Diego thinks that perhaps he's made a mistake. These are his last thoughts before he is electrified and slips into unconsciousness.
After Diego's unwise sacrifice, Al's barbarian brothers take the worst of the fight with the worgs, several of them falling, but the bugbear captain retreats up the stairs as Otto cuts through the shaman's guard and heart. The bugbear warriors fall back with their captain, abandoning most of the frenzied, wild worgs to the swords and arrows of the Company. It takes only a few minutes to slay the last of the worgs, all while the Company's clerics are bestowing the blessings and grace of Trithereon, Lydia, and Phaulkon on the wounded. "Up the stairs while we have the momentum," pants Raven, worn from dodging about the room with his longbow, trying to avoid the worgs and still maintain his lines of fire.
Otto needs little encouragement. He and Al move up the stairs, Otto holding back to avoid outpacing the crippled dwarf. The next higher floor is, like the entry level, made up of a singular round room with another stairwell climbing up to another level. More beds are located in this room, but they have not been set up as a barricade as was done below. Though no bugbears challenge their entry, Otto spies movement at the far side of the room. Then, as they enter the room, it suddenly goes black, Otto's lightstone consumed by magical darkness. "Pfiffwin, stop it!" cries Otto, as he tries to manage his kite shield, bastard sword, pouch, and new lightstone all at once. A new lightstone dispels the darkness and reveals what the movement is.
Two elven women, barely clad in rags, are chained to the far wall. Obviously poorly used, they can only stare woodenly at the two warriors. "Maya!" gasp both of the warriors, dwarf and human alike recognizing the appearance of one of the women. As Diego and Raven come up into the room, the Company attempts to cover all enemies and entrances. Diego and Raven watch the stairway upwards, where already a bugbear face has appeared and disappeared from sight again. Otto goes to speak with Pfiffwin at the arrow slit. Al watches the two elven women, who only now seem to recognize that the Company is not populated by bugbears.
Dell takes in the situation and then sidles over to the staircase. Muttering under his breath, he suddenly changes form into a wounded bugbear. "Be right back," he says. Slipping into the shadows, he stalks up the staircase. The bugbears are busy barricading the stairwell with two beds brought from below. Taking advantage of a momentary distraction, he slides through the incomplete barrier and into the bugbears.
The bugbears are in a tizzy, having been repeatedly forced back from their strong points. An armored bugbear, not the one that Dell burnt with acid before, directs the construction of the barricade, while a short, sickly bugbear unpacks a chest onto a cloak. A ladder reaches up through a trapdoor to the roof, and the sound of bugbear shouting comes through it. Dell confidently strides to the ladder and climbs up it.
On the roof, a small team of bugbears is busy trying to reassemble a ballista, brought in pieces from below. The bugbear captain, his flesh and fur scorched and pitted, harangues the warriors. Reaching into his shirt, Dell pulls out a folded paper, sealed with a blob of red wax. Careful not to open the paper, he breaks the wax seal and scrapes it off. Dell marches up the bugbear captain, hands him the folded, sealed paper, and then quickly stands back. The bugbear captain, at wits' end, growls and snarls at the uncomprehending Dell and throws the paper off the rooftop, much to Dell's dismay. Dell nods and bows at the captain, hoping he's being agreeable and then slides down the ladder from the roof. The sound of the captain's voice follows Dell, and other bugbear warriors below look at him curiously.
Dell marches towards the barrier and then suddenly transforms into a blue jay. With great speed, he arrows through the startled bugbears and down to the Company below. There, he retakes his own form. "They are preparing for us above," he says. "Bugbears, but no more worgs."
"We should make certain these prisoners are not rakshasa in disguise," says Antonus. The others look at him. "What?" he asks, perplexed. "We know the rakshasa changes shape. We know there are at least two, because we killed two. Maybe there are three or four or five. In any case, we should make certain these are not they."
"How do you propose to do that?" queries Dell, surprised at the acumen of his apprentice, but disciplining himself not to show his pleasure.
Antonus frowns. "One of the warriors would be best for this, but they might be too strong," muses Antonus aloud. "Especially if they really are prisoners." He walks over to the two women, who gaze dully up at him, and strikes one with his balled fist. Her head jerks back, and she slumps, unconscious, against the wall. Antonus swears and jumps up and down, holding his fist, and making mewling noises.
"You bastard," reviles Adrienne, pushing Antonus bodily aside and going to treat the two women. "I'll take this from here. Come near them again, and I'll shove my pick so far inside you that you'll wish I had put it in your ear." Muttering prayers to Lydia she begins to heal their wounds while Hugh, never one to allow another to be kept in servitude, begins inspecting their fetters.
"Good work," says Dell to the shocked and visibly annoyed Antonus. "You aren't strong enough to risk killing one of them, and you are disposable enough that if it was a rakakakashasta and it took you hostage, we could afford your death. Very wise and noble of you." Antonus, who had seen the first set of reasoning but not the second, pales to an ashen hue as he wanly smiles and nods in appreciation of the compliment.
"Where's Jasper?" asks Raven. The rest of the Company looks bashful, except for Adrienne. She glares up at him from where she is restoring the battered elf to consciousness.
"He's outside by the fountain, or the remains of it," she replies. "He'll recover consciousness once I can pray over him. The water must have cushioned his fall somewhat, and the rakshasa's body breaking the fountain edge kept the water from drowning him. " Raven looks relieved.
Otto finishes consulting with Pfiffwin and aids him in getting his diminutive form through the arrow slit. "Pfiffwin says there's only one level between here and the roof. Bugbears are on the roof again and were shooting down at him with mixed success," says Otto. Pfiffwin points to his shoulder, where a long furrow has been gouged out of his flesh. "Let's move on the next level. Pfiffwin will provide a distraction while we force the entryway," directs Otto, taking charge.
Pfiffwin pulls beckons and twists, contorting and cavorting in odd ways, creating the illusion of motion and form in the space near him. Suddenly, these optical illusions take on life of their own, marching forward as a group of soldiers, armored and armed with short bows. The soldiers hike up the stairs, Pfiffwin slowly staggering along behind them, his brow creased in concentration. The rest of the Company follows the soldiers up the stairs and into the next level of the tower.
Unlike breaching the prior level, the bugbears here put up a spirited defense. A mass of crossbow bolts flies through the air, penetrating the soldiers that climb the stairs. The soldiers clamp their jaws together tightly, grimacing in pain, as they duck and weave away from the bolts. The Company, who know that the soldiers are phantasms, sees how the bolts are never deflected by the soldiers but instead always fly straight.
The bugbears have set up a barricade with beds and bedding brought up from below. Behind the barricade crouch the remaining bugbear warriors with their crossbows. Visible in the ceiling is a ladder and trapdoor, currently open, that leads to the roof. Unlike the previous levels of the tower though, the room is not a perfect circle. Instead, a wedge of walls intrudes into the room. Against one of these walls sits a table, on which lies a winged helm, apparently forgotten in the chaos.
The splint mail-clad captain, his armor corroded from Dell's magical bolt, directs the battle from the back of the room, while opposite him, behind the other barricade, stands another similarly clad bugbear. While the captain wields a huge morningstar, this bugbear carries a greatsword. Between the two of them squats a barely visible bugbear festooned with bones, fetishes, and inscribed medallions. Smaller and thinner than the others, the bugbear would appear pitifully weak in comparison to the two captains, except for the feral, rabid glow to his eyes. The festooned bugbear sizes up the Company, rises from his haunches and points a blackened, pointed, carved thighbone at the Company. A huge bolt of lightning arcs forward through the illusory archers, narrowly missing Dell.
The Company is taken aback by the presence of another spell caster, fearing that a third rakshasa is present. Their momentary confusion provides the clacking and clanking bugbear a second opportunity. Dancing from side to side, he tosses the blackened thighbone to the ground, squats, spins away from the Company, and chants gutturally, summoning a putrescent cloud upon them. Otto and Al, first up the stairs, fortunately avoid the cloud, but the archers, most of the wizards, and the clerics all breathe a deep lungful of the stuff.
With great hacking coughs, Diego and Raven stagger forward into the room, while Antonus and Hugh stagger backwards down the stairs. Winthrop, doubly secure in his wards and with his iridescent floating stone providing him with his breath, stares at the hacking masses around him. With Diego and Raven laid prone and Al in the room, Winthrop has a clean line of sight on the smirking witchdoctor. Winthrop considers his options and decides that subtlety is not his strength. Up come Winthrop's hands and out arcs an broad, forked bolt of lightning, stretching over the prone wretches and Al's head, but through the bugbears at the barricade, rising to take another shot, and the now-unsmiling witchdoctor. The lightning grounds itself in the wall of the tower, but not before the charred bone fetishes of the witchdoctor explode in small disintegrations of dust nor before the charred bones of the witchdoctor show through his flesh.
The destruction of the middle of the bugbears' defensive formation takes the heart out of the bugbears' defense. Otto is able, with remarkable ease, to close with the morningstar-wielding captain and hew upon him. Already injured from Dell's magics and facing a Ranger Lord filled with the knowledge of the weaknesses of the bugbear form, the bugbear captain is quickly disemboweled and disjointed. Al has a greater struggle to break over the barrier and get to the other splint mail-clad bugbear, Al's height a serious penalty to him. Fortunately, as he faces three bugbear warriors and the armored bugbear, Raven and Diego recover their wind. Arrows fly off their bows over Al's head and into the large bugbears. With the two archers of the Company and the doughty dwarf all striving against the same group of enemies, they quickly fall.
"Still a few hardy souls on the roof," says Winthrop as he stands under the trapdoor, bolts bouncing from his wards.
"Get out of my castle!" shouts Diego. He nudges Winthrop aside and begins shooting up through the trapdoor at the bugbears. The bugbears wisely fall back away from the trapdoor, but it is too little, too late. Diego clambers up the ladder and on to the roof, ignoring the few bolts that fly his way. The Company hears several thuds and then a long wavering scream before Diego looks back down through the trapdoor. "All clear!" he says with a wide grin on his face.
The Company pauses in their triumph, their bodies aching and their wounds bleeding. Taking Castle Crag has been easier than assaulting the slavers' stockade in the Pomarj, but here, like there, remain subterranean tunnels of unknown size and shape. The Company binds their wounds, staunching the worst flows of blood. Even the sole remaining barbarian warrior is willing to have his wounds bound, though only by Al. The priests call upon their deities to heal the Company's wounds. Many orisons and benisons are bestowed upon the wounded, draining the priests of much of their grace.
"Now what?" asks the exhausted Antonus. This pace of running and fighting is much beyond his normal experience. "We should rest," he pants.
"We split up," says Dell. "One group will clear the lower levels, one will interrogate the freed prisoners, and one group will count all of the money."
Al's eyes light up. "I'm in the third group," he asserts.
"First we check the castle for stragglers," says Raven. "We want no surprises. Otto, Diego, Winthrop, and I will do that while the rest of you start stripping the bodies behind us. If we shout, come quick." The rest of the Company seems willing to let Raven and the others hike back into the castle. Winthrop seems a bit truculent about heading back into the castle, wanting instead to take a nap, but he follows along with the others. Adrienne joins them so far as the courtyard where, true to her word, she is able to restore Jasper to consciousness.
The castle, "Call it Castle Hildago!" urges Diego, is filled with gore and death. Blood, guts, and offal fill the corridors and the rooms, signs of the great violence done by the Company. The four of them climb through Castle Hildago, searching each room to ascertain whether anyone hides from them. As they do so, they mark the presence of chests or other containers, filing them for future reference. Eventually they reach the top floor, having found only the feasting giant weasels rummaging among the bodies. Jasper seems content squeaking and growling with the giant weasels, and his intervention allows the others to continue their search unimpeded.
Only on the top floor does the Company find uninvestigated rooms. One Winthrop prohibits the others from entering. "Chickens! Great evil chickens are inside of it!" he froths. The other doorway leads from the bugbear barracks the Company originally entered. They pass by the archery target and stand by the door. It appears locked with a great lock and bar, but searching all the corpses for it seems too much effort for the moment. Raven looks over at Otto, and Otto grins. With a great wrench, Otto pulls the lock and bar out of the door and the frame, a great splintering sound accompanying it.
Raven pushes the door open to reveal a long room filled with pain and suffering. Reminding him of the slave pits of Highport, large iron rings are mounted into the walls and chains with manacles on them loop through the rings. Two piles of bedding, rude pallets, are in the middle of the room, out of reach of the poor souls manacled to the walls. The overflowing chamberpots and rotten food create an overwhelming odor. Another door exits out the right wall, but a statue of a cowering, pleading elven man stands before, mute testament to where that door leads. Two dozen elves and humans and a handful of halflings cower against the walls, manacled and bound.
Raven looks over their fearful forms and makes a hard decision. "We're here to free you, but you must wait some time. Our priests and locksmiths will return after we have finished pacifying the castle," pronounces Raven. "Fear not, or your servitude is ended." Raven pulls the door shut, blocking out the clamor and cacophony that his pronouncement causes.
"Worgs and shamans," he warns. "Prepare yourselves." He does so himself, but in a surprising way. Pulling forth his iron horn, he winds it, a long echoing note, summoning forth a band of barbarian warriors. They appear, clad in their stinking leathers, spear and shield in hand and immediately join into the fight against the bugbears.
A pack of huge leering worgs, unnatural, foul wolf-like creatures, slinks through the press of bugbears, leaping through combat at the Company. The worgs and bugbears work well together, showing obvious training, and the worgs seem smart enough to adapt to the circumstances the bugbears find themselves in. The dynamic of the fight changes for the worse. It becomes even worse when a hulking bugbear, a fetish-covered shaman chants encouragement to his fellow bugbears and curses upon the Company. The shaman is no stranger to battle, and he wades into combat with Otto, smashing him with a chained and studded mace. Otto finds the shaman a powerful enemy, strangely able to entangle Giantslayer with the chains and studded ball of the mace and equally resilient to Otto's massive blows. While Otto is confident of his ability to defeat the bugbear shaman, doing so while being harried by three worgs and two bugbear warriors will be more of a challenge.
Respite comes in the form of the clerics. Hugh, waving Flametongue before him like a brand, pushes back the worgs by the archers, and Perrin and Adrienne join forces to create a small pocket from which the three mages can cast. Dell raises his hands and launches a bolt of greenish acid into the face of the largest bugbear warrior, a splint mail-clad brute who is directing the battle from back on the stairs. Winthrop raises his voice and sends streams of magical energy out into the dire wolves, flaying them. Antonus raises his hands and voice and cheers the others on. "That's right! Show them who's the boss!" he yells to the others.
Diego looks feverishly about and realizes that the bugbears and the worgs are massed wonderfully. "If only the mages would use magics with broader effect!" he grouses. "The javelin!" Diego recalls his magical javelin that converts into a bolt of lightning, held by him since the Company trekked out of the Crystalmist mountains, his share of the blue dragon's hoard. Diego stops firing his short bow and draws out the javelin. With a heave, he throws it into the midst of the nearest pack of worgs and bugbears. It does turn into a bolt of lightning, electrocuting his enemies, but the bolt of lightning grows, flying backwards straight at Diego. As the lightning stretches towards him, Diego thinks that perhaps he's made a mistake. These are his last thoughts before he is electrified and slips into unconsciousness.
After Diego's unwise sacrifice, Al's barbarian brothers take the worst of the fight with the worgs, several of them falling, but the bugbear captain retreats up the stairs as Otto cuts through the shaman's guard and heart. The bugbear warriors fall back with their captain, abandoning most of the frenzied, wild worgs to the swords and arrows of the Company. It takes only a few minutes to slay the last of the worgs, all while the Company's clerics are bestowing the blessings and grace of Trithereon, Lydia, and Phaulkon on the wounded. "Up the stairs while we have the momentum," pants Raven, worn from dodging about the room with his longbow, trying to avoid the worgs and still maintain his lines of fire.
Otto needs little encouragement. He and Al move up the stairs, Otto holding back to avoid outpacing the crippled dwarf. The next higher floor is, like the entry level, made up of a singular round room with another stairwell climbing up to another level. More beds are located in this room, but they have not been set up as a barricade as was done below. Though no bugbears challenge their entry, Otto spies movement at the far side of the room. Then, as they enter the room, it suddenly goes black, Otto's lightstone consumed by magical darkness. "Pfiffwin, stop it!" cries Otto, as he tries to manage his kite shield, bastard sword, pouch, and new lightstone all at once. A new lightstone dispels the darkness and reveals what the movement is.
Two elven women, barely clad in rags, are chained to the far wall. Obviously poorly used, they can only stare woodenly at the two warriors. "Maya!" gasp both of the warriors, dwarf and human alike recognizing the appearance of one of the women. As Diego and Raven come up into the room, the Company attempts to cover all enemies and entrances. Diego and Raven watch the stairway upwards, where already a bugbear face has appeared and disappeared from sight again. Otto goes to speak with Pfiffwin at the arrow slit. Al watches the two elven women, who only now seem to recognize that the Company is not populated by bugbears.
Dell takes in the situation and then sidles over to the staircase. Muttering under his breath, he suddenly changes form into a wounded bugbear. "Be right back," he says. Slipping into the shadows, he stalks up the staircase. The bugbears are busy barricading the stairwell with two beds brought from below. Taking advantage of a momentary distraction, he slides through the incomplete barrier and into the bugbears.
The bugbears are in a tizzy, having been repeatedly forced back from their strong points. An armored bugbear, not the one that Dell burnt with acid before, directs the construction of the barricade, while a short, sickly bugbear unpacks a chest onto a cloak. A ladder reaches up through a trapdoor to the roof, and the sound of bugbear shouting comes through it. Dell confidently strides to the ladder and climbs up it.
On the roof, a small team of bugbears is busy trying to reassemble a ballista, brought in pieces from below. The bugbear captain, his flesh and fur scorched and pitted, harangues the warriors. Reaching into his shirt, Dell pulls out a folded paper, sealed with a blob of red wax. Careful not to open the paper, he breaks the wax seal and scrapes it off. Dell marches up the bugbear captain, hands him the folded, sealed paper, and then quickly stands back. The bugbear captain, at wits' end, growls and snarls at the uncomprehending Dell and throws the paper off the rooftop, much to Dell's dismay. Dell nods and bows at the captain, hoping he's being agreeable and then slides down the ladder from the roof. The sound of the captain's voice follows Dell, and other bugbear warriors below look at him curiously.
Dell marches towards the barrier and then suddenly transforms into a blue jay. With great speed, he arrows through the startled bugbears and down to the Company below. There, he retakes his own form. "They are preparing for us above," he says. "Bugbears, but no more worgs."
"We should make certain these prisoners are not rakshasa in disguise," says Antonus. The others look at him. "What?" he asks, perplexed. "We know the rakshasa changes shape. We know there are at least two, because we killed two. Maybe there are three or four or five. In any case, we should make certain these are not they."
"How do you propose to do that?" queries Dell, surprised at the acumen of his apprentice, but disciplining himself not to show his pleasure.
Antonus frowns. "One of the warriors would be best for this, but they might be too strong," muses Antonus aloud. "Especially if they really are prisoners." He walks over to the two women, who gaze dully up at him, and strikes one with his balled fist. Her head jerks back, and she slumps, unconscious, against the wall. Antonus swears and jumps up and down, holding his fist, and making mewling noises.
"You bastard," reviles Adrienne, pushing Antonus bodily aside and going to treat the two women. "I'll take this from here. Come near them again, and I'll shove my pick so far inside you that you'll wish I had put it in your ear." Muttering prayers to Lydia she begins to heal their wounds while Hugh, never one to allow another to be kept in servitude, begins inspecting their fetters.
"Good work," says Dell to the shocked and visibly annoyed Antonus. "You aren't strong enough to risk killing one of them, and you are disposable enough that if it was a rakakakashasta and it took you hostage, we could afford your death. Very wise and noble of you." Antonus, who had seen the first set of reasoning but not the second, pales to an ashen hue as he wanly smiles and nods in appreciation of the compliment.
"Where's Jasper?" asks Raven. The rest of the Company looks bashful, except for Adrienne. She glares up at him from where she is restoring the battered elf to consciousness.
"He's outside by the fountain, or the remains of it," she replies. "He'll recover consciousness once I can pray over him. The water must have cushioned his fall somewhat, and the rakshasa's body breaking the fountain edge kept the water from drowning him. " Raven looks relieved.
Otto finishes consulting with Pfiffwin and aids him in getting his diminutive form through the arrow slit. "Pfiffwin says there's only one level between here and the roof. Bugbears are on the roof again and were shooting down at him with mixed success," says Otto. Pfiffwin points to his shoulder, where a long furrow has been gouged out of his flesh. "Let's move on the next level. Pfiffwin will provide a distraction while we force the entryway," directs Otto, taking charge.
Pfiffwin pulls beckons and twists, contorting and cavorting in odd ways, creating the illusion of motion and form in the space near him. Suddenly, these optical illusions take on life of their own, marching forward as a group of soldiers, armored and armed with short bows. The soldiers hike up the stairs, Pfiffwin slowly staggering along behind them, his brow creased in concentration. The rest of the Company follows the soldiers up the stairs and into the next level of the tower.
Unlike breaching the prior level, the bugbears here put up a spirited defense. A mass of crossbow bolts flies through the air, penetrating the soldiers that climb the stairs. The soldiers clamp their jaws together tightly, grimacing in pain, as they duck and weave away from the bolts. The Company, who know that the soldiers are phantasms, sees how the bolts are never deflected by the soldiers but instead always fly straight.
The bugbears have set up a barricade with beds and bedding brought up from below. Behind the barricade crouch the remaining bugbear warriors with their crossbows. Visible in the ceiling is a ladder and trapdoor, currently open, that leads to the roof. Unlike the previous levels of the tower though, the room is not a perfect circle. Instead, a wedge of walls intrudes into the room. Against one of these walls sits a table, on which lies a winged helm, apparently forgotten in the chaos.
The splint mail-clad captain, his armor corroded from Dell's magical bolt, directs the battle from the back of the room, while opposite him, behind the other barricade, stands another similarly clad bugbear. While the captain wields a huge morningstar, this bugbear carries a greatsword. Between the two of them squats a barely visible bugbear festooned with bones, fetishes, and inscribed medallions. Smaller and thinner than the others, the bugbear would appear pitifully weak in comparison to the two captains, except for the feral, rabid glow to his eyes. The festooned bugbear sizes up the Company, rises from his haunches and points a blackened, pointed, carved thighbone at the Company. A huge bolt of lightning arcs forward through the illusory archers, narrowly missing Dell.
The Company is taken aback by the presence of another spell caster, fearing that a third rakshasa is present. Their momentary confusion provides the clacking and clanking bugbear a second opportunity. Dancing from side to side, he tosses the blackened thighbone to the ground, squats, spins away from the Company, and chants gutturally, summoning a putrescent cloud upon them. Otto and Al, first up the stairs, fortunately avoid the cloud, but the archers, most of the wizards, and the clerics all breathe a deep lungful of the stuff.
With great hacking coughs, Diego and Raven stagger forward into the room, while Antonus and Hugh stagger backwards down the stairs. Winthrop, doubly secure in his wards and with his iridescent floating stone providing him with his breath, stares at the hacking masses around him. With Diego and Raven laid prone and Al in the room, Winthrop has a clean line of sight on the smirking witchdoctor. Winthrop considers his options and decides that subtlety is not his strength. Up come Winthrop's hands and out arcs an broad, forked bolt of lightning, stretching over the prone wretches and Al's head, but through the bugbears at the barricade, rising to take another shot, and the now-unsmiling witchdoctor. The lightning grounds itself in the wall of the tower, but not before the charred bone fetishes of the witchdoctor explode in small disintegrations of dust nor before the charred bones of the witchdoctor show through his flesh.
The destruction of the middle of the bugbears' defensive formation takes the heart out of the bugbears' defense. Otto is able, with remarkable ease, to close with the morningstar-wielding captain and hew upon him. Already injured from Dell's magics and facing a Ranger Lord filled with the knowledge of the weaknesses of the bugbear form, the bugbear captain is quickly disemboweled and disjointed. Al has a greater struggle to break over the barrier and get to the other splint mail-clad bugbear, Al's height a serious penalty to him. Fortunately, as he faces three bugbear warriors and the armored bugbear, Raven and Diego recover their wind. Arrows fly off their bows over Al's head and into the large bugbears. With the two archers of the Company and the doughty dwarf all striving against the same group of enemies, they quickly fall.
"Still a few hardy souls on the roof," says Winthrop as he stands under the trapdoor, bolts bouncing from his wards.
"Get out of my castle!" shouts Diego. He nudges Winthrop aside and begins shooting up through the trapdoor at the bugbears. The bugbears wisely fall back away from the trapdoor, but it is too little, too late. Diego clambers up the ladder and on to the roof, ignoring the few bolts that fly his way. The Company hears several thuds and then a long wavering scream before Diego looks back down through the trapdoor. "All clear!" he says with a wide grin on his face.
The Company pauses in their triumph, their bodies aching and their wounds bleeding. Taking Castle Crag has been easier than assaulting the slavers' stockade in the Pomarj, but here, like there, remain subterranean tunnels of unknown size and shape. The Company binds their wounds, staunching the worst flows of blood. Even the sole remaining barbarian warrior is willing to have his wounds bound, though only by Al. The priests call upon their deities to heal the Company's wounds. Many orisons and benisons are bestowed upon the wounded, draining the priests of much of their grace.
"Now what?" asks the exhausted Antonus. This pace of running and fighting is much beyond his normal experience. "We should rest," he pants.
"We split up," says Dell. "One group will clear the lower levels, one will interrogate the freed prisoners, and one group will count all of the money."
Al's eyes light up. "I'm in the third group," he asserts.
"First we check the castle for stragglers," says Raven. "We want no surprises. Otto, Diego, Winthrop, and I will do that while the rest of you start stripping the bodies behind us. If we shout, come quick." The rest of the Company seems willing to let Raven and the others hike back into the castle. Winthrop seems a bit truculent about heading back into the castle, wanting instead to take a nap, but he follows along with the others. Adrienne joins them so far as the courtyard where, true to her word, she is able to restore Jasper to consciousness.
The castle, "Call it Castle Hildago!" urges Diego, is filled with gore and death. Blood, guts, and offal fill the corridors and the rooms, signs of the great violence done by the Company. The four of them climb through Castle Hildago, searching each room to ascertain whether anyone hides from them. As they do so, they mark the presence of chests or other containers, filing them for future reference. Eventually they reach the top floor, having found only the feasting giant weasels rummaging among the bodies. Jasper seems content squeaking and growling with the giant weasels, and his intervention allows the others to continue their search unimpeded.
Only on the top floor does the Company find uninvestigated rooms. One Winthrop prohibits the others from entering. "Chickens! Great evil chickens are inside of it!" he froths. The other doorway leads from the bugbear barracks the Company originally entered. They pass by the archery target and stand by the door. It appears locked with a great lock and bar, but searching all the corpses for it seems too much effort for the moment. Raven looks over at Otto, and Otto grins. With a great wrench, Otto pulls the lock and bar out of the door and the frame, a great splintering sound accompanying it.
Raven pushes the door open to reveal a long room filled with pain and suffering. Reminding him of the slave pits of Highport, large iron rings are mounted into the walls and chains with manacles on them loop through the rings. Two piles of bedding, rude pallets, are in the middle of the room, out of reach of the poor souls manacled to the walls. The overflowing chamberpots and rotten food create an overwhelming odor. Another door exits out the right wall, but a statue of a cowering, pleading elven man stands before, mute testament to where that door leads. Two dozen elves and humans and a handful of halflings cower against the walls, manacled and bound.
Raven looks over their fearful forms and makes a hard decision. "We're here to free you, but you must wait some time. Our priests and locksmiths will return after we have finished pacifying the castle," pronounces Raven. "Fear not, or your servitude is ended." Raven pulls the door shut, blocking out the clamor and cacophony that his pronouncement causes.
