Post by Dead Greyhawk on Apr 8, 2008 6:50:58 GMT -5
The Company staggers upwards, laboriously carrying their wounded and unconscious up the long winding staircase. With great care, they lower the gravely wounded to the floor of the barracks at the top of the stairs and assess the situation. Al is quite dead, and he will take days to recover from the injuries he sustained, even with the magic of Myrick's ring healing him. Otto leaks blood from his side, the wound that the giant dealt him oozing and refusing to heal. Jasper lies battered and broken; even with magical healing it will be several days before he will be hale enough to fight again, lying at death's door as he is. The rest of the Company, except for Raven, who remains blissfully unconscious, are weak and barely able to stand, having recently been unconscious or dying.
Winthrop looks around at the Company and makes a decision. Drawing his wand of steam, he descends again. "Where are you going?" yells Diego, seeing the most hale of the Company leaving, but Winthrop doesn't deign to respond. Perrin wavers at the top of the stairs, drawn to head back down with Winthrop, but nervous that it will be his doom. In the end, Perrin chooses to remain with the bulk of the Company rather than join Winthrop.
Down and down Winthrop goes into the reeking charnel house that is the octagonal room. Winthrop looks about and listens for enemies, but the eerie echoing of his footsteps is all that comes to his ears. With confident strides, he closes with the dead giant who had feigned the appearance of a titan or some other munificent creature.
The grecian robes of the giant are sewn crudely together from poorly bleached material, coarse of grain and fiber. Winthrop finds the giant's belt pouch and cuts it free. A sudden sound comes to Winthrop from behind him. Spinning around, he sees no one and nothing. "Just nerves," he reassures himself, but the experience is enough to cause him to rethink his plan. Taking a firm grasp of the giant's greatsword, he hoists it up and begins climbing back up the stairs.
The tip of the greatsword drags and grates along the ground, resounding clangs accompanying its transition over each stair. By the time Winthrop reaches the top of the stairs, it sounds like a great army has passed by, and Winthrop faces an anxious Diego, who stands with bow drawn and arrow nocked, upon Winthrop's arrival. "I didn't want to leave it behind," says Winthrop, gesturing at the greatsword.
"Should we wake Raven?" asks Otto. "I can club him into unconsciousness again. Diego tells me that Raven's not in control of himself."
"It sounds like you slew the naga that was controlling him," replies Dell weakly. "The mind control must have a short range. I think it should be fine." Otto nods and begins work on the unconscious archer, applying woodcraft and herbal skill learned through many years of solitary travel through the Crystalmists. After many minutes, Otto rubs herbs under Raven's nose, a pungent odor rising from them, and Raven coughs, gags, and stirs.
"Ow," he says. The others explain to him the series of events that have transpired since he lost control. Raven claims that he remembers nothing of the events. Shooting Al in the head, twice; shooting Hugh; and striking down Dell are all a mystery to him. "I wish I could remember that," he says, an odd look between a smile and a grimace on his face. "What are we doing to secure the stairs and the castle from further attack?" asks Raven, putting the recent events behind him.
The rest of the Company look at him in confusion. They just retreated from the octagonal room, having won the battle but perhaps lost the war. No one wishes to try to stand guard with the current state of the Company. "Just leave me downstairs alone to guard the place," suggests Raven. "I'll be sure the castle is defended from any who seek to displace its inhabitants, by which I mean us."
"He's still charmed!" gasps Antonus. "I knew it!"
"I'm just saying that we don't want reinforcements to arrive when we're downstairs fighting, or when we're recovering from clearing our the downstairs once and for all," calmly argues Raven, his powers of persuasion straining to convince the others. "Can we cast a magical glamour that will make sound and warn us if something moves down there in the octagonal room?"
"I have no fear of a counterattack, and we should be able to track any escapees; especially if they're carrying treasure," retorts Dell, still smarting from Raven's assault on him. "Let us take a full day of rest and get back up to full strength. Then we can clear out the lower levels and be done with this place."
"Can you at least place a warning glamour or two in the octagonal room so we can monitor what's going on down there?" pleads Raven, knowing deep in his heart that no amount of persuasion will succeed against these folk who he has so recently tried to kill.
"I don't do that spell," says Winthrop, nudging his wand more in alignment with the archer.
Dell coughs up fine flecks of blood and then his voice strengthens. "No. We magi can put a ward the stairs to burst into fire on passage. We magi can invoke temporal daemons to ring the room. We magi can inscribe runes down there that will detonate when read. We magi can cause people running up the stairs to stumble, fall off the stairs, and die. But no warning glamours. Not today," intones Dell.
Antonus grins at Raven before he pipes up. "If you'd like I can give us a new perspective on the room with my 'Wizard's Eye'," he mocks, batting his eyelids and pointing at his eyeball.
Raven scowls at the bunch of them. "I just want to do something...anything...to give us some sense about what's going on down there," he mutters in frustration. "I think something like that should be possible."
Otto returns from the other room, stops packing his wound with cloth, and looks over at Raven. "I've let the captives out and given them the run of the castle. If we are attacked, they might escape. What is the plan if we do sense something going on down there?" he asks reasonably. "Why not just leave Jasper at the top of the stairs listening for noise. He will be able to run and get someone well before anything can get close to us or attempt to escape."
Dell laughs at Otto and points over at the barely breathing Jasper. "Jasper won't be any use to anyone until after we sleep and Adrienne or Hugh drags him back from death's door," says Dell haughtily. "Everyone else that could watch needs to heal or rest to be able to pray or memorize. We can use the magical defenses I listed, we can have Tony's familiar keep watch, something that is not likely even if he admits he exists, or we can have a slave stay down there and run up if they see or hear something and survive, which is also not likely." Dell seems to have warmed up to his role of deflating Raven's wishes. "If, Otto, you go down there every few hours, you can check for new tracks. New tracks will tell us where to search when we're ready, and if you're on your own, you has a better chance to surprise anything that might be down there," says Dell. "Plus, you can outrun anything that might arrive to harm you. Assuming you don't fall off the stairs and plummet to your doom, that is." Dell sags back down against the wall, deflating from the effort of his monologue.
Antonus has been muiling Hugh's sleeping form. "Why not set Fido on watch? That's what dogs do," suggests Antonus. "He's good for hours and by then someone should be hale enough to relieve him." Otto nods with enthusiasm, thinking that using Fido is an excellent idea.
Winthrop, on the other hand, disagrees, "Fido is good at sniffing things out. He hasn't shown any exceptional ability to hear things coming and not be surprised." Winthrop must have been influenced by Hugh's care of the summoned creatures and animals available to the priest. He does not wish them to come to harm unnecessarily.
Dell sighs at the bickering and tries to draw the conversation to a close. "What's our goal here?" he asks. "We don't need to have eyes on the room, because we're in no condition to fight anything we find there. I say we leave some simple traps and magical defenses behind us, so they don't follow us up the stairs, and leave it at that. After we've rested, we can post a force down there, but right now it's a waste."
Antonus, in contrast, seems to want to argue with his mentor. "Simple traps and magical defenses won't stop the rest of the Naga clan from coming up the stairs and attacking us," pronounces Antonus. "So either we're afraid they're going to come after us in our sleep in which case we need to heavily barricade the secret door at the top of the stairs, or we're exceptionally greedy, I mean treasure-conscious, and need to post a sentry at the top of the stairs to alert us if they try to flee with our massive chest of gold. Nobody expects Fido to get the jump on them and attack." Antonus looks around at the others to see if his point has sunk in. A strange look crosses his face, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "How likely do you think they are to sally forth from beneath the castle and assault the main gate en masse?" he asks.
Raven pauses a moment to consider and then speaks. "Well, in the slavers' stockade, we'd pretty much secured the stockade and then the bad guys fled through the back door and attacked us through the front door," he replies, considering his words. "I think it would be helpful to have someone downstairs to monitor the situation. If we trap it magically, that'd be fine too. I think it's important to see who and what is moving around down there. Even if that means having someone invisibly stay downstairs and not attack people who move through, that's fine. Diego can probably be healed by Adrienne's remaining prayers and made invisible by Pfiffwin," concludes Raven.
The sound of Dell grinding his teeth is audible. With great stillness of demeanor, Dell repeats his point, "I still don't see what we can learn from an invisible guy in the room that we can't learn from Otto tracking their four-hour-old bloody and sooty footprints, or the dog tracking their scent."
Antonus grins, finally able to retort to his mentor. "Some of the creatures fly," he says. "It's an octagonal room with a rough stone floor and eight different exits, not counting the stairs, filled with decomposing bugbears, minotaurs, and nagas. Blasted all up with lightning bolts, scorched by a wall of fire, and so on." Antonus nods to Otto respectfully, but continues to speak. "Not to slight Otto's tracking ability but the results might not be as conclusive as we'd like. It would be nice to know if they put up their own traps and glyphs on any of the doors, or if they were all laden with gem-encrusted magic items."
Raven mutters to the others. "We could probably just pile corpses instead. We've got about seventy corpses up here in the castle," he says. "We could just drop them down the stairs and plug up the room. I mean, the nagas were each 15' long, right? That's huge!!"
Antonus blanches at the thought. "I don't know why that strikes me as a bad idea," he says.
Dell snarls at his mentee. "You wouldn't know a bad idea if it charmed you and told you to kill the rest of the party," he hisses.
"Well, duh, that's because it wouldn't be a bad idea," says Raven. He then reddens as the others glare at him. "Um, I mean, yeah, Dell's right. Bad idea all around."
Antonus soldiers on in his battle for independence and respect from Dell. "Your implication being that I'm so full of good ideas that I couldn't possibly recognize a bad one..." says Antonus, before trailing off. His sophistry is clearly lost on Dell, as Dell snores softly.
Winthrop, quiet for some time while studying Raven, joins the conversation again. "Beware the third Naga."
Antonus seems to miss Winthrop's quiet warning that Raven may still be under the sway of a powerful spell-casting creature. Rather than be circumspect, Antonus continues to strategize. "Don't forget the unconscious evil cleric buried under bugbear corpses," he points out. "Perhaps we can rehabilitate him and turn him to our cause!"
"Yeah, I'm sure we can rehabilitate him," mocks Raven. "Just leave him with me downstairs, and I'll take care of it."
"A simple enchantment is all we need for rehabiliation. Once we do that we have a great guide to take us the the main temple," says Winthrop. "Once I control his mind, we can use magic to read his mind and see if what he tells us is true or not."
Raven gasps in exasperation. "Um, have we forgotten that this is a priest of Tharizdun? I would not advise reading the mind of a person who's mind is under the direct control of a god," he mocks. "Your head would probably explode."
"Enough!" says Otto, interrupting the others. "Sleep and recover your powers. Bickering like this nets us nothing. We'll decide what to do after the priests awaken."
The rest of the Company settles down and tries to rest, Otto and Diego watching over the others. Diego stands with a clear line of sight on Raven, prepared to wing shafts into him if Raven acts untowardly. Pfiffwin, who has been silent and hidden through all these discussions, pads quietly out into the sunlight. The freed captives dither and start at the smallest sound, scarred by their imprisonment. One of the freed captives, an elven woman, tugs at and bangs futilely on the gates leading out of the courtyard. Warded and sealed by Winthrop, they can only be moved by a wizard; the elf has no chance of breaching them.
Pfiffwin keeps a close eye on the woman. While frantic and wishing to leave the castle, she seems dedicated in her attempts and tries to exhort the others to help her. Her frustration with being hemmed in continues to grow until she finally turns and reenters the castle, Pfiffwin skipping ahead of her.
Hours pass before the clerics stir themselves and pray for more healing benisons. Surprisingly, Winthrop rises after only a few hours rest, pocketing a heavy gold ring, and begins surveying his books of enchantments. After ten hours or so, the Company is hale once more. Fortunately for them, no creature has tried to force the stairwell, and they have remained unmolested.
"Now what?" asks Antonus, surveying the Company. While battered and bruised, the Company is remarkably intact. Hugh and Adrienne's prayers have brought the worst injured back from death's door, even ridding Alouicious of the effects of Raven's arrows. Myrick's ring has slowly, consistently healed the dwarf over the ten-hour period, and, while frail, he walks again.
"Now you let me out!" shouts the elven woman, who has hovered in the stairwell until the Company has completed their rest. "I've been trapped in this place too long, first by them and now by you. Let us free so that we can return to our homes."
The Company is somewhat stunned by the woman's audacious request. Hugh tries to explain to her that she is not being imprisoned by the Company, and Antonus tries to explain that the Oytwood is not a safe place and her home is likely overrun. Their words crash on one another, and the resulting babble is not clear or an answer to her request. The woman starts speaking louder and louder as Hugh and Antonus try to out shout each other. "Quiet!" barks Otto, his command voice cutting through the din. "What's your name?" he asks the shocked woman.
"Samantha. Samantha LaCrosse," she replies.
"The lands beyond are not safe, and the castle itself bears dangers still. You may travel with us if you feel insecure, or you may wait here for our return," dictates Otto. "We have enemies to smite still, and we cannot delay or divide our force to meet your need. Choose your path and then walk it."
The woman looks at the Company and then at the gore-splattered walls and rooms surrounding them. "I need to look in one of your enchiridions," she says. The others look confused. "An octavo. A codex," she continues to the others' blank stares.
"Antonus," says Dell. "Give her your book of arcana. She needs to study." Apparently, the elven maid is mage. Antonus frowns but unpacks his book of magicks and hands it to Samantha.
"Don't drop it, tear a page, or otherwise sully it!" he hisses venomously. Samantha frowns at him and then settles to the floor to peruse the book. Finding a dweomer she is familiar with, she carefully begins committing it to memory.
"Ok," says Otto. "We go downstairs and go through the doors like before. Hugh and Adrienne have blessed us with all the healing their deities have provided. Don't waste it." Winthrop and Dell enhance the strength of the Company's warriors while Samantha finishes preparing herself to accompany the Company. When finished, they hike back down the stairs.
Pfiffwin catches hold of Diego as the Company forms up. "Otto told me to pass a message," says the gnome, sotto voce. "If Raven acts odd, shoot first, ask questions later." Diego smiles a wicked grin and nods in agreement.
The hike back down the stairs is blessedly uneventful, but the scene that lies before the Company is not the same as the one they left. The piled bugbear corpses are strewn about the room, and the cleric buried beneath them is missing. "Beware the third naga," intones Winthrop.
With Raven and Otto both urging caution, the Company clambers around the corpses. Hugh scans the ground, looking for new tracks. Otto looks at the giant and curses. "Belt pouch is missing," frets Otto. "Must have had something important in it."
Winthrop starts in surprise. "I have it!" he exclaims, digging it out of his backpack. "I totally forgot!" The pouch contains several large gold coins, each bearing the mint of the axe and face, the seal of the frost giant Jarl. More importantly, a piece of crumpled parchment the size of a map is caught in the bottom of the oversized pouch. Winthrop carefully smoothes it out, and the mages look closely at it. It is covered in scrawled runes that none of them easily read. Even Dell, whose knowledge of foreign tongues is extensive, can only identify it as the language of the ice giants.
"Do we trust him to translate it accurately?" murmurs Winthrop, eyeing Raven.
"We can check it later, once we're safe, using wizardry," says Dell. "Raven, need your helm here." Raven comes and looks at the large scrap of paper and begins to read it aloud.
"Greetings Jarl Gungir!" reads Raven. "I send good news! I have doled the tithe and body servants out among our new allies, both mystical and not. I have swayed the giants of the swamp, along with their brethren, to our cause. One of the green-skinned hags has even gifted you with a greatsword that cries out for blood! I bring it to you at the earliest opportunity. I have followed the directions given me, but ..."
"I thought the Jarl we killed was named Grungir, not Gungir?" says Winthrop, trying to remember the name the storm giantess had provided. The others agree with him. "Perhaps that was the error that caused this draft to be discarded?" posits Winthrop.
Hugh calls over Otto, and they confer about the large track he has found on the floor. To their eyes, it appears to be that of a great snake, likely the missing naga. It leads through the octagonal room to the door used by the Company to originally enter the castle, the door that leads to the temple and the secret tunnel out by the wells.
The Company decides to retrace their steps back to the minotaurs' lair, through the teleporting room. The trapped section of corridor is still wedged shut, and the Company regains the room with no difficulty. Samantha is amazed when Hugh and the others disappear through the wall, and a new square room appears. This room, the minotaurs' lair, has the remains of a halfling, partly gnawed in it, as well as myriad bones and other debris in it. "I think his name was Reginald," says Samantha, looking at the halfling's body.
While the Company searches the room, Winthrop stands, gathering his thoughts. He decisively strides forward into the opposite corner and, like in the previous room, disappears. He is only gone a moment before he reappears, backpedalling. "Green slime on the walls in there!" he says, with some surprise.
A quick glance through the translocation portion of the room reveals another square room, this one with a door on the left wall. The far right corner of the room is covered with a large mass of green slime that creeps halfway up the walls and ceiling of the room. The Company stands stock still, knowing that the dreaded slime is both mobile and deadly. If observed, it is easily avoided, but if not, it can dissolve the flesh from ones bones.
Cautiously, the Company follows the edge of the room to where the door is set into its frame. A quick blow from Otto's boot, and the door opens wide. A corridor runs straight away from the door. Without delay, the Company files in, leaving the room of slime behind them. Dell pauses in the doorway, looking at the green slime, but then turns and joins the others.
Winthrop looks around at the Company and makes a decision. Drawing his wand of steam, he descends again. "Where are you going?" yells Diego, seeing the most hale of the Company leaving, but Winthrop doesn't deign to respond. Perrin wavers at the top of the stairs, drawn to head back down with Winthrop, but nervous that it will be his doom. In the end, Perrin chooses to remain with the bulk of the Company rather than join Winthrop.
Down and down Winthrop goes into the reeking charnel house that is the octagonal room. Winthrop looks about and listens for enemies, but the eerie echoing of his footsteps is all that comes to his ears. With confident strides, he closes with the dead giant who had feigned the appearance of a titan or some other munificent creature.
The grecian robes of the giant are sewn crudely together from poorly bleached material, coarse of grain and fiber. Winthrop finds the giant's belt pouch and cuts it free. A sudden sound comes to Winthrop from behind him. Spinning around, he sees no one and nothing. "Just nerves," he reassures himself, but the experience is enough to cause him to rethink his plan. Taking a firm grasp of the giant's greatsword, he hoists it up and begins climbing back up the stairs.
The tip of the greatsword drags and grates along the ground, resounding clangs accompanying its transition over each stair. By the time Winthrop reaches the top of the stairs, it sounds like a great army has passed by, and Winthrop faces an anxious Diego, who stands with bow drawn and arrow nocked, upon Winthrop's arrival. "I didn't want to leave it behind," says Winthrop, gesturing at the greatsword.
"Should we wake Raven?" asks Otto. "I can club him into unconsciousness again. Diego tells me that Raven's not in control of himself."
"It sounds like you slew the naga that was controlling him," replies Dell weakly. "The mind control must have a short range. I think it should be fine." Otto nods and begins work on the unconscious archer, applying woodcraft and herbal skill learned through many years of solitary travel through the Crystalmists. After many minutes, Otto rubs herbs under Raven's nose, a pungent odor rising from them, and Raven coughs, gags, and stirs.
"Ow," he says. The others explain to him the series of events that have transpired since he lost control. Raven claims that he remembers nothing of the events. Shooting Al in the head, twice; shooting Hugh; and striking down Dell are all a mystery to him. "I wish I could remember that," he says, an odd look between a smile and a grimace on his face. "What are we doing to secure the stairs and the castle from further attack?" asks Raven, putting the recent events behind him.
The rest of the Company look at him in confusion. They just retreated from the octagonal room, having won the battle but perhaps lost the war. No one wishes to try to stand guard with the current state of the Company. "Just leave me downstairs alone to guard the place," suggests Raven. "I'll be sure the castle is defended from any who seek to displace its inhabitants, by which I mean us."
"He's still charmed!" gasps Antonus. "I knew it!"
"I'm just saying that we don't want reinforcements to arrive when we're downstairs fighting, or when we're recovering from clearing our the downstairs once and for all," calmly argues Raven, his powers of persuasion straining to convince the others. "Can we cast a magical glamour that will make sound and warn us if something moves down there in the octagonal room?"
"I have no fear of a counterattack, and we should be able to track any escapees; especially if they're carrying treasure," retorts Dell, still smarting from Raven's assault on him. "Let us take a full day of rest and get back up to full strength. Then we can clear out the lower levels and be done with this place."
"Can you at least place a warning glamour or two in the octagonal room so we can monitor what's going on down there?" pleads Raven, knowing deep in his heart that no amount of persuasion will succeed against these folk who he has so recently tried to kill.
"I don't do that spell," says Winthrop, nudging his wand more in alignment with the archer.
Dell coughs up fine flecks of blood and then his voice strengthens. "No. We magi can put a ward the stairs to burst into fire on passage. We magi can invoke temporal daemons to ring the room. We magi can inscribe runes down there that will detonate when read. We magi can cause people running up the stairs to stumble, fall off the stairs, and die. But no warning glamours. Not today," intones Dell.
Antonus grins at Raven before he pipes up. "If you'd like I can give us a new perspective on the room with my 'Wizard's Eye'," he mocks, batting his eyelids and pointing at his eyeball.
Raven scowls at the bunch of them. "I just want to do something...anything...to give us some sense about what's going on down there," he mutters in frustration. "I think something like that should be possible."
Otto returns from the other room, stops packing his wound with cloth, and looks over at Raven. "I've let the captives out and given them the run of the castle. If we are attacked, they might escape. What is the plan if we do sense something going on down there?" he asks reasonably. "Why not just leave Jasper at the top of the stairs listening for noise. He will be able to run and get someone well before anything can get close to us or attempt to escape."
Dell laughs at Otto and points over at the barely breathing Jasper. "Jasper won't be any use to anyone until after we sleep and Adrienne or Hugh drags him back from death's door," says Dell haughtily. "Everyone else that could watch needs to heal or rest to be able to pray or memorize. We can use the magical defenses I listed, we can have Tony's familiar keep watch, something that is not likely even if he admits he exists, or we can have a slave stay down there and run up if they see or hear something and survive, which is also not likely." Dell seems to have warmed up to his role of deflating Raven's wishes. "If, Otto, you go down there every few hours, you can check for new tracks. New tracks will tell us where to search when we're ready, and if you're on your own, you has a better chance to surprise anything that might be down there," says Dell. "Plus, you can outrun anything that might arrive to harm you. Assuming you don't fall off the stairs and plummet to your doom, that is." Dell sags back down against the wall, deflating from the effort of his monologue.
Antonus has been muiling Hugh's sleeping form. "Why not set Fido on watch? That's what dogs do," suggests Antonus. "He's good for hours and by then someone should be hale enough to relieve him." Otto nods with enthusiasm, thinking that using Fido is an excellent idea.
Winthrop, on the other hand, disagrees, "Fido is good at sniffing things out. He hasn't shown any exceptional ability to hear things coming and not be surprised." Winthrop must have been influenced by Hugh's care of the summoned creatures and animals available to the priest. He does not wish them to come to harm unnecessarily.
Dell sighs at the bickering and tries to draw the conversation to a close. "What's our goal here?" he asks. "We don't need to have eyes on the room, because we're in no condition to fight anything we find there. I say we leave some simple traps and magical defenses behind us, so they don't follow us up the stairs, and leave it at that. After we've rested, we can post a force down there, but right now it's a waste."
Antonus, in contrast, seems to want to argue with his mentor. "Simple traps and magical defenses won't stop the rest of the Naga clan from coming up the stairs and attacking us," pronounces Antonus. "So either we're afraid they're going to come after us in our sleep in which case we need to heavily barricade the secret door at the top of the stairs, or we're exceptionally greedy, I mean treasure-conscious, and need to post a sentry at the top of the stairs to alert us if they try to flee with our massive chest of gold. Nobody expects Fido to get the jump on them and attack." Antonus looks around at the others to see if his point has sunk in. A strange look crosses his face, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "How likely do you think they are to sally forth from beneath the castle and assault the main gate en masse?" he asks.
Raven pauses a moment to consider and then speaks. "Well, in the slavers' stockade, we'd pretty much secured the stockade and then the bad guys fled through the back door and attacked us through the front door," he replies, considering his words. "I think it would be helpful to have someone downstairs to monitor the situation. If we trap it magically, that'd be fine too. I think it's important to see who and what is moving around down there. Even if that means having someone invisibly stay downstairs and not attack people who move through, that's fine. Diego can probably be healed by Adrienne's remaining prayers and made invisible by Pfiffwin," concludes Raven.
The sound of Dell grinding his teeth is audible. With great stillness of demeanor, Dell repeats his point, "I still don't see what we can learn from an invisible guy in the room that we can't learn from Otto tracking their four-hour-old bloody and sooty footprints, or the dog tracking their scent."
Antonus grins, finally able to retort to his mentor. "Some of the creatures fly," he says. "It's an octagonal room with a rough stone floor and eight different exits, not counting the stairs, filled with decomposing bugbears, minotaurs, and nagas. Blasted all up with lightning bolts, scorched by a wall of fire, and so on." Antonus nods to Otto respectfully, but continues to speak. "Not to slight Otto's tracking ability but the results might not be as conclusive as we'd like. It would be nice to know if they put up their own traps and glyphs on any of the doors, or if they were all laden with gem-encrusted magic items."
Raven mutters to the others. "We could probably just pile corpses instead. We've got about seventy corpses up here in the castle," he says. "We could just drop them down the stairs and plug up the room. I mean, the nagas were each 15' long, right? That's huge!!"
Antonus blanches at the thought. "I don't know why that strikes me as a bad idea," he says.
Dell snarls at his mentee. "You wouldn't know a bad idea if it charmed you and told you to kill the rest of the party," he hisses.
"Well, duh, that's because it wouldn't be a bad idea," says Raven. He then reddens as the others glare at him. "Um, I mean, yeah, Dell's right. Bad idea all around."
Antonus soldiers on in his battle for independence and respect from Dell. "Your implication being that I'm so full of good ideas that I couldn't possibly recognize a bad one..." says Antonus, before trailing off. His sophistry is clearly lost on Dell, as Dell snores softly.
Winthrop, quiet for some time while studying Raven, joins the conversation again. "Beware the third Naga."
Antonus seems to miss Winthrop's quiet warning that Raven may still be under the sway of a powerful spell-casting creature. Rather than be circumspect, Antonus continues to strategize. "Don't forget the unconscious evil cleric buried under bugbear corpses," he points out. "Perhaps we can rehabilitate him and turn him to our cause!"
"Yeah, I'm sure we can rehabilitate him," mocks Raven. "Just leave him with me downstairs, and I'll take care of it."
"A simple enchantment is all we need for rehabiliation. Once we do that we have a great guide to take us the the main temple," says Winthrop. "Once I control his mind, we can use magic to read his mind and see if what he tells us is true or not."
Raven gasps in exasperation. "Um, have we forgotten that this is a priest of Tharizdun? I would not advise reading the mind of a person who's mind is under the direct control of a god," he mocks. "Your head would probably explode."
"Enough!" says Otto, interrupting the others. "Sleep and recover your powers. Bickering like this nets us nothing. We'll decide what to do after the priests awaken."
The rest of the Company settles down and tries to rest, Otto and Diego watching over the others. Diego stands with a clear line of sight on Raven, prepared to wing shafts into him if Raven acts untowardly. Pfiffwin, who has been silent and hidden through all these discussions, pads quietly out into the sunlight. The freed captives dither and start at the smallest sound, scarred by their imprisonment. One of the freed captives, an elven woman, tugs at and bangs futilely on the gates leading out of the courtyard. Warded and sealed by Winthrop, they can only be moved by a wizard; the elf has no chance of breaching them.
Pfiffwin keeps a close eye on the woman. While frantic and wishing to leave the castle, she seems dedicated in her attempts and tries to exhort the others to help her. Her frustration with being hemmed in continues to grow until she finally turns and reenters the castle, Pfiffwin skipping ahead of her.
Hours pass before the clerics stir themselves and pray for more healing benisons. Surprisingly, Winthrop rises after only a few hours rest, pocketing a heavy gold ring, and begins surveying his books of enchantments. After ten hours or so, the Company is hale once more. Fortunately for them, no creature has tried to force the stairwell, and they have remained unmolested.
"Now what?" asks Antonus, surveying the Company. While battered and bruised, the Company is remarkably intact. Hugh and Adrienne's prayers have brought the worst injured back from death's door, even ridding Alouicious of the effects of Raven's arrows. Myrick's ring has slowly, consistently healed the dwarf over the ten-hour period, and, while frail, he walks again.
"Now you let me out!" shouts the elven woman, who has hovered in the stairwell until the Company has completed their rest. "I've been trapped in this place too long, first by them and now by you. Let us free so that we can return to our homes."
The Company is somewhat stunned by the woman's audacious request. Hugh tries to explain to her that she is not being imprisoned by the Company, and Antonus tries to explain that the Oytwood is not a safe place and her home is likely overrun. Their words crash on one another, and the resulting babble is not clear or an answer to her request. The woman starts speaking louder and louder as Hugh and Antonus try to out shout each other. "Quiet!" barks Otto, his command voice cutting through the din. "What's your name?" he asks the shocked woman.
"Samantha. Samantha LaCrosse," she replies.
"The lands beyond are not safe, and the castle itself bears dangers still. You may travel with us if you feel insecure, or you may wait here for our return," dictates Otto. "We have enemies to smite still, and we cannot delay or divide our force to meet your need. Choose your path and then walk it."
The woman looks at the Company and then at the gore-splattered walls and rooms surrounding them. "I need to look in one of your enchiridions," she says. The others look confused. "An octavo. A codex," she continues to the others' blank stares.
"Antonus," says Dell. "Give her your book of arcana. She needs to study." Apparently, the elven maid is mage. Antonus frowns but unpacks his book of magicks and hands it to Samantha.
"Don't drop it, tear a page, or otherwise sully it!" he hisses venomously. Samantha frowns at him and then settles to the floor to peruse the book. Finding a dweomer she is familiar with, she carefully begins committing it to memory.
"Ok," says Otto. "We go downstairs and go through the doors like before. Hugh and Adrienne have blessed us with all the healing their deities have provided. Don't waste it." Winthrop and Dell enhance the strength of the Company's warriors while Samantha finishes preparing herself to accompany the Company. When finished, they hike back down the stairs.
Pfiffwin catches hold of Diego as the Company forms up. "Otto told me to pass a message," says the gnome, sotto voce. "If Raven acts odd, shoot first, ask questions later." Diego smiles a wicked grin and nods in agreement.
The hike back down the stairs is blessedly uneventful, but the scene that lies before the Company is not the same as the one they left. The piled bugbear corpses are strewn about the room, and the cleric buried beneath them is missing. "Beware the third naga," intones Winthrop.
With Raven and Otto both urging caution, the Company clambers around the corpses. Hugh scans the ground, looking for new tracks. Otto looks at the giant and curses. "Belt pouch is missing," frets Otto. "Must have had something important in it."
Winthrop starts in surprise. "I have it!" he exclaims, digging it out of his backpack. "I totally forgot!" The pouch contains several large gold coins, each bearing the mint of the axe and face, the seal of the frost giant Jarl. More importantly, a piece of crumpled parchment the size of a map is caught in the bottom of the oversized pouch. Winthrop carefully smoothes it out, and the mages look closely at it. It is covered in scrawled runes that none of them easily read. Even Dell, whose knowledge of foreign tongues is extensive, can only identify it as the language of the ice giants.
"Do we trust him to translate it accurately?" murmurs Winthrop, eyeing Raven.
"We can check it later, once we're safe, using wizardry," says Dell. "Raven, need your helm here." Raven comes and looks at the large scrap of paper and begins to read it aloud.
"Greetings Jarl Gungir!" reads Raven. "I send good news! I have doled the tithe and body servants out among our new allies, both mystical and not. I have swayed the giants of the swamp, along with their brethren, to our cause. One of the green-skinned hags has even gifted you with a greatsword that cries out for blood! I bring it to you at the earliest opportunity. I have followed the directions given me, but ..."
"I thought the Jarl we killed was named Grungir, not Gungir?" says Winthrop, trying to remember the name the storm giantess had provided. The others agree with him. "Perhaps that was the error that caused this draft to be discarded?" posits Winthrop.
Hugh calls over Otto, and they confer about the large track he has found on the floor. To their eyes, it appears to be that of a great snake, likely the missing naga. It leads through the octagonal room to the door used by the Company to originally enter the castle, the door that leads to the temple and the secret tunnel out by the wells.
The Company decides to retrace their steps back to the minotaurs' lair, through the teleporting room. The trapped section of corridor is still wedged shut, and the Company regains the room with no difficulty. Samantha is amazed when Hugh and the others disappear through the wall, and a new square room appears. This room, the minotaurs' lair, has the remains of a halfling, partly gnawed in it, as well as myriad bones and other debris in it. "I think his name was Reginald," says Samantha, looking at the halfling's body.
While the Company searches the room, Winthrop stands, gathering his thoughts. He decisively strides forward into the opposite corner and, like in the previous room, disappears. He is only gone a moment before he reappears, backpedalling. "Green slime on the walls in there!" he says, with some surprise.
A quick glance through the translocation portion of the room reveals another square room, this one with a door on the left wall. The far right corner of the room is covered with a large mass of green slime that creeps halfway up the walls and ceiling of the room. The Company stands stock still, knowing that the dreaded slime is both mobile and deadly. If observed, it is easily avoided, but if not, it can dissolve the flesh from ones bones.
Cautiously, the Company follows the edge of the room to where the door is set into its frame. A quick blow from Otto's boot, and the door opens wide. A corridor runs straight away from the door. Without delay, the Company files in, leaving the room of slime behind them. Dell pauses in the doorway, looking at the green slime, but then turns and joins the others.
