Session 20

=August 16th, 2018 - Small Town, Giant Trouble=

Through the Portal
The session picked up as the party made final arrangements in Ironbay around mid-day of the seventy ninth day since the raid on Greenest. Cadmus asked around for a short time looking for rumors about what had happened to the Red Sun since he and Rufus’s encounter in Black Landing. Unfortunately, he was unable to find anyone that knew anything relevant. The group then proceeded to gather back at Silverhand Estate. Once they had all arrived, Lady Silverhand escorted them into a heavily secured room in her estate’s basement.

She told them how few had the privilege of seeing the contents of this room, as behind the heavy double iron doors was her teleportation chamber. It was a simple large stone room with a simple white circle outline on the floor as you first entered, with a second circle upon a raised platform in the rear. However, this second circle was made of runic symbols arranged around in a circular line on the ground, a pattern made of eight symbols. Lachlan and Alburt committed the symbols to memory, learning the pattern to use her circle as a teleportation destination. The Lady spent the next ten minutes using various chalks to draw symbols inside the front circle of the chamber.

When she finished, the wizards also committed that symbol pattern to memory as the Lady pulled out her personal glowing wand. She wished them good luck, reminding them of their objectives, and then finished the ritual by casting the teleportation circle spell. The runes on the ground lit up with arcane light as a portal opened a few inches off the ground above the circle. Peering through the hole in reality they could clearly see a dimly lit barred cell on the other side, and nonetheless they stepped through one at a time. The portal snapped closed and they found themselves alone in the cell that had only a circle of the symbols Lady Silverhand drew on the floor.

Deciding to be good and just make noise, a number of guards eventually entered through a door at the end of the hallway their cell resided in. When none of them recognized Rachen, he showed them his writ of authority and told them how they were here as envoys to the Lady Silverhand in response to the town’s request for aid. Seemingly convinced, the guards let them out and escorted them up and out of the moderate stone keep in the center of Triboar. One guard stayed with the group, while the second took Rachen’s writ to go find the Lord Protector. Confirming the Lord Protector only had to speak to Rachen, the rest of the party decided to split up and see the frontier town while they waited.

Triboar was a large town, but most of its population lived on farms and ranches surrounding the town itself. The central keep was in the town square where the main Long Road crossed with the smaller Triboar Trail. The town is known first for its horses, with the famous Othovir’s Harness Shop along with numerous horse breeders, and second for its namesake pigs. Thia decided to visit a quaint tavern named Triboar Arms, frequented by people of the wilderness. Inside, she indeed found the patrons to be those of her ilk, like hunters, trappers, and scouts.

Thia was able to hear first hand from a half-elf guide about the rise of giant and ogre activity in the last few months. She was warned how the Triboar Valley was much more dangerous than in recent years, and to be extra cautious. Lachlan, Rhogar, and Rufus decided to get their evening meal early and went to the most expensive of the three eateries in town, the Pleasing Platter. This pompous fine dining restaurant stood out among the rest of the town, on a meticulously gardened plot of land next to the similarly lavish Everwyvern Inn. The restaurant was dimly lit, with each of the white cloth tables strategically situated where columns, plants, and other objects mostly blocked sight to the other tables around.

The three had an expensive meal, but that was about it - other than noticing how full the restaurant seemed. Cadmus and Alburt decided to scope out the two large campgrounds along the main road of the town. One was situated next to the main town square, and the second not too far away. The pair were looking to see if any travelers camping appeared to be Cult of the Dragon members. After some casual strolling and careful observation that did not seem to be the case.

About an hour after they split up the group started to reconvene outside the central town keep to find Rachen just beginning to speak with the Lord Protector. More correctly, the Lady Protector, as the current elected leader of Triboar was Darathra Shendrel, a human female that everyone in the town seemed to respect. She returned Rachen’s writ of authority, and thanked them for answering her call for aid. There would be time for details, and she was mainly interested on the group getting settled. She examined the Blade of Triboar Rachen dutifully reported as being delivered, and she suggested he first show it to the smith who forged it.

Small Town, (Fire) Giant Trouble
Rachen and a few others agreed and went to the north of town to visit the master dwarf smith Ghelryn Foehammer. Ghelryn had been a member of the town for years and knew Rachen well. The white hair and bearded dwarf welcomed him, and praised the enchantment on the blade, which was one of his favorite works. As those party members returned to the town square, the rest of the group had finished their business and awaited them. Before Rachen turned over the sword to the Lady Protector, who was saying it was intended for the current leader of the Thirteen, one of those horse riding town police rode up yelling for people to clear the way.

On the back of the horse behind the rider was a young boy, clearing trembling. The rider pulled up to the Lady Protector and stopped, helping the boy off the horse. He told the Lady Protector that the boy had been seen running from one of the eastern farms crying that a band of boar mounted orcs were attacking, the rest of the Thirteen had already been dispatched and were riding to the farm now. The boy was sobbing, trying to repeat what he had said, but couldn’t stop saying how they killed his daddy. The Lady Protector took the boy as the rider kicked off and galloped back east towards the attacking orcs.

The Ladies personal guards escorted the boy into the keep as she cautioned the party from going after them. She said the Thirteen can handle it, and she would feel better if they remained. A mere moment after she finished speaking, a large boulder crashed into the center of the town square, rolling and crushing wooden carts in the makeshift market. People started screaming and running south, and the cry of “Giants! Run!” was all that could be heard. The party moved to see the commotion, a band of plate armored orcs were moving into the town, followed by a dozen or so little creatures on fire, and two huge plate armored fire giants.

The fire giants hurled a few more boulders into town, crushing buildings, wagons, and rolling into walls, before moving into the town proper. The party watched what they thought of as fire babies, small humanoid fire elementals known as magmins, going and setting various items and buildings on fire as the giants pointed them out. The giants themselves smashed through another building, Othovir’s Harness Shop, as they approached the central street of town. The plate armored orcs killed anything that remained and generally obliterate things in the way of the giants as they came down the main street. As soon as the giants and mass of enemies was in range, the party began firing arrows and magic at them from next to the keep.

One fire giant stayed back slightly, and held within both her arms a large vibrating rod, as she turned left or right it looked as if the rod was pulling her towards the center of town. The second fire giant, the male swinging his huge greatsword, lead out front and charged at the small party who were fighting back. Rachen and Cadmus moved forward to meet the massive fire giant, while the spellcasters hurled magic at whatever they could. Alburt cast fireball as the pack of plate armored orcs got close, knocking them down and almost killing them all. Four stone gargoyles from the roof of the local wizard’s mansion flew down and fought at the magmins trying to set the building ablaze.

Rachen avoided the greatsword of the fire giant while getting in some good precision strikes with the Blade of Triboar, while Cadmus was not so lucky. During the combat, the female giant was led to the center of the campground directly next to the town square, and used her rod to begin digging in the ground. Soon, she put the rod into her greatsword sheath (of which there was no sword), and began digging with her gloved hands. After only seconds of digging, the party could see the glint of a metallic object being unearthed. Once the orcs and magmins had been dealt with, the party focused on the male fire giant, with even Lachlan spinning his sword engaging in melee as the huge giant struggled with so many targets.

Just before Rachen expertly cut the male fire giant down knocking it unconscious, the female fire giant ripped the metal object from the ground. It looked like the edge of a large half circle, probably seven or eight feet long. Immediately as her companion giant fell, she took the half ring in both arms and began running out of town. The party gave chase, and it was soon clear the giant could not run away fast enough while carrying the massive object, and so reluctantly she dropped it. The party stopped and let her escape as they looked upon the enormous adamantine object now in the middle of the road on the north edge of Triboar.

And that is where the session ended, with the party wounded but victorious and the town of Triboar heavily damaged with a number of buildings going up in flames. It is late afternoon on the seventy ninth day since the raid on Greenest.

Click Here for the Next Session