Session #6

Welcome back to Trojan Worg!  Thanks for helping us restart the old group!  Here’s a refresher on the week.

Wednesday, March 22, NY 931

            “Help!”

            Seyer checks the lock on the grand wooden doors between him and the woman’s voice, but it doesn’t budge.  Resigned, we descend the stairs from the balcony to the beautiful library below.  Naya, her owl obediently in tow, glides silently down the stairs as Naya nimbly hops down the flight of smooth stone steps.  Raina ambles down, her arrows clattering within her bulky quiver with each step.  Kale proceeds down, considering the scroll he had just pocketed and what its mysterious runes might contain. 

            As we come to the bottom of the staircase, we hear the large and ostentatious front door swing open, creaking on its loaded hinges, and slam back with a cacophonous echo; the portal’s slam reverberates around the castle, and the candlesticks on the tables around us teeter for a moment.  We position ourselves around the doorway through which we entered the library.  Seyer looks at his comrades, and then peeks his head around the corner.  As he does, he observes two goblins, one armed with a crudely-fashioned handaxe and the other with a gnarled, brutish staff, clacking away from them towards the armory.  The soldier, perhaps out of instinct or use, checks the hall behind him before turning into the armory, and as he does, he sees Seyer’s head dart back into the library.  Curious, the adept mutters a crude goblin chant, and a whooshing noise sounds through the open hallway.  Suddenly, they knew we were there, and they charge.

            Seyer jumps from behind the doorway, greatsword drawn.  The small goblins are  clearly surprised and intimidated by the imposing, overburdened fighter, and with a single parry, Seyer overpowers him.  The adept, hiding in the alcove of the front door, fearing for his life, throws the door open with all his might with a bang and dashes out the door, which thunders shut behind him.  Silence returns to the old castle, and we move from around the corner and find a dead goblin, his armor and collarbone split as he lies slumped on the flagstone.  After recovering some startlingly valuable platinum pieces from his purse, we proceed to the only closed door left in the castle, far along the southern part of the eastern wall of the armory. 

            It’s wide open.

            From within, a booming, deep voice bids us to approach.  It is a familiar voice, though we’d never heard the voice speak in Common.  As we enter the room, which turns out to be a dining room still flanked with two immense feast tables, we find that one table bears a squat, but undoubtedly tough goblin; his eyes look back at us unswervingly as he fiddles with the fletching of an arrow within his quiver. 

            Another, more imposing figure, sits atop a tiered pedestal which bears what must be Lord Nadmum’s throne.  Irreverently seated there is a hobgoblin of oppressive presence; although he does not say his name, he wears a smug smile, barely seen through the fine, unkempt hair that covers his chin and much of his face.  His skin is a grayish-white, barely visible underneath his shining, unscratched breastplate.  He twirls a sword pointy side down on the marble step on which he sits, and it swirls around effortlessly on the glassy rock.  A handsome steel shield rests against the throne beside the hobgoblin, the image of a stag emblazoned across it; lifted from some past pillaging, no doubt.  As Kalecgos bravely challenges the hobgoblin’s presence, the goblin sits idle and silent while the hobgoblin stands, hefts his shield onto his left arm and swings his bastard sword with the other.  His right hand catches our eye – hairless, swollen and different hues of sickly pink and crimson.  Nevertheless, it swirls the sword around easily as he orders his henchman to open fire.

            The short goblin, as keen as his eye may have been was unable to land a blow with his fluid, swift shots.  Raina ducks and weavs his arrows, returning fire of her own; she plants an arrow in his gut while Kalecgos strikes him with a bolt of his own in the thigh.  After his injury, his aim loses all truth.  Raina nocks two arrows at once; quite a feat for someone with hands the size of a peach.  Deftly, she releases both aiming for the wounded goblin; each strikes home, the first finding a gap in the creature’s chain shirt and the other piercing him in his scrawny, narrow neck.  He was dead before he hit the table. 

            Meanwhile, Seyer engages in a furious melee with the red-fisted hobgoblin.  The fighter’s first raging blow was dodged; it staggers Seyer, and the hobgoblin slashes him hard with his bastard sword, drawing a serious wound.  Seyer stumbles back.  Naya, seeing Seyer’s need, dashes forward and places her soft half-elven hands on the sweaty nape of Seyer’s neck.  With a subtle and sweet incantation, her hands glow green with life, and Seyer’s wound closes.  Seyer, rejuvenated, pushes back, riposting the hobgoblin’s next blow and slashing mightily.  He has noticed the hobgoblin’s weakness and exploited it.  With a swing he draws blood from the creature’s midriff.  Kalecgos spurs emerald-green missiles from his palms and damages the still-standing hobgoblin.  A powerful thrust from the mighty greatsword nearly kills the hobgoblin, and a final barrage of arcane missiles from the sorcerer knocks the hobgoblin to the floor.  His bastard sword clatters unattended on the flagstone.  Naya quickly retrieves the sword and throws it on the table where the goblin died; it is quite heavy and bulky.  It thunders onto the elegant table.

            The hobgoblin lay dying on the ground as the group surrounds him.  He spits on the floor, blood intermingled within the muck.  With his last breath, he tells us what fools we are, and that the war had already begun, whatever that means.  Seyer saddles his greatsword and bends down to the hobgoblin; after he refused to tell us anything more, Seyer smashes his head with his fist.  The hobgoblin’s head cracks on the hard floor; shortly after, he slips from life.

            On examination of the room after the bloody battle against the keep’s master, we look about and find little of import except handsome curtains lining both walls to prevent sunlight or prying eyes from getting in.  Naya sees something beneath the throne on which the hobgoblin stood; she bounds up the pedestal and recovers a small chest from underneath the throne.  It is a beautiful box of lacquered wood and intricate gold filigree.  On the top, a gold-embossed dragon proudly bellows out gilded flames with its wings outstretched.  The lock on the front clicks when touched, and scratch marks indicated attempts to circumvent the lock.  After each of us looks at the box, none of us are able to literally or figuratively crack the lock.  Although a silver key of exquisite craftsmanship was found on the hobgoblin, close to his rent flesh, it did not fit the chest.  Naya commits the strongbox to her belongings and we walk to the only possible place that lovely key could fit: upstairs.

            Upon arriving, Seyer inserts the key into the welcoming lock, and it fits perfectly, admitting us to another set of double doors.  Seyer listens at this new set of doors, but all he hears is rustling, as if cloth was meeting cloth but he heard no voices.  He pulls the door open.

            What we find is a grand bedroom of significant size.  On either side, tall bookshelves like those found in the library behind us stand, bearing much older and less tidy volumes.  An armoire and a vanity rest against the right wall, and a four-post bed directly ahead.  What we do find unusual is the woman on the bed.

            A woman garbed in black leather from neck to toe and all the way up her arms lay bound on the bed, her arms tied behind her back and her ankles knotted in a thin rope.  She has a gag over her mouth and long black hair wrapped up in a bun behind her head.  Upon seeing the door open, she meets Seyer’s gaze and shouts “Wait!” from beneath her gag.  Seyer, although aplomb at physical combat, heeds her cry.  Her gaze darts to the left and right corners of the room adjacent to our fighter.  Seyer nods and lunges to the right, grabbing a hidden goblin sneak around the corner.  We move in as Seyer pins one sneak down; another one, from the other corner jumps in to help.  Raina draws her shortsword in a hurry and surprises the goblin, thrusting her blade straight through him.  The creature dies on her impeccably placed sword while Kalecgos and Naya respectively stab and club the other goblin to death.

            The woman on the bed struggles to free herself when we approach; Kale approaches first and removes her gag.  She’s a fair-skinned human of a lean, muscular figure; her lips are thin and her eyes sharp and urgent.  She thanks us and requests she be released.  After a moment’s hesitation, we learn her name; Mel Noddera.  This satisfied us, for now.  Her wrists were untied, by which point she is capable of wiggling free from her ankle bindings.  She jumps up and undoes her hair in a hurry, retying it in a tighter, more secure bun, muttering to herself. 

            The window beside the bed is open, and a grappling hook lay lodged in the wooden floor of the bedroom, and a rope from it dangles out the window.  She hops on the sill, grabs the rope with one hand and beckons us to follow her with the other.  Although not knowing a thing about Mel, we all follow.  Naya searches what we assume to be Lord Nadmum’s bed, and she locates a beautiful and ornate dagger, certainly kept there for protection by the displaced lord.

            Shortly, we are all safely outside the castle.  Mel immediately inquires if we had found “the box.”  This woman is pushy, no doubt about it.  Naya concedes that she had indeed found a box of sorts, but she refuses to relinquish it.  Mel, annoyed but understanding, urges them to follow her back to the city.

            We find the walk back much easier; it barely takes an hour to walk along the ridge.  Goblins lay strewn about the hillside, all felled by our blades, bows and sorcery.  Once within Thoroma, it is clear that the festival is in full swing at noon; people loiter beside the roads, gossiping and enjoying a drink.  Children play their little games alongside the street. 

            Mel, on the other hand, has her eyes front.  People regard her with a palpable distaste, turning to a neighbor when she passes, surely whispering of rumors and assumptions.  We follow her west on the Garrisunnie into the heart of Thoroma and turn north onto the Argent Trail; she shouts back at us that we were going to the temple, apparently no secret worth keeping.  The temple, more of a cathedral, is a beautiful stone temple, cut from fine stone and perfected over centuries of careful maintenance; this was not a roadside temple to the primitive.  Within the grand front doors, the nave is filled with parishioners praying to Pelor, the God of the Sun.  He is represented by an altar in the center of the T-shaped temple and, from either side and above, grand windows admit the sun’s beams.  A large mosaic window behind the altar depicts Pelor in a glorious, magnanimous pose. 

            Mel isn’t here to worship, it seems.  She hustles past the commoners to one transept of the temple.  We follow her duly, but uncertain of where we are going.  We reach a large stone covered in commemorative and honorific inscriptions, but Mel doesn’t pay that any mind, either.  She kneels down, out of sight of the parishioners and feels along the edge of the stone on the floor.  Her dainty, strong fingers trace the stone like a fragile jewel until she finds her mark.  She coughs loudly, pressing down on the stone as it grinds against its neighbors.  A narrow, dark opening appears where the stone was as it slid in place, and Mel descends into the hole using carved handholds in the side of the shaft.  We follow, Seyer descending first.

            Once Mel slid the stone back into its civilian place, she calls ahead to Seyer in the close hallway that he should just proceed straight and he will find a corner.  Seyer withdraws one of his pilfered oars to use as a guiding stick.  It dutifully finds the corner and he rounds it; however, he makes a misstep as the ground went from hard rock to dirt, and he slips, bruising his arm and his pride.  However, a wooden door lies ahead.  Seyer gets to his feet and opens the door.

            Behind this door lies a dimly lit domed stone room filled with about ten other people; as soon as the door opens, they look over at us with great surprise but not an ounce of fear.  Mel emerges from our group and bowes deeply to them.  She introduces us briefly to the others gathered there, seemingly making a meal in an old iron pot over a magical flame that produces no smoke.    

            Naya reluctantly surrenders the box to Mel, who shows it to the others gathered there.  She thanks Naya for the box and hands it to the eldest member of that group, a white-haired human of indeterminable age with the hazelnut eyes of an unseasoned youth.  He examines the lock, requests a pick from one of the half-elves present there, but is unable to manage the lock.  He sets the box down, looking at it in consideration.  A half-orc smiles, grunts and heaves his warhammer to his shoulder, dropping it heavily onto the box.  The wooden box smashes to smithereens, gold inlay and red-dyed wood flying in every direction.  The crash was close and loud in the small stone cavern.  Within, an exceptionally large, unparalleled ruby lies on a flat purple felt pillow. 

Everyone in the room gazes at the massive gem, but Raina feels more compelled to look than the others.  Her eyes stare unblinking at the rock and her little arms reach out to touch the gem.  Seyer approaches, attempting to restrain the pint-sized hunter, but she pushes him back with unnatural strength, as a desperate mother might defend her only child.  She touches the gem with her petite hands, which only makes the drive to have the gem more and more pressing.  Kalecgos, seeing the entranced halfling, casts the gem aside with his mage hand.  Mel catches it and removes it from Kalecgos’ telekinetic grip, shrouding it with a nearby cloak.  Raina snaps out of her stupor, fully alert but unaware of what just transpired. 

            Mel sets the gem in a safe place below the bench.  She explains that it is a dragon ruby, a powerful mind-control tool used by red dragons to addle and seduce the greedy and the weak-minded.  They are being used by the red dragons of the world to restart the War of the Ages that nearly destroyed Alora almost a thousand years ago.  Now, the beasts are no longer dormant, and their ancient grudge is reignited.  They have been sending their agents throughout the world to further their cause and build willing (and unwilling) support.  Soon, Mel fears, their mercenaries will dominate all of Alora.  This, she says, is what her and her brethren plan to stop.

            She introduces us to them as the Priory of the Icterine Eye.  There is much more to learn, but it seems safe to assume they are friends, and we feel secure in our decision, relieved that our adventure to Manifang Castle is not our last.

           

            What of Lord Nadmum and his lover?  What will he think about this news, and how will he react to the party’s for their valiant victory?  What of the Red Dragons?

            Find out next week!