Fire Giant Holding
Berdyn scouts ahead, heading downstairs to the lower level. He returns and tells us he sees a creature lurking down there, Codex identifies it as a BoneClaw.
After we defeat it, we realize we are on a clock. The Boneclaw is not dead, and will reform in a few hours. It will report to the Master and tell him exactly who we are. It got a good look at everyone but Maud.
We get Berdyn to scout ahead, he finds the jails and another Giant family enclosure. We go to the family enclosure, first drawing off the 4 Ettin sentries, Codex fooling them into coming their way by mimicking a Fire Giant command “Hey you two headed maggots, come to the stairs”.
After we defeat them, we hear one of the Giants approaching wondering what all the noise was about. The Ettins were arguing about cheese, so Codex uses his knowledge of the ages to put on a performance of 8 different voices. Here’s how it sounds.
“We have one cheese. We break it to 4 cheese. We eat.”
“We break to 8 cheese. Then all mouths get one cheese.”
“But 8 cheese smaller than 4 cheese”
“But 8 more than 4”
And so on. It convinces the fire giant that the ettins are arguing something stupid.
We then take the moment to attack. The group of giants are 8, one high in the ordning, 3 servants, and four young fire giants. We engage and defeat them, Codex using both Sanctuary and Beacon of Hope to keep his friends alive. He also uses Sanctuary to insult the Giants, and they cannot overcome the Sanctuary to get vengeance.
We defeat them, and then fight a group of 4 hill giants.
We then encounter a pair of Stone giants, and parley with them. They are named Agate and Basalt, and they hand us the teleportation circle sequence to Hammerfell. They wish us well and warn us about the Torturer in the jails, he is likely now the new Fire Giant King.
We then enter through an ornate set of doors into a mausoleum. The tomb of the Fire Giant kings. We find the secret passage that Obni found, and know it goes deeper into the third level. We can use this passage to get to the third level, maybe behind the awareness of the Master. We take a piece of one of the sarcophagi, all of which have been opened and looted, and we find a tuft of giant rat or possibly wererat fur. The piece of the sarcophagi was from the last King before Snurre, King Beldar.
We enter into a blacksmithy, using a large pool of magma to melt metal. and fight the Smith, a massive Fire Giant, and his two troll servants. The Smith was working on a morning star, made from Star Metal. It feels similar to That which walks outside.
The Smith throws the mace into the magma, and Bale retrieves it, burning his legs badly. We defeat the Smith and his assistants.
We then head to the jail, and fight the jailor and his headsman. After a disastrous initial round, where one giant throws Bale into an Iron Maiden and another attempts to throw Berdyn down the well, Codex banishes both of them for a time, long enough to get back in position. We defeat the two giants.
We free a pair of gnolls, allowing them to leave peacefully. We then free a larger group of seven gnolls.
Then we see another cell containing an Empyrean. We free the Empyrean, and it tells us that it serves Ioun and it owes us a service. Their name is Micah. We can call Micah to help us when we face the Master.
In another cell we meet Eve Clair, a thief from Everlife that was trying to loot Deseragar. She thought Bale was Pyrrhos, it turns out that Pyrrhos worked with her once in a while.
We then find Amaris and Nemothee. A pair of centaurs. They are the guardians of the Elven princess who was captured outside of Kingston, named Faelith.
Further down we find Faelith, in a cell nearby a wall made up of squirming tentacles. We get the Elven Princess out of the cell, and she warns us that there are creatures beyond the squirming wall, that when she describes, Codex realizes are Alhouns, Undead Mind Flayers with Magic – there are two of them and they are very dangerous.
She also shows us two hidden passageways, one to a Temple, and one that leads elsewhere. They are hidden by very good illusions of walls.
We also find a dead man that is holding a letter, the letter is a sad one to his wife. We will take his body from this place and bring him back to life, but not yet. There is another giant and his Wererat allies to murder. His name is Jackson.
It turns out the wererats were stealing from the Giants, we follow them as they flee to a bolt=hole and defeat them. We collect all that the wererats stole.
Then we paint a new cart, put our treasure and the body of the husband on the cart, and then teleportation circle everyone to Kingston
We use a sending to get Collette to send carts. We bid Eve goodbye, she guesses that Bale is actually Able, and then we return to Able’s royal estate, which for the first time is closed and under heavy guard, due to an earlier warning by sending from Bale.
It is noon on the 29th, and we are bloody and beaten.