Previously: Chapter 48: The Price of Purity
Saying Goodbye
Sitting around their fallen friend, the party cannot move. They’re just shocked and angry at the unnecessary loss of one of their own. Kal looks down at Fie’s hands, and notices that he was still wearing the Ring of Mind Shielding. Remembering that he told them that a soul was residing in it when they found it, she picks it up, and can feel the presence of something or someone within. She holds out the ring, asking if they would like to say their final goodbyes to their companion.
Penny picks up the ring, and puts it on her finger. She can hear Fie, recognizing the tiefling, saying hello to Penny. She is sad that he didn’t make it, and tells him that she died as well, but that Dandelion managed to bring her back just in time. He tells her that he is glad to hear it. Penny says she is going to miss him, and he replies that he doesn’t know that he will miss them, but he hopes he will. He tells her it’s been a pleasure. Penny then gives the ring to Dandelion.
Fie says hello to Dandelion, who laments not being able to rescue him, wishing she had more time or had done anything differently. He simply tells her that if any of them had to die, he was glad it had to be him. Fie seems confident and content with the situation, almost looking forward to seeing where the next path will take him in the great beyond, unsure of where he will end up.
Dandelion gives the ring to Kal, who reluctantly and teary eyed grasps it, and puts it on. Fie greets his friend, and tells her that he’s glad they all made it out. He goes on to tell Kal that he was hoping to get a chance to talk to her before he was completely gone, as he wanted to share what he knew that would be useful. He describes the two others in the group as too innocent.
He goes on to tell Kal that they need to watch out for Delphine, explaining that she is part of a sort of intelligence agency working for the Akstan Kingdom, “their'' kingdom, referring to where Fie and Kal are from. She asks about everything he knows about her, and he tells her that Delphine is an Elder Archmage of the school of Illusion. She asks if he is worried about her because she tried to have him killed, but he explains that it’s more that he worries about her obsession with the Key, feeling she knew more about it than she should, and having an inkling that she is trying to retrieve it for personal reasons, not for the protection of the realm.
Feeling the connection weaken as the soul, or at least the after image they’re talking to, is fading away, he hurries to tell her about the hidden compartments in the basement, showing her where they can find the spider staff, as well as a mental note of what magical items he was carrying. His final wish is that if they ever find themselves near Blanc Town, there is a tavern with a person that has a mole under their left eye. One of his parents. Kal says she will tell them what happened to their child, and asks how he would like to be buried. He thinks a funeral pyre would be quite fitting, considering his affinity for fire. She agrees. As Fie slowly fades into nothingness, Kal can hear a final thought from him.
“It’s been an adventure.”
Kal notices that the ring around her finger suddenly gets covered in shadows, and can feel the ring changing underneath it. When the shadows eventually retreat, they reveal a beautiful silver signet ring with the image of a purple eye on it. Transformed into a Ring of Temporal Salvation, a final gift from their friend to help them prevent any other members of the party being forced to say goodbye too soon.
The party climbs to the top of the cliff to the shrine of Udall, and has Penny create a large funeral pyre, which they place their friend on. Dandelion places the oldest stick she has on the pyre, and asks her god to guide him to where he needs to go. Kal summons a lightning bolt in her hands, and ignites the pyre. Standing there, looking at their friend drifting away, they wait for it all to burn. After a few hours, when everything is gone, the summoned pyre disappears, leaving behind the ashes of their friend. They put it in a container, and make the climb back down the mountain, heading towards the orcish outpost to take care of Grommok so they can go home again.
Looking Good for 1600
Heading down the mountain, through the elemental cave, and traveling back towards the fork in the road leading to the outpost, the party decides to rest for the night, not wanting to travel when it’s dark. When they make camp, Thervan’s visage appears, projected from far far away. He offers his condolences, asking if Fie was killed by the orcs, or their “mutual friend”. Hearing that an Aspect of Vuthul was responsible for his death, and that the corruption of shrines spreads, he remarks that they are getting more bold, having corrupted several shrines in recent times, and not only those of Udall. It’s almost as if they are preparing for something. Kal tells Thervan about the “Mother Hearthstone” that was in Murzol’s chambers, and that it flashed twice when they were there. He first of all asks where the hell they got a Hearthstone as those are extremely rare, but then begins to theorize that the large one they saw might be the wayfinder of Hearthstones, explaining the difficulties when traveling between planes.
They tell him they tried to resurrect Fie, but that it didn’t take. Thervan says they don’t always do, but he’s glad they tried, even though the clergy wouldn’t want him to tell them this, as they have a different view on death and resurrection. They feel it goes against the natural order, but Kal remarks that “if the evil bastards can cheat death, so can we”. Thervan gets a guilty look on him, with Kal feeling something is off. He reveals that he himself has cheated death many times, as he uses clones to remain “in the fight” so to say. They ask how old he is, and he tells them his body is a little under 400 years old, but his consciousness is closing in on 1600 years. Perks of being an elder archmage as he puts it.
When it comes to the prisoners and getting them home, he asks if they would like for Thervan to come and get them, but the party mentions they have unfinished business they have to take care of before they depart. Thervan asks if they have attuned the Hearthstone to a safe location, which they have, so he agrees to bring them 300 gp worth of diamonds so they have an easy way home. He departs, with the party going to sleep in the tiny hut, one member less than they are used to. Before they do, Penny puts on the armor Fie was wearing, with Dandelion taking Penny’s old Mariner’s armor.
Destination in Sight
The next morning, the party continues onwards towards the outpost. When they are almost at the fork in the road, Dandelion, Argus and Ira all notice a large force of orcs heading south from the road leading to the outpost. They decide to hide, with Kal using clairvoyance to listen to them in passing. She only hears parts of the conversation as they are quickly marching down the mountain, but she picks up “ramp things up”, “escalate” and “Thielheim”. Fearing that the orcs are preparing to provoke an act of aggression from the southern lands, they take a note of it, deciding to tell Thervan in order to have him send word to the settlement. Penny uses her sending stone to tell Morgan not to go to Thielheim in the coming weeks, and he thanks her for the warning, unsure as to why though.
Dandelion attunes her staff to autumn, granting them the ability to cast Pass without Trace, allowing the party to sneak to a hidden area off the path, in order to survey the road leading to the outpost, and prepare properly for the assault itself. Kal asks Udall if he can summon a storm for them, but as they are above the cloud cover, the weather stays clear. Disappointed by this, she asks her god some questions, confirming that the prisoners and Grommok are present, and that there is only one way in. When asked for any advice, he simply responds in a cryptic manner “tell no lies.”
During the night, the party takes shifts watching over the road, and mostly it is vacant, but on Dandelion's watch she can see a lone tall figure walking up the road to the outpost in the moonlight. Dandelion wakes the others, telling them that she sees someone. Kal asks Penny to create a glass eye, who in her groggy sleepiness summons a glass eye and hands it to her.
Kal casts the spell, and can see in front of her a large towering warforged made of dark metal, wearing a hood, with glowing red eyes, walking determined towards the summit. They all get a bad vibe from the individual, thinking that he cannot be a good guy as his eyes are red, the sign of danger according to Dandelion. Feeling that they aren’t prepared to attack the outpost in the middle of the night, they decide to leave in the early morning.
The One-Eyed Giant
When the party reaches the summit, they decide to hide the goats and let the owls fly freely while they venture into the mountain. Ira takes a short flight around the fort, confirming that there are no other entrances. Committing to the rescue, the party walks the final path towards the large opening in the mountains, and can see a frost giant sitting on a throne with a massive axe on his lap. He seems quite bored, and they notice that he only has one eye. The trio discusses how they should approach this, and Kal remembers what her god told her last night, about being honest. So they simply walk up to the giant.
When they get closer, he shouts out in giant “who goes there?”. The party makes themselves known, and introduces themselves to him. He asks why they are here, with Penny following Kal’s suggestion of being truthful, and tells him they’re here to neutralize Grommok. Giving an approving nod, he tells them that he hasn’t seen anything in that case, allowing the party to pass.
Surprised that it worked, they ask him his name and why he’s missing an eye, and he tells them he is Fjorn One-Eye, and he gave up his eye in order to tell the truth from lies. Noticing that he seems unhappy with his current situation, they ask why he is guarding the place. Apparently, an evil shaman tricked him into a bargain, and now he’s under his control, his only purpose is to guard the mountain. Noticing that the giant seems quite bored, they give him the tankard of plenty in order for him to have a drink. Finding the experience quite pleasant, he gives them his lucky rock in return.
The Warforged
Entering the keep, the party is careful not to accidentally walk into the orcs residing there, and decides to be stealthy and cautious. They listen to every door, making notes of where they hear noises. The first hallway they find is filled with statues of long deceased dwarves. The party notices a trip wire that runs through the hallway that triggers the statues to fall on intruders. Circumventing, but not disabling the trap, the party reaches a diverging path that leads north, or they can continue east. Unsure what to do, they decide to flip Rocky to see if he knows where to go. Dandelion throws him into the air, and the rock unnaturally moves towards the eastern door. They decide to listen to the omnipotent rock.
The door opens up to another long hallway, with several large stone doors that lead into what they discover to be kitchens when listening to the door, as well as a hallway leading to a collapsed part of the keep. At the end of the hallway, a door is slightly ajar, and they can see a weak blinking light within. As they get closer, it disappears around the corner. Intrigued by this development, Penny decides to follow it, with Dandelion and Kal following concerned. The doors lead to a storage area, and around the corner, they find the body of a metal man, as well as a book lying next to it. When Penny approaches it, the book suddenly rises into the air, and in common exclaims that it is happy to see they are not orcs. The book introduces himself as Bimble Sparkspinner, with the party asking what he is. He tells them that he is a gnome, but the party holds up a mirror, causing the book to seem fascinated by the reveal.
He tells them that he and his companion which is lying on the floor was ambushed by orcs, and he theorizes that he died and transferred his consciousness into a spellbook. The orcs tried to extract information from his companion, and so he shut down, and went into stasis. He has been trying to awaken him, but to no avail. The party takes out the Golemheart Core they found in the old dwarven workshop, and as if recognizing it, the chest of the body opens up, and accepts it. Hearing the mechanic start working and the warforged booting up, they back away.
Rising up, the warforged thanks the party for his rescue, and is surprised to see his companion turned into his spellbook. He introduces himself as “Relic”, and the party tells him their name. Apparently Relic and Bimble both know Thervan, so they cast a sending to him, asking if he can project to them. He appears shortly after, and exclaims that he is surprised to see Relic, asking where Bimble is. The book chimes in, with Thervan being curious as to how that happened. They explain that they were ambushed by orcs, and that Bimble died, but he is still alive, so that’s good at least. Bimble seems more fascinated by the experience than anything. Relic explains that he is from around 3700 years or so ago, but has only been awake again for the last 2-3 years, after Bimble awoke him from his stasis. When asked what they’re doing here, they tell Relic and Bimble that they’re here to stop the orc menace, and hopefully kill Grommok. Relic needs no more convincing, not being too fond of the orcs after what they have done so far.
Before Thervan goes, they describe to him the warforged they saw approaching the keep the night before. Even with the vague description, Thervan says it sounds like Doctor Calamity, and if he’s here, then they have to hurry and be careful, as he is probably coming for the prisoners. He goes on to explain that two of the prisoners, along with Ansgar Cain, went to the north to retrieve an artifact that Thervan and his associates wanted to purchase, but the artifact was stolen by Calamity and his group, who used it to awaken a forgedragon. The group he sent managed to destroy the forgedragon, and retrieve the artifact, which probably angered Calamity. He tells them that he will watch the party, through Penny, at times, and if things get too hairy, he will teleport in and retrieve them. He does not wish to fight Calamity directly, not knowing what he is capable of, and recommends the party to not engage, but be cordial if they do encounter him. Thervan then signs off, and vanishes.
Searching the Fort
The party now turns their attention to find the prisoners. As they come back to the hallway with all the statues, they can hear a large force of orcs leaving through the hallway, with Dandelion picking up the sound of what she thinks is bears. When the voices and sounds fade away, they open the door, and sees tracks that lead outside. Thanking their various deities for the luck, they head up the hallway to where the force came from, reaching a large audience chamber that is surrounded by collapsed hallways, with a path leading further north.
They reach another long hallway, with several doors leading to various rooms. Listening to the doors, most of them seem to contain both sleeping and awake orcs, ignorant to the party skulking around. Penny asks why there are not patrols, but Kal points out that they have a guardian, and the entrance is trapped, so there is no reason for them to have sentries walking around. Not finding any prisoners, the party decides to check out the single door at the end of the hallway to the west. Listening to the door reveals a sloshing sound of sorts, like a semi-liquid is moving inside. Penny opens the door, and finds a set of toilets. Curious to see what is making the sound, she moves towards the innermost cubicle, and is suddenly face to face with a large flowing ooze coming out of one of the toilets, filled with feces and urine, and smelling horribly.
The party, realizing that they are surrounded by orcs behind all doors, realize they must try to take out the approaching ooze as quietly as they can, and are careful not to use spells that require a vocal component or are thunderous in nature. The ooze seems to be resistant to most physical damage, and sprays acid at whoever attacks it directly, but seems rather harmless otherwise. Having underestimated it, Kal says that they should let it attack her, and places herself between it and the party, who backs off further down the hallway. This proves to be a fatal mistake, as Kal is suddenly bombarded with acid, ruining her armor, and almost taking her out.
Suddenly realizing the gravity of the situation and the danger this ooze provides, Penny and Dandelion both break the silence to heal Kal, and try to wound it. Kal retaliates with her Wrath of the Storm, causing the ooze to split into two. Penny fires a crossbow bolt at it, with Relic using a firebolt. They eventually manage to take out both parts of the ooze, which lies sizzling on the stone floor outside of the toilet. Kal suddenly hears movement inside one of the doors, and runs to hide with the party.
Opening the door, the party can hear an orc exclaiming that “it got out again”, and goes to grab a mop to clean it up. While he does, he wonders how it managed to swallow a crossbow bolt, and that it must have gotten stuck in the lantern again, as parts of it are singed, but he doesn’t realize that it was attacked, and so goes to pour it down the toilet. The orc then returns to his companions through the door he came out of, and the party breathes a sigh of relief, having avoided alerting the whole keep to their presence. Kal is dripping with disgusting acid, and wants to go somewhere to clean up.
They decide to head to the double doors on the opposite end of the hallway, and after confirming that there are no sounds behind the door, they open it, and find a vast armory filled with whatever they could require of weapons. Kal wanders around and just places a bunch of weapons in their bag of holding, in case they need any later. The others look around, and Relic finds a peculiar looking shield with spikes on it. Thinking it could be useful for Kal, he gives it to her.
Beyond the other set of doors in the armory, the party can hear a large breathing creature, and so they carefully and silently use the bar to lock the door, so they can take a short rest inside. Kal sits down, after having Relic clean her up, to do a divination ritual, asking for a rundown of the opposing forces in the fort. She learns that there are 53 orcs, one ogre and one warforged. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by the thought of having to potentially fight over 50 enemies before reaching the prisoners, they decide to keep relying on stealth and subterfuge.
The party takes a short rest, using the coffee pot to halve the time, with Relic getting to taste the delicious coffee that it provides. During the rest, he tries to identify the core that the party installed in him to wake him up, and realizes that it makes him stronger and more resilient, but weak to lightning. Kal does another commune, asking if they will find the prisoners through the eastern door where the ogre resides on the other side, which they will. It also seems to be the only way through, but Udall cannot see anyone wielding lightning on their path, so Relic decides to keep the core for now.
From Infiltration to Impersonation
Not wanting to fight the whole fort at once, Dandelion thinks they should disguise themselves as orcs, having mentioned it a few times earlier, but as the party were trying to be stealthy, nobody heard her. Asking themselves why they didn’t do that to begin with, Penny quickly casts seeming on the party, making them appear as the blue-marked orcs they have seen. Having not seen any female orcs in the fort, Relic is the only one who can convincingly pull off an orc disguise, so he takes the lead. He uses prestidigitation to make the rest of the party smell like orcs, before they open the door to the east.
When they get a glimpse through, they see a massive ogre apparently guarding a couple of doors behind him. Taking a calculated risk, Relic tells the ogre that they are here for the prisoners. The ogre asks if Grommok told them, which Relic confirms. Looking a little confused, the ogre moves to the side, allowing them to pass. Within, they can see two orcs playing cards around a table. Kal and Dandelion thinks they look familiar, but cannot place them. Relic repeats that they are there to retrieve the prisoners. One of the orcs asks if he means prisoner, as the other two were taken earlier in the morning to Grommok’s chambers. Relic peeks around, and sees a starving, beaten, tortured orc in one of the cells. Going with it, he says that yes, they are here for him. As luck would have it, this is Barak, Karga’s brother Penny was asked to rescue.
Taking the prisoner out, they lead him to the double doors at the opposite end of the hallway, and confidently walk through, hoping there are no orcs on the other side. Luckily it leads to an empty library, and when the door is closed behind them, they ask his name, which he confirms is Barak, so they tell him, through Relic who translates, that they were sent by his sister to rescue him. Barak is surprised, but happy, to hear this, and asks if they can go now. They sadly disappoint him by saying they are here to rescue the other prisoners as well, and hopefully take care of Grommok once and for all. Barak asks if they mean the small human and the kobold, confirming that they are still alive. He tells them that the orcs have been trying to convert him to join their ranks, but he refuses to fight alongside traitors of their own kind, and just wants to get home.
Relic decides to check out the library, checking if he can find any magical items. Activating detect magic, he can see that there are at least four books that appear to radiate magic, so he wanders over to retrieve them. As it is extremely dark in the middle of the bookshelves, he doesn’t see the trap the orcs have placed, and manages to collapse most of the row, almost burying him. Quickly retrieving the books, he wanders back to the party just in time as the ogre comes running through the doors. Relic quickly makes up an excuse that he screwed up, with the ogre remarking that the next row over is the safe one, before shaking his head and returning to his post.
Heading through the “safe” row, they find what appears to be the chamber of the shaman who resides here, Zugor. Still having detect magic up, Relic can see four spell scrolls which he quickly grabs with his telekinesis, and hands it to the party as he cannot read them. The party puts them in the bag of holding, and wanting to sabotage the shaman, decides to mess up the ritual circle he has prepared on the floor, by smudging it in a way that looks like an accident.
Thinking they might be getting close to the end, they decide to leave Barak in the chambers, telling him to hide. They take out some jerky and a waterskin, giving it to the orc, who immediately grabs it and scoffs it down, as he is starving and dehydrated. Relic remarks that he forgets that living things require sustenance, laughing at himself. Penny and Dandelion also heal him up a bit, with Kal taking out a spear, handing it to the orc in case he needs to defend himself.
Grommok
The party leaves Barak behind, after making sure he has hidden behind a table, and continues onwards through three sets of double doors that lead to the chamber. On the last door, they can hear voices from the other side discussing the prisoners. Calamity and Grommok are having a disagreement, with Calamity saying that the orc is making a big mistake, and the knowledge the prisoners hold could significantly enhance his forgedragon project. Grommok coldly replies that he doesn’t make mistakes, he makes decisions, and his decision is to leave them where they are, out of his grasp. Calamity ponders this, and says to Grommok that he should be careful about what he’s doing.
“Keeping them in such close proximity to you is not just a statement of power, it is also a dare…”
As the conversation comes to a close, they can hear the footsteps of Calamity rapidly approaching the doors separating the party from the chambers, so they beat a hasty retreat, making sure to close the doors behind them, as they hear the warforged exit. Dandelion casts Pass without Trace again, and the group just manages to hide inside Zugor’s chambers, as they hear Calamity mutter something about getting the prisoners no matter what it takes, before he disappears around the corner.
The party looks at each other, amazed by the fact they managed to avoid dealing with the warforged, and returns to the chamber. They now hear that they are talking low amongst themselves, and so the party decides to enter. Penny turns herself invisible, hoping to get an advantage if things go south. They push open the doors, and can see eight orcs inside. Grommok, an older, large orc with a red gemstone embedded in his chest, presumably the shard, the shaman, as well as six soldiers protecting Grommok. Penny sneaks around to the side, as Grommok asks in orcish why they have entered his chambers unannounced. As nobody responds, Grommok takes a closer look at them, then asks in common who they are.
Kal says they are here to put an end to his silly skirmishes, and steps forward towards Grommok, with Zugor standing next to him telling him that his brother must have sent them. Grommok asks if they are here to kill him, and what his brother told them. Kal tells him that his brother told them why he was exiled, that Grommok was weak, and a pacifist. Grommok says that his brother keeps spreading lies. He goes on to explain that his brother stole his throne from him, as he was the rightful ruler, but his brother lied about his intentions, and so exiled him.
He has returned, and is attacking Moroxia with his troops, to force an act of aggression to take out the other orcish tribes. Kal and Relic both chime in saying that his plan is bad and he should feel bad, considering he isn’t even trying to disguise himself as Murzol’s orcs, wandering around with blue war paint. Grommok laughs at this, saying the southerners don’t care what they look like, they see orcs attacking and want blood. When they attack and take out Murzol and his people, Grommok can come in and take what is his.
The party can all see that Grommok is being influenced by the shard, and not being reasonable, but Kal can tell that he is not being deceptive about his brother. She decides to continue pushing his buttons, remarking that he is planning on having all orcs exterminated so he can be the chieftain of an empty clan? He replies that it is better to be a chieftain of a broken clan, than not at all. She asks how he’s going to populate the orcs, as he has no females, but he waves his hand, saying not all his people are here, they are hiding in the mountains, waiting to ride out the storm that is the inevitable invading army.
Kal decides to go all in, saying that he will be nothing but the chieftain of a group of inbred, weak, useless orcs, and will perish realizing he failed. Grommok clutches his war axe, as Penny suddenly appears from the side, and attempts to charm Grommok by casting fast friends. Sadly, he manages to resist, but he gives her a death glare, before looking back to Kal, pointing at her, telling Zugor “kill this one.” as he rises from his throne.