11-15 Nightal
The adventures of The Western Shield as recorded by Revi.
11 Nightal
In the morning, we caught up with the real Harburk and he told us a little more about Agathula, the banshee in the woods. We mounted up and rode out, but the horses all spooked and stopped short of the clearing where we were told Agathula would be. In the clearing, there's only thistle and heavy vine as undergrowth and there's the constant piercing wails of a dying maiden. Jacob spotted a glowing blue light in one of the tree root systems and I used mage hand to get it out of the tree and into his backpack, which released Agathula from the stone's control.
We talked with Agathula for a while and she was a little skeptical of us, but then we showed her the letters we grabbed off of Adbane where Valindra and the Thayans are looking for the forge at Gauntlgrym. She warms up to us and sends us to the Sighing Valley's Old Owl Well and the Shrine to Vergadain, the dwarven god of wealth and luck. We made sure to stop back in Conyberry for some real crumble on the way back through, but Mival still isn't impressed.
When we reached Vergadain's shrine in the Sighing Valley, I tossed a coin as an offering and a previously hidden path revealed itself. We headed up the path to find the walls of a dwarven fortress called Firehammer Hold. One entrance was a double door with the image of Haela Brightaxe, a flaming maul, and two oversized knockers. The other entrance was a single door with a relief of a female dwarf and a message of welcome. On the opposite side of the path, we found a mass grave filled with all variety of bodies, but we especially noticed that it seems to have many slaves in rags as well as dwarven men stripped of plate armor. Gef asked the tree near the door what's going on and heard that there are duergar who drag the bodies out at dusk each night.
Jacob headed over to the main entrance and wails on the doors with the knockers for a good amount of time while we all wait at the second door. Nothing happens. Jacob came back around to the second door, Mival cast light on Jacob's shield, and Jacob kicked down the door to find a deserted hostel-like area. As we explored, we discovered a peep hole and small passage that led over to the main hall from the larger doors. As we emerged from the passage, I ran back up the stairs to unbar the main doors and Jacob spotted two duergar deeper in the hallway. Mival re-cast light on one duergar's axe, Gef pulled out a flame-blade, and I flipped Kemten's Coin, all of which bathed the rooms in bright light and distracted the duergar.
Pan managed to take out both of the duergar before they ran out of the room, but we also noticed a few arrowslits just in time for a stream of flame to set Pan on fire and lightly toast Jacob. I turned back and headed through the drinking hall and Gef pushed to the other side of the room with the arrowslits and discovered a looted storeroom. Through the drinking hall, Pan and I managed to get into the barracks and started a fight with four duergar. One of them cast a spell to grow a foot taller. On the other side of the arrowslits, Gef took a gaseous form and Jacob used the Javelin of the Wind to blow her into the barracks, then she immediately switched from a gas into a brown bear. In the process of fighting the duergar, Jacob got a little bloodlust and started transforming into wolf form. One duergar rushed Mival to try and carry him off, but ended up getting powerbombed into the staircase (Mival's a very strong wizard).
We poked around the level of the fortress we'd cleared and Pan and I found a room with an active bloomery, sponge iron, and iron ore. Mival and Gef moved a little deeper into the fortress and found weapon molds, wrought iron bars, and an active forge. As we were exploring, Pan and I were joined by an out-of-breath Jacob, covered in blood. It really didn't feel like the time to ask a lot of questions, so we filed that away and continued looking around, eventually finding a secret exit from the fortress that was down the path than the other two doors.
Further into the fortress, Gef (still in bear form) and Mival came across the duergar captain reporting to a Red Wizard. Gef threw an anvil at her and Mival hit her with some lightning before she dropped a ball of flame in the room and blinked down the hall, out of range. Meanwhile, up near the bloomery, Jacob filled a mine cart with charcoal and lit it to create a moving torch of sorts, then shoved it down the shaft into the lower rooms. The Red Wizard and the duergar, unaware that Gef and Mival had reinforcements on the way, stepped out onto the mine track to flee and were mowed down by the flaming cart.
Three new duergar appeared at the end of the track and immediately grew a foot in size to prepare to attack us. Jacob moved up the mine cart track and set a bear trap while dodging a few incoming javelins, then cast fear on the duergar, chasing two of them away. As Jacob prepared his trap, Mival and I took potshots at the duergar captain who didn't flee and Gef and Pan pushed through a side room to try and flank the other duergar.
The duergar captain lined up behind the flaming mine cart and began running it back towards Mival, Jacob, and I, but stepped on the bear trap. Jacob gave the cart a good shove back down the track and it rolled back into the captain, pinning him. Deeper in the mine, Gef cut down one of the runaway duergar and Pan ran the other through on his greatsword. Off in the eastern rooms, Mival heard spiders moving and cast web over the door to ensure we wouldn't be surprised by an attack.
As Jacob tried to show off his strength by flipping the fully loaded and flaming mine cart onto the last duergar. Pan, Mival, Gef, and I headed into the mines and found slaves chained up, so Gef went in and broke the chains, then sent them back towards Mival and I. Mival drew an immaculate map of the fortress in the dirt as Gef looted the keys for the shackles off one of the duergar and we sent them back out to their freedom. Also in the mines, Gef found a giant spider with a saddle and tried to climb on, but it bucked her off and skittered up to the ceiling to hide.
Jacob caught up to us in the mines carrying the Red Wizard's spellbook, a ledgerbook of weapon production in the mine, and Jekk Ironfist's belt buckle. We found that the Red Wizard had been working for Valindra and had produced hundreds of weapons for her. I'm starting to get nervous that Valindra might already have an army she's equipping for a fight and we're looking at some imminent attack from the Neverwinter Wood.
We pushed back up to the webbed door where Mival heard spiders and found a shrine to Dumathoin, the dwarven god of buried wealth and the guardian of the dead. On the other side of the shrine was a crypt of famous dwarven clans and, unfortunately, a tunnel to the underdark. Uninterested in going down that rabbit hole, we headed back over to the shrine. On the other side of the shrine was a wall of dwarven warriors in friezes and a floor grid which depicted javelins surrounding a single dwarven word on each slab. After some poking around, we managed to find the correct order of slabs to step across to unlock the large door on the far side.
Inside the room behind the locked door was a large statue with an inscription that read "Greetings, friends and allies of The Watchers" and a spot that looked perfectly made for the dwarven stone we were carrying around. Once we placed the stone, five ghostly dwarves appeared and questioned Pan about his lineage. Once satisfied that he was the heir to Gauntlgrym, they told us the story of Maegera, the Dawn Titan, located deep inside Mount Hotenow, and of Arklem Greeth of the Brotherhood of the Arcane, who created a magical cage to keep the Dawn Titan at bay. When the weave collapsed and rendered magic unstable, the cage containing Maegera was broken. Three members of the Brotherhood of the Arcane gave their lives to re-imprison the titan with a magical seal on the forge, one of whom was Valindra. Only the members of the Brotherhood of the Arcane would know the way to break that seal and release Maegera.
To help us with the quest to stop the lich Valindra from releasing Maegera, the ghostly dwarves gave Pan the gift of Friendship, a powerful two-handed maul meant to be wielded by the true and worthy heir to Gauntlgrym.
Duergar on steeders arrived in the room and we did our best to beat them back. At one point, Gef assumed the form of a spider, took Pan to the ceiling, and swung him through a duergar on the end of a strand of web. Right as the fight started to look very bleak, the teleportation scroll glowed to call us to Neverwinter. We struggled to get close, hold hands, and Mival used the scroll to get us out of there and to Neverwinter.
We arrived in the Castle Never in the Black Lake District and we were met by Arlon Bladesinger and his aide in the Sons of Alagondar. They took us to the full Council of the North and we met the whole gang. They shared three proposals - one to help defend the wall in Neverwinter from the spellplagued creatures coming out of the chasm in the southeast, one to find Valindra's old apprentice for assistance in locating the lich's phylactery, and one to head to the Plaguelands to investigate the Uthgar tribes raiding and killing for sport.
12 Nightal
We talked with a number of the members of the Council of the North to try and get some insight into which plan to back. As we explored the town, we were welcomed into a mostly-empty tavern in the Blacklake District by a friendly innkeeper. While we settled in, a travelling bard came over and introduced himself as Merric Greenbush as the rest of the patrons filed out in small groups. When the tavern was empty with the exception of the bard, we noticed an acrid, sulfuric smell coming from the kitchen. We've been ambushed enough times at this point that we know what it means, so we're ready when a few ink devils appear.