Eberron Adventure Journal: Voyage of the Golden Dragon (3)

Vult 5 - Vult 8, YK 998

Part Three - Ruins of the Giants:
After resting overnight, the Wolves emerged to eat breakfast and see what they could work out about the murder of the ambassador from Thrane and the scribe from Karrnath. Pel used a locate object spell to try and find Gunter based on his robes, but after walking through all three levels of the ship, was able to confirm that the scribe's body was not aboard.

The Golden Dragon was relatively quiet now that so many passengers were either dead, confined to their quarters or laying low to avoid the chaos of the previous day. The Wolves pretty much had the run of the ship, and with the rain subsiding, they were able to spend some time up on the deck as well as in the reception hall. They spent a lot of time trying to figure out the truth of the assassinations, and investigating any remaining suspects on board.

That mostly meant Torren Blackfingers, the gnome artificer who had taken up long-term residence in the luxury suite. After trying to work out a way to infiltrate his room without the House Medani sentries getting wise, Pel and Lysander finally realized it was too much risk for too little reward, and marked Torren off the suspects list without any more information to go on.

They did come up with a theory that perhaps Gunter had faked his death and left the ship, and even that he might have been Emerald Claw. This would turn out to be dead on, although they wouldn't learn this until days later. A major clue to confirm this hypothesis came the next morning, when Pel used his locate object and found an empty poison packet inside the coffin that had held Gunter, and now held Cardinal Bethenade's body.

In addition, they were approached by Halas Martain, who was planning to go out into Xen'drik and investigate a Ruined Giant Citadel he had been searching for. He asked the Wolves to come along, given how they had proved their mettle during the voyage. Lysander was intrigued by the possibility of stories, and Tworock by the potential for killing giants, and so they agreed quickly to his proposal.

Early in the morning on Vult 6, the Golden Dragon sailed over the city of Stormreach. As they docked at the Lyrandar tower, Captain Alastair presented each member of the Wolves with a letter of credit for 1,000 gp. "The Last War may have sparked as a result of what went on here, but I can't help but think things would have been much worse without you on board."

As they boarded a skiff on loan to Halas Martain, the captain told them that the ship would depart in about two weeks, on the afternoon of Vult 20.

The journey into Xen'drik, roughly 12 miles into the jungle according to Martain's maps and directions, took two days aboard the airborne skiff. During that journey, Martain pointed out numerous flora and fauna and regaled the Wolves with tales of his adventures. His storytelling was a bit blustery and obnoxious, but Tworock was convinced that whatever else was true of him, Halas Martain had clearly spent a lot of time in Xen'drik and knew a great deal about it.

On the morning of Vult 8, Martain turned the skiff and coasted free of the jungle canopy, revealing a massive ruined giant temple that existed inside of a cliff face. A waterfall spilled down the face of the cliff and into a hole in the temple, forming a stream that poured down the stairs of the temple and met the hot ground, creating a field of hot mud and clouds of steam in front of the entrance.

Halas Martain set the skiff down just clear of the mud, grabbed his pack and began moving forward. The Wolves joined him, and soon they were wading into the hot red and brown mud, which came up to just above their waists. The mud was hot, heated by underground geysers that would occasionally spurt mud into the air, but it wasn't damaging. As the Wolves began swimming through the mud, though, the geysers began venting their steam and mud more violently, and they realized that they were being surrounded by segmented wormlike creatures, glowing with orange-white heat, that emerged from underneath the mud.

"Move through them!" Halas yelled as he tried to swim past the monsters. Tworock manifested his force screen and moved forward, but as he did, one of the creatures sprung out of the mud and slammed into him, and the creature was hot enough to burn even the fire resistant half giant. As Pel swam through the mud, he recognized the creatures from his studies in the library as Thoqqua, creatures from the plane of elemental fire. Lysander and Luggoth began swimming through as well, and the creatures began springing out at everyone, striking both Luggoth and Halas Martain.

As the Wolves and Halas moved towards the steam, the Thoqqua continued to attack, burning each of the adventurers at least once. Tworock was the first to reach the steam, and he discovered that it was not unoccupied. He was swarmed by Steam Mephits, who scalded him with their hot steam breath weapons before unleashing a rain of boiling water on the adventurers as everyone made their way into the steam clouds.

Once inside the steam, the adventurers could see that there were stairs pouring water down into the mud fields. Halas swam toward the stairs, yelling out "Get to the stairs!" Tworock had suffered enough, and swung his greatsword at one of the Mephits, easily cutting it down. The Thoqqua and Mephits continued to harry the adventurers, who climbed up the giant sized stairs, as Tworock psionically enlarged himself to block the path behind them.

Tworock suffered a number of attacks from the Thoqqua, blinded and scalded as he was by the Mephits, but he gave the others time to climb the stairs, and finally climbed up himself. After killing another Mephit, the rest of them fled into the steam cloud, and the Thoqqua sunk back beneath the mud.

After washing some of the mud off themselves and giving Tworock some healing, the Wolves moved forward. Standing at the lip of the entrance, they saw three bronze statues of trolls in full battle regalia. Halas Martain stepped forward and yelled in Giant a pass phrase. Tworock, who spoke Giant, used his autohypnosis to memorize the pass phrase for the future.

The massive chamber was 100 feet tall, and carved out of obsidian. Standing about 50 feet down the hall, there was a massive obsidian statue of a great cyclopean king, itself about 40 feet tall. Halas Martain asked Pel to advance, keeping a "wary eye out for traps, my friend." Pel kept an eye out and detected a massive pressure plate surrounding the statue. Given the immense size of the pressure plate and the sheer walls, there was no easy way around, and so he attempted to temporarily disarm the trap, but his attempt succeeded in activating the trap, and a ray of enervation blasted out from the king, striking Pel and draining some of his life energy.

Pel moved back and used the scroll of restoration on himself. Rather than attempt to disarm again, Tworock used his psionic levitation, pulling himself along the wall and carrying two people at a time past the statue and the pressure plate. Once past the pressure plate, they had entered the main chamber, which was hundreds of feet wide and long. The roar of the waterfall pouring through the ceiling drowned out all noise, and the Wolves moved cautiously forward. Halas Martain looked down into the pool and spotted a glint of silver, but no one was willing to swim down through the crushing waterfall to see what it was.

As they all began looking around the waterfall and staring at the giant pillars which ran up to the ceiling, Luggoth spotted giant-sized skeletal tracks, and thought he heard something, even through the noise of the waterfall. Seconds later, he realized what he saw as the skeletons of an Ettin and three trolls advanced on the party.

Lysander began singing, his voice cutting clearly through the sound of the waterfall and inspiring the Wolves. The Ettin and two of the trolls moved in on Luggoth, with the Ettin landing a solid club blow on the shifter, who responded by shifting into his animal form and tearing into one of the nearby troll skeletons.

Tworock once again psionically enlarged himself, and the Wolves joined in battle. The Ettin skeleton engaged Tworock and Luggoth, while the trolls attacked Luggoth and Pel. Luggoth was tearing into the skeletal trolls, but his sharp weapon wasn't the best tool for use against the skeletons. Tworock's flail, however, was a handy weapon and he began bashing chips out of the Ettin skeleton. He also yelled for Halas Martain to join the fight, as he noticed the treasure hunter hanging back.

Halas pulled out his bow, running to join Pel at the rear of the fight. As Lysander, Tworock and Luggoth engaged the Ettin and two of the trolls, the other troll skeleton charged at Halas and Pel. Pel pulled out his magic missile wand while Halas fired mostly ineffective arrows, as Luggoth slashed his sword and shattered one of the trolls to bits.

The Ettin and trolls landed more solid blows on Tworock, who responded by smashing the Ettin to bits with his flail. Pel blasted away at the troll with magic missiles as it clawed at him, while Tworock battled with another troll until Luggoth moved in and finished it off with his greatsword.

Badly damaged from this fight and the previous one, Tworock ran up the pillar and out of reach, and Lysander moved in to attack the troll on his own. Luggoth moved to join him, but slipped in the water as he was charging and failed to connect with his sword. Halas concentrated his arrow fire on the troll, doing some minor damage, and as Lysander pulled back, Luggoth regained his footing and smashed the last remaining troll.

Angry with Halas for his ineffectivenes and for nearly hitting him with an arrow, Luggoth rushed at the treasure hunter. Halas offered a potion of cure moderate wounds as a peace offering, but he still found himself threatened by the angry shifter, who called him both cowardly and incompetent.

Moving forward into the chamber, Pel and Halas discovered a chamber filled with bats. It looked like it had once been a shrine to some forgotten god, but now it was empty except for broken stone and bats. Moving along the wall, Pel began searching for traps and found instead an illusory wall. While his hand was through, something swung at him but missed.

Tworock levitated up to what he thought would be a safe distance and poked his head in. There he saw several things. For one thing, he saw row upon row of sarcophagi containing the skeletons of trolls, ettins and giants. For another, he saw Gunter Hegerin, very much alive and wearing the robes of a necromancer of the Blood of Vol. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he saw four troll skeletons, and one Cloud Giant skeleton. The latter swung its morningstar hard at Tworock, who was very much inside the massive undead's reach, and it connected its morningstar solidly with Tworock's head.

The troll skeletons rushed out of the illusory wall and swarmed Halas Martain, cutting him and knocking him, bleeding and unconscious, to the floor. Gunter, covered in defensive magics including mirror image and stoneskin, fired a ray of enfeeblement that missed Tworock, who quickly ducked back out and levitated 40 feet up, trying to get clear and heal himself from the many wounds he had suffered.

Lysander, seeing the forces arrayed against them, turned invisible and moved towards Pel, who was now under attack from the trolls. Before they could kill him, Lysander cast invisiblity on Pel as well. Luggoth shifted once more, flew into a rage and leaped through the wall, attacking the Cloud Giant skeleton for a mostly negligible effect. In return, the Cloud Giant swung its morningstar and smashed Luggoth twice, dealing an amount of damage that would have killed most other men.

Gunter cast improved invisibility upon himself, and then, to complete the chain of invisibility, Halas stopped feigning unconsciousness and drank his own potion of invisibility. Badly wounded, Luggoth fled out of the room, though not before Pel could cast a cure moderate wounds on him.

What then ensued was something similar to modern sub warfare, as most of the combatants were invisible to the others. Tworock and Luggoth, as the visible members of the party, were to draw the most attacks.

As the Cloud Giant and trolls roamed the massive chamber looking for Luggoth, Gunter cast Evard's Black Tentacles on the area, nearly trapping Lysander and Pel. However, they managed to move out of the area without giving away their location. Gunter began taunting them, claiming that he would add them to his army of the undead, and Tworock picked up on this as a way to find the arrogant necromancer and began trying to draw him out.

Gunter continued to yell out threats, which allowed Pel to guess at his location and move toward him. However, Gunter also continued to fire off spells, hitting Tworock with magic missiles, a ray of exhaustion and a ray of enfeeblement. As Lysander also moved toward where he thought Gunter was, drinking his last potion of heroism, Luggoth dodged between some of the trolls and caught the attention of the Cloud Giant skeleton.

Tworock began firing his bow at the Cloud Giant for minimal effect as it moved in and once again smashed Luggoth with its morningstar. The trolls disengaged, moving to block the exit, as Lysander cast a scroll of haste to empower everyone but Tworock, who was on the ceiling and out of range. Pel used his oil of keen edge on his rapier, struck at where he'd guessed Gunter was, and was pleased to hear the necromancer cry out in pain. Gunter struck back at the now visible Pel, though, leeching his energy with a vampiric touch, and as Pel crumpled to the floor, Lysander realized that the spell had probably healed Gunter's damage.

The Cloud Giant continued to swing at Luggoth, who dodged once thanks to his haste, but then suffered another solid blow, very nearly knocking him unconscious. Before fleeing the fight, he managed to hit Gunter as well. Lysander tried to use a vial of ink to spot Gunter, but he missed, and a splat of ink appeared on the wall. Meanwhile, Tworock used his dorje of skate and began moving quickly down the wall to where they thought the necromancer was.

Gunter responded with another ray of enfeeblement, this time draining much of Lysander's strength, but he suffered an attack of opportunity from Luggoth as a result. Tworock dropped his bow and drew his flail, psionically summoning animal affinity to make up for his lost strength.

As the Cloud Giant chased Luggoth around the room, Lysander healed Pel back up to consciousness, and Luggoth shifted back to his human form. The Cloud Giant moved in and attacked Tworock, who had now reached the ground, hitting the half-giant with a solid blow of his morningstar. Everyone then ran away to get clear of the Cloud Giant, knowing that any one of them would be killed by another hit from the massive undead creature.

Then Gunter's invisibility ended, and he stood revealed. Pel began trying desperately to activate his magic missiles, but the stress of the situation and the life-threatening damage he'd sustained made it nearly impossible for him. Luggoth began firing arrows, destroying mirror images, and Tworock used his psionic stomp to knock both Gunter and the Cloud Giant down for a brief time, giving the Wolves time to regroup and focus their attacks on the necromancer.

Gunter stood up and used a vampiric touch on Tworock, and Lysander activated his dragon mark to summon a shadow wall of flame around the Cloud Giant, as Luggoth moved in and struck Gunter again.

As the Cloud Giant swung and narrowly missed Lysander, and Gunter missed him with a ghoul's touch, Lysander struck back with his rapier and destroyed what remained of Gunter's stoneskin. Luggoth fired three more arrows, destroying the remaining mirror images and putting Gunter down with an arrow in his chest. The Cloud Giant turned on the creatures who had defeated its master, and things looked fairly dire for the wounded and exhausted Wolves.

Then Halas Martain emerged from the other chamber, carrying some sort of stone tablets, and he spoke words in the Giant tongue that froze the Cloud Giant in place. He apologized for his seeming cowardice, and told them that he had been searching for a way to stop the skeletons, and he found it amongst the sarcophagi in the back room. The Wolves weren't entirely buying this, but they did owe Halas their lives at this point, so they didn't push it.

After Pel stabilized Gunter with a cure minor wounds, he bound and gagged the still unconscious necromancer. Then they all turned to Halas and asked him what else he had found. He reluctantly produced a Khyber dragonshard from his bag, claiming that he had found two, but Pel knew he was lying, and pushed at him. Halas handed two more out and admitted that there were six. He argued that he should keep half, since he had discovered the Ruined Citadel, and no one was much in the mood to fight about it.

In the shadow of the inert Cloud Giant skeleton, the Wolves and Martain camped and rested for 8 hours, taking turns at guard. They made sure the troll skeletons, who had left the citadel during the fight, weren't coming back. They watched the Cloud Giant to make sure it didn't come back to active life. They made sure that whenever Gunter stirred, he was knocked back unconscious. And they made sure that Halas didn't make off with anything.

After resting, they emerged in the late afternoon to find four dead half-orc Tharask bounty hunters, clearly killed in a pitched battle with the troll skeletons. Before they had fled into the jungle, the skeletons had also destroyed the skiff. Fortunately, the Tharask bounty hunters had left behind four warhorses. Unfortunately, the Wolves were now stuck deep in the Xen'drik jungle, and they had to get back to Stormreach in less than two weeks to produce Gunter and prevent the Last War from breaking out all over again.

XP:
Luggoth 2400
Lysander 2400
Pel 3000
Tworock 3000