April 2, 2021 Game notes from Atalaya
Continuing the adventures of 16th of Mirtul, 1491 somewhere along the WNW border of the Forlorn Hills outside of Firehammer Hold
Atalaya looked at Tif with concern showing in her eyes. He was pacing around the others muttering to himself, clearly upset about finding the pit filled with the broken bodies of many, many people. “We are going to find out what happened to them Tif. You need to calm down so we can plan how we are going to do just that.”
Tifinin looked at her with despair and anger warring across his face. Not answering he turned away and continued his pacing. His despair gave way, leaving nothing but raging anger that burned through his body and filled his thoughts with nothing but revenge for those left in the pit and for the villagers that they had been looking for. Suddenly, even as Atalaya was looking straight at him, he disappeared from sight. Calling softly for him had no result. Atalaya wanted to pull her hair out, but instead turned back to the rest of the group, finding Macterah, Ivar and Vasilya watching her. Myricia, their small pseudodragon, had also disappeared.
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Atalaya led the small group of adventurers slowly and carefully towards the hold, searching out the most cover she could find, but keeping them as far from the pit as she could. With care they finally crossed the last open area and reached the double doors of the hold. They were massive stone doors with large 9 foot tall slate bas-relief statues of dwarven warriors flanking each side of the doorway. Large knockers were situated in the middle of each door at about a 4 foot tall height. As they approached the entrance to the hold, Atalaya heard Myricia’s voice in her head warning her that they needed to stop. Tif was already in the hold and needed them to wait until he returned outside. Atalaya, once again wanting to pull some hair out, but now not sure whether she wanted to pull out her own or Tifinin’s, signaled the others to hold still. Feeling highly exposed in the open area, Atalaya waited to hear something from Myricia or to see Tif appear through the closed doors.
After waiting for a few minutes that seemed like hours to Atalaya, Myricia announced that Tif was heading back out of the building. Suddenly her panicked mind voice called out “Now!!! You need to go now! Something has happened to Tif!”
Myricia’s voice must have been heard by everyone because Vasilya lunged towards the door, checking quickly for traps or locks, but finding none. He pushed the door open, revealing an empty hall. Macterah reached into her component pouch, pulled out a small packet containing some mistletoe ash and a sprig of spruce. Quickly opening it, she rubbed them together and tossed the ashes over the heads of the group. A slight feeling of power washed over their bodies and then silence prevailed as they entered the building looking for any signs of Tif. Trusting in Macterah’s spell to help keep them hidden, they carefully made their way down the hallway. Atalaya saw signs of blood ahead of her and ignoring the door she saw in the hallway made her way to where the blood trail began. Going down some steps she saw that it opened into a squarish room. She almost stumbled as she saw Tif suddenly appear at the end of the hallway.
Atalaya grabbed Tifinin and pulled him back up the hallway away from the opening to the room they could see ahead of them. Macterah dropped to her knees, checking for his pulse and looking for injuries. Slowly Tif started moving and then suddenly sat up looking around him. At the barrage of questions flung at him asking him what he had done and if he was hurt, it became apparent that he could remember nothing about what had just happened.
Once both Macterah and Atalaya were sure that he was not hurt more than having hit his head and being unable to remember recent events, the group carefully made their way into the room at the end of the hallway. It seemed to be a guard room. There was a fire burning in a corner fireplace, a table with a few chairs and some racks that probably once held weapons on either side of a door on the western wall. There was an archway in the northern wall with the hallway continuing beyond that. In the center of the room they could see the remains of several druegar, maybe four Atalaya thought, though it was hard to tell. Blood was everywhere and there were bits of hacked off limbs and flesh littering the floor. Atalaya looked at it in amazement and a little bit of fear. She could not imagine how they were all so terribly wounded and Tifinin had only been knocked out without other visible wounds. Tifinin looked over the bodies but still could not remember anything that had happened, or so he said.
Atalaya walked over to the door. Hearing nothing, she asked for Vaz or Ivar to check it for traps and locks. Finding none, Atalaya opened the door, saw a giant lizard and slammed the door shut before it could truly register that the door had been opened. Atalaya had not wanted to need to shoot it, therefore canceling the spell Macterah had placed on them.
With that area closed to them, Atalaya led everyone north through the archway and farther into the hold. The hallway ended in another room. This one was larger than the guardroom and seemed that at one time it might have been a chapel. There was a large statue of Haela Brightaxe, a dwarven battle goddess. Dried blood was everywhere over the floor although there were no signs of dead bodies. Atalaya looked around, taking it all in. She noticed arrow slits in the east and west walls. Looking through the eastern ones she saw druegar in the room behind the wall.
Tif had disappeared again, but the rest of the group readied themselves to ambush the druegar. Wishing that she could get them to congregate to make shooting them easier, Atalaya threw a gold coin into the room. Unfortunately, the druegar remained isolated, showing little interest in the coin and more in determining where it had come from. Taking a deep breath, Atalaya nodded at Mac, who sent a bolt of lightning into the room which killed one of them instantly and wounded another. Atalaya started shooting, as did Vaz and Ivar. The arrow slits both provided cover and made shooting more difficult. Even with that, they quickly dispatched the druegar that had been in the room.
Looking around, Atalaya noticed that Tifinin had made his way back into the room and was gesturing to them to follow him back the way we had come. Stopping at another set of carved stone double doors, he suggested that they try that way. The door specialists, Ivar and Vaz, checked the doors out and decided that they were both untrapped and unlocked. With another look at the elaborate carvings of fighting dwarves on the doors, Atalaya pushed them open and entered into the next passageway. This one was very short. The north and south walls are decorated with ornate brass torch scones and two friezes of azure slate that depict dwarves fighting dragons. Tif pushed ahead and opened the door at the end of the hallway and entered the room that appeared to be a dining room. Worried about Tifinin, Atalaya followed him, searching the room for any signs of more druegar.
The rest of the party started to follow just as two plumes of flame burst out of the walls. Atalaya and Vaz were in the direct path of these and even though they tried to dodge out of the way were still caught in the flames. Swatting out the flames Atalaya tried to determine what exactly had just happened. Looking around she noted two holes in the wall, one directly ahead of the entrance way, and one near the corner of the north wall in line with those entering the room. Eating the Goodberries handed to her by Macterah, she debated how to secure the room. Ivar, Tifinin,and Mac decided to place some tables along the walls in front of the holes. Atalaya was unsure whether or not they would actually provide any protection from the flames, but it felt good to at least try to do something.
There was a passageway in the wall near the northeast corner, heading north. Just as they were beginning to feel the effects of the Goodberries two druegars appeared in the passageway and were about to enter the room. Seeing the room full of intruders they immediately began shooting at Vasilya and Ivar who were closest to them. Both men were hit, but the commotion alerted the rest of the party. Atalaya had her bow drawn and arrows flying from it within seconds of seeing Vasilya hit. The druegar continued to appear from somewhere deeper in the building. While Atalaya’s attention was focused on the northern end of the room, a door opened in the southwestern wall and more druegar entered the fight from that side. These included two druegar priests. One of them cast a spell that seemed to paralyze Vasilya. Determined to protect Vasilya, Atalaya shot at the priest who she thought was preventing Vasilya from moving while Ivar grabbed him and pulled him behind a pillar, hoping that it would provide Vasilya with some more cover.
Mac, focusing on the power she gathered from the ground below her, had turned into an ape and was attacking the warriors and priests while Tifinin was shooting at them with his new magical crossbow bolts. The battle was short but very intense. Ape Mac was damaged enough that she returned to her natural form. She saw Ivar get a shot off that killed the priest that was bespelling Vasilya. Tif continued to shoot at anything threatening Macterah.
Suddenly there was silence. Atalaya looked around realizing that there was no one left to shoot at. With a muffled cry she headed towards Vasilya, muttering curses about his thinking he needed to be a walking pincushion. Reaching his side she knelt beside him and carefully cut away the broken arrow and removed the arrowheads. Cleaning out the wounds as best she could, she placed her palms together and made a small circle as she said something that Vaz could not quite make out. Then as her hands started to glow with a warming healing energy she placed them over his wounds, willing them to close and for his body to return to health. Her eyes closed in concentration as she continued her low muttered mantra of healing. Atalaya could feel the skin knitting together. After a few moments she felt the last of the healing energy leave her hands. Looking at Vasilya she could tell that he was better but probably still hurting. Bidding Vasilya to sit still, she looked around to see if anyone else was hurt.
Not seeing Macterah immediately, she got up to look for her and noticed her coming out of the room that the priests must have come out of. At Macterah’s gesture, she hurried over to see what the room held. The first thing she noticed was the throne. Then she saw the fireplace and the bedrolls in front of it. As she looked further she noticed the bas-reliefs of dwarven kings, the black banner with a broken crossbow bolt held in red hands hanging on the wall. Looking at Macterah, she noticed that Mac was carrying some scrolls and a silver bowl back towards the rest of the group.
Deciding that a short rest was needed as everyone recovered from the recent fight, everyone worked together to block the entrances to the room as well as possible and then looked over the scrolls. They seemed to be renovation plans for the hold. Using those, the group decided that the mine must be to the north end of the structure. Looking into the silver bowl revealed a collection of teeth; human, halfling and possibly elven. Atalaya shuttered as she looked at them and took out a small pouch and placed the teeth into it, vowing silently to herself to bury them with the elven ear necklaces in the dryad’s grove outside of Julkoun.
After a couple of hours, they got ready to press on, looking for where the Julkounian captives were being held, more certain than ever that this was where they had been brought. Tif, unable to wait for everyone else to get ready, headed out on his own. Atalaya watched him leave wondering what was driving him. She had never seen him so hyper focused and bloodthirsty before. Carefully and methodically they searched through the rooms they came upon, eliminating any druegar they came across. There were several barrack rooms. One that had more arrow slits revealing a cavern with a rail track and a minecart in it. The tracks seemed to start in that room and lead off in a northerly direction. Beyond the minecart Atalaya could see two iron gates and then more druegar behind the second grate. Another room they found held a large furnace with a bellows system.
Behind the barrack rooms was a passage that appeared to lead to a lower level. Atalaya wanted to go that way, looking for the mine and the villagers. Tifinin, however, was determined to head back to the Chapel room and search the passages on the other side. Atalaya, seeing that he was driven to explore the entire hold and would not rest until it had been searched, and would probably leave them and search them on his own if they did not go with him, gave in to Tifinin. “Just let me make a quick check to be sure that this is the way down and that there is no one there right now to creep up behind us.” Tifinin agreed to wait just long enough for her to do that. Determining that there was no one likely to come up behind them, and that this seemed to be the way deeper into the hold, hopefully into the mine, Atalaya came back to the group and then started back through the rooms they had already cleared of threats. Through the dining room, and back to the Chapel room the crept, keeping as quiet as possible.
Entering the passage to the west of the chapel room, Atalaya and Ivar were in front of the others. As the hallway turned and headed back in the direction of the chapel Atalaya heard the sounds of metal scraping along the walls. Looking up she saw a gate crashing down in front of her. Turning to race back in the other direction she saw a gate drop down behind them. Both she and Ivar were caught between the gates. Tif, Vaz and Macterah raced to the gate trying to raise it so that they could get out. Looking up the passage, past the first gate Atalaya could see more druegar racing to attack whoever their trap had caught. Drawing her bow Atalaya took aim at the shot at them as they appeared, as did Ivar. After that small annoyance was settled, Atalaya and Ivar returned to the gate where their friends were trying to release them. Tifinin put on his ring and with the added strength that it imparted to him was able to raise the gate high enough for Ivar and Atalaya to roll out from under. Giving up and moving through in that direction, they returned to their previous location, outside the door that they were sure would open into the caverns behind the hold and hopefully to where the Julkounian captives were being held.
Session Ends.
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