Iron Will, Part 3

From The Griffin's Crier
Jump to: navigation, search

About the Saga

After retreating from the Star Cairn, the Blackrazors rest and prepare for another assault on the angry toys below ground. Terrek Redknife dies.

Timeframe

Cast of Characters

Notable Quotes

None.

What Has Come Before

The Blackrazors -- Kalib Ironfist, D'klar Ironforge, Terrek Redknife, Tanevir Calywyn, Mist Silvershroud and Gaiseric -- have begun their exploration of another of the Star Cairns. While the first one had been filled with incompetent bandits, deadly golems wandered the halls of the second.

On their first foray into the cairn the Blackrazors explored a handful of rooms, encountering iron golems, strange mechanical constructs, and a time-lost Balkluni merchant Xaxe. Read "Iron Will, Part 1"

Later, Mist Silvershroud, the Blackrazors’ junior ranger elf, was transformed into a stone golem and Terrek Redknife was blasted by the portrait of a god surrounded by volcanoes.

Sensing that their luck was beginning to run out, the Blackrazors withdrew to the surface. As they camped for the night they were attacked by a swarm of harpies, which they managed to drive off largely in part to their newly ‘stoned’ elven recruit, Mist. The following morning – on the 28th of Sunsebb, C.Y. 587 -- the mage Aesop teleported into the site with the terramancer Sven Kildare and the cavalier Demetry Hawkins. Sven transformed the elf into his natural form using a stone to flesh spell. Aesop then teleported back to Greyhawk, this time with Xaxe as a passenger.

The Saga

Sunsebb 28th, CY 587

Ironheaded

As the dawn of Sunsebb 28th, ended and the last traces of Aesop’s teleporation spell faded into nothingness, the Blackrazors re-entered the Star Cairn.

They started their exploration where they had left off, outside of the last unexplored door on the first level – the last, that is, except for any concealed behind the twin walls of fire and iron blocking the southern entrance.

Terrek, who was in the process of pysching himself into a berserker range in anticipation of the inevitable conflict, opened the door. It was an iron slab, and it hurt when explosive charges mounted around its edges sent it flying into the warrior.

As Terrek entered the room – it was some sort of kitchen -- he found an iron golem and immediately let his rage fly. He charged into battle as the iron door he’d knocked down was replaced by a second one.

Terrek’s frenzied attacks bounced off the creature’s iron skin. As with his first fight with one of these creatures, his attacks were totally ineffective. The big man didn’t notice. Just as he didn’t notice the iron man’s blows, or the sound of his own bones breaking under the thing’s attack.

Crystal Door, Flying Blades

Sven fingered his staff as he studied the iron door. Yes, he thought, I think this will work. He touched the staff of the elements to the door and the iron was transformed into brittle crystal. Knowing it was only a matter of time until the berzerker – the damned, unthinking berzerker – was killed by the golem, Kalib smashed the crystal with Justiceseeker and ran into the room.

Kalib immediately engaged the golem, which opened its mouth and let out a poisoness green gas. Kalib managed to avoid sucking it down and within a minute the gas had dissapaited into harmles vapors. Yogesh ran into the room as soon as the gas was gone, swung around Terrek’s side, and knocked the berzerker unconscious with a color spray spell.

With the barbarian prevented – at least for the moment – from getting himself killed, Kalib and the others fell back into the adjoining room.

The golem followed, pounding Kalib and Tanevir with its iron fists. Then disaster struck – one after another Kalib and Tanevir struck at the golem and watched in dismay as their swords (Justiceseeker and Darkbane, respectively) went flying from their hands.

The golem hadn’t used any sort of powerful magic – the mishap occurred entirely because of foul-ups on the part of the two Blackrazors. As Tanevir dove to recover his blade, Kalib tried to avoid the golem’s attacks. He had let the construct back him into a corner, and his disastrous miss had sent Justiceseeker had flying clear across the room. The screw-up had cost him the one magical weapon powerful enough to damage the creature, and the only thing left for him to do was try and duck his opponent’s attacks.

His attempts failed. The iron golem’s fists slammed into him again and again, and as the blood ran down his face, blinding him in one eye momentarily. He looked around frantically, and saw the Yogesh running for Darkbane, and had a sickening realization – the cowardly bard was his best chance to get out of this mess alive.

Golem Smashdown

The Balkluni ran for Darkbane, picked it up with one dexterous reach, and swung it over to Tanevir. One blade recovered, he thought, now if I could just get these fool warriors to stop throwing their weapons. Or perhaps not. This would make a wonderful little comedy, perhaps something like, ‘ye Great Blackrazors went into the cairn … and died.’ He ran over to where Justiceseeker had landed, and has he picked up the sword he felt an intense buzzing in his mind. The damn blade was trying to take control of his mind. Yogesh ground his teeth together and forced back the sword’s mental tendrils. Get out of my mind or I’ll write my greatest epic yet mocking the ways of the ‘great’ Trithereon! Yogesh shouted mentally at the sword.

You’re as incompetent as Kalib, the sword growled back. Golems! Hah! Magical constructs! Hah! Murderers, we should be hunting murders! he screamed at Yogesh, punctuating his words with a burst of electricity that shocked the bard. As the bright pain subsided he looked up and saw Kalib evade the golem and run toward him. "Do you want Justiceseeker?"

Kalib glowered in the sword’s direction. "No." Yogesh dropped the sword to the floor and the two men watched as Tanevir landed two fast blows against the golem. The creature staggered, slumped and then crumbled into a pile of inanimate rust. Wearily, Kalib reach down, picked up Justiceseeker, ignored the sword’s rantings about hunting murderers, and slid it into its hilt.

With the iron golem destroyed, the Blackrazors could turn their attention to the fallen barbarian. The dwarven war cleric D’klar, who had reluctantly hung back from the battle, went into the other room and touched two craggy fingers to the man’s throat. He was dead. "Cursed redshirts," D’klar muttered. "Can’t stay alive for more than one expedition, can you?" he stood as Kalib and Tanevir approached. "He’s dead."

Kalib grunted. He’d expected something like this after the berzeker had charged the first iron golem outside of the cairn. "Trithereon guard your soul," he said, and then turned to Yogesh, who had just joined them. "Take anything we can use and then move his body by the stairs. We’ll bury him later."

An Unexpected Recruit

After resting for a few hours – and fending off another of the black tentacled horrors after the uninformed Demetry inadvertently examined another of the privies, the Blackrazors advanced to the second level. They found another pair of the strange runes at the base of the stairs, but before they could spend more than a few seconds examining them, Yogesh said "Do you hear something?" The Blackrazors spun around in time to see a beautiful woman descending the stairs. Kalib rubbed one of his eyes and cocked his head to the side. "Who," he said, choosing his words carefully, "are you?"

"Surya," she said. "The others in your guild said I could find you here."

Kalib shot a glance at Tanevir. "Oh really?" he said.

"Yes, I’d like to join your group."

"And why do you want to join?" the cleric asked.

"I have no idea," she said, a faint smile on her lips.

"Do you do dishes?" Demetry asked. Yogesh stifled a giggle. For a cavalier, Demetry being particularly ‘romantic.’

"I cast spells. I don’t do dishes," she retorted.

Tanevir stepped forward, slipping on his ‘guildmaster’ hat. "Adventuring is a lot of work, dishes included," he said. Let’s take this upstairs."

Dwarven Failure

"So Surya," Tanevir said quietly, "have you met with Gef?"

"Who’s Gef?"

The others snickered. "We need to assess your combat skills," the guildmaster explained. "Normally that means that you fight our master-of-arms, Gef, in a training bout. But since he is not here, we’ll have to improvise. Kalib immediately stepped forward, but before he could speak, D’klar said "I’ll gladly substitute for our honorable trainer."

Tanevir nodded. "Make it quick my friend – we still have much to explore in this strange lair."

What followed was quick and embarressing. As the traditional gold piece bets traded hands, D’klar faced off against Surya – and found that the female mage was actually pretty damn good. After two rounds, the woman was still standing. "Double or nothing?" Kalib said, referring to the bet he’d placed with the dwarf that the mage would be unconscious in two rounds. "Say she drops in four?"

"Of course," D’klar responded, and swung his axe at Surya.

The damn witch didn’t fall in four rounds though – she fell in five. As D’klar helped the woman to her feet, and cast a healing spell to bring her back up to full speed, the dwarf could hear his friends giggling behind him.

"I can see why so many dwarven holds are in the hands of orcs and goblins," the redshirt Mist Silvershroud said, barely holding in his laughter.

"Take … that … back." the dwarf growled as his hand fell to his battle axe. "Take it back now, or I’ll expose your elven brain to the foul air of this crypt."

"I take it back, I take it back," Mist said and turned away so the dwarf couldn’t see his the huge smile on his slender face.

Back to the Crypt

The taunting continued as the Blackrazors went back into the second level and began exploring a set of rooms branching to the northwest. D’klar pouted as the group entered the first of the rooms. Like the others, it was pentagonal and it had nothing in the way of decoration. It had two exits, one on the northern wall and one on the western wall. "D’klar, check the room for magic with your axe," Kalib said.

"Pah," the dwarf said, declining. Let them mock my combat abilities – and we’ll see how far they can get without them, he thought.

Kalib, having survived Luc’s ‘King under the Mountain’ phase, merely shrugged and turned to Scrappy. "Can you do something about that door?" he said, pointing to the northern one.

It turned out he couldn’t. The door wasn’t locked and – after close examination – it didn’t seem to have any of the magical runes that they had encountered on the door upstairs. Frustrated, Kalib turned the door handle and looked down in surprise when a tiny needle pricked his finger. Scrappy had checked for runes and locks – but they had forgotten about the more mundane sort of traps. D’klar immediately ran up, placed a hand on Kalib, and cast slow poison. That gave the human cleric enough time to cast neutralize poison on himself.

"Thanks D’klar," Kalib said.

"You can thank me by keeping your mouth shut."

Fire Portals

After Scrappy disarmed the hidden trap on the second door, Kalib opened both of the portals. The opening triggered two fire traps – the runes had been hidden on the opposite side of the door – but Kalib’s protection from fire spell absorbed the damage from the flames. With the way clear, Scrappy moved down the western corridor. When he made it about halfway down the passageway, a voice spoke a phrase in a language that he – and the others – couldn’t understand. He quickly withdrew.

Kalib scoffed at the thief’s caution. "If we don’t understand it, it can’t hurt us," he said. "Let’s go."

With that, Demetry, Tanevir, Scrappy and Kalib headed down the corridor. As they reached the door at then end a powerful fear erupted in Scrappy and Kalib’s minds, sending them fleeing from the hall. Undaunted, Demetry opened the door before him. A ribbon of fire ran arounds its edges, burning slightly him. He swung the door open – and then cursed as he saw a huge golem made from some sort of packed clay. This is going to hurt, he thought.

And it did.

Golem Redux

Tanevir watched in horror as the cavalier crumbled after the clay golem’s first attack. Then he backstepped, trying to get to the room where the rest of the Blackrazors – minus Gaiseric and Kalib of course – would be able to help him fight the damn thing. As he stepped into the room, Sven brought up his staff of the elements and launched a dig spell at the golem. That seemed to hurt it, but not enough. It landed a blow against Tanevir, who promptly withdrew from the combat. Enraged – and disappointed that his dig spell hadn’t been more effective – Sven transformed himself into earth elemental. Two punches in that form were enough to break the golem.

Tanevir recovered Demetry’s fallen form, and D’klar was able to restore both of them to some degree of health – but not all of it. The golem’s attack had left both Tanevir and Demetry in a weakened state, and D’klar’s healing magics were not enough to negate it. Tanevir ordered a retreat, and when the Blackrazors arrived on the first level they found Kalib catching his breath. "Scrappy’s still outside," he said, gasping. "Sorry about that – don’t know what came over me there."

They grabbed Terrek’s body and climbed the stairs to the surface, where Scrappy was waiting for them. Once on the surface they found that Kalib couldn’t heal their two severely injured companions. Realizing they needed to re-group and recover, the Blackrazors reluctantly decided to head back to Greyhawk. They finally arrived back at the guild hall on the 7th of Fireseek, C.Y. 588, a week after the New Year’s festivities had ended.

Experience & Loot

  • No experience and/or loot is available for this saga.
Retrieved from "http://wiki.griffcrier.com/index.php?title=Iron_Will,_Part_3&oldid=5620"