Session 7: Dark Dwarves, Horrible Halflings, Terrible Trolls

2nd Weekend of August 2010

The story so far:

The Horsemen surprisingly spare duergar smith Urwol's life. Urwol repaid their mercy by sparing no threats of vengeance and destruction from his brothers Rundarr and Murkelmor awaiting them in the other chambers of Horned Hold. After a brief and ineffective interrogation, the Horsemen tire of his threats and re-repaid him by not sparing his life after all with a quick shove into the yawning 300 feet deep chasm.


Another Life is Not Spared

The Platinum Dragon's symbol

Rather than crossing the narrow bridge into the larger part of the Hold, the Horsemen proceed to a connecting corridor leading to the kitchens and mess hall. They stealthily skulk around for a while but manage to raise alarms as they crossed the room with the ovens. A jumpy Crono hurls a shuriken at the startled figure who opened a door to peek at the noise the group was making. The halfling rogue realized too late that the figure was a helpless and innocent slave, struck dead when the shuriken hit it in the back of the head, creating a pool of spilled innocent blood. Crono, a devout worshipper of lawful good Platinum Dragon, just shrugs it off and skulks off to flank the approaching enemies.

Duergar scouts materialize from the gray walls and divide the group, paving the way for their champion Rundarr, who manages to whack several characters unconscious with his +2 flaming warhammer. The 4 feet tall angry duergar swelled to large proportions when he got bloodied, but it only signaled his impending end. Troll delightfully picks up the burning weapon while Crono tries to say sorry to two other slaves scared of the belligerent little dude.

Duergar flavors

Since the Horsemen doesn't really care about the details of their quest, they neglect to ask these two if they are the captives taken from Winterhaven that they're looking for. They send the absent Aaron's Juno and Josh's Lone Wolf to escort them back to the Seven Pillared Hall along with a keg of ale to ease their way.


Priest of Asmodeus

The remaining Horsemen debate for a while which bridge to take across the windy chasm: the wider one ending in reinforced doors slitted for arrow fire, or the rail-less narrow one. Briefly haunted by the image of a falling Jace, they nevertheless choose the latter, ending in an unoccupied room filled with debris. They slowly but not silently slide open a door leading to what seems to be an infirmary, with the healer shouting in anger at the disturbance of his work.

Asmodeus' symbol

He turns out to be a cleric of Asmodeus, deity of power and tyranny, and manages to lengthen his allies's lives. Two crossbow shaped homunculus fire a rain of arrows at the characters to defend their guarded area. Though they suffer many wounds, Elros, Crono, Jim Castillo, Troll and Jace inflict much more.

After Jim happily frees his evil counterpart of its +2 holy healer's mace and healer's brooch, another brief debate ensued about whether to keep the sick unconscious duergar alive. It seems the Horsemen are subtly developing a conscience as they spared this one's life.

We'll see if this will develop into true heroic valor, or if it's just a fluke.


PS.

Troll's malingering acts of lasciviousness and debauchery led to him contracting a disease. Specifically, he got afflicted with a fever and his dingdong turned green.