Rurik's Mission VIII

 The Bell Gnolls for Thee

            We were all quite delighted to see the progress that Seamus and the stone masons had made while we were on our last adventure.  The foundation of the new fort had been marked out and the first stones of the outer wall had already been placed.  This new fort would truly be impressive.  The square outer walls would be a full four hundred feet long on a side, and they would be thirty feet high.  Round towers would be built at each corner.  There would be plenty of space inside for our small group, as well as a substantial force of defenders, artisans, or anyone else we might want to have living here.  We checked our supplies, and found that our food stores, while stable, might need a boost incase we faced a longer winter.  Scout volunteered to spend the next few days collecting foods that could be brought back and preserved.  Rigel spent several days at the construction site taking measurements and making sketches.  He announced that he had a wonderful idea for a mosaic courtyard design, and would start on it immediately.  Seamus was still caught up in organizing and managing our supplies and Kwarthian was using his magic to supply food for the small number of workers at the camp and heal the injuries that were inevitable on such a massive job.  Arcadius, Baridin, Kreger, and I soon became bored with the quiet life and decided to head out again.

We decided to continue patrolling our immediate surroundings to help make the fort safer and discover any more dangers that might threaten us in the future.  We decided to head back to the original bandit camp to see if we could get another lead on the gnolls in the area.  The trip out was clear of danger, so we made camp in the safe niche provided by the hills.  The night was also quiet.  Then, as the dawn sun rose over the hills, a small band of orcs wandered into our camp.  I called the alarm to wake, and three orcs charged me while the fourth stayed on top of the hill.  I fatally wounded one of the orcs as it charged in, and started working on the other two.  The fourth orc started casting spells and the orc I had just killed slowly climbed to its feet and started attacking again.  This had the makings of a long fight.  Baridin and Kreger charged the spell caster.  I continued working on the orcs in front of me.  It didn’t take too long for me to kill them all, and this time none of them got back up.  I looked up the hill to see how the other dwarves were doing.  Everything seemed fine, but then Baridin turned and started attacking Kreger!  They must have been fighting over the kill or something.  It is common in dwarf society to compete for kills, but these contests almost never come to blows between the dwarves.  I thought my comrades would have more sense than that.  I charged up the hill and killed the shaman myself before the fighting within group got too bad.  If they wanted to fight dwarves, they could answer to me.  Fortunately, that seemed to clear the air, and there was no noticeable animosity between Kreger and Baridin, so I let the incident slide with just a warning.

Since day was upon us, we packed up and turned south to clear the path to the river.  Just south of the camp, we found a large tunnel spider.  I remember discussing spiders and venoms with Scout during our travels, and these looked just like some that she had described.  This species of spiders was known to produce paralyzing venom.  I wandered through the area for a little while and discovered that there was an entire population of these tunnel spiders in this region.  We carefully marked the area on our map, but decided to leave them alone for now.  We would come back to monitor the population, but for now they weren’t hurting anyone.  Just a short distance south of the spiders, we passed a small cliff topped with a pile of boulders.  As we walked by, a flash of light blinded us as lightning struck from a cloudless sky.  Then, a humanoid-face on a snake’s body reared up from the rocks and launched another bolt of electricity at us that took Kreger right in the chest.  He collapsed, unconscious, but alive.  Knowing we had to stop this strange creature, I charged the cliff and managed to climb the cliff.  Baridin and I had the fight well in hand when I felt a sting on the back of my neck.  The sneaky bastard had wormed its tail out through the rocks and was using its sting to attack.  Terrible thoughts started filling my mind and I felt an urge to lay down which I only just did manage to shrug off.  We did kill the beast while Arcadius administered healing magics to revive Kreger.  We noted this outcrop on our map as it seemed a nice feature once the naga was removed.  We continued south and set up camp near the river that evening.  As we followed the river back to the fort the next day, we moved through the blighted area we had cleared out just a few months earlier.  Already new grasses were growing and the sickly appearance of the forest was dissipating.  This gave us hope as we continued our travels.  Nature will always find a way.

That night, we camped in a small apple grove about half a day travel from the fort.  A small gnollish hunting party was searching for apples, but stumbled onto our camp and attacked us instead.  Arcadius was up and sent of a quick fireball to weaken their party.  Despite the fact we were outnumbered three to one, we managed to defeat them and bring three prisoners back to the fort.  As we walked in the gates, we found that the caravan had returned already.  We delivered the prisoners to Kwarthian’s shrine for safe keeping then went to business purchasing more iron and steel to replenish our dwindling supplies.  The caravan leader reported that they had a minor skirmish with some gnolls about half a day to the north, but they had been disposed of without too much trouble.  We also had four more recruits:  two were stone masons and went to work right away.  The other two were more military minded.  One did have some training in stone, so we hired him as an apprentice stone mason and guard for the masons while they were quarrying or working on the keep.  The other actually had some weapon crafting training, so we hired him on to work the forges while Kreger and I were out, and to assist us when we needed something built quickly.  Two elves were also in the caravan, and requested a meeting with us in the morning.  We agreed and invited them to join in the festivities that evening.  We celebrated long into the night, and rose early the next afternoon to meet with the elves.

We made introductions, finding that the elves were brothers:  Terrace and Jhorlin Lightstar.  They then asked to visit the resting place of Hippston, so we led them to the cairn we had built in the forest.  They both paid their respects then cast a number of spells that transformed the simple pile of rocks into a permanent monument.  We then traveled back to the fort and got down to business.  They were sent by the elven council to report on the research into the veil.  While it was a little more refined, there was really no new information about the thin separation between our plane and the plane of negative energy.  Furthermore, the negative energy rifts were still being made, so we had to go back to work.  They had located another rift about two days northwest of our camp.  This was also the region of highest gnoll activity in the area, so the elves were worried that the two might be related.  The elves provided us with a pile of platinum and a few scrolls to help us prepare for this mission.  Arcadius asked the elves if they would teach him a few more spells before they left, so we waited a few more days before heading out.  Kreger and I took the time to churn out a nice pile of crossbow bolts.  Finally, we were ready to go, so I made a request to the caravan for two signet rings, one each for the two new members of our group, and we walked with the caravan for a while until we had to split off to our respective destinations.  Just after leaving the caravan, we found two massive burial mounds, the remnants of the small skirmish the caravan had faced a few days before.  We were amazed at the complete one-sidedness of the victory for the caravan didn’t take a single fatality while the mounds likely held dozens, if not hundreds, of dead gnolls.  We continued on toward the location the elves had indicated.  We found the remnants of a battle.  Bodies of gnolls and orcs littered the ground, but we did not find any survivors.  Just beyond, we discovered the entrance to the gnoll lair.  We decided that this would be the best place to start.  At the very least, we should be able to remove the threat of gnoll raids even if we didn’t find this negative energy rift.

We marched right up to the entrance, not at all surprised when the two sentries out front sounded a horn and started firing their bows at us.  I intentionally took a couple of hits from those arrows as a test.  Sure enough, I felt the sting of poison as the arrows bit into my flesh.  I called out a warning to my comrades then charged.   Even with the reinforcements summoned by the horn, we easily defeated this first wave of defenders.  During the fight, a gnoll shaman and used magic to paralyze me, so I took a few more hits than I would have in a fair fight.  Arcadius had not heeded my warning, and looked more like a pin cushion than an elf.  He was also greatly weakened by the poison from the arrows.  We used a few magical cures on ourselves and decided that we were ok to proceed.  We managed to reach the first chamber in the underground stronghold of the gnolls.  Some archers were waiting for us.  As soon as we engaged the archers, two more patrols of gnolls charged into the room, one from each of the tunnels that went deeper into the hill.  We dispatched these two patrols and were trying to decide how to proceed when a large gnoll appeared from a side tunnel.  He was prodding a pair of carrion crawlers before him.  He released them on us before running back down the tunnel.  Baridin was paralyzed during the fight, but I had a little experience in fighting such beasts, so we were able to kill the beasts and break Baridin’s paralysis.  All our spell casters were drained at this point, so we made a tactical retreat so we could resume the assault the next day.  We were pretty sure the gnolls would all be in their stronghold, trying to fortify for a renewed assault, but we were still worried that orcs might attack.  We did manage to make it through the night without incident, however, and returned to find the entrance of the gnoll stronghold with a double guard.  Apparently, they called on their elite archers to defend today, as many more arrows landed during our assault, but we did manage to defeat not only this first guard, but a second wave of gnolls who had charged, hoping to catch us unaware after we defeated the first guards.  We returned to the first chamber, and decided to take the corridor deeper into the hill rather than the side corridor that the carrion crawlers had used the day before.

As we traveled, we saw many fire pits and what looked to be the remains of family camps, but no gnolls.  These tunnels were a combination of natural caves and poorly constructed tunnels.  It was amazing that the gnolls hadn’t brought the entire hill down on their heads yet.  A little further on, we found the abandoned warrens, but the tunnel continued further.  At a depth of about three hundred feet below the surface, the tunnel opened up into a massive cavern.  At the far end of the cavern was a large waterfall that crashed down into a lake.  A small stream ran from the lake and disappeared in the cavern wall.  There was also another tunnel off to the other side of the lake.  In the lake was a small island where three shamans were dancing around a mound of earth and stone.  As they danced the pile grew larger.  Five gnolls guarded a bridge that lead from the main chamber to the island.  In the center of the chamber was a large bonfire around which another six gnolls were gathered, trying to keep warm until they needed to defend their shamans.  Kreger and I immediately charged to try and reach the shamans while Baridin and Arcadius stayed back to deal with the other gnolls.  As we charged, the shamans finished their summoning and the large earth elemental disappeared into the ground.  Kreger and I managed to break the line of defense and reach the shamans.  One of the shamans produced a ray that struck my armor, making it feel much heavier than it should, but I was determined to stop this madness, so I pressed on.  I made it to the bridge to the island and started slaying shamans.  I was tossing shamans left and right.  They fell into the lake, and on the bridge, and back onto the island.  With the shamans gone, we had to fight our way back through the guards to find the earth elemental.  I got there just in time so that Baridin and I could work together to shatter the magic holding the elemental on our plane.  Meanwhile, Kreger had left to assist Arcadius, who had fallen beneath the elemental’s powerful attacks.  With the elemental and shamans gone, it turned into a simple mop up operation.  As we quickly mowed through the remaining gnolls, a sound like a large drum filled the cavern and a pressure wave radiated from the lake.  Suddenly, everything we had killed rose and started attacking again.  The two remaining gnolls fled for their lives and Arcadius called for us to regroup at the center of the cavern.  We all met there just as the newly risen zombies converged on us.  Then, the waterfall split and a massive skeleton clambered out from the rock behind.  It was a monstrous bipedal skeleton with huge teeth.  Arcadius quickly used one of his scrolls to erect a dome of force, and we were all safe for a few minutes, but now we could not escape, either.  Arcadius then cast a spell of light on a coin.  He explained that this was no ordinary light, but rather a holy light that should close the negative energy rift.  With that, the coin disappeared as Arcadius cast another scroll that had been granted him.  Suddenly, the entire cavern was filled with explosions and all the zombies and skeletons that had been attacking fell back to the earth.  While we would have liked to have pillaged the gnoll stronghold, we were in pretty sad shape, so we had to get back to a safe place and fast.  We marched through the night, to get back to the fort.  It rained that night, and the four of us were exhausted from the battle and having walked the entire night to get home, so we slept well.

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