"Indeed we should. It could be a disaster if they found anything powerful that could protect their hordes," Hrarsk answers. He would wait to finish his meal before urging the others to make haste.
Having already eaten her carrots and bean sprouts, Fortuna is sitting cross-legged and relaxed on the floor near the fire. At her friends' conversation, she opens her eyes and pays attention.
"I agree we need to find the slaying gear in the tomb, or at least try. We might die doing it, but you guys are going to die soon enough if you keep eating slabs of dead cow like that. Might as well fall gloriously in battle," she chimes in, "But what about that army? Sure, the gear will help, but six of us aren't going to stop an entire giant army, no matter how good we are. There better be a non-giant army on the way to stop it, or this town is finished."
She rises gracefully and bends slowly to the side.
Collecting Fortuna's plate, Bethany plops down another ale in front of the wizard. "I call this one 'Dead Cow Brew'," she narrates with a smile. "Drink up!"
Fortuna eyes Bethany narrowly. "Is there actual dead cow in it?"
She had heard all about orcs and half-orcs. They did some weird things.
Bethany frowns thoughtfully for a moment before answering. "'Spose it depends on your definition of 'actual'," she replies with a shrug, before turning to the others with a mischievous grin.
Oblivious the the exchange over Bethany's custom brews Doug suddenly blurts out. "We could just find ourselves toe to toe with this storm caller guy and cut the head of the snake so to speak." He pauses a moment as he realizes how ridicules his idea sounds. "It could happen right?"
Khel chuckles at the exchange between Fortuna and Beth, adding, "And it turns out there's more than one definition of 'dead', as we saw back in that cave where we found the first half of the stone."
Against his better judgment, he finds himself agreeing with Bethany about the map, "I don't really want to get any closer to this giant army, or army of giants, or giant army of giants, but we might find something we could use to stop them. And if nothing else, we can keep whatever treasures might be there out of the giants' giant hands."
With a very skeptical look at Doug, he says, "Not sure about the odds of that, Doug, but I'd be okay with not running into the head or the body of the snake."
The party once again tracks into the great wilderness...
Following the geode treasure map, you arrive at the base of Stag’s Pike, a slender stone spire in the Mindspin Mountains near the border between Belkzen and Varisia.
From Stag’s Pike, a narrow footpath climbs into the high mountains where the dwarves of Janderhoff built their mining fortresses in past centuries. But the map points away from those settlements, instead indicating an overgrown trail that leads to a high and lonely plateau overlooking the source of the Runtash River.
While little is left of the path, small, weatherworn stone markers placed every hundred feet or so still mark the route.
Upon reaching the plateau, the trail heads into a secluded wood of pale, silvery aspens with golden leaves swaying slowly in the brisk and chilly mountain breeze. According to the map, the tomb of Nargrym Steelhand lies within the wood....
Aspen leaves rustle gently, glittering like the pale, golden embers of a forge fire. The wood seems peaceful and quiet.
"Lovely day for a stroll through the hills, isn't it?" Fortuna remarks, pulling her cloak around her against the cool breeze. "Good thing the sun is out to keep us warm. Who will lead the way?"
Bethany pulls her cloak around her as well, though her uneasy sidelong glances into the forest give lie to her action being breeze-related. "Just hope these trees don't judge by appearance," she comments softly. "If any of the tales of living woods have a swig of truth, I'd bet a barrel of my finest that this is one of 'em."
"Those tales don't always end well for my kind," she adds after a pause.
"Nice weather, pretty trees an no signs of trouble. Looks like nothing but smooth sailing ahead." Doug says with a big grin "I don't mind taking point and I'm sure if this is a living wood they'll be perfectly obliging."
"Exactly." Fortuna graces the paladin with a beaming smile. "You're getting awfully jumpy, Bethany."
Bethany shakes her head. "That's what all the folks in stories say," she replies to Doug's assurances, "and what happens? Nice weather, one of 'em gets struck by lightning. Pretty trees, some of 'em's got a grudge. No signs of trouble? Don't even get me started on all the tales where there's no signs of trouble..."
Shaking her head again, she glances over at Fortuna. "Guess I've just heard too many tales in my time."
Khel sets off on the trail with a spring in his step, and manages to sustain it for a surprisingly long time before his natural tendency to see threats behind every bush moves to the fore. Bethany's tales of disaster lurking behind every sunny, peaceful day do little to calm his nerves, and he's soon turning his head one way and his eyes another as he tries to spot the threat that's sure to come.
"Um, Doug?" he speaks up, "Maybe I should lead the way, as whatever is out there is less likely to hear me and decide to ambush us."
Although spiderwebs and shadows lurk in the woods nothing attacks the party, although you do have an eerie sense of begin watched.
Eventually The aspen wood thins, forming a small clearing around a large granite obelisk covered with runes.
Pillars flank a small, dark archway leading inside the obelisk. Above the pillars, the symbol of a clenched fist is carved into the stone. A strange structure, resembling a tent of shimmering gray webs woven between logs, surrounds the obelisk.
Pushing the webs away, the interior of the obelisk houses a flight of narrow and precariously steep stairs descending into a dark shaft that plummets to an unknown depth within the earth. The passing years have crusted the walls and stairs with overlapping rings of yellow and pale green lichen.
"I was expecting some sort of stone slab or door that would need to be moved, but hey no heavy lifting." Doug says as he heads down the stairs.
Bethany takes her usual position in the rear, protecting the group from threats from behind.
"Hopefully someone else hasn't moved it before us," Hrarsk points out, a bit worried about the possibility of finding here servants of the storm king.
"I'd expect all kinds of terrible things attacking us on the stairs, pushing us off to fall to our deaths," Khel mutters glumly, "that's if the giant spiders that made those webs up above don't eat us first."
He follows behind Doug, eyes and ears alert for their inevitable doom.
The webs are much larger than would be left by normal spiders. You suspect some sort of intelligent creature like ettercaps, or driders, or webdemons but what created them is a mystery for now.
Descending to the bottom of the shaft...
Other than your echoing footsteps things are eerily quiet as webs stretch between the walls of the chamber at the bottom of the shaft, supporting two large, webbed cocoons hanging a few feet above the floor. A large circular stone disk stands in the eastern wall of the room, surrounded by a circle of Dwarven runes.
Three more runes are carved on the face of the disk. The great disk is flush with the wall and has no visible hinges or handles.
The runes around the perimeter of the disk read, “Rest here until mine sons touch upon thy blessings.” The runes in the center of the disk are Dwarven symbols for “loyalty,” “duty,” and “strength.”
Fortuna can easily tell that the door is magically protected.
Seeing that the door is shut, Hrarsk takes a look at the runes on the disk. He scratches his head thoughtfully, but alas, doesn't know much about dwarves.
Bethany glances at the disk, but doesn't find anything relevant in her experience with drunk dwarven taverngoers. Instead, she turns and begins to examine the cocoons, careful not to touch them and summon their makers.
As his friends study the door, Khel's eyes keep drifting over to the large, cocooned shapes hanging heavily off the floor. Might be a large deer, I suppose, though I'd expect the legs to stick off the side a bit more. And there should be a bit of curve to it, where the neck extends off the body. Might be something else.
He approaches the nearest cocoon and takes a closer look at its shape and construction, eyeing the webbing that supports it to gauge how heavy the thing is. Reluctantly, he draws a dagger a cuts a small opening in the cocoon, hoping to find deerskin rather than clothing.
As Khellirin cautiously inspects one of the cocoons, Doug quickly gets to work cutting open the other. "Bet there's lots of neat stuff in these things," he says as he removes the layers of webbing with his blade.
Fortuna places herself squarely before the round door and examines it carefully, first from a distance, then from closer up. She avoids touching the protected portal.
"Hey, Smokey, why don't you go check out the wards on this door?" Her shadowy companion says nothing, but seems both uneager and unhelpful.
"Let's see now - dwarves may be masters of earth and stone, but I haven't heard they have a reputation for magery. Still, they might have hired somebody to protect this tomb. Shame, really. Grave-robbing is not something I ever aspired to do. Let the dead rest. Why do they bury important things with bodies?" she complains.
After finishig her scrutiny, she faces the door and quietly intones what might be a brief prayer. "Forgive us, those who came before, for disturbing your rest. We are not thieves in the night, seeking riches. We are in dire need of the power stored with your dead bodies - power that must serve the living now if they are to be saved from the very things you fought. We honor your feats and your memory."
She frowns at the men cutting open the cocoons, then turns back to the door. "Let's see if we can get this open, Smokey."
"I told you not to call me that."
In each of the cocoons is the partially desiccated remains of a Dwarf.
Examining their wounds they were definitely poisoned and then bound but have been dead at least a week.
They both have very finely crafted holy symbols of Torag, but no useful adventuring supplies.
Doug holds up one the holy symbols. "Maybe these will get us in?" He offers.
Khel shrugs at Doug's suggestion, replying, "Hey, not a bad idea. Though if the holy symbol opens the door, these poor fellows didn't get a chance to use them, eh?"
His eyes continue to bounce around the room, wondering where the massive spider is hiding.
Fortuna's spells seems good enough at first, especially to Fortuna as the flames wash harmlessly over her and Khell.
Everybody else is likely less amused and a bit singed...
The door does however open...
"Hey!" exclaims Bethany, whirling on Fortuna's companion. "Watch where you're throwing fire, Smoke-Puff!"
"Ah, look, we're in!" Fortuna chirps, "You're welcome! Anybody, uh... anybody bring a light?"
Opening the door reveals a wide chamber with tightly spaced pillars that line the walls and suspend a vaulted ceiling; walls, ceiling, and pillars alike have been cut from the surrounding stone.
Centuries of dust coat every surface, and the air is stale. A large translucent panel is set in the center of the floor. On either side, a stone door sits inside a low arch.
The glass panel is currently a bit yellowed and covered in grime but with some work you could probably wipe it down enough to peer though.
Bethany motions at the panel. "Let's have a look?"
With a modicum of elbow grease Bethany can get the glass clear enough to see a chamber below.
There you can see a sarcophagus that has been opened and its lid pushed to the side, offering a glimpse of its occupant: a crumpled corpse dressed in a suit of scale mail armor.
The chamber below looks to continue to the east, but is hard to make out from up here.
Drawing on her vast patron-watching experience, Bethany peers down through the glass. "Hang on... don't they normally bury folks with the casket shut?" she asks, frowning slightly. "And uhh... what's that cage down there for?"