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"I look forward to regretting it," he cracks wise back to the elf as she is ingeniously extricated from a tight spot.
Thorgrim maintained a dogged pace through the confining tunnels. The cold he noticed but little, being inured to more drastic hardships than this, the vanguard of evil, can muster.
"You are just feeling anticipation before something exciting happens," Thorgrim responds to the hobbit. "If we all retreated at the first sign of worry, we would all die of boredom."
He checks quickly on the box holding the heart of the flame, insuring it can still provide a good, red heat when it comes time to fire-making.
Wulfgith pulled her cloak tighter around her as she chill tried to set in.
"Or we all live long lives." Wulfgith half teased to Thorgrim's words. "Shall we set up a small fire here?" She asked.
Hobwise leads the way as the fellowship spirals down into the heart of the hill. The cold grows more and more intense with each passing step. The light from the flickering torch carried by Hobwise reflects off the frozen walls to create a glittering, sparkling starscape. The effect is a useful distraction from the odd way the torch flame unnaturally leans forward. It as if the flame is leading or pulling the hobbit toward the icy chamber below. More worrisome to those who do not see in the dark, is how rapidly the light is burning. Already it has gone through more than half its useful wick.
Finally, Hobwise raises his gloved, frost covered hand. The chamber is just ahead. A pale blue light can be seen ahead of the meager yellow provided by the nearly used up torch.
Rounding the final corner, the fellowship finds itself overlooking a much bigger chamber. The room is round, about sixty paces across and lined with worked stone walls. A twenty foot domed ceiling covers the area with huge icicles hanging down. Some as big around as Thorgrim's heavy form. Thick ice and frost cover the entire chamber as any moisture quickly freezes. The pale light comes from a single large iron lamp with a thick clear crystal globe protecting whatever fuels the light inside. Hanging from a thick, ice coated, iron chain, the lamp occasionally flickers, dims, and then returns to a steady soft glow that illuminates a black stone altar sitting directly beneath the lamp and in the center of the chamber. Lying upon the altar is a half man, half wolf body. Its frozen form coated in a thick frost keeping it preserved from the usual ravages of time. Curiously, the body appears to be clothed in ornate robes and the sparkle of a thick gold necklace adorning its neck catches the eye. There is an obvious gap in the frost where something has been removed. Circular and about the same size as the now broken disc in Giles pack.
Surrounding the altar is a more gruesome sight. Spaced precisely to match the four cardinal directions and the middle points between each are eight more frozen bodies. Each is naked, chained to the wall of the chamber and has had their heart removed in an obviously sacrificial manner. It is difficult to tell from here, but each victim appears to be a Dunedain. Very possibly some of the original defenders of this doomed place.
Cereidh shivers, eyes glittering in awe and some admixture of both the fox in its den and the hunter. She reaches for her bow, eyeing the supine creature on its alter.
"I think I could reach it from here," she offers.
Hobwise feels the cold to his bones and nearly doubles over by the shock of it.
"Let's be quick about it!"
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Thorgrim knew fire.
As a professional wanderer he was intimately familiar with the careful bi-play of fuel and flame, wind and weather. He knew that a flame was life, be it to cook food so it didn't liquify the bowels, or to scare away wolves with its magical light, or to keep one alive on a glacier-cold night. Even moreso than a smith or baker--professions that worked with fire, but in a constant, civil environ--he knew what fire was.
Fire didn't act like this.
His iron-hard constitution continued to give no heed to the tendrils of cold that kept biting at him like gnats. Such a clime might slay a normal man, but Thorgrim was made of sterner stuff.
"It is all as you described it, Hobwise," Thorgrim says, taking in all the room holds in an instant. "And yes, Cereidh, it is what we came for, so make your play. Should you fail for whatever reason, then I will slice it free from its chain." At this Noctacide almost growls in rage and anticipation.
"Either way, once claimed, we can stuff it in this box and see if it still holds power."
Making the box ready for new cargo, he gathers up a stand of the white coal and dumps out the glowing embers, making a quick fire against a wall some distance away from the center. He's eager to see how live flames react to this witch-cold that seems to gather in heat to it as if it commanded a stiff wind.
"I like this not," he says, motioning quickly to the dancing torch as he builds his fire. "The cold seems to draw heat to it like flies to carrion. This is...not natural.
I'll build the fire, and we can secure the lantern but I would council we destroy it as soon as we are able.
So too, I'll see those corpses properly killed and freed. At best we could bury them but, lacking that, I would see them set on a pyre. I like not their unnatural torpor."
Cereidh traps the tip of her tongue between her teeth thoughtfully, drawing a feathered arrow back and aiming at the form on the alter.
"I don't imagine they'll sleep for much longer," she says, and draws her arm back powerfully, aiming at the thing's heart, before letting loose an arrow that sings and sparks with light, like a firecracker, alpine green and as energetic as an angry wasp.
"Ho, Cereidh. The thing is nearly encased in ice. Your arrow will likely glance away harmlessly. If my guess is correct, we may have a better chance against it once we get our fire going. But I have wondered what would happen if that lamp was the target instead?"
Cereidh pauses, easily holding the arrow taut. "If one thing should be heavily enchanted against the weapons of those - not so old as this, I would guess it to be the lamp before the flesh, even flesh encased in ice."
She sounds thoughtful and open to suggestion, however.
Wulfgith shuttered as the cold seeped into her being. "We'll see how this goes shortly." She said before she helped Thorgrim set up the white coal. She greatly wanted some heat back. "This cold is very much unnatural... who knows what else it can do..." She muttered.
Giles doesn't like the squeezing, and he likes the horrid cold even less. As they bump their way down the tunnel, he finds himself his nose and fingers stinging with the cold...and then, to his dismay, turning sluggish and numb. He takes some time to rub his hands together, and to better cover his face, all while singing the ancient song that Estel had taught him...and he's relieved to feel the pain returning to his fingers and face, knowing that that meant he was healing.
As he recovers his senses, he takes in the scene and gasps--leaving a cloud of mist. "It's just as I read in the Elrond's great library: I'd wager that that crystal is what we must destroy. Legends speak of one such as that, capturing victims' souls inside it, and using them to power its evil.
"And that wolf-man in the red robes! The scholars report that in the opening days of the Second Northern War, when the dark forces of Angmar swept through the lands of the north once again, a great horde of wolves and wargs ran with the Witch Kings army...led by a beast half man, half wolf. It was greatly feared in the early days of the wary, but then one day it disappeared from the tales of battle. It was not seen at the fall of Amon Sul, nor Annuminas, nor Fornost Erain when it finally fell. In fact as far as the author was able to discover, it was never seen again in the north. Perhaps now we're learning why!"
[ooc]HP: 34-12-17=5+12+14=31[/dice]
Hobwise, Thorgrim, Wulfgith and Giles all hurry to stack the wood around the altar at the center of the icy chamber. As they do, Cereidh draws Bregghar and sends an arrow flying toward the pulsing glow of the lamp. The steel tipped point strikes the hard substance with a piercing clatter. Although it does not break the casing it does create a small web of cracks. It also causes the orbs inside to whirl and pulse with a much greater intensity. The light grows brighter and strobes throughout the room giving everyone an odd jerking look to their movements as they place the wood. More alarmingly, the temperature plummets as if the chamber was suddenly caught within a blizzard atop mighty Caradhras.
Hobwise's torch is snuffed out as if drowned in a pail of water. The heat and fuel instantly consumed. The same thing seems to be happening to your own body heat. You can feel it being drawn away toward the cold black stone of the altar as the lamp flashes frantically above.
With the warmth fleeing your bodies those closest to the black altar notice a growing light beneath the ice. A tracery of golden script, illegible, but growing clearer with each passing moment wraps around the black stone. At the same moment, Thorgrim and then Hobwise notice the frozen wolf creatures fingers twitch followed by the slight crackle of ice falling away.
Cereidh swears ferociously, throwing her weight behind the stacking of the wood in repentance.
A rush of bile helps the hobbit steel himself against the draining, unnatural cold.
Hobwise steps to the head of the alter and draws his sword over the throat of the awakening thing. Using his pocket handkerchief to spare his left hand from the blade, he presses down firmly against the frozen form, and there he holds fast.
"Giles," says Hobwise, his voice little more than a raspy whisper, "I would take your healing hands. I do also have a store of Athelas myself I have been keeping these long months since our victory with the Beornings. A couple doses of salve I had previously prepared, should we have the opportunity for a short rest in the very near future."
Wulfgith's teeth began to chatter. "T-this... isn't going well..." She said as she tried to rubbed her arms to keep some of the heat in.
Hobwise questions himself again. It was one thing to charge into this situation alone, and another thing entirely to convince his companions to follow along with the plot at their own peril. Wulfgith and Giles are nearly frozen, and he isn't too much better off.
The hobbit watched keenly when Cereidh's arrow rang out against it, and he can see the web of cracks. He knows not what may happen when it breaks, and he wonders, for the first time, if the lamp might actually be an instrument of good, in that it is the thing that imprisons the evil monster resting beneath the edge of his sword. On the other hand, if it is the thing causing the cold, and it appears to be so, then it must be destroyed or the company will join the Dunedain in this eternal crypt.
"Cereidh, Wulfgtih - smash it now! We have a better chance against this monster than against the cold!"
Cereidh lets her current batch of kindling fall to draw and shoot in one smooth motion, her arrows gleaming with a wintery light, although not spitting fire the way they had before.
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Thorgrim's steely manner is no less as hard as his iron vitality. Even the greatest exertions of the lamp have as much impact upon him as an arrow might upon a castle's solid walls. The same primordial endurance that allows him to slay man and troll, wolf and demon, also hardens him against any environment that seeks to lay him low.
Still, as the others around him cry out from the life-sapping cold, his resolve quivers. Fire-making, normally a joyful pastime of his, now pales as the most direct route.
He stands and drops his well-used flint and tinder. "Oh by all the Valar I shall not let you die to this chill morning frost."
Turning, he draws the heavy blade Noctacide.
"If we are at last decided to smash it, then let my hand not be slow in this thing's execution!"
His powerful thews drive him onward and he screams his wordless battlecry as the greatword swings in a deadly arc toward the frost-bourn lamp.
= 21
._.
Reacting to Hobwise's impassioned shout, Thorgrim and Cereidh unleash a furious assault against the glimmering crystal globe hanging above the black altar. Brilliant steel tipped arrows strike the glass followed by Noctacide's hardened blade. Thorgrim's heavy sword strikes a second time and any normal lamp or glass would have shattered into thousands of tiny shards. Yet, this is no normal lantern. Crafted within the depths of Carn Dum, under the watchful, menacing gaze of the Dark Lord's strongest and most dangerous lieutenant, the globe is a thing of hatred, revenge, and the darkest of deeds.
It holds its form for a few more precious seconds, the orbs within pulsating in a frenzy of impassioned light and dark. Then the lamp shatters. Bursting outward in a spray of deadly shards and a roaring screaming wind that is deafening within the confines of cavern.
Utter chaos erupts as the explosion cracks and dislodges many of the giant, thousand year old icicles hanging from the ceiling. The massive spikes fall in a seemingly slow motion cascade. The iron frame of the lamp comes smashing down upon the altar and the awakening beast atop.
The orbs of light swirl and flicker near the top of the chamber as if for the moment they are uncertain what to do now that they are free of their eternal prison. Then one of the orbs suddenly engulfs it's nearest neighbor. The merger creating a brilliant burst of light that results is a single larger ball. The light from this orb now tinted with a hint of pale red rather than the pure blue of the others. The remaining seven orbs scatter about the chamber as if fleeing this sudden threat.
Cereidh dodges like a cat on a hot plate. She eyes the glowing red orb, but is uncertain of her ability to damage a thing of mist and menace. She turns her next arrows to the wolf-thing on the alter.
Giles had begun to retreat when he hears a deafening noise. Realizing that the only thing he can hear is an aching ring in his ears, he reconsiders and scuttles back in.
Seeing that Wulfgith looks exceedingly pale, he comes to apply a balm to her.
"HOBWISE! I'LL HELP YOU NEXT!!" he shouts...wondering if the hobbit can hear him at all.
Wulfgith winced when the shards pierced through her armor and clothes. But the sound that filled the room was slightly more worrying. The ringing in her ears was enough to make her stagger, luckily out of the way of falling ice and into Giles. He was kind enough to see to her wounds but when he said something she shook her head to try and tell him she didn't understand what he was saying.
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The explosion caught him by surprise.
Expecting the thing to react as most things react to Noctacide's tender kiss, that is, that it would be sliced and shattered and timidly cease to be, Thorgrim's mind is shocked into numbness as his body is tossed like a ragdoll. His normally battle-ready alertness is cast aside like chaff in the maelstrom as all his momentum and size and strength account for naught beside the death throes of The Thing From Carn Dum.
Landing with a disturbing *CRACK* on the ground, he moves slowly, as one caught in tar, as his body suffers further insult and injury from falling icicles. His taunt body is forced to do nothing but endure the punctures and lacerations tossed at him.
But endure he does. Standing he searches his body for wounds of note, but finds none. Though he now bleeds from a dozen scratches, he judges nothing life-threatening, and, therefore, nothing worthy of attention.
The ringing in his ears is like the crashing of an ocean, but he has suffered such effects before from countless tavern brawls, of being coshed in surprise by cowardly cheats or guardsmen cudgels, and such has never slowed his sword-stroke before.
And more strokes are called for. Mentally noting that he seems to be developing a habit of following the elf from behind--not a habit he minds, of course--the clothyard shafts fired at the wolf-thing are quickly chased by his own executioner's strokes shortly thereafter.
= 13
Unbending to the cold, unfazed by the piercing noise, untouched by falling ice, Cereidh sinks two arrows flashing with holy radiance into the crushed corpse of the wolf beast. Thorgrim adds Noctacide's blade to the beast creatures broken frame, severing an arm and driving the blade through where a heart may have once beat.
Giles grants the gift of warmth and comfort to Wulfgith while Hobwise watches for any sign of life from the punctured, crushed, and cloven beast.
The orbs of pale blue and larger one of red and blue continue to swirl and strobe throughout the chamber. In seconds, one and then another of the pale blue orbs is absorbed by the now even larger and redder orb of light.
As the orbs grow fewer in number, so goes the cold. Growing less and less formidable and life threatening with each passing moment. Still freezing and uncomfortable the cold no longer sucks away body heat in an effort to leave nothing but frozen husks remaining in the chamber.
Cereidh's eyes light up and her lips turn up, as she reaches for two more arrows.
"Let me not be the pride before the fall, but this seems to be our route to victory!"
She sends two more arrows into the wolf-beast.
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Thorgrim frowns at the wolf-corpse as it responds as a quite normal corpse. As two more elf-arrows thud into it he holds up a hand. "Hssst. Stay thy hand, archer. Methinks this villain is not in play. But what worries me is how that red orb is growing, consuming the losers of their eldritch combat. I should wonder what that thing is about and if it means us more harm."
"GILES!" the big warrior bellows after the hobbit that took shelter. "The cold no longer has fangs and you may join us here. Come, you are a lover of books. Can you tell us ought of this crimson wraith that floats about. I like not its look, but beseems it has not does us harm as yet."
After speaking he shakes his head briefly and furiously, like a great bear coming out a slumber. He pumps his thick arms a few times to keep the blood flowing. That done, his warrior's vitality asserts itself and he feels himself restored as if he'd had rest and cold water.
Giles breaths a sigh of relief as the room warms, even if just a bit.
He hustles from Wulfgith over to Hobwise's side, and provides what balm he can. When he notices the elf and the Beorning's lips moving, Giles shakes head. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" He explains, gesturing to his ears.
Thorgrim's gestures intrigue the young scholar though, and he squints at the growing red light, wondering: Is there anything I've read about this that might yet help us survive this crypt?
Wulfgith, even with her inability to hear, was able to target the wolf creature and follow the example of Cereidh.
Sensing the company may be wasting its time on a corpse when the real danger coagulates in the form of the red spheres, and seeing Thorgrim stay his hand against the wolfman, Hobwise brings his sword down with all his strength, severing its head if he is able, to put the matter of the ancient menace to rest, forever.
But there is little to learn from the usual histories and texts found throughout the few remaining libraries and collections of the north.
No. This answer sits within the buried corners and shadow filled crannies of lost and best forgotten tomes written by ancient sorcerer priests or shaman practicing the darkest of arts deep within hidden caves and forest glades. You recall, one such dusty tome from the Second Age. A tale written by a Numenorean who lived among the Hillmen of Rhudaur during the Second Age. One such tale spoke of spirits and souls bound within this world to serve dark purposes. If freed, such a lost soul would usually linger for only a short time before finally fleeing to the realms of the afterlife. Unless such a spirit was driven by something strong enough to keep it bound to the mortal realm. Madness, hatred, revenge, love, denial. All under certain circumstances could create such a situation.
According to that ancient and dark tome, if such a spirit existed it could feed itself by devouring the life of any other nearby spirits living or bound. If given enough energy, it could grow into a thing of truly terrifying power. A creature of unstoppable spirit and energy that could easily prey upon the living for ages to come. The writer claims to have witnessed a least two times when shaman attempted to unleash such terrible spirits upon the land during their many long wars with the Dunedain. Both were unsuccessful and resulted in the deaths of the shaman.
However if the visions you have received recently are true, the Witch-King of Angmar was a much more accomplished and powerful sorcerer....
Thorgrim pauses to catch his breath while Cereidh and Wulfgith send more arrows driving into the wolf beast's body. Sensing something not quite right Hobwise raises his blade and brings it down across the corpses neck. With a rough sawing motion the steel cuts through icy flesh and frozen bone to severe the head from the rest of the creature's body.
As the hobbit's blade finishes severing the head, the red orb above absorbs two more of the smaller lights in two quick bursts of light. The three remaining, scatter about the chamber almost as if they are trying to flee.
Cereidh stares at the lights, then glances at Giles, bewildered.
She sends two arrows at the largest light. She doesn't hesitate, as the practiced motions of an experienced warrior don't need much forethought. But her brows remain furrowed in confusion.
Giles gasps.
"KEEP THE RED SOUL AWAY FROM THE BLUE SOULS! HARM IT IF YOU CAN! SOME EVIL SEEKS TO ABSORB ENOUGH LIFE TO RETURN!!" Giles shouts, hoping at least one of his allies can hear him.
He draws his bow and shoots into the red orb, as best he can.
Hobwise jumps atop the altar and swings at the red orb.
Cereidh's arrows fly through the red orb. The steel tipped shafts cause the orb to dim, spark, and fizz as small slivers of lightning burst out from the spirit, shedding its sustaining energy.
Hobwise climbs atop the treacherous terrain of the altar. Using the grim remains of the beast's material body as a step stool, the hobbit swings his blade at the orb, but it unable to connect as the corpse shifts beneath his feet.
The taller Thorgrim has better success connecting with the orb. Noctacide cleaves the semi material orb. Again the the orb dims and crackles. But this time there is something for the lightning to travel upon. Electrical charges flow back down the warriors mighty blade with each successful blow causing hair to stand on end and muscles to ache and surge with the unwelcome energetic surge.
Giles attempts to follow Cereidh's lead with his own bow, but the single shaft flies wide of the mark and shatters against the frost coated stone of the opposite wall.
The assault upon its form causes the orb to lash out. First, another arc of lightning bursts forth. With a crackling rumble, the jagged blade of electricity strikes Cereidh in the chest. The orb then whirls across the room and devours another of the smaller blue lights. The effect this time is immediate and obvious as the orb regains some of the brilliance and size it lost following the successful attacks by Thorgrim and Cereidh.
Red Orb HP: 76/80 (80-24+20)
Cereidh yells in rage, teeth clenching and hair lifting on end, but immediately sends two more arrows, crackling and fitzing themselves with some fey light, after the orb. After her attack, she will look to duck behind the nearest shelter - maybe where one of the Dunedain are affixed?
The hobbit realizes the foolishness of attempting to attack the menacing red orb without the benefit of concealment and surprise.
Hobwise changes tactics, running to all corners, scooping up the remaining smaller blue orbs, filling his sacks and hustling them away from the chamber.
Though she couldn't hear, Wulfgith could see how the others where acting. When Hobwise began to run around to gather the smaller blue orbs, Wulfgith stepped up and placed herself between the red orb and Hobwise as best she could.
Giles sighs--grateful that something he was trying to communicate got through--and shoots again.
Cereidh, Wulfgith, and Giles barrage the glowing spirit of the beastman with arrows. Each pierces its pulsing form but because the orb is only partially solid in this mortal realm, it is difficult to tell how much damage is actually caused. Although is does seem to diminish in size and brightness somewhat.
Meanwhile Hobwise tries an alternative tactic and rushes to capture one of the smaller, fleeing blue spirits. With a sack in hand he manages to slip it over one of the glowing orbs, just catching the dodging light before it can slip away.
The hobbits action seems to draw the attention of the evil spirit as it moves to intercept Hobwise.
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Thorgrim grits his teeth in pain and involuntary shock as the charges course through his rugged body and briefly render him unable to do anything but feel the alien charge. Then it is over and he misses not a step.
He charges again at the fleeing orb, with sword held high and a wild battlecry echoing through the enclosed hoar-frost chamber. The sword chops down again and again with impossible speed. Urged forward by the blade's undying hunger for eternal justice, Thorgrim expends his internal reserve of strength and vitality, thirsting to end the evil will-o'-th-wisp with one desperate effort.
Cereidh sends her arrows in after Thorgrim's efforts, calling upon her own small pool of uncanny knowledge.
Thorgrim unleashes a furious flurry upon the spirit orb. Each sword stroke passes through the orb dissipating the evil spirits energy and creating a backlash of electrical charge along Noctacide's steel blade. Smoke smolders from the Beorning's hands hair and shoulders as the spirit lightning arcs through his body.
The orb itself, continues to pursue Hobwise and his sack containing one of the two remaining blue orbs. A blast of lightning bursts from the red orb, but the nimble hobbit manages to dive out of the way at the last moment. Instead the energy slams into the wall causing where the lightning spiderwebs along the ice until it finally fades away. More debris drops from the domed ceiling and more cracks emerge in the frosty stone of the walls and ceiling.
Standing firm within the chaos of lightning and tumbling dirt and stone, Cereidh fires two more arrows into the pulsing red orb. Diminishing it a little further.
Spirit HP: 34/80
Cereidh sighs, something about her sapped, or perhaps the continued grim efforts have dispelled whatever shy magic had gone to battle behind her arrows. Still. She can and will fight just the same.
Hobwise nimbly sidesteps the electrical attack by the read orb, but in doing so lost some of his momentum, and he finds himself less agile while attempting to scoop up the remaining orb.
Giles fires off another shot, but he hesitates as it battles the Beorning, and his shot goes wide.