As the team descends into dimness, Rurik casts light on his shield.
Crasius readies as he waits to see what the creature says and mutters, "I really need to learn this language..."
Hadda tilts her head as she takes in the ettin and witnesses the telltale signs of witchcraft. She wasn't used to thinking of ettins as smart enough to manage something like studied spellwork, but this one had apparently figured it out. "She's a witch that will try to prove that two heads are better than one by slinging twice as much at us at once! The pig is probably her familiar."
She moves back up the stairway to the other side of Crasius and trains her bow, ready to fire.
Dom does not feel especially patient with this two-headed giant--he simply moves and attacks!
;
Hadda shifts her position as she encourages her allies in the fight to come. Dom rushes to attack, the two-headed giant swings a large sickle at him that leaves a trail of blood where it cut him.
Dom, however, gives worse than he got, cutting her with his usual efficiency.
Crasius
Ingrit/Wapit
Rurik
Rurik pivots and goes back up the stairs partway, then vaults over the railing to land behind Dom on the west side. He comes up from a perfect landing with shield and morningstar in hand, in a defensive posture.
On Ingit's command, Wapiti surges forward, head lowered to bring his fearsome rack of antlers to bear, slamming into the two headed giantess' chest.
Moving into better position, Ingrit fires over Dom's head at the two headed giant.
Wapiti's antlers puncture the giant's chest in several places, eliciting a pair of pained bellows. Ingrit's arrow also lands and draws blood. The giant is hurting, but not yet defeated.
Crasius fires at the giant.
Dom:
Crasius' first arrow misses completely. His second hits, but fails to have enough force behind it to get through the ettin's thick flesh, which is the result of years of not bathing.
The ettin recoils from Dom's vicious attack, steps back out of his reach, and glares at him, with both heads, and says a dark sounding word. Dom's vision starts to cloud up, but he shakes off the magical effect.
Round 2
Hadda
Dom (8 lethal)
Crasius
Ingrit
Wapiti
Rurik
Round 3
Ettin (63 lethal)
Following right after the ettin as she steps back, Wapiti tears into the giant, driving his antlers deep into her gut, then rearing up to stomp her into the ground.
"Enough of your sorcery!" Shaking off the magics from the ettin, Dom presses his attack!
;
;
Crasius lowers his bow and then casts light on the power tip so that he can see as well. He then walks over and looks at the purple glowing rocks and casts a detect magic to look and see if the dim illumination is natural or magical in nature. "I wonder how long that Ettin lived here? And if there was one Ettin up here, will there be more?"
Ingrit carefully watches the pig, keeping her bow trained on the animal in case it takes any aggressive action.
Hadda releases the slack on her bow. Her new traveling companions were certainly deadly!
"She was trying to blind you, Dom. A blind swordsman may make for a good tale, but let's avoid that detriment, shall we?"
She produces a wand and walks over to the swordsman. She swirls it around as her hand pulses with positive energy, which she then places over the sickle wound.
"That should be good as new."
She looks ahead, further into the room. "Do you suppose she was another of Baba Yaga's servants, or one of her enemies?"
Wapiti gores the giant, taking her to death's door. Dom's next attack pushes her through and she falls hard. The pig sniffs at his dead master but does not attack anyone. It mostly looks sad and confused.
The main treasure in the room is just the gear carried by the ettin. She has a potion of reduce person, wand of levitate (19 charges), javelins (4), mwk sickles (2), spell component pouch, 12 gp,
Hewn from the surrounding basalt, the walls of this large chamber have been chiseled into an incredibly intricate display of thousands of wildflowers. In the middle of each of the carvings, a wreath of pinecones encircles a life-sized carving of a young nude woman. On the north wall, the figure washes her hair. On the east wall, the figure sits staring upward at a crescent moon. On the south wall, the figure picks a bouquet of flowers, while to the west, the figure points to a triangular, knot-shaped symbol. To the north, a curving stone staircase climbs up and disappears into the western wall, while an open archway beckons in the southwest corner.
The glowing purple rocks give off faint evocation magic and continue to glow even if moved about within the room.
The southwest corner of the room is the start of a passageway that goes generally SW with stairs helping deal with the downward slope. It twists a bit, so you can't see what might be further down the tunnel. The ceiling height of the tunnel is between 8 and 10 feet, so Wapiti will have to squeeze to get through. The near end of the passages contain more bas relief sculpting depicting similar images as on the walls of the chamber: maidens frolickingly in fields of wildflowers.
Both the chamber and the tunnel are surprisingly clean for a structure that has been in place for perhaps a few thousand years, if legends of the place are true.
The moon’s phase on the east wall as the waxing crescent. the triangular knot on the west wall as a triquetra, a symbol used by Iobarian witches to represent the journey through the three stages of a woman’s life—mother, maiden, and crone.
Hadda watches as Dom holds his deadly blade over the giant's filthy, fallen form, noticing the pig's affected demeanor. "Do we wish to revive her to ask any questions, or is it good riddance?"
While waiting for the group to make a decision, Hadda roots through the ettin's spell component pouch to restock some of her wares, comparing with Rurik and Crasius for what bits and bobs they might each need.
She also admires the art in this passage. "Ingrit," she calls out. "What do you think of all this? Not many cultures seem to have this sort of recognition of womanhood." Many places that Hadda had visited throughout Avistan retained antiquated notions of essential differences between genders, and the librarian wonders at the gall of Baba Yaga for ignoring them all and forging her own path.
Rurik approaches the ettin and bends down to touch and stabilize her.
"We know little about this giant," he says. "For all we know, we just invaded her home, and she was merely defending her domicile. Though clearly she is somehow connected with all of this business of Baba Yaga and the witch tree."
"All of the symbols here seem to point to the 'maiden' part of the triune," says Rurik. "Maidens and wildflowers. It is, indeed, possible that this very ettin is the 'maiden' of this particular shrine. Or she could be an interloper. Either way, she would know more about this place than we do... if we could convince her to be friendly."
Hadda puts her hand on her chin before pulling out her spellbook. "I do have a spell that can charm any creature, but I could not cast it today. Tomorrow, perhaps." She reconsiders what Rurik might mean, and adds a bit more afterwards. "Though we could just try speaking with her, I suppose. We do still have the rope from the climb." Her eyes flit over to Dom, and she hopes that he doesn't take this the wrong way. "You look like you might know how to tie someone up."
She also admires the art in this passage. "Ingrit," she calls out. "What do you think of all this? Not many cultures seem to have this sort of recognition of womanhood." Many places that Hadda had visited throughout Avistan retained antiquated notions of essential differences between genders, and the librarian wonders at the gall of Baba Yaga for ignoring them all and forging her own path.
"It's actually very refreshing, and beautiful!" Ingrit replies, taking the time to properly appreciate the art and decoration, now that the threat had been neutralized.
Rurik approaches the ettin and bends down to touch and stabilize her.
"We know little about this giant," he says. "For all we know, we just invaded her home, and she was merely defending her domicile. Though clearly she is somehow connected with all of this business of Baba Yaga and the witch tree."
"All of the symbols here seem to point to the 'maiden' part of the triune," says Rurik. "Maidens and wildflowers. It is, indeed, possible that this very ettin is the 'maiden' of this particular shrine. Or she could be an interloper. Either way, she would know more about this place than we do... if we could convince her to be friendly."
"While I suppose that's possible, given this is Baba Yaga, we're talking about, I wouldn't bet our lives...or success on it. I suppose if we can restrain her before reviving her a bit, it would be worth it to question her."
Rurik's spell stops the ettin's wounds from bleeding, but she is in grave condition. It will take some healing before she returns to consciousness.
Dom nods at the request from Hadda, retrieving some rope to bind the two headed giant. ”We should be careful. Witches can be dangerous, even bound.”
He also looks toward the animal that looks to be a familiar. ”I know you creatures are pretty smart. Don’t try to do anything funny.”
"Do we have anything stronger then rope to secure her with? Giants tend to be strong and talking to her might go poorly if she snaps her binds." Crasius says as he looks around.
"That's true," Hadda acknowledges, "But if two or three people are aiming arrows at her when she wakes, if she's smart enough, survival instinct might win out against foolishness. Might."
"We'll have to tier her the best we can, and if possible, heal her to just where she's able to wake up and function, but not so much that she'd be difficult to put back down if needed." Ingrit says, looking over the situation. "Also, keep an eye on the pig. If it's anywhere near as smart as Fiske, she'll likely be able to communicate and plot with it as soon as she's awake."
Ingrit sets herself to the task, doing a masterful job of securely tying up the ettin.
Dom is humbled as Ingrit shoos him aside and shows how a ranger ties knots. "Well then--remind me not to fall unconscious while on your bad side!"
Dom breaks out something he's been saving for occasions like this--a vial of Smelling Salts. He waves it under the ettin's noses, hoping to return her to alertness.
Crasius takes the time to cast Comprehend Languages before the giang awakens to make sure he can understand her if she speaks in strange tongues. "I may not be able to speak to her depending on her language, but I can at least understand her if she starts muttering in a foreign tongue. I do not have the ability to awaken her though."
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Hadda smiles as she witnesses Ingrit's handiwork. That was a useful practical trick. When Dom wakes the Ettin with the smelling salts, Hadda reaches into her spell component pouch and produces a clay ziggurat. She had enough of these stocked up, of course, but would need to ensure that she didn't run low. Speaking an arcane word, she steps forward with Crasius, acknowledging.
"Good, you can keep my honest," she says to Crasius.
"Let's try this once more," she says to the Ettin. "And this time without trying to kill each other. We'll start simple: my name is Hadda; what is your name?"
The ettin opens her eyes, both sets, but seems confused and in a great deal of pain. She does not respond to Hadda's question, although it's not clear whether that is because she doesn't want to cooperate or because she is in too much pain.
"We may need to provide more succor to her. It might win her over if we do." Crasius says.
"Yes, of course," Hadda says, acknowledging Crasius. "We're going to heal you," she says to the Ettin. "Please do not resist, and don't try to break free. You are very injured."
Never mind that we were the ones who injured you, or that we were trying to kill each other just moments ago, but we are willing to move past that if you are.
She looks expectantly at Rurik. She could withdraw her wand, but that seemed like a resource that she didn't want to use up unnecessarily.
Rurik nods and kneels down to touch the ettin once more.
Dom stands guard, his sword held loosely, but held nonetheless. He keeps both the ettin and the pig in sight.
Ingrit stands by, bow in hand, beside Wapiti, keeping an eye on the ettin and her pig.
The spell causes some of her wounds to heal, but she is not much better than she was before.
Hadda looks at the lingering wounds. "Well, she didn't resist, which is good, but she's still badly injured. Perhaps try that a few more times, Rurik. Or else we can break into our stores."
"Agreed. Although, at this point she is so battered she may just not know what is happening around her enough to really resist." Crasius says as he continues to watch the wobbly giant.
Rurik simply continues to channel his deity's innate healing power to keep improving the ettin's condition.
As more of the ettin's injuries are healed, she feels enough relief from pain that her heads seem to clear and she regards you all defiantly.
Her right head speaks in a whisper, "Bu os ashti fyrir's, Gura."
The left head replies, "ikki marta niṣphaḷatā, Jadrenka drepa fyrir albatta, Gura."
Hadda recognizes a couple of words from the language of giants. Fyrir's means 'for us' and drepa means 'kill' or 'slay'.
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Hadda wrinkles her forehead as she begins to try to make sense of the pidgin, giving her auditory-linguistic processing a moment to adjust to the divinatory translating effects. She especially tries to pay attention to any repeated words and combinations of phonemes that sound more like names than words. The names might be Jadrenka and Gura, or else Gura might be an idiolectic tic of the pidgin with no clear meaning. The ettin's heads had both said Gura and fyrir. Depending on the syntax, and the meaning of "albatta", Jadrenka had either asked them to kill someone, or they were worried that Jadrenka would kill them. Which was the subject, and which the object, and which of the words was "albatta" modifying?
"If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," she says to the defiant ettin, not sugarcoating their intent, but pointing out that Rurik had brought her back from the brink of death. "But we would rather talk. I'm Hadda and these are my friends. We're servants of Baba Yaga. Who are you?"
She probably doesn't want a bath, but she could use one. I want her to have one. Ugh.
Ret con: The ettin seems to be speaking from one head to the other. What it said would translate roughly into "It's boneyard for us, Gura." Gura appears to be a name.
The reply: "It is just as well. Jadrenka will kill us anyway if we fail her again, Gura."
Both heads seem to be named Gura.
"We let the hag bring in strangers. We should not have done that. The warden tasked us to guard the entrance. We could not risk failing the warden a second time."
"Warden, is this place some kind of prison?" Ingrit asks as Hadda translates. "And what happened the first time they failed tho warden"
Hadda purses her lips, feeling a light pop! as her ears adjust to the divination. As she translates back and forth, she pauses at Ingrit's comment. "A warden may be a guardian of anything, not just a prison, but it's a good question." Hadda translates dutifully.
Rurik adds, "Also, since we are dealing with witches and enchanted gardens and the like, there's always the possibility that this warden doesn't want to be here and is compelled by magic to remain." He idly rubs the rim of his shield, checking with his thumb for damage to the rose relief along the surface as well.
"I'm worried that we've somehow been beaten to this place by these strangers. Who else has come through here?"
"Caigreal is a powerful hag. She had a fierce centaur and several frost giants. I was afraid to challenge her. Jadrenka does not yet know I let them pass." Guragura sounds ashamed and defeated.