Menrozzar keeps trying his hardest to beat the hag into a pulp.
Feelings mildly rejuvenated, Ivan brings his hammer to bear, swinging at the hag and following up with a viscious headbutt, but his size causes him to misjudge distances.
Bupkis is indecisive, and can't make up his mind what to do.
Daseem snarls when the hag reaches out to touch him and through sheer fierceness he shrugs her spell off. He repays her temerity with steel, his blade flashes up and down as he brings his sword down upon her with so much force his legs leave the ground!
Nearly free of the plants, Scrabbler was snagged again at the very edge.
But he managed to slip free again.
After Ivan and Daseem found their stance and start dealing serious damage, the hag doesn't look well anymore. She claws about in a wild rage to get rid of those two.
Ivan uses his shield to to catch the frantic claw before lashing out again with his hammer and helm.
Seeing the hag weakening, Menrozzar does his best to finish her off.
Bupkis watches the fight with interest.
That blow with the hammer is too much. As Menrozzar hits, the hag goes down.
Breathing heavily over the hag's corpse, Menrozzar says, "Let's get Amira free and have her try to identify these items, as well as what we found in the chest."
Now that the fight is over, Bupkis realizes he should be doing something. When the plants stop trying to grab him, he goes to look in the chest.
Daseem kicks the hag to make sure she's truly dead and then follows Bupkis like an excited child to look in the chest. "Ooh! Purdy..." he grinned.
Bupkis admired the items is the chest, "Ooooh shiny!"
+1 ironwood breastplate
Gorum’s thorn (1+ keen greatsword)
a +1 flaming scimitar
10 +1 orc bane arrows
a single orc slaying arrow
a wand of flaming sphere (9 charges)
a wand of greater magic fang (12 charges),
For most of the stuff Amira has no clue. "This wooden armor has a siomple magic enchantment, and this wand casts a flaming sphere. This is a flaming scimitar. A lot of flaming today. Don't know about the rest."
Amira takes out a glass, pours hereself some wine, stirs it with a feather, and meditates some more over the magic items.
Gorum’s thorn (1+ keen greatsword)
+1 orc bane arrows
orc slaying arrow
wand of greater magic fang
"Now this looks interesting. Those are arrows effective against orcs and a wand of greater magic fang. But this sword - it's magic, and really sharp, but for someone with the right divine background it seems to have some extra tricks against giants." Amira explains after she sat over the stuff sor a few minutes.
Scrabbler put the thorny crown on his head. "Maybe plants be nicer if they think mees they king."
Ivan would take the wands of GMF, and SNA IV, along with the ring. He looks to daseem and menny for a moment, and glances back to the sword.
I figure we are likely ta' fight some giants that be workin' with orcs. I wager one O' ye aught ta' use that sword mayhaps ye can figure out a way to use those tricks the lass mentioned. I can make use of these wands, or, I feel as if I can. An' I'll be keepin' my armor, ifn' one O' ye wish ta' 'ave tha breastplate there.
Daseem nods and reverently picks the greatsword sword up, his old weapon forgotten he points to the iconography etched into the blade depicting glorious images of the Lord in Iron in combat. Eyes a fire he tests the blades edge finding it wickedly sharp and proclaims joyously, "Blessed by GORUM! See here? Our Lord in Iron trip an ogre, very good!"
Daseem glaces at Scrabbler's antics before stammering much less confidently, "We go Redlake Fort n-now? Deal with G-Grenseldek?"
Bupkis isn't sure about the sword; it's too big for him, in any case. "Scrabbler plant king!", he claps at the other goblin's crown.
"Now we have weapons to fight giants! On to Redlake Fort!", he declares to Daeem's suggestion.
Menrozzar takes the breastplate and the arrows. Nodding to Scrabbler, he says, "Perhaps, Scrabbler, they will at that. Regardless, with these weapons, hopefully we can break Grenseldek and the orcs and giants at Redlake Fort. We should return to Captain Raag."
After they finish collecting the shiny things, Bupkis says, "We go back and hop across lily pads? Invisible flying things might still be around bridge."
Daseem nodded, he wasn't keen on fighting things they couldn't see. There was no glory unless the bout could be witnessed by all...
"With our luck, undoubtedly they will be. Perhaps what we need to do once we get to the bridge is sprint across as quickly as we can, avoiding the creatures, until we reach the exit."
Bupkis goes back towards the lily pad room. As he stands at the edge of the chasm, he concentrates, and starts floating into the air! "Bupkis flies!", the goblin cries excitedly.
Menrozzar watches as Bupkis flies across the chasm.
"Good. Could you tie off a rope over there to give the rest of us a chance to cross?" As he asked, he began taking off his armor.
Daseem also started reluctantly removing his armour. Part of him was jealous of the ease with which the little goblin had got up there not that he would admit it. He just hoped nothing dangerous came along whilst they went properly armoured, as he wouldn't be able to fight back as well as he otherwise might and the thought of disappointing the enemy with his lack of martial prowess was unconscionable!
Bupkis ties a rope to the door handle on the far side, and then flies back to his friends, bringing the other end of the rope with him.
Daseem unfurled the scroll and his eyes widened with alarm it was full of inscrutable gibberish. "Eh ye wot mate?" he cried. Just looking at the thing made his skin crawl giving him flashbacks to maths lessons at the temple, he hated those they the worst well except for history, foreign languages, ugh it was all bad.
Suddenly he remembered what his drill sergeant had told him, 'no need to think Gorum has more brains than the lot of you put together!' Yes that was it, he just had to have faith in The Lord In Iron. So he mumbled a prayer and suddenly the writing seemed to writhe and reform and suddenly he knew what to do.
Still Daseem had the fear of doing it wrong, wouldn't that be embarrassing... So he prayed one more for Guidance and then he thought of Bupkis as he spoke the word that activated the spell contained within. The scroll flared with a brilliant light before crumbling to dust.
Daseem peered at Bupkis dubiously and stammered, "Eh! D-did it work?"
Once Bupkis returns with the rope, Menrozzar finishes removing his armor and crosses the lily pads. Once on the other side, he dons his armor again.
With his armor neatly piled on the floor, Daseem tied the end of the rope round it and eyed the climb with dismay. He hated this kind of thing, still he was stuck down here otherwise so there was nothing for it.
He took hold of the rope and tried to climb up by the strength in his arms alone. He managed to raise up a good couple of feet before slipping and falling down. With a grunt of annoyance he rushed up again but his hands had become sweaty and he couldn't get a proper grip. Snarling in frustration he forced himself to calm down and dry his hands with some powdered chalk before having another go. This time by main force he managed to drag himself up...
With Bupkis help and the rope everyone makes it over to the other side. Some more gracefully, others clinging to the rope for their life.
As the group still has no way to deal with the invisible suckers on the bridge, some take a blow on the way to the other side. But as those fey don't follow into the shadows, it's no big deal. Only some bruises, that are mostly on the ego of those who think it's not honorable to flee a fight.
The way back out of this demiplane works just like the way to get here. So after using the lantern and touching the stone, you find yourself in the marsh again.
A tedious, but otherwise uneventful march through the water and mud later, you arrive at Rag's ship again. You are greeted by Halrex. "Was the result worth the hassle?" she asks as she sees the dirty heroes.
Bupkis finds the trip back to the boat much easier than coming the other way, for now he can fly over the marsh, instead of wading through murky water.
When they reach the ship, he answers the orcish coxswain, "Yes — we find weapons for fighting giants!" He decides against mentioning right now, that they also found arrows for use against orcs.
He asks Raag, "Boat move now, or still stuck?"
"No. We found after a day, that one of the orcs put some maigc item on the boat to keep it in place. But it vanished after a day." Halrex tells.
Ivan grunts.
well, finally a bit of good fortune it seems. Let us be away from this accursed place.
Daseem wasn't really listening to the conversation. Instead he was obsessively sharpening and cleaning the sword he'd claimed, Gotrum's Throne. This was a holy sword, and with it he'd bring war to the giants just as Gorum intended.
Raag orders to get the ship underway. Halrex shouts orders to get the sailors into their positions. The anchor lifted, the sails set and the oars manned. Sitting around in the river is not to their liking and so there is a high motivation in the air.
The day turns into night after the ship has moved some distance up the river esk, but still in the marsh. The next day further up the river leads out of the marsh and into gras land with soft hills. And in the distance you see the mountains rise into the sky. It feels totally unnatural, but nothing happens on this day. And nothing on the day after that. At all it takes five days until the boat reaches the foot of the mountains.
Raag finally tells "That's how far I'll get you. The fort lies about ten miles to the west, along this small tributary that joins the river Esk here."
Daseem nods at Raag's words and grins as he gets off and starts whistling the tune to an old song, "A-hunting-we-shall-goooo!"
Despite initially acting with childlike glee, Daseem quickly quietens down and he scans the area for danger. Once everyone was ready he starts walking in the direction Raag suggested and on the way he keeps a sharp lookout for any tracks they might encounter.
"Calrianne Blix gives us map — way to sneak in!", Bupkis remembers. He finds out who has the map and examines it.
As the group prepares to depart, he tells Raag, "Bupkis thanks you for bringing this far! Wishes you safe travels."
"Yeah. You're welcome." Raag replies, but it's half hearted at best. Halrex is already working to get the boat under way in the other direction again.
Bupkis says to the others, "Maybe try enter fort at night? Orcses see in darkness, but not far."
At first Bupkis flies ahead of the group, but the novelty soon wears off, and he realizes that he's more visible that way. He returns to the ground and walks like everyone else.
As he trudges along, he realizes that 'home' is now far behind, and there's no boat to go back to if things go wrong. We really on own now!
Ivan snorts.
I doubt I'd get far in even in tha' dark. I'm not the quietest O' folks ye know. An' can everyone here see in the dark as we can?
Amira, trotting after the otherrs and watching the landscape hears the talk about seeing in the dark and joins in with "I have magic light." - craeating a magic dancing light with a word. Until she notices, that the topic was slightly different, which leaves her a bit embarrassed.
"I cannot, and I don't believe Daseem can, either - humans aren't blessed with that kind of sight. Let's get closer to the fort, and then evaluate the terrain and see if there's a way we can get close without being noticed. I don't think we want to have to fight our way through the entire fort, although it may come to that."
Daseem nodded to Menrozzar and replied with an air of finality, [b]"There be no g-glory in fighting at n-night, for who could witness the combat? Besides they might claim it were a game o' chance and not skill..."[/b
Feeling that Menrozzar had the right of it, Daseem simply turned to start walking.