Beldan sneaks into the place and, keeping well clear of the goats, scouts about, keeping an eye out for treasure or traps.
Neither treasure nor trap is in evidence.
There is...somebody, or something, in the longhouse though. You can hear them, trudging about.
Sneak up and peer through any cracks or keyholes or what-have-you, using the goggles of night if relevant. .
There's a tense moment when a kid starts trying to nuzzle up to Beldan, thinking it can get milk from him......
a sloe weirdeyed ewe neighs, and the kid walks away from Beldan; nothing but "the normal noises" hath transpired herein.
A snarky looking ram looks like he might charge and butt, but then he has a dump over in the corner.
Beldan's able to sneak up to the long house.
It's mightily built, oak and stone; he peers in. Within he sees a single giantess, at a spinning wheel. Her ancient gnarled hands still work the wheel and the wool without too much trouble.
He can make out that she's one eyed like the wereboars just recently fought.
Beldan heads back and tells the others what's going down.
Bel's able to schlep back to the rest no trouble.
"Let's go and chat with the giant crone. Maybe she'll have something interesting to tell us?"
Whosoever enters;
her back's still to you; she still spins, seemingly oblivious to your entry.
"Uh ... hello?"
She speaks;
"so it is done. My 14 sons are dead."
"I'm afraid so, ma'am. They left us little choice the way they threw themselves at us."
"They knew what they were doing.
Couldn't be helped."
she shrugs fatalistically as she rises;
"come in or you'll catch your death of cold.
Nobody will ever say Irlga was stingy with hospitality.
I'd offer you food, but you have your own, and if I was you, well, I wouldn't trust in my hospitality that far."
“Um ... sorry about your kidlets ma'am. Like my friend says, they attacked us, we simply defended ourselves with maximum force. Uh ... thanks for inviting us in? Is there anything we can ... get you?”
"No. I'll be allright.
Those boys weren't much help anyhow.
We cyclopes, we know the day of our doom.
They knew.
Did it anyway.
Knew all along.
This day has been known for a long long time.
As such, we don't exactly grieve like your folk when one of yours goes."
“Well. On the bright side, at least you know your foresight is in good working order. So ... do you know the trolls who live over the other side of the valley? Friends of yours?”
"No. They're a#$~%%~s. If the world was neck deep in piss, I wouldn't let them up in my tree.
That's why I'm partial to you lot. You're here to kill them.
Hmmm...
Thor's coming.
You must've released the prisoner.
Sooner or later, Thor's coming.
Two of the trolls will have fled for fear of Thor, but the third is full of piss and venom as the Midgard Serpent itsself....he won't flee.
He'll wait for you, in his caves.
I need a stiff drink. I'm not going to attack you."
She stands, and walks over to a skin dangling by the fireplace.
"You're welcome to a stiff drink,....though if you say no thanks to it, I won't blame you."
"Ah, one drink can't hurt, can it?" Altai helps himself to four fingers of cyclops moonshine. "You wouldn't know anything about Maurice the demi-troll, would you? He claims to be related to the local trolls, but I have a hard time taking him seriously."
It's pretty stiff vodka.
"He's what you'd call a cutting. Like the top of a carrot sometimes will grow greens.
See, sometimes a troll will lose a body part, and not get it back; instead grow a new part.
And, sometimes that part'll scramble around for a few days until it dies of starvation.
And then sometimes, rarely, it'll grow a whole new troll.
That's what he is.
They're usually runty little things."
“Yeah, we’re here to kill the trolls, or at least any of them that we find here. Thor ... he’s the fellow causing all this thunder is he? Tough guy?”
"He is, though he's probably doing it....subconsciously. Like when you would talk in your sleep."
she looks at Hnoss with her one eye;
"ask that pretty one there. She knows who he is."
Hnoss looks perplexed for a moment.
"The Thunderer is pretty much the definition of a tough badass. Even among divine beings he stands out as tough. So let's end this before he wakes up. I'm itching to burn that little turd Maurice into a greasy smear on the floor."
Elgan nods in appreciation of the Cyclopes Mom's 'natural' home. He, feeling unusally brave, also helps himself to a swig of the proffered vodka. He coughs at the unexpected taste and strength, licks his lips, and smiles. Then enjoys the rest of his cup.
Pip also takes a cup, but only pretends to drink. He slight of hand dumps the drink and acts polite
heh heh.....
She returns to her spinning wheel.
“Alright ... well thanks. Sorry again about your sons. Guess we’ll be on our way out now ...” Beldan begins backing out of the cabin, uncomfortable talking to this giant one-eyed seeress who has taken the murder of her fourteen sons so calmly.
“Where too next chums?” he asks. “Straight for the trolls, or do we check out the standing stones?”
"Lets head for the caves. The standing stones are, well, just that. Nothing interesting there that won't be there later as well."
One of the stones gets hit by lightning.
It kinda bounces around; reverberates inside the "door" or whatever of the standing henge.
It's a brisk hustle to the mouth of the cave. You're almost at the very entrance.
An angled pile of what from a distance looks like broken rock, but turns out to be a massive pile of bones pouring out of the cave mouth, making an osseous slope about 40 feet, at a steep angle, up to the cavern itsself.
Thunder cracks and a host of eyeless sockets consider your group.
Sheesh!!!
No problem, man.
Freakin work burns down; whaddya gonna do?
Get time off with pay I hope! Sheesh!
I guess it's true Kruelaid,
Truth IS stranger than fiction! :)
"Huh. That's a lot of bones. Hopefully they won't animate and form some sort of guardian creature."
At the least, they present an uncomfortable climb.
"Gjetost, toss a few rocks into the pile, just to see if anything is hiding in it."
He nods.
He fastballs three rocks to thoop into the pile of bones; a cranium here, a scapula there; an ischium and a femur roll down the pile.
Nothing animated beyond that which is upset, and subjected to the natural pull of gravity.
"Looks like we'll need to climb. Beldan and Gjetost go first; then you help Stig up. The rest of us follow once you've established yourselves at the cave mouth."
Right on; climb check time for all involved.
“Just what I was about to suggest Altai, good show,” says Beldan with a glance at Hnoss, belatedly remembering that he is supposed to be the boss.
With a last dubious look at the pile of bones, he begins to climb.
It's precarious.
Gimme a detect traps roll.....
Perception (traps):
The slope is frought with punjy stakes, under and amongst the pile of bones.
Beldan points out the spikes he notices to those coming behind, and slows his climb, keeping a closer eye out for any more similar or more elaborate traps.
Bel's able to climb the dread ossuary to the top. He sees more stakes, even uses some for footholds. He finds a narrow ridge, about 3 feet wide stretching the mouth of the cave, and then another similar pile downward into the entrance cavern the end of which he cannot see with normal sight, for it plunges into darkness.
Stink of bats.....of wet mammal. And of rotting flesh.
Anybody else wanna roll?
"Gross. Could some of you throw down a rope?"
Oh, yeah; I think so.
Gje and Bel are on the ridge now.. Gjetost feels kinda off balance on the three foot wide precipice.
The cavern mouth is 15 feet up the wall of the cave on it's south.
It's big; 120 feet north south, about half that east west, and the ceiling is 30 feet high.
The floor is littered with bones, and there's another boney slope leading down from the ridge of the entrance, which is about 30 feet across; it feels like Beldan's more on a giant window sill than a doorway.
What next?
Beldan, having a much easier time balancing on the ‘window’ ledge than the giant, fishes his fifty foot length of silk rope from his pack. “Here Gjetost, hold one end of this,” he says, and, once the giant does so, tosses the other end down for the rest of the group to climb up. “Lean back and brace against the wall above the opening,” he advises the giant, then looks through the window with his goggles of night, keeping an eye out for danger as the others climb up.