Crummock stabs the troll straight through its vile heart...
...whilst Geist stalks forward, and attempts to savage the hound.
Trollhound tries to gnaw Hirah.
Hirah does not catch the bloodfire fever.
Crummock finishes off the troll, while Geist savages the trollhound with his fangs and claws.
'I waited to long,' Mildly annoyed that he was not able to hit the troll, Einar walks in the room and swings his hammer at the troll dog.
Einar crushes the head of the trollhound, while Mr Whiskers finishes it off with an acid splash.
Searching the body of the troll yields a set of keys and a large battleaxe. Most of the weapons in the armory have been destroyed by attempts to reforge them into large weapons. However there are a few medium sized weapons left. The trollhound is wearing a leather collar studded with blue quartz “ice diamonds” worth 100 gp.
"I told you not to contact your neighbour! Now go face the wall!" Einar hears a muffled yell from the north door. Einar does not hear anything by the south door.
Opening the eastern door, Einar finds a giant sized bed and a footlocker. In the footlocker there is a hand of the mage, a necklace of servered fingers worth 75 gp and a pouch containing 75 gp.
"There is someone in the northern room.' Einar Whispers to Crummock as he opens the northern double doors.
Einar hears the sound of muffled sobbing.
Three cells line the north wall of this chamber, while a fourth cell is set in an alcove to the east. In each of the cells, there is a skinny child in tattered, threadbare clothing. There are old, worn toys in each of the cells. One of the boys is sobbing quietly to himself.
A thick-bodied, white-furred bugbear wears bearskins and carries an axe is lecturing the boy. "Now if you try to talk to the person next to you, I'll spank you myself."
Mr Whiskers recognises it as a Wikkawak, an albino bugbear that has cold resistance 5 and the quench ability.
Mr Whiskers delays.
'some kind of bugbear, doesn't matter, it abuses children, the kindest think I can do is kill it before Crummock gets his hands on it.' Einar steps through the door and begins to rage, Causing his Cambion ancestry to become very prominent. As he lets out a roar, and then bites at the things throat.
The children stare at Einar in shock as he takes a bite out of the Wikkawak. The wikkawak actually tastes good, like beef jerky...
"What the hell?"The wikkawak yelps as Einar bites him.
Crummock, his features suffused with fury, rushes into the room, creating space enough for Geist to bound forward.
Hirah goes straight for the Wikkawak, trying to impale it on her blade.
Mr Whiskers shoots a blob of acid at the wikkawak.
It misses.
The severely wounded Wikkawak tries to stab Einar with its ogre hook, impaling him on the stomach."Look, just haul your sorry @rses out of here, you have no business being in this tower! Or spanking me!"It then takes a step away from the door.
There is a loud crashing sound from the southern door.
Hissing in annoyance, Crummock attempts to stab the creature...
...whilst Geist attacks in a flurry of teeth and claws!
'Need to end this quick before that bleeds out.' Feeling the tip of the ogre hook cut and dig and twist Einar pushes closer, snarling, "Sorry? Sorry? I will show you sorry!" He then attacks the goblin tooth and claw.
Crummock and his tiger shred up the Wikkawak.
One of the children peek out timidly, pointing from the cells at Einar, "Is he going to eat us? He bit Bonepick!"
On the Wikkawak there is a medium mw studded leather, 3 jevlins and an ogre hook.
A giant sized bed sits in the southwest corner of this spacious room, and a large polar bear rug sprawls across the floor. Several small tables occupy the corners of the room, one next to the window has been knocked down. The window looks bent out of shape, as if something large squeezed its way out of it.
There is a chest in the southeast. The wall behind the rug hangs a mirror. Einar eventually manages to pick the lock of the chest, finding 767 gp, an iron nose ring, a collection of 9 brightly polished human skulls, one which wears a red bandana, which Mr Whiskers identifies it as a headband of vast intelligence +2.
Crummock smiles at the child, and then says, with complete sincerity:
"I doubt it, but if he tries, I promise to gut him like a fish. What be your name, little one?"
Hirah hears a cold voice in her mind. "You'll do," She feels something unseen settle over her shoulders. She feels more powerful, somehow, and has a serious urge to follow the party.
"My name is Inga. What are all of you doing here? And why did you kill Bonepick?" The child asks.
A thick-bodied, white-furred bugbear wears bearskins and carries an axe...
Seeing the bugbear drop, Einar, holding the wound on his stomach, reverts to regular size, his features looking more human. He turns to the child then nods at the creatures body, "He deserved being bit, I saw what they made the stew out of." Winking at Crummock, he adds. "I only bite people my friend Crummock here tells me deserves it. Don't do anything to deserve being bit and I won't bite you."
'I need to let Crummock settle these children down, probably would be better if I disappear for a little bit.'Unceremoniously stripping the Bugbear of its armor, Einar gathers the weapons and leaves for the southern room.
Seeing the mirror and the bent window frame, Einar quickly picks up the fur rug and tosses it over the mirror. Then Looking at the window for clues, he eventually leans out the window looking for any sign of what might have climbed out.
"Pleased to meet ye, Inga. We came here to... share our displeasure... with the Master o' this tower, but based on what we have found here, the residents of this place have been... very bad... and need to be taught a lesson. Do your parents know that ye are here?"
Einar realizes the window was bent ice troll shaped. He also finds a medium battleaxe on the Wikkawak?
"Granny Nan makes good vegetable stew! Have you tried it yet? And I've been good. I've been playing with my toys and finishing all my food!"
"I have no parents. I was wandering the streets, cold and hungry when I ran into Evy. She said she knew a place where I would be fed and given a roof over my head, and brought me here."
"I mean Bonepick wasn't nice, but Thomas," she points at the sobbing boy, "didn't know the rules. You talk only when Bonepick has gone to sleep."
Fattening them up for the slaughter... It probably be best if they don't know what they had in store for them...
"Well, I be afraid that this place isnae safe for ye all; we can take ye somewhere else, real soon. We just be needin' to finish clearing this place out, first."
When Einar reports back about the 'missing' troll, Crummock frowns.
"We should check outside, just to be on the safe side. I hate leavin' something behind us..."
"Okie. Will the new place have food and beds and nice people in it?"Inga asks Crummock ingenuously.
"Watch out for the dragons. There's a black one that breathes fire, and a white one that breathes frost. They're both not nice." She warns Crummock.
Einar, with Crummock's prompting checks outside, to find a large troll sized hole made in the second storey window.
As the party procees up the stairs, they hear an anguished voice from the east."Evy, there are nasty people coming up. They killed all my boys. Don't let them find you!"
The party proceeds up the stairs coming to a door which opens to reveal several boxes and barrels are stacked waist high at the end of this short passageway. There are door to the left and right. There is the sound of a steam engine running from the west, but no sounds, now, coming from the eastern door.
Crummock nods thoughtfully.
"The one's that I met there were nice; it's warm, as well!"
Heading upstairs, Crummock goes for where the troll-noise came from.
'Looks like it went out this window to get in that window up there.' Returning to the building, Einar shakes his head, "Stupid Troll, it jumped out this window to warn the people upstairs. It should have ran."
Before they head upstairs Einar lifts his hand from the wound in his gut from the ogre hook, smiling. "Hey Crummock, can we do something about this before we head up the stairs, I don't want any of you slipping on my blood."
Hearing the anguished voice from the east, Einar nods his head that way, "That's the direction the troll would have gone in. If it's in there I will deal with it first and then help with whatever is left" Einar checks the door quickly for locks and traps and then opens it.
Crummock nods to Einar.
"Sure thing!"
There is a table in the north east corner on which rests an attractive glass oil lamp atop a dollydoily. A rocking chair sits in the south west corner next to a basket containing yarn, knitting needles and a half-completed mitten. The room is otherwise empty.
This room contains a bathtub to the south and washbasins and a privy to the north.
Nodding his head toward the corner, Einar asks, "Do we trust the doily?"
Einar makes eye contact with Crummock, heading to the southern door, he inspects it quickly, taking out his tools he attempts to open the lock.
Einar's first attempt fails. The party hears a worried voice from inside."Amaggara, lehet, hogy Evy próbál menekülni a gonosz ember, aki megölte a haverok. Engedd be!"
Amaggara, it might be Evy trying to escape from those nasty people who killed your buddies. Let her in!
The door is opened by a bigger, more muscular icetroll. ” Szóval voltak azok, akik megölték Marrow, Rog, Hartle, Garsk és Korry. Nem fogod megölni Granny. Azt meg fog állni!”
So you were the ones who killed Marrow, Rog, Hartle, Garsk and Korry. You will not kill Granny. I will stop you!
The walls of this cozy bedroom are painted powder blue. A bed occupies the east side of the room, its headboard against the wall with a nightstand on either side. A desk and chair sits next to the south wall. A Dresser with a large mirror above it is pushed against the west wall. A curtain rod is affixed above the mirror with curtains pulled away to either side. There are two windows in the room, one bent troll shaped while the other window is open. There are no bars on either windows.
”So you’re the ones who killed my boys. Why?!” A hunched over old woman with limp, thin white hair steaming down her face, clutching a walking stick in her gnarled hand yells from the back of the room.
As soon as the door open, Einar begins to rage Causing his Cambion ancestry to become very prominent. Controlling his size to be able to get through the door he attacks the troll, with tooth and claw. ”We have seen the soup!”
Crummock casts Sound Burst, positioning it to hit both the troll and the old woman.
Einar's bite does not penetrate the ice troll's bulbous hide.
Both gran and the ice troll are stunned, and the ice troll drops its battleaxe, the old lady, her walking stick.
Mr Whiskers tries to set the troll on fire, and does a credible impersonation of a flamethrower.
The icetroll collapses, charred, but still breathing. Crummock and Geist move into the room.
Crummock finishes off the troll.
Meanwhile, Geist attempts to savage the old woman.
Geist manages to savage her with a bite and a claw, but she still stays up. The last claw hits the wall, instead.
"They'd have died of cold and starvation in the streets anyway. At least this way, they get a few days of food and warmth, before they go. Besides which mother would begrudge her boys their favourite food?" She screeches at Einar.
Mr. Whiskers moves into the room and says "No parent would want their children eaten. Die, foul hag!". He follows this up with a few eldritch words as missiles fly towards her.
Mr Whiskers magic missules get through, striking her squarely. She shrieks in pain but still stays up.
'her Boys?' Einar rushes into the room drawing his hammer as he moves, "A few days of food and warmth? I will show you warmth" Swinging the hammer at the witch.