"One last door then someone pick which stairs to use I guess."
The party forms up outside the last door in that quadrant. Jakardros murmurs, "That's the infirmary. Wynn Kavken, he's one of Erastil's priests, he ran the place. Don't think he made it out."
Trox opens the door onto a scene of horror (or what would be a scene of horror if the party wasn't numbed to ogres' ideas of entertainment). Hacked body parts litter the sickbeds. The floor is slick with gore, strewn with mangled organs and heaps of entrails. A dead fat man sits at one of the operating tables, arranged as if he were merrily spooning chunks of his own removed organs out of a brown bowl. His intestines spill out of a large slash in his belly.
The architect of this atrocity looks up from where he was putting the finishing touches on the arrangement. Half of his face looks remarkably smooth and free of the usual disfigurements common to ogres, while the other half has been scraped severely enough that bone shows through in a few places. He snarls at the interruption.
Round 1 (ongoing):
Initiative order
Rangers-acted
Erond
Skarn
Druamin
Ogre
Trox
Cordwin
Kaven Windstrike lives up to his name, darting in before the ogre can react and stabbing it deeply before retreating. Vale advances and cuts at the ogre, but its armor turns the axe blade. Jarkardros sends three arrows into the scrum; the first also fails to get through the ogre's armor, but the second and third wreak terrible damage on the enemy.
Skarn charges the ogre and power attacks it...
x4, P
Druamin rushes into the room. He avoids looking at the horrific surroundings as much as possible and focuses entirely on the ogre. He swings his axe.
Round 1 (ongoing):
Initiative order
Rangers-acted
Erond
Skarn-acted
Druamin-acted
Ogre
Trox
Cordwin
Skarn closes and slips on a stray spleen, his blow going wild. Druamin stomps into the room and hits the ogre solidly.
"Stupid spleen!"
Round 1 (ongoing):
Erond hits twice, but the ogre is still alive and active. He swings at the closest target who actually did him damage, hitting Druamin once .
Trox cracks his neck as he takes a step forward blade already descending for its first strike.
Trox steps up and cleaves the ogre's head in half with his first blow. His follow-through is terrible, though, because his blade briefly stuck.
Before the echoes of the falling ogre die away, Kaven suddenly starts, staring down the hall and pointing. Everyone in the hall turns to look, but there's nothing there. While the party is distracted, he bolts down the stairs, the door slamming shut behind him.
"We follow him right?"
Trox has no idea what is going on.
"It could be a ruse of some sort? Why would he leave without saying anything?"
The two remaining rangers exchange glances. "I don't know, unless--" "Unless he was the traitor! That--"
Vale's no doubt informative and obscene tirade is cut short by another interruption, as Shalelu rounds the corner south of the party. She's accompanied by the firepelt that you rescued a few days ago, and it sprints ahead to pounce playfully on Jakardros. The dour ranger actually sort-of grins before turning serious. "We'll go after him. You finish off the rest of the ogres, and we'll meet up with you when we finish. Erond, trade? You'll probably need this more than I will." He offers the cleric his bow.
If no one stops them, Jakardros, Vale, and Shalelu will follow Kaven down the stairs. Vale mutters something as they leave: "...should've known something was wrong when he lied about that star tattoo...."
Trox shrugs not caring much about the intrigue of why this happened.
"Other stairs then. Lets go and finish off this nasty place."
Cordwin is confused. What if all of them are traitors and we just let them go? Figuring that is a problem for after the ogres, he follows Trox.
Quickly checking the other unexplored areas on the first floor, the party finds more guest quarters, and also ladders leading up in the corner towers. The ladders lead up to the ramparts overlooking the inner keep; however, there's no easy way to get from the ramparts to the central keep's upper levels. So it's back to the stairway and up.
"Double doors, good for them and us. Come on Skarn."
One in place Trox opens the door, unless its locked in which chase he just shake it.
Skarn is prepared to follow Trox's lead.
The doors are carved with an antler motif that Erond recognizes as symbols of the cult of Erastil. The carvings have recently been defaced, though.
Trox shoves open the door. The walls within this enormous chamber are mounted with dozens of trophy antlers, some taken from stags that must have stood as tall as dire bears. Most of the antlers are draped with bits of rotten flesh, strips of skin, or coils of viscera. To the west, a marble altar has been heaped with
the mangled remains of at least a half-dozen dead men and women. A crude image of what might be a three-eyed jackal has been painted in blood on the wall above the altar’s alcove. Hanging from bloody hooks around the room are horrific mismatches of human and beast--men with the heads of eagles sewn to their bodies in place of their own, a horse with a woman's face where its should be, men with antlers jutting from their bodies, and men and women with stags' heads and hooves.
The apparent author of these atrocities is leaning over a bench, working on another one. He is an ogre at least five feet taller than any the party has encountered thus far, and his arms are thicker than most humans' thighs. He looks up as the door opens.
Round 1:
Initiative order
Trox
Erond
Druamin
Skarn
Cordwin
Jaagrath Kreeg
Erond begins an inspiring chant.
Skarn notes the symbols on the door and observes, "we shall have to deal with this cult as well, to be sure!"
---------------
With the door opened, and the huge ogre visible, Skarn activates his Judgement of Justice (+2/+0), charges, and powerattacks...
x4, P
Cordwin will shoot a bolt.
Excited to actually get the jump on a fight Trox pauses for the a moment to see if anyone lays on an effect to strength attacks and then steps forward swinging. Neither attack feels like he got the best of it thanks to the disturbing sights that greet them.
Round 1 (ongoing):
Initiative order
Trox-acted
Erond-acted
Druamin
Skarn-acted
Cordwin-acted
Jaagrath Kreeg
Cordwin misses with his crossbow. Skarn closes and manages to hit the huge ogre, and Trox does likewise with his second blow.
Druamin barely takes the time to look at the room. His focus is on the ogre. He strides forth and attacks with his axe.
Druamin slips in and takes a chunk out of the ogre with his axe.
Then the ogre acts. He shouts in Giant, trailing into an incoherent scream of rage, and throws himself at Trox.
His first blow comes nowhere near the fighter, but the follow-through is on target.
Round 2:
Initiative order
Trox
Erond
Druamin
Skarn
Cordwin
Jaagrath Kreeg
Although very bloodied Trox screams right back though it is a scream of anger. Still he pauses so see if anyone cast anything beneficial.
AC: 31/16/26
AC: 31/16/26
AC: 31/16/26
AC: 31/16/26
Skarn continues to swing away at the ogre...
x4, P
x4, P
If Hasted (in addition to +1 to hit on each of the above attacks)
x4, P
Cordwin will cast haste on the party!
The massive number of attacks take their toll on the mighty ogre, and he falls.
Like the other superior ogres, this one also has magical armor and a magical ogre hook. Unlike them, though, he also had two potions and a belt that detects as magical.
When making a melee attack, you get a +2 flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by another enemy character or creature on its opposite border or opposite corner.
Trox leans on his blade, point down.
"I am pretty bloodied again. Better me then you folks but I could use some magic."
You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you’re unarmed, you don’t normally threaten any squares and thus can’t make attacks of opportunity.
Skarn hands Trox a potion of CMW. "Start with this my friend."
Skarn can hit Trox with CLW several times, if needed.
"With that, I have no more spells of healing for the day my friend."
At this point, cutting off Jaagrath's head and carting it around the fort will panic any remaining ogres the party encounters into fleeing. The rangers rejoin the party after a few minutes, looking unhappy. "He had too much of a head start, and got out past the shocker lizards. There was someone else down in the lower level, too--not an ogre, and whatever they were they left with the traitor."
"That is plenty Skarn and it is appriciated. I could handle a few more battles if needed I am sure."
Druamin finds himself more injured than he likes as well. While Skarn is healing up Trox, Druamin digs out his own healing wand and applies it liberally to himself.
"It sounds like there's no one else left here. I think we'd be able to track those who ran away though. Shall we go?"
One of the abandoned rooms on the upper level used to be the fort commander's quarters. The walls were decorated with finely crafted longswords, stuffed animal heads, and a map of the Hook Mountain environs. A large oak table surrounded by several chairs has been smashed to splinters, and an immense bed has similarly been ruined. An open cabinet that once contained several bottles of wine has been crushed as well, and broken bottles and the faint scent of wine lingers around its ruins. A cursory search reveals a hidden compartment under the wine cabinet. It contains a flat wooden coffer, a pair of soft green leather boots, and a tiny jewelry box. The coffer contains dozens of parchment sheets, all containing beautifully-written love sonnets dedicated to someone named "Myriana." If the sonnets are to be believed, Myriana is so beautiful that the moon itself was "blinded when it spied her dancing on the tarn," and who is "the truest grace/Ever to know Whitewillow's soft embrace."
The boots detect as magical. The jewelry box contains a silver locket on a chain; inside that is a lock of silky golden hair.
The other two Black Arrows are, by turns, aghast, amazed, and somewhat flustered by the poems. "Lamatar wrote those? That's his handwriting, but...did you know he...?"
"No, I had no idea. When would he even have ti--wait. His 'communion walks?'"
It turns out that Commander Lamatar would leave the fort for up to three days at a time every month, on what he called his "communion walks." He said it put him closer to the realm he'd been charged to guard. Jakardros adds, "He was gone the night the fort was attacked--Kaven must have told the ogres. Since he was away from the fort, though, he might still be alive somewhere!"
The empty chamber on the lower level stands in stark contrast to the decor (as it were) left by the victorious ogres. This simple room might have once been a jailer’s den, or perhaps even a torture chamber, but someone has gone through great pains to repurpose it. The air now smells of sweet exotic incense, and veils of multicolored silk drape from floor to ceiling throughout. Between the rustlings of the veils, glimpses of giant cushions are revealed. The floor is strewn with luxuriant red throw rugs and sheets. It looks like it's been quickly ransacked. To follow would require passing the shocker lizards, or returning to the surface and finding the trail from the exit.
Cordwin points to the lock of hair. I believe that is Nymph hair! Could Myriana be a nymph?
With a break Trox finds a place to sit while the others talk. It's not easy to get comfortable in armor but he is practiced. Eventually he dozes off for the bulk of the conversation knowing there is nothing he will add unless things turn to a discussion of weapons. The nap is light and he rouses easy of people start to move about.
After Cordwin looks at the lock of hair, Druamin takes it from him. He rubs it between his fingers, smells the hair, and even holds it up to the light.
"You are spot on Cordy. 100% nymph hair. If this guy is hanging with nymphs... well, that can be a slippery business."
"There are worse sorts to spend time with." Reynard says, unconsciously reaching up and running a hand along one of his horns. "But nymphs are unpredictable, for sure."