…the bottleneck helped, definitely. The group was much more cohesive as we moved into the lair. We bedded down in some kind of extradimensional pocket one of them carved out of a wall while I wasn’t looking. Apparently while we’re in there we can see out, but nothing can see us (at least, nothing has yet). Giants came through the room during the evening, and policed up the bodies. Kind of them, I think.
During the night I took a moment to brief them on my impression of our tactical moves there, and it seems I voiced things right, since no one kicked me while I slept. We nominated Sered to be the caller for group focus (he will designate chosen targets for the group’s attention), and this seems to have worked out well. Once we got ourselves up and ready, and started moving on the next room, he jumped at the chance to have us all focus on his chosen enemy.
I acquired a vitality potion and some kind of grey bag that summons random small creatures to serve my commands. Still not sure what I’ll do with this, but I’m thinking the little critters might be useful for establishing a flank at range. We’ll see.
The keep no doubt knew we were in the vicinity, but I suspect they have no clue we remained inside the very keep during the night. I’d love to see the exterior guards’ faces on seeing the havoc we’ve wrought after we’re done here…or seeing us fall upon them coming out of the front gates.
When we entered the next room, the enemy was ready for us – the door was barred, and as soon as we opened it, we were set upon by two particularly tough hill giants right at the door, and one earth giant against the far wall who was flinging boulders at us. Wynter immediately took a tumble into the room, and caught a sideswipe from a club for his trouble, and foolishly I followed his charge in a few moments later. Must remember to keep my wits about me and use the terrain.
That said, I also took a knock to my head as I came in – just about jarred my right horn loose, as a matter of fact. I still have a ripping headache right between my horns from this, I think it strained my skull a bit. Once in, the rest started filtering in a little at a time, but the two hill giants proved to be rather hard to dislodge. I was knocked hard against the far wall and actually fell over – yes, me, I fell over. It’s such a rare thing, but I guess even I can suffer setbacks on occasion.
That said, Wynter proceeded to take a beating that must have strained even his leathery dead self. I’m continually amazed at the amount of harm that a dead body can absorb before going to pieces, and Wynter set a standard for this – he stayed not only intact, but self-mobile through a withering punishment. Neither of us had noticed before we came in that down the hall – this room was more like a hall than a room – was a magma pit and at the far end there were two giants wielding slings. This by itself wouldn’t have been too bad, but the slingers had some sort of special ammunition that burst into acid and other nastiness on contact.
Oh, and did I mention there was a fire elemental of some kind in the pit? He was having a grand old time lobbing lava bombs in amongst us. It’s a bit like having your feet stuck in hot tar, but the tar is on fire. Didn’t really bother me overmuch, but the others aren’t quite so flame-o-phyllic as I am. Wynter took a good bit of his beating from just simply being cooked alive (adead?) in the splash of a bomb or two. Not a healthy combination.
Before too long one of the hill giants was dropped by someone coming through the door, I think it might have been Ebon, and Sered followed up with some radiant blast that sent the other one and his earth giant companion sprawling. Almost immediately the two rose to their feet again, and as soon as Bingo dropped the Earth giant I gave the remaining hill giant at the door my best war cry – the one with the scorpion-tail maneuver. Surprisingly enough, it worked, he broke out into a total panic and ran! I’d been hoping he’d drop and I’d have a prisoner to question, but I accomplished my goal of at least avoiding having him sweep the bunch of us with that club again. Probably saved my life with that, because shortly after I got pegged by the slingers and the elemental simultaneously. Actually lost consciousness for a second there, and probably would have slowly roasted in the burning lava around me if Wynter hadn’t restored me as he passed me by. He must be some kind of holy knight, not just a common warrior as I’d originally suspected. In a way, this makes his meat-state a little more understandable…having a divine inspiration could certainly give one enough sense of purpose to delay judgment and live in one’s hollowed-out corpse.
I returned the favor, seeing the shambles he was in, and uttered a re-knitting boon as he ran by, both for myself and then for him. Ebon had since popped up onto a pedestal next to me for a clearer view, and I followed suit.
It was at this point that one of the slingers made a break for it and got out a set of doors in the back I hadn’t noticed. I have yet to decide if this was a fatal escape against us. He has since almost certainly alerted the entire keep to our presence. The elemental fell shortly thereafter, as did the other slinger.
I used a sealing nail on the primary doors once we paused to catch our breath, and someone searching the bodies came across a small silver chest that when opened revealed a tiny flame. The flame etched out something in what looked like giantish before coming to the shape of a face, as if it was a mask made of pure flame. It said something along the lines of “You again” and “they are waiting for you”, neither of which I felt particularly comfortable about. The image faded almost immediately, but I still feel rather nervous about this. Knowing they have us in mind, I am sure they have armed every conceivable trap specifically for our visit now.
As we moved through the far doors and into a long hallway, the other slinger appeared around a corner up there and dropped one or two shots at us. He was alone, which led me to believe it was surely a trap to draw us in and encircle us with allies – and I turned out to be right, as a doorway to our side popped open and five or six orcs tumbled out. This fight was brief, and fairly straightforward – despite their toughness, orcs are, after all, simply orcs. We managed to convince one to lay down arms, and after a quick bout of unproductive questioning, we decided to proceed forward. I disposed of the captive once the more sensitive palates were out of sight…war is rarely pretty, and an orc left in our rear would without a doubt betray us or lead reinforcements back to us if he were left to move freely.
A few moments down the hall, and Sered spotted a hidden chamber of some kind – which turned out to be a treasury for the keep. Good bit of cash, and a few smaller gems and such. Good to see a little profit come into play at this point. I’ll be looking to import some brevare back in Al’Veydra if I can work out the details with the local merchants. Hopefully I’ll get some with those good fir embers, the oak ones I tried a while back just didn’t have the same zip that fir sap would. While we cleaned the place out, Althea and Bingo were watching the hallway for disruptions.
We were about done here in the treasure room, and Sered wass making to round the corner where the slinger vanished a when we were dealing with the orcs. I should have known something else was up, because just as we were ready to start, I heard Bingo mutter from back down the hall:
“Uh oh…”
