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| The Dead Are Set To Rest. |
| Meeting Thurin and Finding a Metamagical Sword. |
I awoke from the night’s journeying a little groggy from the fight with the dark cleric. Since I had been knocked unconscious my senses were not up to their usual standards. With that aside, I noticed Grizzlegast was hurriedly packing up the carriage and getting it ready to take back into Westdel. Again Grizzlegast assured us he would return in the morning of the next day. I trusted his word and prayed for his safe travel on the way back.
Filled with vigor from the night before, I quickly placed my new armor over my head and slid it down with the help from Rorrin. Once camp broke, we headed up to Brochbarrow Hill to put to rest the evil that had been awaken inside. Again on the way up the hill I managed to lose my footing, tripped on a branch, and then proceeded in falling back down the hill until a tree stump stopped my decline. Embarrassed from the fall I chose not to acknowledge the fall but instead prayed to Throrn and thanked him for teaching me to be humble and not boastful.
Suddenly, most of the group began to hear some shouting that was coming from the top of the hill from what sounded like a gruff dwarf and something else. After climbing over the Peak of the mountain I spotted a Dwarf fighting what appeared to be a dead Troll. What proceeded next was easily the most humorous moment of the day. I started the bout by casting a turn spell on the undead creature who was easily fearful of the light that I had brought down from the heavens to cast on him, but in his fear he was unaware of Gim’s wolf who repeatedly kept tripping the monster. The wolf must have tripped the fool 3 times before the rest of the group was able to crush the demon while he was helpless on the ground.
The dwarf that was fighting the Troll with us, appeared to be a caster from what I could gather from the fight. Not that he showed his worth during the fight by almost taking Rorrin’s head off with an acid spell, but I decided to wait until after the encounter to ask about his actions. He revealed his name was Thurin and that he was sent from the Battlemage academy. He was a magic user like myself although he was more skilled in hand to hand combat than I was. We quickly accepted him into the group since we shared like missions and then continued to explain to him why we were there and what we had encountered thus far.
Bored by the conversation Gim started to poke around the stone ruins that were next to our battlegrounds. Gim wasn’t able to look over the edge to see inside but with my vision I was able to find loose ground inside the ruins. After some shoveling we found an iron clad door that Eoin was easily able to open. We then proceeded to use Lochlan’s rope to gently lower our group down one by one. Everyone made it down at least most of the way when they started their decent but when I grabbed the rope I was still weary from being knocked unconscious the day before and completely missed the rope falling 40 feet onto Eoin who took the brunt of the fall. Embarrassed again I spoke nothing of my fall and realized Throrn was teaching me for dis-valuing Thurin’s abilities.
After healing up from the fall we realized we were in a crypt of the gnomes. In the current room we were in we noticed 8 doors.... all of which started to move as though they were being scraped. I quickly evaluated the situation to realize the undead had come to life and these doors were their graves. I then noticed that the door to the east had no such scratching going on and told Eoin to open it. He did with some help from Lochlan and inside we saw a monument to a great gnomish soldier. Just at the moment that we opened the door, six of the other doors were rocked open revealing the zombies that were inside. Again like the previous fight I called out for Throrn’s help and he showed his presence like he had no other time by shining a light so bright that every single zombie was scared back into their rooms. I must admit I never knew I had such strength but with Throrn at my side I knew I was able to overcome anything. The rest of the group quickly disposed of the zombies while I stood in the middle holding my symbol above my head keeping the zombie fearful and shaken.
Shortly after disposing the bodies... Rorrin and, Thurin, and Lochlan started to disrobe the zombies and take their weapons as well. I didn’t feel that this was very honorable since these were once great gnomes... if that’s even possible. But alas, myself and Gim’s voices were overshadowed by dwarven greed. We then headed into the connecting room to the east and examined the statue more thoroughly. Once I started to read the inscription that revealed it was a tomb from Uthren, his ghost appeared and began questioning our motives. I was able to intrigue the ghost with my eagerness to put him and the rest of the undead here back to rest. Other’s also chimed in and spoke their piece but the ghost seemed disinterested and vanished and quickly and he appeared.
After dwelling for a moment on the ghost’s part in this mission we found another door leading on a downward slope. This time, I was able to climb down the hallway leading into another circular room. Once inside Gim found a whole in the ground and looked down it to reveal a hard to squeeze through opening. Just then I went blank for a few moments. I don’t remember this time or anything about it, but when I awoke our new friend Thurin was unconscious on the floor with Gim’s wolf cowering in the corner. I soon realized we were in trouble and began to look for whatever undead was in the room and tried to turn it. Even with my best efforts I was not able to fear the beast away from my friends. I had hoped that after turning the creature we would be able to run away for the moment to heal our friend. His life was my greatest concern at the moment since we could easily finish this encounter some other time. Gim likewise felt my concern and ran back up the stairs. He started yelling for help so Rorrin filed up the steep hallway shortly thereafter. Eoin and myself were trying to fight off the beast but none of our attempts were harming the creature at all. Suddenly, like a bolt of lighting, Gim came sliding down the slope and quickly handed what appeared to be a metamagical sword to Eoin who raised the new sword at the beast in an attempt to send that beast back from whence it came. |
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| Associated Regions: Brochbarrow Hill, Boddendell |
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| From the journal of Groehl |
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Contributor: Chuck Jubenville |
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