Week 47 - Smells in here something awful!

Our victorious heroes stride majestically over the bridge to the Citadel of Weeping Dragons. But as they approach the citadel itself, a ballista bolt comes whizzing their way! Whizz! The giants defending the citadel are a touch jumpy, and it’s combat time. The party, via their Telepathic Bond, agree to deal with this non-lethally.

Gauthakan and Screechy handle the two giants at the door - Gauthkan and Mend swiftly reducing one to unconciousness, while Screechy attempts to grapple the other. Lazaroo Fireballs the ballista, snapping it’s string. Twang! The giant pulls out a longbow and proceeds to ineffectually pepper Gauthakan and Mend with arrows. Then Flash Suggests that he give up, as they are utterly outclassed. He does so, heading into the citadel to get more support. Hmm - not quite what Flash intended.

Meanwhile, one giant subdued, Gauthakan joins Screechy’s grapple on the other. The giant is immensely strong and a difficult opponent, but eventually they pin and hog-tie him. At about this time, the front door is flung open and there stands the chieftain of the Tiamikal Nul-Shada: Kargo Thundersmiter, fire giant and one mightily pissed-off dude. He swiftly sizes up the situation, noting that the party have been good enough to not kill his obviously outclassed warriors. He’s still unfriendly, though.

Adventurers! Grave-robbers and theives! Well you come too early - we have not fallen yet, and you will find no welcome here. We shall defend this citadel against the dragons until the sun grows cold. Go!

Frith notices something odd. When the cheiftain mentioned defending the citadel against the dragons, he made a momentary gurning motion. The cheiftain’s hatred of dragonkind is not entirely natural - part of the nature of of the enchantment laid upon this city is explained. All who live here are subtly geased to defend it against dragons.

Communicating this information to Flash, Flash casts a stilled and silenced Greater Dispel Magic targeted at the effect. But it does not appear to do a great deal.

Out-of-game info: The chieftain has personal reasons for hating dragons (they killed his tribe when he was a child and left only him blad-di-blah), so when he came here, he fell under the effect of the ancient geas pretty much straight away and completely. The reason he’s chief of this faction is precisely that he is more fanatically nutty about dragons than any of them. Flash’s spell did beat the geas and lifted its magical effect, but did not change the chief’s personality or underlying reasons for his fanaticism. He will fall under the effect again in no time. From his point of view, he had perhaps a momentary doubt, or lapse of resolve, but he will soon put that behind him.

At the revelation that this party is a gang of hotshot dragon slayers, Kargo Thundersmiter’s attitude is much the same as chief Silvereye’s - ok then, go slay some dragons. But Flash’s enormous powers of persuasion, bolstered by Mend, bring him around to the point that he actually wants to help the party out.

Up to a point, of course - “helpful” does not mean “please, have all my credit cards”. Persuaded that the party are allies, sincere about the dragons, he charges them with a quest.

The great vault of this citadel is warded in three ways. First, by we who live here. Secondly, by a pair of keys which must be used simultaneously like in a nuclear missile silo (gurn). Thirdly, by the Ritual of Opening. It can be no coincidence that one of the keys was stolen just prior to this siege. I suspect so-called King Silvereye, although I have no proof. If you wish to make yourselves useful and aid us against this siege, go and recover that key!

At this point, Flash makes an interesting observation. “Surely, oh great chieftain, if those who built this place furnished it with a key and a ritual for opening, then they never intended that it should remain sealed for all time”.

The chief … reacts to this. A thought has occurred to him, and he looks penetratingly at the party. Flash casts a Stilled, Silenced Detect Thoughts, but Kargo Thundersmiter is a Dragonstalker, his mind fortified against draconic wiles and the terror of their presence. Flash fails to slip past his mind’s defenses.

Out-of-game info: your humble DM was reminded of something by Flash’s observation. Just what it is, however, he is not going to tell you.

The chief replies that be that as it may, the secret of the ritual is long lost, and so the point is moot. Flash has the presence of mind to ask the chief to describe the key. Kargo Thundersmiter answers “It looks just about exactly like this one” and shows them the second key, which is securely chained to his person via a ring passing through his liver.

And with that, their audience is concluded and the front door closed. Our band of demigods decide to go the simplest solution, and cast Discern Location. Another part of this valley’s ancient defences are revealed - divination is extaordinarily difficult here. Makes sense, really - if it were easy, the phyactery would have been found long ago. Flash, however, is equal to the task, and the location of the missing key is revealed as “Bowels of the Mother Worm, Carrion Pit, Kongen Thulnir”.

Favouring a direct approach, the party enquire of one of the door guards (not the one they knocked out - he’s still out cold) as to where this carrion pit might be. The carrion pit is in the undercity, which is reachable via a ladder/staircase located on the north side. But that part of the city, the guard warns, is run by the Rift Crawler faction. These are giants who lack resolve and proper dignity, why - some of them even say that the Tiamkal Nul-Shada monomania about dragons is “silly”, if you can imagine! One should expect treachery among such weak-willed folk.

Note the irony - far from being weak willed, the rift crawlers are those giants with a will strong enough to resist the ancient geas. Living on the other side of the city, away from the citadel also helps.

Our heroes make their way to the Steps of the Ancients, dealing with another dragon attack on the way, which we shall not bother describing. The stairs are steep and giant-sized. No problem for Screechy and Gauthakan, but the other party members make use of a Rope of Climbing and get down without difficulty.

Once in the undercity, the party again take the direct approach, seizing a bugbear and politely enquiring as to where the Carrion Pit might be. The bugbear indicates a doorway in the cavern wall, and the party head.

A quick look at the door and a go at the handle indicates that the door is stuck or barred. Gauthakan, frustrated by having to do nonlethal damage to that guard giant, wants to use his big Wand of Opening, but the party persuade him to allow Flash to Knock the door. He does so, and it swings open.

Gauthakan, Screechy, and Mend step forward. It’s a trap! An adamatine portcullis slams down around them on three sides. Screechy and Mend waste no time, each dealing with one side of the cage, bending the bars by sheer strength. Mend looks up to the roof and sees an array of dripping spigots, but has no time for anything more than a “uh-oh”.

The door to the south - behind the remaining cage wall - swings open, revealing a room full of Troglodytes armed with longspears. As it does so, the spigots eject a foul concoction of paralysing carrion-crawler juice. Anyone caught in the cage will be paralysed or rendered helpless by the troglodyte stench, and easy prey for the troglyodytes to pincushion.

Um, no. Thanks to their daily Hero’s Feast the party are all immune to the various noisomenesses, and Mend is a warforged, anyway. One troglodyte actually manages to hit Mend who politely ignores it, entranced as he is by the sight of so much free adamantine. He casts Fabricate and begins forming the bars into a nice suit of armour, incidentally opening up the bars to the south. Flash, meanwhile, casts Hypnotic Pattern, swiftly ensnaring the minds of almost all the Troglodytes with its pretty colours. Gauthakan says “ta!” and wades into a smallish room packed with about 20-odd entranced Troglodytes.

Well, it’s pretty brutal.

Swinging his Goliath Hammer in an arc, Gauthakan great-cleaves through one, two, three, … eight of the troglodytes. Screechy runs in and wrestles one to the ground, simply to keep it alive. Next round Gauthakan moves over to another knot of troglodytes, who have not quite registered what has just happened owing to all the blood, and does the same again: taking down eight of them. Screechy pins his captive, leaving one Troglodyte still standing. Gauthakan simply punches it in the head, breaking its neck instantly with the force of the blow.

The rest of the party come in and destroy any eggs that are in the chamber, and Gauthakan asks a couple of pertinent questions of the remaining Troglodyte. He is assured that there are no more traps, and that the great pit is “thataway”. Frith attempts to gauge the truthfulness of what the troglodyte has said, but the creature is so overwhelmingly terrified that it’s impossible to tell.

Screechy ties a rope around the neck of his captive, and Gauthakan - thinking ahead - ties a rope around five of the corpses so as to drag them by their ankles. The easiest way, after all, to deal with carrion crawlers is to distract them with some food.

The party head “thataway”, passing a room where the carrion-crawler catapult loads are kept. Gauthkan strides into what was once a rather nice bedroom, and is hit in the head with a carrion-crawler load, hurled by an angry hill giant. But of course, he is immune, and so he and Mend step forward to deal with the creature. It gets a lucky, lucky hit on Mend - catching him just under the rivet with a greataxe and coming close to killing him. Frith deals with the situation with a Mass Heal spell. After that, though, it’s pretty straightforward. The giant simply isn’t skilled enough to get past Mend and Gauthakan’s armour, and is defeated.

Drat - the stats for the giant were modified by including a Power Attack. If I had had him make normal attacks, he might have hit. I also should have made him twins. Or triplets. Still - it took a ninth-level spell to bring him down without incident, so he made a fair showing.

At the far end of the bedroom is an arch, opening outward onto an immense underground cavern. The opening is protected by something like a shark cage, which also encloses another entrance above them. And outside that cage are an innumerable horde of carrion-crawlers.

Well! The mother-worm, and the key in her bowels, must surely be around here somewhere. And I wonder where that entrance above leads to? See you next week, and Happy 40th Birthday, Andrew.