Hewan's Forge
Mercuras 22nd Concord, 30 Fifth Age
The following morning, the Reforged came down into the Three Badgers taproom and found no sign of the Bannerless, only the bartender and a yellow-cloaked man in the corner, whom they recognised as a Ranger of Roamere. The mercenaries' absence was more unsettling than their presence. The group recommended that Vilwyn lie low somewhere, perhaps Cliffhollow Garrison, where the city watch are headquartered. Visimar suggested housing Byron and Alice in the same place for their safety, but Kharmir countered that Byron needed work, and he needed to find a forge anyway, to find some use for the monster crocodile's hide. While Vilwyn bid them farewell, the others went out in search of a forge.
They found one in the Old Town, Stonecross' eldest district, which was primarily timber and plaster, old thatch houses, some made of piecemeal stone, all leaning so far into the cobbled street that they almost touched. At the end of the Street of Smoke, they found a courtyard behind a particularly well-maintained house, where a cavernous stone barn billowed with smoke from the forge. Inside, the dark barn was full of firelight and thick coal smoke, with shapes moving in it - smith's apprentices. The party found the lead smith: a heavyset man named Hewan who wore a large sapphire on a chain around his neck. Kharmir asked him if he could turn the crocodile's skin into something useful. Hewan warned him that it would be pricey, but that they wouldn't find another smith who could do it. Lord Stylflint himself purchased armour from his smithy. Kharmir persisted, and Hewan offered to turn the pelt into scale mail for the sum of five hundred gold pieces. Kharmir handed over a few of Lord Larassan's gold bars as payment, and the sight of a lord's seal impressed the blacksmith.
Hewan turned back to his forge, but Visimar stepped up to ask if he had room for another man. He brought Byron forward, and explained that he was a dedicated worker and a good man, who had escaped the dead end that was Correnwald. When Hewan seemed skeptical, Visimar produced the silver darts and his silvered scimitar as proof of Byron's skill. Hewan asked what Byron and Alice were to do about lodgings, saying that he'd prefer his smiths to be in stable living situations lest they become unreliable. Byron offered the crown that the party had found in the mausoleum, and Hewan, surprised, agreed to arrange their housing at Frida's boardhouse with the rest of the apprentices, with the warning that, no matter how he did things in Correnwald, Byron would have to do things Hewan's way now. Delighted, Byron accepted. The party went to leave, but before they did, Visimar stooped and gave Baesellor's witchmetal necklace to her, telling her that it belonged to a close friend and asking her to keep it safe for him. Alice whispered her thanks, and Byron shook Visimar's hands. With their farewells bid, the Reforged parted ways with the blacksmith and his daughter.
Missions and Memories
Now, with Vilwyn in hiding and their friends safe, the party found themselves, for the first time, without a quest to drive them on. Kharmir suggested going to the noticeboard to find something that might earn them coin or repute, but Visimar wished first to stop by Turnshale Tower and speak to Rogeiros. Callidus said he'd do anything that let him kill something. As they set off, Visimar heard a whisper drawing him towards Hewan's forge - 'the crown…' - but he ignored it and left with the group.
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| Turnshale Tower |
Turnshale Tower was a corkscrew-like building, spiralling up into the sky in an unmistakeably Elven fashion, topped with solid crenelations and a dark blue spire. An iron fence surrounded the tower gardens, in which cobbled paths criss-crossed through patches of pale green grass, studded with benches, rose arbours, and rhododendron bushes. There was a fountain in the centre, carved in the shape of a serpent coiled around a stone archway, a stream of water pouring from between the snake's fangs. A chapel-like library was built into the side of the tower, hosting a large stained glass window. Brown-robed Scholars shuffled around the gardens, reading on the benches, or pruning back the flowerbeds. The party entered the library and found a young half-elven woman at the desk. She explained that the archmage was indisposed, but offered an appointment at sundown on Faustas.
Disgruntled, the party revisited the noticeboard to find a quest to occupy their time. Visimar's interest was drawn by the report of a 'roaming creature', seeking to flex his monster-hunting skills. Kharmir was also intrigued by the poster for the play at the Rockery - the Pennant of Red and Gold. Visimar recalled the masquerades in the Sunless Lands, which he had attended with Illivarri, before her vanishing. Kharmir, in turn, remembered the revelries of Nolod Dulum, in which he honed his ability to urinate on command. Simultaneously impressed and repulsed, the party moved on to Cliffhollow Garrison to ask about the roaming monster.
The Beetles Below
Built into the side of Petra's Cairn, some way past the Pit of Proving, was Cliffhollow Garrison, the central barracks of the city watch. It was a primarily limestone fortification that seemed to have been cut out of the mountain itself, supplemented by timber roofs and palisades. A short, steep flight of stairs took the Reforged up to the garrison's arched entryway and through into an expansive courtyard with balconies overlooking the Old Town. City watchmen sparred with straw dummies and loose arrows on archery ranges. Asking around, the party was directed to a captain by the name of Varick, who received them in his office. When asked about the roaming creature, Varick said that it was a complex situation, and that he'd do better to show them rather than tell them. Taking a four-man guard escort, he led the party out of the garrison and north into the Marsh Town beyond the city walls, to a shack on the east side, where the door hung menacingly open.
Lacking the need to respire, Visimar led the way inside, in case of dangerous substances in the air. Instead, he found that the shack had been a candlemaker's shop: sparsely-furnished and bedecked with weeping wax. A huge hole had been burrowed into the floor: a crater over two metres wide, with slopes of dirt shored up around the hollow in the centre. Looking down into the pit reveals that it travelled between ten and twenty feet down before curving off into the darkness. Visimar jumped into the pit and slid down the dirt while Kharmir and Callidus waited at the top. Examining the soil, Visimar spotted grooves along the edge of the tunnel, suggesting scrabbling claws. He spotted something buried: a chunk of bone, stained yellow. There was a scent on it: something sulphurous and acidic, like bile. Kharmir slid down into the tunnel, and recognised Visimar's findings as congruous with the existence of a creature known as a ghohlbrorn - a burrowing monster, heavily armoured and heavily dangerous, that would often disrupt mining operations in Norod Dulum and other dwarven communities.
Varick explained that the candlemaker, who had vanished (presumably snatched by the creature) was not the first to be attacked. He led them to the remnants of a cheesemonger's home to the west of the Marsh Town, which had been almost completely levelled when the creature smashed through its foundations. Kharmir dared Callidus to eat some of the remaining, severely decaying cheese, but even Callidus had stronger survival instincts than that. Together, Visimar and Kharmir lifted the debris from over the crater and slipped inside, noting that the tunnels veered in the same direction as those below the candlemaker's. Suspecting that the tunnels might lead to the creature's lair, the Reforged set off into the dark.
Along the way, Visimar found another bone; this time, a large animal skull, also partially digested. The tunnel then opened up into a point of convergence between many tunnels, some smaller than the ghohlbrorn's, just large enough for the party to squeeze through single-file. There was a faint skittering noise from nearby, and the party crept from tunnel to tunnel, searching for the source. Visimar spotted a large shimmering creature, covered in chitin, with a large spiked horn, crouched in the dirt. Kharmir checked the next opening, and found another giant beetle, this one with a ram-like protrusion instead of a horn. A third beetle was nestled in a tunnel ahead. Keeping quiet, the party tried to follow the larger burrow onward, but were surprised when a fourth beetle - this one even more gigantic than its brethren - dropped down from the ceiling above, crushing Visimar beneath its bulk.
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| Beetles in the ghohlbrorn tunnels |
The party did battle with the attacking insects, but found difficulty in penetrating their chitinous hides. Callidus climbed into the smaller tunnels and fired bolts from a distance, but was followed by one of the smaller beetles, which squeezed into the tunnel after him. Meanwhile, the disturbance caused a cave-in, dropping tons of dirt into the tunnels below. In its stampede to escape the collapse, the king beetle charged at Visimar, and its huge frontal horn impaled Visimar's left eye, bursting it and half-blinding the dhampir. Callidus and Kharmir slew the smaller insects while Visimar reeled, his pained strikes flailing far from his opponent. Luckily, with Kharmir's intervention, the beetle was slain, and Kharmir took up his head before rallying the party to flee.
Cave-In!
With the beetle's severed head in hand, the Reforged sprinted down the tunnel as it collapsed behind them. As chunks of dirt and rock fell, gouts of marsh water spilled through, flooding around the party's feet and filling the place with a rancid stench. They reached a slope that led up towards sunlight - Visimar climbed up with ease, but Callidus tripped and landed face-first in the dirt. As Kharmir used his glaive to pole vault up the slope, he grabbed Callidus' arm and heaved him up towards the exit. They breached the surface just in time, and lay out on the wet grass while the opening behind them filled with soil.
The tunnel had led them to a ring of white and yellow matter at the edge of the Fenmarrow Forest: bones - animal and human - lain out in a perfectly concentric circle. In the centre was a deep, fifteen-feet wide crater, inside which lay more bone matter, ground up into a fine powder like dust in a mortar. Visimar sifted through the crater, finding a small gold band amidst the bone matter, as well as a few lumps of crushed wax. Kharmir spotted footprints nearby: large, three-toed, claw-like. Ghohlbrorn footprints.
And so it is written.
