Blood, Eyes and Hands
Upon their return to the city, the party found that a huge section of the Old Road had been torn up as something massive passed below. Grimley apologised for the mess inside the Three Badgers - as the creature went by, it left tremors in its wake that caused damage to the interior of the inn. The party went upstairs to rest after their dangerous encounter with the beetles. As they slept, Visimar was struck by visions - flashes of gold, accompanied by unintelligible whispers, though acquiring any definition was impossible.
Tondras 23rd Concord, 30 Fifth Age
The next morning, the Reforged found the Ranger of Roamere at the bar. He called himself Cadman, though he is known in town merely as Yellowcloak. Cadman asked if they were warriors, having been hired by a man named Gilderbone for a task too difficult for himself to complete alone. Though the party were preoccupied with tracking the ghohlbrorn, they offered to meet with Cadman and Gilderbone once the creature was dead. The group then split - Kharmir headed to Cliffhollow Garrison, Visimar to the forge, and Callidus remained at the bar to drink - agreeing to meet at the inn in half an hour.
Black clouds massed on the horizon. As Kharmir walked through the Old Town toward Petra's Cairn, he saw locals putting bags of sand outside their homes, in case of flooding. At the Garrison, he met with Varick in his offices. Varick said that he thought the party were dead when they never returned to the Marsh Town. He revealed that the ghohlbrorn had made its first incursion within the city walls, causing a breach in a side street in the Old Town. The whole shopfront fell into the crater, and blood at the scene implied that another victim had been snatched.
Meanwhile, Visimar went to Hewan's forge to ask about the silver crown and if he could buy it back, but he found that Hewan had already melted it down into silver. Disgruntled, Visimar went off in search of something to replace his ruined eye. Following Hewan's vague directions, Visimar came across a dingy-looking shop with a bejewelled skull in the window, run by a hunched white dragonborn. After a brief browse, Visimar chose a chunk of bloodstone - dark grey with red flecks - which the shopkeeper polished down into a smooth sphere. He also found his eye caught by a withered black hand, and was told by the shopkeeper that he had bought it from an antiques collector. The hand once belonged to a mummified wizard, and was a rare piece used in the days of the dwarven undercities to find veins of precious minerals. However, its magical nature could also make it aggressive, and the shopkeeper advised Visimar to keep it in a locked box. Visimar bought the hand, and returned to the Three Badgers twenty-five minutes late, to Kharmir's displease. Callidus was already drunk, and fell off his chair at the sight of Visimar's new eye.
The Ghohlbrorn
The party followed the tear in the road to a cramped street near the foot of Petra's Cairn, where the ghohlbrorn's latest attack had caused a shop to collapse. The city watchmen guarding the site tried to prevent their approach, but Visimar explained that they were mercenaries working for Captain Varick. The party delved into the crater, to the shock of the nearby civilians, and followed the tunnel east, where it inevitably emerged at the circle of bones. Inside the central hollow lay a freshly-digested halfling, still covered in the creature's acidic, yellowish bile. Kharmir tried to identify tracks, but the place was riddled with them, so many that it was impossible to find which way the creature had went. After investigating the blocked tunnels that pitted the surrounding landscape, Visimar took out the mummified hand in the hopes it would seek out what he desired. The hand merely waggled, limp.
Kharmir suggested setting a trap, and - with the others' help - took the halfling's rapidly-decomposing body into the extant tunnel and pinned it to the ceiling. He clanged his armour, and even cut his palm in the hope that the blood might attract the creature, but to no avail. When Visimar tried to suck from Kharmir's wound, he decided to take a different tack. The party climbed up into the trees at the edge of the Fenmarrow Forest and watched the circle of bones as the storm broke overhead.
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| The ghohlbrorn (a.k.a. a bulette) |
A few hours later, Kharmir spotted something through the driving rain: a dark shape moving across the ground, like a shark's fin through water. The creature broke through the dirt and revealed itself: a massive bulk on four thickset legs, nine feet tall from foot to shoulder, silhouetted in the stormy evening night. Yellow eyes burned in its pointed head, and blueish plates of stony armour descended down its body in sheets. The ghohlbrorn walked to the edge of the pit and vomited a fresh hail of bones into the crater before crushing them into powder with its flat claws. Kharmir fired an arrow at the opposite edge of the pit, catching the creature's attention, and while its back was turned Kharmir and Visimar slipped out of the trees and crept up to the edge of the pit, the rain muffling their approach. However, Callidus - still drunk - slipped and tumbled down the slope.
Before anyone could react, the hulking beast turned and, with extraordinary agility, leapt an extraordinary height into the air, landing heavily on top of Callidus, almost crushing him to death. Kharmir drove his glaive into the weak point below the ghohlbrorn's 'fin,' distracting it enough for Callidus to roll out from beneath it and flee. Visimar and Kharmir battled the creature in close-range, but as Kharmir tried to back away, it clenched him in its jaws, its thick teeth penetrating his armour. Callidus staggered around the edge of the pit to avoid the beast while the others fought, until finally the ghohlbrorn leapt over Kharmir, allowing him to slice its underbelly with his greatsword. It landed, and died swiftly from its injuries.
Dreams of Gold
Battered but victorious, the Reforged dragged the ghohlbrorn's corpse back to Cliffhollow Garrison, dumping it in the rain-soaked courtyard. Captain Varick thanked them for their service and sent them off with a hundred gold pieces each, as well as first pickings from the ghohlbrorn's corpse. They decided to peel off its chitinous plating and take it to Hewan to fashion into armour. Callidus, injured and intoxicated, led the way on the walk back to the Three Badgers, which was crowded with people seeking shelter from the storm. Kharmir, seized by an idea, decided to write an advertisement for local dwarves, or any folks who were interested in the repopulation of an ancient city, and posted it on the noticeboard in Dunstan's Square. He then lingered in the bar for a while, listening for rumours, and overhead a conversation between two merchants. They spoke of bandits on the Old Road between here and Blackmont - rumour had it that the bandits had no eyes.
Meanwhile, Visimar and Callidus retired to their rooms. Visimar took out the black iron coin and the mummified hand, lay them on the floor, and began to meditate. He found himself dreaming of a palace of gold: a hall hundreds of feet tall, with gilded columns that gleamed in the sharp yellow sun. Gemstones littered the floor - diamonds, rubies, sapphires - like spilled caltrops. All around him, objects of obscene wealth shone on plinths: urns, gold-framed paintings, crowns, brooches, brocade gowns, tapestries inlaid with precious thread. Something moved at the end of the hall: a great, thick serpent scaled in golden metal plates. It shimmered and shuddered, raising a humanlike head to look at Visimar, before whispering: 'All of this… can be yours…' Visimar asked how, and the serpent responded: 'Follow the voices, and they will lead you to prosperity.' Visimar tried to reply, but the room began to melt, drowning him in gold. As it splattered down from the ceiling, running down the columns, the air shimmered with the heat.
The Pennant of Red and Gold
Faustas 24th Concord, 30 Fifth Age
The next morning, the party reflected that it had been a whole week since they slew the monster in the Hellmire. To celebrate, they decided to stop by the Rockery to watch a performance before they spoke to Rogeiros again. Before they went, Visimar went back to the trinket shop to ask the shopkeeper about the inert hand. The dragonborn explained that it had been sold to him by an elderly gnome. Recognising Victor's description, Visimar realised that he had been duped. Disgruntled, he rejoined the Reforged at the Rockery.
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| The Rockery |
According to the poster, the Pennant of Red and Gold was a tale of two queens, of murder and vengeance, of great battles on land and sea, of slain dragons and eaten hearts, of blood, love, fire and steel. The venue itself was a longhall with stained-glass lanterns hanging outside, casting myriad prismatic colours across the cobbled street. The interior had a cozy, mead-hall feel to it. Huge standing stones lay around the edge of the room like a broken henge: each at least seven feet tall, carved with faces of different expressions, grins, scowls, weeping, cheering. Benches and stools were arranged in an oval around a central stage, which itself was hidden from view by a ring of crimson velvet curtain. Kharmir went to buy drinks at the bar, electing to avoid Emerald Brew in favour of a golden mead, while Visimar bought five mutton pasties. They took their seats, with Visimar seating himself next to a human woman in her mid-thirties, with blonde hair tied back with a bejewelled dragon-shaped hairpin. Visimar attempted to be charming, but the woman seemed wary.
The lights went down, and the troupe's leader - a spindly half-elf - emerged from the curtain, sporting a painted face and a jacket glittering with red stones. He introduced himself as Lord Cobble Robin, Mummer King of Stonecross, to rapturous applause. The curtain rose, disappearing into gold confetti, revealing a fat knight in rusty armour (painted gold), sword aloft. A halfling in a belled hat stepped out and narrated over a musician playing an ocarina.
"Sons of Haelion, children of the sun!
A hundred bloody battles won -
Watch as these warriors of divine fame
Stand fast before the fright of flame!"
A cloth dragon, long, serpentine, blasted fire into the air. Visimar looked closer, and saw through the dragon's maw that it was puppeteered by a gang of four gnomes. The fat knight duelled the dragon to 'oos' and 'aahs' from the audience. His sword cut through the cloth, revealing the four gnome performers within, who spilled out and mimed dying in an extremely exaggerated fashion, to the audience's delight. The knight removed his helm and armour, taking the mantle of God-Emperor Hazeran, and lay down on the floor as chorus members throw a blanket over him. The halfling returned:
"Behold, the sleeping emperor lies,
Not a fear behind those dormant eyes,
Hazeran's lands, won of war,
Sleep in peace forevermore
But what is that our good king saw?
A spectral knocking at the door --?"
Hazeran woke, and communed with the veiled ghost of his dead first wife Elmariya. She warned of danger ahead: the fall of a great dynasty. Hazeran comically dismissed the claims by grabbing his crotch. Elmariya vanishes, and he returned to his slumber. As he slept, Lord Cobble Robin snuck onto the stage in a flamboyant, bloodstained Quisline costume, drawing a long knife. Visimar wolf-whistled.
"Second married, second loved
A dagger held in fingers gloved
And after did this ghost depart -
The Mad Queen cut and ate his heart!"
Quisline drove the blade into Hazeran's chest, inciting a long and messy death scene, before yanking a pig's heart from Hazeran's chest and miming eating it. Someone in the audience fainted. The play went on in a similar vein, mixing comedy with shocking violence in a parade of tonal whiplash - the lands fell to the Mad Queen's power, with her two blood-children at her side: the halfling bounded around like a savage dog in the role of Othmut, to laughs and revulsion from the audience. Two dragons fought, Aion ventured into the mountains before falling into a volcano, Cathmaris seals herself away in the Blighted Lands, and Anaxandros kills the Mad Queen, emerging the lone hero of the story. After bows and tumultuous applause, the audience were freed for revelry. Lord Cobble Robin and his troupe stayed to mix with the patrons. Kharmir complimented the mummers for their show, and Cobble Robin explained that they were a touring troupe, but began here in Stonecross.
Meanwhile, the woman beside Visimar asked if he was from the Sunless Lands. She had recognised the touch of the angels - the iscafaene - and told him she had a great reverence for that part of the world. She introduced herself as Pandora, a local financier whose loans funded Lord Cobble Robin's troupe. The pair exchanged stories, and Visimar mentioned the legend of the Olath: the source of drow long life, a great fallen star that only the most powerful matriarchs have seen. Intrigued, Visimar divulged the location of his lodgings, if Pandora ever wanted to talk more.
And so it is written.
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