Cleaning up, New Defenses, New Allies

The battle with the orcs completed, Raifer turned his crews attention to cleaning up the mess. After all, there were better than 100 dead orc bodies littering his front porch. He set the crews to removing the debris. Seladon offered to assist in the removal to a location about 2 miles away and construct a pyre to destroy the remains. It was shortly after the dust had settled on this episode when the camp cook came to Raifer and informed him that he has noticed there is about 1 weeks worth of food missing from the camp pantry. He had questioned the staff about the missing food, but no one was able to identify what had happened to it. Raifer assumed that someone has been stealing food to give to the Drow prisoner.

As the orcan pyre burnt out in the next days morning sky, a small group of riders approached from the east. Rollin Hand, John Z., Patrick O'Furniture and Clark Thereaver came riding in to the outpost. Rollin arrived to aide Raifer in his training, the rest as additional troops for the outpost. S.D. himself asked for volunteers to help the beleaguered forward post and the other three stepped up for this task. John agreed to sign on as wizard at large first assistant to Raifer.

The new group found it odd that there were Xvarts camping in the parade ground area of the camp and Patrick was more than a little concerned, given his previous run ins with the people. There were several exchanges of rude glances and stares until one of the Xvarts approached Patrick and struck up a conversation. The talk was guardedly polite and as it began to get a tad nasty, Gliksnar came over and intervened. He was willing to share much about his people and the fact that he was at one time a soldier in the Castle of Darkness. He even vaguely remembered Patrick.

It seems that the Xvarts were generally shang-hai'd into working as military for the Lich all those years ago. What made it worse was that the small Xvarts found the added power the lich gave them intoxicating. All of a sudden, they were no longer a pushed around people and many of them liked that feeling. They gladly served a ruler that gave them that power. Several of them understood what was happening and waited for an opportunity to get away. Gliksnar absorbed any training he could get and left when the lich was destroyed, returning to his homeland.

Another group, a larger one, came striding up at this point and was quickly identified as a group of dwarves, led by King Al-Alin himself. Raifer and staff went out to meet him and explain the current situation. While the King found it strange to make such allies, he was willing to at least hear them out. His primary reason for the personal visit though, was the drow prisoner. He entered the camp and parlayed with the Xvart leader. Gliksnar proved to be quite an adept diplomat and quickly thawed the cold feelings of the King. While they were not completely trusting of each other, arrangements were made for a Xvart representative to come back to the Kingdom to work out rough treaty / peace agreements. The King questioned the Drow, but did not get much information other than he was now sure that there was a Drow base of operations somewhere nearby.

Raifer and the King conferrred for a while regarding the defense of the outpost. It was agreed that there was a critical need for better permanent defenses given the definite strategic position this post was growing into. Ideas for what could be done to secure the post were agreed upon and the King offered several work crews to be dispatched in the work effort to be headed by Raifer and Kunder.

Al-Alin led the Post leaders back in to the command office where he showed them a new tool being set up for their use. It was obvious that the current methods of communication were too slow and they put in place a Reflecting Pool for immediate communication, lest they get caught short or even overrun next time.

Patrick O'Furniture was eager to share some of his new arrow making knowledge with the post staff and began setting up shop as local Fletcher. Indigo decided it would be best for him to return with the King to Al-Alin to research some of the local history and legends that may shed more light on what was known of the post scout area. The King was able to shed some light on one of the caves in the norhtern mountain. At one time, the dwarves of his kingdom attempted to find minerals in the mountain range, but came up empty. The other three entrances were unknown to him other than two of them being natural.

Before he left, the King made arrangements for 'shore leave' staff that would allow Raifer to give his crew some down time on a rotating basis. he also brought with him as permanent crew 20 more Dwarven warriors to bring the post staff to 60. He then left with his personal guard and Indigo. His construction crews arrived the next day and began work on the improvements.

What's in the Cave?

The following day, Raifer gathered up a probe squad and headed for the northern mountains to investigate the caves. Raifer, Duther, John Z., Nozenstein, Parker Rose and Gladden Underfoot made way to the caves. As they approached, Gladden noticed several tracks of 'big people', but not being a tracker, he could not indentify exactly what they were. They camped outside the cave for the night before entering. During the night, about an hour or so before dawn, the group heard 'human like' screams from inside the cave.

In the morning they went in. Down the entrance of the roughly carved opening. The floor was beaten but not used often lately. They went down about 1 mile and the cave split in to two passages. While trying to decide which way to go, they saw a flash of light from the right passage. Decision made. They crept down that tunnel and came upon a very charred body, face down. When they turned it over, the dead orange eyes of a Xvart stared up at them. He was burned to a crisp. John was able to determine from the surrounding evidence that he was killed with a fireball. The group pressed on.

Up ahead they saw a flickering light and then heard several voices speaking in a language they did not understand coming from what they though was a chamber up ahaed. Parker cast a Silence 15' Radius spell to cover their approach. As they entered the chamber, they came face to face with 5 Githyanki warriors. Both groups were surprised by this turn of events. The Githyanki jumped in to attack mode and the party rushed to defend their position.

Two warriors immediately engaged Raifer and Nozenstein. John summoned an Earth Elemental to engage the enemy. Parker cast a Bless to help her crew. The battle began and the post crew was not doing well, taking several hits without doing much to the Githyanki. The elemental was dishing out some heavy hits, but it appeared that the crew was overmatched Raifer suggested a fall back but Noze wanted one more round. That round was all the difference. A couple of key strikes and 2 of the 5 Githyanki were dropped and Raifer jumped a third, taking it into a hand to hand scrum. The Elemental finished of another and a few moments later Raifer was able to knock out his opponent and then quickly slit its throat.

The last enemy quickly slipped out the other side of the chamber. As the group went to follow, they were stopped by a Wall of Force. Now able to regroup, they began to heal themselves and searched the Githyanki bodies for whatever and found some money, but little else. The task now was to find out how to get past the Wall.

Top of page

Previous Session Notes

Next Session Notes

Back to the History Index

Back to the Dungeon

This page and its contents are presented solely for the purpose of the RPG game events conducted by a private group. Any references to people or places is explicitly within the context of these RPG games and has no connection to any other similarly named source.