| A couple of days on from the place where they had met the displacers, the
party arrived at the city of Lantalaure. Cresting a ridge as the sun set, they could see
the city laid out before them, no more than twenty miles away. There was no question in anyone's mind of entering the ruins in the dark, and so the group pitched camp. Digging through his pack, Surya unpacked his spyglass, a curiosity he'd picked up from a dwarven merchant long ago, and surveyed the distant remains. |
|
The map they'd brought showed Lanta in its' heyday, a pleasant city with wide, open roads and plenty of trees and greenery in between the many houses. The signs were visible that it had once been like that, but what was there now was a sad remnant of the capital of Sildor. Few walls remained more than waist-high, and none more than around ten feet. The perimeter wall had been breached all along its' length, and most of its' towers were completely gone. The bridge over what had been the river Vanrassė was down, its' smashed end sticking folornly out over the Vileflow.
Meanwhile, Hildraft and Sack were both scribbling on bits of paper. The half-orc was working on ideas for different types of arrow, while the dwarf was creating a springloaded invention, intended to provide one pre-prepared quick reload for a heavy crossbow in combat.
As the Tellaran watched, a flicker of movement caught his eyes. He squinted, trying to get a better view, but it was no use; he couldn't make any detail out - but it was clear that the city was not deserted. The party set careful watches that night.
|
|
The next morning they tethered the bandits' horses in what had once been an area of pastureland north of the city, and made their way into the city proper. Although the ruined buildings were quite low, the city was not built on entirely flat ground - the central roadway were on raised banks, for a start - and the group initially got lost trying to reach the House of Swords. After some reassessment, however, they made a better attempt and located the ruins of Elverandil's home and forge. |
Little or nothing remained intact of the building itself. Clearly it had once been a magnificent mansion with gardens and outbuildings, but now it was scattered rubble. First the party scouted the outer perimeter of the site, checking for traps or signs of trouble. Sack did indeed find signs of traps; but they were easily a hundred years old, and seemed to have been set - and triggered - as part of some last-ditch defence of the house.
Moving inside, they spread out and began looking around. Kobort brought up Detect Magic, and immediately became aware of an area 10'2 in the centre of the ruins that radiated low-level magic. Sack rather startled everybody by opening his trousers and widdling on one edge of the area, then examining the results rather closely; the idea being to see if any fluid flowed down through cracks in the stone. None did. He continued to poke and pry, until, suddenly, something happened.
The whole 10' square area started to move, slowly and smoothly, upwards, continuing until it was 10' above ground level, thus presenting a 10' cube of freestanding stone. A flare of magic made the cube glow, and suddenly it became transparent. A tall, commanding figure became visible within; Elvarandil the Noldorsmith. In fluent Elven accented with the Noldor, he asked: "You who require entry to the Vaults of the House of Swords, do you serve the Powers of Darkness?". |
|
The group looked at each other for a moment. Then Kobort spoke up boldly, answering "No," in Elven. The image vanished and the now plain stone block began to sink back again. There were some groans at this, as some of the heroes felt they'd given the wrong answer and that the lock was resetting, but these were stilled as the block carried on down for a further ten feet, leaving a ten-foot pit with an exit in one side, leading into a darkened corridor 5' wide. The way into the vaults was open.
With typical pragmatism, the next thing the party did was nothing; they watched the pit until it closed again in order to find out how long it would stay open. Nine minutes after opening, it slid quietly shut again and became as it had been when they'd arrived. Good enough! Sack and Surya set off back to the pasture, taking the remaining horses to leave with the others outside the city in the hopes that they'd be less likely to be eaten outside the city ruins. They'd then come back on Kobort's horse, which he'd transform with his wand and carry with him.
As they passed the edge of the city ruins, Sack's quick eyes caught sight of a movement again. This time, he was quite sure it was white, and larger than a man... He and Surya moved a bit quicker.
Back at the ruins, Kobort and Hildraft became aware of sounds of aproaching creatures. Turning to look, they saw first one, then more, large beasts crest the embankment of the main thoroughfare, and head down towards their position. The white shapes were clearly visible now; tall, long-necked white horses, snowy-white, each with a long, spiralled horn growing from their forehead. Unicorns!
Their reactions at the sighting of these mythical, magical, and wonderful beasts were tempered after a few seconds, as they noticed a few differences from the creatures mentioned in the stories…. their eyes were blood-red, their feet were clawed instead of hooved, and they snarled in rage or hunger, revealing sharp carnivore teeth.
Hildraft touched his pendant emblem of Kord and called on his god's aid; the divine favour surged, and a thick, choking cloud of dense mist spread outwards from the dwarf, engulfing the whole area of the House of Swords. Kobort, unable to see a target in the murk, felt his way back to the magical doorway, and triggered the mechanism again, while Hildraft loosed his crossbow at the onruching beasts. The block rose, and Hildraft stepped on as it did so, while the unicorns milled around below, confused and unable to locate him for the moment.
Riding back double on Kobort's horse, Sack and Surya were startled to see the great cloud of fog erupt in the centre of the area they'd just left. Pushing the horse faster, they headed back towards the scene of the trouble.
The sorcerer and the dwarf were in trouble. Although they couldn't see the adventurers very well, the curst unicorns had a pretty clear idea of the location of the block, and sure enough, one surged up and onto the top. It slashed at Hildraft with its' horn in passing, inflicted a savage wound, and plunged off the far side before he could retaliate. Kobort made himself Invisible at this point.
Sack dropped quietly from the horse one street from the scene, and set off to work his way around to the far side of the battle. Surya dismounted, drew his sword, and advanced; three unicorns peeled off from the melee to attack him. He slashed one, wounding it, but another drove its' horn deep into him, and he felt a sickly flush creep through him that betrayed the poisonous nature of the weapon.
Now the image of Elverandil spoke again, asking his question. Kobort answered it as before, and the block sank down again, carrying Hildraft with it. Kobort dropped to the ground and slipped out of the ring of furious curst that were now boiling around the edge of the pit, unable to survive a 10' drop down onto stone, but desperate for the blood of the trapped dwarf. Calling a warning, he unleashed his Web as Surya and Sack came galloping into view. Hildraft dived for the cover of the underground corridor as the Web spread out over its' vast area trapping five of the eight curst unicorns in its' sticky strands. The sorcerer worked his way carefully through the Web and finished off the nearest unicorn.
Sack crept carefully up behind the two curst that remained free on the south side of the battle, and launched a surprise attack that very nearly killed one of them; it was almost useless in the rest of the fight. Despite taking several wounds himself, and being poisoned, he managed to deal with both; assisted towards the end by the Returned corpse of the unicorn Surya had been fighting. The three then backed off to a safe distance, calling a warning to the dwarf below, and set fire to the Web; it burned with a rush, roasting the remaining four trapped curst.
Descending to the corridor, they checked it out and then opened the doors at the far end. They found themselves in a 45' square room, of which only a narrow central walkway was accessible; the remainder of the room was crammed with stacks and stacks of bar steel, sized for forging swords from. There were thousands of bars, of top-quality sword steel and technically worth a lot of money; of course, the catch was how to remove them to a place of sale. They moved on.
The second room contained five five-foot stone drums wound with steel wire; a fortune’s worth, but again completely immovable. Beyond that was a disordered heap of mixed brass, iron and copper ingots. A small forge occupied one wall, and three anvils were set in the middle of the floor. On the other side wall was a rack holding five pieces of bar adamantite, thirty pounds of metal each. While this would have been very valuable in the PC’s day and age, its’ value now was greatly reduced, as only a few dwarvensmiths now remember how to work it. Past that was a rack with the more perishable stores required for weaponcrafting; wood helves for axes, scabbard leather, hilt-leather, wine for sewing sheaths and so on. All was rotted and decrepit.
Beyond this was a small stairwell, leading down to a larger square atrium with an impressive set of double arched doors at one side; Elverandil's blazon, which they'd seen on his image above, was carved into the keystone. Kobort's Detect Magic revealed quite strong enchantments woven into the doors.
While these doors had a keyhole, there was no handle or hinges, and preliminary efforts at picking the lock produced nothing more than a broken lockpick. Losing patience, Sack unpacked a grapnel, jammed one of the points in the keyhole, and levered violently. There was a soft "Sproing!" sound, and nothing immediately happened. Then they all heard a metallic grating noise from behind, and turned....
