Giants and Lizards

Temple Ruins,Trakar Swamps, 8th April 1655

DM Note: Just Allan and Aimo this week. Too many PCs for me to run, I'm going back to 'bubbling' unless there's only 1 absentee.

Gorfang was glaring at Eloy and Lynien; despite his own experimentation with the stone chair, he had reservations about the wisdom of their triggering of whatever the slabs had done. Nothing else seemed to have happened, though, so he let it slide, growling and muttering. Then he paused as his considerable intelligence reasserted itself over his fundamental barbaric orc nature. "Hold on," he said, "someone just said something very important, and we missed it." Suddenly, he turned and siezed the startled Yassukhir by the throat. "You!" he barked, "what did you say?" Yassukhir seemed untroubled, almost as if his mind was on something more important. He darted a look of hate at Méabh.

"You have defiled the holy Pyramid of the Gods with your profane touch," he said with scorn, "and it has responded. The Gods have been summoned, and soon you will be judged." This seemed to give him considerable satisfaction. "Other trouble is coming, more for my people than for you. The Red Lizard is coming." The companions glanced at each other. Definitely sounded like time to be going.

Dismantling Méabh's tent, they rigged a simple litter for the Crismyrlor, lifted it down, and loaded it on. Bog and Lynien were given the task of carrying it so as to leave the fighting characters free to react quickly. Then Méabh recast her Mage Armour and added True Strike to it. Then a thought occurred to her; maybe the stone chairs could help them scout the approaching hazard. She turned, and dashed back to the Hall of Hearing where she scrambled into the chair, after asking Gorfang to pull her out after ten minutes or so.

She settled back into the hard stone, and her strange pale eyes drifted closed as her taut face relaxed. The sensation was quite different from that of the Hall of Sight; far less disorientating. Vision, touch, taste and smell vanished; she found herself suspended in a still darkness that was alive with sound.

The first thing she was aware of was conversation; her comrades discussing their next move, readying weapons, arguing (again). Without any apparent transition, she became aware of how to extend the area of her perceptions. Heartbeats swelled into the growing orchestra of sounds, and after a moment she realized she could differentiate between them. Eloy's, Lynien's and Uruk's were fairly similar; Bog's was an urgent patter of constant tension, and Gorfang's a slow, deep drum. Yassukhir's was sharply different, his three-chambered reptillian heart pulsing a completely different rythmn.

Her awareness spread outwards, encompassing more and more of the ancient complex. She could hear faint sounds as odd stones fell from the roof, the skittering of the spiders Yassukhir had tamed - and a spastic thrashing of those that had been killed in the rockfall triggered by Lynien and Eloy. She could hear that rockfall settling and shifting. Another reptile heart, but different; the guardian lizard at rest. Three more, over to the west side of the complex.... She paused; these didn't correspond to anything she knew, or a location they'd visited. One was human-like, but the other two were different; larger, slower, stronger and louder. Yassukhir's approaching 'gods'?

All the time, her perceptions were widening. The effect was inclusive, not a travelling point; she could still here Eloy and Lynien debating what the effect of the trigger-slabs had been, as well as now hearing the lizardmen of the Fionath talking in their huts half a mile away, and the grass growing, and the birds singing above the hill... The complexity increased every second and soon she found she was unable to pick one sound out from the mass. The limit of its' power seemed not to be distance, but the ability of the user to process the results. Suddenly, vision burst over her, along with the unmistakable smell of wet orc. Gorfang had removed her from the chair.

After discussing this, Gorfang and Méabh decided that they should use the seeing chair to check it out. They returned to the other hall. Gorfang turned back to Yassukhir. "How do you see now?" he demanded. "You saw the past," said the shaman. "To focus yourself in time, look back at yourself; see yourself in the chair."

It occured to them that there was room for both on the chair. Scrambling up, they discovered that the effect worked just as well for two, as long as they were properly seated. Once again, the vista outside opened up. This time, Gorfang steered the viewpoint they shared back inside, concentrating on finding himself. Sure enough, there they were, looking like children in the oversized chair. Gorfang admired his rugged profile for a moment, and then started to range through the complex more thoroughly.

It took them only moments to locate the guardian lizard in its' cave; oddly, it wasn't the monster of teeth, muscle and scale they'd expected, but a rather small creature with a brightly-coloured crest on its' head. Then they located the room with the spiders and were unsurprised to discover that the rockfall partially blocking it had increased, blocking the room completely and killing most of the spiders. The Death Hole in the central rotunda had expanded, falling into the space beneath, and they 'swooped' into that to have a look around.

Underneath they found another round hall, the same size as the rotunda and the Hall of Life above it. Unlike the others, it was filled to what would be waist-depth on a human with dark, oily, unhealthy-looking water. Protruding from this was a ring of standing stones, 5' across and 5' apart, and around ten feet high, composed of the same material as the Crismyrlor by the look of them although not lit from within in the same way. The ring wasn't complete; three stones were missing, with a scatter of fragments protruding from the water showing their destruction.

Dominating the room, however, was a monster. Gorfang had been confidently expecting a dragon, and a red one to boot (the Red Lizard) but this was neither. Murky green in colour, it had five snakey necks and five seperate heads. Not a dragon; a hydra. Yassukhir the shaman and druid must have put it there somehow. Gorfang's sword-hand twitched; what a challenge! However, whatever it was, it wasn't going anywhere, and they turned their scanning to the approaching 'gods'. It didn't take long to find them.

Stalking up the passage as if they owned it - owned the whole world - were two massive figures. Fundamentally human-like, they were quite definitely not human, measuring nearly ten feet high. Muscular and trim, they appeared glowingly healthy, although they wore not a stich of clothing. Each carried a large shard of one of the complex's stone doors like a club. Trailing behind them was what looked like a perfectly ordinary dwarf, also stark naked. This individual, while looking exactly like a normal dwarf, walked with his head bowed, submissive. Not an attitude any of the observers had ever seen in a dwarf before!

Gorfang scowled. The large ones looked like descriptions he'd heard of hill giants from orcs who'd met them; but the giants they'd described had frequently been knarled, misshapen, badly formed. These were tall, proud, clean of limb. Whatever they were, though, they were coming this way. Making a significant effort, Méabh managed to move limbs she could not feel, see, hear or smell and slide herself out of the chair. Once adjusted to normal senses, she hauled Gorfang out as well, standing clear to avoid any renewed regurgitation.

Eloy, Uruk and Lynien arranged themselves in the Hall of Life, missiles prepped, to guard the pyramid, which rested at the foot of its' dais on its' litter. Bog, Shamlakh and Yassukhir lurked nearby. Gorfang and Méabh took position at the head of the stairs, bows ready. Gorfang renewed his Keen Edge, and Méabh placed a flask of Alchemist's Fire on the top step ready to be kicked down. Then they braced themselves for the encounter to come.

The two giants reached the bottom of the stairs, and they and the adventurers spotted each other at the same time. One of them called up in a peremptory tone, and Méabh realized that she didn't understand a word. Gorfang, beside her, started; he did. "It's Giantish," he whispered, passing her the Translator's Ring, "though it sounds odd." His people learned that language to deal with occasional ogres and trolls. Raising his voice he called back in that language.

"What are you doing in our halls, scum? What have you done to them?" was the undiplomatic response. Their whole mien was arrogant and demanding, and the pair rose splendidly to the challenge. "It's fallen down, you haven't been looking after it properly!" yelled Méabh. The giants looked at each other. "Shall we chastise them before the Masters return?" said one. Gorfang called down again, "What's the date?" he asked.

There was absolutely no chance that a PC would know anything about the history of Fal Torth (available here). Unless he rolled a critical....

"Year 4732 of the Empire," said a giant offhandedly. Gorfang racked his brain. A dim memory trickled in from his youth in the Kordasa, reading a dusty book about ... Fal Torth. The mythical Kingdom of the Giants, destroyed by the Elves so the book had said. He chuckled. "They're gone, buddy," he taunted. "Have you seen the swamp out there? It's a wasteland. There are no masters coming from anywhere." He pointed at the dwarf. "His kind have empires of their own now, you know. They broke free and destroyed you." The giants turned and glared at the dwarf, who cowered, shooting Gorfang a look of hate and fear.

Méabh chipped in. "What are your intentions?" she asked. They pondered a moment. "We must locate our Masters," one said at last, a little dubiously. "Lizardmen are living here now, and outside," she replied. The giant shrugged contemptuously. "Savages. They are but fleas," he commented. "Huts burn." "What is the stone circle downstairs?" she pressed. "It belongs to our Masters; why should we tell you our secrets?"

Gorfang spoke again. "Did you know it's broken?"

Méabh chipped in. "The lizardmen have stolen the Crismyrlor," she declared. Gorfang's jaw dropped slightly, but those of the giants set instantly; indecsion washed away, and without another word they turned and descended the stairs and disappeared into the darkness trailed by their dwarf.

Méabh and Gorfang returned to the Hall of Life, and told their comrades to relax - for now - and briefed them on what had happened. As they spoke, Yassukhir sagged, miserable and un-noticed. They weren't the Gods, he moaned inaudibly. They were just another breed of mortal.

Gorfang and Méabh resumed their interrupted scrying of the complex, discovering a chamber filled with fungus, another beyond it with heaps of gold coins thrice normal size, a guard room with the outlines of two massive skeletons and a room containing a pack-rat's collection of odds and ends of metal scavenged from around the ruins. Nothing else hazardous. Then they turned their sight out to the Fionath village. The two giants were smashing a bloody swathe through the warriors of the tribe; one had torn off the entire thatched roof of a hut and was using it as a shield.

Conferring, Méabh and Gorfang came to the conclusion that they needed to lose Yassukhir. "We can feed him to the hydra," suggested Méabh. Leaving the Crismyrlor in the Hall of Life, they gathered their companions and headed down to the Rotunda. Once there, they siezed the shaman and Gorfang slashed his throat open. With a sullen splash, his body dropped into the water below the death hole, and the last shaman of the Fionath was gone.

Emerging from the gate, they saw the giants surrounded by lizardmen, fighting and apparently winning. Gorfang and Shamlakh charged in to the attack, while Méabh unpacked a Wand of Magic Missiles and prepared to bombard. The others fell back to normal missiles.

Gorfang and Shamlakh piled into the back of one of the massive figures, tearing and slashing. The giant turned around and started smashing at the orc with his slab of stone. Blood flew in both directions as the pair hacked at each other. A heavy blow staggered him, and he snarled with relish - a foe worthy of his steel!

Behind him, Méabh hosed Magic Missiles at the other giant, blasting bits off him with the inescapable darts of fire, as arrows from the other adventurers thudded home. One arm dropped, and the Fionath surged around the giant, slashing and stabbing. Crying in pain and rage, it dropped. Behind her, Gorfang, on the edge of death, drew back his arm and struck one more blow, and drove the Veldrin through the vitals of the last living Giant of Fal Torth. Gasping, the orc sagged forwards, leaning on his sword. Stunned, bloodied Fionath warriors surrounded him, dazed by the violence of the fight.

Next to Gorfang Méabh looked up and called out in a loud, ringing voice: "Those bastards killed your shaman!"