The party readied themselves to storm the foul goblin shrine
on the other side of the heavy wooden door.
Ragnar showed Varien the portable ram he had picked up in
Phandalin. The ram was a heavy ironshod wooden beam with handgrips. At one end
was the stylized head of a horned ram, or at least an ironmonger’s
approximation of one.
Ragnar caught Varien’s eye and wiggled the spots on his face
where his eyebrows would be, if he had eyebrows.
Bob did a little dance as he cast healing word on himself. As he spun about in place, he caught sight
of a familiar object amid the scattered ruin of the storeroom. Bending down, he picked up a torn cloak that had been ripped
from its wearer and cast aside in haste. Tucked under its hood was a simple
pendant bearing a crest.
The Trevelyan Family crest.
Bob’s eyes widened and he stared at the rest of the party.
“My brother,” he whispered. “My brother is in this castle somewhere.”
“Oh, did I drop that?” Ragnar said, using prestidigitation to grab the prized
trinket.
Angrily, Bob snatched it right back. “You get your hands off
this. It belongs to my brother.” He nodded at another pile of clothing and gear
heaped nearby. “Looks like that gear belonged to Sildar. You can see the symbol
of Neverwinter on the pommel of the sword.”
Theryn nodded grimly.
“Guys,” Bob said. “We have to find my brother!”
“Sure,” Ragnar said as he and Varien lifted the ram. “But
first-”
The rogue and the paladin swung the ram against the door
with all their might.
There was a sound of splintering wood as the door leapt from
the frame, pinwheeling into the darkened chamber beyond. It flattened one of
the chanting goblins, turning him into a reddish paste beneath the door’s
weight.
Upon the stone altar, a stream of black smoke, darker even
than the darkness of the darkened chamber, drifted upwards into the rafters
from a golden censer. There, it drifted malevolently, turning in a sinister
circle as if in time with the chanting of the goblin shaman and his followers.
The chanting was bitten off in a Goblin curse as the shaman
whirled about at the sound of the door smashing his acolyte flat.
Erwen-Bear roared and bounded into the room, swiping with
his claws and gnashing his teeth. The shaman jumped back, the bones, feathers,
and scalps adorning his robes rattling as he did so.
From the safety of the doorway, Bob cast ray of frost , striking the shaman and
coating his chest with a rime of hoarfrost.
Ragnar took one look at the smoking censer and one look at
the lifelike cloud of smoke turning above him and knew what he had to do. He
rushed to the altar, leaping on it as he fumbled with his breeches. Still
disguised as Slarg, he relieved himself onto the censer, splashing urine onto
the bloodstained black cloth covering the altar. Ragnar tried not to think of
the many levels of desecration he was adding to his life’s tally.
Theryn followed Ragnar through the door and struck the
shaman with his quarterstaff followed by a kick upside the head. The shaman
staggered back, still cursing in Goblin and trying to get an incantation off.
Varien cast hunter’s
mark on the Shaman and swung his sword Talon at the humanoid, slicing deep.
The goblin acolyte stumbled away from the melee and rushed
past a dirty curtain that separated the shrine from the rest of the chamber to
the south. “HELP!” the goblin shouted.
“Fleeing goblin!” Bob shouted from across the room. “I dub
thee Dickface!”
The goblin grinned. “At last, my true name revealed!”
Erwen-Bear found his footing and rounded on the Goblin
shaman, who was trying to back away while preparing a spell. The wildshaped
druid opened wide and chomped down on the goblin, cutting off the spell, and
most of the shaman’s upper body, before any damage could be done.
Bob strode into the shrine and cast sacred flame at the fleeing goblin acolyte, missing.
Elsewhere in the castle, aspiring Eldritch Knight and
current captive of the Cragmaw Alec Trevelyan opened his eyes.
At least, he thought he did. The room he was in was so dark
he wasn’t sure if he was even conscious. He was lying prone against something
hard and unyielding, perhaps a table. His arms and wrists were bound with rough
cord.
He sniffed and made a face. Goblins. Close enough he could feel
their foul breath on his neck.
He continued to blink, hoping his eyes would adjust. He detected
a faint glow at the extreme edge of his vision but knew that if he craned his
neck, he would be advertising that he was no longer unconscious, and who knew
how his goblin captors would react.
Think , he thought
to himself. What’s the last thing you
remember?
A caravan in Neverwinter Wood. A wagon thoroughly mired in
quicksand. An argument with that damned fool wizard Haladar. Then, a cry of
alarm and a brutal ambush from all sides.
Right. His fellow mercenaries were likely dead or regrouping
at Helm’s Hold. He, on the other hand, was somewhere else.
Was that a cooking pot he heard bubbling over some coals? He
sniffed. Was that…freshly ground pepper?
Suddenly Alec had a good idea of where he was and what had
happened to his companions. He knew he didn’t have much time to waste. Testing
his bonds, he pulled his wrists apart from one another until he heard the cord
squeak in protest. Smiling to himself, he slowly began to twist his hands free.
Back in the shrine, Ragnar, satisfied that the censer had
been thoroughly extinguished, pointed at the lone goblin and cast hex . He leaped from the table and
followed the fleeing goblin through the curtain.
This room was even darker than the last. Ragnar skidded to a
stop and strained to see anything other than blackness. He managed to catch a
glint of steel from a nook several feet ahead and confidently hefted Slarg’s
greatsword.
The heavy weapon wasn’t exactly Ragnar’s specialty, and his
swing missed by a country mile.
The goblin sniggered.
Ragnar shrugged and darted back into the shrine.
The rest of the party was about to loot the dead when they
heard a wet slithering sound. A curtain on the opposite side of the chamber moved
as something large forced its way into the room.
It was worm-like, with a taut, bulging outer casing that
exuded a thick slime as it stretched and hunched its way forward. Its mouth was
a sickening tangle of barbed tentacles that seemed to move independently from
one another, seeking to snare its prey.
More than one of the adventurers had to fight the urge to
gag.
“What the hell is that?” Varien asked.
Bob wrinkled his nose in disgust. “That is a grick,” he
said. “Watch those tentacles.”
Theryn stepped forward and swung his staff at the grick, and
was disappointed to see it bounce off the creature’s rubbery hide.
“Step aside,” Varien said, orienting his hunter’s mark on the sluglike aberration
and readying Talon for a killing strike.
“Sh-sh-sha!” the paladin shouted as he swung his sword down.
The grick deftly dodged his blow, rearing up on its tail. The creature’s
tentacles, dripping with slime, began to slash at the paladin.
“I said watch out for those-” Bob shouted.
One tentacle, then two, then three found purchase on the
paladin, driving spikes deep into Varien’s chain mail. The grick began pulling
Varien towards its gaping maw – a wet, deep-set beak that snapped hungrily,
sending flecks of hot spittle in all directions.
“Uh-oh-” was all the paladin had time to say before he was
thrust into the grick’s mouth. The creature gnawed and convulsed as it tried to
swallow its prey, sliding backwards and dragging Varien with it.
“Varien, no!” Bob shouted. He drew back his fist and cast scorching ray , firing bolt after bolt of
arcane fire into the body of the slimy creature. The grick’s hide, resistant to bludgeoning damage, was well-suited
to being set ablaze. The grick squealed, its tentacles waving in agonized
terror as it writhed under the fiery assault.
The creature spat Varien out in a torrent of slime,
digestive fluid and blood.
As the paladin hit the flagstone floor, he took note of the
magical flames, which filled him with a sudden sense of awe at their
destructive energy.
He spat out a mouthful of bodily fluid and shouted "let’s
put another Grick on the barby!"
The grick rolled in a puddle of its own slime, frantically
trying to extinguished the flames.
Erwen-Bear rushed forward and bit down hard on the creature.
Its hide heaved and burst like an overcooked sausage, spraying the chamber with
gore. The creature’s manic writhing ceased and its slide wetly out of
Erwen-Bear’s mouth, dead.
Ragnar knelt down next to Varien, careful not to touch
anything. “Say, can I borrow those Clockdrive goggles?”
Varien handed them over.
Ragnar gingerly strapped them on, expecting the worst. This
time, however, the goggles functioned normally.
“Oh, you’re not getting these back,” Ragnar muttered to
himself as he dove back through the archway. The goggles illuminated the southern
chamber in false daylight. Ragnar listened at a double door.
Slipping a little in the puddle of grick, Bob did a discreet
pop-n-lock routine while he cast healing
word on Varien.
Varien groaned. “Gonna need…a little more…”
Theryn offered the Varien a healing potion, which the
paladin drained.
The adventurers secured the area, lighting up a few torches.
The divided chamber looked like it had once been a proper chapel at one time.
Angelic figures were sculpted along the room’s upper reaches, gazing down impassively
on the floor below. To the east and west were sets of large double doors. Those with a religious upbringing could make out ancient carvings revering Oghma, god of knowledge, Mystra, goddess of magic, Lathander, god of dawn, and Tymora, goddess of luck - obvious signs that the castle had been erected by humans many centuries ago. They could see Ragnar listening at the eastern door.
Bob pulled Varien to his feet. Together, they opened the
western doors and walked through.
“Thanks for having my back back there,” Varien clapped Bob
on the shoulder.
“Oh, it was nothing,” Bob said.
Something twanged
under their feet. They looked down to see a tripwire taut against their boots,
and then heard a rumbling from above them.
“Now that’s something,” Bob said.
Varien had just enough time to throw up his shield as a
deadfall of broken masonry and loose wooden beams rained down. The two
adventurers crouched under the onslaught as stones and wood banged off the
paladin’s shield, and emerged with a few bruises and cuts.
At the sound of the falling rubble, Erwen-Bear and Theryn
exchanged a knowing look.
Erwen-Bear suddenly cocked his ursine head, sniffing. He
shuffled over to a weakened section of wall, nostrils flaring. A deep growl
began percolating inside his throat.
As the plaster dust cleared, Bob and Varien realized they
were back in the main foyer of the castle, with the bodies of dead goblins from
their earlier battle strewn about. To their immediate left was a door leading
south.
Looking at one another, they shrugged and pushed open the
door.
Alec heard the sound of a cleaver being sharpened somewhere
in the darkness above him.
“I’m gonna eat his nose first,” he heard a goblin snicker
beside his head. He fought the urge to headbutt the creature.
“Not if I get to it before you do,” another goblin said,
licking his lips loudly.
From somewhere in the darkness Alec heard the rough sound of
a wooden door slamming open.
“Yegg!” a goblin shouted. “Intruders in the castle! They
defiled our shrine and killed Lhupo!”
There was a thudding sound as the blade of a heavy meat
cleaver sank into the table inches from Alec’s head.
“Boys, looks like our menu just expanded its offerings,” a
rumbling voice said from somewhere above the fighter’s prone body. “Kill them
and bring their bodies here for filleting.”
“Yes, Butcher!” Several goblins, at least half a dozen by
the sound of it, shouted in unison and rushed out of the room, drawing
scimitars and cackling with anticipation.
Alec felt small hands pawing his legs.
“Nice, lean meat down here,” he heard a wheedling goblin
voice.
“I will be the judge of that,” Yegg said, pulling the
cleaver free from the table. “Hold this morsel down and let’s see what he is
made of.”
To the northeast, a door creaked open, revealing the room to
Varien and Bob. They quickly took in the scene: at one time this room must
have served as the castle’s banquet hall, but now it was a foul goblin larder
and kitchen. Two large tables with plain benches stood in the middle of the
room, and a brass brazier full of glowing coals was tucked in one corner,
heating a large iron pot suspended above it.
Dirty dishes, mold-encrusted stewpots, moldly heels of bread
and gnawed bones covered the first table, and the prone form of a human male
fighter was stretched out on the second one.
Bob blinked in recognition, even though it had been years.
“Alec!” he shouted as he saw the biggest, fattest goblin he had ever seen
raising a battleaxe-sized cleaver over his head.
“Get your hands off me, you damn dirty goblins!” Alec
shouted and broke free of his bonds, kicking the goblin holding his legs square
in the face.
There was a sudden crash as a section of wall gave way under
the weight of a charging Erwen-Bear, who shook plaster and stone from his
shaggy hide as he roared a challenge at the goblins inside the room.
The Goblin Butcher swung his cleaver, but not before
Erwen-Bear sprang at him, catching him with his claws.
Ragnar heard the sound of rapidly approaching footfalls and
chose to change up his disguise, taking on the form of an elderly,
distinguished Drow. Steeling himself, he yanked open the door and strode
confidently into the hallway beyond.
He held up a gloved hand at the approaching squad of
goblins.
“Good goblins,” he said in his best Drow accent. “Ye shall
have your blood, but first you mahst take me to your Kang.”
The goblins skidded to an uncertain halt. Their leader, a
slightly smarter-looking sort wearing a soiled apron over his leather armor, narrowed his eyes. “There are intruders inside
the castle, and we have to kill them and bring them to the kitchen for dinner.”
“Yes, of carse ye must, but I have vary important bweeznis
with Kang Grol. Take me to him and then dance on the graves of those
intruders.”
The lead goblin scratched his head. “Okay,” he said slowly.
“I will take you to see King Grol. The rest of you, kill those intruders, on
the double!”
“Yes, Sous-Chef!” The goblins screeched and funneled through
the double doors.
Erwen-Bear froze in mid-bite as he noticed the goblins
walking in front of the gaping hole in the wall he had just made. Theryn
grabbed the Goblin Butcher in a headlock and held him still, covering his mouth
and straining to stay upright.
“Er, wait a moment,” Ragnar-Drow called out from outside. “I
saw the intruders in the northern corridor.”
The goblin squad turned, their backs to Erwen-Bear and Theryn.
Then one by one they filed back out of sight.
Erwen-Bear and Theryn sighed with relief and resumed
pummeling the Goblin Butcher.
The Sous-Chef led Ragnar-Drow to another door and rapped on
it with his green-skinned knuckles. “Too many damned Drow in this castle, if
you ask me,” the goblin muttered to himself. “It ain’t proper, not at all.”
The door was yanked open from the other side and an
imperious hobgoblin stared down at them.
“What is it? You know the King’s in a meeting.” The
hobgoblin glared at Ragnar-Drow. “Who in the hell are you?”
“Ah am Luskann,” Ragnar-Drow said. “I need to spake with
Kang Grol.”
The hobgoblin’s frown deepened. “The King is already meeting
with a Drow. Why would he want to see another one?”
“Oh, you know, just for…a chat,” Ragnar-Drow said, grimacing
inwardly.
The hobgoblin looked him up and down again. “Okay,” he said.
“You wait here. I will go to the King and ask him if he would like an audience
with you. Don’t move.” He turned to the Sous-Chef. “Don’t take your eyes off this
one for a-”
In a flash Ragnar-Drow drew his knives and plunged them into
the Hobgoblin’s back, cutting it open to reveal the creature’s newly-severed
spine, which he yanked out bloodily by the tip of his dagger.
The hobgoblin’s corpse fell headlong back into the chamber
from which he’d emerged.
The Sous-Chef’s eyes widened. “Oh, what in the name of
Maglubiyet is happening here!”
Ragnar-Drow turned to the Sous-Chef. “I see you too have a
spine. I am sure you wouldn’t want me to remove yours, would you? Take me to
Kang Grol, or I will take your spine.”
From beyond the door, Ragnar-Drow heard at least two
Hobgoblins shouting in anger and confusion.
He weighed his options for a moment and then turned and ran
as fast as he could.
“You there!” Varien rushed forwards, drawing his old morning
star, which he tossed to Alec. “Enjoy!”
With a swing of his sword, he decapitated the reeling goblin
at the fighter’s feet.
"Naisu," Varien smiled, pleased with himself.
Alec turned and bashed the Goblin Butcher with his new
morning star.
Bob followed up by casting chill touch , backhanding the butcher across the face with a
spectral hand. The goblin stumbled back, necrotic magic eating at his face, and
then died, falling to the floor with a crash.
In the silence that followed, the two Trevelyan brothers
stared at one another for the first time in years.
"Hey there, kid," Alec said to Bob.
“I take it you two know each other?” Varien said.
“We did, at one time,” Bob said.
Alec smiled grimly. “The explanation will have to wait until
we get out of here. Right now we have bigger fish to fry.”
“Everyone, meet my brother Alec Trevelyan,” Bob said.
There was the sound of a slamming door. Ragnar-Drow turned
to the rest of the group, panting.
“Oh, hi Ragnar,” Varien said. “Still working on that Drow
accent?”
Ragnar pulled off his magic disguise. “But how did you know
it was me?”
Alec was somewhat taken aback by the sight of a Dragonborn
wearing nightvision goggles.
“Alec, meet Ragnar,” Bob said.
Ragnar eyed Alec. “Perfect, I needed a meat shield.” He
turned to the rest of the party. “Fellows, I found the boss. But his guards are
in the way.”
“I’m the only one with a shield,” Varien said.
Ragnar sighed. “I tore out someone’s spine once today, don’t
make me do it twice.”
“He went through that door,” hissed the Sous-Chef to the two
Hobgoblin guards, who readied themselves for action.
The door swung open, and through it sauntered Ragnar,
wreathed in eldritch energy.
Followed by Varien, Talon’s blade flashing in the moonlight.
Followed by Theryn, who spun his bo staff lazily.
Followed by Alec, who brandished a heavy morning star.
Followed by Bob, whose fist crackled with icy magic.
Followed by Erwen-Bear, whose shaggy hide was slick the
blood of his enemies.
The goblins’ eyes collectively widened.
“Oh, shi-” was all the Sous-Chef had time to say.
The party stepped over the dead humanoids and approached
King Grol’s throne room.
“This is remarkably well balanced,” Alec said to Varien of
the Morningstar.
As Bob and Alec investigated the antechamber, Varien
listened at the reinforced door.
He heard two voices in conversation.
“So you see, O King Grol, I am here to honour our end of the
agreement and retrieve the dwarf and the map to Wave Echo Cave,” said a smooth,
placating female voice in a less outrageous version of Ragnar’s accent.
There was a low, gruff guffaw. “Indeed, Lady Vyerith. But if
the Black Spider already knows the location of Wave Echo Cave, why does he need
either the map or this dwarf here?”
“O Great Grol, because my master is a man of secrecy and
shadows, and does not like loose ends.”
“Ah yes, but then that makes the map all the more valuable,
does it not?” King Grol didn’t sound like he was born yesterday.
Varien eased the door open enough to take in the scene. The
circular chamber that served as the base of this tower had been set up as a
crude living space, with thick furs thrown on the floor to serve as carpets,
old trophies hanging on the walls, a large four-poster bed to the north, and a
brazier of coals burning brightly.
Varien could see a shapely female Drow standing before a
crude throne built of wine casks, upon which sat an enormous Bugbear of
advanced age. The stooped bugbear still radiated barely suppressed violence,
and held a massive morning star across his hairy knees. Standing at his right
hand was a much younger bugbear lieutenant.
“Hey, there’s a lady Drow talking to King Grol,” Varien
hissed to his compatriots.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how attractive is this drow lady?”
Ragnar hissed back.
Varien gave Ragnar thumbs up as he listened to the
conversation unfold.
“King Grol, Scourge of the Wood, even you must admit that
your tribe has neither the discipline nor the industriousness to make Wave Echo
Cave a profitable part of your operation,” Vyerith continued. “That is why the
Black Spider has seen fit to pay you in the currency of your preference in
exchange for your assistance in keeping the location a secret. So you will hand
over the map, and I will make you a wealthy bugbear.”
“I think you should hold out for more money, boss,” the
younger bugbear said to King Grol.
With a creak of aged bones, Grol turned to look upon his
lieutenant. “Who asked you, idiot?”
Grol turned back to the Drow. “So your flattery turns to
insults like the changing breeze. Typical.” He sat up straighter and glared.
“No deal. I will sleep well knowing that the Black Spider does not have the map
in his possession, unless he’s willing to pay double.”
Vyerith frowned. “I beg you to reconsider, O Great One.”
There was a cough from a section of the throne room that
Varien couldn’t see.
“Uh, sir,” said a goblin who sounded a lot like Yeemik, the
second-in-command from Cragmaw Cave. “I really have some important news to
share with y-”
“Silence, you crippled fool!” Grol shouted. “Can’t you see
that grownups are talking? Just keep a blade at that dwarf’s throat until I
give you a reason to do something.”
“Yeemik!” hissed Varien. That settled things.
He pushed open the door and grabbed the coal brazier,
heaving it and its blazing contents at the three humanoids.
The rain of hot embers and coals struck Grol, his lieutenant
and the lady Drow, who all shouted in surprise at the intrusion.
“Who dares disturb King Grol!” Grol shouted, incensed.
“See, this is what I was trying to tell you-” Yeemik
shouted.
“YEEMIK!” Varien shouted, spinning the empty brazier like a
Frisbee at the hapless goblin. It soared over Yeemik’s head to clang against
the southern wall like a gong.
The paladin took note that at Yeemik’s feet was the prone
form of Gundren Rockseeker, bound and gagged.
“Foolish goblin!” The drow said, pulling a hand crossbow
from a holster. “You should have warned us about these intruders!”
“Aww, c’mon!” Yeemik said.
Erwen-Bear roared and launched into the throne room, biting
at Grol but failing to find purchase.
Vyerith aimed and fired the hand crossbow, which was an
over-under double model of intricate design. Two crossbow bolts embedded
themselves in Varien’s shield.
"Blocked, bitch!" Varien shouted triumphantly.
The Drow attempted to kick Erwen-Bear but wound up striking
Grol by mistake.
“Oh dear,” Yeemik muttered to himself.
“Vile wench!” Grol shouted. “At last your treachery is laid
bare! You shall not leave this castle alive!”
Theryn rushed in and swung his quarterstaff but missed.
Ragnar stepped through the breach and sidled up to Vyerith.
Elsewhere in
Neverwinter Wood, Xylon Nightshade suddenly heard the sound of a saxophone
playing in the distance.
“Hey, baby,” Ragnar said. “What’s say you and I leave this
castle together and get to know one another better?”
Bob made a retching noise.
The Drow gave Ragnar an appraising look. “Tell you what, cherie . I will kill you last.”
Varien charged in, aiming for the Lady Drow, but missed.
Alec swung his morning star at the Bugbear lieutenant, who
dodged the attack.
Grol swung a meaty fist at Vyerith, and then turned his
attention to Varien. He swung his enormous morning star at the paladin and
struck a solid blow.
Yeemik took a look at the unfolding melee in front of him,
and then down at the trussed-up form of Gundren. “Nope!” he shouted and made a
run for the exit.
Bob was blocking the door. “Hey Yeemik, what’s up? Need me
to cast spare the dying on you
again?” Bob slammed the door in Yeemik’s face as the goblin attempted to force
his way through, which was difficult with two broken arms.
Bob smiled at the realization that finally he was stronger
than one of his opponents, then opened the door quickly, cast chill touch , and then slammed the door
again. A necrotic wound opened on Yeemik’s leg.
“Aww, c’mon!” he shouted.
King Grol swung his morning star at Alec, but Varien threw
up his shield to block.
Vyerith grabbed Grol and stared at him intently. “You fool!
You’ve already told me where the map is hidden without saying a word. The Black
Spider does not suffer fools!”
She broke away from the bugbear and made as if to run to
Grol’s large bed in the corner of the room.
Ragnar slipped out a pair of manacles and tried to slap them
on the Drow. She dodged without even glancing at the rogue. “Don’t try my
patience,” she hissed. “Or else I will pay a visit to someone you love most
dearly, perhaps in Baldur’s Gate.”
“Baby,” Ragnar purred. “Everyone I love is right here in
this room, including you.”
Vyerith snorted and began to tear into Grol’s mattress with
her dagger as if searching for something.
Grol brought his Morningstar down on Erwen-Bear with such
force that Erwen had to drop out of wildshape. The force of the blow knocked
the Halfling clear across the room.
“Ha ha ha!” Grol chortled. “I have knocked that bear’s supper clear out of its
stomach!”
“Good one, sir!” his lieutenant shouted.
Erwen lay on the floor, panting. He gazed at the bugbear and
a single tear rolled down his cheek. The tear reflected the light of the moonbeam spell that began to manifest itself in the air above King
Grol. The pale beam streaked down from the upper reaches of the throne room,
enveloping the bugbear in radiant light.
“It’s so…beautiful…” Grol said through clenched teeth as the
light seared his flesh.
Yeemik hauled on the door so hard that one of his arms
popped back into joint.
“Whoops!” Bob said.
Yeemik elbowed his way past the sorcerer-cleric, stomping on
Bob’s foot as he did so.
“Yeemik!” Bob shouted in a rage.
Vyerith smiled in triumph as she pulled a folded piece of
parchment from a pouch hidden deep inside Grol’s mattress. She backed away from
Ragnar and rushed across the room towards Gundren.
Theryn swung his bo staff at her.
Ragnar tried to pick the map from the Drow’s pocket and had
his hand slapped away.
“Naughty dragonman,” Vyerith purred.
Varien grabbed a javelin and threw it at the Drow. It struck
her between the shoulder blades, causing her to stumble.
Ragnar blocked the doorway. “Naughty me,” he said to Vyerith.
Alec bashed the bugbear lieutenant with his morning star.
“Yeemik!” Bob shouted at the retreating goblin. “You and I
both know it’s over. Stop this nonsense!”
Yeemik was struggling to lift a heavy bar that had been set
across a door to another tower to the south. “If I'm going to go, I’m taking
you all with me!” he shouted defiantly at Bob.
“Come now, Yeemik, it doesn’t have to end this way,” Bob
said.
Yeemik sighed, defeated. He let his arms drop to his sides.
“You’re right.”
Behind him, something large and ferocious slammed against
the door, which shuddered and protested, the heavy bar leaping from within its
slot.
“Whoa,” Bob and Yeemik said in unison.
Vyerith reloaded her hand crossbow as she stood over Gundren.
“Sorry, Mr. Rockseeker. Your secrets have to die with you,” she aimed the
crossbow at the helpless dwarf.
Varien took a step towards Grol, who was still staring up at
the searing moonbeam. He gripped Talon, breathed a quick prayer to Sune, and
separated King Grol’s head from his shoulders.
Grol’s decapitated head rolled onto the foot of his
lieutenant. As he died, he whispered, "Idiot..."
“Yeemik, you stay right there if you know what’s good for
you,” Bob said, levering the door to the throne room back open. He stepped
through and cast chill touch at the
first target he saw – the drow.
“Uhhh,” Bob said as heads turned to gaze in his direction.
“Nyah-nyah-nyah!” He slammed the door shut against his failures. Turning to
Yeemik, he pointed an accusing finger. “You saw nothing.”
Yeemik chuckled.
Ragnar made another attempt to flirt with Vyerith, who was
having none of it. “Maybe you and I can go to Phandalin and share a meal, my
treat.”
“Since when do you pay for anything?” Bob’s muffled voice
said through the closed door.
Ragnar stabbed at the drow’s outstretched gun hand.
“Death before defilement,” Vyerith screamed as she shot
Gundren at close range. Two bolts hit Gundren in the chest, and he gave a grave
wheeze.
Vyerith cackled triumphantly as she rushed out of Ragnar’s
range, heading towards the nearest arrow slit. Her form began to shift and
change shape – suddenly she was a Drow no longer, but a plucky female Halfling
running full tilt towards freedom. As she ran, she crumped Gundren's map and tried to throw it at the nearby pile of scattered embers, some dangerously close to a dusty old tapestry on the far wall.
She ran straight into Theryn’s quarterstaff, which bashed
her brains out of her skull.
The body crumpled to the ground and skidded on the
flagstones, again blurring and changing its shape. It was a Halfling no longer
– instead it was a grey-skinned thin humanoid, taller than Ragnar, with spindly
limbs and reddish eyes whose life’s glow was already beginning to fade. With a final swing of his morning star, Alec finished the bugbear lieutenant.
Bob opened the door and took a look. “You wanted to bang that ?” He asked Ragnar.
“Ugh, I’ve seen their kind before,” Ragnar said. “Hanging
out in dockside bars. That’s a doppelganger.”
Bob saw Gundren’s lifeless form on the ground. “Did someone
call a doctor?” He cast spare the dying on
the dwarf. Then he heard the sound of retreating goblin feet. “Yeemik!”
he shouted.
Ragnar took off after Yeemik and chased him until he
disappeared into the woods outside the castle’s northern entrance.
“Your King is dead!” Ragnar hollered at Yeemik and the other goblins who no
doubt prowled in the shadows. “You had better keep running!”
Bloodied and bruised, Varien sank to one knee. “I’m…I’m
going to need a moment here.” The paladin could hear his own heart struggling
to keep beating. He believed he could actually feel the blood flowing hot
through his veins, down his arms and into the fingers that tightened their grip
on the hilt of his trusty sword Talon.
He concentrated on his wounds in an effort to stitch them
shut. "I got hit pretty bad today," he thought to himself,
remembering the goblin scimitar slashing at his skin, and the grick’s slavering
maw, tentacles lashing at his limbs. He remembered staring into the eyes of the
goblin king one last time before the fatal strike, knowing at that moment they
were both so close to death. Too close to death.
He stared at the burning cinders he had thrown across the
room, into the glowing fire as a tapestry on the wall ignited.
Fire had saved him today, he realized.
Fire saved him from the grick. Fire burnt the Doppelganger
and the Cragmaw King.
"Sune has looked down upon me, and blessed me with the
Fire of Life," he said aloud, though nobody heard.
Varien felt his heart burning, the flames of life suddenly
ablaze with a new vigour as he uttered a silent vow to the Sacred Flame.
He thought he could hear a response. "Thou art I, and I art thou. From the kindling of thy soul, I
ignite. Let the fire of life burn bright."
His eyes glowed as he stared down at the cinders still
glowing on the throne room’s floor, inhaling the oxygen around him, deep into
his lungs. Flames flared in his irises for a brief second before dwindling back
to their natural green.
Varien looked up with eyes that could now see the Undying
Light.