2025-08-30 - Session 6

Previous session: Session 5 Next session: Session 7

Where Were We?

Waiting out a storm, in a cave high in the Turahskal Peaks. There's a stone dragon effigy here. On our way to The Rime.

And Then What Happened?

Thalador studies the Primer of Beginnings. Laurence spends some quality time with his Vanha lute. Aoife makes some notes about the cave in her journal.

While waiting out the storm, we find the remains of some rations in sacks around the campfire. They don't look elven. We find tracks from small feet that criss-cross the chamber, sitting by the fire, and so forth. Probably goblin?

After a short rest, the storm abates. We peek out and find fresh snow, crisp air -- but sun! We decide to push on.

Half an hour later, the trail leads down a series of steep switchbacks into a rocky, empty canyon, with evidence of stonefall. Laurence kicks a stone, and it echoes back two or three times -- with unexpected resonance. A sound of shifting stone above us... we must be quiet, lest we trigger an avalanche! We move stealthily along... until Aoife kicks a stone and boulders start rolling down at us! A few of us get clipped by falling rocks, but we escape.

Up ahead we find a crumbling staircase carved into the cliff face that will bring us up to the top. Clodagh notices they're for a smaller stride. Dwarves? They go up about 40 feet.

Cador scrambles up the stairs and attaches a rope to the sturdiest tree he can find, then throws it down to us. Aoife ascends, casting Mending on the most suspect stairs. They have some kind of runic cross-hatching on them -- at one time, these were exquisite. Thalador and Laurence ascend without issue, but Clodagh slips on a loose rock and starts to fall! We can't catch her in time -- but she casts Featherfall and takes no damage. She tries again and makes it successfully.

The path continues through scrub pines, about four feet tall. Roots cover the path and branches reach out with long spines and thorns that tear at us. We hack our way through... but the sap burns at our cloaks, hissing as it hits other plant matter. Behind us, branches writhe and close. Aoife studies the plants... Seems like they were once hawthorn trees, but have been changed somehow. Branches have a fine, hairlike peachfuzz. She gently strokes them and the branch pulls out of the way. We soothe our way through. Laurence finds a pinecone down beneath one of the trees. Clodagh retrieves it with the aid of Mage Hand. The pinecone scales are all wrong, twisted and sharp, and it's sticky. Looks like this was meant to stick to something. Thalador dimly recalls that some parts of the mountains are afflicted with magical blights, but knowns no details.

After 20 minutes we come to a clearing about 20 feet around; in the middle is a half-buried stone relief, tipped on its side. It's been graffitied but not in a language we know. We see smaller creatures with horns and bushy beards bending the knee to taller creatures. Vanha runes barely visible at the bottom. We dig it out a bit to look at the runes:

  • stone
  • obedience
  • unbroken

Aoife pieces it together -- this looks like propaganda! We think it's dwarves bowing to Vanha under magical compulsion, borderline slavery? A path leads out the other side into a cave. Thalador thinks it's about the conflict between the Vanha and the Dwarves based on what we learned in the keep. Clodagh performs a ritual of Comprehend Languages. The graffiti reads: "We live, they don't." It's much more recent. Perhaps a retort by the goblins?

The path leads us into a cave. The floor is slick, slippery like glass, coated in something oily. Cador examines it -- it's more like water than oil? Further into the cave is something that looks like a small pond. Seems like we're in the shallowest part of a lake? Might be water, but... not pure. Smells faintly of ozone. We cross... Cador and Clodagh both take a tumble and get a little wet. Clodagh uses Prestidigitation to clean herself, and notices that a scrape she got from the misadventures in the mountains is gone. She nicks her hand with a knife, then rubs it in the liquid -- and her injury is healed! Cador tastes it. He seems fine? We drink from the liquid and it heals us... But Cador hears something whispering and receives a vision! He comes to about five minutes later. He explains that he heard something about "Four more... wait below" and there was a huge eye, like a sun, coming out of the water! Clodagh recalls tales of the Fomor, old gods of the Críoch Fuinidh. We wish we had containers to bring some of this liquid with us.

We exit the cave, out onto a path through pine trees. We descend into a glen. It's warm (relatively) and birds are singing. They're a kind that normally wouldn't live up this high?! We see the remains of structures -- maybe tents, or hastily-made lean-tos? Half-buried fire pits. Looks like someone -- several someones! -- stayed here for a while. Clodagh and Cador find the construction familiar. Cador finds a piece of old, half-burned wood in one of the fire pits. Not something local -- oak or ash? -- would have been transported. He then finds a broken cart wheel, human-sized. Lean-tos may have been made of broken wagon parts. Laurence finds a board with names carved into it:

The original settlers of Freemen's Wood?! Looks like there might be a graveyard up here?? We think this might be where the original travelers were before being saved by the Orontinórë. Thalador recounts the basics that he recalls. The elves came upon the humans in the mountains, starving. They'd "hit a wall" and couldn't go further. The elves fed and clothed them and cared for them through the winter, and then led them down from the mountains to what's now Freemen's Wood. Names are scrawled on gravestones. Clodagh finds a femur... with scratch marks on it. Looks like teeth marks -- human. Things got desperate indeed. Clodagh opts not to share this last detail with us.

While returning the femur to the bushes, a bush starts talking?! "Oh yes, you should bury your grandparents!" and then laughing. Yellow eyes, green flesh, bushy hair. And then it disappears into the brush. Cador gets hit in the temple with a little pebble. We see a short humanoid creature wearing nice furs, green flesh, pointy ears, holding a sling. He laughs and disappears into the bushes. Another rock goes by but misses. "That was a warning shot!" says another voice.

Thalador recognizes them as goblins. Thalador tries diplomacy. Another goblin emerges, a leader of sorts? Snagglepot, head of the band of goblins, collector of tolls. He claims they are reasonable goblins. He asks for a shiny trinket or a funny tale. Laurence and Thalador opt for "funny tale". Aoife notices a slight tug at her pack -- a goblin is trying to pick her pocket! Surprised, it runs away! Laurence embarks on a performance. It delights the goblins! At the conclusion they burst into applause. "By the forgotten stone halls!" laughs Snagglepot appreciatively. He offers us a safe resting place for the night. Laurence offers to trade stories with the goblins. Snagglepot sends out four goblins to patrol, while the rest make camp. Thalador teaches Snagglepot about the elvish tradition of the three fires. Snagglepot thinks Bandit looks delicious, but agrees not to eat him. The scouts bring back some rabbits, which we make a fine meal of.

Snagglepot knows that the bodies here are those of humans who came from over the mountains and got stuck, and that eventually the elves brought them out of the mountains.

Snagglepot passes around a flask of liquor that tastes of mushrooms and burns going down. The goblins have been in the mountains for hundreds and thousands of years. Says they go into the caves for the mushrooms but not deep, out of respect for the forgotten stone halls. Cador asks if he knows of the eight-pointed star symbol. Snagglepot turns serious, says it is a symbol of great evil. Goblins once came from bigger folk -- not giants or dwarves, but something in between. Before the Sundering, there weren't as many peoples as there are now, but there were the dwarves and the ancient ones, and there was a war, and it made the goblins and the giants and the mountains, and then the ancient ones and the dwarves were no more. Ancient ones were called Vanha. Fomor were older than the war. Mountains created thousands of years ago. The goblins gamble, drink, and perform. Snagglepot plays us a jig. He says we have another series of caves to get through, trails are strange and loop back on themselves. We're there once we pass through the caves. Laurence trades a flute for Snagglepot's tin whistle.

We rest peacefully, sharing in the duties of watch.

The goblins makes us breakfast -- eggs of some sort, a tasty porridge. Cador helps. They teach us some profanity, and Snagglepot sends us on our way. We should reach the Rime before nightfall. We have earned the title "Friends of Snagglepot".

We follow the trail down, then back up, and into caves. Low mouth drips with mineral-laden water. It's only about five feet tall. Stalactites abound, making the passage tricky.

Cador and Thalador lead the way through, and we enter a cavern of strange, glowing lichens that make shifting geometric shapes. They seem to outline the path ahead of us, in octogons. Suddenly, Thalador yanks Cador back -- the lichen have become mesmerizing, and have formed a web over a deep crevasse! After pulling back, the lichen shift showing a solid path that leads to the right. Cador lights a torch and holds it low, near the lichen.

We find our way across steady ground and find our way to the exit of the cave. Beyond, a terrible blizzard rages. Aoife uses Druidcraft to discern the weather We make safety arrangements, and head into the storm -- uphill. It's a grueling, exhausting climb. We hear an enormous chuckle on the wind in the sixth hour. Finally, the blizzard fades behind us. The path ahead leads further up into a frozen fog. We've reached The Rime.

We hear: THUD. THUD. THUD. And two creatures emerge from fog.

"WHO GOES THERE?" booms one of them -- in Giant.

giants.png

Plans for Next Time

Let's hope these are Stone Giants, or else we're in big trouble...