Illunia 21 - Hardune Fortress

“Now what?” Trish whispered, looking around expectantly.

Roland hopped off his wagon and inspected the cliff face. “We need to find a crag along the cliff wall. The holy man said there’d be a cave with the door in the rear of it.”

Daulf helped Bearskin out of his covering and secured his missing armor. Once free, Bearskin took a few hand axes from the cart he was lying in and stuck them in his belt. I followed his lead and grabbed a short sword for myself, not that I knew how to wield it.

“I found it!” came Roland’s whisper from the mountain face. His head poked out from behind a boulder. “Bearskin, you’re going to need to squeeze.”

Trish and I went first. The crag was hidden well and was only visible as an opening from up close. It led to a narrow passage, six feet high and two feet wide. I had to walk sideways to make it through comfortably. After I had walked a dozen feet, the scant light from the opening disappeared as Bearskin’s massive frame filled the entrance. I summoned a Light from my hand, which revealed Bearskin squeezing through on his side, headfirst. He was too tall to walk sideways, and stooping over he would have been too wide. With one arm below him, and another gripping the rocks above, he inched forward like an insect crawling on a wall.

I kept in front of him, illuminating the tunnel and helping him find hand holds. After forty feet, the crag opened up into a cave and Bearskin was finally able to stand. To my surprise, his skin was unharmed from the constant scratching of the jagged rocks. The rocks had cut me, and I hadn’t been hugging them.

Trailing behind Bearskin, Daulf came out of the crag, dragging Bearskin's weapon along the ground behind him. Daulf barely fit himself. Luckily, he was not wearing the full plate of our first meeting.

Daulf distributed torches. "Theral, conserve your Will, only cast Light for now. Everyone else, light one of these."

They each took a torch and looked at me expectantly. I produced a flame in my hand, and once they were lit, Daulf went on. "I reckon we have no more than two hours left. Deshiv said the door would have a rune etched into it where you can place the gemstone, but would not otherwise be distinguishable as a door. When we get to the end of this tunnel, spread out and look, but stay in sight of each other."

The cave widened to fifteen feet and the ground rose as we explored. The path of the cave snaked as it climbed. We travelled through the dark, hundreds of feet, winding back and forth, always upward. Thankfully the ground was clear of rubble. By the end, we must have ascended fifty feet. When the incline leveled out, the cave opened up to a large cavern. My Light was inadequate to reveal the ceiling, making it at least thirty feet high.

Silently, we spread out and looked for the mark along the wall. The cavern was nearly a perfect circle, and it was Trish who found the rune on the wall opposite the entrance. Hidden amongst natural cracks in the wall, the rune was a mess of swirling lines, reminiscent of a spellform. Rubbing the carving with her hand, she found the socket for the gemstone. She moved to place the green stone when Bearskin grabbed her hand and whispered, "Stop. We need a plan. If enemies are behind the door, we must be ready to kill quickly."

Trish pulled out two throwing knives and said, "Right, sorry. I got ahead of myself. I'm not used to teamwork—or plans."

“It is alright. I am,” my Light revealed the amusement on Bearskin’s face as he laid out a plan. “Roland, you shoot any who run. If none run, shoot farthest. Daulf and I hold the front line and advance. Trish, look for opportunities to take out midrange or stop flankers. Theral, stay in back, support as you see fit. Be silent.”

Thanks Bearskin, I was hoping for a little more direction.

Once everyone was ready, we extinguished our lights, and Bearskin touched the gemstone to the ward. With the rumbling of stone grating on stone, a line of light appeared in the center of the wall as it opened, revealing a room. When the door was only open a hand span, Roland shot an arrow into the gap and a gurgling gasp came from the crack. In just over a second, the door was open fully, revealing a small room. A round table filled the room, and around it sat six redcaps—one of them was clawing at the arrow sticking from its neck.

The other five spent a critical moment looking from their dying friend to us. In that second, four more were killed: Trish threw a knife, hitting the second-furthest gnome in the eye, Roland shot an arrow through the heart of the one to the left of his first target, Daulf stepped into the room and decapitated the nearest gnome with a quick swing of his long sword, and Bearskin brought his weapon down on the head of the one closest to him. Bearskin’s weapon and strength were terrifying to behold. The razor sharp obsidian blades on the edge sliced the redcap’s blood-red stocking hat in two, but that mattered little when the weight of the massive wooden paddle crushed its entire body with a sickening crunch.

The last redcap disappeared with a gesture of his hands, but his footsteps could be heard scrabbling through the room. Daulf pulled an axe off of Bearskin’s belt and threw it into the now empty room. The axe stopped in midair, and the gnome reappeared with the axe sticking out of its back. Daulf turned to the group, his eyes glowing faintly with blue light, “Good job, stay quiet.”

Trish moved to riffle through the bodies of the dead. Roland ran to the door and put his ear to it. The door was a solid slab of stone, a shade lighter than that of the walls. With the brief skirmish ended, I had time to take in the room. A briny stench of the ocean permeated the room. Debris lay along the edges of the room where the walls met the ground: sand, broken bits of wood and other unidentifiable refuse. Blood spattered chips and coins of some Forsaken game of chance covered the table.

Hearing nothing through the stone door, Roland moved to recover his arrows from the two gnomes he’d slain. After Daulf handed back Bearskin his axe, we gathered around the door to the room. “Good,” Bearskin said, looking us over.

Roland opened the large stone door, it opened smoothly on some wonder of gnomish engineering, and peeked an eye out. “Clear.”

He threw the door open, and we all filed out. The door opened into a wide hallway, the ground and walls smooth, unbroken stone, the only adornment being the natural marble pattern of the rock. The hallway extended over a hundred feet and was lit dimly by torches set in improvised sconces. To the right, three more doors lined the hall, two on the right and one on the left wall. To the left, the hallway deadened with an opening on the right.

Trish motioned for us to wait and ran over to scout around the corner. After a peek around the corner she came back and said, "Stairs down. No door."

Bearskin considered and spoke slowly, "We should clear this area. We must hurry. We hope no one follows. Not the best choice, but the only choice."

We went to the next door in the hall. Daulf tried unsuccessfully to move with stealth, but the clank and rattle of his armor didn't allow it. Thankfully, the thick stone doors made it unlikely we would be heard.

In the same configuration as before, Bearskin opened the door. An overwhelming wave of stink assaulted us as it opened. Everyone save for Bearskin recoiled and covered their noses. Trish began to dry heave before Bearskin pushed the door shut and said, "Found the latrine."

In the brief moment the door was open, I saw a statue depicting Torc, in his representation as a stone sphere. The room must have been a shrine to Torc. Clearly the Forsaken were not fans.

The next door on that same wall has served as quarters for six small people. Likely our victims. The smell was better than the previous room, but only just.

The last door opened into a small room that barely fit Bearskin. The wall in the room was covered in a network of runes. From Deshiv's description, this was one of the defense control wards, able to flood the floor below us, but not restart the river. We debated using it, but we didn't know if it would work, or if it would exhaust its 'imbuement.’

Once more, Trish ran ahead to look down the hallway and see what lay beyond the turn. Roland covered her with his drawn bow. Trish motioned for us to approach. “There's a stairwell, fifty feet up to a landing. I didn’t go up. Wait here and I will scout ahead.”

We waited as she ran silently up the stairs. The stairs were ten feet across, and were sized comfortably for a dwarf, but not a human. No torches were lit in this hall, and Trish disappeared into the darkness as she went.

After a few minutes, I started to grow worried. I was about to ask if we should follow her, when silently she appeared out of the shadows. “There are Forsaken up there working on some sort of project. There are dozens of these stone statues, and they are just speaking gibberish at them. My Torcish is not great, but nothing they said made any sense to me. I counted two redcaps, three duergar, one orc and an ogre. It's all one long room up there. No way to sneak past them.”

Everyone looked to Bearskin, who was the self-appointed tactician. After thinking it over he said, “Trish will impersonate a cultist and say they need help downstairs. We will stand out of sight and ambush when they come. On my mark, we attack. If they do not come, we charge.”

We all agreed and made our way to the top of the stairs. At the top, I heard the Torcish nonsense Trish mentioned. “Rock water gopher. Rock water worm. Rock gopher worm.” It continued, with different iterations of the same words, as if reading from a list.

Trish took a moment to alter her demeanor subtly to once again mimic the cultists and went around the corner. I heard her voice shout down the large room in the Forsaken language, “I was sent to fetch you lot. They need your help downstairs.”

A shrill redcap voice called back, “What are you doing up here? You humans were supposed to wait outside.”

“I’m sorry, I am just doing what I was told. I delivered my message, my job’s done. You be the one who disobeyed.”

“Krit and Crool,” The redcap cursed in Forsaken. There are a lot of curses in Forsaken, each is apparently rich with nuance, but my father never bothered to teach me their meanings. “Let’s go and see what this talk is all about.”

The gibberish phrases stopped and the sound of footsteps came down the hall. We had no place to hide, so Bearskin and Daulf hugged the wall by the corner, while Trish, Roland, and I stood behind them at the ready.

When the voices were close, Bearskin waved at us to move and threw himself around the corner, weapon swinging before he could see a foe. Daulf charged behind him, and together they blocked the hall, giving the rest of us a safe pocket we could attack from. We ran to join them, and saw the first duergar victim of Bearskin’s swing was lying limp along the wall, below a dripping stain from his impact. The ogre and a duergar led the procession, a few yards back stood the two gnomes, and further back, in no rush to get to this mysterious task, lingered the remaining two duergar and the orc.

At his companion’s death, the ogre bellowed a guttural scream and charged at Bearskin while he was recovering from his swing. The two behemoths grappled and fought, blocking half the hallway. Daulf filled the gap between the wrestling match and the wall, just in time to intercept a shard of ice with his shield. This group reacted faster than the last, and the redcap had cast his spell as soon as Bearskin appeared. In the back, the orc fled for help and the duergar orc advanced.

Roland let loose an arrow at the fleeing orc. The arrow burned to a puff of ash when it got close as flames wreathed the orc’s body. Upon seeing Roland’s arrow had no effect, I fired a Lightning Bolt at the orc. The blue-white bolt illuminated the entire hall, and its crack was deafening as it echoed off of the stone walls. It hit the orc, and he fell to the ground, convulsing. Roland’s next arrow hit the prone form in the back, this time sinking deep into its rib cage.

While Roland and I were taking care of the runner, Daulf was holding back the duergar who had advanced. He had activated his shield against magic, and the redcap’s next ice attacks shattered before him. The duergar had drawn axes and were looking for an opening in Daulf’s defense. Daulf never gave them the opening, staying on the defense, he parried or blocked all their blows, allowing Trish to throw her knives at the lightly armored enemies. In the chaos, none of her strikes were killing blows, but the duergar were bleeding heavily from deep cuts.

Bearskin was locked in combat with the ogre. The behemoths were still grappled, clawing at each other’s necks, the ogre biting at Bearskin, and Bearskin pummeling it in the chest with repeated punches and knees. Both seemed impervious to each other’s attacks. When Bearskin removed a hand from his foe to reach for an axe, the ogre took advantage of the opportunity to push him back. Bearskin stumbled and fell to the ground, and the duergar filled the gap, closing in around Daulf.

Roland changed targets and started firing at the redcap. His first shot took the Forsaken in the shoulder; letting out a curse, the redcap summoned a hazy shield before him, obscuring him in a gray semi-transparent bubble. Roland’s next arrow glanced off the bubble. I stood watching, unsure where to help.

I began building the construct to shoot a Lightning Bolt at the gnome, unsure of if it would work, when Bearskin let out a scream and jumped to his feet. His tattoos, once black, now glowed with faint blue light. He charged at the ogre, leading with his shoulder, and pinned the monster to the wall. The ogre hit the wall with a bone cracking crunch, and blood geysered from its mouth, covering Bearskin. Coated in the blood of his enemy, Bearskin lifted the ogre over his head—as easily as I would a small child—and threw it a dozen feet, where it popped the protective bubble and crushed the redcap wizard with a heavy thud.

Tattoos still glowing, Bearskin kicked the nearest duergar facing Daulf with inhuman force. The kick landed square in the duergar’s back, breaking his spine and sending him flying into his ally. The two duergar collided and they both fell to the ground in a heap. Daulf took advantage of the sudden turn in battle and ended the life of the prone duergar with a quick stab to the heart.

When the last foe had died, Bearskin took off down the hall toward the next stairwell. We followed, but he easily outpaced us. Trish stayed behind to look over the bodies of our slain foes. Daulf approached me, “Are you alright son? You look a bit, shaken.”

Am I okay? I think I am, but if I’m not, I am not going to tell him. “I’m fine. I think. This is just not how I expected the day to go.”

He gave a small chuckle, “Ha, neither did I. Well you are doing well. Not everyone is suited for a life of combat, but I sense you have a good head for it. I’m glad you chose to come along.”

The narrow hallway we fought in opened up to a massive chamber. The walls of the chamber were lined with stone golems—the spitting image of Timothy and Jimothy, though at the time they were a new sight. Twenty lined the walls, and in the center more were in unfinished states. Massive blocks of marble and granite were in varying states of completion. The golems, it seemed, were chiseled from a solid block of stone. One golem in the construction area looked complete, it had runes lightly etched all over its body, and a circular socket cut into the stone of its chest that I did not notice on any of the other golems. Whatever was to go there, the dwarven crafter never had the opportunity to finish his creation.

While I was marveling at the golems, the rest of the group spread out looking for anyone else who might be on the floor. Bearskin came back from the stairs, no longer glowing. “There is no one at the foot of the stairs. I did not want to waste my Bond. Good job everyone. Trish, please scout ahead if everyone is done down here.”

“Sure thing Big Guy,” Trish said cautiously, looking at the blood covered giant in a new light.

Trish ran up the stairs, silently as before, and this time I was only a little worried when she finally returned. “There is a whole room of sleeping dark elves up there. I didn’t go far, but no one seemed to be on watch. If Roland and I go alone, we might be able to take care of these guys before they become a problem.”

Bearskin gave a grunt of approval, “Good idea, we will wait on the stairs in case of trouble.”

Roland and Trish disappeared around the corner, long daggers drawn. I waited a minute before peeking my head around the corner. The room had the same footprint of the previous floor, a large chamber with the control room being the only door. The wreckage of furnishings were piled in the nearest corner, making it impossible to tell what had once been here. Sleeping dark elves covered the floor; each wrapped in nothing more than a blanket on the stone ground. I counted twenty in total spread out every few yards. In the far corner was a single-occupied cot and writing table amidst all those sleeping on the ground.

My two companions carried out their dark task with cruel efficiency. Each would approach a sleeping elf from their target’s head, and in a smooth motion they would cover the mouth of the victim while simultaneously shoving a dagger up towards the brain from the chin. Few victims even twitched. I could not see what caused it, but when only ten remained, something woke Trish’s target. Her stab missed, only glancing his face, and he let out a scream.

The rest of us broke from our position and ran to aid them. I watched, as if in slow motion, as the awoken target grabbed a dagger and rammed it into Trish’s side. Dagger stuck in her side, she recoiled back from the elf, just as Roland shot the still prone enemy in the chest. The remaining nine elves were now awake and reaching for their weapons. By the time they rose to their feet with weapons drawn, Bearskin was upon them. In the large room, he was able to make full use of his weapon’s reach as he swung it in a mighty arc. One dark elf tried to block, only for his sword to be driven into his own body along with bearskin’s club. The blades cleaved through his body with a horrible tearing sound, continuing towards the other elves.

The elves jumped out of Bearskin’s reach and drew knives. Before they could throw them, I summoned a Gale between Bearskin and the elves; while not enough to disrupt a person’s balance, it succeeded in fouling their aim. Only two of the seven knives hit their target.

While Daulf and I were almost there and Bearskin occupied the elves, Roland retreated to Trish to tend to her side.

Suddenly, gray mist rose from the dead bodies and converged on Bearskin. The mist coalesced into a wraith, fully obscuring Bearskin from us. He clawed and attacked the shadow enveloping him, but he couldn't interact with it. His movements became slow and sluggish, and he fell to his knees. By then Daulf and I had reached his side.

The dark elf from the cot had cast the spell and now had her eyes closed in concentration. She wore a bone white robe which seemed to glow in contrast with her dull soot-black skin which seemed to drink in light. I reached for the Font of Fire and lobbed a Firebolt at the Blessed of Erebog. The bolt burst inches from her face, but flowed harmlessly around her. Daulf was working to keep the remaining seven elves at bay, but they were moving to encircle us.

I ran to Trish, relieving Roland to fight, and held my hand tight to the wound at her side as it continued to pump blood. Reaching out to the Font of Fire, I summoned a small flame to my palm and whispered, “Sorry!” as I pressed it into the wound, cauterizing it.

Down on his knees, Bearskin let out a shout, and his tattoos once more began to glow. The wraith enveloped him still, yet he stood. Whatever it drained from him was countered by his magic. He swung his sword at the now nearby elves and broke two more with his blow, this one cutting them down at the knees, shattering their joints. His swings did not have the supernatural strength of his kick from before, but Bearskin's natural power bordered on the unnatural.

Daulf once more took advantage of Bearskin’s spectacle and cut down another elf by bashing his target’s sword away with his shield and closing in for a thrust to the neck. The elf collapsed in a rapidly growing pool of blood and Daulf advanced on the remaining five who were once more retreating from Bearskin.

Freed from tending Trish, Roland unleashed a barrage of arrows on the death priest. Her shield was far less effective against Roland's arrows than it was against my magic, and each arrow inched closer to hitting its target. Finally one struck home, the shield burst in a haze of smoke and the priest fell clutching her chest.

The wraith vanished with her collapse and Bearskin was free from its leeching grip. The elves were not equipped for this stand-up fighting, they were no match for Daulf's armor or Bearskin's power with their short swords and knives. Together Daulf and Bearskin charged the remaining five elves and they made short work of them with Roland's support.

When the last elf was slain, Daulf ran to Trish's side. He touched the wound, and noticing my work said, "Good job, you may have saved her life."

His hand began to glow, as the puncture on Trish's side knitted itself back together and the burned skin healed, the charred skin falling away to be replaced with new skin, pale and pink.

Roland went around the room, retrieving his arrows, and performing Trish's self-assigned task of searching the dead. Bearskin walked towards a wall, and as the glow faded from his tattooed flesh, so too did his strength as he collapsed to the ground, completely drained of his strength. Daulf tended to him next, patching up the small knife wounds that covered his body.

Still lying on the ground, Bearskin asked, "How much time do we have?"

"I'd be shocked if we had more than an hour," Daulf replied.

Bearskin propped himself up against the wall, his face looking pained. "I have one battle left in me. One more Bond, but after, I will be useless. Even now, I can barely stand. I fear that foul spirit took too much from my clan."

"Bastards!" came Roland's shout from across the room. He was standing over the writing table reading a note.

I went to his side, "What is it?"

He threw the note into my chest. "Bearskin, tell us when you are ready, we need to destroy these monsters."

I read the note.

Mistress,

We have the children, they have been sent through the dwarven rail carts to the outpost, per your orders. Our assault on the local town will begin shortly after I send this missive to you. After we have captured the city, we will send their children on as well.

Tiniav, High Priestess of Erebog

When Daulf returned from tending to Trish, wordlessly I handed him the note. As he read it, his face became set in a visage of cold rage.

"Let's go." He moved up the stairs without a glance to see if we were ready.