A Near Death Experience

Flaurmont 4-11
 
I was a little flustered by Rhiannon being angry about our short adventure so I put myself to work on research and in my spare time thinking of something to do for her. I spent some time in the library on Mage Island and found some info on the “wights” (what I called ghouls before). It was actually a bunch of loose leaf pages tucked into another book. It mentioned the purple eyes and had very realistic sketches of the wights as if whoever did this had seen them before. I’m very curious who wrote and drew these as they must have had contact with the things. I am also very curious about Geoffrey as well, I just do not know if we’ll ever get any answers regarding him though.
 
I also thought about what I should do with Rhiannon. These things had to be done and if the Quadrial were not going to do them it had to be us. She must at some level understand this so I believe she fears for my safety when I go out. I thought back to our previous meetings (or dates really, I was too naive to know) and remembered what the woman at the cloth store told me when I was purchasing cloth for wrapping our pendants. She said such an occasion should be romantic accompanied with wine and a walk on the beach. I had already done a walk on the beach but something else perhaps. I thought of other places she liked and thought perhaps the Sarcastic Goat? If I could just have her and I in there? I would have to ask Birna about this.
 
After I was done with my research I decided to focus on the task at hand. I explained to Bediah and Birna what I was looking for and told her I would compensate them for the loss of normal business. At first Bediah said five gold and to not break anything. That was confusing and I explained it would just be Rhiannon and I and then Birna smacked him on the chest and told him to behave and that we could have it for three gold. She asked what to prepare but I had an idea for that too, I would ask Holly to cook since she was a Hin, no offense to the food there as it was usually decent if not good. Holly joyfully agreed and I told her to spare no expense, I wanted the best of everything. She had no problem with that and set about making a menu and preparing for tomorrow. I went home and went through our wine collection. Only two bottles of the dry red I bought from Birna that Rhiannon loved. We really needed to get trade going again. I wanted this to be important so I took one and another one from Lord Gustavon’s gift he gave us. I took these to the Goat and asked that they be used for our dinner tomorrow. With that I set about to relax. I’m noticing that since my bonding of Barik’s memories I have an additional drive that I did not have before but the elven part of me still wants to just slow down.
 
Holly told me that Dram and Durbin went north to kill some orcs and such which I think was actually good news. They couldn’t barge in on me like when I was talking to Rhiannon’s father. The next day went smoothly and I told Rhiannon there was a special event at the Goat we needed to attend. She asked a lot of questions but I told her it was a surprise. She wore her beautiful blue dress and asked if we were playing and I said she could if she wished so she brought her lute. When we arrived she seemed disappointed that the Goat was closed. I told her it was no problem and opened the door to a very beautiful setup and took her by the hand inside to a table setup in the middle. Holly did a fantastic job with the food and it was a wonderful night of wine, food and talking. At the end I had picked out a few songs to play for her that I felt expressed how I felt for her. It was all amazing. That night was busy as well!
 
The next day Dram and Durbin came back so we met at the Goat to discuss our next plan and we agreed it was to open the pass and then come back to deal with the rest. Now of course I had to tell Rhiannon. This time instead of just being bluntly honest I would try a slightly different tactic. I waited until after our evening meal and sat her down. I explained what we were doing and that I understood it upset her. I was doing this for her and for our future children to be safe and secure. I’m sure she understands but is still upset. She wanted updates from Melwin and made me swear to be as safe as possible. Of course I would be plus Dram and Durbin would be there to protect me plus Holly was very stealthy so we shouldn’t be surprised by anything. I wanted to say, “plus all the jewelry, this house and everything has come from these adventures” but something stopped me and said “bad idea”. With that I spent some time studying and strolling outside that night even though it was quite cool.
 
The next morning we went through our supplies and headed out. The journey wasn’t bad at all although the road was starting to become overgrown. It was dwarven made but it would need some maintenance if we were to get regular caravans again. We knew how to deal with the vampiric moss going through the swamp and we didn’t run into much else until we got closer to where the smaller fort was on our side of the pass. Holly spotted two female minotaurs up ahead in the hills with a herd of goats. She led us around them to get closer to the small keep. We could see Minotaurs up ahead outside of it working on some metal banging away. We decided to try and draw a few off to even the odds.
 
Holly snuck up closer and made noises like a wounded goat. She seemed to be very convincing as the two females came running out to see what was going on. She snuck back towards us and we made quick work bringing down the two females but the males must have known something was off as they were already coming our way as well. The battle was a chaotic mess. I tried to shift the ground under the two that first charged towards us. The spell was successful but I do not know if it actually hindered them at all. They were amazingly fast and huge! I began charging a lighting bolt and a third came running around and I shot it quickly at it. It only seemed to enrage the beast and now it charged straight toward me! I was actually terrified and my first thought was I wouldn’t make it back to Rhiannon. I stepped back and it came up at me and swung its huge weapon that would have killed me. I pulled a layer of mana around me to help dodge the blow and thankfully I was able to. I smacked it with my staff and sent a jolt of lightning through it but, again, it just seemed to make the beast angry. I took another step back but thankfully Durbin finished his off and turned around to hit the one in front of me in the back forcing it to turn around. I began a powerful storm to hopefully hinder the beasts as this battle could go very poorly. I tried to maneuver it around to impede as many as I could but more of them joined the battle and the storm was not strong enough to really harm the minotaurs. Durbin moved away from us as well making it even more difficult. The leader was after Holly but she seemed to be sort of safe in the tree leaving Dram with two minotaurs on him. I figured Durbin was sturdy enough and only had one minotaur so I moved the storm onto the two in front of Dram.
 
 
I wasn’t quite sure what Holly was doing but the largest minotaur seemed pretty angry. I concentrated on keeping my storm moving to keep whatever I could inside it. After a short time the battle seemed over. Durbin literally cracked his mace over the back of the lead minotaur who seemed to be fumbling in the tree brush. Out emerged Holly dragging this monster of a weapon grinning ear to ear. Now that the battle was over my body began to shake. I shambled over to the tree, put my back against it and just slid down. With shaking hands I pulled out my wineskin and took a large drink…and then another. Having that beast rush down on me and believing my death was inevitable had really shaken me. We really needed to take on these battles in a different way otherwise we were going to die. I had always known there was a chance but it seemed like we could accomplish anything. This though…it was different now.
 
Durbin was wounded, not terribly but somewhat. I provided first aid the best I could but one wound I seemed to just not be able to get clean and bandaged right. I gave him one of the basic potions of health from Mage Island and that seemed to help him out quite a bit. After that we checked the corpses for anything but just found miscellaneous trinkets and coins in their woven necklaces. We moved up closer and the keep doors were closed. On a large stump was what Durbin said was a dwarven anvil. There were also dwarven tools strewn about, some in better shape than others. They didn’t even heat the metal, they just beat it with their strength. That sent a shudder down my spine and a flashback of the beast coming down on me.
 
We opened the door to a large room and piles of pelts everywhere. In the corner were four young minotaurs and a large elderly female attempting to protect them. Dram suggested we actually just let them go. I was not for murdering defenseless beings but these were minotaurs. Yes they could think and make decisions and very seldomly be reasoned with but they would just as likely kill you and your family and eat you all. If we let these things go they may come back for vengeance with more one day. Dram and Holly wanted nothing to do with it. I honestly did not want to do it either but it just had to be done. Durbin and I closed the doors and took care of the problem. I am not proud of it but I know it was the right decision regardless of what the Princess might say. These things were dangerous. We did take out the children and buried them. The others suggested we should bury all of them, which I could do. It was far easier moving this earth then it was shaped stone.
 
With that done we needed to decide what to do about the two goat herding females. I didn’t want them to find out what happened here and warn the others (assuming there are others). Dram made a good point. If they did that then they would come and investigate what happened here splitting some off from the main keep. That was a pretty good idea so we decided to leave the remaining two females along and let them see an empty keep.
 
We went back in and through the door in the back of the room. The main doors were tall, seven feet tall in fact. This one was short and Dram and I had to duck to get into it. There wasn’t much back here really. An old barracks, common room, kitchen, well and library. Of course everything was destroyed. I thought perhaps the well was actually a route to the underground gnome caverns but it did not seem so, just a normal well. As we were leaving I remembered the dwarven carvings in the ceilings of the Salt Mines. They were all connected. So I asked Durbin if it would make sense for this to be connected underground to the central larger keep in the middle of the pass. He agreed there probably was and he and Holly started looking. It took awhile but it ended up in the library. A cleverly hidden door opening up to a staircase going down! Leave it to a dwarf to take their own ingenuity for granted!
 
I regretted finding the door after some time of course. The stairs went down, then a hall going someway and more stairs. Over and over until, yet again, all I could feel is the weight of the rock above me. It was getting slightly less stressful than it used to be but I still did not like it. After a few hours (I think, time get odd to me down here) we came to an octagonal room with a ladder leading up to what appeared to be a trap door. At first we thought Holly should go first and look at it but then thought better of that as if something was up there she could get hurt. We decided on Durbin going up, checking for any light and then popping alight up and I would send my “eye” through the sliding peephole. Looking up into the room it was quite fantastic. On two sides were great murals of many armed dwarves guarding wagons as they were going through a gate. On one end of the hall was a large stone and iron door. The opposite side was a mural of a large leather glove with a blue stone ring set on its middle finger. Under that mural was a pedestal where there were four large gemstones. I did another quick scan of the room and the trap door before heading down to let the others know it was clear and what I saw.
 
Durbin climbed up and tried to open the hatch but it wouldn’t open, he said it must be latched from the other side. I asked him to explain what the latch would look like and once he started to I realized I knew exactly what it was when I examined the hatch. I asked him to come down and I could unlatch it. I climbed up the ladder to the top and was able to pop the latch quite easily. This ladder was odd. The rungs were not round as I expected but were actual hexagons. Dwarves and their sharp angles. I came down and Durbin went back up, opening the hatch and climbing through. Next was Dram and I motioned Holly to go up next and I took the rear. It did not seem that anything had been through here at all otherwise those gems would likely be gone. The large blue stone was actually numerous small blue stones of azurite. The four on the pedestal were glowing and had dwarven runes carved into them on the facets. Very amazing work actually. Unfortunately Durbin did not seem to know what the gems did or if they were linked to anything. I’m sure we’ll find out if they are somehow.