Session 43 - Rock, Stone, and Strife

General Summary

From Kleeck's journal:
We were a few days into the foothills at the base of the Serpent's Tooth Mountains when the ambush happened.
We had thought we could make our way through a small ravine and onward to the mountains. Tertia lead the way, with Hauspex acting as her eyes in the sky. I was gliding along just above the group, my thoughts wandering as I admired a smattering of clouds in the distance.
"Fresh meat!" a guttural voice growled from atop the ridge to our left.
The next thing I heard was a thundering 'THUMP', as a boulder the size of a barrel crashed into Hassan just behind me, almost knocking him from his horse. I heard a rumbling, and turned to see a cascade of rocks and debris come crashing down behind us, cutting off the path through the ravine we had just traversed.
Hulking figures, giants more than twice the size of a man, were emerging from their hiding places on the ridges around us, about a half dozen I would later learn though in the moment it seemed like an army. They were dressed in rough hides, wielded enormous clubs, and had an abundance of boulders at the ready to pelt us with. The one who had triggered the landslide behind us grinned an ugly grin, and I shuddered at the blunt maliciousness that gleamed in his eyes. The moral valence of a small child in the body of a monster.
The attack began in earnest. More boulders came hurtling down from the giants on the ridges around us. Others giants came charging out from their hiding places in the ravine ahead of us. Their charge was met by Bandua, who bravely stood face to face with enemies more than twice his size. Tertia delivered a well placed javelin to the thigh of one of the giants on the ridge, eliciting a yelp of pain. Laura returned fire with her bow as well, while Mkali darted forward to nip and bite where he could at the ankles of our enemies.
I turned to see Hassan, reeling from the blow he took and still half panicked from the suddenness of the attack, holding his pendant aloft and uttering arcane words strange and incomprehensible to me. As he finished his incantation, I watched in amazement as a dozen rocks, fallen trees, and other objects around the battlefield began to move, slowly righting themselves like newborn foal learning to walk. Hassan pointed at one of the giants and the objects all suddenly charged, rolled, and otherwise hobbled towards it and began to bludgeon and badger it. The giant screamed in anger and swatted left and right trying to fend off this strange attack.
A wise move, I thought - in this battle we would need all the allies we could find. Beating my wings to gain some height, I reached into my pouch and pulled forth the golden reliquary I had commissioned in Ostia. It gleamed in the bright daylight, an image of Apollo in all his beauty and divinity, ringed by the radiating rays of the sun. I focused on it as I spoke the incantations I had but recently learned, calling on Him with my heart and mind, asking for Him to send aid.
A golden gleaming winged figure appeared above me, sunlight glinting off their perfectly arched beak, a majestic bow held in their powerful talons. I felt the celestial tethered to me by an invisible thread formed by my faith and focus, and knew that so long as I held tight to that thread in my thought the angel would remain. Heeding my unspoken command the celestial being launched a pair of arrows, striking home and nearly felling the one of the giants where it stood.
With Apollo's aid, I was certain we could make quick work of these brutes. I turned from my angelic ally and dove downwards, ready to join the fray...
WHOMP!
The boulder blind-sided me, smashing into my back and sending me spinning through the air. My vision went white for a second, and then it was all I could do to keep myself aloft as pain blossomed in my body where the stone had struck me. My focus shattered by the blow, I felt the golden thread slip from my mental grasp, and looked up in dismay to see the celestial slowly fade away with a shimmer...
CRACK!
I barely had time to react before the second boulder crashed into me. This one slammed into my shoulder, flipping me head over talon. Through a haze of pain I saw the ground rising up to meet me, and somehow managed to beat my wings enough to slow my decent from what would surely have been a fatal fall to an ugly landing.
The rest of the battle is a blur in my memory, so rattled I was by the blows from those stones.
I remember cowering at the foot of a tree, desperate for cover from further boulders, while Laura and Mkali bravely faced off against a club wielding giant not ten feet in front of me, wearing it down with wolf-pack tactics as its raged ineffectually.
I remember seeing Tertia charge to the front, sword held high, and watching the giants cower back in the face of her rage, as if her anger was itself a palpable force.
I remember shaking my head in disbelief as four Hassans, mounted on identical horses, pranced back and forth in front of a giant while animated debris pelted it from all sides. At the time I was certain the hits I took had addled my brain, but Hassan later assured me that he had been using illusory magic to make the duplicates.
I remember breaking cover to heal Laura with Apollo's divine magic, convinced that I would be smashed to death at any moment but hoping my act would at least aid her in surviving.
And I remember, near the end of the battle, my rage welling up in me as I wheeled on one of the giants and called Apollo's wrath down upon it. As the force of my spell struck they grasped their ears in pain, and collapse to the ground with dark blood seeping out from between their fingers.
In the end it was Laura who came to my aid, finding me crumpled on the ground and using the healing magics I had shown her months ago in Nemasus to tend to my bruises and broken bones. Feeling the spell do its work, while hearing in the background the final cries of the last giants as my companions felled them, I finally began to regain something of my senses and my wits.
In the aftermath of the ambush, we searched the giants and their nearby lair, finding a smalls sum of coins but nothing else of interest. We rested, regrouped, and planned our next move.
Determined to forge forward through the foothills, and hopeful that we could avoid further danger and mishap, we marshalled all the resources we had to make the journey. I called upon Apollo for aid, Hassan used his sorcerous magic to enhance our skills, and Laura even used her connection with the natural world to 'speak' to the plants and trees themselves. Tertia used Hauspex to spy from the skies, and Bandua used his experience as a scout to forge the way for us. In the end, our combined efforts worked, and we were able to make it to the base of the mountains without further mishap.
At this point our fortunes took a turn for the better. Not long after we had cleared the hills, Tertia alerted us to something that Hauspex had spotted. That something turned out to be the remnants of a stone road, similar in construction to a Roman road but ancient, probably predating the Empire itself. There were breaks here and there where the road had been completely obliterated by time and nature, but from what we could see the it appeared to climb up into the mountains. We followed the broken sections of road, not sure where they were leading but hoping that it would somehow lead us to the answers we were seeking.
For the better part of the day we made our way up the mountainside following the trail of this lost road, climbing higher and higher. The air grew thinner and cooler as we climbed, and the thicker foliage at the base gave way to sparse brush and rocky cliff faces. Thanks to the aerial reconnaissance provided by Hauspex, Noctua, and myself we were able to follow the road upwards even when it all but disappeared. We had almost summited the first mountain in this range and, as we crested the top, we came upon a sight so strange and singular that I think at once we knew this was what we had been seeking.
Beyond this first peak, another higher mountain stood before us. We could see a flight of steps leading up to the summit. Or to where the summit would have been...but instead of a peak it was as if the top of the mountain had been scooped out by a giant hand, leaving a hollow in its place. At the edge of the hollow we could just make out what looked like ruins of some ancient buildings, which the steps were clearly leading to. As I looked at this strange sight, I had a vision (another gift from Apollo I am certain) of a city built of stone, standing tall and majestic in the place where the cratered-out peak now was.
We made the long climb up the steps, and eventually found ourselves at the edge of the ruins.
At the top of the steps there was a landing build around a long-dried-out fountain and ringed by three large statues of cobras. Beyond the fountain and the statues were archways and pillars, and beyond that I could make out further ruins. There was writing on the archways, in an arcane script that I could not read but that reminded me vaguely of the letter we had found on the necromancer all the way back in Nemasus. This looked very much like the entrance to whatever ancient city once existed here.
We paused at the crest of the stairs, wary of what traps or tricks may lay before us. Tertia cast a spell to detect enchantments, while I prepared to use my magic to try and translate the words on the archway.
The shadow creature rose from the fountain the moment we stepped onto the landing. Its form was vague and shifty, but it had the rough appearance of a kind of dragon man, or the wraith of one long dead. We barely had time to take in its appearance though, before it darted back and then 'entered' one of the cobra statues, sliding into it as I might slide into a pool of water. A moment later the statue started making strange creaking and cracking sounds. Its eyes lit up with a malevolent light, and it began to move as if a living thing, showing every intention of attacking us where we stood.
Baudua and Tertia were the first to act, charging to the front to face off against the animated statue and batter it with sword and axe. The rest of us used spell and bow to strike from a distance, wearing it down as it flailed at our companions. It looked like we might make quick work of the statue, but then suddenly the shadow creature emerged from its stony host, darting quickly to another statue and entering and animating it as it had done with the previous one. We turned our attention to the new statue, as the last one returned to its lifeless state.
Again we battered at the statue, causing cracks and fractures in the stonework with our attacks. As we did, I saw Tertia look thoughtfully at the third, as of yet unused statue, and then step back to ready a spell. Her instincts were proven right, as the shadow creature once again slipped out suddenly from its current host and made for the final statue. Tertia's spell struck it mid-flight, lancing it with a jolt of lighting and then tethering it to her with an electric leash. I moved to cut off its escape as she closed from the other side, her frustration at the wraith's evasive tactics evident on her face. I saw her brow furrow and then, I know not how, I felt rage radiating from her like a wave. I winced in actual pain, then watched in amazement as the shadow creature seemed to waiver, then suddenly dissipate like so much smoke...

Rewards Granted

4,550 Experience Points

Missions/Quests Completed

• Minor Milestone - Complete the Lacertan Hills skill challenge
• Major Milestone - Complete the Serpent's Teeth skill challenge
• Campaign Milestone - Locate the ruined entrance to the mysterious city

Report Date

23 Apr 2022