Home  |  Darwin's Realm  |  House Rules  |  Cast of Characters  |  Campaign Journals

Decor, Def Lenard, Fen, Kelson, Hollicar, Johnathon, and Landriss contacts Christina of the Huntress after deciding that their best chance of helping Kelson regain his sight is to negotiate with the temple of Kertigen, god of Merchants and Prosperity. After John and Lenard helped Christina after the shrine had been robbed she offered her services to them in gratitude. Specifically, she had contacts within the temple of Kertigen who might look favorably upon the adventurers if they mentioned her name. Not being anxious to be forced to donate another 5 platinum coins to the temple just to be able to speak with a priest of importance the party asks Christina to accompany them this time.

Taking Christina with them turns out to be a good decision as she is able to get them an audience with the high priest of the temple, Mathius of Kertigen. Her assistance also proves its worth during the negotiations since she is able to help convince Mathius to agree to a quest that is much more within the party's abilities than the previously offered quest of tracking down mysterious pirates that have attacked a few ships in the sea from underwater. Their hulls had been holed from below before any sign of attack or activity could alert the ships.

The more reasonable quest in questiona is also of interest to Kertigen's temple since it involves concerns brought to the temple by merchants. The quest is to eradicate a band of ogres that has recently started raiding merchants traveling the roads in the area. There have been three attacks so far, all within the last two weeks. Each raid was conducted by four to six ogres who were organized and equipped with high quality scale mail armor and weaponry including swords that are sized appropriately for the ogres. A secondary, but still critical, part of the quest is to find out how the ogres came to have such equipment. Mathius takes the adventurers to see a suit of scale mail and weapons that were taken from the only ogre killed in the raids. Upon examination it looks like the equipment is of excellent quality but is not being maintained well. It looks like the gear was either well maintained or new until recently.

Mathius goes on to tell the party that if they accept the quest in Kertigen's honor then he will regenerate Kelson's eyes and also heal Landriss of his nearly-severed buttocks. The adventurers agree to the terms but adds that the regeneration and healing services must be done in advance of the party's completing the quest since they are sorely weakened as a unit. Mathius agrees but states that Kelson, Landriss, and John must all formally accept the divine quest since then Kertigen himself will be keeping an eye on the Quested adventurers.

That night, after the dinner hour, John, Kelson, and Landriss return to the temple of Kertigen for the ceremony. They are immediately lead to a chapel where Mathius is preparing for the night's divine work. First he presents each of them with a scroll detailing the nature of the quest they are to undertake. Since Kelson is blind and Landriss can not read Mathius reads it to each of them in turn.

"I agree to kill all ogres involved in the raids and bring back information on where said ogres got their armament."

John expresses displeasure over the vague nature of the directive but acquiesces when Mathius does not acknowledge John's complaints and merely repeats, "Do you agree to accept the Quest?". Kelson and Landriss both agree to the quest as well.

Mathius then completes the ceremonial Questing of the adventurers and performs the regeneration and healing ceremonies as promised.

The next morning the Quested adventurers set out on horses that Ahriallen has procured from one of his local contacts based upon his good word to return them and a sizeable pouch of gold. The horses are to be returned within six days. The party travels for half a day to the region where the raids have been taking place. Since the roads northward lead up into the mountains they encounter no other travelers on the road once they clear the agricultural lands surrounding the town.

After a quick, cold lunch Landriss and Kelson resume leading the adventurers in their search for the ogre bandits. Landriss and Kelson are scouting either side of the road 150 yards ahead of the party when Landriss spots a deer a few dozen yards ahead of him in the woods. Alarms go off in his head when he sees that the deer is largely ignoring him and is frozen as if searching for danger. The deer's gaze is locked deeper into the woods. Before Landriss can decide what to do next the deer suddenly gets knocked to the ground amid a spray of blood as if it had just been pole-axed. An arrow the size of a javelin now sticks out both sides of the dead deer.

Shouts of excitement direct Landriss' gaze toward two scale mail-clad ogres who are jogging toward their kill. One carries a huge composite bow. Retreating as quickly and quietly as he can Landriss returns to the party as the ogres begin to field dress their kill. A quick planning session ends with the party quietly approaching the ogres and spreading out through the scarce trees along the road with bows readied. On a signal a volley of arrows streaks in to inflict heavy damage to the ogre bowman as he guts the deer. The second ogre draws two bastard swords and charges Lenard as the bard turns to retreat. A short foot race leads the swordsman ogre back to the party as the ogre archer dies without being able to fire a return shot.

Seeing Lenard leading an ogre back to the party Hollicar and Fen draw swords and meet the raider on the road. Between their swords and archery support the ogre is quickly lying dead in the snow.

During the fight Landriss had moved to the felled ogre bowman to make sure it was dead. He had time to slash it's throat with his sword when two more ogres announced their arrival by trying to nail the ranger to a tree with a long arrow. The javelin sized arrow impaled Landriss but did not quite affix him to the tree behind him. Kelson, who was still near-by rushed to the unconscious ranger's aid and pulled him to cover behind a tree.

The rest of the party is alerted to the presence of the new arrivals and fan out in the woods, taking cover behind trees. A few tense minutes pass as some sporadic arrow fire is exchanged as targets present themselves. The third ogre to fall, the second archer, is finally brought down after being hit five or six times.

The fourth ogre, armed with a huge battle axe, is well covered in a cluster of trees. John decides to try and blind the ogre and moves to within range of his light spell. The rest of the party awaits an opportunity to put an arrow in the ogre but he proves to be somewhat smart since he is hiding behind his shield and constantly ducks from side to side behind the tree, making it difficult even for John to specifically target the ogre's eyes. After realizing this John takes the initiative to taunt the ogre into the open after preparing his spell so he needs only to complete the last few syllables.

A few shouted insults do indeed taunt the ogre into action. Instead of charging, however, the ogre turns and heaves his ogre-sized battle axe at John. This mighty throw brings the ogre out from his cover for a moment. John is able to finish his spell even as the axe spins end-over-end toward the priest. The axe buries itself deeply into John's chest and knocks him to the ground as divine light simultaneously bursts into being within the ogre's eyes, blinding and disorienting the ogre with it's burning brightness.

The ogre unintentionally breaks cover as the light spell disorientates it. This makes it a viable target for the party's archers, who are further aided by an entangle spell cast by Kelson.

Meanwhile John pulls the axe from within his chest and begins to quietly cast a curative spell on himself. Unfortunately, it is at this precise moment that Kelson calls out for John to report if he is alright. Out of reflex John calls back an answer to the party leader, which disrupts the spell he had been casting (from an Out-Of-Character perspective this unintentional event was hilarious enough to let it stand In-Character despite the improbability of John ruining his own spell by calling out, "I'm alright! Oh damn, I just ruined my spell!!").

After searching the bodies and finding little more than a few coins and the well made but poorly maintained equipment the party follows the ogres' back-trail through the two-inch deep snow. Having to stop and camp for the night after following the ogre trail the rest of the day, the party is awakened by a large, hungry pack of wolves prowling around the campsite just outside of their fire's glow. The wolves apparently decide that the promising meal of horseflesh is not tempting enough to warrant an all-out battle with the men around the fire and leave without incident.

Continuing to follow the ogres' back-trail the next morning brings the party to where this trail branched from a larger trail. It appears as if around 12-16 ogres followed the same trail to this point. The four that the adventurers killed split and headed south-west from the path while 8-12 ogres continued on westward together. The tracks of approximately 4 ogres lead back, traveling eastward, to this trail and presumably toward the ogres' lair somewhere closer to the eastern coast just a few miles away.

The trail leads the party to a cliff that drops down 150 feet to the sea below them. They are approximately a day north of town if they were to follow the coast back. The party discoverers a set of strange stairs in the side of the cliff that lead down approximately 30 to an entrance. The stairs do not appear to have been carved or manufactured but are clearly not part of a natural rock formation. Also unusual are numerous, 5 feet long ledges that follow the stairway and act as hand-holds. At the bottom of the semi-icy stairway is an opening approximately seven feet wide and twelve feet high that leads into the side of the cliff under the party.

Lenard acts as scout and discovers that while a little icy the stairs are fairly easily navigated by using the hand-holds. The entrance leads in twenty feet to an iron bound wooden door. The walls, ceiling, and floor of the entrance tunnel are all perfectly smooth and cut from the stone of the cliff. Deciding that it would be too difficult to draw the ogres out of their lair with the door closed, Lenard ties a rope around his waste which leads up to the cliff-top where John and Landriss are prepared to haul him up to safety if he has to run. Lenard then approaches the door and triggers a magic mouth which loudly issues a dire warning, "Abandon all hope ye who disturb Zalderath unbidden!"

After a brief retreat and a few minutes of waiting for something else to happen Lenard once again approaches the door and again triggers the magic mouth, "Abandon all hope ye who disturb Zalderath unbidden!" Ignoring the warning, the bard tries the door and finds it unlocked. Opening the door reveals nothing but darkness within until two ogre arrows streak out of the darkness and impale the bard, knocking him unconscious and almost killing him on the spot.

Luckily, he had already intended to turn and run as soon as the door opened whether anything threatened him immediately or not. Lenard had been running down the short hallway toward the cliff when the arrows hit him. His momentum took him out away from the cliff and around an outcropping that his rope had been cast around to allow him a quick escape with some measure of cover. John and Landriss quickly hauled the badly bleeding bard up the cliff after a yell from the other characters tells them he is unconscious. Three cure spells later Lenard is again ready to scout the entrance, this time after Ahriallen makes him invisible through spell use.

The adventurers decide to take the battle in to the ogres and prepare to enter the lair. Kelson is in the lead, behind the invisible Lenard, ready to cast a heat metal spell on one of the armored ogre archers after Lenard illuminates their position with a small wooden cube enchanted with continual light and borrowed from Ahriallen. Lenard is then going to use his invisibility to surprise the second archer with an attack that will hopefully disable or kill it. Hollicar, Fen, Decor and Landriss take positions behind Kelson on the stairs at the entrance to the tunnel while John and Ahriallen wait on the cliff above the stairs. Hollicar, Fen, and Landriss are to rush into the tunnel as soon as Kelson finishes his spell and moves out of the way. Everyone is in position when Lenard again enters the lair.

No ogres had come out of the entrance but armored bodies could be heard moving within the darkness and once in a while quiet voices could be heard. Sneaking invisibly Lenard again entered the dark tunnel, this time not setting off the magic mouth spell, and discovered that the ogres were well entrenched inside. The hallway continued another 20 feet past the outer door to a gate which had bars set about 18 inches apart, far enough for someone without much gear to slip through yet narrow enough to hinder an outright charge. The bars were also set wide enough apart to allow the ogre archers to fire down the tunnel fairly unobstructed. These archers stood behind a 5' tall, stone barrier in an entrance room beyond the gate. Standing in the darkened tunnel and looking back toward the daylight, Lenard sees that he had been perfectly silhouetted by the incoming daylight and made an excellent target when he first opened the door.

Trying to gather as much information as he could, Lenard squeezed through the bars of the gate but accidently scraped his scabbard against the metal, alerting some of the ogres that something was happening. Luckily, ogres were stupid and didn't seem to come to the conclusion that someone had snuck inside invisibly. They could clearly see down the tunnel to the daylight outside and had seen no one enter. The ogres took no actions other than to argue with each other about whether anything had actually been heard.

After freezing in position for what seemed like hours, but was more like two minutes, Lenard cautiously took in his surroundings. There were three more ogres in the two tunnels that lead away from the entrance room. This made five armored and well armed ogres within a small enclosed space. Lenard tried to sneak back through the bars to leave and report back that there were too many ogres ready for battle, but again made noise. This time one of the ogres decided to go down the tunnel to investigate. The ogre swung open the gate, almost hitting Lenard with it where he stood next to the wall. The ogre then proceeded down the narrow hallway slowly. In an unfortunate moment the ogre's arm brushed against Lenard, startling the ogre. After instinctively jumping away from whatever had brushed it's arm, the ogre swung his powerful arm in an arc just above Lenard's head as the bard ducked. Feeling nothing but air the now alarmed ogre was about to move to close the outer door when Lenard struck.

Using his surprise to perfect advantage Lenard slashed his longsword across the ogre's ankle. As Lenard suddenly became visible again and was sprayed by a fountain of blood (critical hit due to complete surprise: artery severed) the ogre fell. Lenard then immediately ran for the entrance and leapt off of the cliff before the two archers could again bring their bows to bear on him. His leap carried him to the dangling rope which he then quickly climbed.

As Lenard climbed the rope the rest of the party scrambled back up the partially icy stairs as the ogres inside began to rush outside. Kelson, the last person on the stairway, barely made it back up onto the cliff top when the first ogre reached the top of the stairs. Hollicar and Fen stopped to hold the top of the stairway while Landriss and Decor moved into position to use their bows at the ogres still on the stairs.

A few blows were exchanged between the two ogres now at the top of the stairs and the two warriors who were determined not to let them have the secure footing of the cliff-top before John cast a light spell on the first ogre's eyes, successfully blinding it. By this time Lenard and Kelson had joined Landriss and Decor in firing their arrows while Ahriallen had begun to harass the third ogre in line, one wearing plate mail armor, on the stairs. The ogre was still too far down the stairs for either he or Ahriallen to effectively harm each other but he was kept busy fending off Ahriallen's swords while Landriss and Lenard began to put arrow after deadly arrow into the last ogre in line.

The party's defensive line broke when the blinded ogre at the top of the stairs took a wild swing with his large club. His swing happened to put that six-inch thick piece of lumber right in line with Fen. The blow caught the young fighter unprepared and pulverized his arm before driving deep into his rib cage (critical hit: arm smashed for over 25 hit points of damage). Fen was swept sideways by the force of the blow, forcing Hollicar to dodge backwards to avoid being knocked down as Fen's lifeless body crashed to the cold rocks right in front of the half-elf fighter.

This gave the next ogre, who Hollicar and Fen had been fighting, the opportunity to scramble onto the cliff face and press the attack upon the party. This move further opened the party's defensive line so that the third ogre in line, a large ogre wearing plate mail and wielding an ogre-sized bastard sword and shield, had the opportunity to gain the cliff-top as well. When the plate mail wearer reached the sure footing of the cliff-top he immediately swung his six-foot long sword at the nearest target, Decor. The lightly armored bowman had no opportunity to defend himself effectively and fell to the blade as readily as wheat to a scythe.

During this Lenard and Landriss never let up their bow fire and finally killed the last ogre in line before he had a chance to follow the previous two ogres to confront the party on the cliff top. Fearing that the plate mail wearing ogre would be too much for the party on this equal footing, John's next light spell caught that ogre directly in the eyes, giving them two blinded ogres and one sighted, but wounded, ogre to fight. The sighted ogre was the next to fall beneath the near-berserk attacks of the enraged Hollicar, the precise swordsmanship of Ahriallen, and the deadly bow fire of Landriss, Lenard, and Kelson.

The blinded leader proved to still be a dangerous adversary as he kept calm and swept his blade and shield around him to keep back his attackers. Hollicar, still enraged by the death of Fen, immediately charged the blinded leader with Ahriallen following close behind. The two warriors engaged the leader while Lenard quickly moved into position behind the leader. Landriss and Kelson tried to maneuver into positions that would allow them to use their bows without hitting their comrades while John dragged the unconscious Decor out of the melee.

Once behind the heavily armored ogre Lenard rushed him, jumped into the air and planted both feet heavily into the back of the blinded ogre. The bard managed to hit solidly enough to force the ogre to take a few steps forward, which in turn forced him to trip over the dead body of his fellow ogre. With a shuddering crash the plate-mailed ogre fell to the ground. Sensing victory Hollicar slashed wildly at the ogre but his blade glanced off of the thick armor and continued it's arc to accidently cut Ahriallen.

Knowing that he would quickly become a dead ogre if he did not get to his feet, the ogre rolled toward where he knew Ahriallen and Hollicar had been standing. Using the momentum of his roll he lashed out blindly to bash with his shield and caught Hollicar. The heavy impact forced Hollicar back a few steps while Ahriallen dodged back away from the ogre's sword as it swept through the spot where he and Hollicar had just been standing.

As the ogre struggled to get back on his feet while blindly slashing his sword around him Hollicar made another wild, berserk attack. Hollicar's foot hit a patch of ice and the force of his powerful swing caused him to completely loose his footing as he fell toward the 150 high cliff (critical fumble: full stumble when Hollicar is standing about 5 feet from the edge of the cliff. Doh!). Dropping his weapons he frantically scrabbled for a hand-hold as he tumbled over the edge of the cliff. Fortunately he had been standing over the narrow, slippery stairway and landed hard on his back after a short, six foot drop. Fortune also smiled upon Hollicar as his weapons came to a rest on the cliff-top rather than plummeting into the rocky waters below.

While Hollicar tumbled over the edge of the cliff the lead ogre managed to regain his own footing and was beginning to work out where his attackers were when he finally succumbed to the barrage of arrows and Ahriallen's sword cuts. The last remaining ogre, the one who had slain Fen, was easily killed by bow fire while he helplessly tried to defend himself as he stood on the icy top step of the stairs.

The battle was suddenly finished and reality was able to set into the minds of the companions. They had lost a trusted friend and warrior, Fen. While Hollicar stood at the edge of the cliff and stared vacantly out over the sea below John and the others gathered to pay their respects to their fallen comrade after making sure Decor was alright.

John and Lenard wrapped Fen in a blanket while the priest prayed for Helm to guide Fen's soul to it's destination. After finishing with Fen, John began to approach Hollicar. Kelson assumed that John was going to try and comfort the half-elf but called out for John to leave Hollicar to his grieving. Kelson was rightfully afraid that the volatile half-elf would hurl John off of the cliff if the priest bothered him at that moment.

At about this time an ogre-ish roar of pain and anger echoed out of the entrance thirty feet below the party. The clashing of steel on steel also echoed out but abruptly ended as quickly as it started. Noticing for the first time that Ahriallen was no longer on top of the cliff with them, the party cautiously reentered the lair. Before they had reached the opened gate the elven warrior-mage hailed them from the darkness and rejoined them with fresh blood dripping from his blades and a fresh bruise starting to darken the side of his face.

"I did not want to be surprised by any more ogres coming out of that hole and you were all...occupied," he told them. "I think the real leader of the raiders is inside since he is wearing field plate armor comparable to that suit John wears. There was another club wielding ogre in there too. Both have been taken care of."

Ahriallen then told them briefly that he had entered the lair invisibly and had surprised the leader with a full sword stroke to the head. As the leader died the club-wielder rushed to investigate allowing the warrior-mage to ambush the ogre as it entered the room. Since the elf was no longer invisible this ogre was not completely surprised, but died quickly anyway.

As they stand looking around the entrance to the lair the party realizes that the fighting may not yet be over. There is still the matter of the tracks that lead away from the lair and did not return. Would they have to track those ogres down as well before Kertigen was appeased? Also, they still have to find out how the ogres were able to come into possession of such well crafted armament. Perhaps they would find some of their answers in the still unexplored darkness of these halls.

Over-shadowing this whole quest is the fact that the adventurers do not know if the pirate, Captain Morgan, is chasing them or if he gave up on recapturing the Wind's Pawn when they escaped him in Trazarra's harbor. The original plan had been to have the Pawn back on it's voyage yesterday morning. Is this delay allowing the pirate to close the distance between them? Are the other two ships Morgan is associated with waiting to capture the Pawn near the narrow end of the Bartlett Sea before they can reach the open seas of the ocean? With any luck Morgan is not even interested in them anymore. At this point it seems as though only time will reveal the answers to these concerns.

Return to the top of the page.