Sharday, 5 Brightday 204 [continued]
The daylight hours pass uneventfully as the groups prepare themselves
for the assault on the tower at dusk. The party decides not to dissect
the body of the dead female until the paladins also move in so that
the surviving wyvern is distracted. The day is spent sparring and
testing their skills. Elias teaches Ravenna at true strike spell
that takes several hours. Raza asks who wants to have a bit of rough
and tumble with him. Nicos volunteers, but Raza swiftly changes
his mind when it becomes evident that the fire cleric wants to use
an enormous club. The monk declares that he would never fight anyone
if there was a chance he might lose, and agrees to fisticuffs with
Minsc, hoping to put his martial art skills to the test. Minsc loses
no time in beating seven shades of sherbet out of Raza and leaving
him on the ground, unconscious and a little embarrassed.
At dusk the party and the five paladins move to the column as quietly
as possible. Gunlarr remains behind with the injured Sir Cardon,
the horses and the paladin’s armour. They reach the base of
the tower and Sir Zender begins the climb to secure pitons into
the inhumanly smooth granite. As Minsc and a recovered Raza put
on special climbing boots the rest of the party head over to dead
female wyvern and begin to rather unsubtlely dissect her, looking
for an unlaid egg. Arvan gives directions to the enthusiastic Elias,
even though he has absolutely no knowledge of a wyvern’s anatomy.
The rest of the party believe in him and he doesn’t want to
shatter any illusions.
Zender climbs the first thirty feet with relative ease and lets
some ropes down. Minsc, Raza and the paladins begin to climb. They
all get about thirty feet up when the wyvern launches itself from
the tower and attacks. However, it doesn’t attack the climbers,
it attacks the group butchering its mate; specifically it attacks
Elias. The wyvern comes swooping down; Elias sees it and runs. He
can hear it closing on him and feel the force of the air thrown
up by the beating of its wings. He is saved by his armour however,
that absorbs the force of both the talons that slam into his back
and knock him to the ground. As the wyvern turns to make another
attack Elias runs as fast as he can to the column. The monster tries
to clip him with its wing, but misses entirely and strikes the column
instead; it loses its balance and crashes into the earth. Elias
runs around the column. The wyvern clambers to its feet and gives
chase.
Nicos had also run to the tower, in the opposite direction to Elias
and soon meets the crossbowman coming the other way, pursued by
a thirty foot long galloping lizard. He quickly back pedals, narrowly
avoiding the jaws of the creature as they snap at the air an inch
above his head. Ravenna is reaches the column, on exactly the opposite
side to the wyvern, running to keep her distance between the beast
and her companions. So it’s the wyvern chasing Nicos and Elias
with Ravenna in the lead powering round and round the column’s
base in farcical comedy routine of Carry-On proportions.
The paladins on the tower have climbed up to almost a hundred feet
by this time, making much quicker going than was expected. As they
pause for Zender to hammer more pitons into the column they see
the battle. Lowron tries to get a shot the beastie with his crossbow,
but clumsily drops his weapon to the ground. Minsc decides to use
his short bow, unfortunately when he takes both arms off the column
to fire the thing gravity takes control of situation and Minsc begins
to plummet to the ground, only to be checked by a securely fastened
rope. He is left dangling upside-down and face-to-face with a perplexed
Lady Patricia.
In the mean time, Arvan has been watching his companions and the
wyvern chasing around the bottom of the rocky tower with a wry smile
on his face. "On the next pass head into the fog bank!"
he yells as Ravenna runs to join him, and then uses his magic to
swift create a bank of fog away to the right of the column. Elias
swiftly dives into it, but Nicos slips and is skewered by one of
the wyvern’s claws, falling unconscious. Arvan and Ravenna
race into the fog and the wyvern follows.
The concealment provided by the mist limits the effectiveness of
the beast as it directs all its attacks on Elias. It manages to
bite him the once, but Elias is lucky to escape so lightly. Ravenna
runs from the back of the mist to safety, and Arvan returns to Nicos
saving his life with a healing spell. He then hefts his club and
returns to battle the wyvern with Nicos in tow. Ravenna has a change
of heart, casts her newtrue strike spell and heads back to help
Elias out.
Minsc is desperate to be in on the action and asks Inictious to
lower him to the ground with a feather fall spell. This the air
cleric duly does and soon Minsc is bounding over, but his help arrives
too late. Nicos casts a successful command spell to stun the creature
while Elias beats hell out of one of its eyes; Arvan gives it a
solid thwack about the testicles and Ravenna rushes in with her
staff, using the great skill granted by her spell to drive the weapon
up the beast’s nostril and into the brain, killing it. Minsc
is a little disappointed as Lowron lands beside him having genuinely
fallen from the tower. Minsc shrugs and starts to climb up again.
The climbing paladins Raza and Minsc all eventually get to the
top of the column. At the summit they find a crudely constructed
nest, a half eaten bear, may bones (some of them humans) and general
detritus. There were three eggs in the nest but they had been smashed.
Next to them is a piece of parchment with a message on it in Norandon.
It reads "Too late! But well done for making it this far."
Garnir curses their rotten luck. The flying dwarf and his friends
must have got there first! They search the summit thoroughly, Raza
even picking through the wyvern’s enormous droppings. The paladins
gather the bones for a decent burial, and they all use Inictious’
powers to return to the ground safely.
Meanwhile, Elias has been happily carving up the wyvern and has
found an egg! He found it about two seconds after he put his dagger
through it destroying it utterly. Oops. He begins rooting around
hoping that there would be another egg, but is swiftly stopped by
the cries of his companions and Nicos drags him out. Believing Elias
to be completely incompetent the party turns to Arvan for help.
The druid isn’t sure why they think he’s had experience
in delivering wyvern eggs but he’s happy to help and soon ferrets
out one egg (the only egg) from the beast. Garnir and the paladins
soon arrive and decide to settle the matter of the one egg in the
manner they agreed - honourable trial by combat.
After such significant disagreements, Minsc is chosen as the party’s
champion. The paladin’s representative is chosen by the drawing
of lots (to make it fairer). By pure chance the inexperienced Lady
Patricia is to be Minsc’s opponent. No quarter is to be given
in the battle, Garnir explains, whomever is left standing is the
victor. Lowron will referee and raise his hand at the end of the
fight. Apart from that, no-one is to interfere with the battle.
Patricia wishes Minsc good luck and they retire to their respective
ends of the field, thirty yards apart. At a signal from Garnir the
battle commences.
Minsc charges Patricia who quickly side-steps, brings her sword
up and guts Minsc like a fish. He staggers forward badly wounded.
The fight is short and violent, but eventually, through his superior
brute force Minsc wins through and ends the battle with a deadly
swipe of his sword that almost takes Patricia’s arm off. Minsc
is victorious, the party will keep the wyvern egg, they have completed
the first part of Narramac’s quest.
As can be expected, the paladins take defeat with polite stoicism.
Garnir is obviously very angry, but tries not to show it. Zender
heals Patricia up to full health. "You fought well," Minsc
tells her. "You fought better," she replies. Ravenna offers
to help the paladins find an egg before the time runs out. Unsurprisingly
Garnir refuses, his pride forbidding such an alliance. He says that
they must go on alone, and that they must leave immediately if they
are to make up the time. They have two nights of the full moon left.
Lowron thanks the party, says that they are an honourable lot and
hopes that they meet again at some point. Then, pausing only to
tie Cardon to his horse, the paladins are away into the night leaving
the party and Gunlarr alone on the plain.
Gunlarr is all for heading back to the Village. By the time they
got there Belaerus would be on the verge of resurrecting Heena and
he desperately wants to be there for that. However, there are other
concerns on the mind of the party, such as what to do next. Raza
maintains taking Narramac’s riddles simply and literally. Water
from the bottom of the great sea can be taken at the shore they
believe. Even if the water is only a foot deep, it still has a bottom.
However, it is likely that will be the lengthiest part of the quest
as it is twenty days on foot to the Great Sea (or ten by horse)
and they only have forty-three days to complete the entire and return
to Mount Korvast. As for the answer to Curmudgeon’s riddle
they should simply inscribe "The answer to Curmudgeon’s
riddle" and be done with it. The riddle doesn’t have to
be written on just yet, it simply has to be collected under the
light of the moon. The secret known to no other souls seems easily
found, which leaves "A tooth from the maw of the oldest of
dragons." This puzzles them.
Can it be the red dragon Gerrius that Belaerus Rothsman mentioned
back in The Village? Or is it something more obvious, as Raza believes.
Who is the oldest of dragons? Did Narramac mean the first dragon?
Who was the first dragon? Do dragon’s have any gods? Is it
the tooth of a god? And what does "maw" mean? Is it a
mouth or is in fact a cave? The largest of the gnomish Pits of Walhoon
is called the Maw of Walhoon. It is surrounded by dinosaurs, could
they be considered dragons? Perhaps the ‘oldest of dragons’
doesn’t refer to an individual but to a race. If that were
the case then would any tooth do? They admit that they need help.
They need to head to either a big temple of the Scriveners of Doom
(which would mean returning to The Village - something that Ravenna
won’t do) or to a well-stocked monastery. Gunlarr says that
there is a monastery about thirty miles from here but it is thirty
miles away from the Village and he desperately wants to go home.
Additionally, knowledge will cost a lot of money. However, wyvern
poison fetches 3000 crowns per vial to the right clientele. If they
collect it and sell in The Village they should have enough information
for horses and for the information they seek. All eyes turn to Arvan
again.
However, of slightly more interest to the party than the quest
are the columns that fill the clearing. Inictious seemed to know
something about them, and as he was leaving he warned the party
to leave in case they activated something. Despite the hour and
the darkness they decide to thoroughly explore the clearing. They
find a tenth column that had toppled over. From the remains they
notice that each column is divided into three sections that fit
into one another and seem to allow slight movement up and down.
By hammering something into the column and extracting it they see
a yellow glow inside that heals the breach instantly and seamlessly.
The inside of the column is exceptionally hot, even Nicos burns
himself. The stone of the fallen column despite being granite crumbles
to the touch, and is not magical. The magic of the columns seems
to be invocation and necromantic, although they are combined in
a manner alien to both Ravenna and Elias. Many theories are banded
about, and it is even proposed that the columns are a device used
to keep the Haunted Wood in check (the plateau looks down on the
woodland), but nothing is decided. Six hours before dawn a very
weary party finally retire to bed.
Prodigal
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