To
their surprise, the trio of Darnorth, Vorn and Aratheas were joined that morning by Riley
and Gurruk, Finally released from imprisonment with the gibbering horror, they
had made their way back to Westmist and the house. After a quick briefing from
Riker, the two headed through the portal in pursuit of their companions. After
Darnorth filled the two newcomers in on what had happened in their absence, the
party decided their best bet was to forge an alliance with the mongrelmen and
get them to help fight the yg-ti. Aratheas recalled the general direction of
the mongrelmen lair, so the party headed off to the northwest, carefully
keeping to back alleys and avoiding main roads whenever possible. Their trek through the ruined city, however,
was eerily quiet and uneventful. Late in the morning they found their first
signs of inhabitants. Three poles, 10’ tall, carved with crude animal faces and
equip with chains and shackles. In one shackle a partly decomposed humanoid arm
remained. Nonplussed and taking it as a sign help was near, the party continued
forward. Near the far western cliff they discovered a series of ruined
buildings, seemingly with no access.
Careful observation found a cleverly concealed entrance however, so they crept
forward. A strange bird’s cry came from
their right, and as they approached a narrow part of the passage, eight hideous
creatures appeared out of the rubble. Each seemed a mix of parts from various
humanoid creatures, combining the worst features of each. Challenging the party
is a debased common pidgin, they first would not let them pass. A combination
of Darnorth’s charm and intimidation by the ‘witch woman’ Aratheas convinced
them to take the party to their leader. Lead into the ruins, they were swarmed
by a crowd of mongrelmen, and Darnorth had to slap away one little pair of
hands that tried to swipe his ring of
spell storing.
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Ushered into a ruined building, they
confronted the ugliest mongrelman seen thus far; with human, ogre, frog, and
dog features, he was a mass of old scars and scant fur. He proudly announced he
was Chief “Eesquuech-!ungk”, and then waved the party to silence while his
witchdoctor proceeded to tell the history of the tribe. After two hours of tall
tales, misinformation and confusion, the story ended, allowing Darnorth to try
negotiating with the chief. To no avail, for the tribes’ custom was anyone who
wished obedience of the tribe must lead them. And anyone who wanted to lead
them must first defeat the current chief in hand to hand combat; no magic, no
weapons. Darnorth, still fuzzy headed from the tale, stripped to his dwarven
skivvies and accepted the challenge. The
mongrelmen formed a ring and the combatants got down to business. Unfortunately for the dwarf, Eesquuech-!ungk
towered over him and was twice his weight, so the mongrelman laid several holds
and blows before Darnorth could retaliate. A handful of dirt temporarily
blinded the chief and Darnorth was able to fight back. But a few head butts and
eye gouges later, the dwarf lay unconscious on the floor at Eesquuech-!ungk‘s
feet. The chief ordered his bodyguards to haul the dwarf and the rest of the
party to the sacrifice poles (the poles passed earlier) as punishment for their
failure. That finally got Riley’s blood rising, and the party followed the mace
flailing cleric into battle with the mongrelmen. Which didn’t go very good at
first, as the mongrelmen grappled and pinned both Gurruk and Aratheas, and Riley
and Vorn seemed unable to connect weapons with foes. Things looked grim until
Aratheas managed to break free of her captors and let loose a lightning bolt through the chief and one
of his henchmen. Amidst the smell of burning fur and charred flesh, the rest of
the mongrelmen broke away from the party and quivered in fear before the ‘witch
woman’. While not quite in line with
tribe traditions, a hurried conversation between the remaining mongrelmen
decided she had right the claim the leadership of the tribe. The lady mage then
ordered her new bodyguards to go and rouse the rest of the tribe and prepare
for battle with the yg-ti on the morrow. But only after pointing out the tribes
treasure, thank you very much. This they found hidden in hole under the old
chief sleeping pallet; a pile of thousands of gold prices, three pieces of
jewelry (a jeweled box, ring and earrings), and a potion of water breathing. Pocketing the portable treasure, the
party settled in for the night, but not before sending out some mongrelman
scouts to figure out exactly where they were going in the morning.
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Morning came, and the scouts didn’t return.
But the attack must go on in order to find Erijay and Kern, so the party moved
out, ensconced in a rabble of about 50 mongrelmen. Hugging the cliff face, they
headed south through the ruins until they glanced by chance a step pyramid set
inside a walled compound. It looked relatively well kept up, so they sent in a
few mongrelmen scouts. As the scouts approached, a figure appeared on the wall.
A yg-ti, with snakes for arms, it spotted the scouts and cast fear on them. The mongrelmen turned and fled back to the
larger group, which unfortunately was enough to panic the rest of the
mongrelmen. The whole group turned tail and fled en mass. Aratheas tried to
wield her power as chief to get them to stay, but was answered with ‘you take
care of snake men and we come back’ as her army melted into the ruins. Now on
their own, Darnorth fired his crossbow at the figure while Riley cast silence to stop any further spell casting
by thier scaly foe. The party then charged though the ruins
towards the pyramid, while the yg-ti disappeared from the wall. Reaching the
walls, they dashed straight in to find an overgrown courtyard with a number of
statues, pillars and platforms in the open space in front of the pyramid. Darnorth
briefly explored one small enclosure, finding an unholy symbol of Yg carved on
the wall in front of a low stone shelf with the remnants of sickly green
candles and incense. With no sign of the yg-ti though, the party started up the
covered steps of the pyramid, only to run smack dab into a pair of bugbears
rushing down to meet them. A flurry of hand axes from the bugbears and
arrows/bolts from the party saw one hairy goblin fall. The second leapt over
its fallen comrade and fled up the steps and out of sight.
To be continued …
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