They investigate the King’s chambers, and the King shows them the bag of holding where he keeps his valuables for easy access. It is empty, and non-magical. The sharp eye of Teren catches a small slit made on the inside of the bag along a seam. King Agrilus recalls that he was recently given a gift of a magical bird construct for sending messages to his daughter. He didn’t like the way it was looking at him as he slept, so he put it in the bag too. His eyes blaze. It was a gift from the dwarven envoy Peronna! That must be it!
Upon hearing this, Command Wintrope says he will send the army to tear apart the dwarven stronghold, just as the King’s grandfather did. The party informs them that the items are not currently on this plane and that such a move would be hasty without finding more information. Perhaps sending the players to investigate first would be wise. The Commander muses “A targeted strike force eh?” The King says “That may be best, for now. You have 4 days before I send the army.” (It’s almost two days each way.) The King suggests they take a ‘friend’ of the wizard Yosombi with them. “The Captain will take you down to the dungeon to meet them.”
Down in the dungeon, in the main guard room they hear some drunken singing and snoring from the locked door leading to the cells. Another larger door is not locked but it does make a lot of noise as the Captain uses all his strength to open it up. “Serma’s her name. Lives down ‘ere to stay out of people’s way. After you…” At the end of a corridor is a large room, quite well appointed, considering the location. Tapestries and weapon racks are on the walls, and a large bed is in a corner. A hulking figure is training with a weapon in the middle of the room. “What do you want?” She snarls.
With an armed Goliath facing them, the party explains as tactfully as possible the unfortunate events, culminating in the apparent death of Yosombi, quickly followed by the request to find the person responsible. “My.. creator.. is dead?!” Serma is enraged by the news, barely managing to avoid smashing something. She is more than willing to join the group to get to the bottom of things. She quickly gathers several weapons and is ready to go.
The party visits the dome temple that overlooks the castle and town, meeting Sister Euberi, who is the King’s younger sister (about 40). She has devoted her life to the church of Aster, which is the religion that her father founded 80 years ago when her grandfather died touching the “Eye of Aster”. Her father claims to have been contacted by his father in his dreams, who told him all about Aster. It seems all those able from the town journey up to the dome once a week for rituals, one of which is for those “ready to go to Aster” to touch the orb (and die). Euberi is unable to resurrect Yosombi, but is able to cast Heal Light Wounds.
The party visits the steward Ognatius (played by Jeremy Swift) to discuss the reward, which is 10,000gp per item: The Crown, Rod of Rulership, Animated Shield, Family Sword, Horn of Valhalla, and a scroll-case. (The King warned them not to open the scroll-case as it was dangerous.) Returned before the wedding in 8 days time. The party is able to obtain a 500gp advance, and borrow the scrolls and potions found in the wizard’s study. Ognatius notes all this down in a ledger. Ix insists the King provide a royal decree for them to use in their investigations, which he does.
The party sets off to the outpost tower in the mountains where the gift of the bird construct was received from Peronna. They arrive late at night and question the guard there who received the gift several days ago. He describes the dwarf in vague terms which seems to match Peronna, “but it was dark and she was wearin’ a hood.” The party stay the night at the tower without incident, but Julius and Valrick have terrible nightmares and no rest for a second night in a row.
They make it to the dwarven village by mid-morning the next day. The dwarves are initially happy to see them again, but become grim at the news the humans are looking for someone to pin the blame of a theft on. They start packing their belongings and will abandon the village for the relative safety of the dwarven stronghold further up the mountains. One dwarf offers to go there with the party now.
They are carefully walking along a straight path where a ledge juts out across a cliff-face both above and below. They are half-way along it when a rumbling makes them look up ahead and they see a roundish boulder bouncing down along the path. The dwarf dives into a small gap at the side of the path. Teren leaps up the cliff-face to climb to safety, but rolls a one and slides right back down, breaking a nail in the process. Ix unsheaths the staff he carries from its cover, revealing it is a staff of power, and casts levitation, nudging the boulder to the side, but it is coming too fast. Serma braces herself against the wall so that she can shoulder the rock off to the side as it passes. She rolls a one! Ix uses inspiration for a re-roll, and Serma manages to shift the boulder just enough for it to avoid everyone, though she takes some damage as it smashes her shoulder.
At the top of the path, Nagwen senses some creatures ahead. A foul smell. Suddenly six ogres leap to their feet and throw javelins the size of small trees at the party clustered where the path opens out onto a plateau. Nagwen summons a black drake and looses an arrow, as does Teren. Ix throws a bolt of fire, and Serma charges forward with a huge black axe raised. There are injuries on both sides, but the battle turns as the drake spits acid over three of the ogres, and Serma fells one ogre and lets out a bloodcurdling cry that brings another to its knees and causes and another to flee. The others l are using ranged attacks while Serma rushes from ogre to ogre, decapitating or splitting them in two.
The dwarf comes back out from hiding, shocked at the carnage, and says he doesn’t know what they were doing here. Most left the mountains when the dwarves drove the giants off, and the rest were mopped up by the humans when they arrived. He hasn’t seen ogres around these parts for a good 50 years. Nagwen confirms the tracks around here were just the 6 ogres that they killed, and that they came from the mountains to the south (not the East, where the stronghold is, or the West, where the village is).
By nightfall, they reach the stronghold, which looks like it was grand long ago, but is in disrepair. The guards wear armour, but it is mostly old with some holes in it. They are taken to a chamber to clean up after fighting the ogres, and then taken to the Lord Hradr, son of the Mountain King. (There has been no mountain king since the last one was slain 80 years ago.) Hradr greet them jovially, pleased that these visitors that came from the sky have come to him. He becomes much less pleased when he learns why there are here. “What gift? What more do we have left to give?!” Envoy Peronna is there and is outraged. “I never went down to the guard tower. I did not hand any gift over!”
Ix sees that the lord’s wizard standing nearby is covering a reaction to all of this, so Ix asks “So why did YOU give the gift to the humans?” The wizard glares at him and says “We should discuss in private.” The Lord and the Wizard Satrogur take the party to the Lord’s study where Satrogur explains. “I am sorry my Lord, I did not wish to bother you unless the plan worked. I did not know this would happen.” Hradr moans “What have you done?! This may be the end of us.” “My Lord, I know a gnome who works in the human town as an artificer. He spies for me sometimes and travels regularly. He told me of a bird construct he had that would be able to return the Horn of Valhalla to us if we would simply give it to the King as a gift. I did not know how it would work, but it seemed like a plan worth trying.” Hradr is still fuming but he agrees. “Aye, but now we’ve got the humans sniffing around and no Horn!”
Satrogur attempts to cast Sending to get in contact with the gnomish artificer Agamon. There is no reply. “Unfortunately he is either unable or unwilling to reply.” When he is in town, he is at his cousin Ketri’s workshop. The last I saw him, four days ago, he gave me the bird construct. He didn’t say much, just that I need to give it as a gift to the King. I do remember a while ago saying he has some trips planned and was annoyed he would be missing the Princess’ betrothal celebrations but would be back soon after.
Satrogur suggests to the party that he may be able to help them retrieve the items if they would be willing to leave the horn with the dwarves. He can cast Plane Shift to get them to the Astral plane. However, it requires an Adamantine rod, and the only adamantine he is aware of is an Adamantine ring that the legendary Cloud Giant Belnoth wore. It is likely still in the cloud giant’s castle which the dwarves assaulted hundreds of years ago but deserted when Galamond disappeared. Satrogur can cast teleport to get you to the top of the mountain, but he has not seen the castle himself. Legends say Galamond summoned a lenticular cloud capping the highest peak of this mountain, and the castle was on that.
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