In the early morning, the Order of the Pass was up to the grizzly work of hacking apart the enormous body of the ogre and throwing its body parts over the side of the cliff-face. They were also chopping wood and preparing a funeral pyre for Jhannel, their fallen comrade. Unna, a Freewoman from Rhackdalia, a soldier of the Order, was taking charge, and asked the party for their thoughts in securing the Overreach from future aggressors.
Then a curdling scream erupted from within the Overreach. It was one of the soldiers who discovered the body of Helyne of House Brix, hung from the guard tower; she apparently committed suicide in the early morning hours. Unna, still trying to control the situation, set her team to creating another pyre.
Unna delivered a eulogy before the party left the Overreach for Preen Pass. Prepared for the travel and with the expert guidance of Elan, the party traveled through most of the pass to arrive perhaps ten miles away from Inverness. The pitched camp while Elan went on scouting ahead.
On the first watch, Vongur told a story about how the cliffs reminded him of a time where he and his cousin had a run in with magma drakes. Tolman received words from his contacts in Rhackdalia and later on shared them with the party. During the second watch, the party's rest was frightening disturbed by giant centipedes who attacked them in their sleep, drawn to their heat; Ma'yah was knocked unconscious and paralyzed for an hour. The ponies were killed. During the fight, Tam felt blackened hate spread through her body, and her temper got dark and short; she became more and more angry with every swing of her new battleaxe. And Siegride discovered her cloak of starlight has pockets!
Meanwhile, Elan discovered two distant camp fires on the horizon and scouted the first one, finding another ogre raiding party with 10-15 women hostages. Returning, Elan herself was being tracked and she tried hiding in the trees, but the half-ogres had a good sense of smell and tried to root her out. She managed to kill one and flee the other, outpacing it on a sprint back to the camp.
Upon her arrival back the camp, she discovered the recent battles. Everyone uprooted and traveled for two hours to an icey patch along the narrows of the pass to pitch another camp and rest up. Ma'yah revealed information she gleaned about frost giants from the book. Around mid-day, recuperated, the party attacked the 10 half-ogres and freed 14 out of 15 hostages; one hostage lost their head.
The hostages are mix of guards from Inverness and merchants from Shyn-Preen. They beg for water and food. They barely have clothing to protect them from the elements. All of them women, they're badly beaten up but not so much that they couldn't travel, and, none of them were assaulted. The guards from Inverness, however, say they were lucky. After Inverness fell, their commanders were rounded up and taken who knows where, and the regulars could hear their commander's screams through the night. They had just left Inverness the morning before (on the 6th of Bearguard); they don't know where they were being taken to.
Searching the raiding party, the half-ogres carried nothing of value except for a similar stone staff with writing on it, and, the half-ogre commander seemed to have a falcon-borne message of his own; all in Giant, Ma'yah would have to cast another ritual to read the writing. The staff reads: "Take Post. Claim Hostages. Falcon." The message reads: "Regroup to Mid-Pass. Surrender command to Gazetch-Dee."
The guards describe how Inverness fell. 2 huge ogre giants attacked the gates directly while these half-ogres scaled the walls and battlements; 40, maybe 50 half-ogres, they said. Inverness didn't stand a chance; they knew exactly where to hit the guards, striking when the shifts were in rotation and scouting parties were afield, and the ogres made for a structural weak spot in the gate and ripped it from its hinges. That was three and a half days ago.
Before attacking Inverness, the half-ogre raiding party set upon a trading caravan from Shyn-Preen weeks ago, and the remaining hostages were from that caravan. All of the men were slaughtered and set on pikes but the women kept.
No comments:
Post a Comment