The Barrow of the Green Stone (November 834)

After the daemon was defeated, Aitun, Temuchar, Yargachin, and Edric waited in Ducane for the storm to clear. About a week after their arrival in the village, a messenger arrived from Morad. He was a Greencloak, a member of a well-respected mercenary company in the employ of Lady Relgal. He sought to hire Eomun's Sons (Aitun's own band of sellswords, a week away in Nestic) on behalf of the Lady. Aitun quickly conferred with his new friends, and the four agreed to stick together for the job before going their seperate ways.

On the way north, the four learned more about the mission: plenty of silver (and the recognition of a powerful noble) for the recovery of the Ring of Hiran, a trinket desired by both Lady Relgal and the powerful Council of Stewards. The ring had been recently been in the possession of a certain merchant, now thought killed in an orc raid near Sorn's eye. Find the site of the slaughter and search the bodies;  if the ring is absent, try following the tracks of the orcs. The four were also warned of danger beyond the orcs: riders would certainly be dispatched by the council to hunt down the retreating raiders. Many members of the council would happily claim the ring for themselves.

After a hard day's ride north, the four stopped in Morad for the night, staying at a high-class inn (the House of the Red Door) while their Greencloak companion made arrangements for fresh horses. Here they made the acquaintance of Mallein of Orden, a southern noble planning his own expedition northeast of Morad. Before retiring, Kaleg, a warrior in the employ of Lord Aminar (the most prominent member of the council of stewards) appeared, goading and insulting the injured Temuchar, and demanding that she stay out of Morad.

For the first time our eye leaves the four, following instead the Serulaian noble, and a lone orc...

Summary:
Mallein of Orden was exploring The Barrow of the Green Stone, final resting place of the sage Giltray with two stongarms and a knight named Sir Talger. After resting their first night in the tomb a troop of orcs attacked, killing the two strongarms and grievously injuring Sir Talger who was then taken captive. Also injured, Mallein fled to eventually find a female half orc who seemed to have no desire for his death. The half orc and Mallein then took shelter in a chamber locked by a riddle. It’s unlikely the orcs will solve the riddle any time soon but the duo don’t know of any other exits.

The Barrow of the Green Stone, final resting place of the sage Giltray
As told by Mallein of Orden

The Barrow of the Green Stone is an ancient Aeborian tomb which lies northeast of diamond lake. My research showed that this tomb had been plundered long ago, and through diligent effort, I found an account from a group which claimed to have discovered the sage Giltray’s true tomb hidden in the Barrow. The account also contained a partial copy of a map which I believed would lead to me to a far greater fortune if I could complete it. 

Sir Talger, a knight sent from my fathers estates to fetch me home, was reluctant from the moment I enlisted him to aid in an expedition to the Barrow but he knew his obligation to my house. With Talger’s help I recruited two strong arms for protection and employed a carriage driver to take us to the tomb. 

We arrived at the tomb as night fell and so I decided that we would shelter just within the tombs second chamber, a room with a convenient opening in the roof for our campfires smoke.

I woke to Sir Talger rudely shaking me, rambling about someone nearby. Talger could be an overly cautious man but I thought I’d sate his paranoia and wake the stongarms we’d brought. I had barely done so when three massive hounds crashed into the room, spittle flying from wide gnashing jaws. The first bit down on one of the strongarms legs as the others began lunging and snapping at Talger and I, trying to pull us to the ground where we’d surely have had no chance. I managed to stab the beast that held my mans leg but it only bit down harder, the leg releasing the sickening crunch of bones snapping. Our carriage driver, a man who proved remarkably courageous for one of such low birth, began dragging the wounded man away, letting Talger and I focus on the other two. 

As we dispatched these, we saw a frightful creature, far larger and better muscled than any man had a right to be, making its way into the room. Absurdly large canines protruded from either side the things bottom lip and it carried an enormous battle ax over one shoulder, scraping it against the passages side wall. I commanded Talger to retreat lest his foolish pride lead him to disaster and we withdrew to the rooms far side where the carriage driver tried to pull the injured strongarm into the center most of three doors.

Things happened very fast then, a volley of arrows coming from what could have only been the opening in the roof felling the carriage driver as the creature from the doorway rushed across the room followed by numerous other hideous beast. I remained long enough to see Sir Talger thrown into a wall where he crumpled, his shield and presumably arm shattered by a swing of that first beasts oversized ax. As I fled, I too was dealt a deep wound across my chest but the pain did nothing to slow my flight.

I came to another room with four doors and followed the uninjured strongarm, who had fled at the first sight of the dogs, through one labeled “for the cowardly” in ancient Aeborian. A mystical trap whose nature I can’t describe killed the man I was following yet I made it to another set of four doors again attached to the room of monsters. During my mad dash I tried several of these doors, killing one of the monsters who I found alone. 

Eventually while searching for an escape I found a creature similar to the monsters but with none of the apparent bloodlust the others had shown. This creature seemed to be female, with much smaller tusks than the others and far more human like features. She even had the civility introduced herself, giving a name that I forgot in the turmoil, before running with me down the last of the passages that I had yet to check. 

At the end of this passage my companion and I found several of the monsters as well as the wounded strongarm who now lay dead at their feet. We killed these monsters though I don’t know how and found that one of the walls of this room was in fact a door of some kind which the monsters had been trying to open. Only through my knowledge of ancient languages were we able to decipher how to open the door and take shelter inside. 

This is where I now find myself. In what seems to be a library of some kind, trapped by grotesque abominations with a creature whose nature I do not know, wearing only my now torn, burnt and muddied silken pajamas and with only my rapier to protect me. 

We know not when the beasts will discover how to open the door to our current sanctuary but we also know of no way out.

I tracked the warparty for days through sleet and snow, footsoldiers beaten nearly as badly as the prisoners, all chattel under the lash of the one-eyed overseers. Something was off, Greenskins don’t take prisoners, let alone women and children like this.

No sign of my quarry amongst them, they appeared without leader though no chaos impeded their progress, their trail too straight, too purposeful to be an accident. They stopped only when all light was gone from the sky and broke camp long before sunrise.
On the fourth night of their march, they lit a great bonfire. I watched from a low knoll as one of the one-eyed bullies worked over a prisoner with a knife, before throwing him headfirst into the blaze. The other Greenskins held him in the flames with their spears. The wind brought me his shrieks and the smell of his flesh.

After a minute of writhing, he stopped and sat up, appearing to speak to the overseer that had thrown him in. This, I am certain, was the work of my quarry, a powerful and vile spell.

When he had finished speaking, the man collapsed, and the overseers split the party into two bands. The prisoners, four overseers, and around half the host stayed camped about the fire, while the other half, lead by the remaining two one-eyed brutes embarked south at a jog. Knowing human soldiery would certainly be upon this camped group before long, I tailed the second party south.
They ran through the night, the violence and determination of the overseers keeping the men in line, their whips rousing those that fell by the trail. As dawn broke, a small heath was visible upon the horizon. A thin wisp of smoke climbed from its crest, as though the rock itself were on fine.

As they approached the hill, the group spilt, a small contingent of archers climbed up toward the crest and the smoke, while the bulk of the party proceeded around the base out of sight. I climbed the hill after the archers.

I made short work of three of them, my arrows landing true and silencing them before they could notify the others to my presence.

The remaining three had slipped into a hole in the earth from which the smoke was billowing, peering down, I could see evidence of a brutal skirmish in a large crypt below. Two humans, unarmored, lay dead around the remnants of a campfire. A hound and a few orcs lay close by. One of the overseers stood over the crumpled body of a man, his face was white and smeared with blood and he spat into the brute’s face, an act of courage not common to their kind.

At this the overseer dragged him off, out of the room toward what I gathered to be an antechamber. The rest of the Greenskins in the room, perhaps ten or so, lay down to rest after their forced march.
Still, there was no sign of my quarry. The warparty had clearly split to come to this place, something here, must be important enough to the Spawn-Eater to drawn them. Had the humans found something? There were passages off the cave that appeared to lead down, deeper into the hill. Was there something down there the Greenskins were trying to find or protect? The opportunity was too enticing to pass up.

The archers’ corpses and a deluge of slush for the skylight made for an easy diversion, allowing me to slip into the passages beyond the now screeching Greenskins. The hallways sloped steeply down into the dark, cut far cleaner and more precisely than any Goblin hole I have seen. After a few minutes in the darkness, the sounds of movement reached me from the passage ahead. Someone was approaching, their steps shuffled and uneasy, their breathing quick and short.
It was a young human boy, dressed in a bizarre, shimmering fabric, rent and torn across the breast and spattered with blood. His face was white with shock and his fist clenched tightly around the handle of a ludicrous implement, more like a needle than a proper sword. Realizing he thought me the same as the barbarians who slaughtered his friends, I quickly introduced myself, explaining as best I could that I was an ally, and not a threat. He called himself “Mallard” and attempted to race back up the corridor when I told him his friend was still alive. He was frail, his muscles soft and unaccustomed to labor; in his wounded state, he would certainly have perished had I allowed him to proceed, but there was fire in his eyes, a desperate passion to save his fallen friend. An admirable, but ill-conceived devotion.

I still had not found what it was that my quarry sought, and in his condition, there was little chance of us escaping the way we had come, so we pressed on. Our path brought us to a small room, dominated by a massive iron door, decorated with the silhouette of a hand, split down the center by an evil-looking slit. A man lay dead in front of the door and two Greenskins stood over him, studying the handprint. We made short work of them, Mallard showing a bravery and skill unexpected for one so young.

I was further impressed when, through some sorcery, he was able to decipher a message hidden within the door itself. A riddle, the key to opening the door. After some trial and error, we were able to open the door, just in time too, as from down the passage behind us, five Greenskins came running. We left them to bleed out as the door sealed shut behind us. Leaving us in a small room filled with rotting wood.

My companion seemed particularly taken by an etching in the floor, what appeared to be a crude map of the surrounding country. I will never cease to be amazed by the triviality of man, why commit to stone what is plainly written in the stars?

The Barrow Of the Green Stone, pt. 2
After taking refuge in an ancient decaying library, I began searching our new surroundings for an exit or anything of use. The texts that filled the rooms shelves hadn't weathered their time in the place well and most pages crumbled at my lightest touch. Torches devoid of fat, wax or any other fuel lined the chambers walls, each with an inscription underneath which I now assume to have been written in a magical script of some kind. Of greatest interest to me was the map engraved onto the rooms stone floor. This seemed to be the map which had been partially traced in the previous tomb raiders account, and which I’d come here in search of.

Unfortunately I was without writing utensils and had no means of recording the intricate depiction. Frustrated and pained by the wound across my chest, I allowed myself to rest for a time while Pebble, my oversized companion, continued searching the room. 

Having found no exit save the sealed door that held back the monsters chasing us, Pebble and I decided to attempt our escape before our light ran out. As we readied ourselves for a pushing through the creature outside the door flames began pouring through the doors edges. The massive iron door seemed impossibly to flex under the force of the blast, its collapse certain to follow. Before this could happen a booming voice proclaimed that these beasts couldn’t be allowed to leave this place with what they had come for. With this command the wall across from the buckling door blessedly crumbled. 

Fleeing through this opening, Pebble and I came to the Hall of the Brave which I had found earlier in my mad dash for survival. One of the front two statues had been crushed by a partial roof collapse, but the other two remained impassive were they had been before. As we entered the room these two moved as though to attack, unsheathing weapons and approaching menacingly. 

I closed the distance, distracting the stone creations as my companion launched arrow after arrow. Within a hidden compartment we found the source of the commanding voice: a strange bronze amulet. I took a deep cut to my shoulder in this fight but Pebble and I were victorious and managed to make our way to the tombs entry chamber where this nightmare had begun. Before making it out of the tomb Pebble and I found an odd bronze box, which the speaking-amulet indicated the orcs had been after. This we took along with its owners head, as its value and purpose neither of us knew. In the entry chamber I found Sir Talger. The knight was bloodied, murmuring deliriously and barely conscious. His shield arm bent horribly in the upper section where there would have been no joint. Still, just finding Talger alive delighted me and immediately improved my spirits. The monsters seemed to have left, perhaps having found what they sought or perhaps fearing a collapse, as I must say at this point much of the tomb seemed to be falling. 

Finally outside the tomb I was eager to get medical attention for Talger, and indeed myself. Pebble accepted this gracefully, again giving proof to her surprising humanity. To my wonder, she insisted on following the monsters that had escaped on her own rather than following us to safety. I tried to convince her of this ideas foolishness but she was persistent, and after farewells we parted ways, Talger and I returning to Morad with the amulet, the bronze box and head as Pebble following the trail of her quarry.

I truly hope that woman hasn’t met an untimely end as I should like to show my appreciation if ever our paths cross again. Without her bizarre appearance in those tunnels Talger and myself may never have seen the light of day again.

Talger and I have now made our way back to Morad, each seeking treatment for our wounds. While my shoulder is nearly recovered I fear my chest wound may haunt me for quite some time. Talgers wounds were more serious and even with the treatment of Morads healers, I fear for his survival.

Pebble Picks up the Trail
It was strange departing from the young boy and his wounded companion. I felt a certain pain of loss parting from them. Although I had known poor Mallard for no more than a day, he had proven himself an invaluable companion, made of far braver mettle than his frail limbs and soft hands would imply. As I slung him the heavy bag containing the strange bronze box and its owner’s desiccated head, I gave him a departing note of wisdom; “Follow the Leaping Boar, the star that makes his tusk points the way. Move as fast as you can, and whatever you do, do not light a fire.”

As they left, the pair made a rather pathetic sight, leaning heavily upon one another as they limped out into the cold darkness of early dusk. The path ahead would no doubt be treacherous, but with luck and clear skies, they should reach Morad within a week.

I set myself to the task ahead. The fleeing Greenskins had left an easy trail, their hobnailed boots leaving heavy imprints in the soft soil. Three of them, one wounded, two dogs. Easy prey.

I caught them before dawn, slumbering about a smoldering campfire. I did not draw their suffering out, extending to them mercy they had not shown Mallard’s friend. I hung their bodies from the trees around the small camp, dousing the fire with slush and mud. They would not meet the same blasphemous, tortured end as their companions. Vile though their deeds were, I still extended them the honor of a proper interment in the heavens.

I slept the remainder of the night, huddled close to the still-warm rocks of the doused fire. A proper blaze would have been a welcome reprieve from the biting wind, but after what we witnessed in the tomb, I wasn’t sure if I could ever trust a flame again. The depravity of it, corrupting that element most sacred, most pure, and twisting it to his vile purpose kept me in fitful dreams of blood and pain.

Shortly after dawn, I set out, quickly finding the trail of the larger group. Mixed among their tracks were the unmistakable hoofprints of six horses. By nightfall, I had caught up to the riders, three of them, huddled by the side of the road. From my far vantage, I couldn’t make out more than their shapes, but they seemed to be forming a plan. I decided to steal ahead of them, seeing if I could find the Greenskins first and clear their path if any sentries were posted. I knew my quarry wasn’t among the warparty, but those one-eyed brutes were, and after what Mallard and I had seen, I knew these men were walking to their deaths.

The warparty was camped not far off around three smoldering fires. The slaves were positioned to the north of the company, surrounded by sleeping dogs and overseen by a glowering brute. Two sentries were positioned on small bluffs above the camp, they would be first felled when I saw the men approach. I could make out two more one-eyed task masters asleep close to the fires.

I didn’t have to wait long before the men made their move. From my vantage to the north of the camp, I could see one of them sneak silently up from the south, avoiding the piercing gaze of the brute by the slaves. As he approached, the sentry closest to the slaves slumped, stricken unconscious by some unseen blow. The other sentry didn’t hear the snap of my bowstring, my arrow catching him in the neck and dropping him with a light thud.

I quickly advanced to take the position of the collapsed sentry, he seemed lost in a deep slumber, and didn’t stir as my knife entered his chest. In the camp below, the one-eyed brute abruptly stood up, staring intently at something directly in front of him, and then setting off at a brisk trot toward the western edge of the camp. A moment later, the man entered the campfire’s pool of light, he appeared cloaked in shadow, some powerful sorcery no doubt. He approached one of the prisoners, a young boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen and pulled him away from the fire, into the shadows.

The movement roused two of the dogs. I put an arrow through the head of one and was knocking a second when the lumbering form of the wandering brute caught my eye. He was advancing up my hill, though he had yet to spot me, he was almost upon me. It was time to act, hopefully the diversion would buy the sorcerer enough time to escape.

Standing, I sent an arrow deep into the brute’s shoulder and took off running. I could hear the camp erupting behind me, the brute screaming to his minions as he raced after me. Whirling I sent a second arrow into his chest, he seemed barely to notice the pain. With a piercing shriek, Gristle swooped down upon him, his talons raking across the brute’s neck and covering me and the surround snow in viscera. As he fell to his knees before me, I could see his lips forming a silent plea as a familiar fire began to boil and drip from the rock lodged in his eye. Before I could react, a shot caught my right arm and sent me sprawling at the feet of the now shrieking brute.

In a brilliant flash he was ablaze, a violent inferno towering above me. Clutching my wound, I scrambled away, sprinting north into the maze of ravines, away from the auto-cremating monstrosity now drifting after me.

The remaining dog caught me as I fled, and though I dispatched it with ease, its arrival had left me exposed. The burning brute, now floating some ten feat above the ground sent a hissing bolt of fire down into the ravine after me, bathing the walls in a hollow, haunted black light. It caught me across my back, searing my flesh through my gambeson.

I didn’t look back again as I sprinted off into the darkness ahead. Not when I heard the terrible shriek that signaled the abomination’s demise. Not when I heard the ethereal, unholy voice calling after me.

I hadn’t killed him, but I had foiled his plot. The head was with Mallard, and by our hands, twenty-seven on the Spawn-Eater’s men, twelve of his dogs, and three of his captains lay dead. One thought remained in my mind, find Mallard. Together we would regroup and heal. There was far more going on here than I had initially supposed, and I alone would not be able to bring down the Unclean One.