As the avid reader will remember, in the last part I had just about made it to Trillis
Shortly after I arrived, my two companions - Perfect Victim and Targrath Lightspear, came to the Citadel where we were re-united.
As we were by now well-recognised people, we were approached by a Runelord who said he would come on our quest if we came on one for a sword of his cult, Orlanth. We agreed, though Targrath did not trust him, due to an ancient rivalry between Yelmalio and Orlanth.
With such help, I felt that we were fairly invincible. However, I should have realised that winters in Balazar are not hospitable to such quests.
We set off at the beginning of Darkseason, and lo and behold, once we passed Firepoint we hit a snow and ice storm that seemed to last forever. It was now that Targrath found out the bane of his geas forbidding him to seak shelter from any storm.
We were able to survive the storm, but our horses were not so lucky. However, the weather moderated, and we set off once more.
After a further week's journey, we came upon a stream that was obnoxious. We reasoned that this must indeed be the tributary to the Elf Sea by which the chaos nest we were seeking should lie. We struck upriver, and that night we were attacked by a band of trolls, led by a Death Priest. It was a very hard struggle, but our magic finally won the day, even though we had to fight against a shade at one point!
We were now certain that we were on the right track. This was confirmed the very next day when we came upon an island. It was more a pillar of rock than anything else, and it had a spider's web running down one side. We decided to cross to it and with the help of Lightspear's allied spirit/hawk and some good bowmanship, we set up a rope across the murky waters. We all crossed safely, apart from the Runelord, who slipt and fell in! Luckily we were able to jump in and save him. He had indeed been poisoned by the river waters, but we were able to treat it.
We rested during the night and set off again in the morning. About lunchtime, we came upon another small island, upon which were a gold block with an adamantine spike in it and 3 stone statues of crabs. When Perfect Victim started to hack at the gold to remove the spike, the statues suddenly animated, so I retreated back to the stream shore on the raft we were using. By some clever fighting tactics, the other 3 were able to gain posession of the spike and escape off the island.
We continued upriver to a place where the river branched. We followed the dirty rather than the clean branch and soon came upon a bigger island, with a lagoon and an earthen bridge connecting it to the mainland. We cautiously walked over it and onto the island.
We discovered that a significant proportion of the island was covered in, or consisted of, mud.
The first thing that attacked us were some gorps, but we were able to move out of their range quite quickly.
Then, as we were walking along hte shore, we were suddenly attacked by a dread underwater mosnter with many tentacles. It dragged me under, and just as I thought my last deal had been struck, it was killed and I was able to escape to the surface.
We were then attacked by the main inhabitants of this chaos nest, a rash of Broo. It was a difficult fight as they all had various chaotic features. We only just managed to defeat them. In fact the Runelord died once during the battle (I think).
Unfortunately, both myself and the Runelord became infected with the poison of those vile beasts and we were forced to rest for some time to recover. During this time I heard the Runelord talking in his sleep, repeatedly mentioning the words "Windsword" and "Griffin Mountain".
With the weather improving as Stormseason took over from Darkseason, and with fresh supplies, we set off for home. Pausing only to recover the treasureon Spider-Web Island, we continued to Dykene, where we rested, before continuing to Trillis to where Joh Mith had now returned.
When I showed Joh the adamantine spike, he became very interested. He told me that he regularly mounted a caraban to a giant who dealed in magic items, and that this giant would probably be the only person who would trade for the piece.
We set off once the weather turned to spring, heading once again for Dykene, with its foul brews.
Just after we had crossed the bridge, we were attacked by the relatives of the Broo we had killed earlier, and as the other caravan guards were too scared of their poison and diseases, it was only me, Lightspear and Perfect Victim who faced the attack. We won the fight, though Victim and Lightspear both needed to be treated for poisoning.
Once we arrived in Dykene, we decided to drink ourselves silly. In the ensuing drinking competition I threw up a lot after the 12th pint (hic) and fell asleep. Perfect Victim retired after his 6th pint and Lightspear drunk 11 pints before falling asleep. The next morning I had a hangover to end all hangovers. Lightspear did not wake until 6 the next evening.
We stayed in Dykene for a week, before setting off for the Elder Wilds. A couple of days travel past the 1st river we had a very nasty encounter with a 'peashooting' giant. 2 Bearers and 2 Hunters were killed and whilst Lightspear and Perfect Victim rode off to divert the giant's attention from the caravan I endevoured to get the caravan out of his range. In their brave act Lightspear was killed and Perfect Victim badly wounded. When they were later found and Perfect Victim had been healed, he was sent off ahead to get Lightspear resurrected.
Upon reaching the castle, we found that the resurrection had succeeded, though it had cost us the adamantine spike. I however successfully managed to seal a bargain trading in my Glue-1 matrix for a Detect Magic-1 matrix in the form of a pair of multi-coloured shoe laces.
One interesting item in the cave were 2 giant stone dice. One of them had been made by the Lord of Law, the other by the Lord of Chaos. The Lord of Law made his dice to prove that the chance of rolling any number was exactly the same the chance of rolling any other number. The Lord of Chaos, however, make his dice to prove that it was impossible to predict which number would be thrown next. According to Gonn Orta they were also used to play craps with, this being the only game where the 2 Gods could agree on the rules.
We then set off back, and as agreed, Joh Mith revealed the exact location of Griffin Mountain and we parted company from the caravan.
We had been walking for about 3 days when we were suddenly confronted with a foul chaos Walktapi. Unfortunately, I almost died from its vile poison. However, we did defeat it in the end.
Then came the final natural hurdle before the mountain. A river. Fortunately we met some friendly crested newtlings who offered to take our horses across for us for a small consideration, which we gladly agreed to.
Finally we reached the ebase of the mountain. We had hardly arrived when we were accosted by the Griffins, who asked us to leave. We decided to stay and fight it out. It was a difficult fight, during which I died. Luckily Targrath was able to use 2 point of Divine Intervention which succeeded in reviving me one the battle was fougt and won.
We then set off on the gruelling 10 hour climb to the Griffin's cave. Even though we used special equipment, Lightspear fell on several occaisions, being saved only by our rope. Finally we reached our goal, but there were still more surprises to come. Outside the cave grew 3 trees, 1 pine, 1 fruit, and an old oak! As we felt they were impossible at this height, I was slightly suspicious. Anyway, we entered the cave to find some younger griffins, one of whom attacked us so we were regretfully forced to kill it. I then used the meat from the carcass to befriend one of the 'small' griffins, and the others followed my example.
We then spent quite some time searching the place, and in what I believe to be the griffin's bathing pool we found their treasure, which was quite magnificent. I also spotted a small crack in the wall which turned out to be a secret door into a room whose walls were decorated with chaos runes and which had a circular well in the centre.
I climbed cautiously down, with a lightwall on my back, to find some curious items - one of which I recognised as being a holy item of Brother Dog. In my nervousness I almost forgot canine speech as the item accepted me. It was indeed that holiest of holies, the Staff of Cu. Targrath and Lightspear also found holy items of Yelmalio.
We then decided to investigate a curious stone bubble which we had noticed earlier. We easily broke the shell to discover a richly clad human body and some bones. We carefully searched the body and found various things including coinage over a millena old! Suddenly the shell started to close in and we had to hurry out. Victim decided to try to rescue some of the bones, which he should not have done, as it caused the appearance of a ghost which promptly attacked. It was finally seen off by Targrath's allied spirit, after a long spirit combat.
There then followed the long climb downwards, only this time it was my turn to fall and be saved by the rope.
The journey back was uneventful, and we arrived safely back in Dykene, where we met Joh Mith with his caravan. We traded for some skins we had got, and then proceeded with Joh to Trillis, where we sold the old coins to the Lhankor Mhy High Priest. Everywhere we went, people were awed by our griffins. We then went back to our new home at Elkoi, where we were jubilantly greeted and glad to notice that the Citadel was recovering nicely
So ends the second part of these tales
My Life - Part 1
My Life - Part 3
Staffan's Runequest Home Page
Staffan's Home Page