Bridges of defiled bones...
Disturbing hobgoblin vampires...Yet too deep to tell or care...
A tale of woe and foes by Doongul "Ironfoot" Soronath, dwarven warrior-healer of Onatar, Sovereign of Fire and Forge. Long lost dwarf of Soranathhold, cornerstone of the Hoarfrost Mountains and all the Mror Holds themselves. Doongul, brother and protector to the late Aeol “Master-Hammer” Soronath lost during the great battle of Cliffs Edge by Cyran scum and warforged fools who knew not who they were dealing with.
If it was not for the foolishness of our brave, “yet touched in the head” Captain Argun and the luck of the great forge of Onatar, I would be standing on one fine leg to tell you this tale.
So let me start off by saying my traveling companion and friend Magnus the barbarian needs to stay off the smelling salts and take to rehabilitation. Stop dreaming of dragons and fire as he is not going to find what he's looking for anywhere deep in these stinking holes built by other races that would be better served with dwarven influence and expertise…. Ugh…
Ahh, so where was I…. Ahh yes… we looked around the slime left in the pit of acidic doom left by our "friend," the dying Khyber Cube. Why was he our friends say ye… well let me say now, that corrosive cube was holding a rather powerful hobgoblin undead nasty. In the name of Onatar, the only good that has come out of this mess is the finding of the magnificently useless magical plate mail that our black elf plucked off the bottom… as well as a pretty, mithral symbol of the Silver Flame that will need to be studied at another moment. Although I am not currently in the best graces of this elf Xoma, he has proved himself a good ally and equally difficult foe. Deep in my heart, I feel there is something unholy and twisted within the elf, that a few smiting hits of my Onatar-blessed hammer “Aeol” might just set straight―however, he is on our side so I will just keep both eyes and one leg on him.
Magnus―chivalrous, battle-scarred, siege weapon of a barbarian that he is―rolled forward and asked me to open the other glass door… Looking to my left I see Xoma squeezing his bony, sinewy body into a ridiculously tight crevice in the rocks… Crazy elf… even with half sense he should have known better. You would never see a respectable dwarf doing such a thing.
In short time the group reformed and moved forward down a corridor… With the dark elf, Xoma in the lead we slowly made our way out to a balcony of sorts. We all stood in awe of an enormous, cavernous room before us. It felt nothing like the halls of my kin. This place was the work of something worse even than the orcs of Jhorash'Tal in the Hoarfrost Mountains. In the distance we saw red square-shaped forms as well as a 12-foot bone sculpture of a snake, a twisted macabre sight. This room reeked of unholy filth, mumbled Cyzicus.
In front of us stood a bridge of tightly-packed bones reaching across an equally tricky moat of carrion bate. A stench that cannot be described rose from the moat. Rot, old and new. Dead things that had better stay dead. Upon further investigation Cypher and Xoma notice magical glyphs upon the stone edges of the bone bridge―not unlike the one the warforged saw back in the "bone closet." With much debate from our group, I moved across the bridge with one leg. "I best not fall in," is all I could think. The walls of the moat proved to be supernaturally slick. Much like Halbazar's grease spell.
I scrambled to the other side with Xoma, Rendar, and Halbazar the Useless right behind me. Just as we reached the other side, who showed up but the same bony hobgoblin! Unfortunately, Cypher’s back was turned to the creature, who attacked in typical gutless fashion. Aye, but this time our party is out for blood ―or at least hobgoblin bones. Magnus attacked in barbarian fashion, making the dead goblinoid drop his weapon, in an all-out killer-undead-vs.-half-witted-injured-barbarian brawl―a fairer fight! Luckily for Magnus, our party rained holy vengeance upon the creature. Just when we had the wretched creature where we wanted him he managed to scramble across bridge and activate the glyph on the far side. The bridge of bones fell apart.
I watch in disgust as Rendar “Wyvernslayer” and his leashed dog Halbazar fell almost forty feet into a crumble of bones and filth. Magnus and Xoma succeeded in leaping back onto the balcony, leaving me alone with the hobgoblin―with its fangs and inability to die properly, how can it not be a vampire?―on the far side. Smiting the unholy creature in the name of Onatar, I shatter his bony maw once and for all. At least I thought. His bony corpse hit the ground but dissolved into mist.
While this was happening, Rendar scrambled up to find large green maggot-worms moving towards him… Glowing purple scimitar in one hand and short sword in the other, he quickly dispatched the one to his right as Cyzicus made short order of the other with arrows from above.
Just as this last horror was over someone yells out “Carrion crawler! Watch out for their poisonous tentacles!" It was quite large, 10-ft. long, and rearing up with numerous legs and flailing mouth-tentacles. With great dismay, I watched as Magnus did not heed our shouted warning. He jumped down along the edge of the the slick moat and took the oversized worm head on! It bore down on him and lashed him with its poisonous tendrils. We watched as the barbarian went wide-eyed limp before the beast. Xoma, Rendar, and Cypher all rushed to his aid. With haste they quickly dispatch the gigantic creepy-crawly and scrambled up the walls of the moat with the ropes we were wise enough to bring. Just in the nick of time―as more of the gigantic green flesh-eating worms scurried and slithered in toward us.
There I stood with Xoma, Rendar, and bloodied Halbazar on the far side of a moat now swarming with carrion crawlers, looking at Magnus, Cypher and Cyzicus upon the opposite side balcony, wondering what to do… too deep in the ground to tell where we are and too tired of bones and the macabre to care.
So goes this tale of woes and foes by Doongul “Ironfoot” Soronath, faithful servant of the Sovereign Host.
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