The Wedding of the Giantess Morwenna Session Six

With three days to spare until the Tournament of the Giantess Morwenna, four adventurers woke up in the captured Dwarven outpost in the mountains northeast of the lake.

• The Prospective Suitor Aldrich Brisbane (polymorphed into the beast Umbrich Brisbulk)
  
• The Mage Laguna Tempest
• The Elf Datura
• The Thug Zigar Kneecapper

They had a job to do. Today was the last day where they could accept the Brazenkragg agents' deal and still have time to get their mercenary army together before the tournament. They also wanted to fuck with Gorrister the Great and his tower. All of those things were on the west side of the region. They left the Giff of the Cannon's Thunder to guard the fort and set off down the hill.

Sabul the hired Dragoon came out of his hideout and reported that a group of men and women accompanied by a lion had emerged from the swamp to the south in the small hours of the morning, then disappeared into thin air. The Bastards declined to waste time pursuing this, they needed to get the contract signed that day. They went around the north shore of the lake. They could see multicolored smoke rising from the south, where they heard the explosion during the night.

The marsh formerly occupied by Gorrister's Bullywugs was now occupied by Bullywugs impaled on stakes - thankfully none of them still living. A handful of Orcs from one of the local tribes clustered around the lowest hanging skewer, pulling the body down. When they saw the Bastards weren't interested in contesting their kill they resumed chopping the limbs off for transport.

 

As the Bastards traversed the road past Gorrister's keep, the bandit chief flew out of the domed structure at the top on a flying horse, leaving a trail of evil steam. He stopped like he was looking for something, then sped off toward the forests south of Morwenna's steading. The soldiers at the crossroads fort were more attentive guarding the walls, and wore baldrics studded with strange copper buttons nobody had seen before.

 

Chelicera

Outside Iron Cup, an Elf dressed in yellow lounged atop a tarp covering something huge in the bed of a haycart that buzzed ominously. Inside, two newcomers sat at the bar: the human Magic User Schmendrick drinking coffee and the semi-famous Cave Elf Bard Chelicera sucking a crab leg out of a complicated cocktail. Laguna recruited Schmendrick while Umbrich discoursed with the Flesh Golem Tukachevsky and the Acrobat Emily. They had seen through his ruse and weren't going to let Laguna sign the contract in his stead. That was fine, because since they'd last seen her Datura had read up on contract negotiation.

The Brazenkragg agents wanted a monopoly on trade between the Commonwealth and Umbrich's new kingdom. They were willing to give up everything else, but that was non negotiable. Datura was able to slip in some guarantees against price gouging, which would magically void the contract if the Trade Wardens violated them. Umbrich was ready to sign, but concerned that Morwenna might not be happy with a trade deal signed on her behalf. He didn't know what kind of marriage he'd have with her and she could just ignore the agreement. Emily put him at ease. The Fighter Carnation was in Morwenna's keep that very moment, going over a separate agreement with her. In exchange for the same terms, the colony city of Brazenkragg would fund Morwenna's entreaties to the Godsfeast Abbey (last surviving outpost of the Giant Clergy) to back her claim on the throne of the Giant Kingdoms.

 

Umbrich signed the contract and was bound by a magical Geas to see it through. Schmendrick joined the party and apprenticed himself to Laguna. Chelicera joined the party as a mercenary paid for by the Agents, and asked Umbrich in undercommon if he had any pearls for her - Cave Elf slang for human sacrifices. If he could get her living victims she could summon demons to fight during the tournament. He told her to be patient and she told him she wasn't walking all the way to the hideout. He knelt and she climbed atop his carapace, opening a folding parasol to protect herself from the sun.

Ibid

The Mercenary forces retained under the contract included a main body of troops who would arrive in a couple days, Chelicera the Bard, and the Elf Druid Median the Yellow. Median showed off his killer bees, inviting them out of their giant hive to crawl all over the adventurers and familiarize themselves with their new friends. In battle the bees would act like homing missiles, swarming high value targets and delivering lethal stings.

The Bastards decided to fuck with Gorrister the Great and the Brigands of All Nations next. They debated a plan and decided to send Chelicera and Median back to the Dwarf outpost on the other side of the map. They didn't want to implicate two of their casters in what happened next. Laguna broke out a scroll of Invisibility 10' Radius and cloaked the whole group. They circled the camp at the base of the tower in hopes of finding an entrance, keeping well clear of the yurts and their Neanderthal inhabitants. When no entrance presented itself they decided to dig. They hiked a few miles north before starting the tunnel so that they wouldn't immediately be discovered. Umbrich added an additional hour to the itinerary digging up a strange meteorite from a bowl shaped depression in the earth, which the Deep Gnome and Dark Creeper had told him about.

It took another couple hours to dig a tunnel directly under Gorrister's tower, but Umbrich was learned in architecture and calculated the exact spot where he needed to turn upward. The thick tower was made of one solid piece of stone, allowing him to bore a corkscrew access tunnel upward 100 feet without collapsing it. Datura felt heat near the top, indicating fire and habitation. Still invisible, Umbrich burrowed up through the floor with his claws and sprang out into the room.

The domed chamber was fifty feet high and very hot, warmed by a charcoal pit in the center. There was a hole in the ceiling, and another at the edge of the dome leading out to a landing platform hanging out over the open air. Gorrister leaped out of the pile of treasure where he was sleeping, instantly alert to the intrusion but unable to see the intruders. His steed Garl the Nightmare nickered and began walking a circuit around the room, hoping to stumble into the intruders.

Doug Stewart

Gorrister calmly picked up an iron flask and a handful of dried horse manure from the objects strewn about the floor. He upended the flask and an earth elemental fell out. He told it to seal the tunnel that just opened in his floor. The elemental disappeared into the rock like a fish falling into a pond. Then Gorrister tossed the manure into the fire. The burning horseshit from the Nightmare rapidly filled the room with toxic smog. The adventurers held their breath, Umbrich nearly passed out but was roused by Zigar's exhortions to keep it together. Laguna grabbed a sack of Orc bones off the floor using his ring of telekinesis. With the bones in hand, the Brigands' hold over the region's Orc tribes would be broken. Now all they had to do was get out alive. Gorrister shouted something and a pair of statue arms reached out to close the exit door. A hatch slowly slid over the hole in the ceiling.

Umbrich smashed through the wall of the dome and swung downward, sliding down the rock face as his claws dug into the stone. Night had fallen outside but did little to hide his descent down the side of the building. The Nightmare flew out after him and beat him furiously with its hooves. Inside, Zigar threw his helmet across the room to get Gorrister to look away. Schmendrick and Laguna combined their magical power to cast Stoneshape, unclogging the tunnel sealed by the elemental. Gorrister wasn't distracted for long. He leaped forward and lopped Schmendrick's head off with his Falchion of Scraping. The others made it into the tunnel, where Laguna used his Wand of Haste to boost their speed enough to outrun the bandit chief. The earth elemental was embedded in the wall of the tunnel, and did nothing to interfere with their passage. He told them to get the flask as they ran by.

Outside, Umbrich endured blow after blow from the horse as he slid down the tower. At the fifty foot mark he jumped, hoping to catch the Nightmare and use it to slow his fall. He missed and dropped fifty feet into the Neanderthal camp below. The cavemen were stunned by a giant bug falling on them and stunned again by his confusing gaze, but quickly laid into him with weapons of flint, bronze and steel. The fall and the hail of blows amazingly didn't kill him. He scuttled out of reach and burrowed into the ground before they could mount their wooly rhinos and catch up with him.

Mauricio Anton

 

The rest of the group fled out the escape tunnel. The Neanderthals were expert trackers and it was only a matter of time before their mounted scouts caught up with the Bastards. They detoured and fled through a cabbage farm infested with Flail Snails. The gastropods ignored the adventurers, but the pursuing Neanderthals were diverted when one of their rhino mounts got spooked and charged one of the Snails.

Once they were out of line of sight, Datura broke off from the rest of the party and went to the abandoned village by the lakeshore to lay a false trail. Everyone else made a clean getaway, but her capering attracted Gorrister's attention. He had mounted his flying horse and he swooped down into the field where she was crawling on her belly, trying to avoid attention. He hopped off the monster and told her to come out, and he'd take her alive as a hostage. Datura was still hasted, was wearing the Boots of Speed the Bastards recovered from the slime cave the day before, and didn't believe the rest of the group would turn over the bones to secure her release. She took off running before Gorrister could get back on his horse and managed to escape. The brigand judged that further pursuit would test the tournament rules against skirmishing before the main event, and returned to his tower.

Umbrich waited for the heat to die down before emerging from his underground hiding spot. He went back to the unearthed meteor and began laboriously rolling it toward the Dwarven outpost ten miles away. The Cavemen rode up (reduced in numbers) and told him he could leave without the rock. He wasn't in any shape to resist and they were pointedly not looking at his big confusion eyes. He walked home without the rock.