Matul Bentgirder net the Elite Undermen Excavation Company by the hospital outside town.
- Aethelbald, Earthblood Orc Rogue
- Candella Panthercoppered, Dwarf Fighter
- Hyacinth "Cindy" Hakkapeliitta, Human Brewer
- Mikado Open-The-Belly, Gnome Sniper
- Fungus Purgit, for dissolving melted stone
- Oil of the Frost Wraith, for adding ice damage to weapons
- Potion of Flash Sweat, for immunity to fire damage
- Shrink Bomb, for negating the size advantage of a roomful of monsters
There were effectively two ways into the Forge. Go back down the stairs under the Temple of Swords and directly confront the Giants, or follow the underground river south into the Stone Garden and use the Purgit to dissolve the melted stone blocking the passage. The Guild took the long way around, excited to explore a new area. They also decided to take on Aethelbald's personal quest to retrieve a magnificent horse from the dungeon.
The drain at the bottom of the Thermae led down into an underground river, the same one that took the Undermen to the Fire Giant's Forge on the previous crawl. The ignored the side-channel and continued down until the slope grew so steep they could no longer maintain their footing. They fell down a waterfall into a deep pool, and surfaced in the Stone Gardens.
The shore of the deep pond was covered in plants that grew thick in the sunless depths. Cindy almost stepped in a sparkling pile of Unicorn shit, a sign that Aethelbald's fabled horse was near. Cindy shoveled it into her hermetic bottle for later use in alchemy. The Unicorn's tracks led into the Purple Satyr Tavern, an underworld bar staffed by a pair of Korreds. The little fairy creatures served up free drinks and demanded the Guild consume them immediately. Under questioning the Korreds revealed that the beasts of the forest were bound in an alliance that forbade them killing one another. The Sea Lion wasn't happy about the deal, savagely attacking anything not bound by the treaty out of hunger. The Unicorn came into the bar occasionally to drink gin. Interested in luring the Unicorn, the Guild traded a bottle of Candella's malt liquor for a bottle of gin.
The Guild followed the river south. The bank narrowed to a slim rocky path, and Mikado spotted a pair of yellow eyes in the water. The Sea Lion lurked in ambush, waiting for the Guild to walk into its claws. Mikado tossed it some foodstuffs and it quickly lost interest in attacking the group, rolling on its back like an otter to gnaw the pemmican and hardtack. The Guild sidled past into a beautiful glen lit by a haze of glowing mist. The Unicorn cantered out of the fog and stood on the bridge over the river. Aethelbald asked the Unicorn if it wanted to accompany him to the surface and serve as a stud on his ranch. The Unicorn asked if the Orc wanted to have sex with a chimpanzee painted green. That's what banging a normal horse would be for him.
Through dialogue with the Unicorn the adventurers learned a lot about the Stone Garden. The beasts had rallied to drive out a demonic infestation and seal it away in the Demon Ruins below. They then agreed to a treaty where none of the signatories would try to kill each other. The Manticore immediately broke the agreement and tried to kill everyone, forcing them to imprison him. At that moment the Manticore interrupted the story by bellowing from his prison beneath the earth, begging for release and promising death to the Unicorn.
They asked the Unicorn about the Fire Giants who had captured their friend. The Unicorn had tried many times to stop the Giants from taking slaves. The beasts of the forest had played endless havoc with the Giants. The Korreds drank their liquor, the Cockatrices ate their food, the Wereraven stole everything that wasn't nailed down. Eventually the Giants blocked off the passage to the Stone Garden. The Unicorn made a deal with the Guild: if they could convince the Giants to give up slavery, he would accompany Aethelbald to the surface. But not by killing them all. That was something he was trying to get away from.
The Guild charted a path that would keep them away from the monsters and lead directly to their colleague upstairs. The caves south of the Giant inhabited areas had strange heaps of rusted metal, with even more suspicious piles of unrusted metal in the center. They ignored these and made a beeline for the kennel, knowing the dog-infested realm would be empty with the beasts in the forge. The Giants had replaced the metal plate the Guild broke last time, but Candella and Mikdao disassembled it silently using their tools. The Giants had tried to booby trap it but given up, realizing the dogs would have eaten or destroyed any complex mechanisms placed in their enclosure. Cindy found Gary's bag of spell components, tossed down the garbage chute.
Recalling that the stairs were superheated, Aethelbald went ahead of the group and slung a grapnel up the stairwell to the second floor where Gary was held captive. He climbed the rope and found a Fire Beetle clinging to the door. The glowing bug snuffled around the warm surface, scraping with its mandibles in search of trash. The Orc went back downstairs and got some half-gnawed food waste from the trash pile to distract the beetle. It scuttled down the stairs after the bone, leaving him free to open the door. A heap of molten slag poured out as he opened it, remains of a pan knocked down and melted by convection from the stairs as Gary the Mage chased five Fire Beetles around the kitchen. He was clad only in a suspension harness with a big attachment ring and a little Cloaker Leather codpiece. The rest of the Guild hurried up the rope, pulled it up after them and hid in the cabinet as the Fire Giant came up the stairs to see what all the fuss was about. He went around the room grabbing the Beetles and stuffing them into a crock pot from the shelf, then tossed Gary a spatula and told him to clean up the molten metal before going downstairs.
The team debated what to do next. They came to rescue Gary but he didn't want to leave.
- He was in love with the Fire Giantess
- He wanted to rescue the slaves
- He wanted to enlist the Giants in his project to topple the Temple of Swords
Cindy wasn't having it. She had fulfilled her duty to her brother and if he was going to stick around to get killed she had done all she could do for him. She handed him his spell components and the Unicorn Dung bomb and left through the surface staircase, casually disarming the flamethrower trap on the way up. The other adventurers completed the looting of the Giants' bedroom while Gary went downstairs to try and convince Lucinda of points 2 and 3 on his list. She was irritated by the interruption, but put down her hammer and listened to what he had to say. He made the economic case for voluntary labor over slavery, warning Lucinda that the Temple of Swords was no longer going to sell the Giants slaves because of a scandal on the surface. Lucinda didn't believe him and wasn't interested in dealing with mice as employees rather than property.
With no leverage or proof of his words, the Mage resorted to Plan B. He drew the Giant from the other room with a distraction, keeping husband and wife occupied while the rest of the Guild worked their way around to rescue the slaves. The door to the workshop from the caves was uncomfortably hot, so Mikado guzzled a hit of the Potion of Flash Sweat before opening it. A pail of hot coals fell on her and did no damage. Inside the workshop, Aethelbald chalked the symbol of the Temple of Swords on the wall, to sell the idea that it was them who broke the arrangement with the Giants. The Slaves were hobbled with chains and unable to run fast, so Candella tossed the Shrink Bomb and made them all small enough for the adventurers to carry out. The sound of the bomb alerted the Giants to the escape attempt, and they sent the Hellhounds after the escapees. The Guild hurriedly scooped up the shrunken Slaves and ran for the Stone Garden. The Hounds pursued and they tossed the Tanglefoot Bomb behind them, beautiful foliage blossoming out of the horseshit and blocking the passage.
The Unicorn intercepted the Guild and escaped Slaves. On learning they were being pursued, he summoned all the beasts of the forest. The Cockatrices, Medusa, Korreds, Wereraven and Sealion arrived just in time to face off with the Fire Giant and his Hellhounds as they tore through the tangling vines. The Giant demanded the return of his slaves. The Unicorn told him to get fucked. The Giant and his hounds could have taken the Unicorn alone, but not with a roomful of monsters backing him up. He went back to the forge. The Guild thanked the Unicorn for protecting them and apologized for leading him into conflict with the Giants, but he wasn't having any of it. He did it because he wanted to. Fighting injustice was his job and if he'd been braver he would have rescued the slaves himself long ago. Aethelbald used his acrobatic talents to climb up the waterfall and let down a rope so everyone could climb out. It was a long uphill slog through the rushing water to the bath complex, they had to carry the Goblin slave when he almost got washed away.
Back in the Forge, Garl the Fire Giant returned to tell his wife Lucinda that the slaves got away, rescued by a group of armed mice acting in concert with the Unicorn and beasts. She was forced to admit that Gary was right. She was now outflanked by the beasts of the Stone Garden and the Temple of Swords, who left their sign chalked on her wall to show they meant business. Keeping mice in the house wasn't worth the constant headache, even if they could detail and decorate and polish and grind things the full-size Giants couldn't. She told Gary to go back to the surface, she didn't want to deal with him right now or ever again. He pulled the suspension ring off his harness and offered it to her in marriage. She took it from him, crushed it in her fist and tossed it into the scrap heap. He left in tears as the Fire Giant and Giantess argued about what to do next, the Giant disturbed by his wife "accepting" the ring from her former slave. Gary climbed the stairs to the surface mournfully. He heard the sound of heavy flesh thudding. A clash of metal. Worried his misplaced declaration of love had triggered a bout of domestic violence, he crept back downstairs and peered into the bedroom.
They weren't fighting.
They weren't fighting.
Satisfied that he hadn't destroyed their marraige, the Mage went up the stairs to the basement of the Temple of Swords, where his sister was drinking with the Cleric Kadminion. She was happy he came to his senses and made it out. The drunken Cleric told him his sister was hot.
The Guild banked their money. Candella learned the basics of Alchemy from Cindy and spent some of his hoarded wealth on a kit and some hermetic bottles. Gary spread some of his wealth around to circulate stories of the Church's collaboration with the Giants' slaves for swords scheme, no longer interested in the arrangement with Kadminion to keep everything quiet. Mikado made sure the freed slaves got home safe, befriending Karlito the Goblin and learning of the Jotun Conclave north of the Fire Giant forge where he was captured. Aethelbald went back into the undercity and told the Unicorn the Fire Giants had given up slavery. A deal was a deal. The Unicorn said his goodbyes to the beasts of the Stone Garden. He was proud of them and he knew they'd do a good job standing up for what was right after he left. The Medusa turned away, she couldn't even fucking talk to him right now. He nudged her with his snout and she hugged him. Nobody else heard what he said to her, it was for her alone.
Then he turned and followed Aethelbald out of the dungeon, donning a crude disguise crafted by the Orc to avoid being mobbed by every piece of shit alchemist and poacher in the City. The Giants didn't contest his passage through their kitchen and up the stairs, happy to have him out of their hair.
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