One fine day in
the spring of the year of Our Lord 1311, three brave adventurers
arrived in the town of Piledup, situated on the western fringe of the
vast kingless region betwixt Bretonnea and the Misty Mountains known
as the Hinterwilds. These three rogues were Cruum Tinyhammer, a
dwarf of the White Hill prone to stuttering and unfond of dust, Baraldur, a wandering warrior with a sense of smell unheard of outside of legend, and Fray, a
holy warrior and leader of a band of loyal fanatics who followed him
for the promise of salvation and one gold piece a month. The master
of the town related to these warriors three that the town's wells had
gone mysteriously dry. He blamed the notorious Wizard of Emmerin
Tor, an individual who dwelt in a system of caverns beneath an
ancient heap of rock thrusting up from the land about twenty-five
miles south of town. He offered the adventurers three hundred silver
pieces if they could destroy the wizard and return the town's water
supply.
With little
deliberation, the adventurers accepted the offer and headed to the
Tor. En route, they encountered a giant toad upon the high heath.
Fray's band of slingsmen stoned the blasphemous beast, and Cruum and
Baraldur moved in to finish it off. Baraldur was nearly swallowed by
the horrid creature before it was beaten to a pulp.
The party arrived
at the Tor, searched out the cave entrance, and descended into the
depths with the aid of a ball of light conjured miraculously by Fray.
They descended into a small room and encountered eleven ugly little
blue men, of the race of xvarts, who challenged them in the name of
the Wizard of the Tor, and then attacked them. As soon as the
fighting broke out, five of the xvarts rushed out of the room, but
their remaining brethren fought like caged tigers. Despite their
ferocity, the strange little men were soon annihilated.
The party decided
to seek out the ones that had fled and attempted to follow their
trail. They ended up walking right into the returning party of
xvarts, now led by the wizard's overseer, a burly barbarian
equipped with an axe, horse hide shield, and studded leather armor.
The barbarian, Gabor, struck down Cruum the dwarf and moved in on
Baraldur. But Baraldur was a match for the horsemaster, and struck him down with a mighty blow from his trident. Sadly, he was cut down by a xvart moments later. In his
desperation he called out to Saint Procopius, but his pleas
fell upon deaf ears. With two of his companions down, Fray moved in,
taking up fallen Baraldur's trident and dealing a fatal blow to the xvart. He then roused Cruum with the aid of some healing magic and
the two fell to destroying the remaining xvarts. After three of the
xvarts had been killed, the remaining two of them fled into the
darkness, never to be heard from again.
Fray's skill lay
not only in faith healing. He was knowledgeable in the lore of herbs
and medicine as well, and he managed to save Baraldur's life, though
he would carry a mark from his wound all his days. The party
continued into the darkness and found Gabor's chamber, from which
they lifted a gaudy brass hookah, ignoring the many clay jars filled
with fermented mare's milk. They moved on, and encountered many
twisting passages and forks. At one point, finding themselves in a
dead end, they were ambushed from behind by a gelatinous cube which
attempted to dissolve Fray! The party reorganized and managed to
slay the abomination, which left behind an impressive array of
coinage.
Eventually one
passageway lead the party to a great door adjoining a chamber filled
with more xvarts. Challenges were shouted and threats were delivered
and acted upon. In the ensuing carnage, all of the xvarts were
slain. The party opened the door and followed the way to a nicely
furnished chamber in which they found the wizard himself! He was
seated at a desk writing, and upon seeing these fine adventurers in
his chambers, he looked up and spoke thus:
"Right. You
have defeated my guardians, foiled my traps, and penetrated my
sanctum. I am bound by Wizard Law to yield to you a portion of my
treasure of your choosing. Please follow me."
Fortunately the
daring rogues saw through the wizard's clever ruse and immediately
moved to attack him. Alas, Saint Procopius saw this as an excellent
opportunity to remonstrate Baraldur for his earlier impertinence,
binding his limbs so that he could not move. The wizard, for his
part, was no slouch and managed to deploy a sleep spell which felled
all but Cruum, leaving him to single combat with his sorcerous foe.
Cruum slew the wizard in two blows and set about looting the place
before his companions awoke, pocketing a small gem for himself. The
wizard's quarters and workshop were ransacked, turning up a good
amount of silver, some books, a little gold, and a mysterious scroll
depicting a map of some caverns wrapped around a key. Confident that
they had achieved their goal, the party severed the wizard's head as
proof of their deed and returned to Piledup.
Hamish, the
town's master, was glad to hear that the wizard's threat was ended,
but noted that the waters had not yet returned and asked if Cruum and
his friends had uncovered how the wizard had managed to divert the
waters. The party owed that they had not, and received merely half
the promised sum, with the other half to be delivered upon the
water's return. After training and re-outfitting, the dashing
roustabouts returned to Emmerin Tor once more.
This time, the
party explored other parts of the caverns and saw many strange
sights. They encountered dire bird men, a magical pool which made
one of Fray's followers disappear before their eyes, and a large
muscled crocodile man who transformed into a venus flytrap in the
midst of battle. Worst of all, they blundered into the quarters of
four norkers, bad humored creatures with skin like living rock.
Their mortal weapons served to slay three of the monsters, but one of
them seemed night invincible. In the middle of the battle, one of
Fray's followers, a young man named Spike, was brutally killed, his
face gnawed off and his chest caved in by a norker's club.
Eventually, after many futile attacks and the increasing sureity of a
norker victory, Cruum called upon Thor himself to smite the
unregenerate greenskin with a magic missile. To the delight and awe
of all, Thor granted the request, and Cruum's soul blazed with golden
power as the thunder god channelled through him power manifesting as a
tiny golden hammer which flew forth and vaporized the norker. Fray
attributed the miracle to an act of Christ, and Cruum noted that
there were many similarities between Christ and Thor. The party
declined to take with them the norker's stash of grog and returned to
the surface to heal and prepare for another descent.