5th of Eleint (The Fading) – Summer 1486
Location: Dessarin Valley
The Mickale Trio mounted up, left the road and headed south into Dessarin Hills. After the battle on the bridge, they wished to avoid any further encounters with the Order of the Gauntlet, which meant giving Tribor a wide berth. It would mean adding a few extra days of travel to Pinko’s Commune in the south of Neverwinter Woods, but better to arrive alive than turn up dead. Navigation through the rolling hills was not overly complicated as they journeyed roughly southwest under warm summer skies. Smacky’s natural affinity for the rocky terrain led them without too many issues safely to the Long Road, somewhere between Tribor and what Seeps knew to be the small hamlet of Westbridge.
As they pitched camp a short distance from this major thoroughfare that evening, Pinko noticed the Nymph Ring given to him by Arleosa Starhenge in Amphail began to glow and hum under the moonlight. He held it up to his ear and swore he could hear a jaunty tune being whistled. “Seeps, am I hearing things or is this ring whistling at me?” Pinko shoved his hand in the warlock’s general direction as she started the fire with a cantrip. “I hear voices all the time,” said Seeps. “how can you be sure the whistling I hear is the same that you are hearing?” Avoiding this deeply philosophical pondering, Smacky nearly broke the druid’s wrist by grabbing it and yanking the ring towards his own ear. “Ooooo yeah, I thinks I knows dis tune.” he confirmed, making a surprisingly good effort at humming along with the melody that Pinko now had stuck in his head. “It’s called ‘Flight of the Fairie Dragon’ I believe.” chimed in Seepage. “Popular tavern tune among halflings. It’s about tiny naked flying fey things taming puke-a-bly cute butterfly-winged dragons or something.” The recollection of hearing such an adorable ditty seemed to physically pain the tiefling. Pinko nodded. “Well, that sounds in line with whatshisname again? Said it was magic… argh! Keltar Dardragon or.."<CRACK!>.
Upon invoking the previous owner's name the ring exploded, spooking the horses and leaving Pinko shaking his numb hand in front of him like he’d just pulled it from icy cold water. The ghostly apparition of a male halfling dressed for wilderness travel stood on a rock beside them, hands on hips and staring up to the moon. After a moment he found his bearings, turned, and jumped lightly down, breaking into a jog. “Follow!” he called to the group back over his shoulder, then plodded off into the night without checking to see if anyone would heed the suggestion. Smacky cheered, grabbed his pack and bounded onto his new war horse, trotting after Keltar like an eager puppy being taken for a walk off-lead who just expected his owners to keep up. “I’m tired.” moaned Seeps as Pinko’s gaze swung from the rapidly disappearing form of the barbarian in the dark to the grumpy warlock hunched over the small fire. “There could be treasure," suggested the wood elf to the tiefling's stubborn glare, "or a deadly trap which might murder him in a most surprising and entertaining way.” A small smile crossed Cockseepage's face. “Fine!” she sighed, blasting out the fire with a Ray of Frost. “You always know how to tempt a girl Pinko.” She slapped him squarely across the jaw, giggled and mounted her own steed before heading off down the trail. Putting his throbbing ring finger in his now stinging mouth, Pinko shared an apple with his horse and then joined the train following Keltar into the hills.
Throughout the night the wraith-like halfling did not rest or waiver on his course to wherever he was leading the party. Except for brief pauses to turn and repeat his call of “Follow” and headless of obstacles like thickets and streams that inconvenienced the more corporeal Mickale Trio and their mounts, he plodded silently onwards until dawn threatened the horizon. Cresting a ridge with the morning sun, Keltar finally stopped and exclaimed triumphantly. “We are here my friends! Inside you shall find that which aided me not, but will perhaps be of use to you. Farewell!” As the creeping shadows melted away so too did the apparition of Keltar Dardragon. By the time the three adventurers had reached the top of the ridge, he was but a few motes of dust dancing in the breeze.
Looming in the depression beyond was the ruined form of an old watch tower on a low motte, long since forgotten to time. A large stone boulder blocked the tower's ground-floor entrance and parts of its conical roof and outer shell had fallen inward, leaving a gaping hole in the first-floor wall above which four birds circled. Smacky counted each on his fingers and, with his keen powers of sight, observed that while they were obviously hawks, he’d not seen them with red tail feathers and crimson eyes before. “Blood Hawks, nasty little buggers, will claw your eyes out given half a chance.” warned Pinko. While the barbarian hunted around for some fist-sized rocks to throw at the creatures a horrible noise began emanating from within the tower —a deep, guttural, dirge pouring from the lips of something big and awful.
“What dat racket?!” complained Smacky trying to shove his new rocks in his ears to block it out. “It’s… Giantspeech.” explained Seepage, cocking an ear to try to make out the words. “It’s horribly off-key and slurred, but I think the gist of it is the pissed-off Hill Giant within calls herself Moogs and is complaining about someone called ‘Chief Guh’ who stole her husband and now she has no one to abuse anymore and is very upset by this. While I’m all for husband abuse, flogging the halflings' treasure from under the arse of a Giant is not what I had planned after a sleepless night.” It was true the expedition through the wee hours had left the group slightly worse for wear, thought Pinko, but they’d made it this far and after all, it was only one Hill Giant.
For a seven-foot-tall green-skinned meat bag, Smacky could be eerily quiet when he put his mind to it. Pegging the war horse to a stake, he snuck up to the tower while his friends waited back on the ridge and inspected the huge piece of granite that appeared to have recently been rolled into place to form a makeshift door. There was a small gap at the bottom which he unsuccessfully tried to squeeze through and then promptly found himself stuck in. Tired and cranky he channelled his rage into a much less subtle effort and sent the boulder crashing end-over-end down the small mound of the tower’s foundations. The noise echoed in the dell and instantly the singing of the Hill Giant Moogs stopped.
The silence was broken by the beating of wings and screeching of four blood hawks rapidly descending on the still prone form of the barbarian. Smacky chucked a broken brick at the closest one, missed, and inadvertently took out its sibling flying just behind it. That left three to begin raking and clawing across his raised arms and trying to hook their beaks into his flesh. Pinko watched the scene unfolding, swore, and bound into dire wolf form as he sprinted to aid his besieged companion. Dashing through the early morning mist he closed the gap, leapt into the air, and plucked one of the birds cleanly from its perch on Smacky’s head where it had been trying to liberate an ear. This sent the last two winged beasts skyward to reassess the situation. At the apex of their ascent, both were suddenly met almost simultaneously by searing eldritch blasts lazily shot from the outstretched palms of Cockseepage as she strolled down the slope towards the tower. For a second she had surprised herself with her accuracy over such range but then reverted to form and pretended she wasn’t actually aiming for the one that Pinko had nabbed off the half-orc’s head.
While the wolf-druid was still preoccupied tearing tasty chunks off his kill, Smacky pulled himself up from the dirt and rubbed some of it into his wounds to stop the bleeding. He then stuck his head through the tower doorway and with lightning-quick reflexes withdrew it again as a large chunk of masonry exploded against the doorframe having been hurled with impressive force by the Hill Giant above him. Moogs sat with legs dangling over the edge of what used to be the first-story floor, about 30 feet above the ground. She held aloft another large brick cocked and ready. “Goes aways! This my homes now. Leave Moogs be or I squish you like a squishy thing!” Seeps quickly translated this grammatically well-formed request for the benefit of her friends. “What da plan Pinks? She sitten on our treasure!” asked Smacky with equal linguistic skill. Cockseepage slapped one hand on each of their shoulders and declared “Leave this one to me boys!” then wandered straight through the doorway.
Nimbly ducking and side-stepping the anticipated payload that blew another chunk out of the stonework by the doorway, the warlock used thaumaturgy and the natural acoustics of the tower to boost her voice and call up to Moogs in her best Hill Giant accent. “Why heeellllooo there! I couldn’t help but hear your lovely singing, so sad to hear that rotten Chief Guh has taken your hus…” she paused to pirouette behind an old pillar as yet another round was flung in her direction and skidded across the floor, cracking ancient tiles. “..band. You know you are in luck! My companions and I are an expert Husband Recovery Team! We guarantee to get your useless partner back so you can beat the snot out of him whenever you like.” This time it was a handful of smaller fist-sized stones, but thrown with less enthusiasm it seemed to Seeps. “Husband rekovy? You can gets Hruk back to Moogs from Chief Guh?!” the giant enquired. “Most certainly! You take us to Guh and we’ll steal him back. No charge, we are a charity service.” beamed Seeps as wolf-Pinko crept cautiously in while sniffing the ground and pawing at some of the loosened floor tiles under the remains of the old tower stairway that snaked around the cylindrical inner wall. “Wat is charty?!” Moogs pondered then continued without waiting for an answer as a more pressing question presented itself to her mind. “Is long walk to Grud Haug, yous have foods?” her voice now sounded hopeful and the fist bearing what would be the next rocky missile had lowered to her side. Seeps grabbed her wolf buddy around the scruff just as he was finishing digging out an old battered chest from the rubble and with some effort hauled him into view of the giant perched above. “Certainly! Why Pinko here is an excellent hunter, and we have plenty of provisions. Come! Lead the way good Moogs and together we will free Hruk and you’ll be beating his head in again in no time.”
So it was that the Mickale Trio became a Fouro, joined by Moogs the Hill Giant and en route to Grudd Haug, the Den of the Hill Giants. Once befriended, it was indeed hard to get the lumbering Moogs to shut up. If Pinko and Smacky had any questions over the sanity of Seep's plan to walk into an entire village of Hill Giants and confront their leader, Chief Guh, these were quickly dismissed by their new companion's description of the loot that recently orcs, ogres and hobgoblins had been carting in from raids all over the Dessarin Valley. From what they had seen at Goldenfields, Pinko surmised this was likely no fallacy on Moogs part and the pickings could be useful in their quest to banish whatever it was that had destroyed his commune and would be worth the detour. As such, despite now heading southeast for what their Giant ally suggested would be a three to five day trip, things were looking up. Keltar’s chest that was dug up from under the tower stairs was of course plundered before they returned to their mounts and had yielded a decent amount of coin, a Potion of Fire Breath which Smacky pocketed to one day fulfil his dream of being a dragon, and an interesting cloak styled in the form of a giant finned and obviously aquatic creature that none of the land-lubber party could identify. One problem quickly brought to light however was Moogs' appetite. Come nightfall, she all but completely cleared out their store of rations and gulped down more Goodberries than Pinko could manifest. To stop her eyeing off the horses as a snack, something would need to be done. But that, Pinks mused as he meditated that evening, was a tomorrow problem. Right now they all needed a good long rest.
Next Episode: Moogs Needs Foods
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