Storm King's Thunder [CLOSED]

[Baba Luga]

Shara smiles at Bell's eponymous sound effects and pantomime. "Oh, I like this method much better. Does anyone ever tell you how disconcerting it can be to hear one's own voice coming out of someone else's mouth?"

"If you're asking about the church bells from earlier, that was probably just goblins. Goblin shenanigans. It certainly isn't the local priest signaling for help. He was one of the first to skedaddle when the trouble started."

 

[ramonlimon2]

Aseir begins snickering as Shara speaks, breaking out into a full guffaw. "Oh I like you," he says as he wipes his eyes. "The bubbly, frilly energy, the rope to nowhere, you'd fit in great with us in Mirabar."

 

[Theseiroth]

Lecuis smiles. "If you are sure the church bells was shenanigans then we should try for the keep, maybe they can provide aid, or at least a bed, I need to sleep and recover my magics." Lecuis bows his head towards Bell. Having a Kenku around and trying to translate them is so fun, he thought to himself.

 

[Ellywyck27]

Ruthenia looks at her leather boots, strokes her beardless chin, and ponders aloud,
“If we weren’t in such sorry shape, we would still be fighting. I don’t like the idea of hiding until the goblins steal all our gear and leave. We are now five people. There may be others— perhaps in the keep. And we now know the goblins’ purpose and their tactics. Can we not organize ourselves to push them out— or at least scare them off— recover our gear, and reclaim this town?” Only at the very end does she look up to see if anyone was listening, and if her thoughts sound reasonable to any of the others.

 

[Baba Luga]

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, Shara announces her spell about to end. Bell goes down first to see how things stand in Nightstone. There are a few distant goblin voices, and then, when those die away, silence. He collects his caltrops from the landing and carefully leaves the inn by the back door. He encounters no one on his way along the graveyard fence to the temple, which is vandalized but unoccupied.

Back upstairs at the inn, Ruth looks out the window of the southwest bedroom to confirm that her warhammer is still on the grass outside. Then she moves over to the southeast bedroom with the collapsed floor to keep an eye on the temple, and Bell.

"So what's the deal with Nightstone, anyway?" Aseir asks Shara as they stand in the upstairs hallway. "Before all this happened, I mean. You just had a big rock in the center of town waiting for giants to take it, you're ordering secret supplies and conjuring ropes to nowhere."

The plainly-attired woman looks somewhat baffled and taken aback by this line of inquiry. But then she smiles and says, "Oh dear, did you think I was the ambassador of Nightstone? Nope. Like these big rocks, I only rolled into town recently. I think everyone here considered that monolith, the actual nightstone, as some sort of grand mystery. It had a bunch of dwarven runes on it, but everyone who speaks dwarvish says they don't spell anything."

"So," she continues, addressing Aseir and Lecuis, "being peripatetic circusmen, you must see all kinds of wild things. How does this compare? Typical?"

Disappointed to find no way up to the temple's bell tower—there's just a long, knotted rope with which to ring the bell—Bell Damper remembers that there's a watch tower not far behind the temple to the east. Ruth sees him exit the building and give the sign for everyone to stay put in the inn.

The kenku walks along the south side of the temple. The door of that eastern watch tower is open. Bell also gets a look down the dirt road behind the vegetable plot. There are two humble houses back there. The closest has been half-collapsed by one of the boulders that Shara Breakwood says were dropped from a giant cloud castle. The other, farther along the road to the south, has all its shutters closed up and appears undamaged by the assault from the sky.

As Bell passes the southeast corner of the temple near the watch tower, a corner of Nightstone he's certainly never had reason visit, he sees that a series of rungs run all the way up the exterior of the temple's bell tower, to a dizzying height of at least thirty feet, certainly higher than the twenty foot watch towers.

 

[Theseiroth]

"Circus life is grand, a new roof every week, see the world as you go and meet grand people. Don't usually stop at towns looking this way..." Lecuis smiles through it all, he then moved to the window to scan for a sign from Bell. "Of course, sometimes the nights are cold and the road can seem lonely. But it's all in an effort to grow and find a place to call home."

 

[Baba Luga]

Opting for the greater height of the steeple, Bell continues around the temple and begins to climb the rungs fixed to the back of the building. It's not too difficult, and he's soon thirty feet off the ground, up on a small ledge near the big bell, where a five-foot-long hooked metal pole hangs on a post. The temple bell and roof block the view to the west, except for the windmill, the fulcrum of which is now at eye level a couple hundred feet away. Behind Bell is a magnificent vista out across the moors east of the Black Raven River. He can also look down on the unoccupied roofs of the northeast and east guard towers.

The main vantage of being up here is the view southwest over Nightstone, which encompases two large vegetable plots, five houses and the back of the trading post. Two of those houses have been ruined by falling rocks and other boulders lie in the fields or open grass along the dirt roads. Farther away, on the higher island to the south, the closed wooden gates of the keep's gatehouse are also level with Bell. The keep's turrets are still another forty feet above him.

Taking all this in, Bell suddenly sees movement in part of the farther vegetable plot that is visible between one of the houses and the trading post: a lone goblin runs through the rows with a bright yellow squash held over his head. With a great snapping of his torso, he flings the vegetable at one of the giant boulders, and Bell sees and hears the wet squish as it explodes against the stone. The goblin jumps up with arms raised, lets out an exultant cry and runs back out of sight behind the trading post.

 

[Baba Luga]

After Bell has spent nearly ten minutes watching and waiting up in the steeple without seeing anything more, he takes a chance and sidles along the steep roof at the side of the belltower to reach the front side. From there, he's able to traverse the whole forty foot length along the peak of the temple's roof. By advancing as close as he dares to the western edge, he can look down at the inn's nearest window, where Ruth is watching for him.

The giant footprints in the mud of the square are somehow more imposing from up here, where their scale can be fully appreciated in comparison to the tiny human and goblin footprints spread among them. With the exception of the windmill and the keep, all of Nightstone is below Bell Damper. Other than the two live horses still tied up outside the stable, and the lazily turning sails of the windmill, there's nothing moving inside the palisade. Outside is another story. Far to the northwest, maybe a quarter mile away, Bell counts seven goblins and the surviving worg, loaded down with sacks and saddlebags, heading away across the moor. At the same time, five other goblins are approaching the group from the other direction. The northwest-bound goblins hold up their spoils and point back at Nightstone. They are clearly communicating something with lots of gestures and excitement, but they're much too far away for Bell to make any sense of it. In short order, the goblins who were in Nightstone continue on their way, leaving the five new arrivals behind. The quintet has stopped where the band with the worg left them.

Bell's attention is suddenly diverted by a goblin voice somewhere below and to the southwest. A lone goblin, speaking to himself, has just emerged from the trading post seventy feet away, wearing a backpack and carrying a full bag in each hand. He stops talking and looks out across the empty square with a toothy frown.

 

[Baba Luga]

An arrow from Bell kills the goblin standing outside the trading post. Another exchange of information courtesy of Lecuis' cantrip and those inside the inn are running for the towers on either side of the drawbridge to raise the barrier against the arrival of more goblins. Ruth and Lecuis take one tower, Shara and Aseir the other. Ruth and Aseir find the winch mechanisms simple to figure out and in less than a minute the bridge is raised to its highest position. From his vantage point on the temple roof, Bell can see that the five goblins out on the moor have noticed the bridge being raised. on starts to run forward but is held back by the others. There is an animated discussion going on. One of the goblins stomps around in circles, while another appears to throw something at one of their companions.

 

[Ellywyck27]

For the first time since this afternoon’s sudden and frantic turn of disastrous discovery and unlucky events, Ruth feels some hope, and an actual thrill of accomplishment.

She stands by the closed gate, akimbo, proud and brave. “Right. Let’s be rid of the rest of these thievin’ bastards.” She straps on her shield once more, and takes off in a jog toward where her war hammer is.

 

[Theseiroth]

"Of course, but uh, I'll be staying back and slinging insults. I'm not built to be in the fight" Lecuis says as they make their way back out. He grabs his lute and starts praying that everything works out.

 

[ramonlimon2]

Aseir steps away from the winch and looks across the village, surveying for gaps or holes in the gate. "Is there a back way into the village, a tunnel or something they might spring up through?" he asks Shara.

 

[Baba Luga]

Ruth finds her warhammer where it was dropped between the stable and inn. Going that way takes her by the two anxious horses tethered by their butchered companion. The dead horse is the one that Bell Damper rode during your journey from Luskan. Lecuis' horse is no longer among the others at the stable.

Lecuis accompanies Ruth past the horses and then continues back into the inn, where he goes to the kitchen and takes the short sword dropped by the goblin who is still presumably bound, unconscious upstairs. The weapon is old and worn but seems serviceable.

Aseir climbs the ladder from the inside of the watch tower, where the winch is located, up to the roof. Shara climbs up after him. From up here, they see the distant group of goblins Bell spotted earlier. The five creatures out on the moor stay at the same distance as before, engaged in some activity that could be fighting or play.

When Aseir asks about secret tunnels into Nightstone, Shara shrugs and says, "Gee, I hope not. That would be a nuisance. Do you think they swim?" She looks over the edge of the tower down at the moat formed by the diverted river. "Did you know that goblins don't actually have children? Nope. They just sort of sprout out of the ground. Some people say that's because they're part fey. Goblin facts!"

Turning back towards the hamlet, Aseir has an overview of the nearby wheat field and the small house to its west. The stable is to his left and the windmill off the the right past the wheat field. He catches some movement from behind the hillock the windmill is built on. It's Lecuis' horse, roaming free and nosing the grass. It still wears its saddlebags.

Lecuis has just emerged from the inn when a distant whistle focuses everyone's attention on the parapet of the keep. There are two people up there wearing metal armor that reflects the afternoon sun. At this distance you can tell that one wears a helmet and carries a spear, while the other has a beard and no helmet. The person with the spear waves and then uses the weapon to point down at the southernmost plot of vegetables, where Bell saw a goblin throwing squash several minutes ago.

 

[Ellywyck27]

Hefting the hammer in her right hand, happy to have it back again, Ruthenia walks back to the dead horse. It was Bells. She speaks a few quiet words over it: a wish that it’s soul will rest, that it’s final moments of life filled with so much violence, fright, and pain, would now pass and be forgotten, and that the ground accept its blood as-...

She is interrupted by a distant whistle, and takes the waving and pointing as a warning signal of something hostile that is lurking. She looks left, to see Lecuis at the inn entrance, and looks right. No one else in sight. “C’mon, friend. Let’s finish what we started” she says with determination, but under her breath, and gestures and nods for Lecuis to join her as she walks to the right, toward the south path there, to circle around the house and wheat field for a safe view. She doesn’t want to walk straight into an ambush.

 

[ramonlimon2]

Aseir looks around the roof of the tower on which he stands, disappointed not to see any sort of seige weapons. Catching sight of the guards across the village, Aseir waves at them. With broad sweeping gestures the genasi tries to mime his group crossing to the keep and joining up with the guards.

 

[Baba Luga]

At the signal from the guard on top of the keep, Bell darts back across the temple roof and down the rungs fixed to the rear of the building. He rounds the south side of the temple in time to see Lecuis, about a hundred and twenty feet ahead of him, running along the north side of the wheat field. He also sees Aseir on top of one of the watchtowers next to the raised drawbridge, gesturing in pantomime to the distant guards.

Lecuis soon catches up with Ruth between the palisade and the westernmost house. They are well-hidden back here, but also, thanks to the windmill, unable to see much of what's going on in the southeast part of Nightstone, including the guards and the squash field.

The guard with a helmet waves back to Aseir, acknowledging his communication about traveling to the keep. The other guard, the one with the beard, leaves his place at the battlement. The helmeted guard points downward with their spear again, indicating a place slightly to the east of the squash field, something only Aseir is in a position to see right now.

 

[Ellywyck27]

Ruthenia steps back again at the corner of the house so she can’t be seen. She whips around to see if Lecuis has come, and awkwardly elbows him when she turns. “Can’t see anything here.... let’s run along this wall and then up the hill to the windmill, and peek around from there. Plus, that gives us the upper ground if anything comes at us. Sound good?”

Lecuis indicates he will follow her lead, so she nods to him to go when he’s ready.
One more peek around the house to be sure there isn’t anything new to see, and she takes off at a sprint.

 

[ZombWie]

Much has happened in the few moments since leaving the inn. Bell's exploration of the temple did not reveal anymore about what happened here in Nightstone, but using the temple tower as a perch to spy from was the best decision he made all day. The height does not bother Bell, so taking a risk and heading to the front edge of the temple was an obvious tactical choice. The view of the town allowed him to spot and down another one of the wretched goblins. The view also allowed Bell to set a new plan into action. When Lecuis contacted Bell it was difficult to convey, but he managed to fill the rest in on the goblin reinforcements that he could see in the distance. A few moments later and the drawbridge was up and Bell was descending the temple ladder. He now finds himself squatting by the dead goblin near the trading post. Bell shakes his head in frustration. It appears all of his equipment is lost, carried off by looting goblins. With a his he stands and moves toward where he expects to find Lecuis. The bard was moving with purpose, so maybe his bow will be needed once more.

 

[ramonlimon2]

Satisfied he's gotten a message across, Aseir turns back to Shara. "C'mon, lets go gather up the others," he says, already heading back down the tower. He jogs south(?), clinging to the wall as he heads to regroup with Ruth and Lecuis at the windmill.

 

[Baba Luga]

At the top to the hill, Ruth and Lecuis find the door to the windmill open, giving a view of the gloomy interior, with its cogs, shafts and grindstone. From up here they can see down over the wheat field to the north and squash field to the east. The ramp up to the castle begins about sixty feet to the southeast, at a break in the palisade. The jagged fifteen foot long gap in the ramp would certainly present an obstacle to one traveling that way. From here, Ruth and Lecuis can not only see the helmed guard atop to keep, they can just make out her face as well.

Bell can see that Ruth and Lecuis have moved up to the windmill and runs over to join them there.

Aseir is about the go down through the trapdoor in the roof of the tower when he sees two goblins, both carrying full sacks, run north in front of the parapet over two hundred feet away, all the way on the other side of Nightstone, and dash into the open door of the east-most guard tower directly across from the drawbridge. The tower door closes behind them. Also noticing the pair, Shara says, "Oh yes, we'd better be going down before the arrows start flying again."

 

[Baba Luga]

Once everyone has convened at the windmill, Bell leads the way inside through the open door that's a foot or two higher than the ground outside. To Ruth, who has more than dabbled in the art of brewing, the cramped array of cogs, levers, platforms and shafts are at least somewhat comprehensible; she's done her share of consulting with millers to choose the perfect grain and treat it just so. To everyone else, the inner workings are an utter mystery.

The windmill's sails are not currently turning, which means somewhere inside the brake has been applied. A long beam that protrudes out the back of the structure and down to the base of the hill should allow the entire building to be turned to face into the wind. The foundation on which the windmill pivots is no doubt buried in the hill itself.

Goblin-sized footprints dot the grain dust on the floorboards, but there are is no sign of anyone else in here right now.

 

[Baba Luga]

Bell and Aseir move around the cramped space inside the windmill, craning necks to try and look up through the oddly-angled cogs and shafts. It's a bit of a maze up there. After a couple of minutes of this, nothing unexpected comes into view, and no goblins spring out of hiding.

Posted outside the windmill, Ruth, Lecuis and Shara hear a far-off cry of "Yeeeeeee!", followed by two muffled splashes. The woman on top of the keep waves her arms to get their attention, then points her spear to the northeast and motions as if she's about to dive off the side of the battlement.

Up at the top of the broken ramp between the hamlet and the keep, the large wooden gates swing slowly open and the bearded guard steps forth. He sees Ruth, Lecuis and Shara, points to the fifteen-foot gap in the ramp in front of him and shrugs. "Come on up if you can!" he shouts, clearly straining his voice to be heard at this distance. Then he steps back inside, out of view, perhaps erring on the side of caution when it comes to potential goblin arrows.

 

[Ellywyck27]

Interesting. The goblins chose to leave an alternative route. Ruthenia, still keeping eyes outside and being alert, stands beside the open door of the windmill and calls in softly.
“Do you see anything? Two goblins jumped the wall. Nothing else moving out here.”

Ruth looks up toward the open doors and the broken bridge.
“If there’s nothing to help us here, let’s go. We've been invited up to the keep. Dinner and a bed maybe?”

 

[ZombWie]

Bell looks around and shrugs then taps Aseir on the shoulder to indicate he is heading back outside. Ruthenia is discussing an invitation, dinner and a bed which causes the kenku to look toward the keep. "DInner and maybe a bed?" he mimics the nods vigorously. Bell looks around for anything long enough that may span the broken distance on the ramp to the keep. Maybe they can fashion a makeshift bridge to cross the gap.

 

[Baba Luga]

With supplies from the trading post and help from the bearded guard across the gap, Bell is able to stretch a length of rope across the missing portion of the ramp. He has gone hand over hand along the rope to the other side, while Aseir gets a running start and leaps across. Ruth has not been so fortunate, and now holds herself above water in the moat twenty feet below by hugging one of the wooden struts that used to support the center of the ramp.

Only Lecuis and Shara Breakwood remain on the lower end of the ramp, both a bit hesitant to brave the crossing. At last, Shara shrugs, takes a deep breath, tightens the straps of her backpack and closes her eyes. Something in the air around her subtly shifts, and when she opens her eyes again, she smiles, confidently lowers herself to the rope and makes her way across in the same manner Bell did, though she needs some help getting back up on the opposite side. "Well, M'lord," she calls back to Lecuis, who now stands alone, "shall your excellency be joining us up here, or dost though valiantly guard the foot of yon ramp against the goblin horde?"