RECAP: BDC, 1-2-26

The landward side of the walled city of Sternhaven is the second busiest side. To most visitors – and truth be told, most residents – of Sternhaven, the city was its port. And indeed, the port of Sternhaven was one of the business in a thousand leagues. Ship after ship arrived in a constant stream, disgorging the contents of their bloated holds onto to the docks of one of the most vibrant cities in the south.

The party materialized on the landward side, a few hundred meters from the city’s well tended gates. As home to one of the most powerful wizard’s guilds in the hemisphere, the sight of strangely dressed people – some, bespattered with blood – materialize from thin air in the vicinity of the landward gate.

The mission had been successful, and the party carried Simon’s remains in their large magical bag. They opened the bag swiftly, and released the priest Shepherd out onto the street. He had blood on him not his own, but was preoccupied. Now that they had arrived in Sternhaven, the real business they were on, the business that Shepherd would lead, would now commence: the bringing back of their friend Simon from the land of the dead.

They entered the city, it’s streets now familiar, and as they walked to the Rave Inn to re-establish a brief residency they discussed the magical and religious aspects of the task confronting them:

• Shepherd admitted early on that his power, as given by Atroa, were insufficient to bring Simon back in the manner they’d hoped; to wit, intact. Simon, in the battle that ultimately led to his death, lost his sword-hand to a worg bite. The hand was not found at the recovery site, and the party assumed that it had gone down the gullet of the offending worg.

• That left two options:
  • Shepherd to perform Raise Dead on Simon, wait a week, then purchase a Regeneration spell from a local Temple (not his own, sadly: Sternhaven’s religious community is dominated by sea-gods, and Atroa does not have a temple there).
    • This, however, would take time, and time was not a commodity that was in great supply; the Wind Duke’s promised to obscure the magical beaconing of the Rod, but only temporarily. Each day drew the forces of Chaos closer.
  • Alternatively, the party could petition the most powerful clerics in the city – the Temple of Poseidon – for assistance in the form of a Resurrection spell. That assistance could be acquired speedily, but it would come at a hefty price.

In the end, they chose the latter: Shepherd and Peaches approached the Poseidon senior priests and petitioned for the spell to bring back their dead colleague, while the rest of the party gathered available cash, sold crafted items and loot, and piled up the money necessary to placate the Sea God’s high elders.

The party paid them off and soon, groggy and disheveled, Simon returned. It took a few hours for him to return to normal. It was strange seeing the gnarled ranger at first – one uncanny aspect of the spell was that, although his right hand had reappeared, all Simon’s scars and calluses had been smoothly repaired as well. Simon’s skin was as unblemished as the day he’d been born.

Once back, it became clear that that axe that Sonja had gotten from the Dwarven commander was far more than a normal axe. He’d been husbanding the weapon since he’d acquired it, and now Sonja was ready to apprise the rest of the party of what exactly they’d found: The Axe of Moradin, also known as the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords. It went by many names, but it’s history was one of conquest and power. And now it was in Sonja’s hands.

Sonja was reticent about the precise powers the Axe was delivering to him, but one thing he wanted to make us understand: the Axe drained magic over time from other items, and so Sonja would be giving up much of his gear. This had a fortunate upside, however: shedding his magic weapons and armor allowed Simon to equip himself for the trip back to the mountain. Sonja’s knowledge, now enhanced by the Axe, was now informing our next decision: to return to the mountain and clear it out. We weren’t sure exactly why, but that mountain was important to the dwarves, and that made it important to Sonja, and that made it important to the party.

But they party had some time in Sternhaven. Calidar was hard at work on laying fresh enchantments on some of the party weapons, and Jarlebank, from his suite at the guildhall, was scrying the mountain rooms, and discovering goblins. cleaning. They were still disciplined, extraordinary for goblins, and they were working diligently at the behest of… someone.

After five days, the party returned to the Mountain, ready to exact bloody payment for the affront committed against Simon. They returned to the control room, crowded with goblins. Goblins who began to die in droves under the tender ministrations of the party. A fireball erupted upon a cluster of goblin crossbowmen; Calidar critted a goblin in the posterior… for 2 damage. Shepherd blooded his previously pristine star-knife. It was butchery.

Once the ruckus had gotten beyond the doors, the second team of defenders showed up: four bugbears, wielding magical, long-hafted axes. They were unsurprisingly in command of the goblins, and tried to dispatch them to secure reinforcements, but to no avail. Eventually they fell under the party’s ministrations, and the room grew quiet.

Once the bodies were checked and (to little end) looted, the party examined the rooms from which the bugbears had emerged, but found only dirty, barracks-style quarters. One goblin had to go for help through a doorway to the north, so the party decided to go that way in an effort to located what support the goblin might have been trying to alert.

The mountain was more labyrinth than fortress, although all agreed the ancient space would work well for either. They wended their way through the narrow corridors, dank with must and goblin-filth, until they came to a warren. The stench here was prodigious, and the rooms provide to be filled with goblin – women, children, and a few guards standing in defense. Simon guided Jarlebank’s human eyes toward the bulk of the goblins and, with some sadness, he executed them with magical ice and chill.

A brief investigation of the remaining nearby passages found nothing substantive, although one could be identified as a passageway down to the lower level of the complex. Ultimately, they found themselves back in the room where they had slain the goblins, and paused to consider their next moves.