Hook Mountain Clanhold

“Hook Mountain Clanhold”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 61
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Dorothea Gloriana Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Ambushed" "Winter Quarters"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter reaching Hook Mountain Clanhold, the heroes sneak in and look for the body of Lamatar.

Hook Mountain Clanhold

Overlooking the hundreds of ogres in front of us we decided to look for another way in. We tried sneaking around the valley on the heights surrounding it to see if we could come upon the cavern from another direction. Japp was very afraid and wouldn't come along. Honeypot and the rangers retreated back the way we came, away from the camp, to wait for us to return. Dorothea, Gloriana, Velicia and me left the others started making our way around the valley. I noted that there were ogre patrols out around the clanhold. Velicia helped in the climbing and Dorothea mentioned we should try to move silently, as if I wouldn't know that. We got up on a plateau overlooking some of the landscape. In the chilly wind I was happy for my warm clothes. There were several holes leading down everywhere. Luckily Gloriana had been keeping track of where we were and could tell the right direction to the caves without getting lost. She pointed out a hole that would probably lead down to the caves. We gathered and looked down. It looked like the end of a mining tunnel. We decided to try to find another way. Velicia offered water, saying it is important to remember to drink when it's cold, before we continued. Dorothea mentioned we should continue to use crevices when we moved and a passing patrol proved her right. Coming closer to the cave opening we found a smoke shaft, probably for some kind of fire pit not in use. We were getting tired of going around the hills and thought that it was only a question of time before an ogre patrol would find us if we kept searching. Gloriana helped the climb down by holding a rope. I climbed down first, using the rope and came easily down to a tunnel leading out to other, much larger, tunnels. There was a thin edge and the other joined me there.

After a short whispered discussion I sneaked ahead and took a peek at the giant in armor. It was a statue and not a living creature. It was enormous, more than three times the size of the biggest ogre I had seen so far. It had strange black skin and the armor was a golden scale mail armor with jewels. The helmet looked like a devils head. Around the neck hung an amulet with the seven pointed sihedron rune. It held a glaive. Further down that tunnel, just outside there were several ogre guards as we had seen earlier. If we fought them, probably hundreds of ogres would come charging. I sneaked back to tell the others and we decided to look for Lamatar further in.

We continued inwards through a tunnel ending in a large stair leading up into a roofless room. There were three ogres there. Two were guards but one was a strange, gray, necromantic magic wielding ogre. We tried to sneak up on them, but I saw how one of them was wide open for an attack and got a little too excited. I ran up and threw my dagger at one of the ogre guards, wounding it critically. Gloriana felled it with her magic. The slimy gray ogre cast some awful spell that tried ripping the soul out of Dorothea, Velicia and me, but we held on tight. We fought the two remaining ogres and before we felled them both the sounds of the battle alerted more ogres in a nearby mine. A total of fifteen workers attacked us coaxed by two other ogres. Gloriana and Velcia felled most of them with their magic. They had come from a mining area that we fought our way into. Velicia said that the mining was too organized to have been done by ordinary ogres. There was also a smithy where weapons and armor were made.

The undead Lamatar.

We went back and continued through another tunnel from the guardroom. Velicia said that lots of rituals been cast beyond the tunnel ahead. I sneaked ahead and saw three ugly hags and an undead fighter. I could easily guess that it was the body of Lamatar that was the undead. There were strange parts of the room containing a swamp and bushy trees. Sneaking back I told the others in a whisper. We charged ahead and I critically wounded the briar hag with a thrown knife. It was bleeding heavily as Gloriana turned into lighting and shot through them all felling the briar hag. Then she stomped in the ground with a mighty thunder and jumped over them, landing on the briar hag's body. Another hag healed it and all three fought together, one clawing at Gloriana's eyes, blinding her. Another hag screamed awfully and I was pushed back from it and couldn't move. I fought Lamatar's dead animated body, while Dorothea and and Gloriana killed the remaining hags and Velicia brought down Lamatar. The last of the hags, the particularly ugly bog hag screamed that she now was undisputedly the most beautiful of the sisters. I wondered if this was the sisters that Myriana had mentioned. We searched the cave and found some magical items on the bodies of the hags.

The giant king Barl Breakbones.

As we continued we found a temple which we searched but didn't find anything. Finally we came to an enormous roofless room. The entrance was well below the floor level and there was a ramp leading up in the middle of the room with huge steps that would have to be climbed. Along the edges of the canyon like walkway there were several statues. In the far end of the room a gigantic giant was sitting on a throne. I guessed we had met Barl Breakbones. We thought that it would be very dangerous to try to go up that way and instead we stealthily climbed all the way up to the floor next to the entrance. Suddenly four giants looking like the stone walls they stepped out of, appeared around us, throwing huge boulders at us. One moved in close and attacked me. I was surprised and was hit hard. A big fight followed. We tried to take cover from the thrown boulders behind the statues or hiding along the uneven wall. The giant next to us was soon killed and one on the other side of the ramp was felled by magic. Velicia teleported over to the other side and fought the other herself. It didn't go that well. She took heavy damage by its mighty blows. I screamed to the others to help her and I would attack the giant king, but before I could run up to it, it took the fight to us. Finally all but Barl had been felled. I climbed onto his leg and hanged on, stabbing wildly. We killed the giant king and it fell hard to the ground. Searching the place we found some magical things.

We discussed how we would get back and how to bring Lamatar. Dorothea thought we should just bring the head of him in a bag, but Velicia wanted to bring the whole body on a floating disc. I thought that that sounded better, especially if that meant we could bring some of the expensive armor on the statue near the entrance.

I sneaked all the way up to giant statue. It was way bigger than even the giants we had just fought. Looking at the opening I could see that guarding the entrance was two ordinary ogres and one looking really strange. After looking closer at it I realized that it was the empty skin of an ogre that was being animated. Disgusted I turned my attention back to the huge statue and saw that it was actually a corpse. I climbed up it to steal as much as I could. The amulet hanging from its neck seamed to be a bigger version of the magical amulets we had found earlier and probably worth a lot, but it looked heavy. I tied a string in one end of the chain and opened the chain it was hanging in. My plan was to stealthily lower it without the guards noticing. It didn't quite work out. As I opened the chain the whole body holding it all up turned into dust and it all fell down with a loud crash. I tumbled to the ground and hid in the pile that was left. The guards turned and stared straight at me, or rather at the remains of the statue. Then they panicked and ran. Waiting a few moments to see if they just went for reinforcements, I started collecting everything valuable and ran back for help from the others. We hurried to load the whole armor on the floating disc Velicia had summoned and left through the mines.