Tirana

“Tirana”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 67
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Gloriana Honeypot Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Tricking a Dragon" "Building a Life"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter the heroes finally face the villain.

Tirana

We gathered around the fire giant that was chained between two stone pillars and started discussing what to do with it. The others started talking about how fire giants had been the old servants of the gods and whatever. I just saw it was huge and strong. If we were going to free it I didn't want to be anywhere near. The others wanted to talk to it, but it talked giantish and I didn't know strange languages. Gloriana said that all the best swearwords were in giantish, but I don't care. Instead I stood back and looked at its reactions. Then at least I would know when to run. Honeypot started talking to it and I told the others using the telepathy that it was calming down. Honeypot told us over the telepathy that it hated Tirana who had captured it. She also said it told us not to go to the statues. I sensed that the giant was loosing it. It got angrier and angrier. Finally I shouted, "RUN!". We left in a hurry, Velicia dragging Honeypot along and as soon as the door was shut behind us we could hear the pillars crumble. It had pulled the chains so hard it got free.

We hurried back to the room with the pit in the middle. The jelly had returned down there and we didn't want to disturb it, but we also knew there was a trap that raised it up into the room. I went first and looked for traps and found several. There were also some kind of magical traps on other tiles setting of lightning, but we got through without setting any off. We ended up at a double door in the other end of the room. I opened one of the doors and looked for traps. I didn't find any and hurried in. There were four statues, two on each side of both double doors, and an open gate as the ones we had seen before, but this one seemed to be to some general chaos place. The air was hard to breathe so I continued on as fast as I could up to the double doors at the other end of the room. Beyond was a corridor going right and left. To the right there were alcoves with statues of different humanoids. They didn't have any mantles and some had an arm broken off or a head. It looked more like petrified adventurers than actual statues. I had heard stories of monsters petrifying adventurers just by their appearance, so I stopped and pulled down my headband to cover my eyes. But I went left anyway. I heard a scratching sound and jumped back. Velicia tried it too but instead of sneaking out she took a few steps and set off a burst from her sword. Apparently she talked to someone who turned out to be two bralanis eladrins that Velicia had met before. They were called Robur and Ribar and were mercenaries known for taking low risk employment. They told us they had a cockatrice farm there and told us to go other way. We agreed as we could see it was a dead end.

We turned left instead. I sneaked ahead to scout. There was a cavern with a lava pool in the middle. In it two red dragons were bathing. I hesitated and the others caught up. We discussed what we should do using the telepathy. Honeypot said she had an idea and looked around the corner. Soon she said she thought they were only an illusion. I hesitated. Tirana had a black dragon at least. She might have red ones too. I decided to test it by throwing a pebble in a way that it would seem to have fallen from the roof. As well as I could see it fell on the dragons and bounced on them, but the dragons didn't react at all.

Nell followed by the party...

We decided to sneak past them, but not all was that good at stealth as I, so Honeypot used a ritual that turned them into small snakes. I activated my shadowflow armor and moved silently among the shadows, followed by three snakes. I entered a huge cave split by some water separating it in half. There was a small bridge connecting the halves but I noted that there also was a magical barrier of some kind. In the part I entered there were three strange stones, three stone elementals on fire and a kobold. I knew my armor wouldn't keep me hidden for long so I quickly climbed down to the water and prepared for throwing a dagger. The snakes had slithered to the entrance of the cave.

Tirana in the middle of her ritual.

I sneaked up to the bridge and hid next to the water. On the other side of the barrier was Tirana. I had never seen her before but it was easy to understand that was her. She was clad in all red and wielded the burning sword of wrath. The other swords hung in mid air behind her.

A discussion started but I interrupted and a fight broke out. I tripped the kobold with a thrown dagger so he ended up near Velicia and one of the burning earth elementals stumbled into the water but bounced against the magical barrier. Tirana was almost so caught up in her ritual so she hardly cared that we attacked. We soon destroyed the elementals and Gloriana killed the kobold but new elementals appeared out of the stones. Honeypot somehow managed to use magic to shut down one stone and then the other. She told us that they controlled the barrier and that now it would be possible to attack her through the barrier but you couldn't walk through it. I waited for the others to do the same when Velicia suddenly attacked Honey, but she missed. We fought the new elementals while Honeypot shut down the last of the stones. Now her ritual had lost its protection.

Tirana ran up to the bridge next to where I was hiding waving one of the swords, but I moved in under it while she stood on top. Then I sprang from the shadows and stabbed her hard making her bleed profoundly and moved up behind her as Velicia slashed her from the opposite side with the black sword we took from the sword room, in a well timed move. We felt weakened by just being next to her, but Tirana fell to her knees and then fell on her face in the middle of the bridge. Her body was still while her ritual fell apart. The swords suddenly flew through the air in all directions. I'm not sure what happened but I thought that I might have been hit by a sword straight in my stomach but I soon realized I was laying on the ground and a sword lay next to me. I picked it up and it seemed to be invaluable. It had gold and jewels all over the handle and looked very expensive. Velicia had a slightly glowing sword, Gloriana the burning sword and Honeypot had a slender beautifully shaped sword.

...

I'm not really sure how it happened but we returned to Magnimar and met with the bank which also was a temple to money and they didn't ask for the sword back. They had misplaced the contract. Somehow we knew that the fine script would require us to give them all the swords and we said we had lost the contract too but that we had killed the thief. They were content. I quenched a feeling that I should request the 10000 gp we had been offered for the job and thought that that might risk keeping the swords that would be worth lots more.