Chapter 26: Dominion of Ruin

[ChubbyPixie]

Disappointed in the failure of his magic to grip the beast, Kiri unsheathes whips his two-handed sword from his back and swings for the knees. In his haste he mistimes the blow and his blade tastes only air...

Attack with Two-Handed Sword (THAC0:18): To Hit: [1d20+3]=3+3=6 Damage vs. s/m: [1d10+6]=7+6=13, vs. Lg: [3d6+6]=11+6=17

[Inferno]

The Ruins of Thracia, Pictland, the World of Hyboria
Day Twenty-two. Mid-morning. 1st day of the month of Ublex, 1280th year of the Age of Aquilonia







Like unto demigods from the mythic age of Thracia, the explorers of antiquity make battle with a monstrous, one-eyed giant of the ancient world!

Peering out from behind a cracked column, the masked wizard Amethu distracts the wounded behemoth with his mystic hammer, but cannot land a telling blow against the warted shell that serves as its skin!

To Torix, it seems all hope is lost. The primitive Pict prays to Jhebbal Sag...



... and offers a pact of sacrifice to the fearsome Lord of Beasts.

At that moment, as if in answer, the shadow of a soaring hawk darts knife-like across the hideous face of the towering abomination, in a region devoid of beast or bird!

Suddenly, Torix is struck with divine inspiration! Knowing what he must do, he grips the magic spear, forged in fabled Atlantis, and hurls it with all his might! The enchanted missile flies true and impales the cyclops' great eye, blinding it!



The colossal cyclops stamps its cloven hooves in furious rage, causing the very ground to quaver, throwing Kiri off balance mid-swing!

Against the roaring, sightless leviathan, fearless Cruloc (wounded nigh to blindness himself!) and fearful Dahinna set their blades to work until they are each crimson to the hilt!

The Cimmerian and the Zamoran smite dead the blinded behemoth where it stands! The immense spiked bludgeon falls from its lifeless hand and the terrible giant topples like a tree, plummeting down in the direction of Kiri!


Actions?!


Map:

One square = 10 feet. Top of map is North. Grey rubble slows movement, white rubble is impassable to human-sized creatures.

Area Map:

X marks the adventurers' position.

Behind the DM Screen:

Initiative: Party: [1d6]=6, Monsters: [1d6]=4 Party wins.
In which direction does Cyclops fall? Clock face: [1d12]=1 Direction is 1 o'clock. Toward Kiri!

PC Status:

Amethu: Verulian Grand Magus Cleric/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 17/17, Spells: 7/8 1st lvl, 4/5 2nd lvl
Cruloc: Cimmerian Northman Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 30/54
Dahinna: Zamoran Southwoman Thief 5: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 25/25
Kiri Khutan: Kambujan Easterner Fighter/Magic-User 3/3: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 21/21, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 0/1 2nd lvl
Torix: Pict Savage Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 2, HP: 38/38

PC Magic:

Enlarge (Amethu): Target: Cruloc. Duration: 26 rounds.
Spiritual Hammer (Amethu): Duration: 2 rounds.

Player Resources:

The Struggle To Survive (the story so far)
Mysteries Strange and Deadly (player clues and notes)
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

The ground shudders as the monstrous bulk crashes down in a bone-shaking thud and Cruloc, on unsteady legs, staggers backwards and collapses against the cracked marble of a fallen column. Blood streams from an appalling gash on his temple, matting his hair and painting his face with the crimson of the fight. He blinks, trying to clear the haze from his eyes, but his senses are adrift in a mist of phantom echoes.

"C-Crom's curse on this world - my head rings with the toll of ten anvils. I swear the earth and sky have traded places."

Trembling hands instinctively draw strips of linen from a belt pouch and begin binding the wounds which no civilised man could have hoped to endure.

[hedgeknight]

Dahinna

Shaken and still shaking from the battle, the rogue looks at the blood covering her blades and forearms and wonders what else this cursed city will throw at them! Seeing Cruloc in trouble, she hurries to him.
"Can I help?"
She is not sure how, since he is still in giant-form.

[ravenn4544]

Amethu tends to the mighty warrior - more impressed with his prowess and glad he is able to assist on this journey.

Cure Light Wounds [1d8]=8

After, he will examine the strange creature that sought to challenge thier path.

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

Cruloc squints upward at the blurred, doubled form of Dahinna.

"One of you tie this around my wrist." He holds a strip of linen out to empty air beside the Zamoran. "And as for the other - begone."

[jemmus]

Torix puts his moccasin boot on the monster's face and wrenches the ancient spear out of the huge eye socket. He wipes the bloody blade clean on the thing's goat-like legs, then goes to Cruloc. He again takes leaves from his shoulder bag, chews them into a pulp, and carefully smears the pungent salve onto the discolored skin of the Cimmerian's shoulder. You're made of tough meat and bone, Cimmerian.

Tonight he will work on a song to sing-chant to the drums at the fire when he's back in the village.
Five descended a high cliff
And into an ancient city came
Its builders long dead
It was broken stone
And desolate.

But a monster came
A spawn of a god or a devil
A giant, shaped like a man or ape
But with the legs of a goat,
And three horns on its head,
And not two eyes, but a single one
Round, and bigger than the fist of the biggest ape,
An eye full of evil, hatred and rage....

It needs a lot of work, but there will be plenty of long, quiet watches for that. He knows that no Pict has seen a fiend like that one before. The monster may have been as old as the ancient spear this ruined city. The tale is worthy of a fire-circle song. Perhaps it will add to the elders and shamans wisdom in understanding this strange and deadly world.

And he'll think on what sacrifice he can offer to Jhebbal Sag for the succor it provided today. For now he has surely drawn attention. And that's not something anyone but the strongest of shamans would want to do.

[Inferno]

The Ruins of Thracia, Pictland, the World of Hyboria
Day Twenty-two. Mid-morning. 1st day of the month of Ublex, 1280th year of the Age of Aquilonia







The echoes of the ferocious battle fade and the grave-like silence of the lost city returns.

Kiri had narrowly avoided being crushed to death by the gigantic monster as it plunged to the stones like a felled redwood, shaking the ground anew.

Torix ascends the dead behemoth, deep in thought.



His debt to Jhebbal Saag weighing heavy on his mind, the Pict savage wrenches free the peerless Atlantean spear from the wet crimson ruin of the cyclops' eye.

Torix joins Dahinna and Cruloc in treating the titanic barbarian's injuries. (+1hp)

Then Amethu the masked sorcerer-priest, with devout orisons to Uthoth of Verulia...



...bestows blessings of miraculous healing upon mighty Cruloc. (+8hp)

The scholarly explorer next examines the colossal cyclops. Some twenty feet tall, the one-eyed giant of a distant age possesses the legs and hooves of a goat, like a satyr from ancient mythology. It wears no garments and its only possession is its enormous bludgeon, a tree trunk hammered through with iron spikes. This open-air ruin of a temple might be its lair, with signs of some vast blocks of rubble having been moved to make a clearing.


Actions?!


Map:

One square = 10 feet. Top of map is North. Grey rubble slows movement, white rubble is impassable to human-sized creatures.

Area Map:

X marks the adventurers' position.



PC Status:

Amethu: Verulian Grand Magus Cleric/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 17/17, Spells: 6/8 1st lvl, 4/5 2nd lvl
Cruloc: Cimmerian Northman Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 39/54
Dahinna: Zamoran Southwoman Thief 5: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 25/25
Kiri Khutan: Kambujan Easterner Fighter/Magic-User 3/3: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 21/21, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 0/1 2nd lvl
Torix: Pict Savage Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 2, HP: 38/38

PC Magic:

Enlarge (Amethu): Target: Cruloc. Duration: 24 rounds.

Player Resources:

The Struggle To Survive (the story so far)
Mysteries Strange and Deadly (player clues and notes)
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)

[hedgeknight]

Dahinna

Sticking to the shadows and cover as much as she can, the rogue of Zamora moves a little further into the jumbled mess of stone blocks and debris. She moves as far as the spiraled pattern on the stone floor, looking carefully for any sign of movement or other such beasts as the monstrous cyclops.

[ravenn4544]

Amethu will take a few minutes to search the apparent lair of the strange creature.

[jemmus]

Torix joins Amethu in investigating what may be the monster's lair, looking for a place where it might bed down. Even the spawn of a god or devil must want a place to escape from the rain and the cold.

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

Bone and muscle knit together, and there is an audible pop as the barbarian's ruined shoulder is healed.

He addresses Amethu with gratitude in his voice.
"I owe nothing to your god, but I'll not spit on good fortune."

The stench of the cyclops lingers in the air. They had fought like men possessed, hacking and slashing until the one-eyed giant's roars had faded into a gurgling death rattle.

He blinks furiously, but the world continues to swim in and out of focus. Where he knows there are four companions, his mind paints eight shadowy figures wavering like phantoms in his sight. He steadies himself against a fallen piece of masonry, though his legs feel like lead, and his surroundings are a sickening whirl of shadows and stone. He wills the maelstrom between his ears to abate and forces the spectres to align, narrowing his eyes until the eight become... five? Whether a man of flesh and blood or a wraith conjured by his rattled mind, unbidden and out of place, remains the gaunt elder smiling curiously at him from beside Kiri Khutan of Kambuja.

"I have many torches," Cruloc announces, unshouldering his backpack and extending it towards the loinclothed apparition, whose mouth rounds and gentle eyes widen in good-natured mock surprise. Unable to count past ten, he resorts to Cimmerian math. "More than a Zingaran bridesmaid has moles."

The Northman keeps watch while the others investigate.

[Inferno]

The Ruins of Thracia, Pictland, the World of Hyboria
Day Twenty-two. Mid-morning. 1st day of the month of Ublex, 1280th year of the Age of Aquilonia







In the ashes of Thracia, the explorers search the wreckage of a once-magnificent temple, consumed by the unrelenting crawl of the ages.

In the lair of the gigantic cyclops, they find a cold, primitive fire pit in a clearing in the rubble, and little else.

A strange pile of immense stone blocks looms nearby, like toy blocks stacked by a child except each must weigh a ton... easily moved by the twenty foot tall, one-eyed behemoth.


Actions?


Map:

One square = 10 feet. Top of map is North. Grey rubble slows movement, white rubble is impassable to human-sized creatures.

Area Map:

X marks the adventurers' position.



PC Status:

Amethu: Verulian Grand Magus Cleric/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 17/17, Spells: 6/8 1st lvl, 4/5 2nd lvl
Cruloc: Cimmerian Northman Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 39/54
Dahinna: Zamoran Southwoman Thief 5: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 25/25
Kiri Khutan: Kambujan Easterner Fighter/Magic-User 3/3: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 21/21, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 0/1 2nd lvl
Torix: Pict Savage Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 2, HP: 38/38

PC Magic:

Enlarge (Amethu): Target: Cruloc. Duration: 14 rounds.

Player Resources:

The Struggle To Survive (the story so far)
Mysteries Strange and Deadly (player clues and notes)
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)

[jemmus]

Torix goes to the stacked stones and looks at them and the area more closely. "What thoughts could have been moving around in the monster's brain to make it want to do this?" he thinks.

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

Still a giant but dwarfed by the stinking corpse now gathering flies outside the crumbling lair, Cruloc surveys the vast sentinels of stone, his suspicion aroused. His gestures echo the Pict's thoughts. He drags his rough hand across his unshaven chin, whose whiskers now rival a porcupine's quills, and considers how best to displace them.

With a pantherish leap, he springs onto the pile of stones, uncoiling his rope with practiced ease and looping it around the topmost one. He throws down the other end to his stalwart companions.

"Torix, Kiri, Amethu... take this and heave when I begin pushing." Pointing towards Dahinna and the half-naked elder, "You two stand guard."

If the others agree and this method is successful, he will continue until a passage is made wide enough for a thief to gain what lies within or beneath.

[hedgeknight]

Dahinna

Standing well clear of the area, so as not to get squashed beneath one of the stones, the rogue does as Cruloc suggests, her eyes watching the shadows and ruins for any sign of movement.

[ravenn4544]

Amethu agrees in principle with the concept, and proceeds to help and, of course, stand well clear.

[jemmus]

Torix tries to envision how the stone will fall and where it will land. He pulls the rope from what he judges to be the safest direction.

[ChubbyPixie]

Assuming this crude stone monument to be a rudimentary lock box for the creatures valuables, Kiri grasps the rope and puts his back into it on Cruloc’s signal, leveraging all the strength his frame can muster:

STR Check (18/00): [1d20]=20

Whelp…

[Inferno]

STR Check (18/00): [1d20]=20

Ha. Fortunately, STR saves weren't required, just a total amount of STR needed to be brought to bear (with Cruloc's STR multiplied due to Amethu's Enlarge spell).