Session Three - The Hounds of Sir Chyde
After D-Dane, Gramorr, Meowianne, and Perrin Ashbone closed the door to the northern chamber, they paused to re-evaluate their options. To the west was a circular chamber with a looming white figure. To the East was the quicksilver glint of a mirror. Deciding the mirror couldn't be that bad, they went that way...
Two more paths opened from the eastern room, one running northwest, the other north. On one wall was a mirror, with an empty plinth before it. After a careful inspection of the other passages by Perrin, Meowianne and D-Dane went to investigate the plinth. The moment they crossed in front of the mirror (which both were careful not to look into), they froze, turning into frigid, petrified figures.
Perrin and Gramorr were able to deduce the magic had struck from being in front of the mirror, not simply looking into it. Barring any other options, they dragged the two petrified bodies up into the open air. Meowianne happened to be placed in a patch of sunlight---and the magical frost receded. After moments, both she and D-Dane were freed from their enchantment.
Perrin decided to get a bedroll from his horse to drape across the mirror.
The horse wasn't there.
Crump wasn't there.
They searched the glade around the mound, and nothing was to be found. The hunter attempted to track the animal, but was only able to follow the hoof marks for about thirty feet before they were lost in the tangled underbrush.
At that point, a voice called down to them from an indistinct upward position. It was Crump. He chided them for thinking he didn't see their 'slavering looks of greed,' reminding them that he recognized the thief in their midst, and giving them the ultimatum that they would never see him or their horse again, if they didn't give him the ring without any funny business.
A number of plans were bantered around. Kill Crump---but then where is the horse? Trick Crump somehow... Find treasure, and leave without him, replacing the horse later...
Unfortunately, Perrin was very attached to the mysterious fish bones he'd kept in the old glass globe (an heirloom from his departed parents, that they told him came from the Dolmenwood)--- Leaving the gear on the horse wasn't an option for him...
So, they went back down, fully planning to skin Crump alive if they could get their hands on him, later...
After covering the mirror with a strip from the tent, they moved to the western chamber.
A tall, white marble statue stood in the corner, her eyes blindfolded by a very real piece of cloth, a finger raised to her lips. Fearing sound might be a trigger for whatever dangers lay within, Meowianne hurled a rock straight into the statue's forehead. The resulting crack echoed down the halls---it was an exceptionally perfect shot!
A voice right behind them spoke. "The ring, bring me the ring... my only hope of salvation..."
Whirling around, they all stared in horror at the ghostly figure of an elven maiden, dressed in flowing white robes, right behind them. Her face was beautiful and beseeching, not at all threatening. She vanished, just before her fingers would have touched Meowianne.
They inspected the statue, but found nothing, eventually pressing on to the next chamber to the north. A large chapel, long disused and succumbing to rot and rubble, lay before them. An altar at the north held a figure of a saint, a red candle held aloft. A large tapestry hung on the western wall. After a brief inspection of the room, D-Dane lit the candle. Wild wind rushed through the room, carrying the sounds of battle and victory, and braying hounds. The wind rustled the tapestry, revealing a passage behind it.
The door to this passage was locked. Gramorr heard faint scuffling behind it. After a few unsuccessful attempts to pick it, Gramorr and D-Dane resorted to battering it down. As this went on, Meowianne looked down the northern corridor, and was met by the braying of hounds... She closed the door quickly.
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| The map thus far, made entirely by old-school GM-to-Player conversation. |
The other two were easily dispatched, but not until one had bitten Gramorr's left shoulder and Meowianne's left leg. The bites were bad enough to incapacitate the adventurers, but the acid that burned through flesh and tendons was crippling. Both characters left the encounter with permanently disabled limbs. From here on, Meowianne agreed to ride on the shoulders of D-Dane, her leg being wholly inoperable.
Inside the room they found a moldy book, with a gold inscription of a pastoral hunting story, telling of Sir Chyde and his favorite hounds. Only one hound was named---Flaegr.
While working to pick the lock of a box they found beneath a flagstone in the same room, two skeletons waltzed through the battered door, hovering in air, dancing.
"Dance with us," they said. The party, being in no position to argue, obliged.
During the dance, questions were asked:
Party: Were you elves? Was the statue of you?
Skeletons Woman: Dear me, no, though I'm flattered you would think I could look as beautiful as Princess Snowfall-At-Dusk.
Skeleton Man: What a tragic story, that...
Skeleton Woman: True, but all the most beautiful ones are.
Party: Princess Snowfall-At-Dusk? Is she interred here?
Skeleton Man: Why would she be? She is in her tower... in Frigia.
Party: What is the story? Why tragic?
Skeleton Woman: She fell in love with Sir Chyde. But her father disapproved, and locked her in a tower, in Frigia, the Cold Prince's realm.
The party then had an aside, where it was discovered that Meowianne knew of the Cold Prince vaguely, and remembered the stories of Frigia, and how he used to have sway over the Dolmenwood, but was mysteriously banished, years and years ago.
They noted that they didn't know who her father was, but did not ask the Skeletons about him.
Party: Who are you?
Skeleton Man: Lord Grofar and Lady Elizabent.
Party: Who else is here?
Skeleton Woman: Lots of people!
Party: Is Sir Chyde here?
Skeletons: Of course! He is a wonderful man.
Party: "Is?" You talk with him?
Skeletons: Yes... although he doesn't say much back. I don't think he can hear us.
Party: Can you take us to him?
Skeletons: Of course! Dance with us, and we'll show you the way!
So, the party snagged the box (full of relatively valuable treasure, and a box of suspected holy wafers), and danced after them to a large, pillared hall. The skeletons danced up the hall, and through a set of closed double doors... With two enormous stone hounds, collared, and chained to posts by the doors.
Gramorr immediately walked after them and tried to open the door.
To the party's horror, the moment he touched the stone doors, both hounds animated and pounced on him. Within moments, he had been ripped in two between the enormous beasts, his body tearing apart like a piece of ragged meat, his spine hanging from the stump of his cooling trunk.
When the party called "Flaegr," one of the dogs looked up, but didn't respond further.
Suffice to say, they turned and ran back the way they'd come... And ran right into a fighter named Couscous, who'd just come up the passage after them! Fancy that...
And here we leave them, on the first player death of the campaign, the blood of Gramorr still dripping from the mangled carcass in the fangs of the stone hounds of Sir Chyde.
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