Chapter 15: Return to Darktower
15.1: Return to Dwarven Lands
The group safely teleported to the dwarven/gnomish city of Maker's Deep, renowned for it's master engineers and artificers. Daergel was delighted to see a nearly 20' tall mechanical guardian standing near the platform the arrived onto. While he investigated the thing, the city guards welcomed the rest of the party and gave Morgrim directions to the local taverns and other amenities. Daergel caught up with the gnomish engineer he had met at Warmaul Haul, and spent a week learning more of the traditional gnomish craft, while Hork, Morgrim, and Magnus headed north back to Longbeard Hall to seal off the old highway once more, lest the trolls find their way into the dwarven lands.
After sealing the highway, they headed to Battlehammer Hall, where a letter from the King of Windmere was waiting for Morgrim. He also had a chance to reunite with his charming wife Olga (whose extramarital affair with a strapping young dwarven lad was interrupted by her husband's return) and bring her up to speed on the plans to re-populate Longbeard Hall. She showed the usual dwarven disdain for halflings, travel, and gnomes, but in the end the promise of a valuable trade route seemed to win her over. Unfortunately, during the conversation, Hork picked up Olga's nasty habit of spitting on the floor when she heard a word she didn't like (like "halfling", "gnome", etc). The party spent the evening enjoying the fine products of Olga's brew hall, and Morgrim was chided for not bringing more money into the family coffers ("isn't adventuring supposed to be a lucrative profession?")
The party reunited back in Stonehome, where Cedric Ironbeard and his team of master armorsmiths had almost completed Morgrim's new armor.
15.2 Reunion with an Old Friend
Morgrim finally received his long-awaited reward for helping the Gnomish Merchants' Guild of Arcturus retrieve their goods from Hailstorm Tower (and for helping rid the Ironbeards' Mirthril Mine of goblins: an amazing upgrade and set of enchantments for Dardurin's Armor from Cedric Ironbeard, the world-renowned master armorsmith. It fit like a glove, and Morgrim spent the rest of the afternoon strutting about Stonehome, enjoying the respect and awe the armor evoked from the dwarven populace.
Finally, the party met up for supper at their regular inn at Stonehome. As they settled down to eat, a familiar voice said "Well, fancy meeting you guys here!"
It was Jimmy, of all people. He explained that the Alteran military that had been assisting/occupying Darktower had cracked down further on illicit activities, making it advantageous for him to get out of town for the time being. However, before he had left, he had promised his friend and former adventuring companion, the founder of Darktower, Reginald Drake, that he would track down his best field agents and send them to lend what assistance they could in the war against the hobgoblins. Jimmy had last heard from the party when they were in the dwarven lands, so he had come to Stonehome in search of them. Colleagues of his here in Stonehome had alerted him to the party's return to the city.
When Hork implied that they made too much money these days to bother with Jimmy's little missions, he reminded them that he was their boss after all, and also indicated that if they completed this last mission, he would have their guild marks removed, and they could consider their obligations to the thieves' guild fulfilled. He also hinted that it would probably be in Mogrim's best interest, as an up-and-coming cleric of Moradin, to end his association with the guild.
Reluctantly, the party agreed to return to Darktower and help Lord Drake defend the town from the hobgoblin horde. The next morning, they borrowed some sturdy riding rams and began their journey out of the dwarven lands. At Crossroads they bought four fast horses and continued, making good time through the elven wood Elithyrin and back north to Duvik's Pass.
15.3 News From the Front Lines
They found Duvik's Pass overrun with soldiers, and after asking around, found out that these were the soldiers who had been stationed at Darktower for the past several months. A new regiment of the Alteran military had arrived at Darktower, and this regiment had been orderd to fall back to Duvik's Pass, escorting one last train of refugees from Darktower. While the second regiment had caused tremendous havoc amongst the hobgoblins, and had broken the siege of Darktower, they too, were expected to fall back to Duvik's Pass shortly, leaving Darktower defended only by it's founder Reginald Drake, his loyal followers, and the adventurers that called Darktower home.
They also learned that the hobgoblin force that had been laying siege to Darktower was only a small fraction of the full hobgoblin horde. Most of the Hobgoblins were busy building a defensive infrastructure of watchtowers, keeps, and roads in the northern forest, while more still were busy settling the hills south of Darktower.
They also ran into Daergel's Uncle Kiro, who had come south from Darktower with the refugee train. He had had enough of living on the frontier, and was now planning on heading west to the free cities, maybe to open an inn somewhere. After a shared meal, he bid the tired comrades goodnight, and wished them luck in their adventures.
15.4 News from the Front Lines
The next morning, the party chatted with some newly-arrived mercenaries over breakfast. The mercenaries had just arrived and were soaked from an overnight downpour. The day was overcast, with drizzle, and a fog rolling in from the west. The mercenaries were on their way to Darktower; word had been spread amongst the free cities that Lord Drake was looking for mercs and the pay was good. However, due to the continued problems with hobgoblins between Duvik's Pass and Darktower, they were waiting for more mercenaries to arrive before completing their journey, to take advantage of the safety of numbers.
After breakfast, the party stocked up on beer (since Darktower, being cut off from trade, probably didn't have a reliable supply) and started off. They took a few minutes at the northern gates to chat with the guards about the hobgoblin movements, and get a view of the hills from the ramparts. The fog was sweeping in quickly, which seemed like a good sign, since it would hide them from their enemies as they traveled. After some debate, the party decided to stick to the road instead of trying to stay out of sight in the hills and valleys to the east or west.
About six miles outside of Duvik's Pass, some shadowy figures appeared out of the fog ahead. They were an injured adventuring party from Darktower. They had just wiped out a camp of hobgoblins and were looking for a spot to hide and recover before heading back to Darktower. They had flagged down our heroes in hopes of some quick healing before continuing on their way.
As Magnus and Morgrim healed the worst of their wounds, they shared what information they could. The hobgoblins remaining to the south of Darktower were disorganized and split into many small bands, but not yet defeated. Adventurers from Darktower had been executing raids, causing further chaos amongst the hobgoblins, but it was taking time. In the meantime, the hobgoblins had sent the Black Hand, their elite contingent of adventurer-hunters, to the area to track down and eliminate the adventurers causing so much trouble to their military units in the area. The injured party was hoping to quickly get away from the hobgoblin camp they had wiped out before a unit from the Black Hand got on their trail.
As the parties conversed, the sounds of baying wolves could be heard in the distance, seemingly from the direction the other party had come from. The ranger of the group mentioned that with wolves for tracking, there was little chance the party could escape detection. They considered making a run for the safety of Duvik's Pass, but Morgrim volunteered to stand with them and face the coming threat. The other party weren't happy about the idea of facing members of the Black Hand, even with allies, but there seemed no other option. The combined group found a defensive position and waited.
15.5 Return of the Black Hand
Soon enough, a unit of the Black Hand arrived. As they drew closer, Daergel realized that two of the hobgoblins looked familiar: their leader was the dual-shortsword-wielding warrior the party had previously killed, and a wizard amongst them was the wizard that had escaped from that previous encounter. However, this time, they had a larger contingent of allies: a cleric, two archers, four swordsmen riding giant blue reptiles, and a enormous, muscle-bound bugbear.
The hobgoblins held back initially while their wizard blasted the adventurers with one fireball after another. The clerics amongst the adventurers swarmed the wizard with spiritual weapons, and the battle was joined. Most of the other adventurers, less experienced than our heroes, and already wounded, were of little help, and things looked grim early on. However, our heroes fought a smart fight, taking out the bugbear (who had been enlarged and strengthened by magical means) and putting pressure on the hobgoblin spellcasters early on. Daergel made good use of his new spell-storing crossbow bolts, and Hork took out the enemy leader quickly and kept the swordsmen and their dangerous mounts occupied while Daergel and Morgrim dealt with the spellcasters. After a fierce battle, several of the hobgoblins escaped, but not before all but one of the other adventuring party had been brought down or had fled.
The survivors ran for Duvik's Pass (after discovering their horses dead or gone) to regroup.
!5.6 The Hobgoblin Watchtower
Back in Duvik's Pass, Magnus informed the group that he sensed a greated understanding of his deity's magic just beyond his grasp, and if he were to spend a week in meditation and prayer, he was sure he would unlock the power of teleportation. After some debate, the rest of the party decided to make a run into the hobgoblin territory and cause as much trouble as possible while Magnus spent the week meditating. The adventurers they had saved on the road decided to accompany them.
In the meantime, Magnus also used his Sending spell to get some information from folks in Darktower. First he contacted Dunbar the Barkeep, but he was hiding out from hobgoblins in a cave several miles west of Darktower. Next he contacted Mork, who was in Darktower, and was able to communicate with Lord Drake on their behalf.
The party's first day of raiding the hobgoblin territory passed uneventfully, as they covered ground in a semi-circular area north of Duvik's Pass. The second day they traveled more boldly and came upon a hobgoblin watchtower, and a band of injured, weary adventurers keeping an eye on it from around 700 feet away.
The adventurers explained to the party that this was one of the last holdouts of hobgoblins south of Darktower; the majority of them had recently beat a full retreat to the North Forest. This adventuring party had been keeping an eye on the tower, not wanting it's inhabitants to escape, but had been unable to launch a successful assault due to the four powerful war mages manning the arrow slits of the tower's top floor.
While Morgrim chatted with the group, Hork charged towards the tower with gusto, screaming an orcish war cry and holding her axe over her head. She was promptly fireballed by one of the war mages and beat a hasty retreat.
When the others were ready, they made a co-ordinated rush at the tower, while Daergel and Gareth the ranger approached stealthily from the sides. Hork, Morgrim, Murdock the dwarven barbarian, Baris the human warrior, and Gavin the cleric were attacked by bolts of acid as soon as they came within 600 feet of the tower. The assault forced Murdock, Baris, and Gavin into hiding quickly. A few seconds later, Morgrim and Hork were also forced to take cover and get healed.
Eventually, Daergel made it to the tower's corner unseen, and climbed to the roof. There, he fastened a rope, and Hork bolted forward and climbed up as well. While they swept downward through the tower, Morgrim and the others dealt with four hobgoblin warriors on the large blue lizards. After they quickly killed two and drove the others off, they continued to the tower and started beating on the gate.
Before long they had swept through the tower, killing the four war mages (but not before being sliced up by the clouds of tiny blades the mages summoned around themselves, and being burned again and again by the magical flames the warmages sheathed themselves in), and scaring off the rest of the archers and soldiers.
Beaten and battered, the party rushed back to Duvik's Pass to recover once again.
A few days later, Magnus was done his meditation, and teleported the party to just outside the south gates of Darktower.