Grimwald the Sage heard the warning horn and it surprised him. The two guards he had posted atop his tower saw something significant headed his way. Grimwald put down his books and writings and scurried up the steps. He joined the guards who strained to make out the distant travelers as they approached. Four men, a donkey, and a halfing?
Grimwald had commissioned four adventurers to track down the trolls that stole his precious find – a Stone of Seeing. He provisioned them and set them on a road he carefully mapped for them. It was a long shot that these four might follow such a cold trail and wind up bringing the stone back. In fact, it was a bit of a long shot that they would make it back at all. Despite Grimwald’s typical pessimism, he still hoped they had his treasure in hand.
As the party approached, he could see that they were battered but whole. The halfing was none other than his one-time best burglar, Galbo Greenjacket. Grimwald and Galbo lost each other when the trolls attacked them. Grimwald made his way home thinking Galbo was gone for good. But he always was a resilient little creature.
When they arrived at the tower, Beowulf, Magnus, Sirius, and Aran looked bedraggled and weary. Most tired of all was their poor donkey who seemed heavily laden.
“Well, did you bring me the Seeing Stone?” asked Grimwald anxiously. “Yes, Grey beard, we did. You didn’t tell us it would be guarded by such creatures” replied Beowulf with a frown.
“What happened?” demanded the mage.
Beowulf began “We found the Runic Gate. It was obviously ancient and well hidden. Only the troll spoor gave us a hint of where it was. We entered the Dwarrowdelve there.”
“There were steps down ending at a door. When we stormed in, we found a hill giant cooking over a fire pit in a large chamber. He wasn’t happy to see us. Sirius tried to cast a spell on him, but something was wrong with the magic.”
“The Gods wanted blood.” Sirius explained to his fellow magician.
“We had to dispatch him the old fashioned way. With sword and mace.”
“We were lucky” chimed Magnus.
“We were lucky no one was hurt. We had him two against one with Magnus and I in the fight. Aran did good work shooting carefully.”
“I thought he would hit us!” said Magnus nervously.
“And there was blood to appease the gods…” smirked Sirius.
“As soon as we dispatched the giant, we opened one of the two doors at the far end of the room and things got worse. Two trolls in a much smaller space. None of us had ever fought trolls before. They are tough bastards. Hard to put down. But we managed it.”
“We continued on. One passage ended in a dead end. Despite the torchlight we made slow going. We ran into a trio of kobolds. When Aran shot one, the others fled. We followed the other passage and felt a strange draft. The way ahead was broken. It was as if the floor had cracked and fallen away. We were blocked by a large crevasse.”
“We thought to jump or climb across, then thought better of it. We went back to the giant’s room and tried the other door. That lead to a staircase down. A safer approach. We came to a crossing passage with two doors. Based on our recent experience, we decided not to enter them. We took the open passage to the right.”
“Had they entered the first room, they would have found me” interjected Galbo Greenjacket. “After escaping the trolls that stole the stone from you, Grimwald, I tracked them back to their lair. I did not have the strength of a Beowulf or a Magnus. I have patience and stealth. When the giant went out to hunt, I snuck in and his myself among some old barrels. When it was safe, I explored very cautiously. I found a large, blue topped mushroom that was chest high on me.”
“That’s still not very high” laughed Aran.
Sirius bowed to Grimwald. “Grey Master,” he started formally, “We wished to find the stone rather than fight every creature living in the underground. I cast Wall of Stone to block the passage behind us, so we could stay focused on the mission.”
Grimwald nodded. Perhaps he had underestimated this crew.
Sirius continued “We entered another room where we found bags of treasure. We searched these carefully for the stone. Some wished to leave with the treasure, but I drove them on to find the Stone.”
“Bull” thought Aran “he was the one who was so eager for treasure!”
“We found another stair down. We came to a fork. There was a door ahead of us or a passage to our left. I cast another Wall of Stone to block the passage behind us and let the previous wall crumble.”
Galbo added “I heard the crashing stones and snuck out to see what was happening.”
“Perhaps the noise was unwise” continued Sirius “since the creature in the room heard something that drew him out when I let the first wall crumble. It was nothing I had ever seen before. It was the size of a large bear, maybe larger. It has dark grey skin the color of wet stone with a pale grey belly. It had huge eyes like an insect and giant pincer like jaws that looked as if they could crush a man. Its hands were vicious, thick claws.”
“That sounds like an Umber Hulk. Very precious the blood of an Umber Hulk. An alchemist’s prize!” tittered Grimwald.
“Then let an alchemist fight one” grumbled Beowulf.
“I took an aimed shot with my strongest arrow and hit him square in the chest. It bounced off him. Then we ran.”
“I had just enough time to cast another Wall of Stone behind us. I thought we were safe. But then I heard a terrible scratching sound as if the creature were trying to scratch its way through. I was confident in the spell. My masters taught that it was impenetrable. Somehow the creature clawed its way through, so I had to keep casting them just to slow him down.”
“Clever!” quipped Grimwald approvingly.
“Still, we hadn’t found the Seeing Stone” added Beowulf. “So we forged ahead until we came to a very large door. We forced our way through. In the dim torch light, we saw the eyes of four trolls approaching us. Aran shot one and knocked him back. Magnus and I charged forward to attack. When we fought two of them, at least we had the advantage in numbers. Almost right away, one troll swiped Magnus with his claw. He was down and badly wounded. I tried to make my way to him, but two of them were on me. Aran managed to disable the one he hit first after many arrow shots. In the meantime, Magnus’s troll hit him again and wounded him even worse. He was out cold. Sirius cast fear on one of the two fighting me and forced him to flee the room. Then he had to cast another Wall of Stone to keep the Umber Hulk at bay. It looked bad for us.” Beowulf sighed.
“We kept fighting since we had no retreat. We could hear the Umber Hulk scratching at the wall behind us. The trolls seemed to brush off wounds that would have killed two men. Finally we hit on the way to get them. Aran would shoot and knock them down and then when they were vulnerable I would take a power blow to smash them. It didn’t always work but it gave us an edge. We disabled them all and then took some time to dismember them. It was a messy business. And tiring too.”
“What are you complaining about? I was on the floor bleeding to death!” cried Magnus.
“True. He was hovering on the edge of death when I gave him the healing potion. That revived him a bit. It took two more potions to get him fit to travel. We found those and the Seeing Stone in the backpack that had been stolen from you. Then we needed to get out!”
“There was another large door that the troll had fled through. We headed that way. When we entered the next room, it was large and full of Kobolds. Dozens of them! They swarmed us at the door. Aran shot one and split his little skull right open. I quickly killed a couple on the way to their chieftain. Between the split skulls and the dead chieftain, they started high-tailing away from us. Their escape route was through a secret passage. We followed them out that way. But the Umber Hulk was still on our tail. He had been joined by an angry troll too! The race was on to get out before the Umber Hulk and troll caught up with us.”
“But the treasure…we had to stop to grab some on our way out.” Magnus smiled with satisfaction. “Obviously!” added Sirius.
“I’m not sure it was the smartest idea but we all did grab as much as we could carry from the pile of bags filled with coins. It slowed us down on the way out though. It gave the Umber Hulk time to burrow through the Walls of Stone that Sirius kept casting. Even so, we managed to get to the Giant’s room and get out. We loaded the treasure on the donkey and made our way here. We’ve been on the road for a week. Now we are here with the Seeing Stone!”
“Good work!” cheered Grimwald surprisingly enthusiastic for one normally so dour. “Now, let’s celebrate with some wine. Greebo, draw baths for these men and bring meat and cheese! Did you make a map?”
“No, but we can recall it exactly. There were three levels…”
15mm Dungeon 