The End: The Third Party vs. The Amazons

This marks the official end of both the "Third Party" (a.k.a. "Good Intentions") and "The Amazons" campaigns in my larger Ruins of Adventure setting. Some time ago The Amazons closed in on the other party whom they had been hunting and turned over the final versions of the character sheets with detailed instructions on how they should be run to fight the "Third Party". While the botted-PvP showdown did not result in a TPK on either side, nor resulted in the end of the larger campaign, both groups have chosen to retire the characters and move on to other games, leaving behind a double handful of rather badass NPCs, some new dungeons, a vision of the pending apocalypse, and some seriously messed up politics for the many other Ruins of Adventure parties to deal with in the future...

2nd of Marpenoth, 1362 D.R.

Grimnir and company stood in the central square of Hillsfar, discussing what to do and where to go. They were startled by a polite, "Ahem," from behind and turned to see Elissa Bivant-Mondaviak standing there with them. The Lady Bivant demanded, politely, for the return of the gloves that Grimnir had made from her husband's corpse, but was refused. Grimnir rebutted by repeatedly accusing her of being Tyr, or his present incarnation, a thing which she flatly denied.

Of course, the lady did not take this refusal lightly. There was a snap of fingers, a shimmer in the air, and a half dozen angry Amazons appeared, ready to throw down.

Battle Cry struck first, pronouncing a divine curse on Grimnir, stating:

"Grimnir, Squire of Cryptgarten, you are found guilty in the eyes of Assuran the Doombringer. You have killed your vassals, consorted with devils, betrayed your city, raised an army of the dead, and awakened that which should not be. You have forced innocents to bathe in the disgusting froth of their slain families, and demanded fealty from them thereafter. Know that no one, man or child, fiend or mortal, living or dead shall listen to your words nor obey your voice, nor that of your children's, children's, children, until you have yourself bathed in the blood of the evil which you have awakened."

Grimnir simply nodded along, matter of factly, at her entirely true pronouncement. Then proceeded to pummel Lady Bivant with a barrage of eldritch blasts, quickly followed up with a sword in the back from Morgianna, killing the councilwoman. Grimnir and company were stunned, and checked several times, but the lady was really quite dead.

Melastasya, who was hanging out by the citadel, shrugged and fired a trebuchet at the square, sending her friends and Amazons alike diving for cover, save Don't Fail, who stepped in front of Ash and transformed herself into living steel, shattering the projectile.

The Amazons did not take the death of their patron well, and retaliated, with many a cry for "Vengeance", as might be expected. Princess dove at Morgianna, stabbing her repeatedly. Dragon Bait hacked Traithe up severely with Worthy of Vengeance, Hot Flanks unleashed a half-dozen simultaneous fireballs (almost a meteor swarm) from her rod, Finds Them and Kills Them cripled Kevorkian with a harm spell, and Don't Fail severed Grimnir's right arm with a ring of disintegration.

Not really ready for such an assault, Grimnir grabbed Kevorkian, Dame, Morgianna, his pet beholder, and Elissa's corpse and teleported several blocks away, narrowly dodging a dimensional anchor fired at him by Battle Cry. Traithe responded likewise, disapparating in a cloud of disappearing smoke and fleeing into the city's sewers. Ash simply leaned back to watch the fun.

Experiment 321 rushed in and incapacitated Finds Them and Kills Them with a quick backstab from a poisoned knife, only to find himself being chased off and the Amazon healed by her unicorn companion. Noting Ash's refusal to help the others, Mel shadow-stepped to the square and started attacking Ash, only to be thwarted again and again by the elf mage's new mastery of Chronomancy and ability to annul her actions by creating temporal paradoxes.

With the majority of their targets apparently fled, Doesn't Shake and Princess flew into the air, eventually spotting Grimnir and the others, who they proceeded to aerially bombard with flame strikes and sunbolts. Grimnir woke up the beholder, who turned his anti-magic eye towards the flying Amazons, intercepting their spells. Unfortunately, the curse lingering over Grimnir took hold and the beholder turned his eye-rays on his would-be master, disintegrating Grimnir.

Distraught, Kevorkian reached into his pack and pulled out the enigmatic bauble that the party had found in Yarash's lair, which he proceeded to toss into the air and destroy with a barrage of eldritch blasts...


2nd of Marpenoth, 1362 D.R.

With Grimnir apparently slain and the rest of their, definitely secondary, quarry suddenly vanished, the Amazons returned to the body of their slain patron. Despite repeated attempts, they were unable to raise Elissa from the dead (as she failed her resurrection survival roll). Don't Fail messaged the Council of Phlan, to inform them of the deaths of Councilwoman Elissa and the traitor Grimnir.

Free of their obligations of both fealty and vengeance, the girls looked around at the city in which they found themselves. Hillsfar was a mess -- the citadel all but destroyed, the walls breached, and all but a tenth of the city's population dead from disease, war, and the economic collapse that followed. Blaming the woes of the city on Grimnir (which was, at least partly and indirectly, correct), the girls agreed that they should try to set the city aright and begin to undo some of the damage wrought by the monster whom they had been hunting for the last year.

The people of Hillsfar, unwilling to provoke the women who had so easily trounced the party that had saved them from dragons and beholders less than an hour before, quickly, and with feigned enthusiasm, welcomed their new "liberators" and rulers...


2nd of Marpenoth, 1372 D.R.

Grimnir, quite alive and not a pile of dust, and friends (sans beholders, followers, or hangers on) found themselves standing in the courtyard of Kryptgarten Keep. A deathly quiet hung over the place and there were no creatures to be seen. In the center of the courtyard stood a gallows, with a single noose and a smear of blue paint on the foot-board. Curious, Grimnir and company flew into the air to look around.

The area around the keep for as far as anyone could was completely devoid of life. The forest was a blacked field of ash, the riverbed was empty and dry, the city of Phlan was a flattened ruin, even the sea was gone--not but a dry, empty, mile-deep chasm. The region had been reduced to a parched, lifeless, wasteland. Most striking however, was the conspicuous absence of a mountain. Where once the tallest peak of the Dragonspines had stood there was now...nothing.

Duvan'Ku was gone.

Or, more precisely, the thing that slept beneath the mountain had clearly awakened to wreak havoc upon the world. Figuring there was nothing to lose, Kevorkian put the Gjallarhorn to his lips and blew. Ash and Traithe briefly lashed out at their companions, driven to violence by the sound of the horn, but no armies of demons or men came seeking them. Everything really was dead, it seemed.

Then, of course, they saw the horizon moving. Something was coming towards them, fast. Something so huge that it's head and shoulders dominated the entire eastern horizon from north to south. A giant as large as the highest mountains in the world. Of course they ran. Blinked. Teleported their way to Sorassar's cave, hoping to use the Pool of Radiance there to raise another mythal to protect them.

But there was no mythal and no pool.

So Grimnir laid an Asgard rune upon the empty pool and transported them to Hell, hoping to take refuge in the castle that they had left there and use the pool there.

But when they arrived, there was no castle and no pool. Only an empty island in the middle of the river Styx, with the flaming flowers of Hell on one side, and an endlass army of Slaad marching, nay seething, towards them from the other. Ash suggested that they use the celestial stairway and lead the Slaad back to do battle with Duvan'ku.

Experiment 321 took up the challenge and lept forward, doffing his mask of insivibility and challenging the slaad to send their greatest champion to face him. After some laughing, fleeing and advancing, and some running in random directions, eventually a mighty white slaad strode through the endless hordes of its brethren, stood before Experiment 321, did a pirouette, reached a clawed hand down its throat, and pulled out a bouquet of roses.

In response, Experiment 321 shoved the roses up his nose, taking considerable damage from the thorns, broke off the tip of his own tail, and fed it to the slaad while break dancing. Honorable duels between beings of pure chaos being what they are, the self-flagellating dance fight went on for some time before the Slaadi got bored and chased Experiment 321 up the celestial staircase, some portion of his infinite brethren following to spill out onto all the other planes of existence, with still more following all the way back to the Moon Steps in the Dragonspines. Of course, the mountain was not there, so the steps led out into empty air (not that the slaad minded).

Ash, wanting a place to stand, so to speak, dug through the bag of baubles taken from the tombs in Deckon Thar (which had somehow ended up on his person through yet another paradox) until he found one that contained both the mountain intact, and an elf.


2nd of Marpenoth, 362 D.R.

Ash, Grimnir, Melastasya, Kevorkian, Dame, Morgianna, Experiment 321, and Traithe stepped down off the celestial staircase into the abandoned city of Deckon Thar. Only Ash found it slightly strange that all of his companions were elves, complete with liripipe hoods, curly shoes, and inappropriately revealing armor and that the city exhibited a distinctive hint of Elvish architecture. Likewise the others did not seem to notice or mind that there was not a slavering horde of Slaad chasing them down the stairs.

The city was in surprisingly good shape, and the mountain was intact, though the hand of Duvan'Ku could be seen peaking out (Ash couldn't help but notice the unusually slender and graceful fingers on the giant hand). Of course, the party decided that they should immediately try to destroy the hand...

They shot it. Lightninged it. Burned it. Banished it. Poisoned it ... Nothing worked.

Then Ash had an idea...he pulled out Yarash's Spoon and pointed it at the hand. The hand quickly transformed, remaining just as large, but becoming a twisted thing, made entirely of thumbs, and oozing with clear, sticky, oil-like substance. They once again blasted the hand with fire, but this time it burned. And burned. And burned. Two days later, the hand was still on fire. The same remained true after two weeks, two months...

Determined that they must do something to keep Duvan'ku from fully waking up, and blessed with elvish patience and longevity, the party decided that they would settle in Deckon Thar to watch over the hand, protect it from anyone that might try to disturb its sleep, and research a way to destroy it.

Dame, Kevorkian, and Melastasya decided to reform the Guild of Naturalists, and resume Dame's experiments at creating flying, soul-draining, god-hating, leech-cuttlefish-lamprey hybrids to feed on the thing under the mountain. After a few years of experimentation, their attempts succeeded, and they named their creations "Ab-bo'leth".

Grimnir and Ash, meanwhile went to Myth Drannor to treat with the Coronal, asking for use of his elf-blade to open the multi-planar sarcophagus which they found in the Tomb of Mog. He agreed, and many of the great lords of Myth Drannor came with them. Ash and the Coronal placed their blades in the slots on the sarcophagus, only to find it full of strangely clumpy and bad smelling particles of clay. Ash dug through and found, burried at the bottom of Mog's litter-box, an exact duplicate of the supposedly unique Coronal's Elfblade. He claimed this for himself, with the Coronal's blessing, and thus became the second king of all elfdom, ruling from the mountain city of Deckon Thar.

Traith explored down the river, finding a city by the sea populated by strange, short-lived, hairy ape-beasts. They were relatively intelligent and possessed the crafts of smithing and magic, but were otherwise mostly harmless and beneath the notice of the elf-lords of Deckon Thar.

The elves budded...

Deckon Thar flourished...

New "pets" wer made...

A thousand years passed...



2nd of Marpenoth, 1361 D.R.

High on the mountain of Duvan'ku, a giant hand burns for eternity. Below the hand is an ancient city, dark and brooding. It is a home to ancient beings of unspeakable power and the tentacled horrors which they created for their unknown ends. What riches await to be claimed in the fabled city of Deckon Thar are anyone's guess, and New Phlan is rife with the rumors of fortune and glory to be claimed beneath the Mountain of the Ever-Burning Hand.

The Amazons: Session 8

Guest post by +Alan Knightly.

It was a lovely wedding, up until the point where my sisters kicked in the door, beat up the guards, and "abducted" me, which was totally sweet. Oh? Right...introductions. I guess I'll back up a bit.

My name is Imogen Jedea, daughter of Kassur Jedea, the Crown Duke of Threskul. A little over a year ago I ran away from home and joined a group of totally kick-ass adventurers known as the Amazons. A few months ago I got magically transported back home, where I immediately got forced-engaged to this sniveling weasel of a middle-aged count. Luckily I had my scroll of communication, so I could keep in touch with my girls. Needless to say, they came and saved me.

During the winter, the girls had found a magical forge in an enchanted forest protected by a dragon. Cool huh? Long story short, the dragon killed our friend Worthy and I wasn't even there to help. Some new girls whom I had not met helped kill the dragon, then helped turn Worthy into a totally awesome talking sword.

Since my scheduled wedding was still several months out (for all that my dad is pushy he likes to do things "right" and do it with style, so he was planning a big one), Hot Flanks, who is totally hot by the way, convinced the girls to stick around for several weeks to customize some other gear. We'd been working for a while to track down an evil minor nobleman cum undead warlord cum demon worshiper (or some such) and had gotten our asses kicked a few times, so it made sense to prepare as much as possible. I told them as much in writing if you don't believe me.

So, they hung out in the woods until late Mirtul, mixing and matching things we had on hand to make some totally sweet magic items, with the occasional trip back and forth to Phlan for supplies (but that's boring). There were a couple of minor skirmishes with bandits, faeries, undead, and wolves on the road and around the forge while they worked, but nothing too serious. Just enough to be good practice and keep them on their toes without killing anyone.

Then they headed back to Phlan to talk to our patroness, the totally awesome and not-at-all-evil, Councilwoman Elissa Bivant-Mondaviak. It's amazing how people who don't work for Lady Elissa get the wrong idea about her sometimes. Probably because they are jealous of a girl being better at politics than them.

With Elissa's help, the girls chartered a ship to take them down to Messemprar, where the wedding would be happening. Elissa told the girls that she was really concerned about the events of the last few months: the evil squire's escape, the giant army of undead we saw in the mountains, some colossal giant god-thing waking up and causing earthquakes in the mountains, the government in Hillsfar (which had always been a close ally of Phlan) being overthrown by a coup...things were not going well for Phlan. Elissa understood that the girls had personal business--saving me--and agreed that we should all be present and ready for the coming battle. She even covered the entire cost of the round-trip passage, and included a wedding present of sorts, a big stack of books for us to study on the way back.

The wedding ceremony was scheduled to take place on Shieldmeet (because, hey, leap years are awesome). The ship was fully stocked and they sailed out on the first of Kythorn. The trip to Messemprar took more than two weeks, which the girls spent reading and hanging out, broken up with a small skirmish with some buccaneers from the Pirate Isles, just off the coast of Altumbel. Again, quick, easy, and none of the girls got seriously hurt--though the same could not be said of the pirates after Don't Fail and Hot Flanks both fireballed their ship. Apparently the book-learning really helped.

The ship docked in Messemprar the day before the wedding. I invited the girls to stand in as my maids of honor (it was a political marriage, I figured I might as well go through with it, so long as I could escape before I had to consummate the damned thing). Unfortunately, my prick of a father refused to even let them into the palace, despite them having a hand-written invitation from yours truly. It's like the old meany didn't trust my sisters-in-arms or something...

Luckily the wedding was open to the peasantry (nice thing about big royal functions, you have to let the rabble watch or else you risk an uprising), so the girls were able to sneak in close as the thing started. Like I said, it was a lovely affair. Everything was festooned with flowers. All of my father's knights showed in in full polished plate (though that made things harder later). I got to wear the most gorgeous gown of my life, white with a silver-mesh veil and my crown, and just enough of a bustle to hide the Handsome Prince (that's my sword, not a literal prince) underneath. If only my husband-to-be wasn't such an old, bearded, codger (though he did look pretty good in his armor).

We processed, and danced, and said our vows and our "I dos". Then the old priest of Tchazzar said the whole, "you may kiss the bride" thing (which was the official precursor to the public bedding--yuck!) the girls kicked in the door. Literally.

Dragon Bait raged out and blew the big doors off their hinges.

Don't Fail and Hot Flanks burst into the ball room, cowing the less militant spectators with a few well-placed (above their heads so as to not kill everyone) fireballs. , Doesn't Shake, Finds Them, and Battle Cry charged forward, clearing a path to the dais with a mixture of spells, gunshots (Finds Them apparently packs a really loud toy she calls a "arquebus"), and deliberately extra-creepy illusory monsters.

I did my part, acting just-scared-enough to get my new husband to step in front to protect me, then kicked the armor-laden windbag down the stairs face first, before drawing Handsome Prince and shadow-stepping down to join the other girls. I thought it would be all shock-and-awe and an easy run for the boat from there, but, like I said, my dad had all of his knights standing in for the procession, and fully geared up. So, we fought.

It was tough, mostly because we were trying to NOT kill everyone. It's amazing how hard that is really. Especially for Dragon Bait apparently. When she goes into fighting mode, she turns into some kind of spike-covered raging demon thing. If she hadn't had Worthy (our paladin turned awesome sword) in her hands, shouting at her to calm down and pulling her blows a bit, she probably would have killed every last one of my dad's knights. Instead we just maimed them a bit.

I aimed for a lot of hamstrings and tendons. Handsome Prince helped as usual, turning even tiny cuts into wickedly bleeding messes (it's awesome how quickly you can convince someone to retreat from a fight when you knick an artery). Battle Cry did her usual grab their arms and break it routine. Don't Fail froze them in their tracks with her spells. Doesn't Shake kept them off balance and swinging wildly at her illusions. Hot Flanks blasted them into submission with her mind powers. And Finds Them deafened them with her boom stick.

All told, there were some thirty-odd fully armored, well trained knights. And we totally kicked all of their asses.

Just for giggles I tagged my new husband with a "potion of ugliness":https://ruins-of-adventure.obsidianportal.com/items/potion-of-ugliness on the way out, turning him into a toad (temporarily). Adding insult to injury like that was probably not the best move. I'm sure I left my dad with a national crisis and potential war on his hands, but, that was not really my problem. I have no intention of going back there (baring another blast from that wand of cruel banishment).

Once out of the palace, we ran like hell. The general hue and cry ran out before us, both yelling and trumpets calling the castle guards, city watch, and every other man at my father's disposal to come out and catch us. We bull-rushed our way to the ship, beating guardsmen like baby seals. Our hired crew had been given the word that morning to be ready to sail at a moment's notice, and so they were.

Then, with a pop, Mahāna, my dad's court wizard, appeared in our path, along with a solid iron wall. It was a tall wall and he was a tough wizard, but I'm a shadow walker, and I laugh at walls. Literally, walls are funny, especially when you can step right through them. I never liked Mahāna anyways, and we were so close, so I stepped out of the wall right behind him and planted Handsome Prince between his shoulder blades (yeah, that one is REALLY going to piss daddy off).

We hauled ass onto the ship and cast off.

As we pulled away, I pointed out my dad's fastest naval vessels in the harbor and we nuked their sails with fireballs...not enough to ruin the ships for good, but enough to keep them from following us (again my dad is probably going to kill me, hard, if he ever catches me).

The winds were against us going north so it was a long ride back to Phlan. I caught up on my reading on the way back. It turned out the wedding gift that Elissa had sent along was a Manual of Stealthy Pilfering, sweetness.

On the 19th of Eliasias we got a sending from Elissa informing us that while we were gone the Squire had hijacked some powerful artifact of law that the Council had been using to help keep the precarious peace in Phlan. With this artifact gone, the peasants in the slums, the orcs and Xvimlar on the north side of the river, and the monsters in the ruins had risen up en masse, torn down the walls, and torched New Phlan. She asked us to meet her in Mulmaster, where the Council had fled to, to discuss how we might find and put a stop to the villain for good...

Worthy of Vengeance

What better way to honor a fallen PC than by turning them into a sentient weapon? This weapon was devised by The Amazons when the party paladin Worthy of Armor died. Rather than raise, or give up on, the paladin, they used a magical forge to purge the sentience from two other magical weapons and then trap the paladin's soul in her katana.

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Worthy of Vengeance

Worthy of Vengeance is a two-handed longsword of eastern design--a katana. The blade is white silver, inscribed with runes of rage and triumph, and glows a brilliant blood-red when drawn. The hilt it made of heat-fused ivory and linnorm bone, wrapped in red silk taken from Worthy of Armor's tunic and dyed with her blood, with a cross-guard of blackened gold. The sword radiates a powerful aura of evocation magic and of good.

Worthy of Vengeance was forged from the remains of the sentient blades Weasel and Corthalis over a Forge of Repentance found in the midst of the Quivering Forest. Using the combined magic of six of the Amazons, Worthy of Vengeance was imbued with the soul and sentience of the paladin known as Worthy of Armor.

Worthy of Vengeance is a sentient item, having the spirit and personality of Worthy of Armor. It is Lawful Good in alignment, with Intelligence and Wisdom of 14, and a Charisma of 15. Worthy of Vengeance speaks with a feminine voice, and is conversant in the Common, Turmic, Sespechian, Tharian, and Mulhorandi languages. The weapon can see and hear as well as a normal human, and can continuously detect evil out to a range of 60 feet.

When held in hand, Worthy of Vengeance constantly sheds a deep red light, providing illumination equivalent to a torch. In the hands of any female wielder, Worthy of Vengeance can conjure hail (centered on itself) twice per day, as the ice storm spell cast at 9th-level. The summoned hailstones are always a deep red in color, like chunks of frozen blood and viscera. In the hands of a Paladin, Worthy of Vengeance projects a circle of power, as a holy avenger, dispelling hostile magic of a level up to the paladin’s experience level in a 10-ft. radius.

In combat, Worthy of Vengeance functions as a katana, gains a +3 bonus on attack and damage rolls, and counts as magic, silver, and good for determining what creatures can be harmed by it. It's bonus to attack and damage increases by +3 (for a total of +6) when in the hands of a female with an Charisma/Appearance score of 17 or greater. The bonuses increases by an additional +2 (to a maximum of +5 or +8 if wielded by a female) when wielded against any bird or snake, including magical creatures that take the form of a bird or snake such as rocs, phoenixes, nagas, or linnorm dragons.

The Amazons: Session 7

Catching up and changing rosters.

Hammer 19

Seeing the undead hordes, the girls turned and ran back down the far side of the mountain, past the giant's cave, down the cliffs, and back to the village of Varawa as fast as they could through the snow, rubble, and gathering dark, the earth trembling all the while.

"Hoar's bloody coin!" Hot Flanks exclaimed when the got back to the small village. "Did you see the size of that force?"

"It would appear that the Squire is out of our league," Don't Fail agreed. "Raising and commanding an undead army of that magnitude would require magic of godlike proportions."

"So what, we just quit?!" Battle Cry sounded angry and incredulous.

"No," Don't Fail said. "We return to Phlan as quickly as possible and inform Councilwoman Bivant of what has occurred. An army like that can only mean that the Squire has declared war on all the good peoples of the north. This is no longer a personal matter, tens of thousands of lives are at stake."

"Gods," Had Enough groaned, "there were more undead there than the entire population of Hillsfar, Phlan, Melvaunt, and Thentia combined. There is no way the Council could raise an army large enough to oppose that..."

"All the more reason to warn them as quickly as possible," Worthy of Armor said. "The Council may be able to send to Cormyr, Sembia, or Glister for reinforcements. If not they'll need time to evacuate."

"I'll come with you," Hira remarked. "They were heading north into the Ride. That army will have to swing out past Lake Longreach, and then probably follow Toranth's March rather than the pass, so Varawa should be safe. If we hurry down the river, we should beat them to Phlan by a matter of weeks."

Don't Fail nodded, "It's decided then. We leave immediately."

They borrowed what food and mounts they could, sturdy ponies from the steppes north of the mountains, and rode out in a hurry.

Only an hour out they ran right into the teeth of a powerful snowstorm. Luckily Hira knew the area well and was able to use the guidance of her goddess to avoid getting lost. They rode through the night and well into the next day before making camp in a sheltered glen near the riverbank. They took only a short rest to feed and magically rejuvenate the horses before mounting and continuing on. The snow did not let up for three days and each day their progress became slower.

Hammer 23

On the fourth day, even with Hira's magic protecting them, the cold and fatigue was starting to get to the girls again. They neared Lake Kuto and Hot Flanks reminded them of the forge they had found in the woods and suggested that they take advantage of the warmth and try to get some serious rest. There was some mumbling about the urgency of their journey, but the cold won and they all agreed to stop by the forge for the night.

They rode into the glade where the forge lay in the early afternoon. The snow had stopped, but the ground around the magically heated forge was a muddy mess. Battle Cry, in the lead, muttered a loud "Woh!" as everyone approached, calling for them to stop and pointing to large, sinuous furrows in the mud, as if a gigantic snake had repeatedly circled the site. Curses were muttered, weapons were drawn, and the girls fanned out to make sure the area around the forge was secure.

As they started looking around, there was a rush of air, a slight roaring noise, and a cloud of intensely cold ice particles suddenly filled the clearing around the forge. The cold of the ice cloud tore through their clothing, shattered the protections laid on them by Hira, and chilled them to the bone.

Hot Flanks spun into the face of the wind and spotted a massive beast, like a huge pearly-white snake nearly forty feet long, with a covering of downy fur, two scrawny fore-claws, and a large crocodilian head, crawling from the it's mouth open wide to exhale its icy attack.  She looked disdainfully at the creature, despite her shivering and shouted, "There it is girls. Kill it with fire!" She glanced to make sure none of the others or their horses were near the creature, leveled her club at it, and, true-to-form, unleashed a fireball at the wyrm.

The flames rolled over the beast and it laughed, a deep and pleasant, "Oh, kill it with fire? How original. How very droll...I believe I shall enjoy this." The huge creature coiled itself, ready to spring at Hot Flanks.

"Oh, it's on!" Battle Cry said thrusting a hand into the sky and summoning forth a shimmering hawk-shaped construct of magic force which whirled up into the air, ready to dive at the giant snake-thing. Hira began casting a spell to restore the party's protection against cold. Had Enough shot the thing with her crossbow, then tossed the weapon aside and drew her sword.

Worthy of Armor sighed, pulled out her katana, and charged, shouting a powerful "Kiai!" She jumped at the last minute, reversing the blade and putting her full weight behind the strike, plunging the full two and a half feet of steel into the creature's bulk. Then wrenched the sword free in a spray of blue-white ichor.

"Ummm...dragon..." Don't Fail managed to say before the thing's tail whipped around, sending her sailing through the air to slam into a tree, unconscious. The creature's jaws then descended on Worthy of Armor, biting her clean in half, swallowing her head and torso without even bothering to chew.

The girls stared at the monster in stunned silence.

There was a sudden shout of "Gotcha!" and a strange wild-eyed, metallic-skinned, spike-covered woman burst from the trees, sprang on the dragon's back, wrapping her arms and legs around its neck. At the same time, Battle Cry's magical hawk dove, gouging at the dragon's eyes with its nearly invisible talons. Then the metal girl drew a long, bloody smile across its neck, right beneath its jaws, with a short-handled spear. The dragon reared back, opening its jaws as if to roar or unleash its breath, but neither sound nor its frigid winds came forth. "Yeah, suck it! No breathing for you Nanabolele!"

The dragon slumped to the ground, dead. The girls stared at the monster, the new one that had just assassinated a dragon, in stunned silence...

The metal girl continued to cling to the dragon's neck for a few moments, her form changing to that of a lovely dark-skinned girl with neat corn-rows and a flowing blue cloak. "Thanks girls! I've been hunting that bastard for weeks," she said, finally letting go and casually stepping over Worthy of Armor's still twitching legs to walk over to them. "The name's Thákane," she said extending a hand to Hot Flanks, "but you can call me Dragon Bait."

Image and character concept courtesy of Jason Porath
at Rejected Princesses

The tension broken Had Enough finally stammered, "D-d-d-did anyone notice that that thing just BIT WORTHY IN HALF?!"

Thákane looked back at the dragon, "Ouch, yeah...sorry about your friend..."

Battle Cry walked up to the dragon and knelt beside what was left of Worthy of Armor. She said a prayer dedicating Thákane's slaying of the beast that killed Worthy to Hoar's vengeance, then turned back to the others. "Do we have the funds to raise her?"

"Not at all," Don't Fail said. "It took every last centime we had to bring Princess back after the Squire's pet killed her."

"AND," Had Enough interjected, "someone here insisted that we had to hunt down the Squire for free after that. So we're not getting paid any time soon."

The girls decided to give Worthy of Armor a funeral. Thákane helped them vivisect the dragon, extracting the remains of her torso, wrapped her arms around her daisho, and carefully carried her torso and legs and placed them both into the forge, stacking all of her possessions save her magical scimitar and bokken with the body. Battle Cry then said a few words sending her spirit on to her god as Hot Flanks stoked up the forge (with an extra fireball for effect), reducing it all to a pool of molten metal and a whiff of carbon.

Meanwhile, Had Enough found a small, haphazard pile of coins, gems, and weapons (though still not half enough to have repaired and raised their friend) half-buried in a snowbank near where the dragon had appeared from, and Thákane in cutting up the dragon, found a pair of magical rings on the beast's scrawny arms.

They checked one more time to make sure the dragon did not have friends, then settled down to pitch their camp and get some rest. Thákane treated them to some surprisingly not-very-filling dragon steaks, over which they got to know the strange dragon-slayer. The Amazons then explained their situation. Thákane seemed inappropriately excited by the thought of fighting an army of a hundred thousand undead, as well as Phlan's other troubles, and agreed to accompany them to the city.

The rest of the trip back to Phlan was uneventful, but slow. It snowed intermittently, but the blizzard of the previous week had piled up drifts as high as five to seven feet, forcing them to take long detours and walk most of the way, beating or digging paths for the ponies they had brought with them from Varawa.

Midwinter Day

They reached Phlan eight days later, shortly after dawn on Midwinter Day. Thákane, mounted on Worthy of Armor's horse, Mfara, and Hira seemed simultaneously horrified by the squalor of the humans living in the slums to the west, and fascinated by the battle lines drawn along the riverbank between the New Phlan in the south and the monster-held older city on the north bank. Given the urgency of their mission, and the delays they had already suffered, the girls did not allow much time for sight-seeing. They headed strait to the Council Hall and demanded an audience with Councilwoman Bivant and any other council members that would listen.

The Council was not in session, but the guards sent for Lady Bivant, who joined them less than an hour later in the Council's chambers. Elissa listened patiently as they described their encounter at Kryptgarten, their trip north, the earthquake, Princess's banishment, the Squire's legion of undead, and Worthy of Armor's death at the hands of the dragon.

Elissa seemed deeply saddened by the loss of their sisters and concerned by their tale of the Squire. She said she would summon the Council immediately, and that they should rest, recuperate, and take as much time as needed to train and prepare themselves for the coming battle against the Squire's armies. She dismissed the girls with letters for the administrators of the Training Hall and the Bitter Blade Inn, informing them to charge all of the Amazon's expenses directly to Lady Bivant. "You have done us a great service in bringing this news, anything you need to prepare for the coming battle will be provided."

As the girls walked out, Had Enough stopped them. "Hey...I've had enough of this..."

"Pun intended..." Hot Flanks quipped.

"I'm serious. Cold. Starvation. Weeks of walking through snowstorms. Undead armies. Dragons the bite people in half. Getting knocked halfway across the kingdom by every monster we meet. I was expecting to be on highly paid guard duty, not fighting giant monsters for pennies." Had Enough shook her head, "I'm out. I'm done. I'm taking my share of the cash we found at the forge and I'll be on the next boat south..."

"You're sure about this?" Don't Fail asked.

"But what about Ven..."

"Don't even." Had Enough said, cutting Battle Cry off. "Your weird religion is also not my problem."

"Have a nice life then." Hot Flanks said, giving Had Enough a tentative hug.

"Alright," Don't Fail sighed. "Let's see if we can sell those gems so you're at least getting your fair share..."

They walked down to the docks and found a money changer, then said their good-byes as Had Enough went to book passage out of town. After she left, they headed to the Bitter Blade, took out rooms, signed up for classes at the Training Hall, and settled in to start preparing for war.

10 Alturiak

The next tenday was quiet. There were flurries, but none of the great snowstorms of the previous month. No travelers came to Phlan, no refugees, and no other signs that the largest undead horde the world had ever seen was marching across the northlands--maybe the snows had stalled them as well. The girls dedicated themselves to their training, and steadily grew more comfortable with Dragon Bait's company.

By the 10th of Alturiak, the snows had stopped and the sun once again shone upon the northern Moonsea. Hira informed the girls that she needed to get back to Varawa, and make certain that the undead had not attacked her people. She bid them fairwell, loaded up the five ponies with all the goods they could carry--having stocked up on provisions to bring back to her village--and headed out.

When the girls returned to the Bitter Blade after wishing another friend farewell, Don't Fail remembered that she had the other half of Princess's scroll of communication. They wrote to find out that Princess was, as expected, in her father's palace in Threskul, apparently betrothed to a not-entirely-objectionable nobleman from Soorenar and kept under close guard by her father's men. When they told her about the Squire's army and what happened to Worthy of Armor, she promised to try to speak with her father and see if he could raise some forces to send to Phlan's aid, and to try to escape to join them, though she said it would probably have to wait until after the wedding--she suspected that if she played the dutiful daughter and fiance until then, her new husband's security would likely be more lax than her father's.

1 Ches

As spring came on, rumors began to trickle down from the north of a massive army of the undead being spotted north and east of the Quivering Forest. Settlers fleeing to the safety of Phlan's walls told of rank upon rank of marching skeletons tearing through the forest. Despite the girl's repeated warnings, the Council seemed to be moving slowly in mustering it's defenses.

The girls sought out all new visitors coming into the city for any news. Varawa, it seemed, was safe, and no undead had been seen in the vicinity of Dragonden Pass. The army also seemed to be giving farms and homesteads wide berth, and, other than a wide path cut through the fey forest towards the river, there was no reports of burning, pillaging, or conflict. The undead needed no supplies and seemed content to simply intimidate settlers with their numbers and let them flee before them.

Then, word of the horde simply stopped. Settlers reported that they had seen the undead to the west of the forest, near Sorcerer's Island...then, nothing. Settlers merchants continued to come in. Eraka merchants rode down Toranth's March and reported no sign of the army. It was as if the entire force, all of the hundreds of thousands, had simply...vanished.

The girls, for their part, continued training, not trusting that the army could have simply ceased to exist and sure that the Squire was planning some kind of surprise attack. Phlan also continued on its way: new homes were built, walls were raised, the north shore of the river was pacified, and repairs began on the recently reclaimed Cathedral of Tyr.

During the weeks of training, Dragon Bait spent some time working the forge at the Training Hall. When the girls saw that she was rather handy, Don't Fail explained her theories regarding the magical forge they had found in the Quivering Forest. Dragon Bait, who was less in need of organized training than the others, said that she'd like to try the forge--and also hinted that a trip to the forge would give them a chance to scout on the undead army for themselves, since it was last seen not far from there. Don't Fail, having finished most of her training with Professor Manabu, agreed to accompany Dragon Bait on the combination scouting and research mission.

The two of them rode out, Dragon Bait on Mfara, who had taken a shine to the new girl, and Don't Fail on a horse purchased from Ernst's Livery, who she named Hope for Success. They took the hammer taken from the giant they had fought in the Valley of Thorns, as well as many of the party's extraneous magical swords, including an annoying talking one they had found with the dragon, hoping to construct something powerful enough to stand against the Squire's apparently god-like power over the undead.

The ride to the glen in the woods was surprisingly peaceful. They found some signs of the undead army's passage, a few downed trees, muddy tracks beaten into the formerly snow-covered ground, but no actual undead to oppose their passage. They stopped on the shores of Lake Kuto. Here they found real signs of the army, including hundreds of corpses--both ancient humans and strange lizard-like and fish-like creatures--and signs of others having recently been dragged into the water. They spent a day searching the shores and the nearby woods, but the army, it seemed, was gone, maybe even destroyed by whatever had been in the lake. Stranger still, the waters of Lake Kuto, that had only very recently been black and toxic, looked almost clean.

Rather than continue on, they turned and rode back to Phlan with what they had discovered.

7 Ches

On the seventh of Ches, Lady Bivant invited the Amazons to a party hosted by her husband on the newly opened patio space on the rooftop of the Bitter Blade. Many people were in attendance, including a strange halfling epicure who her husband had taken a shine to.

Image and character concept courtesy
of Jason Porath at Rejected Princesses

Elissa introduced the girls to a couple of recent arrivals in town, whom she said might make useful additions in their continued hunt for the Squire. The first introduced herself as "Finds Them and Kills Them", was from the island nation of Lantan. The second, called Abyssinia, was from a neighboring island called Nimbral. Both had arrived on the same ship and seemed both capable and eager to help.

The girls agreed to take on Finds Them and Abyssinia as new members, and chatted amiably for several hours, learning about their new companions skills and interests. Finds Them and Battle Cry in particular hit it off. There was some considerable discussion about what to call Abyssinia, which finally settled, with some reluctance on her part, on the phrase with which she had first introduced herself: "I don't shake hands" or "Doesn't Shake" for short.

Once the party was in full swing, and all the introductions had been made, Elissa called the girls together again, along with Faelana, the assistant clerk of the council, and presented them with a new adventuring charter. The new documents, specially drawn up for them, identified the Amazons as official agents of the Council, reporting directly to Councilwoman Bivant, and gave them full and open access to the Council Chambers, free to come and go whenever they chose, so as to provide Councilwoman Bivant with intelligence in as timely a manner as possible.

Late in the afternoon, the strange halfling, one Monsieur La Bouche, called everyone over to the edge of the roof nearest the river, and directed their attention to a huge white-capped wave that was suddenly rushing downstream. Ahead of the wave the river was as black and polluted as ever, but behind it, the waters were clean and fresh. When the wave had passed, all of the pollution that had choked the river had been pushed out into the bay, where it quickly began to disperse into the sea.

There was a mixture of cheering and stunned silence from the people crowded on the roof watching the river. When the wave had passed and it was clear that the river was, in fact, clean, Elissa's husband, Markos Mondaviak made his way over to La Bouche to congratulate him and offered to personally escort the halfling back to the Council Hall to see to his payment. Elissa and the assistant clerk excused themselves, having to attend to Council business, leaving the girls to look down and marvel at the river.

8 Ches

With still no reports of undead hordes marching on Phlan, Don't Fail called the girls together the next morning and once again proposed making a trip out to the forge in the woods. This time describing a new theory. The forge, she said, clearly had the power to take the powers of multiple magical devices and fuse them into one. It also had the power to unmake magical intelligences, she said, effectively beating the brains out of sentient items.

Don't Fail hypothesized that by combining all of their talents, the girls might be able to make the forge do the opposite, imbuing a sentient soul into a new item. More specifically, she suggested that since they had cremated Worthy of Armor on the magical forge, along with her ceremonial weapons and armor, some fragment of spirit might still be tied to the metal. By combining Hoar's, and therefor Battle Cry's, ability to create revenant spirits, Hot Flank's ability to tap into other beings' minds and emotions, and her own research with the power of the forge, she suggested that they might be able to bring Worthy of Armor (or some fragment of her personality) back in the form of a sentient weapon--thereby allowing her to continue her work in this world.

The girls, especially the two worshipers of the Vengeful God, were all for that, and so they gathered up what they thought they would need (as well as provisions for several weeks of work) and rode out to the forge. The newest Amazons, Finds Them and Doesn't Shake, while not knowing Worthy of Armor, accompanied them out of curiosity--offering their own magical talents to the experiment.

With the weather finally in their favor and the way clear of undead menaces, they reached the forge late that evening and immediately began setting up for the ritual Don't Fail proscribed. Dragon Bait collected the still molten mass of metal from Worthy of Armor's swords and armor from where they still rested on the forge, along with the pair of sentient blades they had collected: Weasel and Corthalis and began the process of smelting them together (to the accompaniment of much complaining from the two swords), heating them in the magical forge, beating them with the frost giant's hammer, and cooling them in the still icy blood of the months-dead linnorm.

7 Tarsakh

Late on the night of the 7th of Tarsakh, after weeks of work, under the bight, clear, first full moon of Spring, they finished. Finds Them and Kills Them sang prayers to Mielikki, goddess of Forests and Maidens, for guidance in a place of her power and work done by her daughters. Dragon Bait hammered out the final edge of the new sword she had forged. Hot Flanks scribed runes of rage and triumph, victory and vengeance into the blade. Don't Fail and Doesn't Shake worked spells of hardening and binding over the forge. And Battle Cry called out to Hoar-Assuran, decrying the evils of foes left unvanquished and work left uncompleted, and invoked Ishtar-Inanna, Worthy of Armor's goddess of love and warfare, pleading for them to release her soul to continue to do their work in the world.

Suddenly, the girls voices were silenced and all other sounds ceased. A wind rushed down into the clearing and the fires of the forge flared brighter than ever before. Then it subsided and the new sword that sat resting on Dragon Bait's anvil, forged in the likeness of Worthy's own blade, glowed a brilliant red and spoke, introducing itself as Worthy of Vengeance.

The Amazons: Session 6

19 Hammer

The ladies were awakened in the middle of the night by a sudden, violent tremor in the ground. The floor beneath them lurched and deep rumbling sounds could be heard in the distance. They all rushed out into the common room to see the few other guests sleeping in the inn (lots of locals, but not a lot of travelers using the place in the winter) gathering in a similar state of panic. They ran outside just in time to hear what sounded like a massive explosion echoing through the valley, clearly coming from the north, but could see nothing in the overcast night.

They waited, shivering, for several minutes but the ground did not stop quaking, and still there was no sign of the cause. The tremors continued, but grew weaker, and finally they returned indoors. Hira stoked the fires in the common room up and tried to calm the panicked patrons, as well as the villagers who were similarly awakened and had begun congregating in the caravansary to learn what had happened.

By dawn the tremors had still not stopped. Going back outside, they could see now that the entire peak of the second mountain, which Hira had called Duvan'ku, looked like it had been blown away. The mountain was clearly several hundred feet shorter than it had been, and still the grown quaked.

After several wide-eyed appellations of "Holy Shit!" and "What the fuck!?" and similar blasphemies from the Amazons, Hira spoke up.

"If you still desire to go up the mountain, I am coming with you...I have to learn what caused this."

Had Enough looked at Battle Cry, her face white, "You don't think the squire actually had anything to do with that do you?"

"My vision was interrupted by the Earthquake, but from what I could gather, he is still up there and was at least alive right before it happened..." Battle Cry responded.

There was more astonished and exasperated cursing from the girls.

"Vengeance is hard..." Princess sighed.

"Let's go then," said Worthy of Armor in her usual matter-of-fact manner.

Hot Flanks turned to Hira, "So which would be the faster way up there, going around to Verdegris or climbing strait up the side?"

"Climbing would probably be most efficient. Even in the summer it is four days ride to Verdigris." Hira admitted, "The village of Rhund lies at the foot of the near peak. If the weather holds we should be able to reach it before dark. Finding a path up to the ridge will be a challenge though, and there is the giant to be concerned with..."

"Sounds like we'll have to do some climbing and kill a giant then," Battle Cry said, almost gleefully.

The other girls assented and quickly packed up their gear for the rushed journey. The villagers were more than happy to lend the girls ropes, pitons, climbing axes, snowshoes, furs, and other gear to aid in their travels. They left Mfara and the mule at the caravansary for safekeeping and headed out with laden packs.

They strapped on their snowshoes and practically ran up the pass, following a semi-worn trail between the two villages. About an hour on, they ran into a group of travelers heading south who informed them that the village of Rhund had been flattened by the earthquakes, the lake at the Stojanow's headwaters further dammed by rockslides, and the giant out, about, and angry. They thanked the refugees and rushed on.

"Anyone every fought a giant before?" Princess asked. "They're more or less human, right? So stabbing with the Handsome Prince should work?"

"If you can reach their vitals, sure," said Hot Flanks. "But given that it's a FROST giant, a few fireballs should deal with it pretty handily. I suggest we keep our distance and just blast the thing..."

"How about we ignore the thing and focus on our mission," Don't Fail said. "As dangerous as the giant may be, an exploding mountain and six hour long earthquakes with a known psychopath involved seems like a more existential threat to the region..."

They ran on.

A few hours later, their muscles aching but at least warm from the exertion, they came to the base of the mountain. The mountainside was strewn with rubble and the river was reduced to a trickle from the blockage. They scrambled up the side of a rock pile and looked down on the village of Rhund, almost entirely collapsed. Sitting on the edge of the lake that formed the headwaters of the river, was a massive blue-skinned man, easily thirty feet tall, with a sparse white beard, dangling his feet in the icy waters and wearing nothing save for a tartan kilt.

As Hot Flanks leveled her club at him, he turned and smiled. "Ah," he said, "you look like the right girls." Hot Flanks hesitated and he stood, rising to his full height. "I have a letter for you. I'm sorry it took so long to deliver, but I didn't not have your names to forward it along."

They all looked confused, but Don't Fail was the first to speak, "You...have a letter for us?"

"Just a short missive really." The giant knelt down and placed a folded and sealed piece of paper on a nearby rock, then stepped away. "From a mutual friend."

"We don't have many friends in this place," Battle Cry spoke up. "and fewer still who would leave a message with your like. What kind of trick are you pulling?"

"No trick little ladies. A friend sent this to me with the request that it be delivered to a band of six female adventurers of a southern persuasion. She did not give names, so I must assume it is you, since I do not know your names."

"Lady Bivant?" Don't Fail asked quietly, gesturing with one hand to indicate that Princess should attempt to flank the giant. Princess disappeared into the shadows of a nearby boulder and Don't Fail cautiously approached the giant and his letter.

"Would it make you more comfortable if I were farther afield?" The giant asked, taking a gigantic step back and kneeling down with his hands palm-down on the ground. "This way I will be in less of a position to cause you harm."

"Thank you," Don't Fail said, and she picked up the letter and walked back to the others, stepping backwards and keeping her eyes on the giant.

"The seal is not Lady Bivant's," Worthy of Armor stated. "I do not know it."

"Let's just read it then," said Hot Flanks impatiently, her club still pointed at the giant.

Don't Fail scanned the letter with spells to detect and read magic, in case it may be a trap, and, finding nothing, broke the seal. It read:

bq). Let us know if we can help,
— Former people in charge of Kryptgarten.

"The Squire?!" Don't Fail exclamed. The girls eyes went wide and they turned, just in time to see Princess, perched on a rock just behind the kneeling giant leap, blade drawn, at the towering man's exposed back. Princess slammed into something in mid-air, feet from the giant's skin, and slid down to the ground.

"That was not very polite," said the giant, rising to his feet, a gigantic maul suddenly in one hand and a tiny metal rod balanced on the tip of the opposite finger. "If you do not like the message, killing the messenger is not the answer." He tilted his head, stretching his neck muscles with the sound of a collapsing glacier, and looked down at Princess. "How can we fight if we still haven't even been properly introduced? My name, for instance, is Sorrassar."

"What, can't even spell Sorcerer right?" Princess quipped.

"Alright," Hot Flanks said, stalking forward with her club, "I'm Hot Flanks. She's Princess. Our sisters are Battle Cry, Don't Fail, Worthy of Armor, and Had Enough...and you're dead!" She pointed the club and shouted "May you burn in the fires of Flandal’s forge!" A fireball streaked from the end of the club, then burst against the unseen barrier, leaving the giant unharmed.

The giant sighed, a deep, mournful noise, like cold wind through a graveyard. "Those are NOT your names," he said. "Very well, if that is how you're going to be." He pointed the finger with the tiny rod balanced on it at Princess. A beam of coruscating, rainbow colored light engulfed her and she vanished.

Princess reappeared sitting on her big, plush, four-poster bed, in her chambers in the palace of the Crown Duke of Threskel, a thousand miles to the south and east. "Noooooooooo!" Princess screamed, stabbing Handsome Prince into one of the pillows, just to make sure it was solid. The door opened and her father smiled, "I was wondering when you'd get home..."

____________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, back in the north, after seeing Princess be "disintegrated", the other six girls burst into action. Hot Flanks dropped the club and charged with her sword, Mantooth, the blade struck the magical barrier protecting the giant and shattered it with a flash of light and the sound of tinkling glass.

As the barrier collapsed, Worthy of Armor drew her scimitar and hurled it at the Sorrassar, the whirling blade cutting a deep gouge in the giant's leg before returning to her hand. Hira raised a hand to the sky and a brilliant ray slanted down from the dim winter sun, right into the giant's eyes, blinding him and burning his face.

Had Enough charged in through the gap, her claymore held high, but was caught by a mighty, underhanded blow from the giant's hammer which sent her sailing into the air. Don't Fail pointed a finger at her,  and she froze, suspended, fifty feet off the ground.

Battle Cry was only a step behind Had Enough, singing an old Hlondathan battle hymn and running flat out. She jumped, kicking the giant in the knee, then scrambling up to lock on to his arm holding the hammer, wrapping her arms around his elbow, straitening her back, and bracing her feet into his arm pit to immobilize the limb.

From her position hanging in mid-air, Had Enough dropped her sword, leveled a crossbow, and planted a bolt in the giant's side. Then Don't Fail's spell wore off and she tumbled back to the ground, only to have her movement arrested again, only a few feet off the ground by a second application of the spell.

The giant tried to shake Battle Cry free, but was unable to, despite his greater strength. Finally he was forced to drop his tiny wand and grab Battle Cry with his free hand. She kicked him, hard under the chin as he swung her away from his arm and began to crush the life out of her.

Hot Flanks, meanwhile grabbed the dropped wand and pointed it at Sorrassar, grinning maniacally. "Hey Battle Cry," she yelled, "what do we want?!"

"VENGEANCE!" came the gasping response, as Hot Flanks read the runes written on the side of the wand out loud. The blast of light shot at the startled giant who dropped both Battle Cry and the hammer as he raised his hands in a futile attempt to ward off the magic of his own wand.

The light engulfed Sorrassar and he vanished.

Once everyone had picked themselves up, Hira informed, thanks to a locate creature spell, them that Princess was still alive, just in a palace thousands of miles to the south.

"Holy shit!" Battle Cry said, "That wand sent her HOME!?"

"She's going to be pissed..." Hot Flanks added, tucking the wand into her belt. "I wonder where the giant ended up?"

"Who cares," Had Enough said. "At least he's out of our way."

"Yes," said Don't Fail point at the quarter-mile-high, sheer cliff-face of the mountain. "We still need to get up there..."

Worthy of Armor began unpacking the climbing gear they had borrowed from the villagers and tying ropes together. "Let's get started then..."

As the others got ropes ready and switched out their snowshoes for climbing harness, Hot Flanks sat down and painted a trio of strange symbols on her cloak. Once everyone was ready, she splashed a handful of water from the lake on the first symbol and put on the cloak, which turned into a large pair of wings. "Okay," she said, tying one end of the rope to her belt and picking up an armful of pitons and the giant's hammer, which was much smaller than when he held it. "I'll fly up and set the spikes, then you guys can just clip and scamper up the rope..."

They did just that. She flew up, hammering pitons and feeding the rope through them, trying to pick a path up the cliff with additional handholds. The others followed, climbing slowly. Occasionally Hot Flanks stopped and grabbed the rope as her wings started to revert to cloak, spitting on the next symbol to renew the effect. After three hours, the exhausted girls reached the top off the cliff and rested in a large cave with a large depression, like an empty pond, in the middle of it.

The tremors had, but this point stopped. Tired as they were, the girls only rested an hour, eating a light meal of week-old horse meat, before continuing.

Outside the cave, they found a narrow path leading around the side of the mountain and up, winding towards the peak. They walked single file, keeping a rope tied around their wastes, linking them together with about six feet of slack between each of them. The wind howled, threatening to send them tumbling to their deaths, but eventually they made the top intact. They walked over the ridge of the peak and stopped, dumb-founded by what they saw below.

On the mountain ridge between the peak they had climbed and the second peak, called Duvan'ku, was a large, ancient city, but this was not what amazed them. What amazed them was the huge army of walking corpses, hundreds of thousands of them, snaking their way down the north side of the mountain, and with them, resting on palanquins born by their undead slaves, was the Squire of Kryptgarten and his companions...

"We have to warn Phlan..." someone whispered.

To be continued...

The Amazons: Session 5

Guest adventure log from Alan Knightly...


Princess woke up cold, sore, and wet. Again. It was dark, save for the flickering light of a campfire, and, judging by the thick, cloying smell of smoke mingled with damp earth, they were in a cave. Great, she thought, I just love sleeping on the cold, hard, wet ground. She looked around and saw that her "sisters" were all there, more or less. Hot Flanks sat tending the fire. Had Enough and Battle Cry were in their bedrolls. Worthy of Armor was leaning over Don't Fail with a worried look on her face.

Princess tried to move, wincing at the sudden tingling in her extremities. What the fuck?! Frostbite? she thought with the mixture of anger and anxiety that was all too common in her chosen profession. And to think that I could be in the nice warm south, married to some thick-headed, chisel-jawed bro-fo right about now. Instead of freezing to death in a monster-infested wasteland trying to help my "sisters" take vengeance for an attempt to kill me which didn't stick. "Fuck that!" she said aloud, drawing a surprised smile from Hot Flanks.

Pushing through the pain, she sat up, shivering unconsciously. "Where are we? When are we? How are we?" she said hurriedly.

"Where: In a cave that was until very recently occupied by a she-bear, just south of Lake Kuto, about a thousand paces into the treeline. When: night time--a full day since we got jumped by those wolves. How: not good." Hot Flanks replied. "We have a lot of horse meat, and wolf meat, and bear meat, but most of the rest of our food got burned up in the fight. Ditto for most of our other gear--tents, horses..."

Princess's immediate thought was that "got burned up" was just Hot Flanks' way of saying, "I nuked our food and blankets with a fireball."

"...Battle Cry woke up around sundown, but is still weak. Don't Fail was frozen solid and nearly got her leg ripped off. Worthy says she probably won't wake up for a couple more days, and likely won't be walking any time soon."

"Actually, after the salve I just put on her, she should be fine," Worthy of armor said. "And once I've rested I should be able to get you and Battle Cry back on your feet as well."

Princess's stomach growled and she thought about the available options. "So, horse meat?" Hot Flanks handed her a bit of well-done flank on a wooden skewer. It was surprisingly tasty, if a little charred. Beats the food at my dad's palace any day, she thought as she laid back down on her smoky bedroll. "Tomorrow then," she said and rolled over, trying to get comfortable.

The Amazons: Session 4 (GM's Notes)

Battle Cry awoke with a gasp and a scream. Four of her sisters in arms leaned over her with worried looks on their faces. "What happened?" she croaked out through her still raw and bloodied throat.

"You were killed..." Had Enough said.

"...?" Battle Cry replied.

"Princess too," Hot Flanks added. "The white crocodile thing did it. We had the potion for you, but Princess..." she broke down sobbing, unable to continue.

Don't Fail picked up where she left off, "We were waiting for you to wake up before burying her. We thought you might want to do the honors of sending her on."

Battle Cry tried to sit up, but only ended up back on her back, wracked with pain as she coughed up more blood. She could feel the regenerative powers of the potion working, so she willed herself to remain still until the fit had stopped. "No!" she finally said emphatically. "Everyone break out your purses, her time here is not done."

"The Bishop?" Had Enough asked.

"Yes," Battle Cry coughed again, but there was no blood this time. "Tyr is an ally, his priests cannot refuse a fervent request to see justice done." She tried to sit up again, then whispered, "Help please..."

Worthy of Armor and Hot Flanks each put an hand under her arms and held her between them. "Good," said Worthy. "We'll pool out funds to get our friend raised, then go back to the keep and finish the job."

"Yes," said Don't Fail. "Councilwoman Mondaviak passed us a letter from one of the citizens of Kryptgarten. He says they can make sure the back passage is open to aid us in taking the keep."

"Fuck the keep," Battle Cry croaked. "We have no time for lands or politics, this is matter of vengeance, and Hoar's vengeance will not be delayed." She coughed a few more times wincing, then continued. "Once Princess is back on her feet, I will ask Hoar where these criminals are hiding, and we will go kill them."

"Hear, hear!" Hot Flanks and Had Enough both agreed.

"Alright," Worthy of Armor said, "to the temple of Tyr's Waiting then."

____________________________________________________________

Roughly four hours later, Princess woke up to find all of her friends leaning over her, along with a fat, bearded old man in a funny hat. She was whole, awake, and just as confused as Battle Cry had been. The party quickly filled her in on the nature of her recently dead condition and Battle Cry's plan to track down Squire Grimnir. "Fuck yes!" she said, "The Handsome Prince is so going to kill that guy."

She was less enthused to learn that the party had spent all but a small pittance of their accumulated wealth to pay to have her raised from the dead and to regrow Hot Flank's lost hand. "Really? All of it?" This finally made her cry. "Can't we at least claim the bounty on these guys heads then?"

"No!" Battle Cry said emphatically, "This is a matter of Hoar's vengeance now. They killed one of ours, so we kill them all..." Battle Cry bowed to the Bishop, "I have need of a prayer room." The Bishop assented and she stomped out. "I'm going to find them. Meet me in the ladies' dormitory at dawn."

____________________________________________________________

After a long night of railing against unrighted wrongs, unsolved crimes, and unavenged evils, and pleading for Hoar's intervention, Battle Cry arrived red-eyed at the Tyrran dormitory where the girls were staying after their 'generous donation' to the church. "Found them," she said through a yawn. "Almost due north, in a cave on a snow-capped mountain peak, with a lake at the bottom of the cliff-face..."

"What the...!" Had Enough said.

"The Dragonspines." Don't Fail said. "Though this is a rough time of year to be mountain climbing..."

"Sounds like the perfect place for fugitives to be hiding. Remote, uninhabited..."

"Even in good weather it'd take a week to get there." Hot Flanks groaned. "How did they move so fast. They must have left before the notice of their crimes was even put out."

"So they might not know that they're being hunted?" Princess remarked. "Perfect! The better to surprise them in their cave and stab them repeatedly."

"We'll need horses. For all of us. Plus supplies, pack animals, weather gear, climbing gear..." Don't Fail started to look worried.

"Can I help you dears?" The thin, white-haired, old priestess in charge of the dormitories asked. "I couldn't help but overhear your friend shouting in the middle of the night. Sounds like you've got quite the quest on your hands."

Battle Cry nodded, "Indeed Sister..."

"Theymr." The priestess nodded. "The Council writ against these criminals you speak of bears the Bishop's own seal and calls for the heads of the traitors. Normally our Lord Grimjaws frowns on those seeking to take justice into their own hands, but your concern about seeing justice done is admirable."

"How can you help?" Don't Fail asked.

"Why, just give me a list of what you'll  be needing and I'll send my sisters to fetch it." Sister Theymr said. "Tyr's will and that of your own gods seem to be right in line on this one."

The ladies thanked Sister Theymr profusely. By mid-day, the priestess of Tyr had acquired all they needed--requisitioning mounts, pack animals, warm clothes, tents, provisions, and tools for surviving winter in the mountains.

They rode out at once.
____________________________________________________________

Even with horses, or perhaps, especially with horses, the going was slow. They stayed as close to the river as their senses of smell would allow, fighting their way through the deep snow and the biting cold. As Worthy of Armor reminded them, "There is a reason wars are always put on hold in the winter..."

"At least they probably won't be going anywhere," Princess suggested.

Battle Cry, again, got the worst of it. Each night she sat before the fire, loudly decrying the evils of the Squire of Kryptgarten and praying for Hoar to guide the way, and during the day she road slumped in her saddle, barely able to keep her eyes open.

On their third day out from Phlan, a storm picked up from the north. The wind blew head-on into their faces, stinging their eyes and biting their cheeks with airborne ice crystals. Now and again, when the wind blew particularly hard, they thought they could hear the sound of an organ playing faintly in the distance. They turned away from the river and sought shelter under the boughs of the Quivering Forest that night.

Some time around midnight, Battle Cry's howling rancor against her quarry was cut off by another howl. Hearing a second howl, closer, she shook awake the others just as a pack of large, white-furred wolves appeared, circling their campsite.

Battle Cry, apparently not thinking strait due to sleep deprivation, roared and leaped on the nearest wolf, wrapping her arms around its neck and gouging at its eyes with her bare hands. Similarly quick, but still groggy, Hot Flanks and Worthy sprang out of their bedrolls and swung, ineffectively, at the darting wolves.

Two of the wolves charged, snapping at the horses, each taking a great bite out of one horse's flank. One of them was sent flying away by a powerful kick from Worthy's of Armor's horse, 'Boyfriend'. The wounded horse bucked free of its tether and went fleeing off into the woods, the second wolf on its heels. The remaining horses panicked, straining against their tethers, but were unable to break free.

A third wolf lunged at Princess, but she managed to roll out of her bedroll and plant her sword, 'Handsome Prince', deep into the wolf's side.

The wolf which Battle Cry was holding onto threw back its head and howled, unleashing a burst of icy wind and snow, swirling through the camp, freezing Princess, Battle Cry, and Don't Fail solid under a coating of ice and snow. Had About rose shivering to one knee and laid her sword into the side of the ice- breathing wolf, dealing it a terrible blow.

The fifth, and final, wolf lunged at the frozen Don't Fail, baring her to the ground and tearing at her hamstring with its teeth, leaving a messy, bloody, frost-rimed wound.

Enraged, Hot Flanks shouted "Down!" and leveled the end of her enchanted club at the center of the clearing and slightly up. "May you burn in the fires of Flandal’s forge!" she cried, and there was a huge blossom of flames in the air as she, Had Enough, and Worthy of Armor dropped to the ground.

The flames engulfed the wolves, consuming three of them where they stood, and leaving the fourth singed and whimpering. The horses, likewise, stood little chance against the blast of magical flame, and all of them, save Boyfriend and one pack mule were slain. The girls, forewarned and either on-the-ground or shielded by their encasement in magical ice, fared better than the animals, and they were left smoking, but all alive.

As the explosion dissipated, Worthy of Armor rolled to her feat, and, with a mighty cry, chopped off the head of the last wolf with one blow.

Had Enough turned on Hot Flanks, "What were you thinking?! The tents! The provisions?! The horses!! It's the middle of winter, we're all wounded, three days ride from the nearest town, and you torch all of our food AND our mounts?!"

"Calm down," Worthy of Armor pleaded, "her aim was off, but her thinking was sound. One more blast of that icy breath and we would all be dead..." As she spoke Worthy rushed to their three companions, thawed now, but unconscious. She layed hands on each of them, staunching the bleeding and helping with the worst of the burns.

Hot Flanks grabbed her polearm and began turning over the tents, tossing the flaming canvas away from the bedrolls beneath them. "Yeah, shut up and help, Had Enough. Everything close to the ground should be fine if we can put the fires out before they spread too much..."

Working together, the three girls tossed the flaming remains of the tents onto their campfire and sorted out those goods that had not been significantly damaged.

Had Enough finally stopped, panting from their quick work, and looked around. "Okay, so its the middle of winter, three of us down, everyone injured. We have two horses, also injured, bedrolls, no shelter, and enough food for two days..."

"Okay. Yeah. We're fucked." Hot Flanks admitted.

"You're on watch for the rest of the night," Worthy of Armor said. "Just remember to point those fireballs away from camp if more wolves show up..."

"So what, do we head back to Phlan in the morning?" Hot Flanks asked.

"We're too far to make it back with what we've got and with Battle Cry out we have no idea where we're going. And with the horses gone we're not really equipped to drag Princess, Battle Cry, and Don't Fail back to town. I think we should look for defensible shelter nearby, hole up, and try to get the others back on their feet..."

Had Enough looked up from where she was still checking their stores. "I hope you guys like horse meat..."

To be continued

The Amazon's: Session 3 (GM's notes)

Happy Thanksgiving...let's go kill some PCs...


It was the dead of winter and the city Phlan had basically shut down. The streets of the slums were basically impassable masses of snow, the surrounding farmers had bought their supplies months ago and holed up, the harbor was too choked with ice for the fishermen to work, and the gates were shut more often than not. In one corner of the city, however, seven women were sitting down to breakfast.

Following their success against Noriss the Grey, the Amazons had moved up in public opinion from being oddly-attractive mercenaries to being local heroes. So, today, they found themselves sitting in the drawing rooms of Councilwoman Elissa Bivant-Mondaviak sipping tea, eating scones, and discussing local gossip. It was all very boring until the Councilwoman handed over a flier for the girls to look at.

"WHAT?!" was the general outcry.

"That will be publicly posted tomorrow on the doors of the Council Hall, the Training Hall, the Temple of Tyr, and every gate." Elissa responded.

"But...we just saved them..." Battle Cry said. "Now they are wanted criminals?"

"Yes," Elissa's voice betrayed her calm outer demeanor. "We have been hearing odd rumors from Kryptgarten for some time. Councilman von Urslingen has traveled there numerous times and reported that the Squire had been forcing the people to wash, ordering strange religious accouterments, and even feeding the people the flesh of dead orcs..."

"They eat orcs?! I think I'm going to be sick..." Princess interjected.

"Yes. When we first crossed over from Hillsfar, many people on the boat had the ague." Had Enough, said. "The captain of the ship stopped on Thorn Island to enforce a quarantine, and Grminir and his companions did, in fact, boil the bodies of dead orcs to feed us all..."

"The city watch also caught one of the Squire's wards setting up an illegal gambling operation in the middle of the market, in broad daylight, not once, but three times, including taking bets from the orcs and goblins as to how long it would take them to destroy the city. Then people started turning up with odd wooden coins, saying they were promised free drinks at Kryptgarten..."

"Wait...is that scrip? Are they printing their own money now?" Worthy of Armor looked confused.

"Nothing wrong with free drinks," Hot Flanks said.

"No, there is nothing in the law against offering free drinks. However, it seems that they were offering free drinks to the Orcs...and...other things. Deliberately inviting the most degenerate of the city's enemies to drink at their keep." Elissa took a sip of tea, the cup rattling against the saucer from her hands shaking. "Then there were complains from the fisherman's guild against one, Master Delbar, claiming that he had somehow massively undercut their prices and was creating a monopoly. This Delbar was arrested and admitted to working with the Squire and his companions to establish an agreement with xvarts, kobolds, and bugbears to provide him with fish at criminal rates so as to ruin the economy of our city. This testimony was corroborated by citizens of Kryptgarten, who reported large shipments of fish being delivered to the keep's tavern regular by blue-skinned goblinoids..."

"So, we've got some weird cult activity, illegal gambling, and some economic shenanigans. That hardly seems worthy of a death sentence," Battle Cry said.

"Yes, were that all, I am sure the Council would have called the Squire in to discuss his crimes and arrange reasonable restitution." Elissa put down her cup and looked at the ladies, her face deadly serious. "Two weeks ago, a number of Kryptgarteners came before the council complaining of unfair and torturous treatment at the hands of the squire. What they brought as evidence was truly shocking..."

"What?" asked Hot Flanks, sitting on the edge of her chair and looking excited in precisely the wrong way.

"...the boiled head of a woman." Elissa choked on these last words.

"WHAT?!" Worthy of Armor shouted.

"Apparently the Squire threatened to 'make soap' out of any settler who questioned the Squires arrangements with the cities inhuman enemies. Those that continued to question him were either boiled alive, publicly, or else found dead in their beds with their throats slit..."

There was a long silence before Elissa continued. "The settlers brought many other pieces of evidence--plans for a strange columnar temple with a mass water-heating system that the Squire was forcing them to build, strange plush idols of a great crocodillian monstrosity, and a strand of some fifty human fingers which were part of a collection kept by the Squire's hobgoblin groom. There can be no doubt that the Squire of Kryptgarten is not only a traitor in league with Phlan's enemies, but a brutal and sadistic killer in league with the forces of Hell."

At this point Princess did retch and Worthy of Armor pounded her fists on the table. "Allow me to seek out these murders, Lady Councilwoman."

Battle Cry chimed in, "Yes, Assuran demands that we seek his vengeance against any who would commit such atrocities," and Hot Flanks nodded.

Don't Fail stood up and handed the flyer back to the noblewoman. "It seems that we are all in agreement that these criminals must be stopped. We will go to Kryptgarten at once. If they are there we will bring them to justice. If not, we shall see to the aid of the people they have mistreated and secure the keep until the Squire and his allies should return..."

Elissa nodded, "The Council would be most greatful for your assistance. We are prepared to offer..."

"No," Worthy of Armor said. "Do not even offer. We must do this as penance for aiding and abetting these traitors. Had we known any of this we would have left them to their fate when Noriss the Grey's army attacked them..."

Princess looked up horrified, though whether from the thought of facing the demon-worshipers, or the thought of not getting paid for it was anyone's guess.

Their was a wrap on the door and the girls looked up to see the Councilwoman's young husband walking in. "Forget the Council's posted reward then, ladies." Markos Mondaviak said. "Squire Grimnir's lands are forfeit. The keep and its lands once belonged to my family, and the people of Kryptgarten deserve caring and law-abiding rulers. If you deal with the Squire, all of his lands and possessions are yours." He smiled. "And I will not take no for an answer..."

"Yes," Elissa said, rising and taking his arm. "My husband is quite right. Given the Squire's breech of faith Kryptgarten does need defenders, and I can think of no one better than you girls."

Princess stood up, smiling now, and extended her hand. "Very well. We'll catch this guy for you."

"Dead would be preferable." Markos said, bowing and kissing her hand, "No need to put yourselves at additional risk trying to bring these ruffians in alive."

"May we have a copy of the official, signed notice?" Don't Fail asked. "It may be helpful for encouraging cooperation from the Kryptgarteners."

"By all means," Elissa handed the document back to Don't Fail. "We can have the clerks draw up extras if you need them..."

_______________________________________________________________

The ladies asked around the town for more information about Kryptgarten, but heard much of the same--racial tensions, weird cults, angry fishermen, free booze. Had Enough, feeling some kinship for the ex-Hillsfaran settlers in Kryptgarten urged them to move immediately, but Don't Fail managed to hold them in check.

"These are clearly dangerous folk," she said. "The announcement will not be made until the morning, and it will likely take some time to reach them given the snow. There is no reason to rush into it."

"What about those funny coins?" Princess asked. "Maybe we can find some of them floating around and avail ourselves of Kryptgarten's hospitality to get closer and learn more." The others agreed that this was not a bad idea, and so spent the afternoon asking around in the taverns and inns, looking for some of this "Krypt-Scrip". By evening they were able to round up one wooden coin a piece and agreed to set out in the morning.

They slipped out of the city gates just as the first notice was being nailed up, leaving their horses behind in care of the liverer rather than force the creatures to wade through knee-deep snow. The path between Phlan and Kryptgarten was well-marked and well-traveled these days, but still covered in deep drifts in many places.

The walk took all of the morning and it was past noon when they heard the deep echo of Kryptgarten's black-iron church bells, and almost an hour later before they reached the small settlement (for it was now much more than a keep). The tavern and church both appeared to be bustling, even at this early hour, though several guards were posted at the doors of both.

"What kind of a tavern needs chain-clad, sword-wielding soldiers?" Battle Cry asked.

"The kind that has orcs for regulars..." Hot Flanks suggested.

They walked up to the doors of the tavern, flashed their funny-munny to the guards, and strode in. The place was an odd mix. Farmers and settlers kept to the shadows around the edges, huddled in small, quiet groups. The center was taken up by orcs, goblins, and other things, all chatting happily in their strange tongues and drinking heavily, one orc even stood on a table reciting something that seemed like poetry (judging from the meter if not the words). The bar staff all wore armor, seeming to eye the farmers with more suspicion than the rowdy monsters. The bar itself was a tall wooden affair, behind which were three great tuns of mead (it seemed that the bar served nothing else) and a large black board on where were listed all manner of commodities commonly traded in Phlan and their prices.

Hot Flanks looked around then whispered to the others, "There is not a single woman in here..."

"Probably because orcs are serial rapists..." Had Enough whispered back.

Sure enough, the orc poet on the table spotted them and said something very loud, gripping its private parts (which were unfortunately not covered by the orc's short tunic) and drawing the attention of the crowd towards them. A couple of orcs advanced menacingly on the girls.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..." Princess said.

"Really?" Battle Cry grinned. "A bar fight sounds about perfect right now."

Just then, the door behind them opened and a short, scrawny hobgoblin, dressed in robes and bedecked with strings of severed fingers walked in. The hobgoblin glared at the orcs and grunted something in their language and the excitable creatures returned to their drinking.

"My deepest apologies ladies," the hobgoblin said. "If you are here for drinks I'd suggest you visit the keep, we are serving drinks inside for those who would prefer more polite company."

"Are you in charge of this establishment?" Don't Fail asked, trying not to look at the strings of fingers.

"No. I am but a humble priest." The hobgoblin bowed, "My name is Grinkle, priest of the betrayer in battle, chef to Lord Grimnir, and steward of the Kryptgarten."

"Betrayer in Battle?" Battle Cry said, trying to sound polite, "I am not familiar with goblin religion, who is the betrayer in battle?"

"Why our Lord Grimnir, of course."

"Thank you sir," said Don't Fail, "I think that is enough, we will come back for our drinks at a more opportune time."

The girls left quickly and adjourned to the edge of the nearby woods to talk.

"The Squire has priests?!" Worthy of Armor looked appalled.

"So he makes himself out to be a god?" Battle Cry said, "And thus claims power of life and death over his subjects. Cute..."

"Looks pretty cut and dry," Hot Flanks sighed. "Farmers cringing in fear on the edges of a building they built themselves, orcs running amok with their cocks out, hobgoblin stewards sporting chains of severed human fingers, commodities price fixing, creepy churchbells...Fuck!"

Princess's face was white, "They....they...had barbs..." She looked ready to throw up again. "Why do orcs have barbs on their cocks?!"

"Let's not even think about it." Battle Cry suggested. "Let's just go kill them all."

"We've certainly confirmed much of what the Councilwoman said. I presume that their investigation was thorough, and we do have a warrant for the Squire's execution." Don't Fail pulled out the rolled up and sealed notice and tapped it against the back of her hand. "There are too many orcs in there, though. And civilians. And our goal is the Squire and his co-conspirators."

"Yes," said Worthy of Armor, "we need to find a way to get the settlers to safety before we unleash hell."

"Once they are out though," said Hot Flanks. "We torch that faux-church, torch the tavern, and hang that screwy squire by his own entrails in Hoar's name!"

"Hang him by his entrails?!" Princess asked skeptically.

"It's a figure of speech," Battle Cry insisted. "Hoar's will is that we kill him in the manner in which he killed his own victims. Which in this case means that we, literally, boil him in his own pudding..."

(GM) "Hiiiiiissssssssss."

"Hey the joke wasn't that bad," Battle Cry said.

(GM) "No...that was the giant white crocodile-scorpion monster standing behind you."

The girls turned to see a massive albino crocodile, easily 20-feet from its nose to the tip of the stinger on its segmented, scorpion-like tail. Long boney spines jutted from the creature's back, decorated with impaled skulls and strung with entrails. The thing reared up on four hind-legs and swiped at Battle Cry with its two fore-claws. The first blow tore open her right shoulder, the second ripped out her throat. Battle Cry fell, bloody and broken, soundlessly into the snow.

Worthy of Armor gave a mighty shout and threw her scimitar at the thing's head. The monster ducked just in time, but the whirling, magically sharpened blade cut off a dozen of the beast's spines, which rained clattering down onto its back. Had Enough charged the thing with her greatsword, hitting hard, but the blade simply struck a ringing note off of the monster's stone-hard hide without leaving a dent.

Don't Fail pulled her elven cloak around herself and dropped down in the snow beside Battle Cry, practically vanishing. Under this cover, she searched through Battle Cry's possession, finding her potion of regeneration it pouring it into the gaping hole that had been her friend's throat.

Hot Flanks quaffed a potion, then glared at the creature, focusing her rage at the death of her friend at the thing and willing it to suffer incredible pain. "Now!" she shouted at Princess, calling on tactics they had used often. Princess, who had maneuvered around to the thing's side, leaped on its back through the opening in the spines that Worthy had made and jabbed the Handsome Prince deep into the creature's neck.

The creature roared in pain and lashed out with its tail, driving the spine clear through Princess's back and out through her chest with her heart still impaled on the point.

Had Enough, more brave than wise as usual, swung again and again failed to penetrate the beast's hide. "Stop that!" Don't Fail yelled, "you clearly need magic to harm that thing." Had Enough nodded grimly, tossed her sword aside, and jumped up on the creature's back, grabbing for the Handsome Prince.

Worthy of Armor threw her scimitar again, this time gouging a bloody line all the way down the creature's left side, nearly severing its foreleg. Don't Fail rolled away from Battle Cry's body and pulled a torch from her pack, lighting it with a simple spell. "Shall we see if fire works?"

Hot Flanks smiled, "YES!" She pulled out her iron club, leveling it in the monster's direction.

"Wait!" Don't Fail yelled, you'll hit Had Enough.

Hot Flanks hesitated just long enough for the beast to strike Had Enough a powerful blow with its tail. While it failed to impale her, the blow was strong enough to send Had Enough flying. She slammed into a tree several feet away.

"Now!" Don't Fail yelled.

"May you burn in the fires of Flandal’s forge!" Hot Flanks screamed in response, and a massive ball of flame blossomed over the monster's shoulder, searing the skin of its back black. "Looks like that works." She said smiling.

The creature, howling in pain, surged forward, lashing out at Hot Flanks with four of its claws, tearing through her leather cuirass and leaving large bloody gouges in the flesh beneath. Hot Flanks, enraged, drew her club and shoved her hand into the beast's mouth. "May you burn in the fires of Flandal’s forge!" she screamed again. The monster happily closed its jaws on her arm, shielding her and the rest from the fiery detonation that followed. The crocodile-monster appeared to expand, slightly, then smoke poured from its nose, ears, and eyes. The thing collapsed into the snow, unmoving.

Hot Flanks collapsed right beside it, cradling her arm which had been severed just below the elbow. Don't Fail rushed to her side, laying hands on the wound to stop the bleeding, while Worthy of Armor walked over and stabbed the thing several times with her magical scimitar for good measure.

"What in Hoar's name was that?" Hot Flanks said once she had composed herself.

"Some sort of demonic mascot I presume," said Worthy of Armor. "The same was depicted on their flag as we came in."

Had Enough walked over and retrieved Princess's body, and pulled the Handsome Prince not at all gently out of the beast's back. "Hot Flanks handless, and Battle Cry and Princess dead, and we haven't even reached the Squire himself yet..."

"Nor dealt with the orcs and goblins." Don't Fail added. "Though, Battle Cry will recover." She pointed to where the wounds on her neck and shoulder were already closing. "Those potions work wonders. As soon as her trachea is repaired she should start breathing again, and be fully functional shortly thereafter. I only wish we had more than just the one..."

"Great, we're still five where we were six, and most of us injured," Worthy of Armor said, fighting back tears. "We should withdraw, see Princess laid to rest, then make a proper plan of assault. Dealing with these treasonous heathen will not be an easy task."

"Yeah, that fireball may have drawn the attention of some in the keep," Don't Fail added, "we'd best move fast."


They gathered up their weapons, made a makeshift stretchers for Princess and Battle Cry from branches and cloaks, and hightailed it back to Phlan.