The Final Chair (3rd July 2013)
The Dragon Warriors
Aethelfrith – Thane
Sir Erich of Barton – Knight
Hillson – Warlock
Nazir al Khalid – Barbarian
Solaran – Elementalist
Karban Telos – Sorcerer (NPC)
The Chair of the Lyre (Day 39 – morning (119)
Aethelfrith, Hillson, Nazir and Sir Erich returned to the
ship again to rest and relay their latest exploits to their companions and crew
members. Even though they had only been gone half a day, the fight to the death
had taken its toll on the warriors.
They rested up the rest of the day and got in a good night’s
sleep before heading back to the halls again. This time though, Solaran decided
that they may need more brains to go with the brawn of his fellow adventurers.
Their journey back to the halls was uneventful and so they
made their way to the top table again. As Solaran had not sat upon one of the
chairs yet, he was unanimously voted to be first upon the Lyre chair. Again,
the party were ported through to another plane without harm. This time they
arrived in a large circular room with walls filled with scroll shelves. In the
middle of the room, facing each other, were two lecterns with books open upon
them.
Solaran stepped straight up onto the right side lectern and
glanced at the book in front of him. The pages were blank. His puzzled look did
not last long as a shadowy form appeared on the pedestal opposite him. The
newcomer was young but wore a full beard. He appeared warrior-like but was
without weapons.
The new arrival spoke to Solaran and posed him the following
riddle…
My words soothe more
than any medicine you know,
But still cut deeper
than any sword or bow.
It is my verse that
shapes all history,
Who are you to
challenge me?
Solaran thought about what he could answer to this riddle
and quickly spoke the single word “Truth”. A few seconds later the bearded man
spoke a second rhyme…
You have no answer to
my rhyme,
A challenger who
wastes my time.
The elementalist received a sharp shock from the pedestal he
was standing upon, which caused him to recoil and step down from the lectern
whereupon the riddler faded from view.
Hillson was less fazed by this turn of events than Solaran
and confident that he could work out the trick behind this challenge, so he stepped
up to the lectern. The bearded warrior reappeared at the pedestal opposite and
repeated his rhyme. Hillson waited out the time, listened to the same rebuke
and took the zap from the pedestal and waited to see what would happen next. The
bearded warrior repeated the original rhyme and Hillson took another bolt of
energy, so he too stepped down from the pedestal. He then proceeded to examine
the scrolls upon the shelves that were located around the walls of the chamber.
He realised they were all written in stanzas and said so to his fellow
adventurers. Nazir, who until this time had not spoken a word, said that he had
figured out the conundrum and that he should be able to challenge this bearded
figure and beat him at his own game as he had attended the university in his
home city back in the east where he studied poetry in all its forms.
He stepped up to the plate and the bearded warrior
reappeared. He repeated his original rhyme to Nazir, who responded with a rhyme
of his own. Impressed, the bearded man responded with a second rhyme but no
shock from the pedestal affected Nazir. This battle of wits continued for
several minutes before the bearded man conceded defeat and presented Nazir with
a picture of a lyre upon the page of the open book in front of him. Nazir made
to trace its outline with his fingers but rather than touching a flat page, the
lyre began to take form in front of him. Nazir grabbed the fully formed lyre
and a misty gateway appeared in place of one of the scroll shelves. The party
stepped through the shimmering light back into the main Trickster’s Hall.
Loki’s Chair
When the five adventurers had collated their prizes, they
tried to work out what to do with them. Solaran picked up the eye and sat upon
Loki’s chair. Rather than get burned immediately, the seat only slowly began to
heat up. Solaran stepped off of the seat again, knowing that it would need all
of the prizes from the six quests to resolve the puzzle. Hillson grabbed all of
the items and placed them upon Loki’s golden plate at his place setting. The
golden chair began to glow, so the adventurers sat upon it one at a time and
were transported to a new location. This time, they strode into a new hall
through a pair of iron bound oaken doors. Eight columns that represented women
in a variety of tasks ran down its length and carvings of scenes from Norse
mythology graced its walls. At the far end of the hall was a raised dais with a
pedestal upon it. Stood upon the pedestal was a beautiful woman with a simple
iron pot-helmet placed upon the floor in front of her.
The party approached the woman at the far end of the hall.
As they approached the dais they saw that it was inscribed with a variety of
runes, but no-one in the party could read them. As the party approached the
base of the dais the woman spoke to them. “Heroes, you have found the way
through Loki’s door.” The party engaged
her in conversation and found out that she was imprisoned here many years ago
(the party gathered this as all of the place names she mentioned were now named
something different and the peoples she spoke of no longer existed). They found
out that she was a Fomorian named Egrin.
Whilst the party spoke to her, Aethelfrith tried to grab the
helmet from the dais but was stopped from doing so by a strange force. Egrin
said that she had been imprisoned so long that she wished for her freedom and
would reward the party for letting her free. She pointed to a rune and said
that if that rune was scratched out she could leave the pedestal and join the
real world. Sir Erich, ever the chivalrous knight, scratched away the rune
setting her free. She stepped straight down from the dais and made her way to
the door without looking at the party. Nazir and Aethlefrith wondered what
their prize would be but she ignored their questioning. Nazir stepped in front
of her to block her exit, but she cast some kind of charm over him and he
became as still as a statue, mesmerised by her beauty.
Meanwhile, Aethefrith was able to block the door and stall
her with chat about the lie of the land in the era in which they currently
lived. Whilst this conversation was going on, Sir Erich grabbed the helmet from
off of the plinth and placed it upon his head. Immediately he began to hear
lots of talking emanating from the statues within the hall. When he touched his
helmeted head against the pillar of a woman who appeared to be reading a book
he could hear her much more clearly. The verse she quoted to him seemed to grant
him the power of remembrance; any verse that he heard in future he would be
able to remember flawlessly.
Finally, Egrin had decided that she had had enough of the
party and forced her way past Aethelfrith. He let her go and ran back to the
others gathered around Sir Erich. She shouted at them as she left the halls
that her master, Balor of the One Eye, would show them no mercy. He warned them
that she had left the hall and that he was worried in case the doors sealed
behind her or that, gathered from their conversation, she would steal their
ship.
The magical gift bestowed upon Sir Erich proved a more
powerful draw to the rest of the party however, and one at a time they too
placed the helmet upon their heads, pressed their heads against a pillar and
gained a minor boon. Aethlfrith, not one to miss out, also grabbed the helmet
in turn and was granted the boon of charming animals. Sir Erich then chanced
his luck with another of the statues, but the magical resistance to his
attempts and the potential loss of his original boon soon convinced him not to
try again.
The Fomorian
They finally listened to Aethelfrith’s pleas of cutting off
Egrin before she gained their ship and hurried from Loki’s Hall via the iron
bound doors. Upon entering the main hall in the real world, they noticed that
Egrin had managed to make her way across it a fair distance. They also noticed
that their prizes had disappeared from Loki’s table. They hurried to catch her
up, but it was only Aethelfrith’s tracking and observation skills that showed
them that she had indeed headed towards their ship.
The party just managed to catch her before she boarded their
ship. It was now too late that they realised she was evil and only intent on
pursuing her own agenda. When she stepped aboard the cog she ordered the crew
to obey her will but they cowered on the fore deck, looking to the adventurers
for guidance. Nazir made his way to the aft deck and grabbed the wheel and
Aethelfrith grabbed Egrin’s arm to stop her from making her way to the back of
the boat and commence taking command.
As soon as
Aethelfrith’s hand touched the Fomorian’s arm, she snarled an incantation and
an onyx spear appeared in her hand. Aethlfrith made to grab the spear, but a
second incantation made the pair of them fade to smoky shades in the eyes of
the crew. Aethelfrith also saw that the crew seemed to fade from his eyes and
become smoky shades – he was on his own against the Fomorian in their magical
cocoon. He quickly drew his magical short sword and stabbed Egrin with it.
Egrin calmly cast yet another incantation. A perilous melee erupted. Aethelfrith
struck his opponent many more times than she struck him, and he also defended
well with his shield, but over time, the magical incantations she threw at him
took their toll. He struck the Fomorian warlock with blows that would have
felled an ox each time but the devil woman still stood; Aethelfrith began to
fear for his life.
The rest of the
party could just about make out the fight as it played out and willed their
companion to victory, but a final flurry of spells and a blow from her onyx
spear pushed Aethelfrith to the floor unconscious. This was not what the party
wanted to see, but the spell had finally broken and the Fomorian appeared to
them again as a real person. This was the opportunity they had looked for and
as they had the fight between Aethelfrith and the Fomorian surrounded at all
times they all struck their blows. Sir Erich’s battleaxe, Nazir’s magical
morning star and Hillson’s Silent Warrior spell fell upon her without her being
able to respond to the flurry of blows, and the next time they all struck her
she fell to the floor dead. They quickly tended to Aethelfrith and found he was
not dead yet. Karban, who had remained below decks throughout the entire melee
came up on deck and ran his magical powers onto Aethelfrith’s wounds, which brought
him back from the point of death.
Now that the Trickster’s Halls had been fully investigated
and the ship was now fully stocked with provisions for a few more weeks, the
party set sail again back into the Glissom Sound and continued upon their
journey north around the cape in the hope that they had thrown off pursuit from
the Bloody Bitch and her pirates.
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