Journal of the Exploits of Drakul,
Half-Ogre “Thief” and Disciple of Loki
Lokean Log
On the Seven and Twentieth Day
Of the Month of Þorri
Having arrived early at the establishment known as “The Black Ox Tavern,” I began to set my plan in motion. First, having acquired sustenance from the kitchen, I procured additional chili powder, allegedly for adding flavor. Furthermore, I obtained the hotplate for the aforementioned sustenance, and, assuring that its temperature would remain extreme even after some time had passed, continued back to my selected seat in the corner. The hot plate was designated “stage two,” and placed beneath the thin seat cushion. The chili powder, being “stage one,” was introduced into the second flagon of ale and carefully positioned in front of the empty chair across from me.
Target one, Brandaelfr Erling, the Eldhuð warrior of Odin, sat at the bar with his divine halberd, claimed a gift from the Allfather himself. Target two, Dagrak Torsten, a Dwarf priest of Thor, soon joined him, his voice a cacophonous thunder to match the arrogance of his god. Target three, Fergurth Skógurdóttir, the Elf archer and ranger, took the bait and immediately downed the chili ale. Somehow, this did not deter her, and she fell for the hotplate as well, albeit without injury. How unfortunate. This actually endeared her to me, a sign from the Netmaker himself that my plan was indeed according to his weave. Target four, Mog, a Half-Orc barbarian came in just in time to see the knots begin to unfurl.
The Great Spider weaves his web tight and yet invisible even to his servants. A stranger took the stage and began pronouncing some mystery about a treasure map. But before he could continue, a great earthquake shook the building at the sound of a horn, coming from the well within the inn’s courtyard. Some minions of Hela arose from their slumber to attack the patrons, but my targets and I savagely destroyed them. With the power of the Allfather, Brandaelfr held the undead at bay while the rest of us sliced them to pieces, rescuing the patrons and owner from certain undeath.
This scheme from Loki united me to the targets faster than anything I could have planned, being now a brother at arms with them against the forces of darkness. Stage three was now set in motion, and ahead of schedule. After assisting the patrons in boarding up the windows and barricading the doors against the army of zombies approaching the tavern, and seeing that a flock of demonic crows was about to descend upon us, the targets and I descended into the well to discover and stop the cause of this catastrophe. Little did the targets know this was all playing into my hand.
At the bottom of the well stood a passageway just above the water level, leading into a circular cavern with torches lining the walls and a brazier in the center. As soon as we stepped foot on the landing, a Flame Lord appeared in the brazier, and a greenish mist hovered in one corner. Somehow we managed to avoid detection, ducking into the shadows on the sides of the small corridor.
The targets kept the focus of the Flame Lord, moving towards it from the front, while I skittered through the shadows and appeared behind it, burying my knife into its back of solidified flame. The greenish mist must have been some sort of demon fog—a Toxifier if memory serves, because it fled at the sight of Brandaelfr’s and Dagrak’s sacred weapons. Fergurth put an arrow in the Flame Lord’s eye socket, which didn’t seem to do as much as expected, and Dagrak tried summoning water above its head. The water was utterly useless, simply evaporating on contact.
Angered by my successive blows, the Flame Lord turned and tried to hit me with fiery fists, but I was too quick, and the deflection by my knives cut into the thing’s arms. Now taking it on from the front, Brandaelfr slashed mercilessly with his halberd of pure sunlight, splashing liquid flames from the creature’s midsection across the cavern floor, and Mog finished it off with a mighty cleave with his axe, the Flame Lord’s coalesced flames beginning to smolder out. Approaching the cowardly Toxifier, and cornering it with their sacred weapons, Dagrak and Brandaelfr finished it off with a combination of rapid slashed and a few Concussion spells, scattering the mist into nothingness.
The first room cleared, we settled down to rest a bit before moving forward. Naturally, I offered to lead the way, since I alone possessed the proficiency sufficient to take on the dreaded “locked door.” Two doors, in fact, easy enough though, and I snuck forward to get a look at the next room. Two stone golem’s guarded a door, and four coffins lay undisturbed in the midst of the room. I returned to inform the targets of the contents of the next room.
Once again, I took to the shadows, blades flashing for a golem’s neck from behind—the one with a huge maul. Mog went for the other creature—the one with an executioner’s sword, charging into a slash with his axe. My foe swung his maul at my chest. I bent backwards, nearly to the ground, to avoid it, and came back up slashing more chunks of rock off its neck. Fergurth watched the graves with arrow nocked and bow drawn, in case any more of Hela’s servants decided to appear. Joining my bout, Dagrak chipped off huge chunks of stone with his own hammer as my own blades hit its neck once again, stepping close to get within the reach of the oversized club. Dropping the weapon, the golem came at me with stony fists.
Brandaelfr took out the other one’s leg, giving Mog an opening. The barbarian deflected the golem’s sword before hefting the greataxe into its side, splintered rocks showering against the wall. The golem fell as its leg was crumbling, failing miserably to hit either its attackers. Brandaelfr removed its arm, and Mog finished it off with two brutal slashes across the chest. The golem’s magic departed, its eyes fading to an lifeless gaze, and the body crumbled into a pile of stones.
Meanwhile, Dagrak continued smashing chunks off our own foe while I slashed at its neck again—why reinvent the wheel after all. A few more precise strikes and it too fell to pieces at our feet.
The golems destroyed, we looked to the coffins, checking for traps and awaiting whatever danger lay within. One indeed contained another minion of Hela, a mighty warrior from ages past, unjustly ripped from Valhalla, clad with mail armor and armed with shield and a sword which erupted in flames when drawn. Fergurth was already prepared with an arrow and stuck it straight into the Draug’s eye socket. I ducked behind it, as usual, and took a chunk out of the unarmored neck—necks are all to easy to slice. Mog swung with such vigor that he not only missed but left himself wide open to the Draug’s attack.
The Draug ignored both its missing eye and the huge gash in the back of its neck and went instead for the easy target—the defenseless barbarian—slicing his chest wide open. Mog saw red, literally and figuratively, losing control of himself and flying into a rage. He continued to slash with reckless abandon, spittle spattering out of his mouth as he roared. I took advantage of being ignored and buried my blade in the Draug’s neck again. It really did work about as well as it could, but knives can only do so much, and this Draug was tough. Dagrak didn’t even bat an eyelash; he used the power of Thor to restore the raging barbarian’s tattered flesh, the gaping wound in Mog’s chest almost instantly stitched itself back together. The archer sent two arrows at the creature as Mog’s second attack landed home. Then Brandaelfr stepped around to the rear of the undead’s blind side and went for its skull with his gleaming halberd, cracking its skull in half even through the pot helm and thick hide. Not surprisingly, that took the thing down.
Mog didn’t seem to be calming down; he looked like he was going to keep attacking whatever was in his reach, but gods all be praised that Brandaelfr managed to talk him down before his rage turned against the rest of us. Two tough enemies down, and the bonds of friendship only grew stronger. All according to plan.
The door formerly guarded by the two stone golems was, as to be expected, neither locked nor trapped. The subsequent room, on the other hand, had a few surprises: First, there was a sort of underground river flowing that blocked the path to the next room. Second, a level say unguarded to the side. As I suspected, the lever was trapped. I almost convinced Mog to grab it with his hand, but he decided to use the haft of his axe instead. How unfortunate. The lever both began draining the river and alerted the creatures within to our presence. The river contained leaping leeches, which we dispatched in short order, and phase snakes, which also died without much trouble.
The real trouble awaited us in the final room, as did the fruition of this stage of my plan. A Peshkali stood at the far end of the room, guarding three clay idols with its six scimitars. I managed to run into the room without immediately attracting the attention of the demon, but one of the idols tried to shoot flames at me from afar. Instead, the flames erupted back on itself, giving me more space to charge across the room and destroy it with a swift slash of my knife. The whole cavern rumbled, like the earthquake that started it all.
This put me within reach of the Peshkali, but the rest of my targets were too far behind to draw its attention. The demon lunged for me, blades swinging. Somehow, I managed to avoid most of the blades between a couple parries, a lot of dodging and weaving, and Loki’s own luck. But the gods saw fit that I should take at least one severe wound—a massive slice from my left collarbone to my right hip. I nearly collapsed from shock, and this drew the attention of the whole party. Everyone charged forward, Dagrak moved to lend me aid by way of Thor’s healing magic. Fergurth shot the demon in the eye, but it didn’t even flinch. Mog and Brandaelfr came up to face the creature head on.
Before the barbarian could get a hit in, the demon moved toward him and slashed with every weapon. Mog managed to stop one sword. The rest cut deep gashes all over his body, blood fountaining from his bare chest. He collapsed in a bloody heap, unconscious and possibly dying. Fergurth again plugged the Peshkali’s eye, but yet with little effect. Dagrak healed most of my wound in an instant, enough to keep me going. Brandaelfr continued forward toward the demon.
Now the demon turned to Brandaelfr, scimitars spinning like a windmill of steel in the ambient torch light. The Allfather must truly favor this one, because he managed to deter most of the attacks with desperate parries by his halberd, but he too suffered a grievous wound. Dagrak managed to heal him just in time to keep him from collapsing, and the archer put two arrows in the creature’s eyes, finally blinding it. I charged the furthest idol, destroying it in a single slice. Again the ground shook again, with more intensity this time.
I moved toward the center idol while Brandaelfr regained control of his halberd after the terrible injury. Fergurth continued to plug the demon with arrows, and Dagrak healed the warrior of Odin again. The Peshkali somehow managed to target the Dwarf with at least one of his swords, although the cleric managed to evade without much trouble.
While Dagrak kept the demon’s attention, I destroyed the last idol, which brought another even stronger quake. The archer almost fell over as she fired two arrows into the ceiling, which would have been hilarious if it had been related to the quake; she mainly just slipped, and were it not for my plan, I probably wound have burst into laughter. The holy warrior took advantage of the Dwarf’s distraction and crippled two of the Peshkali’s arms.
I moved to behind the demon and cut deep lacerations into its elbow joints, and Brandaelfr severed tendons in the remaining functional arms. With its arms all unusable, the Peshkali’s connection with our world was cut off, and the body collapsed instantly as it was sent back from whence it came. Both the Eldhuð and I continued hacking the body to pieces just to be sure it was finished, severing it’s head and limbs for good measure.
As expected, and by the cunning of the Schemer, having conquered the source of the zombie outbreak and defeated such powerful enemies, the targets had all become “friends” not only with me but also with each other. The bonds of camaraderie forged, the group decided to stay together as we traveled to Norðlond.
Once we returned to the surface, we found that the inn was still safe, and they welcomed us as heroes, showering us with food and drink. One of the survivors was a merchant which was heading north to Krayhold, a fishing village where we would be stopping on the way to find passage to Isfjall. He offered to cover room and board for our stay at the village if we guarded his travel.
I do adore when a scheme unfolds, and this one was so well underway that even the most faithless atheist would be unable to deny the hand of Loki weaving his web before our very eyes. With stage three complete beyond every expectation, stage four was about to commence.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:23, Wed 02 Jan 2019.
