'Neath a Crimson Throne, Session XVI (The Conclusion)

  Adventurers present:

•Beowulf, level 4 fighter, played by J

•Dirge, level 1 dwarf, played by M

•Lord Deckard, level 3 specialist, played by M

•Lord Pendor, level 3 fighter, played by R

•Purge, level 1 dwarf, played by R

•Veriax, level 1 elf, played by M

Their entourage:

•Lady Joan, level 4 cleric, demoted to NPC

August 23rd, 2022/Worms 14th, 748

Beowulf, Lady Joan, Lord Deckard, Lord Pendor, and Veriax all headed back up the mountains and rendezvoused with Princess Adina. Together, they ascended Mount Skullfyre. Adina led them through a gap in the lines of the approaching brass army. Beyond it, the entire eastern half of the mountain range was awash in ash, so thick as to slow walking and blot out the sun.

Along the way, among this desolation, they found a field of corpses. Some were human and some were brass men. Clearly there had been a skirmish. The humans all wore the uniform of the Cult of Igon. One of them was still barely alive, but his eyes had been burned out. Beowulf recognized him as Atems, one of the pilgrims the heroes had encountered on their riverboat journey a year prior.

With his dying breaths, Atems told the heroes that he and his fellow Igonites had located the long-lost tomb of Igon. Inside, they had found Igon's magic sword Wyrmsbane, with which he had castrated the Dread Dragon Uskal. With this potent weapon in hand, they had attempted to attack Mount Skullfyre. On their way up the mountain, they were surprised by brass men. The brass men who survived the ensuing skirmish stole Wymsbane and headed up to the summit fortress with it.

When he had finished relating his story, Atems died.

The party proceeded up the mountain to the great skull-face. Unlike when they had been here a year prior, the front teeth of the skull had retracted, leaving a large front opening. Adina reminded the heroes about the side-entrance. It was for servants (read: brass men), and even with her reduce spell she would have trouble fitting inside. So, she took the front door through the mouth, while the rest of the party took the side door through the base of the skull.

Inside, they met with no resistance as they climbed a tall shaft of wrought-iron stairs. At the top, they came onto a landing with a hallway leading away on one side, and a gap in the wall revealing a circular pit filled with a pillar of cold fire on the other.

Deckard poked the fire-pillar with his spear, and the fire screamed in a hundred agonized voices. Beowulf stuck his head in it and sucked.

The fighter fell to the floor and passed out for a second, but was not burned. When he arose, he was changed. Now he was possessed by the spirit of a long-dead elvish warrior, who was lost and confused. Unhappy with this result, Lord Deckard stuck Beowulf's face back into the fire, hoping that Beowulf's own soul had simply swapped places with the elf soul and that repeating what Beowulf had done would swap them back.

That turned out to not be how it worked. By the end of the party's experimentations wit h the cold fire, Beowulf's body was inhabited by the ghosts of nearly a dozen ancient elves, all of whom were scared and confused but all of whom collectively were able to completely suppress Beowulf's own personality. (Some failed saving throws were involved here.)

Princess Adina came walking down the hall toward them. Before she could explain the next part of her plan, Beowulf-Legion started shouting hatefully and fearfully, for the ghosts had each been slain by fire giants or the minions thereof. Adina and the rest of the party reassured them that she was half-elvish and a friend.

During this delay, the wandering monster table dictated that a band of four brass men come down the hall. They initially thought that the party was there to hurt their princess, and prepared for combat. However, Adina assured them that the heroes were actually her prisoners. They accepted that explanation, but told her that she had better get them into the "grinder" quickly, so that they could be "ground down to meatlets" and "fed to the Soul Forge."

They led the group up the hallway into a vast foundry. With most of the brass men out in the field, only a skeleton crew was left to forge weapons and new brass men. Above this whole scene stood a creature Adina addressed as Grandgir, a ten-foot-long brass hound. Grandgir was bossing around the brass men, and was obviously their overseer.

Adina, her new brass man escort, and the heroes proceeded up a flight of stairs to an area of the foundry directly above the room where Beowulf had become possessed. There was a pit in the floor from which shot up the pillar of cold fire. A group of brass men were operating a great meat-grinder, feeding dead dwarves into it. They indicated to Adina that they were ready to grind her prisoners. Adina gave the heroes a signal to head to a nearby door, then she dropped to the floor. She began spasming wildly, shouting, "Oh no! I'm having a giant episode!"

This distraction allowed the heroes to rush for the door. Only two brass men followed them immediately, and these they easily dispatched. Several more brass men followed, but the heroes used the door as a choke point and were able to kill the brass men as they came just a few at a time.

When there was a break in the onslaught, the heroes turned around to find a grant flight of carpeted stairs. They rushed upstairs and came to a towering doorway. The doorknob was too high up to reach, but Lord Pendor undid his belt and used it to pull the knob. The door came open, revealing a 40' wide, 60' tall corridor. On either side of this hall were stacks of prison cells.

Two of the cells contained one frightened dwarf each. Pendor smashed open the cell doors with his great strength. The dwarves were grateful, but asked how the adventurers had managed to defeat the dragon.

As if on queue, the black dragon Fafnor came gliding down the prison-hall at them. A single burst of his acid breath melted Deckard, Joan, and Veriax down to the bone. They were dead.

The dragon could not launch his breath weapon twice back-to-back, so he landed to engage Beowulf-Legion and Pendor in mêlée. Beowulf-Legion bolted out of the prison and back down the grand stair. Pendor heroically attempted to hold off the wyrm, and in a few rounds was eaten whole for his trouble. Thus died Lord Pendor of Mossbridge.

When he got to the bottom of the stairs, Beowulf-Legion found more brass men crawling over the bodies of their fallen brothers. He defended himself and was nearly overwhelmed when Princess Adina, battered and bruised with 3 hit points remaining, emerged from the foundry and killed the last two brass men with her magical flying swords.

Together, Princess Adina and Beowulf-Legion finished off Fafnor, who had been badly hurt in combat with Lord Pendor. They returned to the prison, where they were joined by the dwarves (now named Dirge and Purge and played by M and R, since their own characters were dead).

The four of them came to the end of the prison-hall and another great door. On the other side, an elf was chained to a tall ceiling. This was Queen Marion. She was covered in scars and cuts, some of which were still bleeding. Princess Adina lifted up Dirge and Purge so that they could undo her mother's manacles.

Dirge, Purge, Beowulf-Legion, Princess Adina, and Queen Marion fled the fortress and hurried down the slopes of Skullfyre. Just after nightfall, they came upon a scene of violence and carnage. The armies of the Omnik had met the army of brass men led by Adina's one remaining sister. As the party arrived, Count Beornwine sounded a retreat and ordered the dike which overlooked the battlefield to be broken. A rush of water surged over the battlefield, sweeping away many brass men and the evil giantess. The rest of the brass men fled and escaped the water, as did the Omnik. Now the brass men and the Omnik looked out at each other from opposite sides of a field of shallow water.

Before the brass army could regroup, Queen Marion raised her arms above her head, and commanded the heavens to let loose a mighty rain-storm. The sudden downpour killed the fire-based automatons.

At this point, of course, no player-character was left who really understood the importance of any of this. Beowulf-Legion was glad to see the fire giants defeated, although he did not know who said giants were fighting or why. Dirge and Purge happy headed back toward dwarf territory. Adina and Marion had a very important and dramatic conversation which nobody stuck around to listen to, about how they had secured a temporary peace. The evil King Midbög of the Fire Giants had been dealt a terrible blow, but he would eventually gather a new force and attack the middle-earth once again.

Beowulf-Legion - part man, part rat, part fish, and part ghost - wandered into the wilderness. Rumors say he still stalks the woods of Omnikar, terrible to behold.