Hogar's Journal (Translated from Giant)
Year 781 of the founding of the City
3rd Day of Meloramensis – Part II
Thunderspire Mountain
As we progressed down the tunnel hoarse laughter and guttural voices drifted to us from further along. Soon a faint halo of light became visible in the distance outlining a wooden double door leading off from the main tunnel.
Vicrael waved the party to a stop and nodded to me. Stringing my bow I dropped to a crouch and crept up to the door. The shouts and the laughter grew louder as I edged closer but muffled as they were by the thick wooden doors I could not make out what was being said.
I notched an arrow and drew back. Gently I pushed the door open a crack with the point of the arrow. The old hinges creaked slightly but the noise was easily masked by the racket coming from inside the room.
A hobgoblin soldier had been posted behind the door to detect the approach of someone such as me but he was too interested in a conversation taking place at the back of the room to notice me.
The door led into a narrow room with barrels stacked up against the right hand wall. The sentry was leaning against these barrels looking back over his right shoulder to a desk perhaps fifty feet away from the door. Here a crowd of four more hobgoblins, one of them a warcaster, were gathered around a Halfling. They were taking it in turns to cuff him around the back of the head and laughing viciously.
Hobgoblins are never up to anything that's good so I took the decision that the halfling had to be freed. I released an arrow from the doorway that struck the sentry in the chest before he realised what was going on. I quickly ran into the room and saw an unoccupied bench against the left hand wall. I leapt atop it and loosed another arrow at the sentry but missed.
My sudden assault took the hobgoblins by surprise and they did little more than turn uncomprehending stares at me. There was one exception however. A heavily armoured soldier with a long pike came running in from a side room shouting curses at his unwary sentry and headed straight for me.
Before he was able to get anywhere near me Vic, Dief, Minron and Glen came barrelling into the room the former pair attacking the sentry the latter the pikeman. Recovering from their initial surprise the hobgoblin soldiers regained their composure to form a line centred on the pikeman. Glen, Minron and Eligos stood toe to toe with them and for a while there was stalemate.
No force of goblins however can allow myself, Rodney and Vicrael to engage in combat on our own terms without suffering painful consequences. Before long our assaults began to visibly take their toll on the pikeman, obviously the groups leader. He was inevitably dispatched as Vic and Glen combined to separate his head from his shoulders.
The hobgoblins mainstay removed from the fray, Minron and Eligos redoubled their efforts against the remaining soldiers driving them towards the so far ineffectual warcaster at the back of the room. One by one the warriors fell under a barrage of spells and arrows and a flurry of blades until only the caster remained standing.
Finding himself alone the mage lashed out with a massive burst of force energy causing Minron, Eligos and Vicreal to go crashing to the ground. For his trouble I pin-cushioned him with a couple of arrows, buying the warriors the time they needed to regain their feet without the hobgoblin doing further damage.
A flurry of swinging weapons followed as my furious companions re-engaged with our foe, most of them wide of the mark. Despite the profligacy of our attacks the death of the warcaster was now inevitable. The final blow swiftly came from the direction of Rodney who finished him off with a magical bolt of energy.
After Vic convinced him that we meant him no harm a halfling by the name of Rendil Half-moon emerged from under the desk. He claimed that the hobgoblins were slavers who had been stalking his family and took him hostage when he attempted to track them to their lair. It seems that outside of a place called the Seven Pillared Hall, which is protected by mages, lawlessness is a problem here. He offered to take us a tavern in this hall owned by his family and buy us a drink. Glen had him marching out the door leading the way before any of the rest of us had the chance to respond. I just hope he doesn't get Vicreal a full pint, I can't go through that again.
3rd Day of Meloramensis – Part III
Thunderspire Mountain – The Severn Pillared Hall
Rendil lead us out of the storeroom and back into the corridor. After only a short while we emerged into an enormous cavern that disappeared into darkness both above and in front of us.
Torches mounted at regular intervals in the wall spat warm light into the void revealing squat buildings occupied by countless people of all shapes, sizes and races.
To our left a huge column descended from the infinite blackness of the ceiling all the way to the floor, a natural monolith of lime and water, giving silent testament to the power of Moradin and the immense age of the cavern. This was presumably one of the "Seven Pillars" of the hall, repeated another six times further into the gloom.
We followed Rendil past a wainwright's shop and were absorbed into the wall of noise generated by the presence of so many people. The sound of people buying, selling, greeting, chatting, arguing, consoling and joking, sometimes all at the same time, echoed from the invisible walls of the cavern.
The very first building we passed turned out to be a customs house populated with the usual eagle eyed tax collectors. Despite the hundreds of people milling about the ogre on duty still managed to spot that six new faces had entered the hall. He lumbered over to us in the company of a magically animated bronze minotaur to demand ten gold pieces from each of us. I was ready to tell them where to go but Vic and Glen must've been intimidated by the presence of the minotaur as they immediately started negotiating the figure down to a still extortionate five gold each. Apparently this pays for the mages to protect the hall, which is clearly all they protect with slavers running amok in the labyrinth itself.
Our purses suitably lightened we were free to move around the hall and set off once again to Rendil's tavern. It is a rather grand establishment, especially by comparison to the Lucky Gnome in Fallcrest. We passed under the painted sign of a yellow half moon and through a warm, welcoming entrance into the jollity of the Halfmoon Inn.
We emerged into a large room with a bar running all along the left hand side. Several round tables were arranged throughout the room with squat stools surrounding them. At Rendil's arrival a plump middle aged female halfling came bustling from behind the bar, anxious to know where he had been these past days. She was, to say the least, unhappy with his explanation and disgusted with his rash decision to try and follow the slavers. The telling off that she gave Rendil was nothing however when compared to the welcome she gave to us when she heard of our efforts in his rescue. We were immediately ushered into a private dining room at the back of the tavern.
Food, ale (wine for Old Vic) and Mrs Halfmoon appeared at regular intervals together with stories of the Bloodreavers and the misery they have been bringing to the halfling population within the mountain. They operate from their hidden base in the Chamber of Eyes which it seems everyone knows about but few know its location. No sooner had Vic expressed an interest in dealing with these Bloodreavers than Mrs Halfmoon declared that she had a patron by the name of Terrlen Darkseeker who would know the location of the chamber if anyone did.
She sent a serving boy to fetch this Terrlen to the tavern. A short while later she introduced him to us. A middle aged man with a deeply lined face and haunted eyes joined us. He earns his living by guiding trade caravans across the Vale Road and exploring the labyrinth. It turns out that he does indeed know the location of the Bloodreavers lair and has agreed to lead us there for a fee of 42 gold (a figure agreed after some negotiation from Glen). He is going to meet us here first thing in the morning.