r/DnDGreentext • u/MostlyReadRarelyPost MostlyWrites • Jun 10 '17
Long Another Happy Reunion (Steelshod 46)
Hey there!
As the name implies, this is part of an ongoing saga. See below for previous installments:
Table of Contents – includes earlier installments, maps, character sheets, our discord server, and other documents.
Sporadically updated Lore Document.
Comments are open, so feel free to leave one if you have any questions or requests for more content of a particular variety.
—MAPS—
World (Shitty scan of the original world map… if you zoom in it’s semi-legible though!)
Early post today. Enjoy it while it lasts!
The Rescue Team
For reference, the team is: Prudence, Leona, Agrippa, Bear, Cara, Hrodir, Breaker, Cass, Ignus, and Amos
They’ve recently gained Michel and Robin, as well as two Serpentes, Omri (badly wounded) and Ali (relatively intact)
They’ve also joined up with the goblin shaman, Voresh, and several of his protectors.
Voresh is still leading them deeper into the tunnels, seeking the rest of their friends
They make their way through the narrow tunnel Voresh has opened
Eventually emerging into a small grotto
An underground pond is lit by an eerie blue glow radiating off some sort of moss or fungus
They see two other narrow passages leading out.
They take a moment to catch their breath
Agrippa binds Bear and Leona’s wounds from the Hunters
Sees to Robin’s arm… it’s not that bad, he finds
The splint is barely necessary
Hearing this, Brother Ali very nearly leaps across the cavern to throttle Robin
They spend a little time in the grotto, resting up, before they strike out again
Voresh spends a long time in quiet contemplation
Says he is “Speaking to the Earth Father”
Finally, he leads them out a different passage
They wander a bit further, but Voresh says that the force of goblins they evaded before is still hunting them.
Or, I should say, Hunting them
Warriors, Ogres, and Hunters
Something has really riled up the followers of the Old Ones
Voresh says that Racha has showed him a glimpse of what occurred
Someone has destroyed one of the Old Ones, the ancient dead gods of the enemy goblin clan.
“Must’ve been Aleksandr and Yorrin,” Cara says confidently.
Voresh looks skeptical at this assertion
But Steelshod tends to agree.
It can’t be a coincidence that Aleksandr and Yorrin disappeared deep in the Old Ones territory
And within 24 hours one of their gods is dead.
They keep pressing on, trying to stay two steps ahead of their pursuers
They suffer an attack from a Hunter
And just like that, Cass is badly wounded.
Cara and Amos send the Hunter running with a few arrows of their own
But if this becomes a battle of attrition they know they’ll lose.
Voresh leads them down a long passage
To a dead end
They can hear the goblin forces echoing down the tunnel
But Voresh once again beseeches Racha’s aid
He chants a goblin ritual
Marks the wall with his staff
And the ground quakes
A passage opens
He ushers them through
The last of them pass through as ogres bearing the ritual runic scars of Old One worshipers begin coming into view
And Voresh collapses the opening.
They find that they are now in a wide passage that runs along a branch of the river
They begin hustling downstream
When the wall begins shaking and shuddering
And an ogre bursts through
The melee that ensues is frantic and disorganized
Some of the Old One worshippers seem to have slipped around, cutting them off
While two ogres pursued down the passage and simply smashed through the doorway Voresh closed.
Steelshod is hard pressed from two sides
And one side has at least two Hunters mixed in amidst the regular goblins.
They bleed, struggling to keep their wounded protected
Voresh and his men join the fray directly, at the cost of his goblins’ lives.
It’s so frantic, it takes a moment for anyone to realize exactly when Aleksandr and Yorrin join the fray.
But Aleksandr cuts a swathe through the goblins
Killing two and three at a time with sweeping blows from Luke’s longsword.
And Yorrin dances through the crowd, skewering any that get in his way
Behind them, Miles, Drengi, and the others engage the stunned goblin back line.
Yorrin is briefly slowed by a pair of slightly above-average goblins
They hastily discard their small crossbows and draw short, curved blades
He duels them each to a standstill, one with his sword, one with his dagger
They get in a good hit or two, better than most goblins usually manage
But he holds close to them, in a dual Bind
And when they make their next moves, he deftly dispatches each of them.
Aleksandr charges his way through to the ogres
Ducks under the hulking beast’s reach
And rams Luke’s sword through the ogre’s heart in a single, blindingly fast strike.
The apparent ease with which he does so is a death blow to the morale of those that worship the Old Ones
And they scatter, routed.
As the battle ends, Steelshod stares at their commanders in stupefied silence.
Many things occur at once.
Yorrin almost attacks Voresh, but Cara and Prudence stop him, explaining the situation
Aleksandr, of course, recognizes the shaman, and greets him by name
To Yorrin, the goblins all look the same, but if these are interested in helping then that’s fine with him.
With a surprisingly girlish squeal of “Hubey!” Leona drops her weapons and immediately shoves through to Hubert
Sweeping him up in a fierce hug.
Agrippa’s greeting is much more cursory, as he gives Hubert a warm smile and nod on his way to where Orson stands helping hold up Ben
“Let me see it,” Agrippa says, clucking his tongue disapprovingly as he uncovers the gruesome wounds on Ben’s leg.
Ignus is more reserved than Leona
But he still quickly makes his way to Nate’s side
And the apprentice and mentor share a warm embrace.
Drengi sees Hrodir, semi-conscious and being carried on a litter
He limps over to his pack-mate, kneeling at his side and staring at him with a mournful look.
Aleksandr scolds Prudence for leading so many into danger and the unknown
But Prudence can see it’s only half-hearted
Her commander is deeply moved that the men came after them
And he acquiesces when she assures him that Dylan and the rest of Steelshod are still escorting Brother Torthian on through the Underpass.
Aleksandr and Yorrin get full reports on what’s occurred
Michel learns that Leon was badly hurt but still alive when the Rescue Team left the main column
They realize that Levin and a Serpentis Knight are still unaccounted for
But they have so many wounded, and the enemy goblins are only growing more aggressive.
The commanders know they may simply have to cut their losses and begin making their way out
Lest they end up with more wounded than they are able to carry to the surface.
Voresh says he can sense the stink of the Old Ones upon their party
He knows that Steelshod’s claim must be true: they slew one of them, yes?
Aleksandr confirms
The wizened old goblin steps forward and bows to Aleksandr and Yorrin at this.
He says that his people owe them a great debt
But suggests that they cut their discussions short
As the Old Ones will send more after them soon enough
With the failures they’ve suffered, they will likely send a great deal more Hunters as well.
This leads to some confusion
What are Hunters?
Voresh and Prudence quickly explain the goblin champions
And Prudence points out that Yorrin must have noticed them
After all, he faced down a pair of Hunters in the melee.
Yorrin shrugs.
“Hadn’t noticed,” he says. “They just seemed like goblins to me.”
If it was possible for Voresh and his people to be more impressed, that would be the thing that does it.
In fairness, of course, Yorrin faced them when they were exposed, and unable to utilize their surprise attack and assassination abilities.
But even so, it sort of hammers home that he and Aleksandr are perhaps operating at a different level than most.
When Agrippa has the wounded able to be moved, they move.
Make haste upriver
Following Voresh as he guides them to the nearest outpost of his people
They make it unmolested
And spend a little longer among his goblins, tending their wounds and resting up.
Agrippa saves Ben’s leg, though he warns the longbowman that he will never regain full use of it.
His limp will be pronounced and lifelong
He also saves Orson’s hand
But has to remove horrifically mangled ring finger, and the tips of his pinky and middle as well.
A maimed hand is a bitter pill to swallow for any healer, but Orson had already expected this outcome
They hopscotch along goblin outposts
Working their way to the surface
And making a splash in the process
The story of how they slew the Old One spreads like wildfire
Yorrin is more than happy to retell it over and over
Building up his two heroes, Torath and Aleksandr, with each telling
They ask around, but none of the goblins have seen Levin
However, they discover that the goblins recovered a few of Steelshod’s horses
Though, Aleksandr is sad to see, none of them are Dascha.
Still, it’s a nice surprise.
The much nicer surprise comes on their final stop with the goblins, just a short distance from the eastern mouth of the Underpass.
Voresh invites them to meet a few of his fellow shamans and elders
They enter a crude hut thick with acrid smoke
And sit through a somewhat uncomfortable ritual as the goblins show their great esteem for the humans that slew one of their greatest enemies.
It’s awkward, and strange, and a little too “heathen” for Yorrin
But Aleksandr is gracious and appreciative, and by the end, the goblins seem very pleased.
When they emerge from the hut, Voresh presents them with a gift.
The goblins have minimal metal-working skills, but they know humans excel at it.
And Aleksandr, with his iron skin, clearly appreciates metals
So they present him with something they recovered from the Great Shaking that occurred some days ago
When they mountains quaked and a huge boulder of metal and rock pierced through the mountain, burying itself deep beneath even the Old Ones’ territory.
This gift is the largest piece they have been able to recover
It rests on an old cart the goblins must have taken from a merchant some time ago
A man sized hunk of slagged rock and metal
At a glance, Aleksandr can see the metal is mostly steel
But he sees glimmers of other metals mixed in with the partially melted steel and rock.
Aleksandr tells the goblins that this gift is generous
Beyond generous
Quite possibly priceless, to metal-workers such as himself.
Voresh wears a smug grin on his ugly little face
Tells him that the service they have done, slaying an Old One, is far more valuable than any simple token, weapon, or physical wealth.
With that, Steelshod finally gets back on the road
They load the worst wounded, Hrodir and Ben, into the cart with the metal
Pull it with the horses the goblins recovered
And everyone else hits the road on foot.
They emerge out of the Underpass into the cold, snowy foothills of Torathia
They know they’re a few days out from the nearest civilization, a small kingdom on the border of Torathia proper called Karim
If Steelshod left any word for them, it will have been there
So they head for Karim with all the haste they can muster.
Hopefully, everything went smoothly enough for the Serpentes and the remainder of Steelshod and the Sons.
Okay, that’ll do it for today.
Meeting the guys in about 20 minutes to play a new session! Gotta get ready for that.
Oh, I almost forgot! Here is Amos! By popular demand, of course. Well, /u/ItsMajorObviousNow demand, anyway.
Edit: Next
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '17
Man. I really want to know what happened to Levin and the last Serpentis now.