Goblins Again

After some discussion over the course of action in the days leading up to the eminent siege of Johkan, the party decided to head below into the city sewers once more to search out Tyrus. They explored the burnt out rooms of the Rat Kingdom, Kort Fatrat's bloated corpse still sitting in his throne where Lucky Luke slew him. They then found their way back to the Slurm Kingdom where they were expecting a warm welcome from Big Flurx, Hoogn, and Grozzy.

In the Sewers Again

The Slurm Kingdom's warren was absolutely stuffed to bulging with bar stools courtesy of Savario's gift to Big Flurx. There was hardly room to push through the room, past the gelatinous cube Shiny, and into Big Flurx's presence. Grozzy was regaled by tales of Merrick's conquests and Grozzy's hat was returned to him.

Hoogn led the party to the Centipede Kingdom, where they eventually found Tyrus trussed up in a corner by their leader, Lanua Many Legs. Eventually, the party came to understand that Tyrus had tried to buy the cooperation of Lanua with the barstools provided by Savario. Insulted, Lanua had taken Tyrus prisoner and eventually traded the stools to Big Flurx in exchange for unspecified agreements.

There were various attempts to interest the goblins in defending the city but no commitments were made. (Really, who would trust the word of a goblin anyways.) The party conceived a plan to bring Shiny to the surface to be used in the defense of the city but the plan was shelved when they considered how that might play out once the mindless Gelatinous Cube was above ground and free within the confines of Johkan.

Hoogn then led the party back to Evard the Hermit in the hopes that he could give directions through the sewers into the castle keep. For 100 gold and the chance to follow the party at a distance and extend his maps, Evard gave over detailed directions on how to reach the sewer gates leading under Castle Hill. A large iron gate blocked the sewer at this point with sewage backing up where it had snagged on the rusted iron grating. A small rusted door was set in the grating with a shiny padlock barring the way. From the previous corner, Evard poked his head around to confirm that yes, this was the correct location. Savario, then Lucky Luke made quick work of the padlock.

The party then made their way inside, passing up into a second tier of sewers by ascending a set of ladders. Eventually these led to a central cistern, a cylindrical room twenty feet in diameter with a staircase around the outside and a cat walk near the ceiling sixty feet up. The party climbed the stairs and found four locked doors at the top. Systematically picking each lock they then opened the last door. Savario snuck inside and heard an approaching guard. Leaping from the shadows, Savario clubbed the guard into unconsciousness and the party snuck past to explore further.

Beyond, there lay a dungeon of some form. Emaciated bodies chained to the walls behind strong iron bars in a limestone cavern that must have been hollowed out by a spring some eons ago. Most of the prisoners seemed to have been down there for a long time, having not seen the light of day in so long they could not remember. It was difficult to get much sense out of the prisoners except that they seemed to have been imprisoned for anything from petty theft to murder. The sentence appears to have been the same. The party then returned to the guard and Savario interrogated the man, finding that his name was Guard Jones and the Captain of the Guards was also a Jones. Numerous prisoners were free-ed but when the party tried to ascend the stairs they were hailed and failed to reply with the requested whistle blow. The party beat a hasty retreat as the main body of the guards organized at the top of the stairs.

As the last man out, Savario slit the throat of Guard Jones, after everyone else had passed beyond the door. Lucky Luke, Grunt, Hoogn, Grozzy, Sellwyn, Merrick, Evard, Mose and Tyrus thinking that the guard was still unconscious on the floor where he had been left to be found by his fellow guards. The door was locked, the party retraced their steps, locking the lower grate with the padlock.

Back to the Light

The fight with the Air Elemental went well until the moment that Merrick was swept up, attached by his climbing line to the top of the pillar, by half the bifurcated Elemental while at the other end of the line, dangling over the edge, Savario and Lucky Luke finished off the other half Elemental. Merrick made a valiant, but poorly aimed, swing with his new long sword. The long sword acquired from the Fire Elemental's room. The resulting miss left Merrick's boot afire. Undeterred by the pain, he kicked the remaining Elemental fragment from within [crit!] and it went up in a thunderclap of combustion. Good thing there was rope; lots of rope.

Meanwhile, wearing doe skin gloves, Luke had discovered that they were gloves of strength by nearly tossing Savario over the other side of the pillar when he tried to ascend.

With the Air Elemental vanquished, the prizes: roman-style sandals (lots of leather straps) and a wood stick were found atop the sarcophagus. The troop returned to the entrance of the room. After a quick bit of detecting magic ("Purple haze man.") the new items were tried out. The stick quickly proved itself to be a wand of magic missiles in Sellwyn's deft hands. The boots, though... well Sellwyn was certain they were boots of flying. He tied a rope around his waist, strapped on the sandals and proceeded to throw himself off the edge of the precipice a dozen times. Thoroughly concussed, Luke took them from Sellwyn and gingerly tried to step up into the air from nice solid ground. After a few unsuccessful tries, they "caught" and he was able to gingerly walk out over the open space, as though stepping along wobbly boulders.

The crew retraced their steps and took on the chamber of earth: a room of stalactites and stalagmites. Various folks were smashed about by a room of rapidly rising columns and opening crevasses, then by an Earth Elemental. In a final attempt to strike down the elemental, Merrick threw his flaming sword at the elemental. With a bit of luck, he hit, the sword stuck, and the elemental sank into the floor. Hey, wait, no! Flaming sword in tow. A maul that somehow disrupts magic ended in Grunt's hands and a gem stone.

Our intrepid crew dug about for a while looking for their sword, then headed off to the next room: time to challenge water. At the intersection, the flaming sword stood, hammered into the ground. Luke noted a face on the wall, and with gem in hand, was able to speak Terran. The Earth Elemental granted the sword to the party: "Take what you have earned through your valor in combat."

Following the blue pebbles, the next chamber was a room divided into quadrant pools of water, depth undetermined. Rocky dividers led to the central hub where yet another sarcophagus lay. Luke made use of the boots of flying to swipe the goods from the sarcophagus: a dagger and hip-waders. Merrick was along for the ride as usual. The Water Elemental attacked Luke when he toppled off the wobbly air steps, landing on the rock divider between two pools. As the combat went on, Savario circled around the pool, locating three levels on the far wall. Through experimenting he figured out that two drain and one fills. Setting them back to safe states (Don't drown the barrow!) the crew defeated the water elemental and returned to the central path leading out of the barrow.

 Arriving at the bottom of the steps up, the formerly well lit entrance way was now blocked by a large round surface. Pushing with all their might, and the aid of the doe skin gloves, the party managed to shove the boulder aside by rolling it back out of the entrance hole.

Returning to the light of a fresh morning, the wagons, horses, Tordek and Nuna's son, Mose, were all missing. Looking about, boulders that weren't there when the party descended had appeared throughout the gently rolling valley in which the barrow lay. Very strange indeed. Looking about, it wasn't hard to find signs of a hasty exit by horse and wagon heading back to the valley entrance. Something had disturbed our intrepid watch.

Then, from over the grass of the barrow hill, shuddering, groaning, ground shaking rumbles were heard. Luke, with the gem of language, understood a being of stone and earth rumble "Who disturbs my rest? Who?" as boulders throughout the valley started to slowly roll towards the disturbed giant. A gentle discussion appeased the giant, apologizing for disturbing his 500 years of rest, and convinced him to head north to crush some unfortunate hobgoblins. It turns out you'd just woken the builder of the barrow, napping after his hard work. As the giant strode off over the hills northward, dozens of large boulders rolled after him. Those hobgoblins are in for a surprise.

The Stone Giant Awakens

The party caught up with the wagon as it rejoined the river-side road back to Johkan. Tordek, passed out with wineskin still to his lips atop the pile of dead lizardmen, had missed the whole affair. The party overtook the merchants from the burned out wagon that the lizardmen had first attacked and provided a ride back to the city where they were assured that starting a new line of work as militiamen was a sure start.

Upon arriving back in Johkan, the city seemed to finally be alive, focused on constructing its own defense. The lizardmen corpses were turned quietly over to the Grey Society and Grunt triumphantly returned to his tribe, encamped inside the city walls but under city guard.