The trip starts with a slightly different line up returning to explore the magician’s lair from the previous expedition. Searching more carefully they discover a secret door, which leads to a chamber and an incubus, tied to a bed. In return for freeing him, the incubus offers a great deal of information about Tersites, the previous owner of this den. Apparently Tersites left for a place called Skagnar, in the far north, many hundreds of years previously. He never returned. He took with him his Nihrain Steed – some kind of transport demon; the heart of Kinslayer, the demon that had turned into a sword on the previous mission; and another demon, this one bound into a breastplate. The incubus pointed out the hiding place for the heart of this second demon. They free the incubus and Paradoxides banishes it, as agreed, to its home plane.
To be sure that Kinslayer will not turn once more into a demon at a moment of stress, Grettir and Paradoxides turn to Guildmaster Axillius of the Chittagong Magician’s Guild, a demonology specialist. In return for some of the Tersites’ paraphernalia, Axillius binds it more securely to the sword shape. He recommends that they take steps to secure the demon’s heart if they can. Grettir and Paradoxides make a mental note to mount an expedition to the far North in the spring to seek the legendary island of Skagnar.
Back in Sequarl party receive a distress signal from the settlement of Meriad, an old fortified hunting lodge, where Grettir’s sister-in-law, Sitrin, lives with her husband Vahn. Paradoxides teleports Salrod there into an ambush. He has to fight off a Mountain Troll alone as they retreat inside the damaged tower. Paradoxides fetches the rest of the party as reinforcements. A series of fights with orcs and the Mountain Troll ensue. The post battle analysis is a draw; many orcs are slain, but the Troll lives on. More importantly it has snatched Sitrin and one of her ladies and disappeared back into Itaen with them.
D-21
OE Date: September 688
Characters: Grettir, Salrod, Girindor, Paradoxides, Wilf, Jason, Aranath, Lorandil, Alyena NPCs:
Real World: 9th January 1993; Where – Tetbury
See also Salrod’s Diaries