Yspadadden was setting up a residence in Chittagong. He had bought what was literally a wizard’s tower from Paradoxides and was fitting it out. Trevillion was also in Chittagong and he insisted on showing the Dwarf and his companion Ranulf the sights of the city. That night he had taken them to the Cavern, a bar much frequented by dwarves.
The beer was good but the main draw that evening was the music. The singer was a woman with striking good looks and very fine voice. Yspadadden thought she had some elven blood and he was fairly sure that she was enhancing her performance with subtle sorcery. Her name was Lenore. She was accompanied on a variety of instruments by a fellow called Stumpy, who wore the sigil of Loki, the God of Luck and Mischief, around his neck. Intrigued by the pair, Yspadadden played the Dwarven lord and invited them to his table to join him for a drink at the end of their set.
The small hours of the morning were starting to grow when a small weaselly looking fellow slunk into the bar and sidled up to Trevillion. He plainly wished to speak privily to tall archer, but Trev was well into his cups and told him that all here were friends and whatever he had to say he could say in front of the whole company. He introduced him as Jezza and bade him tell what brought him here.
It was a sorry tale indeed. It seemed that Jezza was a fence who provided a variety of services to the criminal fraternity of Chittagong. The previous evening a couple of bravos had approached him asking to stash some “merchandise” at his place of business. To Yspadadden’s mind it said much about both his business and his character that when the “merchandise” turned out to be a drugged, bound and unconscious young woman with a hood over her head, he raised no objections. It said even more on those subjects when he didn’t trouble to ask any questions about the poor girl; and yet more when he quietly helped himself to the ring on her hand.
A few hours later a different set of bravos came, as arranged, to pick up the unfortunate lady. He had not at that point looked properly at the ring – though he could see it was a good one – gold with a big rock. After they left he took the time to examine his acquisition. He noted that there was an inscription upon it, which read: Maria Amore. This was a little irritating since it slightly impacted its saleability. Still it was easily rectified. He was just rummaging in a drawer for a rat-tailed file when he heard a beating upon his door. He tried ignoring it but the knocking did not stop and was now accompanied by a loud voice.
It was Vega and a bunch of heavies. Vega was a very nasty piece of work. He was the chief enforcer for Mr Marcellus, an important gang boss in Chittagong, to whom Jezza paid “protection”. Mr Marcellus was a whole different level of nasty. Vega would just kill you if you crossed him. Mr Marcellus had imagination and finesse. Jezza was up-to-date with his payments and had not screwed anything up lately, so he let Vega in with some confidence. Vega was his usual charming self, but it appeared that he agreed that on this occasion Jezza was in the clear.
All Vega wanted from Jezza was information. It seemed that someone had kidnapped Beautiful Maria, the fragrant and much beloved squeeze of Mr Marcellus. Vega was turning the entire quarter upside down searching for her or any information as to her abductors or her whereabouts. Jezza was adjured to keep his ears open. There would be rewards – and punishments – said Vega as he pressed on to the next door on his list.
Realisation had come tumbling in on Jezza while Vega was talking and it was all he could to keep it from his face. He gave no serious thought to ‘fessing up’. That would not end well. He just kept nodding as Vega spoke. As soon as he had gone Jezza slipped out the back way and came to find Trev as someone who owed him a favour, had important friends, and was not (as far as he knew) connected to Mr Marcellus or Vega. He knew it would not be long before they turned up the dockyard rats who had brought Maria to him and they would not hesitate to blab everything, including his involvement.
Yspadadden looked at the ring. It was a significant object and it was plain that if Vega had any sorcerors out looking for Maria, they could detect the ring if they sought it. He muttered into his beard a while and cast a Protection against Scrying. That would work for a while.
The only useful piece of information that Jezza had was that he had recognised one of the men who had come to collect the “merchandise”. He was a memorably ugly fellow. Jezza didn’t know his name but he had last seen him in a village called Ord, a smuggler’s base in the marshes that fringed the West Otanga. It was the only lead they had so the party arranged a rendezvous and split up. Trevillion went to hire a boat and a crew; Yspadadden and Ranulf headed back to their tower to tool up; Jezza scuttled out of a back window like a frightened rat; Lenore went to get some beauty sleep at her lodgings; Stumpy escorted her.
At the Tower Yspadadden used the ring as personalia to cast a divination as to the whereabouts of its owner. The results supported the hypothesis that Maria was at Ord, pointing in that general direction. Rather than carry the incriminating object around the streets of Chittagong, Yspadadden renewed the ring’s protection, put it in a lead-lined box, and marked the box with an invisible sigil, so that it would come to his hand when summoned.
They met up at the Red Axe Inn for a late breakfast. Trev told them that he had found a boat and Yspadadden related his news. A worried-looking Jezza said that he’d paid a bunch of urchins to check on his den. They’d returned saying that there were a bunch of heavies there offering money for news of the whereabouts of someone called Jezza. Luckily the urchins didn’t know his name and weren’t bright enough to put two and two together and shop him. It was time to leave.
At the docks they were introduced by Trev to an entrepreneurial fellow by the name of Cormac. He was the master of a river trader, with a single mast and a crew of eight to row when the wind was not in their favour. Normally one could not persuade a dwarf aboard a boat such as this, but the two dwarves seemed remarkably unmoved by the prospect of watery death
Around midnight they reached a point on the West Otanga, where Cormac said they would have to strike north for a couple of miles up a minor tributary to reach Ord. Yspadadden, summoned the lead box with Maria’s ring and divined that Maria was not far away in that direction. They rowed up the channel in moonlight but became stuck on a mudbank. The adventurers left the crew to sort it out and scouted out the village on foot. Spying from a distance, in the dawn light, they could see a great hall, a couple of longhouses and an odd tower-like construction on the outskirts of the settlement. There were jetties on the river with a few boats moored up. They returned to the boat and in the morning sailed up the river to moor at one of the jetties.
Lenore and Stumpy entered the village and announced themselves as entertainers. An initial performance in the village elicited an invitation to play at a feast that evening in the hall, hosted by the Thane, Alpin. Further information gathering discovered that the tower was an abandoned mill now occupied by a priest and converted into a shrine to Odin. Stumpy went to pay his respects to a fellow priest of the same pantheon and see what he could find out from him.
The door was opened by a large, grizzled man with a huge beard and unruly hair. Stumpy was permitted to enter into the “tower”. Inside was a shell housing a courtyard with an ash tree – typical of an Odin sanctuary – that had clearly seen better days. Looking up he could see an oculus at the top that let in sunlight. He had a curt conversation with the man, who claimed to be the priest of Odin and gives his name as Harald. He was close-mouthed and not especially welcoming. Stumpy said a prayer at the sacred tree. He was not invited into the priest’s private quarters that adjoined the Tower.
There was plainly something very wrong in the tower. Stumpy suspected that the priest was an impostor and he had smelt the presence of the Jotun – the malign Spirit of the Ice – inimical to humanity and the enemy of the Gods of Asgard.
Meanwhile back at the boat the dwarves huddled under a canvas. They would cause too much note and interest were they to walk abroad in the village. Yspadadden cast his divination once more and was troubled that he could no longer detect Maria. This was not good news and indicated one of three possibilities: she was dead; she was being hidden by a magician; she was in a temple or shrine protected by some god. Of course, the first option could easily be the case. However, Stumpy’s news made him suspect that Maria might be held in a Jotun shrine in the tower.
Misliking the prospect of interference from the two dozen or so armed men estimated to serve the Thane, they concocted a plan to neutralise them before assaulting the tower. They also decided to tell Cormac and the boat crew what they were up to and give them the option to get out while they could. Cormac, on the contrary, wanted to be cut in. So they now had nine burly men as a backup if things went wrong.
The plan was that the humans would attend the feast that night. Trevillion had a substantial quantity of narcotics with him (Yspadadden was not surprised) with which they would seek to spike the drink. When they judged the feasters incapable, they would slip away and join the dwarves at the tower. Trev and Jezza both had skills appropriate to this sort of action and Lenore was in her element in a hall full of drunken men. Stumpy’s contribution – aside from providing backing music for Lenore – was to pray for Loki’s Luck in the enterprise. His ritual did not go as planned but he certainly got his capricious god’s attention, for that was when the fun began and all descended into chaos.
It was a sorry bunch who met up with the Dwarves a little before midnight. Trevillion was unsteady on his feet and reeked of booze; Jezza was all bruises and torn clothing having been the butt of some riotous behaviour in the hall; Lenore seemed unharmed but her clothing and coiffeur were in some disarray after the libidinous attentions of the Thane; Stumpy was desperately beseeching the forgiveness of his god. Nevertheless, they were able to report that though matters had gone far from smoothly, their objectives were achieved and the denizens of the hall had been rendered largely incapable by drink and drugs. They had seen nor heard anything of Maria, nor of Harald.
The plan was that the dwarves would fly into the tower through the oculus, while the humans tried to let themselves in by the door. If they failed the dwarves would open the door from the inside. Yspadadden cast his Fly spell and carried Ranulf aloft. There was a flurry of wings and cawing as they reached the top and then they disappeared from sight, although they could shortly afterwards see a light glowing out of the oculus.
Lenore deals with a barking dog using her sorcery and likewise opens the outer door. Trevillion, despite his inebriated state spots the dart traps inside and crawls along the passage to avoid them. As he approaches the inner door, it opens. He leaps to the attack but realises in time that he is facing Yspadadden. Behind him is the courtyard, brightly lit by a daylight flare. It is strewn with piles of bones. There is no sign of Ranulf. Trev quickly identifies the mechanism to disable the darts and ushers in the rest of the party.
Yspadadden briefly recounts events in the tower. They were harassed by a murder of crows roosting in the tree, but these were of little threat to the armoured dwarves. Yspadadden tossed down an alchemical daylight flare and by its light easily manoeuvred his way down through the tree branches to the courtyard. There they encountered shambling undead that fell like chaff before their dwarf-wrought weapons. However, amongst these flashed a dagger in an invisible hand. Fortunately, it was not expertly wielded and quickly winked out. Then of a sudden Ranulf turned upon him – plainly ensorceled – and then fled into the adjoining priest’s house.
The party form up with Yspadadden in the lead. They find Ranulf barring their way in a narrow passage. Yspadadden engages him, parrying his blows and closing with him. Yspadadden is the more skilled fighter, but Ranulf is bigger, stronger, more heavily armoured and invested with a ferocious energy from his ensorcelment. Moreover, Yspadadden is trying not to hurt his friend while Ranulf has no such constraint. Eventually Yspadadden manages to force Ranulf back into a room and grapple him to the floor.
Stumpy reaches over and attempts to use his priestly powers to remove the curse upon Ranulf. Unfortunately, Loki is not yet finished amusing himself at the expense of his acolyte and his friends. Instead of removing Ranulf’s curse it invests him with a surge of strength that allows him to fling Yspadadden from him and leap to his feet once more. The dwarves re-engage with Yspadadden resorting to greater force. He manages to pin Ranulf against a wall and begins to smash his face into it hoping to knock some sense into him.
At this moment midnight strikes. For Stumpy it is a new day. His powers refreshed, he begs Loki’s forgiveness and tries once more to remove Ranulf’s curse. It is lifted immediately and the dwarf returns to his wits. Loki has had his fun and Stumpy is forgiven.
The party return to the courtyard of the Tower and find it full of billowing mist. Stumpy is attacked by the dagger wielded by the invisible hand, accompanied this time by an attempted curse. The blade merely glances him and the curse does not take. He speaks the words to dispel magic and the mist fades. Lenore casts Detect Hidden and Yspadadden powers up a wand of detection. They both determine that there are two hidden places in the tower. One is high up; the other is a flagstone in the floor. Trev checks it for traps and the dwarves lever it up to reveal a narrow stairway going down. The dwarves disappear down it, followed by Trev.
Rather than form an orderly queue behind them the other three elect to stay and explore the Tower. Jezza spots a cleverly constructed route, incorporating the tree and some elements of scaffolding, spiralling up the inside of the tower, towards the other hidden place the magicians had detected. As they ascend they hear a voice chanting what Lenore recognises as some sort of summoning. They see above them the unmistakable silhouette of Harald, the False-Priest of Odin, and a dark shape – a demon horse, trailing sparks – flies in through the oculus. Harald mounts the nightmare steed and is away into the night sky. The villain has escaped!
Shortly afterwards Trevillion and the dwarves return from the basement. They have with them the Beautiful Maria and a semi-comatose man. He had fiercely resisted them, but appeared to be in the thrall of the same sort of enchantment as Ranulf. Yspadadden took somewhat less care of him than he had his comrade, but had nonetheless punched his lights out rather than use an axe on him. It was his guess that this was the original Odin-Priest.
Yspadadden quickly formed the view that the Beautiful Maria’s pulchritude lay entirely on the outside. She had not a word of thanks or appreciation for her rescue. As they searched the tower and its adjoining structures, she incessantly and forcefully demanded that the party fire the village and slaughter everyone in it, to avenge various insults to her person wrought by them. She even threatened retribution from Mr Marcellus if they did not do as she demanded. Yspadadden had not the slightest intention of slaughtering an entire village. However, Jezza sought to curry favour with the harridan by shooting incendiary crossbow bolts into thatch of the hall. It was midsummer and dry so it was soon ablaze.
The dwarf sat down to carve a rune amulet of Protection against Wounds for Maria, since it was plain that they would have to run the gauntlet of at least some angry villagers and she was unarmoured. He also took the time to heal the priest they had captured. While he was doing this Cormac and his crew showed up to form a cordon around the door of the Tower, facing off against any threat from the rapidly rousing village.
Jezza’s fire-raising exploits had the benefit of diverting at least some of the mob that was beginning to gather. All the professional warriors were busy extricating themselves from the burning hall, and in any case were still drunk or badly hungover. Those facing the party were just a disorganised rabble of villagers that soon dispersed when they saw the determined organised force before them. There were stones and a few arrows aimed at them but no serious hits were scored.
The voyage back to Chittagong was uneventful though they had to endure the constant angry descant of Ugly-on-the-Inside Maria, as Yspadadden thought her. Trevillion quietly excused himself from the interview with Mr Marcellus, but the others accompanied Maria back to her beau. Cormac represented his crew at the meeting. Maria quickly disappeared to her quarters while Jezza gave his highly edited account of the rescue to Mr Marcellus. He seemed to accept their tale at face value, though Jezza caught Vega giving him a hard stare. He was delighted with the return of his mistress and offered each of them a reward of 1000 gold pieces or a future favour. They all took the cash, apart from the dwarves who took the favour.
Otherwise the loot was sparse. There was some alchemical equipment that Trev helped himself to in lieu of his reward, a rune-marked nail that Ranulf extracted from the Odin-ash that Stumpy identified as some sort of priestly curse device, and a bundle of animal furs that appeared to have been Harald’s bed. Searching through these Yspadadden was delighted to find three human hairs. With this personalia, the dwarf could most certainly find Harald. An initial divination placed him in the badlands on the north-western edge of civilisation. False-Priest Harald would not escape justice for long.
G-33
OE Date: Summer 697
Characters: Yspadadden, Ranulf, Ubaron, Trevillion, Jezza, Lenore, Stumpy NPCs:
Real World: Autumn 2014; Where: Bristol