An attempt to interrogate the Mountain Troll captured in E14 – Last Man Standing, achieves limited success and a rudimentary map. The party return with this to explore the Hall of the Mountain Kings, beneath the peaks that lie deep within the Wood of Itaen. They are accompanied by a mysterious fellow called Ather who attached himself to Grettir during the war against the Protectors and appears to have quick feet and quick wits.
Where is marked “Stone Brothers” on the Mountain King’s map, they find a large cave in which there are a series of deep pools. There they are ambushed by four Stone Trolls. Luckily no-one is taken completely unawares by the Trolls, which look just like the rock and stone of the cave itself and can fall upon the unwary like a landslide. Nevertheless a number of party – Banthil and Ather in particular – have to take extreme evasive action to evade their rocky clutches. The Trolls are slain after a stiff fight. A number of the party are badly injured but in Eggo they have an excellent healer available.
Treasure is detected in one of the pools. Grettir and Paradoxides take Water-Breathing potions to swim down and fill as many sacks as they can with loot while the effects last. It seems to them that this pool is a shrine to some Earth Goodess and these are offferings to her. On returning to the surface, Paradoxides summons a water elemental to complete the process of garnering the loot. However, some entity wrests control of the elemental from the wizard. The party flee to safety with their treasure.
F-7
OE Date: Spring 692
Characters: Grettir, Paradoxides, Wilf, Salrod, Jason, Eggo, Fillir, Banthil, Ather NPCs: Hilda
Real World: August 1999 ; Where – Cambo House
See also Salrod’s Diaries