After bedding down in Thaylen’s safe cave, we kept guard.

Suddenly there was a noise from the east. Everyone was shaken awake and we all gathered our things. Aretain and Heidel with their night vision went out first to take a look what was going on. To their surprise they heard digging noises. At the same time, someone was creeping around our position …

Suddenly a sound!
Darion whirled around and confronted the sneaky night-crawler.
A human!
Unarmed, and without equipment.

Gutter

The human called himself Gutter Grimcoin. He said he had just escaped, with nothing but his life, from orcs. Darion bid him stay quiet and brought him to the others.
Our information about the Keep and its warriors was limited and outdated. So Darion suggested we take one orc captive to learn more about the current situation in and around that stronghold. We checked with Thaylen if he had any objections, and with his green light Darion lent Gutter a dagger and we snuck out to take a look at these orcs.

Alas, the orcs noticed the dwarf.

Initiative!

Suddenly they called out and loped around the hill to get Heidel in a pincer move. But Heidel did not flee. Instead, he ran forward — and clashed with the southern group. One of them wounded him, then Darion came barrelling down the hill and rammed into a female orc, knocking her unconscious when his shoulder guard connected with her jutting jaw. With the tables turned, Heidel and Darion hacked at another orc, killing him, which convinced two more orcs that it would be best to turn and run away, straight up away, rather than risk their lives.

Meanwhile, Matrius the Vampire Hunter one-shotted another orc with his trusty crossbow, and Gutter hurled the dagger with deadly precision to take out yet another of the creatures.

The last survivor ran.

With the orcs under control, we struck fire and went to look at their space. And so we found out why they were there digging in the ground: They had a well tended corpse with them. They wanted to bury one of their own at this special place, in chainmail and with a two-handed sword. A warrior’s funeral.

Dura

We looted their valuables, including a lot of coins that were supposed to be buried with the orc. Then we woke up our captive. She refused to talk with us and claimed she would rather die than help baddies like us. She would give us nothing!

Until Apoqulis and Gutter came up with a great combination of carrot and stick: Apoqulis, ever the good cop, offered her wine and food and the chance to bury her dead with honors, …
… while Gutter threatened that if she kept quiet we would desecrate the dead chainmail-orc and leave him out in the open to be eaten by wild animals.

Now she relented.

The dead orc was Thargul, a mighty warrior who had confronted six Dire Wolves and slain four of them before he was finally taken down. He was a hero, worthy of a good burial, and no filthy human hand was to touch him.

The Door that Talks

The Keep, she said, was theirs. It was the only Keep far and wide, and now it was the orc’s. “We live there! We live there!” “Stinky druids” tried to get in, but they were too weak.

Darion asked if there were really only orcs in there? She said yes. But when he asked very pointedly about Azequia, by name, the story changed:
Yes, “One stranger was strong! We let her pass!”

One came, a so-called Azequia, who was strong. When they refused to grant her passage, she started killing. Several of the orcs fell under her onslaught. That’s when they decided to let her through and do what she wanted – which was, go deep, under the Keep, through a weird door, a door that talks. Look in, and find a way to end the threat.

The orcs knew that door well, but they never understood what it said. That strong druid woman was different. She understood the door and thus she could walk through. “She can be there. We don’t care. She never came back. Maybe she died down there.”

That was quite the bomb. The orcs knew where the door was. Heidel felt that this would be a great moment to charm someone. A charmed Dura would be a great help in getting to orcs to help us root out the evil cleric. Alas, we had no charm spell.

So Apoqulis tried to “charm her with the truth”: He told her everything. He laid out Azequia’s plan, and that the forces of hell would be unleashed under the orc keep, and everything would be destroyed. Alas, she did not care. She did not see the significance for the orcs.

Promises

Darion wanted to set her free now – partly because she told us what we wanted to know, partly in an attempt to let her go home and tell this story of the hell-portal to other orcs. If she did not care, maybe other orcs would. But Darion was the only one thinking that. The others were not happy about the idea, as it would warn the orcs that we were coming. Say they would *not* care … then they would be on high alert instead, and we would run into an ambush.

But at least we had to keep our promise about the orc hero’s body. So we let Dura bury the dead, and we also let her bury the two-handed sword with Thargul. Then we tied her up properly again. So we tied her to a tree and took turns guarding her so she would not be attacked by wild beasts in the night. Aretain suggested we blindfold her so she could not spy secrets from us, but Darion refused. He called it professional courtesy from one fighter to another. But at least he agreed that we would not show her Thaylen’s  cave.

Next we would go on with Thaylen to visit the Druid Circle, hoping to get wise guidance and magical help. The captured orc would have to stay outside … under guard.

And then we would have to go directly to the keep and make the most of having an orc captive as a guide and/or bargaining chip (although I would not wager too much on her bargaining power). Either way we should hurry to get there and through the Talking Door before Azequia will be taught her portal spell.

Hezeroth hasn’t been seen for days.
All the more reason to get to the Keep fast.

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