We are lead into the giants' fortress. We are lead through various corridors. The final corridor has many elaborately carves walls.
We are lead to an especially large giant seated on a golden throne. Next to him is a pair of female giants. One of the females has flaming red hair and red skin, the other has white hair and white skin. A fire giant and a frost giant, most likely, although they don't quite match the typical description.
The giant on the throne is about 20 feet tall.
Someone has painted the ceilings with various outdoor scenes.
We explain the situation. But for us to get the information, we must pass three tests. The first test is to entertain us. We have Lani talk of the Hollow World, and sing a bit, in the hopes of entertaining them.
The second test. We must beat Lady Summer and Lady Winter at any craft of our choosing. We select matter of arcane knowledge.
Lady Summer steps forth. She casts meteor swarm on herself, which we successfully identify.
I ask them to identify the origins of Ioun Stones. They know more than I, and indicate that dragons first found that gems embedded in their hides naturally became Ioun Stones, and the dragons found out how to replicate the effect. Later, humans killed the dragons (Traldarans) and found the Ioun Stones, and how to make them, for themselves.
Hmm.
They ask us to identify an axe they present to us. We have no idea, but upon trying to wield it, Grey feels angry at the floor, enough so that he feels that he could harness this anger. Grey gives an snwer, that it allows one to harness ones anger, and this is deemed an acceptable answer.
Our next question: what is the Glantrian Doomsday device? Lady Winter and Lady Summer look at each other, and the Jotan says that it is not something for which we can know. Because we are not immortals. They seemed to know the answer however. He did feel the question had some degree of style.
We then instead ask for them to identify the primary property of the core of Matera. They don't know. We tell them.
The third test: to fight him in combat to the death.
We get Thora to come here and join in.
We go outside, and cast spells to protect ourselves. When we go outside, we go out under a starry night. Interesting. We are probably fighting this immortal giant, on his home plane of all places.
Thora and Lani summon many creatures.
He comes out. Combat ensues. He kills many of Thora's creatures with attacks of opportunity.
Thora reverse gravities the Jotan. He flies up, and throws rocks. Thora undoes the reverse gravity, he falls, he is prone. Combat continues. Our +3 weapons are of little effect, but Remus' giant slayer weapon is very effective.
He gets up, he great cleaves many more of Thora's summoned creatures.
Battle continues. Remus is being the most effective.
Lani's bebiliths are unable to damage him, but he's not immune to poison, doesn't have great armour, and so might just fail to resist the poison. Might.
With all the summoned creatures, he is delayed from hurting us. But he seems to be having lots of fun at least!
Remus is clearly the most effective member of the party.
The Jotan is quite badly hurt after 571 points of damage.
Thora's mass heals are proving very useful.
Finally, after much effort, Remus chops off the giants head. The giant then moves his hand and puts his head back on, and comments that it was a good fight, better than any he'd had in a long time.
He confirms that we are indeed on his home plane.
We entered his plane when we entered the corridor with many well carved walls.
He leads us back to his throne room.
He says he is an agent of his giant gods. He is as to his gods as the valkyries are to Freyja.
He says he can tell us about the ring, or he can tell us about the circumstances of the earlier invasion.
He says that the dark elves, and the other groups, sometimes work together, sometimes work apart, and sometimes work against each other. The drow and mind flayers all had the same origins, they were created beings, all created by mortals. Created by mortals who were experts in life creation.
Their weakness is their power, and it is not magic. They do not have the art of spellcasting, but they can create creatures and such.
The created ones who have come to Mystara since have learnt other abilities, as was their purpose. The created ones even do the bidding of their creators, even if unknowingly so.
One of the creators is bound to the ring.
To use the ring, you need to know the names of the people bound within it.
His name is Lord Gurtain.
We leave the fortress.
We travel away.
We rest and rememorise.
Thora doesn't react well to Grey being an acolyte. Oh well. The discussion is relatively amicable.
We discuss what to do next. Thora comments that the main base of the snake-men on Matera was found and destroyed.
We decide that it would be best to find the base from which the snake-men are coming. We'll probably ask some Heldannic knights for help, since they can cloak their ship and travel stealthily with us. We can ask the remainder of the party to try and find the names of any of those in the ring.
We return to Serraine, and will have a party meeting tomorrow.
Party meeting.
The party is informed of Grey's new status. They obviously aren't too happy, but it is agreed there are other things to worry about.
Thora does a know favour, and determines that Grey has the favour of an average person.
We discuss options. We consider doing legend lore.
During our meeting, a constable comes in to speak with Zim. Apparently there is a murderer with some magical abilities on the loose. There have been three murders. Two were shop proprietors. He third victim had caught the murderer in the act.
The shops were looted. The people must have been killed magically, as there was not a mark on their body. The murderer had only taken certain, unusual components. The victims have very little information on the murderer, only a vague shape. The authorities have tried scrying on the murderer, but the scryer was hurt in the process.
The stolen items are some gem dust, and some rare powders.
The shops attacked were a retail redistribution place, and an apothecary.
Unfortunately, there is not much information to go on.
Thora tries to scry on the murderer at the pegataur grove, after casting protection from elements on herself many times. Thora tries to scry, but fails. Her protection spells protect her from the backlash. Thora tries again.
The gem dusts that were stolen were amethyst and ruby dusts.
Thora tries again but fails to penetrate the veil protecting the target.
We decide to consult T'zaz, and stake out places that may be at risk of attack. We go stake out another magical provider.
We set up watches.
We rest the night. It passes uneventfully.
Thora tries scrying again. On the second attempt, it works.
She scries on an area that has rusty items and water there. And a shadowy figure hunched over sorting through items.
Thora casts find the path, and we head to where it is.
We try to be sneaky, although Roland doesn't help. He polymorphs into an elf.
We sneak in. We find the creature. We try to subdue.
It has very tough skin.
It gets held by a hold monster spell, but when we try to tie it up, it turns into goo, evidently dead.
Strange.