Icehammer Dwarves: Session 11

As we were preparing to head down the hill, I looked up and noticed vultures circling above.

Suddenly, a large grey bird flew towards us, and the vultures scattered. It circled down and perched itself on one of the lintel stones.

“Hello?” I greeted it skeptically. I took out a bit of my rations and offered it to the bird, which I could now identify as an unusually grey eagle.

The eagle took a peck of the rations and let out a loud caw before flying off into the forest.

Only a couple minutes later, a squirrel scampered up the hill, darting unnoticed between Berreck’s legs before stopping in front of me. Slightly confused, I offered it some more of my food. It ate a bit and then began to transform into an old man in grey robes!

He introduced himself as the druid Reidoth, leader of the Emerald Enclave. He praised us for our kindness to animals and thanked us for destroying Gorthok the Thunderboar and his followers, explaining that he himself was forbidden from intervening by his Enclave.

We talked for a bit, and wound up asking him if there was a place we could find him if we ever needed to contact him. He said he moved around Neverwinter Wood, but if we needed to speak to him we could always reach him through Falcon, who he praised for taking up a rightful place as a defender of the wood. When we offered him the staff of birdcalls, he thanked us, but said that he was already "well-staffed."

Then he transformed into a familiar grey eagle and took off once again, and we went on our way.

As we were on our way back to the hunting lodge, four boar burst out of the wood in front of us, running our way. Berreck began to charge toward them, but then noticed that their tusks were not thrust forth and their eyes were wide with terror. Suspecting they were just running in our direction, we both jumped behind a tree to see what they were running from.

It soon became clear that they were fleeing two giant mantes, whom the smallest and slowest of the boar was still struggling to get away from. We immediately rushed forward, attacking the familiar insects, and had just dropped the first of them when two more crashed through the trees.

We were able to drop one more before a third pair of monsters appeared. I tripped a bit and my warhammer went flying, restricting me to only spells. Even so, we were soon able to finish all the bugs.

Berreck made sure all of them were dead while I retrieved my warhammer. Then, noticing that the boar was hurt, Berreck picked it up so I could heal it. We tried to return it to its herd, but they were long gone.

Having given the boar some food, it gladly followed us back to Falcon’s Lodge, moving playfully between us.

As we approached the back of the lodge, I spotted Carp, the halfling child, run from atop the tower, presumably to let Falcon know we had arrived. Moments later, Qelline greeted us at the back door and led us inside. She offered to put the boar in a pen, which we gladly accepted, going with her to ensure that the boar remained calm. She made sure to give it its own pen, apart from the other animals, which included pigs and chickens.

We ate with Falcon and told him what had transpired since we parted. Hearing of Reidoth, he seemed slightly antagonistic toward the druid. When we mentioned the boar, he commented that animal companions were nice and that he’d had a few in his time. We offered him the staff of birdcalls, which he gladly accepted, and said he had always had an affinity for birds, especially birds of prey.

We rested in the guest room again and set off for Phandalin early the next morning.

On our way, we tried to train the boar to obey some simple commands. As Berreck was trying to train it, it got aggressive and charged at him. We soon realized that it was just playing, but that it liked to play rough, charging at him and wrestling. It was nothing that Berreck couldn't handle and he gladly played along.

Once we reached Phandalin, we stopped at Barthen’s Provisions to return Vincent and the cart. When we mentioned that we had visited Falcon as well as dropping off the supplies at the loggers’ camp, I overheard one of Barthen’s assistants ask the other, “Falcon? Wasn’t he one of the Heroes of Phandalin?”

After we collected our reward for the loggers’ campfrom Harbin, we went to the inn. Berreck awkwardly carried the boar up to our room and stayed up there to watch it, while I spoke Adabra and got our meals.

While I ate with Adabra, I showed her the new red potion we had found, which she confirmed to be a potion of greater healing. She also said that the silver potion was a potion of invulnerability.

Explaining that she needed to use some supplies from home to finish analyzing the parchment we had given her, and also wanted to get back to making potions, she insisted we escort her back to her home as soon as possible. I eventually agreed to escort her there in the morning.

I went upstairs and gave Berreck his food, and then we went to sleep.

The next morning, we set out with Adabra and the boar. While we walked, we talked about what we could name our boar. Finally we agreed on Adabra’s suggestion to use the ancient dwarven for “boar of mine,” Boaromyr.

When we arrived, we found that Adabra’s place had been ransacked, but most of her ingredients were where she had stashed them. Finding what she needed, she eagerly discovered that the ‘recipe parchment’ contained directions in some sort of invisible ink, which she told us that she suspected led to the Dragon Barrow, which was said to contain the fabled Dragon Slayer.

She insisted on staying at her house, promising to return to Phandalin if we did not return in two days.

On our way to the Dragon Barrow, I spotted something familiar in the sky up ahead. It was a manticore, and it was flying towards us!

Unlike the other one we had fought, which had a frostbitten tail, this one stayed about a hundred feet away and flung spikes from its tail at us. I wasn’t able to hit at all, and Berreck had resorted to throwing javelins. I tried to advance and, when Berreck advanced with me, the manticore backed away, maintaining its distance. I told Berreck to stay where he was and moved up alone. Not seeming to perceive me as a threat, it stayed where it was. Berreck threw his last javelin and the monster was still flying. Now that I was close enough, I cast toll the dead once and dropped it.

We continued on our way, until a thirty-foot-high hill rose ahead of us, its top too flat to be a natural occurrence. Jutting from the grassy hilltop was a row of ten-foot-tall, bone-white rocks that arc toward the stormy sky like outstretched talons. We knew we had found the Dragon Barrow.

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