The Lair of Fire

Good evening honored matriarch,

  I’ve found an interesting spot to pen this most recent missive. Rather than a comfortable spot in the sun, or near the warmth of a fire, I find myself writing by lava light in a cave. How I came to be here is a story worth sharing and so I shall. At the time of my last letter, we had dealt successfully with some tribesmen from the foothills, leaving a pair to be questioned. As one might imagine, being interrogated by someone who has most recently used you as a blunt object is terribly effective.

 The tribesmen were all members of a cult of Ares, the Greek god of war. They had accumulated over time, not all or even mostly coming from the region specifically. The cultists were all quite proud, insisting that we had won by luck. This didn’t sit well with our newest companion, Silenos, who opted to put a 3-foot shaft through the hand of cultist by demonstration of skill. It apparently changed his mind about ‘luck’, who’d have guessed? Ouroboros was very convincing to rally these cultists to be prepared to fight and defeat the cult of the Titans. I didn’t even know there was a cult of the Titans, but that would make sense in context. In addition to promises to spread the word and be prepared, the Ares cultists had seen giants in the near territories but had steered a wide berth; can’t say as I blame them. One also claimed in days past to have seen a fireball from the heavens strike high up in the peaks. His companion seemed to have some doubts. After Ouroboros and the others wrang dry of information the cultists, they were sent on their way. Limping, broken, and bleeding they headed on.

  We decided to travel on for a couple of hours ourselves to put some distance between the site of the ambush and our night’s camp. As we decided on a likely spot, lady Alexandra conjured a shell of some sort made of captured sunlight. The exterior of the shell looked like nothing more than a slightly smoother than normal boulder, but on the inside, it was quite pleasant and entirely transparent. She could apparently regulate who could enter the shell, giving an opportunity to tease Ouroboros and to test his strength against the magical shell. As I’ve written, Ouroboros can punch landing Herculean blows. He hit this shell with enough might to rattle even his massive arms, and not one crack appeared to us on the inside. I wonder how this would work as a shelter at sea. It could be a useful trick to learn. Once we were all hunkered inside, Lady Alexandra looked to be sending messages through the ether. Nothing unusual there until Lady Thalia asked to send one to her self-defined Muse on our ship. I can’t say I was able to hear the precise nature of the message, but I can assume it was tantalizing given the flushed state it seemed to inspire in lady Alexandra. Beyond that the night past quietly, bug and morning dew free; a blessing to be had in the mountains or so I gather.

  The following day was met with mostly easy travel thanks in large measure to the efforts of Silenos. He does know his business with respect to ranging the mountains. Just past mid-day on a high promontory we came to a desecrated picturesque clearing. The view was magnificent, the whole of the Spartan valley down to the sea lay stretched out before us to the south, to the north tucked in between nearer peaks we could see the start of the mighty Arcadian Forest. Marring the view was the stench and buzzing insects accompanying the 43 bodies staked out in the warm mountain sun. They weren’t all that pleasant to look at either, some had been there a bit long. They were an odd lot of humans, people of mixed elven descent, and some smaller lizard like creatures. Lady Alexandra said they were kobolds and more common to the lands to the east as a scavenger caste. All of them were killed else where struck with large clubs and staked here, apparently as a sacrifice to Ares. Scattered amongst the bodies were a few cast off personal effects: a symbol for the cult of Kronos the Titan, a holy symbol of Artemis the hunter, and a crudely formed obsidian axe that seemed to seethe with ill intent. Alexandra suggested leaving the cult items and the axe as it could be cursed. Silenos apparently doesn’t believe in curses as he added the thing to his pack.  As we wrapped up, Ouroboros broke himself out of some revery and came to look over the bodies. I assisted him with placing a coin under the tongues of the dead in the Greek fashion as he said a few words over the bodies.  With one last look back down over the Spartan Valley we all moved on.

Near the end of the day, Perseus, Sileno’s companion bird came to light upon a bald spire of rock. Silenos seemed to commune with the bird, and was shown a massive footprint written in the soft bit of soil in the lee of the rock. The tread was massive, at least as long as a man. Worse, it was a booted foot, a metal shod boot of some sort at a guess. While I know little to nothing about tracks, booted or not, I do understand a bit about height from my time at sea. Often, we’re called on to estimate the distance to or size of a ship as it appears at the horizon. Using Ouroboros as a guide I was able to estimate the giant to be at least twenty feet in height, a bit smaller than the grey skinned ones we faced in the Spartan arena. The tread however, proved it to be a stouter weightier body.  As you know during one of my voyages I visited the island of Sicily, on which is a smoking mountain. One evening at one of the taverns, I recall sharing cups with a local sage of sorts who spoke at length of some of the mountain kin, specifically giants. There is a breed of giant with a strong affinity to fire, who had been glimpsed near that far distant land. I can surmise this might be the same creature. The sage indicated they tended to be of dark skin, fire-colored brows, and hair. They are craftsman of some repute, forging huge, blackened weapons and suits of armor.  I shared with the others what I could remember from the sage’s discourse, sadly it wasn’t more in depth. While we were investigating the foot falls, Silenos sent his companion to range ahead and soon Perseus returned with news. Speaking in the tongue of beasts they seemed to confer for some time, and then Silenos shared that the giant had been spotted going into a cave not far away. A stream of molten stone streamed forth from the mouth of the cave and a sulfury stench wafted from the cave entrance.

  The companions and I broke into two groups with Silenos, Ouroboros and myself scouting ahead to see what we were dealing with. Inside we were first greeted by the sound of a massive hammer striking something equally massive in the distance. It was hard to pinpoint as caves echo sounds, it seemed to fall off every rock in sight. We also saw two other people in the cave. One was another of those small lizard Kobold creatures who seemed very apprehensive, the other a dwarf who was working on something.  While Silenos and I scouted the divergent passages Ouroboros had a slightly closer look at what the dwarf was working on. It seemed he was trying to quietly fashion some sort of weapon from the more mundane mining equipment. It wasn’t long in the cave before we could hear some massive footfalls approaching as one of the giants lumbered closer. Soon he bellowed like a dire camel something in the tongue of giants, the kobold and dwarf snapped back to work, digging in the cave walls. With an air of disgust, he moved back into the cave, having heard the renewed pitch of the work. After a brief consultation, Ouroboros and Silenos went back to fetch the other companions, I skulked a bit, gathered more information and then awaited their return. Once I saw the shadows writhe near the mouth of the cave, I suspected the companions approached under the aegis of Silenos’s magic. I shared a silent message with Lady Alexandra sharing what else I’d seen. At that point we knew that one of the lesser giants was across a stone bridge. The leader and smith lay up some stone stairs on the east side of the cave. He was massive, covered in black serrated plates festooned with sharp spines. Near him while he hammered were two great shields equally black and equally adorned with spikes. A third giant could be heard, but I wasn’t able to put an eye to him specifically.

  With that I whisper spoke in the tongue of giants, to the dwarf telling him it was time to flee and that he and his companion should make noise in doing so. After a brief attestation of thanks to Vulcan, he grabbed his lizard companion by the shoulder near the neck and dragged him out of the cave. He shouted disparagements which angered the giants in the adjoining cavern rooms. Lady Alexandra rushed quickly to spill a bag of small round metal spheres across the floor at a choke point from the cavern nearest the leader smith.  With a roar the smith charged in from one side, while his companion rushed in and vaulted from the stone bridge into the river of lava as we would a cool stream. The chieftain hit the patch of spheres and toppled back landing on his backside, somewhat stunned. That was too good an opportunity for me to miss, so I approached stabbed the giant through a chink just under the arm, then I rolled across his chest and out of the line of potential fire; and immediate reach. Silenos moved to a high spot in the entrance cavern, loosed two shafts which skipped off the thick metallic plate of the downed giant. Ouroboros stepped closer and clouted the giant after pulling his shielding arm to the side. Ouroboros’s arms flared with a ruddy crimson light and chains of molten fire encompassed the arms of the smith binding him. Nicolos summoned forth his cloud of cyclopean spirits to ward the center of the cavern. The smith stood, shaking off the impact with the ground. He uttered in giant something about how he gave Ouroboros his gift and that the bindings wouldn’t hold him. With a flex of tree trunk sided arms, he flexed and the firey chains shattered and were drawn into the now visible crimson trails down the face of the smith’s two shields. Grinning most wickedly the smith surged forward paired shields together, narrowly missing Ouroboros but knocking back Alexandra and Nicolos.

On the far side of the room from my vantage, I saw the stream jumping giant wheel about to all the commotion and he regained the bridge coming closer. Lady Alexandra utter some sort of incantation and he vanished entirely.  She then slowly crawled into the lee of a large rock, blood, and bruises visible in the wain torch light.  Thalia struck with an arcane attack, at first the smith’s head was wreathed in a soft lavender light, moments later an emerald sheen washed the smith from head to toe, locking it in place more stoutly than Ouroboros’s fiery manacles had managed. Nicolos stagged back to his feet, moving close to check on Alexandra. He summoned some tendrils of healing power and caused both his and Alex’s wounds to mend at least in part. Up the corridor behind from whence the giant smith came the third giant lumbered into view stopping shy of a narrow choke point. I dashed forward and placed a small tool of mine on the ground and a fluted Grecian column rose in the middle of the choke point, I then slipped up to the paralyzed smith. I had a moment to peer and see a gap in the side plate, likely due to his slip and fall. I was able to drive my blade deep, letting its dark magic work on the giant who was quietly still thereafter.

Ouroboros called on the giant to yield, but it would not. With a mighty heave it toppled my pillar knocking it out of the way and striking the giant. The giant replied in kind, first attempting to grab Ouroboros to no effect, then smashed him to the floor with a shoulder bash. Seeing a bit of that back exposed gave me a chance to move with some haste and come up behind the fiery giant. I was able to stab him and back off some distance taunting him in the process. What could only be at the behest of Nicolos, a cyclopean construct appeared in the narrows with the giant. At nearly the same time Ouroboros struck the giant about the legs, chest, and face. With his final blows his gauntleted hands glowed with a spectral radiance, the final punch to the giant’s face launched him backwards. The giant was struck hard enough I had to dodge out of the way, narrowly missing. As I came rolling to my feet I noticed the ring on Ouroboros’s hand glowing with a pale blue light, like the eldritch light you sometimes see along a mast. It was then that Lady Alexandra explained that the giant she made vanish would be back before long and we needed to be ready. We each gathered ourselves in places of ambush and laid it low very quickly.

And that dearest mother is how I ended up, in a cave writing by lava light. I hope this letter finds you well. I need to find Nicolos and let him know I spied an odd lump of metal, gold in hue with veins of bronze resting in the central pit of this cavern. I promise to write more soon.

Your loving son

Gyasi