Alert: May contain spoilers for the adventure “Against the Giants”

I guess we finally got smart. After a couple more giant stone doors that we couldn’t budge, even with the Power of Teamwork, I said, wasn’t it a shame we couldn’t just get bigger. And Lydia dug through her bag until she pulled out a wand and did just that – she made Heiron over twice as tall as Mikael. (Fortunately she made his clothes and muscles match, too.)

At that size, he could open doors all by himself, and he let us into an armory, and a closet-type room full of foul-smelling hay. The prevailing theory is that is where they kept the chimera…I guess even freaks of nature need to sleep and eat somewhere.

I’m pretty excited about the armory – Tressarian and I snooped around in the corner and found a bow that tingles magically. I need to remember to try it out…hopefully it will let me hit things that are resistant to normal weapons. Haven’t met any of those recently, but you can never be too prepared.

Worked our way around until we connected with the passage leading north from the other barricade (we assume, from the patch of darkness floating there that refuses to dispelled by our lights). Seems to be another passage leading west, on our side of the barricade, but the darkness makes it hard to be sure.

**

Well. So we found a room bolted from the outside, and opened it. Inside seemed to be a nicely furnished guest suite of some kind, along with two men and a woman. They looked normal enough, armed with swords at their belts.

Ezekiel questioned them a little, and they said they were mercenaries from the Iron League who came to work for the giants, but the king didn’t trust them and kept them locked in that room. That’s not an unreasonable explanation – I mean, working for (Evil) giants might just come from poor judgement – but given how events played out it shows you can’t trust anyone you just run into.

Ezekiel told them there were still some drow somewhere, and to watch out, but when they were ready to leave they didn’t seem to want to approach the door…and we all noticed that Aliana and Clatrial were standing in the doorway, and most normal people would kill to approach Aliana (and Clatriel has her own qualities, don’t misunderstand).

Anyway, that got our neckhairs up (trying to learn from past experience), so as I tried to sidle close enough for Tressarian to scan them for magic, Aliana slipped Fetafencer out of the sheath about an inch, and he was glowing bright red.

She and Clatriel stared at the strangers for a moment, but couldn’t sense anything, so Ezekiel looked through his gem of seeing (I think he loves it slightly less than Aliana). Don’t know what he saw, but it rattled him for sure and he asked the trio if they were human (like a demon would confess to being one…but Ezekiel is an optimist).

Raven whispered in my ear to switch to the ring of truth (don’t know how he found me, since I was invisible, but maybe it’s to do with his blind-fighting), and joined Ezekiel in asking the strangers if they were demons. He even led the way himself, saying, “I am not a demon,” so then everyone went around the room and said, “I am not a demon.” Maybe the strangers had some kind of resistance, because the ring told me they were telling the truth…but everyone could smell something fishy was up (except maybe Agnar, who was mostly bored, I think).

Well, we had to either attack them, or let them go… Ezekiel moved the rest of us away from the door, with just the paladins standing to each side, and told the strangers they could leave. They said they had to gather their luggage, and began busying themselves with all the chests and furniture in the room.

Ezekiel found me (maybe Raven helped him) and whispered to me to check the trio for magic, and then he would cast Protection from Evil on them, and I could check them again. He told them this spell would protect them from the Drow as they were leaving, so the stranger spokesman sounded agreeable…but he deliberately didn’t touch the holy water as Ez was sprinkling it around. Worst of all, they were already glowing with magic (to Tressarian’s “eyes”) so the only question was, what kind of unnatural thing were they.

Heiron had shrunk down to normal size by now, but he casually positioned himself by Lydia and prepared an arrow on the string. Aliana and Clatrial were both toying with their hilts, and I think even Agnar noticed something was weird.

The stranger trio kept dumping their packed bags onto the floor and picking through the contents, then goibg back to the dressers and chests to sift through more things. Someone had to make a move…so Ezekiel flicked holy water at the nearest stranger.

No one was surprised, so everyone flew into action. The woman, who happened to be the sprinkled one, whirled on Ezekiel…though her sword left strange clawing marks on his exposed skin. Raven rushed in with his daggers, and Mikael waved his hands with the familiar incantation for faery fire…yet nothing seemed to happen to the trio.

Lydia drew a shimmery bubble in the air around herself, and almost immediately one of the men threw a fireball with his bare hands. Tressarian snickered as he sucked up the energy, and then we cut at him. Then the same man threw out a murky cloud that smelled like Lydia’s stinking cloud, but I didn’t see him toss an egg. Fortunately, with my necklace of adaptation, it didn’t make a difference.

Heiron launched several arrows – but they seemed to bounce off the strangers’ bodies. Ezekiel didn’t have that trouble, though…he bashed one of the enemy with his mace, and purple lightening crackled up it as the ram’s eyes glowed briefly. It’s been so long since that happened, it almost threw me off my rhythm.

The last surviving stranger made a run for it, dodging between our blows as he went. He didn’t get far, though, as Agnar and Raven chased him down and tackled him, Ezekiel following behind shouting, “Let me finish him with the mace!”

Once they were dead, their forms changed and we could see they were actually humanoid tigers…very much like the two we passed in the Astral Plain. Ezekiel says they’re “rakshasa,” which are technically fiends, not demons, so that explains that, I guess. Aliana says she’s glad we didn’t let them get away. I guess we all knew there was no other good outcome…it just had to play itself out.

Searching their room, we found a carpet woven with a picture of one of those dark elves, and a footstool that was actually a disguised chest (disguised with magic; actually building a chest to look like a stool would be pretty cool, too). Tressarian and Schakka searched the room for magic and gems, and we found four potions and a cleric scroll, plus a sizable haul of gold and gems, and a scepter decorated with jewels that doesn’t seem to be magical. I wonder who it belonged to originally?

The healers passed around healing, and we’re all happy it wasn’t worse. Shape-shifters can be very dangerous. So far all the ones we’ve met have been both magical and Evil…except the assassins, which as far as we know weren’t magical.

Hopefully just a few more rooms to search up here.

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