Fargrim, the adventure after the adventure.
The demon finished off the group's fighter, the final stomp literally caving in her head, spraying brain, blood, and bone around the creature's foot and dying the ground red. Letting out a roar of triumph, it's maw gaped open, spittle foaming at the corners and peppering Fargrim and his armor. Just then, an inhuman screech rent the air as the monster screamed in fury and delight. Hoping the potion of invulnerability would do it's job Fargrim held his ground as the beast renewed it's horrifying assault. The demon mage charged, it's horn just barely coming into contact with Fargrim's armor, threatening to pierce him through. Just then, a brilliant light physically grabbed the creature and burned it with holy radiant energy. The beast let out a scream of anguish as the guardian squeezed the life from it. As if to form some kind of final argument, a single arrow flew from a trap in the ground embedding itself in the creature's arm Steam and magic started to dissolve away around the beast as bulk was lost and the demon turned back into a small goblin. The goblin was wearing various trinkets including an old worn crown that toppled from it's head and lay, silent and threatening, on the ground. Fargrim immediately recognized it.
“Don' touch it wit' yer 'ands!” he shouted, the crown was a powerful cursed item. The runes engraved upon it promised great power to the wearer. What they didn't mention was the cost.
He needn't have worried though as Finn, the bard, was already wrapping the offending item in his sash. Gingerly walking it over to Freya he placed the crown into her bag. Just then a new sound, dry and raspy, like paper tearing only a thousand times louder echoed through the air as an old balk human in brilliant red robes stepped though a rend in reality itself. The robes clearly identified this man as a wizard of Thay. His face held no humor, his eyes spoke only death to all they surveilled. Fargrim said a quick prayer to Moradrin and prepared, again, to fight. This new mage simply held our his and, clearly expecting something. Much to Fargrim's surprise Freya walked over to him and gave him her bag. The bag opened itself and the sash wrapped crown left of it's own accord, floating into the red wizard's hand. Unceremoniously dropping the bag the evil man backed into the portal again, reality sealing itself around him. Fargrim let out a sigh of relief. He wasn't sure, in his current condition, that he would survive a battle with one of the dreaded Red Wizards of Thay. He was glad beyond words that he didn't have to find out.
Returning to the task at hand the dwarf looked around the ground searching the ruins of the tower that his group had felled. Fagrim had been certain that the rough-made building didn't require much convincing to come toppling down, and true to form simply weakening some key areas on the base of the tower brought it down spectacularly. The first thing to catch his eye was a large chest, as he began walking toward it something else pulled at his mind.. He shouted the location of the chest to his friends who immediately ran to it to start the task of unlocking it. With his two companions in place Fargrim saw the completed image. His jaw went slack. The tower had fallen in such a way that the large stones had arranged themselves into the dwarven runes for his son's name and a symbol that Fargrim recognized as the sigil for the great city of Waterdeep. His first real clue about his son's disappearance in three years! The rune sage was beyond ecstatic. He'd head to Waterdeep to see what secrets and direction that city held. After splitting the spoils of the battle Fargrim found himself 2000 gold richer, more than enough to get himself to the city and set up there to start looking for his son. As well as starting a small business and founding a headquarters. Something he felt he'd been severely lacking these past few years.
Fargrim stayed while Freya preformed last rites for the fighter who died bravely serving the group, destroying this evil demon mage. The group then discussed where they were going. The Three were then brought up. They were going to seek out to collect 1000 gold in a year. Fargrim hoped that would settle all debts with the mercenary group. He had no desire to be indebted to a group of less than friendly mercenaries, especially as it was someone else's debt.
Looking north, Fargrim saw the looming mountains of the Spine of the World. He knew he would have a long trip ahead of him. Almost 500 miles, if he could higher a speedy coach, he could make the trip in just under a week. As it had been decided only Freya, the cleric, and Zorhazar, the swashbuckler, were going with him. The halfling ranger had her own mysterious plans to attend as well as a small home already set up to the south and Finn had to settle matters with, as he said, a dear friend. Finally Bri said that she was returning to her home at Grandfather tree, her vengeance had been sated and her hot anger cooled. After a short trip to Mirabar, a local trade hub the three boarded a coach traveling south to Waterdeep.
During the week long trip the Freya and Fargrim decided that they would work together and buy a home together to use as a headquarters. Fargrim spent the bulk of the trip caring runes as preparation for his business. It took no real time to carve level one runes and so he spent much of his travels on featherfall and shield runes.
Once in Waterdeep he wasted no time in setting up a shopfront, forge, and home. These necessities purchased he started the creation of a teleportation circle in it for ease of transport. As needed he would also cast Mordenkaiden's Private Sanctum. To ensure the privacy of his and Freya's matters and research. After about a week of work Fargrim had his stall set up in the marketplace and was running a small shot titled “Protective Runes: Safety on the Job or in the Field.” Underneath the shop title said “requests available by order.” The first several weeks were simply scribing runes to make sure he had a large supply of stock available to sell.
To help with delivery he dismissed his badger familiar and ritually summoned a bat. He continued selling his protective runes and working on orders as requested. He continued this, taking some time to keep his forging skills up to par as he worked on his market. After several months of setting up shop Fargrim felt it was time to start the search for his son. Freya had spent much of the time at her temples and the libraries researching ancient magiks, dead gods, and forgotten places.
Fargrim hired a young human woman by the name of Sharitha; a magus in training at the city college. She mentioned something about credit working for and studying under a foreign trained arcane master and Fargrim needed the ability to go out and about all while keeping his stall open.
First, Fargrim tried to scry his son, in the privacy of his home under the protection of the Sanctum he set up a scrying dish using mercury as the medium. After casting the spell the metal rippled. This in itself wasn't unusual, oftentimes the surface of the scrying medium would ripple for a moment or two until the image and sound would coalesce. What was odd though was that the rippling didn't stop and the audio was completely scrambled, sounding as if it was under water and altogether too quiet to hear any detail. The spell had indeed found something but it couldn't resolved the image or sound. While there were ways to thwart a scrying mage, much of the time those methods would simply cause the spell to fail rather than scramble like this. So much for the easy answer.
Having kept his ear to the ground this half year or so, he'd learned of a few important goings on in the city. There were a few leads that mad themselves clear over the months. Most of them turned up nothing concrete, but still, Fargrim kept up his investigation. Eventually he was searching the Blacksmith District asking around for people who may have seen a young dwarven gemsmith who matched the look of Aerik, his firstborn, his lost son. Unsurprisingly Fargrim found nothing until he ran across an old, run down, shop that sold various knick-knacks the proprietor swore were all powerful ancient magics. While Fargrim doubted the veracity of the old shop keep he did happen upon a mythril ring of obviously dwarven craftsmanship inlaid with dragonseye opals, rubies, and emeralds. Inscribed into the anterior of the ring was the sigil of the Brightforge clan. The ring held only one active enchantment that Fargrim could detect; it would resize itself to it's wearer, a fairly common enchantment on dwarven made rings. Fargrim was relatively certain that it had been crafted by his son.
Going up to purchase the ring, the old man at the counter spun a wild story about dwarven heroes and incredible magic. Fargrim “oohed” and “aahed” appropriately to appease the man. After the story had been finished it was clear to Fargrim that he wouldn't get any verifiable information from this man. The price that was set for the ring was absolutely unreasonable for an altogether unremarkable ring. As important as it was to him, Fargrim had his dwarven honor and it wouldn't be besmirched. After talking the man down from “unreasonable” to simply “exorbitant” Fargrim took the ring back to his workshop.
The next several days were spent in a magical trance fueled by his desperate need to find his son. Keeping focus on the ring Fargrim poured endless magics into it, tracking spells, location spells, scrying spells, all to no avail. It was when, after over a week of work and almost no sleep that Fargrim put the ring on and focused on the fact that his son was lost, rather than trying to find him, a subtle difference, but not one overlooked by an experienced rune caster, that something happened.
Suddenly, as his mind changed focus information started flooding into his brain. A flash of Aerik's face, the mazes of Brightforge, brilliant blinding light. Snow. Struggle. Pain. Fear. Running. A calm ocean, relief, release, creativity, freedom, wealth. Then like an oncoming flood the fear returned. Running. A wash of magical power. A bleak struggle. Running. Running. Hiding. A gate opening slowly. A rocky mountain, taller and broader than the range Brightforge was built in. Finally sinking, stifling, stuck.
Fargrim thought on this for a long while. He went with Freya to do research in the magical libraries of the city. It was obvious his son was being hunted by someone or something with great power. Fargrim had no idea what it could possibly be, or how much success it had in finding Aerik but one thing was certain now. The boy was alive! Maybe not safe, but alive. This was more than he'd had to work on in the past. He prayed nightly to Moradrin for direction and waited for an answer.
When he felt comfortable to share what he discovered with Freya, who had now become a close friend, her eyes lit up.
“I know what the gate and mountain means.” She said “I've been trying to piece together some information I'd heard on a hermit living in a bog near Baulder's Gate. I have reason to believe that it is who I am looking for. Someone who is like a son to me may be there. Regardless I believe that may be the next stop for the both of us. I have some more research to do, but we will leave as soon as we can.” For now both of them had some preparation to complete. Fargrim on setting up the home and base of operations, especially now that the circle of teleportation had finally been completed. He spoke and worked with Sharitha, training her in some of the finer arts of rune casting and they both ran the store as Freya prepared. For the next few weeks she was always out of the house and most nights didn't even return. Whatever she was doing, she was busy.
One thing Fargrim knew for sure was that his prayer's had been answered once again by this half-elf cleric. He knew Moradrin's perfect hammer strokes when he saw them. He trusted in his deity to help forge the future, to guide him to his goal. He would find his son!
“Don' touch it wit' yer 'ands!” he shouted, the crown was a powerful cursed item. The runes engraved upon it promised great power to the wearer. What they didn't mention was the cost.
He needn't have worried though as Finn, the bard, was already wrapping the offending item in his sash. Gingerly walking it over to Freya he placed the crown into her bag. Just then a new sound, dry and raspy, like paper tearing only a thousand times louder echoed through the air as an old balk human in brilliant red robes stepped though a rend in reality itself. The robes clearly identified this man as a wizard of Thay. His face held no humor, his eyes spoke only death to all they surveilled. Fargrim said a quick prayer to Moradrin and prepared, again, to fight. This new mage simply held our his and, clearly expecting something. Much to Fargrim's surprise Freya walked over to him and gave him her bag. The bag opened itself and the sash wrapped crown left of it's own accord, floating into the red wizard's hand. Unceremoniously dropping the bag the evil man backed into the portal again, reality sealing itself around him. Fargrim let out a sigh of relief. He wasn't sure, in his current condition, that he would survive a battle with one of the dreaded Red Wizards of Thay. He was glad beyond words that he didn't have to find out.
Returning to the task at hand the dwarf looked around the ground searching the ruins of the tower that his group had felled. Fagrim had been certain that the rough-made building didn't require much convincing to come toppling down, and true to form simply weakening some key areas on the base of the tower brought it down spectacularly. The first thing to catch his eye was a large chest, as he began walking toward it something else pulled at his mind.. He shouted the location of the chest to his friends who immediately ran to it to start the task of unlocking it. With his two companions in place Fargrim saw the completed image. His jaw went slack. The tower had fallen in such a way that the large stones had arranged themselves into the dwarven runes for his son's name and a symbol that Fargrim recognized as the sigil for the great city of Waterdeep. His first real clue about his son's disappearance in three years! The rune sage was beyond ecstatic. He'd head to Waterdeep to see what secrets and direction that city held. After splitting the spoils of the battle Fargrim found himself 2000 gold richer, more than enough to get himself to the city and set up there to start looking for his son. As well as starting a small business and founding a headquarters. Something he felt he'd been severely lacking these past few years.
Fargrim stayed while Freya preformed last rites for the fighter who died bravely serving the group, destroying this evil demon mage. The group then discussed where they were going. The Three were then brought up. They were going to seek out to collect 1000 gold in a year. Fargrim hoped that would settle all debts with the mercenary group. He had no desire to be indebted to a group of less than friendly mercenaries, especially as it was someone else's debt.
Looking north, Fargrim saw the looming mountains of the Spine of the World. He knew he would have a long trip ahead of him. Almost 500 miles, if he could higher a speedy coach, he could make the trip in just under a week. As it had been decided only Freya, the cleric, and Zorhazar, the swashbuckler, were going with him. The halfling ranger had her own mysterious plans to attend as well as a small home already set up to the south and Finn had to settle matters with, as he said, a dear friend. Finally Bri said that she was returning to her home at Grandfather tree, her vengeance had been sated and her hot anger cooled. After a short trip to Mirabar, a local trade hub the three boarded a coach traveling south to Waterdeep.
During the week long trip the Freya and Fargrim decided that they would work together and buy a home together to use as a headquarters. Fargrim spent the bulk of the trip caring runes as preparation for his business. It took no real time to carve level one runes and so he spent much of his travels on featherfall and shield runes.
Once in Waterdeep he wasted no time in setting up a shopfront, forge, and home. These necessities purchased he started the creation of a teleportation circle in it for ease of transport. As needed he would also cast Mordenkaiden's Private Sanctum. To ensure the privacy of his and Freya's matters and research. After about a week of work Fargrim had his stall set up in the marketplace and was running a small shot titled “Protective Runes: Safety on the Job or in the Field.” Underneath the shop title said “requests available by order.” The first several weeks were simply scribing runes to make sure he had a large supply of stock available to sell.
To help with delivery he dismissed his badger familiar and ritually summoned a bat. He continued selling his protective runes and working on orders as requested. He continued this, taking some time to keep his forging skills up to par as he worked on his market. After several months of setting up shop Fargrim felt it was time to start the search for his son. Freya had spent much of the time at her temples and the libraries researching ancient magiks, dead gods, and forgotten places.
Fargrim hired a young human woman by the name of Sharitha; a magus in training at the city college. She mentioned something about credit working for and studying under a foreign trained arcane master and Fargrim needed the ability to go out and about all while keeping his stall open.
First, Fargrim tried to scry his son, in the privacy of his home under the protection of the Sanctum he set up a scrying dish using mercury as the medium. After casting the spell the metal rippled. This in itself wasn't unusual, oftentimes the surface of the scrying medium would ripple for a moment or two until the image and sound would coalesce. What was odd though was that the rippling didn't stop and the audio was completely scrambled, sounding as if it was under water and altogether too quiet to hear any detail. The spell had indeed found something but it couldn't resolved the image or sound. While there were ways to thwart a scrying mage, much of the time those methods would simply cause the spell to fail rather than scramble like this. So much for the easy answer.
Having kept his ear to the ground this half year or so, he'd learned of a few important goings on in the city. There were a few leads that mad themselves clear over the months. Most of them turned up nothing concrete, but still, Fargrim kept up his investigation. Eventually he was searching the Blacksmith District asking around for people who may have seen a young dwarven gemsmith who matched the look of Aerik, his firstborn, his lost son. Unsurprisingly Fargrim found nothing until he ran across an old, run down, shop that sold various knick-knacks the proprietor swore were all powerful ancient magics. While Fargrim doubted the veracity of the old shop keep he did happen upon a mythril ring of obviously dwarven craftsmanship inlaid with dragonseye opals, rubies, and emeralds. Inscribed into the anterior of the ring was the sigil of the Brightforge clan. The ring held only one active enchantment that Fargrim could detect; it would resize itself to it's wearer, a fairly common enchantment on dwarven made rings. Fargrim was relatively certain that it had been crafted by his son.
Going up to purchase the ring, the old man at the counter spun a wild story about dwarven heroes and incredible magic. Fargrim “oohed” and “aahed” appropriately to appease the man. After the story had been finished it was clear to Fargrim that he wouldn't get any verifiable information from this man. The price that was set for the ring was absolutely unreasonable for an altogether unremarkable ring. As important as it was to him, Fargrim had his dwarven honor and it wouldn't be besmirched. After talking the man down from “unreasonable” to simply “exorbitant” Fargrim took the ring back to his workshop.
The next several days were spent in a magical trance fueled by his desperate need to find his son. Keeping focus on the ring Fargrim poured endless magics into it, tracking spells, location spells, scrying spells, all to no avail. It was when, after over a week of work and almost no sleep that Fargrim put the ring on and focused on the fact that his son was lost, rather than trying to find him, a subtle difference, but not one overlooked by an experienced rune caster, that something happened.
Suddenly, as his mind changed focus information started flooding into his brain. A flash of Aerik's face, the mazes of Brightforge, brilliant blinding light. Snow. Struggle. Pain. Fear. Running. A calm ocean, relief, release, creativity, freedom, wealth. Then like an oncoming flood the fear returned. Running. A wash of magical power. A bleak struggle. Running. Running. Hiding. A gate opening slowly. A rocky mountain, taller and broader than the range Brightforge was built in. Finally sinking, stifling, stuck.
Fargrim thought on this for a long while. He went with Freya to do research in the magical libraries of the city. It was obvious his son was being hunted by someone or something with great power. Fargrim had no idea what it could possibly be, or how much success it had in finding Aerik but one thing was certain now. The boy was alive! Maybe not safe, but alive. This was more than he'd had to work on in the past. He prayed nightly to Moradrin for direction and waited for an answer.
When he felt comfortable to share what he discovered with Freya, who had now become a close friend, her eyes lit up.
“I know what the gate and mountain means.” She said “I've been trying to piece together some information I'd heard on a hermit living in a bog near Baulder's Gate. I have reason to believe that it is who I am looking for. Someone who is like a son to me may be there. Regardless I believe that may be the next stop for the both of us. I have some more research to do, but we will leave as soon as we can.” For now both of them had some preparation to complete. Fargrim on setting up the home and base of operations, especially now that the circle of teleportation had finally been completed. He spoke and worked with Sharitha, training her in some of the finer arts of rune casting and they both ran the store as Freya prepared. For the next few weeks she was always out of the house and most nights didn't even return. Whatever she was doing, she was busy.
One thing Fargrim knew for sure was that his prayer's had been answered once again by this half-elf cleric. He knew Moradrin's perfect hammer strokes when he saw them. He trusted in his deity to help forge the future, to guide him to his goal. He would find his son!
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