S3 E24

Prince and Lottie are met by a dwarf and a human

They mention Gearberg

Prince and Lottie ask who they are

The human introduces herself as Sinead, and the dwarf is Grumble

Grumble says that Sinead is a Princess

Lottie introduces herself

They say they are here with Greta

Prince asks if they mean Handsome Greta

Prince begins to talk of Hygard

Sinead says they are clearly from Hygard

Prince explains that they are here on a mission to seek help of the Tyrant of the Peak

Sinead says they have beaten them to it

And that Greta is still in the cave, they shouted for him

Grumble mentioned a man they saw

Prince asked if it was the man with the stove top hat

And it was

Sinead said his name was Sally

Prince corrected to Xander

Grumble said Sally wasn’t a Drow name

Grumble mentioned a place called Coghold that they were headed towards

Prince and Lottie agree to go with them

Brink, Chui and Henri are walking towards Gearberg through the blizzard

Henri says that it would have made sense for them to all stay together in the North, to keep warm

Just over the ridge they see a bowl in the snow / snowed in crater

The frigid winds are going over the top of the snow bowl

Something is living in the centre

Chui scouts the area

Brink, if you need anything just cry out in pain

Henri, make sure you come back

A creature stirs lazily in the middle when Chui gets near

It’s smaller than those crab things, as big as an owlbear

There is a cuddle of creatures in the bowl, the snow stirs around them

The creatures are slick, they have two limbs, they taper off at the back

The rumblings in the snow err in Chui’s direction

They are serpentine

Chui returns to Brink and Henri

Chui says there are loads of stuff living down there, some kind of merfolk in snow

Whatever they are, they seem aquatic

Small ones in the middle, like a nest

Brink, maybe it’s a family of animals that we can eat, maybe we can make camp on the edge, stay away from them

Chui, one of us should stay awake to discourage any inquisitive animals

Henri, we can deal with that, worst case, we kill the parents and the baby of easy

if they are mer-ish things they ain’t even got four legs

Chui, not sure that is an encumbrance

Brink, maybe we should go down there, have a look and come back if it becomes difficult

Henri, ooh, can we ride the sled down

Chui, well that might be a bad idea

Brink, ah, you are right

They all go down into the bowl

It doesn’t take long before the paths in the snow come towards the group

Brink, oh they are swimming underneath it

Henri, keep your weapons ready

Henri, we’re just walking through (in common and elven)

Chui, raising ones voice is ill advised

The group walks around, to rest on a slope

The group starts getting too close to the creatures

Merrow burst out of the snow, big ‘great white’ merrow

They are gnashing at the group to get away

Henri, we’re not going to hurt your babies

Henri handles them calmly and they manage to get passed

Henri, friendly faces, calm voices, crouch low, don’t step on their babies

They circle around and then they don’t get any closer when the group reach the other side

Brink, I think we should press on, sitting in the snow is no good for anyone

Prince and Lottie and Grumble and Sinead. follow the peak for a bit

Wide stairs, carved from the mountain

Dwarf style

lottie, is this your home?

Grumble, nah, I’m from Gearberg

Lottie, this is Gearberg?

Prince, is this coghold?

Sinead, leave Prink alone

They are happy to get out of the snow

Up some stairs to a door carved into the mountain wall

Four immense brass clockwerk golems, they come alive at our approach

They aren’t embellished with faces or weapons

They whir up, stand up straighter and all of them, their fingers on their right hand retrack in to be spinning cogs

There’s a code you’ve got a know

The golems start approaching

“ay, less of that you”

Prince, and that was the code?

say it in common tongue so we don’t have a mashed guest

Lottie, so Grapple, sir

Gromble!

Dwarf, a kind and humble folk

Lottie, so does Coghold have royalty?

Gromble, nah, but they have a council, no king, though we do have a pillar - though he’s a bit flighty - we should go to the council , as tradition

Go into a pillared mess hall

Prince, you did say you were Reginald’s daughter?

Sinead, yes

Prince, we didn’t know

Sinead, there’s not much point in Gromble telling everyone

Out come two dwarves

Gromble calls the council folk

On the way they see more golems than dwarves

End up in a small circular chamber

One of them rings the big metal bell in the middle

They take their seats

Sinead, well I can’t speak for Grumble and I don’t know about Lesley and Prink

I’m here to challenge the Trial of the Peak

Prince, I thought you did it

Sinead, we thought you did!

Prince, I thought Greta did the trial?

Sinead, Greta was here with us, he was going to help us with it !

Dwarf, as in the tomes, one goes up with the witness, you need one good respectable dwarf or it don’t count

Prince, it is your call your highness

Sinead, so you are not going up the peak?

Grumble, I ain’t old enough, I’m not an elder, you gotta be a dwarf or it won’t go in the tome

Prince, could there be no exception for an even older witness?

Dwarf, can’t be trusted if ain’t dwarf, not virtuous enough

Prince, how about a secondary witness

Dwarf, if it’s a dwarf, that’d be the first and that’s all you need

Prince, perhaps I could offer myself as a secondary witness

Dwarf, do what you bloody want

Dwarf, that’s the verdict, do what you bloody want

Dwarf, someone ring the bloody bell

Two of the councillors leave , and one gets comfy

Prince, are you confident in your chances

Sinead, we’ve made it this far

Prince, fair

Gromble, you’ll have to convince one of them to come with

Lottie, can’t we just go

Gromble, one of them needs to carry the book up with us

Prince, any one can carry a book and write in it

Gromble, oi you, you ain’t got dwarven virtue

Sinead shrugs

Lottie, I think you can do it Gromble, I think you’re doubting yourself

Prince, well come with us Grumble

Gromble, if she wants

Sinead, what do you want?

The three council dwarves - Torgoth, and Brumbol, and Gadon

Sinead, okay Gavin so where’s the forge?

Gadon, down there two lefts, wait for it to get hot, down there

Sinead, no way we can convince you? you seem ready for it

Prince, you look like you’ve seen many trials, like you’ve done the challenge many times

Gadon, aye I have

Lottie, I’d like to see that (folds arms)

Gadon, I may have a few years behind me but I still have plenty ahead - I’m getting my axe

Lottie turns to Prince, brilliant

Lottie, you’re welcome Brigadier General

Henri, Brink and Chui are still looking for a place to stay the night

They talk of the merrow

and then of their mothers

and their fathers

Henri talks of her mother not wanting kids

Chui says he was cut out of his mother, and mixed race births were challenging

Brink says his father was kind

Chui says no idea

Henri talks about biscuits and gravy, and invites them round when all this is over

They continue on and the blizzard is still bad

Henri gets onto the sled, and bundles up

Brink, I think those are caves ahead

Chui, yes I knew if we came this way

Brink, Henri is unconscious

Sharp peak, very wide cave mouth and two sets of steps going up around it

Steps hewn from the rock, they disappear beyond the cave

Brink, what do you think? into the cave or further up

Chui, I suggest you take Henri into the cave, and I will have a wee check, as the dwarves would say

Brink drags Henri on the sled into the cave

The cave just seems to keep going, super quiet in there at odds with the storm outside

There’s a disused fire pit, just ash now

Brink sparks up fire, drags Henri near

Brink puts torches all about the cave

Brink makes a shelter to keep things warm, remove the heavy furs from Henri and hug her for the warmth, and when the fire goes low she adds more fuel

Chui heads on up the stairs

The stairs helix and there’s a doorway - pitch black beyond

Chui wonders if this is the trial of the peak

The stairs keep going up, following the edge of the cliff

The steps crest occasionally, there are dwarven phrases on the walls along the way

The stairs look like they go all the way up the mountain

Brink wonders where Chui has got to, holding Henri

Chui is twenty minutes up the mountain

Chui thinks he might find Gearberg and help, and it could be the Peak

Each passage of dwarven is different

By the third crest of steps the passages do talk of a challenge

Chui is now thirty minutes up the mountain

Chui has a drink and runs his finger along the passage a couple of times, mumbling to himself

For a lesser man the air would be getting thin by now

The dwarven passages are less frequent

Chui continues on

The steps hit a cut off point, it’s like someone who maintained them stopped here

They are worn down, some rocks on the path, they look less carved

The engraving are not as well kept

Chui can recognise the rune “peak”, none of the other words survived

The steps keep climbing

It’s getting colder and colder

Chui heads up a bunch more steps, and they stop being hewn, what might once have been a path that led into a natural slope

There’s one dwarf slab at the top, he can still make out the runes if he traces his fingers

It said “Tyrant” once, but also twenty other things

Chui continues on

Brink, Chui has been gone a long time, maybe he won’t be coming back

To Henri’s unconscious form

Chui fights his way up anything that is a path, by dwarven or by other

He climbs, he’s no longer smiling

He gets to several points where he has to climb sheer rock

This is what he is and what he must do

He climbs and he fights, gets to a foggy layer

Climbs up through into the cloud scape

Prince needs a rest

Sinead, we’ll need some supplies

Lottie, let’s wait in the mess hall

Gromble, I can take you around Coghold

Sinead, we can pay for some

Gromble, should that be your wish Princess

Sinead, I’ve got reason to believe if we take this challenegd it gets us closer to defeated Igneon

Prince, did Greta tell you this?

Sinead, no he joined us

Prince, there were others? what were their names? was there a golem and a young lady and a dragon?

Sinead, why would we go with a dragon? we’re trying to defeat a dragon

Sinead, an elf from the forest, and a goblin, and the other, they kept their hood up

Prince, and Greta was definitely nine foot tall, bald?

Sinead, nine foot is a bit too much, strong loud character with an interesting fashion for a man

Prince, you say you lost him in a shadow cave?

Sinead, not much in the way of caves back in the castle so

Prince, brave of you to come this far

Sinead, if somebody had done something about the dragon

Prince, when we left for Frandelle everyone was concerned with making mob, Krogal of the militia

Lottie, the militia? I haven’t heard of a militia

Sinead, the Frandellese militia?

Prince, how long exactly have you been in the North, lottie?

Lottie, a few years

Prince, the royal family, everyone on level one was hurt in the fireball

Sinead, of course someone survived

Prince, curious how you would survive that, if you were at all in Hygard

Sinead, the same way my father did

Prince, wasnt he held captive?

Sinead, not at first

Sinead, I’m just trying to make a difference

Prince, that can be enough to make a difference

Sinead, so Grumble is there anywhere to sleep around here

Gromble, I dunno

There is a hurried shuffle of feet and the barkeep comes from the kitchen and slams himself at the bar

“what do you want”

Lottie, terribly embarrassing, I haven’t any coin

“what you drinking?”

Lottie, stout (she mumbles other hygard beer words she’s heard)

Prince goes to meditate, leaving the coin purse on the desk

“come all this way and you want something like that”

Lottie, well if you’re recommending something, I’ll try it

“oh I’ll get you something”

He goes to the kitchen and comes back out, would you be wanting to stay as well

Lottie, Sinead, are we staying? I mean I could sleep on the floor

Dwarf, you sleeping on my floor?

Sinead, we have been travelling a way, we could do with a rest

Lottie, hopefully Gavin waits for us and we can get some supplies

Gets drink and food, crustaceous or giga-insect with shell on, cooked in the shell, prepared with fungus and mushrooms

Dwarven beer is super potent flavour, robust

Prince pays for some, Sinead covers the rest

Brink and Henri rest in the cave by the fire

Chui has not come back for hours

Henri wakes up

Brink, glad to see you, I thought we might loose you for a minute

Henri, wasn’t like I was gonna die or anything, a glorified nap

Brink, let’s go with that

Brink, Chui has gone ahead, he has been gone for a good two or three hours, I think he’s not coming back

Henri, he’s done that before, we found him, I don’t believe everyone would leave us Brink

Brink, maybe he has found the destination, maybe he is dead on the mountain

Henri, I hope he isn’t dead on the mountain

Brink, me too, but don’t tell him I said that

Henri, I didn’t mean to come to the North, it was the first place out of that burning city, I didn’t know there wasn’t a city we were coming to, cabin, and then snow and then fights and then I’m like this

Brink, let’s stay here and recover, get ourselves in shape, and wait for Chui - there must be something up here, carved steps up the mountain, this might be the path to Gearberg

Henri, I don’t believe he’s left us, when we’re feeling better maybe we can go look for him for a bit, what’s the point in surviving all this just to die

Brink, let’s make a proper shelter

Henri, make it like a house

Brink, we’re sheltered from the storm in here, I don’t know what’s in the back of the cave

There are footsteps at the back of the cave

Someone steps into view, suddenly

They look around surprised, six-foot and wide

Hastens to throw off their cloak seeing the fire

Massive boots, bit of a heel on them, huge muscles, bald head

“Ay ay!”

Gadon is at the bar, he necks a drink, mutters some thanks

Gadon picks up his stone axe

“Come on then”

Prince, is it time?

Gadon, gone bloody time

Lottie, I’ll drink to that, (she’s swaying in the background)

Quaking hands, edges of blood instantly frozen, limply clawing above the cloud level

Belly onto a ledge, looking up at the blazing sun - no blizzard

A lesser man could scarcely breathe

The peak climbs and then there’s some kind of ice dome, a sphere

There are more steps leading into it

There are some figures at the top, blurred vision

They are tall and lanky, they both turn to Chui with blazing glowing eyes

Chui takes a deep breath and a sigh