Dark Alliance: A Kirin's Tale

by Blackdrag-rose

Baldur's Redux: Beast of the Halls

After dealing with the troglodytes, and Drizzt departed to escort Lady Cadmere back to Waterdeep, Rain left as well and returned to the path that she and her friends had been using before the ambush, where she found that it took her no time to catch up with them, as they had been coming her way.

"We decided to come and aid you, but it looks like you and Drizzt don't need help." Allessia remarked, in fact she was a tiny bit surprised by the scene that they had discovered, all of the slain enemies that had stood in Rain's way after discovering that a lady was in danger, not to mention those who fell before the might of the drow ranger's weapons, "Where's Drizzt?"

"Gone. He's escorting Lady Cadmere back to Waterdeep." Rain replied, where she fell in with the others as they resumed their journey to the Halls of the Hammer, as there was an artifact that needed to be recovered and a Zhentarim plot that had to be wiped out, or at least their minions if they were waiting in the Halls.

The others processed that information as they continued along the road that Borador was leading them along, since he had more knowledge and information on their destination than anyone else, and it wasn't long before they reached what looked to be an opening in the side of the mountain they had been moving towards. He informed them that this was the one they were after, to which everyone dismounted, making sure their horses were well hidden to avoid drawing attention to this place, before readying their weapons as they headed into the opening that brought them to the beginnings of the Halls of the Hammer. At first glance Rain didn't see anything that confirmed they were in the right place, meaning they had to trust Borador on this matter, as everything seemed to have bee roughly carved from the mountain itself and there were slimes guarding the path forward, nothing too difficult for them to deal with. In addition to slimes the group found that a couple of trolls, large brutish warriors who seemed to have an active regeneration effect going on, so some of their wounds mended themselves over the span of a few moments, but by inflicting serious damage to them they were able to bring them down in no time.

After clearing out the first group of enemies Rain found that the path forward was over two stone paths that rested over a pit, likely a defensive mechanism for the dwarves to drop their attackers to their deaths, in case the Halls were attacked, but it looked like it failed in the end, given all of the monsters they had found so far.

Following that they found a group of armored orcs who seemed to be guarding the area, either because this was their new home as well or someone, like the Zhentarim, had gathered them as temporary guards to ensure their commanders were able to claim the artifacts without having to worry about troublesome adventurers. Truthfully Rain found the orcs to be one of the more interesting foes since they were actually good warriors, even for enemies, as they fought like their lives depended on it and used their shields to protect themselves from potential danger, which made some fights last longer in the grand scheme of things. In the end, unfortunately, she found ways to overcome their defenses and brought down the foes that were in front of her, while the others did the same thing on their own, though they did have to be careful of a few orc shamans who launched fireballs at them. Rain noted something as she looked over the bodies that were around them, none of them seemed to have any icons or jewelry that indicated that they were, in fact, members of the guild that the Harpers were fighting, meaning they were just random monsters who set up shop in the dwarven stronghold that held one of the artifacts they were looking to recover.

With that in mind she glanced at the others as they finished checking out the rest of the stuff that happened to be in the small camps that the orcs had set up, collect any treasure that had been gathered so far and any weapons that might be good for selling later, since some weren't as good as what they were using.

Once everyone was ready to go Borador was elevated to being the leader of the group for this venture, since he knew the place better than Rain or their friends, though before they were allowed to enter the actual Halls of the Hammer they had to cross a more treacherous defensible position than the one they had passed earlier. Rain's reasoning for that was due to all of the orcs that were guarding the walkways and sections that allowed one to fire arrows or spells at invaders, though while Allessia, Dorn, and Vhaidra rushed across to do battle with them Rain, Borador, and Ysuran attacked the orcs from the side they had entered through. It gave Rain a chance to use a few different type of spells she had thought of after all her lessons with Adrianna, and watching everyone else using their magical powers in battle, to which she channeled some of her power into a crackling bolt that she sent flying through the air, which slammed into an orc and branched out into the pair near her target. Together the three orcs were slain, either by her spell, since her magic was stronger than what she had thought it was in the past, or by the fall into the darkness, since it was hard to see if the dwarves had left anything in the depths, but in the end she figured it didn't matter as she dealt with their enemies.

It actually took them a decent amount of time to take care of the orcs that were guarding this portion of the entrance, as there were more than Rain was expecting to find, but eventually Borador and the others were able to reach the end and beckoned for Rain's group to cross as well, allowing them to catch up without delay.

"Careful, from here on out there's a chance that some of the chests we discover might be mimics in disguise." Borador said, something that confirmed that they were now moving into the main portion of the Halls, given the change in all the walls that were around them, though while most of the team knew what he was talking about Rain tilted her head as she followed him into the Halls.

"Mimics?" Rain asked, as this was the first time she had heard of such a thing, in fact none of her friends had mentioned such a thing during her first adventure, meaning they must have suspected that they wouldn't run into them and would be safe to loot all the chests they came across.

"Vicious monsters that take the form of chests, usually to ambush and eat adventurers." Allessia replied, though she was a little surprised Rain didn't know about the creatures in question, before realizing that she had missed plenty during her first adventure and learned more about all of the other monsters after joining her and the others, "Plenty of adventurers have lost their lives to the creatures, while some are fortunate and have only lost an arm or a leg, depending on what the people were doing when they opened the chest. Hard to tell them apart from a normal chest, but with Borador's skill I'm sure we'll be able to pick them out."

Rain thought about it as they moved by some well chiseled stone pillars, showing the craftsmanship that went into the true domain of the dwarves who lived in this area, before something either chased everyone out or killed them, before she found that their newest foe were more animated suits of armor. Borador explained that these were enchanted by the previous inhabitants of the Halls to protect their domain and, more importantly, there was a keystone to deactivate them, since they could, in fact, attack dwarves on sight, despite them being their creators. Unfortunately he had learned that the keystone had been crushed to pieces after the animated soldiers had been awakened from their slumber, either because of the Halls being overrun or someone did it out of spite to prevent the dwarves from retaking this place. Such a thing told Rain all she needed to know as she attacked the animated soldiers, all of them were enemies and that meant taking down each one that stood in their way, since it might be smart to leave the rest here to ensure that the Halls were safe until the dwarves could craft another keystone to shut them down.

Along the way, however, Borador also loosed some of his more powerful bolts at a couple of the chests they passed, the ones that happened to be mimics, which totally looked like chests with mouths on the inside, though his attacks did most of the work before Rain moved in and used her blade to silence them.

One thing Rain was able to confirm was that the Halls were rich with gold, gems, and even incredible weapons, which were the property of Borador's clan and thus were collected by him so he could deliver them to his clan, since they would know what to do with everything that was in this place. Despite the fact, however, he handed pieces out to his friends to make sure their arsenal was stronger than before, as he had a feeling that whatever was in here was worth arming them so they could take it down, while the majority of everything would be collected for his people. Borador also warned everyone that there was supposedly a treasury that had an extra layer of protection that he would like to loot as well, since the treasure would be beneficial to his clan's recovery, and he was sure that his clan member in the inn would grant them a reward for securing all of this. The layer of protection, as he informed them, was an enchanted weapon that was eternal, though he had no true information of it or it's special abilities, so he was entrusting it to Rain, as her onyx blade was able to stall the weapon of an invulnerable lich, so her job was to stall it while they looted the treasury.

She discovered that the weapon was a floating hammer that looked to be one of the two-handed types, though it wasn't hard to keep it contained in one area, as she grabbed onto it's handle and it struggled to pull itself from her grasp, before it stopped and she let go of it, causing the weapon to hang there in defeat.

Once the treasury was looted, and Borador assured them that they had everything, they started to move deeper into the Halls, where Rain found that the enchanted weapon turned into pure energy and surged into her chest, though instead of it doing any damage the group discovered that it seemed to be more of a power boost. Of course Vhaidra remarked that Rain didn't need it, as with her magic, her fighting skills, and her blade she was already an unstoppable force on her own, to the point that she assumed that Rain was getting close to being a walking god, even if they had no idea what the odd weapon had given her. With all of that in mind they continued down the path in front of them, following Borador again as he sought out the inner sanctum, where he discovered the source of his clan's demise, a three headed beast that had a large body and a pair of leathery wings. This, as Rain quickly found out, was a chimera and it was incredibly powerful, since it had taken out the entirety of those who remained to defend the Halls of the Hammer, which seemed to have the head of a bird, a lion, and a snake, each one desiring the end of them.

Rain made the first move as the chimera started to lift itself into the air, as she rushed through the space between them and got a fair bit into the air before swinging her empty hand down at the beast, knocking it down into the ground with a burst of wind, and once that was done she swung her blade, hacking it's wings clean off. With it grounded her friends did as she expected of them, they moved in on the wounded creature without delay, where Dorn took the lion head, Vhaidra punched the bird head, and Allessia took on it's snake head. That left Borador to hack into it's side, avoiding it's claws and body while he did everything he could to avenge his slain clan members, while Ysuran used his magic to deal whatever damage, leaving Rain standing nearby as she observed it, as she wanted to make sure it didn't try to flee. Sure enough she didn't have to do much after crippling the chimera, as her friends were more than able to hack two of it's head off before dealing some massive damage to the rest of it's body, before Borador hacked open it's side and cut it's guts open, where they found the Jade Octahedron mixed in with the blood.

With their prize in hand, and cleaned off so it was nice and shiny, Rain and her friends pocketed the artifact and headed out so they could return to their horses, as their next stop was Dragonspear Castle and the monster filled depths that held their next target, causing her to wonder what might be waiting for them in their next destination.