IN OUR LAST SESSION…
… our heroes headed out for the lost Dwarven mine of Dol Seguria. They were lead by Attickus, Lord Segur’s chosen guide. They left Rankford on horseback, heading west into the King’s Wood. Attickus indicated that he had been given a map by Segur, but that he didn’t know the exact location otherwise. He was, he said, familiar with the King’s Wood and often works as a guide in that area.
The first day’s travel was fairly uneventful. Near dark, Attickus led the militia into the wood north of the Road, and along a little-used trail to a forest cabin situated facing a cliff dropping off into the valley below. A stout ladder had been firmly attached to the cliff face leading to an outcropping below, and a series of ladders leading, presumably, to the valley floor.
The heroes encamped. Near midnight, the watch, Tovlakov and Norm’s familiar discovered that there seemed to be a man on the ladder, yelling that he had somehow become stuck. His chest plate was stuck on a rung, he claimed. After rousting the camp, and dismissing Attickus’ objections, Tovlakov descended the ladder, to discover that the creature stuck on the ladder was actually a centaur.
After helping the centaur, named Alamein free from the ladder, the party invited him to stay the night. Alamein mentioned that he was an outcast from the resident centaur tribe. The centaur was quite loquacious, and inquisitive.
Travelling on the next day, permitting Alamein to accompany the party, despite Attickus’ protestations, the party passed Fort Midway and Lord Segur’s residence. Later, Attickus led the party on a meandering trail north into the woods, and eventually to a location with a precarious slope.
After struggling to descend the slope, the heroes arrived at a narrow stone stair leading to the quarry below. The entrance to the mine, per the map, was located inside a stone structure near the foot of the stair.
Tovlakov, who had previously spotted some wordless communication between Attickus and Alamein. At this point, he spotted it again and called them out on it. Reluctantly, they agreed that they knew each other. That they are friends, and that they had arranged to have Alamein “randomly” run into the party, both as a gauge of what kind of people these militia were (would they help a creature in need?) and as backup for Attickus should the party turn against him out in the wild. Attickus had determined that the party seemed legitimately lawful and good-aligned. He and Alamein would continue to accompany the party at least some distance into the mine. Alamein, then transformed into a normal-seeming bipedal man in order to descend the stairs. Asked if perhaps the centaur aspect had been an illusion all along, he claimed that he was a centaur, but one who could assume human form. He hinted that it was this ability (perhaps passed down from his parents) that had caused he and his family to be cast out of the centaur herd — er, tribe.
The party navigated the stairs, and after Tovlakov defeated a stout lock on the blockhouse, entered it, and camped briefly while Alamein repaired his chest plate which had been severed at the leather joints when he had been “trapped” on the stairs.
Sounds of drumming, and perhaps more fell things came to the ears of our heroes, perched at this secret portal to a lost world.