Mayloriel’s Leap

THE LIBERATION OF GEOFF

The Giant Slayers part 3: Mayloriel’s Leap

(Thomas Kelly)

A campaign based on Living Greyhawk Geoff and Against the Giants.

Drowsily the warm summer night blankets darkened Geofflands. But for the blazing stars, only the last faint silver sliver of Luna before Walpurgis night casts scarce light across the Upper Lea. “If I trip in the dark, I’ll fall asleep before I hit the ground,” Brynn complains. Her war dog, trotting along beside her, whines sympathetically.

“Sleep soon enough,” Mayloriel beckons the party hasten after her. “A little further between us and the snouts of those wargs.” The elf lass hurries them along over heath and stone, dodging from starlit shadow to shadow, weaving a course parallel the Lea Road from Pregmere. Cloaked in darkness, hooded under coats from Edhellond, and moving quiet in soft boots sewn by olvemaid hands, the party moves invisible, but they cannot mask the scent of their passing.

“We had not a proper rest the night before Pregmere, nor all the day we spent there. We can’t run all night like this and keep our strength,” Ansgar growls. He shifts the weight of his pack from one shoulder to the other.

“A heartening song I’ll sing, and make the heathlands ring!” the gnomish bard volunteers.

“You’ll not!” A stern word from Ansgar silences the songmaster’s crooning.

A Short Rest

Another hour stumbling through the dark.

“I canna go no further,” Bryn collapses to the ground.

Only Mayloriel’s keen eyes are visible gleaming in the dark, flashing in the starlight as she surveys the landscape about. “There rises a rock wall on the south side of this hillock. We’ll put our backs to it a short spell until the light,” she confers with Gundoriel in the elven tongue. The Flame of Larethian agrees.

The travelers bed down for the night beneath that rocky scarp of limestone. Bryn sinks to sleep at once in Ansgar’s arms. Fang lies curled at the ranger’s feet. The gnome drops off too, snoring softly. Gundoriel Thingolin, priest of Larethian, does not sleep. The high elf mediates placidly, his face tilted upwards as if to reflect the splay of silver lamps that gaze down upon him. Meantime Mayloriel Giantslayer stays alert, ready, and waiting.

Not for long does the fey lass wait before her keen sharp-tipped ears hear the bay of a warg close on the scent. “They are upon us!” she whispers the words in the holy tongue. Gundoriel stirs from his revery and shakes the others awake. Another howl, much closer. Everyone rises, clutching for weapons. “Hush, hush!” Mayloriel warns.

Hornwood daughter’s glittering eyes scan the darkness. She draws a feathered shaft from her quiver, nocks it to the string of her bow. A sound. Something moving above them. She lifts her eyes to the top of the rock wall under which they shelter. The head of a great hound thrusts over the edge of the escarpment, sniffing at the air. It catches their scent and peers down on them from atop the cliff, its darkvision unhindered by the night. A moment later a second dog joins it, but before the first can even bay the alarm, an arrow leaps from Mayloriel’s hornwood bow and pierces the throat of the warg. It rears up, leaps back, writhes and twists in midair, and tumbles over the cliff. The goblin rider mounted upon the dog rides it to the ground where both steed and rider crash at the feet of the startled gnome. Squint Doublelock puts his knife to the rider before the goblin can rise.

Swinging his axe at the darkness, Ansgar rushes up the near ascent to meet what other foes he might. Gundoriel stretches out his hands to the heavens, lifts his voice in clarion chant, and utters a blessing in the holy tongue. The blessing lifts the weariness from their bodies. A second invocation brightens Larethian’s lamps, dispelling the darkness of Walpurgis Eve. Under that divine light of blazing stars, Ansgar beholds a great goblin-man towering atop the hill. “Ogre!”

Squint considers his options. Should he climb after Ansgar? If only he could attain the height from behind the foemen. An idea occurs to him. “Quick! Toss me up the cliff! Short legs could use the lift!” Squint suggests. It’s a fonkin’s thought. The rock wall climbs twelve feet. Only a giant could toss him so high. He resorts instead to his shalm and a heartening Flannish folksong. “If you won’t take me along, at least hear my song.” His voice weaves the words and melody with noniz enchantment.

Now Ansgar reaches the top of the rise where the ogre waits beside the second warg and rider. For what does the ogre wait? Ansgar wonders as he brings his axe to bear upon the puzzle. Fang leaps at the ranger’s side, bravely flying at the throat of the much larger devil dog. A big goblin tumbles from his steed as both dogs roll into a vicious snarl of gnashing teeth and ripping claws.

Brynn hastens to follow her friend up the ascent, but Mayloriel moves faster, like a flitting shadow in the dark. Fast as any roe, she attains the height and overtakes the fight. She circles the ogre, taunting out of his reach, and plants her arrows in his soft flesh, front and back.

The Fire Giant

“Look out!” Bryn shouts a warning as she joins them. An enormous figure rises behind the others. Its bulk blots out the light of the stars. “Giant!”

Fire giant strides into the battle. His charcoal black skin blends into the darkness. A skirt of heavy leather straps hangs from his belt. Greaves protect his legs, and his boots are iron shod. A heavy breastplate covers his chest. In his right hand he swings an enormous blade. All seems lost. One kick of his mighty iron-shod foot, a single stroke of that heavy blade, and it’s certain death. The little elfess spins about to face the giant. She shoulders her hornwood bow and draws out two gleaming blades. The giant snorts at the elf maid and lunges forward.

Brynn retrieves the hook and coil of rope from her belt. She looks to Ansgar, but he cannot help this time. He has no opportunity to face or flee the giant. He ducks the swing of the ogre’s club. He cannot disengage or turn his back.

Viscous Mockery

Meantime, still below, Squint and Gundoriel remain at the foot of the cliff wall. From their vantage, they see only the head and shoulders of the towering giant. What can they do to help their companions? Gundoriel invokes the power of Correlon to save. Squint lifts his voice in less noble petition, uttering a reel of vicious mockery:

Oh mighty giant, tall and dire, 

With steps that quake and eyes like fire.

Your brain, alas, seems rather small, 

Outmatched by gnome beneath the wall.

Now the bard has garnered the fire giant’s attention. The charcoal-skinned gargantuan bellows and shakes his blunt sword menacingly. Delighted by such a reaction, Squint continues his song, accompanying himself with a few strums of the shalm.

In battles loud, you roar and snarl, 

But you’ll be dead, just like Old Jarl.

You stomp and threaten, full of ire, 

A flickering flame of fart-gas fire.

Think we quake and shake with fear? 

Nay! Tis but your pumpkin face what makes me laugh and jeer!

That makes me laugh and jeer!

A giant cannot countenance mockery, especially when it comes from one so small. With an angry roar, the fire giant leaps from the top of the escarpment, a short hop down for one so tall. The ground shakes beneath him as his iron shod boots impact the ground. Squint narrowly dodges.

Leap before you Look

Without hesitation, Mayloriel follows after. While the giant still has his back to her, she leaps like a gazelle from the top of the rock, lands herself upon the monster’s shoulders, wraps her legs tight round his thick neck, and thrusts both blades into his flesh to steady herself atop the pitching mount.

Now it’s Brynn’s turn. She is rushing down to help, already swinging the grappling hook at the end of her rope in a wide arc around her head. How many times did Ansgar make me practice the rope and hook? Now we’ll see how well I learned.

The fire giant bellows in pain. He swats at the elf maid perched on his shoulders, but she ducks the blow, still stabbing at his neck. As he swats at the air, the grappling hook and rope wraps around his legs, snags on his iron greaves, and pulls taught with his stride. The giant stumbles; he trips; he falls. Mayloriel gracefully summersaults off her perch, rights herself, and strikes the giant with both blades where he lays at her feet. Blood washes over her. 

Meantime Ansgar grows weary of hacking at the bloodied ogre, bull rushes him, and knocks him backward over the cliff. The ogre flails in midair as he falls to his death not far from where the fire giant still sprawls on the ground, kicking his feet free of Bryn’s rope. Now the ranger turns to face the warg, its rider, and whatever other orc folk are about before he can join the others in the fight below.

The fire giant lurches forward on hands and knees, clambers to his feet, and untangles himself. Blood fountains up from several wounds in his neck, chest, and back. He looks about anxiously for his foemen, but their elven cloaks conceal them—all except for Gundoriel who, by the grace of Correlon Larethian, has made himself appear in four identical divine visages. The giant makes a mighty kick at the priest nearest to him. Such a kick would have shattered the high elf and sent him hurtling through the air, but illusory Gundoriel merely vanishes away, leaving the other three. The giant stumbles with his empty kick, recovers himself, then casts his gaze about in frustration and panic.

Squint reaches into the lore of ancient songs and selects a lyric reserved for such occasions. Summoning up forgotten sounds, he whispers a discordant melody of the old songmasters. Like a ventriloquist casting his voice, he slips the eerie sound of his whispered song into the giant’s big ear and only his ear alone. It has the desired effect. The giant shakes his head like a man with a mosquito in his ear. Fire giant moans piteously and leaps away to flee the battle. As soon as the giant shows them his back, Mayloriel nocks an arrow, pulls taught the string to bend her hornwood bow. She sinks the shaft between the blades of the fleeing giant’s shoulders, piercing armor, flesh, and bone. The giant falls nose first to bury his face in the heath, and there he lays dead where he falls.

To Be Continued

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Read the Adventures Against the Giants from the beginning.

Visit the Geoff page for materials from the LG campaigns.

Artwork: ChatGPT4 with Dalle3

DM Notes: In this session, we continue our departure from the Living Greyhawk modules. This adventure takes place on the timeline between the modules GEO1-05 A Little Bit of Wood and GEO1-06 Return of the Grand Duke.