Mildenhaul's Battle of Red & Gold, Book 2
By Xothor Gorrat Ironweaver,
Templar in the Brogendenstein Temple of the
Morndinsamman & Apprentice with Bahamut's Talons of Justice
Upon arriving in the infirmary, I found a handful of kin around a bed, squabbling with the patient in the bed. Gate Sergeant Harran Braidstone and former Bendir Dale Hawk under Mayor Amy Silverscales-Dizonne, and Pathfinder Glognar Halitt, former Warden of Brogendenstein under Regent Hera Braidstone, and two Faenors, all trying to convince my stubborn cousin, Sonnlinor Hera Braidstone, that she needed her medication. After proclaiming to her brother that the necessary potion tasted little better than dross water, Harran threatened to hold her down and let the Faenors pour it into her mouth if she didn't cooperate. When she spotted me in the doorway, before the others had noticed, she knew something terrible had happened; she could see it in my face. My arrival shocked her into submission and thus she sat up and drank the odious brew.
Relaying His Majesty Darnoth's condition, being struck and poisoned by a ballista bolt from Captain Krag Scragger, an undead pirate, while defending the Golden Halls of Brogendenstein, my cousin went white. I assured her that he was on the mend and being treated by our best healers, but she immediately insisted Mildenhaul send aid by dragon riders, shooing her brother out to arrange her demands.
Pathfinder Glognar explained that he had ventured up to Mildenhaul from distant lands after hearing word that Hera's husband and former Thane of Brogendenstein, Battlemaster Gorann Bloodletter, had taken critical wounds during a surprise mountain orc attack while training new recruits in the mining tunnels some years previous.
After Gorann's funeral and learning of growing hostilities against Mildenhaul, Glognar decided to stay and aid as he could, being a seasoned Pathfinder, and sent word to his family down south of his decision. When Harran returned to the infirmary and the Faenors finished with Hera's evening treatment, Glognar and I were invited to stay in the Braidstone clan-hold, as it was adjacent and convenient. Being as exhausted as I was, I gladly accepted and followed the two kinsmen to a guest suite where we were served roasted boar, steamed cabbage and several other delicacies. Being ravenous after such a hard flight here, I was most grateful, and then enjoyed the most glorious steaming salt bath of my life. Falling into bed, satiated, warm and comfortable, I felt safe and fell into a deep slumber.
I'm not sure what woke me first; Glognar's yelling or the shaking of the room. Still in his small clothes and barefoot, Glognar stood at an open doorway, yelling across the hall at whom I guessed was my cousin, Harran. My head still fuzzy from the sudden awakening, Glognar urged me to get up and don my gear because we were under attack, though from what was unclear. And so I did; frantically buckling bracers and setting personal wards for myself and Glognar, we then headed out into the hallway as another of my cousins, Pathfinder Deedle Braidstone as well as Artificer Natty Gogtamer, ran by us frantically discussing the layout of the mining tunnels.
Confused, as I had thought the assassins were all slain the night before, Glognar urged me to follow Cogtamer as I wasn't aware of the layline convergent in the Braidstone hold. Harran, barking orders as he too donned his armor left hanging outside the infirmity, sent us to secure the mine breech while he informed his sister and checked on the education district next door. Before I followed the gnomish artificer through a wavering blue light, I saw Sonnlinor Hera standing barefoot, in heavy hospital robes, slamming a winged helmet onto her head.
As I emerged from the pale light of the portal, Glognar close on my heels, I followed Natty down to a hidden rocky door, and as she flung it open, the roar of battle hit me like a storm front. Mountain orc and goblin soldiers had made it to the very door of our halls and a small battalion of Mildenhaul's military was already beating them back. Deedle, just in front of me, launched on the assembled ilk with remarkable speed, sticking short blades under rib cages and across throats like a wind storm. Natty used her short stature to take the larger soldiers out at their knees and then launched volleys of sticky fire bombs into the main hoard, setting them all aflame.
As Glognar and I pushed into the mine itself, him flinging throwing axes at elbow breaking speed and myself, calling upon Dugmaren's judgment, sending hammers of blinding light down into their ranks, we all felt a terrible quake in the mountain, rubble cascading down upon us all. Deedle and Natty, further in front of Glognar and I, looked back at us with shock and then disappeared, along with the entire Mildenhaul battalion and goblin and orc forces, under an avalanche of falling rock. As the understanding of what was happening hit me, I felt a hard yank on the neckline of my cloak and was forcefully dragged back through the mine's doorway, and thrown up against a wall before I had a chance to protest. Glognar then slammed the stone door shut, bracing it and locking the many defenses Mildenhaul's artificers had built. Gasping for breath, the dawn of understanding on what just happened hit us both hard, and we had only a moment before again, Glognar was running up the adit, dragging me behind him, my protests completely ignored.
Racing back up onto the main floor, Glognar informed me that a leyline was close by and thus I attempted to ignore the shaking of the mountain to find the vibrations that could give us a way out of the area. Finding a consistent thrum, I opened a temporary portal that we dove into, landing in the education district that was already dealing with the crumbling of the mountain. As Mildenaul's educational department was an ambitious grouping of primary schools for the youth as well as colleges, including our largest under the Temple of Nebelun, and harbored dorms and professor quarters alike, many people were assembling in their sleeping attire in the atrium. Glognar and I raced past them, hearing the din of fighting ahead of us.
Coming to the main gates of the district, I saw Hera first, in her woolen hospital robe, calling upon Moradin's wrath and sending a hurricane of lightning and acid rain down on three white dragons that were destroying the warded stone gates. Harran, I saw seconds later, using his tower shield like a divine wall and blocking the small opening the dragons had created in the gates, Gorm's protections glowing bright gold upon him, his shield taking on the ambiance of His Lord Fire Eyes. Glognar and I split at that moment, him returning to the assembled students and professors, me joining Hera in the fight, adding Dugmaren's strength to her growing hurricane.
And then I spotted the drow snipers on an elevated walkway that circled the atrium, raining poisoned arrows down upon us and the assembled kin that Glognar was directing. As Hera saw them too, she ordered me to protect the professors and students, to leave her and her brother and get them out. Balking at Hera's orders I stood there defiant until she sent a wave of force against me, throwing me backwards and out of harm's way. Thankfully, our combined storms took out the closest drow, and I was able to race back to Gognar and had just enough time to find another layline through the stone.
As Glognar and I nearly forced the bewildered students and professors, assembly line, through the portal I had managed to create, I saw Hera summon a battalion of fire elementals that launched themselves against the remaining two white dragons, the storm already having killed one. With Harran keeping the line and Hera encouraging the raging storm, the elementals managed to set the largest of the white wyrms aflame. At that point, a single drow sniper drew her bow and hit Hera in the back with two poisoned arrows. Reeling around and spotting the archer, Hera blasted her with a bolt of lighting, sending her crashing down off the walkway and into a pile of rubble. Still holding the storm, with Harran shield bashing the remaining white dragon in the face, her eyes locked onto mine and she screamed;
"Go now!'
After the last of the students were pushed through the portal, Glognar grabbed me and shoved me into the light. As I felt myself falling through the leyline, I saw my cousins, Hera and Harran, a battalion of elementals and the remaining white wyrm crushed under falling stone as the mountain was hit by a ferocious quake.
... To be continued.