Deadstone Cleft III
…the party raced across the bridge and into the cave beyond. Scouting ahead, T’Sai found two stone giants sitting cross-legged at a giant-sized fire. After informing the party of what was ahead, T’Sai led the charge, leaping on top of one and driving his blade home. The yuan-ti was backed by Pix’s flaming sphere, Molish’s toll of the dead, Leo’s elemental uppercut, and Thaminor’s attacks. The stone giants were defeated in no time, and our party took a short rest before continuing on.
While Pix began the ritual to detect magic, T’Sai set out to explore their surroundings. The tunnel to the northeast led down to the Cleft and the one to west led to a barracks of some sort. From the barracks, a long winding tunnel led off to the north, a gem-mining cave to the west, and a large tomb of some sort to the southwest. The open-air tomb was lined with three regal-looking petrified stone giants to the west, and a massive stone block shaped like a sarcophagus in the center of two rain water pools. The stone slab was covered by giant-sized hand prints, which looked as if they had been pressed into a clay surface rather than a stone one.
After T’Sai reported what he found back to the party, Pix completed his ritual and discovered that the stone slab sarcophagus was the only source of magic in the area. While most of the party was looking around the room for clues or information to guide them, brave Leo (still in his earth elemental form) approached the stone and placed his earthen hand on its side… only to be magically pulled into it an instant later, leaving behind a new hand print from his elemental form.
Less than a minute after Leo was sucked in to the stone slab, he was expelled back into the party’s presence. He reached out a rocky hand and touched the sarcophagus again. When nothing happens, he shifted back into his natural form and touched the slab a third time, saying out loud, “All we want to do is help you!”
Pix: “Hey buddy how was your trip?”
Leo: “There’s a skodkong in there whatever that is. And he said he was a thane. Again. Whatever that is. But he kicked me out before I could get any answers.”
Pix: “Whats a skodkong?”
Leo: “I don’t know, dude. It was dark I didn’t see anything. Only heard.”
Molish: “If I remember correctly, a Thane is something like a leader or elder, though I may be wrong. Whoever is buried in here must be important. Important enough to bury.”
Pix: “What else did he say to you petting zoo?”
Leo: “That he was a thane and that was was a scumbag or whatever that word was. Then he kicked me out before I could tell him that I wanted to help.“
Pix: “Good job! Cant get back in?”
Molish: “Did we find anything else in this room that may be helpful? Maybe take a look at the sarcophagus a little closer?”
Leo: “No it kicked me out and now I touched it and tried to burrow but I couldn’t. Too magical.”
Thaminor: “Ok a thane is like a king, but if he’s a giant king then he can die again… I aint helping the giants… F’ them.”
Pix tried to touch the sarcophagus himself, only to find a solid stone that does not indent with his hand print or suck him in to it.
Pix: “The Skodkong or ‘Fog King’ was the first of Deadstone Cleft’s thanes. Unlike most stone giants, the Skodkong had pale gray skin — hence his moniker.”
Thaminor: “Wait, did you say the ‘Fog King’? The Fog King was the stone giant that led his kin out of the Greypeak Mountains to the East, and terrorized the elven settlements of the High Forest in the Giants War. It was in that war that the Oakenshield was lost.
Eventually, we turned the tide against the giants. The Fog King retreated here to the Lost Peaks, but he could not find adequate shelter from the fury of the elves. With the wrath that only High Mages could unleash, they sundered this very mountain and created this massive cleft. So many stone giants died that day, it became known as Deadstone Cleft.
It is said that the stone giants’ god, Skoraeus Stonebones himself, answered a call to defend his worshipers and brought forth a mighty storm that pushed the elves back. To this day, those winds have never subsided and still blow with a tornado-like force down the cleft.
Some stone giants survived, hiding now in their new home. The Fog King soon perished of wounds received that day, and another took up the mantel of thane. Since that time, the stone giants have rarely been seen. It appears that they have allied with a tribe of Uthgardt barbarians, probably receiving the protection of the cleft in exchange for food like those goats we found.”