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Story of the Stone Giants
Taren had been adventuring deep underground with the rest of her party in search of the equipment which Bolas had lost when he died 11,000 years previously. Each "night" before sleeping and/or while taking watch, she would use a bowl of water to scry on her charge. It was at this time that she began to notice something unusual going on. Small dwellings were being built in the southern section of her charge. She could find no sign of the builders and she objected to having things built in her charge without her consultation. The situation reached emergency status when the forests began to burn. Luckily, this happened just as the party reached a strange underground forest and Taren was able to use a tree to return to her charge immediately (being sure that her party would be all right since there was also a tavern where supplies could be bought in this unusual place).
Returning to her charge, she found the strange village had been invaded by half a dozen human soldiers - the leader riding a horse. They carried torches and were setting the huts afire and chasing after many small grey humanoid creatures. Staying out of sight of the soldiers, Taren decided to take the side of the small creatures, since it was obviously the humans who were destroying her charge. She killed one with her hammer, taking him by surprise as she emerged from a tree. Being careful to conceal the body, she then went after two soldiers who had pinned a grey creature against a tree. She led them on a chase into a thicket of brambles, where she swiftly used her magic to dispose of them. The other soldiers had left by the time she returned and Taren was too busy dealing with the forest fire to follow them immediately. She also made sure that all the axes from the village were hidden. The little grey creatures took the hint and did no further damage to the forest.
Following the soldiers' tracks to a nearby town in search of more information, she became too confident - very certain that none had seen her while in her charge - and was captured and imprisoned. An old man she had never seen before pointed her out at the city gates. She was never charged nor tried, but remained in the jail, seemingly forgotten (miserable in her chains, since Druids of Baeast are forbidden from touching metal). It was at least a month before the rest of the party came looking for her. They immediately became entangled with werewolves and other strange wolf creatures and it was some time before Taren was able to attempt to communicate with the grey creatures.
By this time, she had discovered that they were completely undetectable when she scried upon her charge. Communicating with them proved to be extremely difficult. They never spoke and barely seemed to understand Taren's speaking and gesturing. She tried to develop a system that they could use to contact her if they had a problem by showing them a signal that they could give her (a flag) that she would be able to see with her scrying. She isn't sure whether they understood, since they never did use the signal.
A couple years passed and Taren was still unable to communicate with the creatures when she visited her charge in between her adventures with the rest of the party. They were friendly and peaceable creatures who would keep watch outside her dwelling and bring her offerings of the turnips and other vegetables they would raise for food. On one such visit, she noticed that one of the grey creatures had turned to stone. This was a puzzling and worrisome development, and by the time Taren was able to take time to deal with it, others among them had also become statues.
Theo was unable to help determine what was going on - the small stone statues were unmagical. Taren could determine that it was not caused by poison. Although she tried taking one of the statues to a priest, she was unable to gain any information, being a high level Druid of Baeast. By luck, Father Isan, a friend of the party and a paladin of Lathidus, was able to give some information about the statues.
When asked to look at the statue, Father Isan informed Taren that the creature was actually a stone giant that had been cursed. The only way it might be possible to lift the curse would be to find the object and that had been used to curse them and perhaps even the curser himself would be necessary.
While this information was very helpful, it wasn't until Taren found herself temporarily in control of a magical scrying glass that had been created by druids of the old ways, that she was able to discover the location of the object that had been used to curse the stone giants and who had done it. It was located in Sarusar's workshop.
By this time, she had discovered that the creatures that had turned to stone were slowly eroding and crumbling to dust.
The party would soon discover that Sarusar had been possessed by the soul of the evil undead necromancer Daglan (whom the party had inadvertently released a year earlier), so entering his workshop proved to be no easy task. However, the party had many other reasons to get into the workshop (including a soul-imprisoning pyramid, a heart leaf which would allow Taren to return to the druidic scrying glass, and Sarusar's black anti magic rings). So, after freeing Sarusar, the party was able to invade Daglan's tower, find the entrance to Sarusar's workshop and recover the desired items.
Since Sarusar was grateful to the party for having been released from Daglan's power, he begrudgingly agreed to return the stone giants to their original forms as a favor to Taren. However, once Taren produced the cursing object, Sarusar limited that agreement to only those stone giants that had not yet turned into stone. There remained only five.
Travelling to her charge in the morning of a winter day, Taren met with Sarusar to this purpose. The small grey creatures fled from Sarusar just as they had fled from the cursing object when Taren had brought it (in hopes that Sarusar's help would not be necessary). After Taren gathered the gnome creatures together, Sarusar concentrated upon the object, performed some sort of magic, and there stood a stone giant. One by one, Sarusar transformed them, leaving them in a stupefied state so that he would not be harmed. Then he opened his strange blue doorway, walked through it, and emerged from another blue doorway high in the air. From that vantage, he cast yet another spell and suddenly the stone giants had the spark of intelligence in their eyes. Sarusar departed quietly and they began speaking to one another.
The five stone giants circled around Taren and she directed them to pick up the remaining small stone statues and carry them to the stoney foothills on the other side of her charge. They reached the foothills at dark and Taren stoneshaped the statues into the walls of stone, forever becoming a part of her charge.
Still unable to communicate with the stone giants, Taren attempted to invite them to stay and live in her charge through hand signals, but they did not seem to understand. They gestured to the north as if they wanted to go. They may have been saying that they would return in a day, but Taren could not be sure, so she had one of them carry her with them.
They travelled through the night - at a much faster rate since they were not limited to walking through the woods at a human pace. In the morning, they reached a set of stairs ascending into the mountains. They gestured for Taren to remain, and climbed the stairs, returning with a large bag of treasure for Taren's reward.
Summoning two bears to her aid, Taren spent the rest of the day travelling and directing creatures from her charge to disperse the remains of the small creatures' village.
At the end of the day, she was expected to meet up with the rest of her party, so she asked Theo to cast dimensional folding and create a portal through which she slid the bag of treasure. Theo was able to help her identify some of the treasure.
The bag contained:
- about 4,700 gold (in various denominations)
- a pearl necklace,
- a silver necklace,
- a brass ring with a fish design circling it,
- a golden circlet with a small yellow gem inset containing the inscription
- "Sir Mandrake of Halifare" written in Darini
- an ivory hand mirror which causes whoever looks into it to be susceptible to magical beguilement
- two green gemstones, one of which is what Theo calls an "ioun stone" which can protect the user against taking any damage for up to three attacks (of any sort). It hovers about the user and follows him easily but can be plucked from the air by anyone
- a thick, polished wooden staff which has three magical properties - one property is that it is a +3 weapon.
- a small vial containing a magical potion which radiates elemental magic - (all of the elements)
- a small box with a spring lock which contains a small wooden bird in a nest of straw - the wooden bird is magical
Although the stone giants did not remain within her charge, they are not far away. Taren plans to find a way to communicate with them and ask them to protect her charge, should it be in danger. She is also curious to know the story of how and why they were cursed, since Sarusar was not willing to tell the story.
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