Book Two, Chapter Six, �Into The Gargun Lair With Coracle And Goat�

(14/11/96 - the Thursday and the first half of the Friday of the worst ever Hermicon)��

Sir Martyn Yanyez De Barbudo is better, Giles the squire hasn�t found his sword yet, Estalyn the Elvish bow questor and Daniel the generally useless Bard hang around with Zytsi the mason. Aruth has flu.

Not many people know this but the poem Strange Rescue was based on events around here. When an earlier party went to go for the very suit of armour we are going for.

�� Gargun here and Gargun there

�� Singing this and singing that

�� Into the rocks Daniel went

�� Climbing here and climbing there

�� Writing this and drawing map

�� Up the rocks Daniel went.

Yes I am that Daniel and here is that map

((I�ve got a map of the exterior of the Gargun lair to insert here.))

According to Giles Martyn will be able to sneak around caves if he sticks his boot up a fox�s bottom.

Attack the Gargun lair and grab the armour off the leader. Easy.

Aruth is bonding with horse.

Martyn makes a long rope ladder.

Martyn had a dream - Plan �A�. Down passages and tunnels fighting across a bridge in a cavern. Standing mid smashed eggs. Thanks Larani. Ah the tunnels were slightly wet and Martyn was swimming. So we build a coracle of Zytsi to heroically be there. Daniel carved the oar.

Faf around, plot, plan, Tular Fever for Giles.

+15 to Stalk/Hide from Martyn�s camouflage.

23rd Fly 15 miles camp. Wandered by 2 grizzled old men, shifty looking. Gold miners - but they found nothing. Making a break for it as the Gargun are disorganised. 2 groups of Gargun, the queen party and some pursuers later. Invite miners to join camp �Its all right lads, dinners on�. 3 more come out. They are more scared of Sir Martyn the Lord and Zytsi the gold smelling Khuzdul confiscating their gold than anything else and scarper.

�

24th Land on the Mesa (where we rescued from before) kill 2 Gargun. Camp gets bodies and arrows. Re-attach rope with noise maker.

Zytsi�� Daniel�� Zytsi and Estalyn do 1 and 1/2 watches each, swapping at midnight.

�� Martyn��

Estalyn Giles��

��

Replacement guards on 1st watch. Martyn helped them up and Zytsi killed them. Second one Giles cut its hand off. Argh, plummet. Estalyn gets body back. Vultures eat bodies - 4 dead Gargun now.

25th Savor - Next day lower goat down on rope ladder. Everyone gets down.

Sneak up to the gorge. Goat distracts guard - comes out to spear it and collect spears. Giles efficiently kills him.

Stupid Gargun. The next guard does the same. Fumbles spear - turns round to get it. Goat charges, Gargun turns round, gets arrow in chest. 1 SNP. Goat kills it. Get body and arrow taken.

Up cavern another 50 ft another spear misses, comes down rope. Goat makes noise. throw spear, fumbles, 6 SNP, goat charges and kills it. Body into river.

Up cavern again another 50 ft another spear, another Gargun, runs, spear hits goat 4 S, continues. Gargun follows meets Martyn and Giles coming the other way. Stupid Gargun peers out into light just sees Martyn charging him. Turns and runs. Martyn and Giles hit him and kill him. Back to woods.

Up 30 ft behind goat. Group of Gargun, chase, runs attack party. Martyn leaps out of stream behind them and cops a spear in the back. The Gargun guard on the other side of the river who sussed us and raised the alarm. Giles and Zytsi kill 3 Gargun. Martyn throws spear at guard falls off - but the ground fumbles and it takes no damage. Another one dies.

One Zytsi killed gets up behind him - �E� crushes dull and dangerous. Expires from criticals in 4 rounds (under a stun song). 16 dead Gargun in total. Zytsi blow to remember: - shield bash over 400 and hits Gargun killing him, knocked the Gargun�s sword flying which cut the sword hand off another Gargun.

Up canyon. Guards on ledges. Zytsi and Estalyn on one side. Giles (boosted up by Daniel) on the other. Martyn and Daniel with coracle up the middle and the goat, either side of the river.

Kill Gargun on ledges. Martyn crosses river.

Zytsi finds a secret door or rather where one should be. It took a lot to find it. Into the Gargun lair with coracle and goat.

Marching order - Zytsi, Estalyn, Martyn, Giles, Daniel with coracle, goat

It�s dark. Great. Khuzdul to junction. Trap, ouch. Giles reset trap. On other side of a trap, disarm trap. Secret door into the back of a barrel, into storeroom. Empty top 3 barrel (liquid) into newly emptied meat barrel. Replace them.

�� o��

�� o o�� ((This is an attempt to illustrate the pile of barrels. the �x� makes the barrel which

� o x o� was the secret door!))

o o o o

((the next 2 pages of this chapter as it is basically a map with notes))

The party entered the Gargun lair via a secret door into a corridor. Thence past 2 traps into the storeroom as described above. Secret doors and traps seemed to be a feature of the lair. Based on the principle that secret doors always lead to more interesting places we deliberately looked for, and investigated, secret doors. Here is an outline of what we found, based of the maps and notes. Martyn�s dream, mentioned above, was Larani�s divine guidance to aid us find the armour. The Suit of Armour was assumed to be worn by the Leader, and we were right in this assumption. We were going through the lair looking for the corridors of Martyn�s dream, where the Queen and hence the Leader would be found.

We went in during the day when the Gargun, being nocturnal, would be asleep. Thus the lack of encountered Gargun, apart from guards. We were sneaking around trying to be as quiet as possible, but don�t forget that Daniel was carrying the coracle and was being followed by the wounded goat. Clip, clop. Yes it is Martyn�s familiar and if it dies he is in trouble. Most of the secret door and trap finding, not to mention disarming, was done by Zytsi and Giles. ((And if that�s wrong they�ll tell me)).

Beyond the storeroom was a corridor going away. It went in a long curve and ended in a huge hall, in which were one or more Gargun guards. We quietly ignored this hall and went through a trapped secret door on the curved part of the corridor. Beyond this was another corridor, which curved around in a semicircle and then split into 2 ways. One led into a secret armoury off the huge hall. So we went the other way. This led to a corridor, one end on which went into the huge hall, the other ended in a door. However 15 ft away from the secret door we came out of and on the opposite side was another secret door. There was a tense moment or two as the entire party, including the coracle and goat (don�t forget them) traipsed across this public corridor to the new secret door and its secret corridor.

This corridor went deeper into the lair and turned in the direction of the far end of the huge hall. Just after the corner was a super secret door with a trap that couldn�t be disarmed. So we ignored that and continued on down the secret corridor. This ended in a secret door, with a portcullis trap the other side. Beyond this was a Robbing Room. The robes were made from both Human and Khuzdul skins. Beyond this room was a mini-complex of rooms behind the Throne in the huge hall we kept seeing. The throne was on a dais and had a curtain behind it. Behind this curtain was a largish room which was the centre of this mini-complex. In a deeper in room, which was a conference room (I think) was yet another secret door. This one had a very nasty dead fall ceiling trap. Beyond this was a treasure room.

In the treasure room were 8 chests. We managed to open 2 of them to find one full of uncut gems and the other full of silver pennies (3,000 of them at a guess). �One more chest� says Martyn, �The Armour! The Armour!� Chant Daniel and Giles. During investigations of this room we fond a corridor which led to the other side of the super secret door we had ignore previously. The trap turned out to be a gong trap; just as well we decided to ignore it. In the treasure room was a secret door, which naturally we opened and found a corridor beyond. Onwards and deeper into the Gargun Lair, with Daniel carrying the coracle (and thinking �I can�t believe I�m really doing this. I must be dreaming. There must be a market for what ever drug Martyn has fed us.�). Don�t forget the goat bringing up the rear, its wounded remember. Nobody knows what it thought of all of this.

Round about this time there was obviously a discussion about herbs as I find the following note. �Don�t drink the pint of brandy (to get rid of the bad effect of a herb). Drunk as well! Zytsi turned it down, so did Giles.� This was, of course, one of Martyn�s suggestions, but I don�t remember what the herb was.

Down the new secret corridor from the treasure room. This ended in a corridor; unfortunately this was our last secret door for a long time. This corridor ended in a door, not far from where we joined it, with snoring beyond if I remember correctly. The other end T junctioned on another corridor. One end of this new corridor went into the Throne room and the other end forked. One way was heading towards the outside world so, after a brief look, we ignored it. The other way led past doors and rooms and then deeper into the mountains. After 1/2 a mile there was a mine head area and 1/4 mile further one it ended in a huge set of double doors.

Beyond these doors is a large fairly circular room, with a large pool in the centre. I�m fairly certain we initially fought some Gargun here, or rather faffed around and let a local alarm get set off. The pool had an underwater connection to another part of the complex. This was investigated and we decided to go through.

((Back to transcribing text))

Zytsi went into the lake, down the handholds, down tunnel. Panic attack. So we eventually use the coracle but we leave the goat behind and 8 Gargun attack it.

So we leave the goat behind and it nearly dies hacked by Gargun and drowning. So it tried to come back and arrived unconscious. So Martyn and Giles and Daniel go back to fight 8 Gargun. Stupid adventurers. Martyn had another vision so we go back. Faf, faf.

Daniel carries coracle. Martyn carries goat. Giles sets off the nasty water trap. Zytsi is by other secret door in coracle. Wush wet try to open door. Fail. success eventually, stairs secret door - Indiana Jones stone ball trap. Back down corridor, up river (again) water entry to corridor is in water passage. Up to big pool. Grill in water. OK Cave Barracuda in pool bite bite they go. So using coracle we get to edge of pool and dry land safely.

((From the pool in the large almost circular room to the large pool with Cave Barracuda are 2 parallel corridors, one secret and one basically a river. We tried the secret one, but fluffed it. So we had to use the wet way))

We think the Queen is up here.