If You’re the Healer, who Heals the Healers?* (Storm King’s Thunder #4)

We have just alerted a hill giant and his posse to our presence, and this means they are not at all surprised (or rather, they probably are surprised, but not so surprised that we are able to get the jump on them). Predictably, a fight begins. Bardalph and Rolfe start attacking the giant and one of the orcs, while Svela shoots arrows from the cover of the woods, and Redfang cracks his whip (like, REALLY cracks it…in an ear-shattering way). Things don’t seem too dire until the giant whomps Bardalph so hard he falls to the ground and starts dying. The rest of the group tries frantically to turn the tide of the battle so that we can not all be squished to death. And we do manage to wail on the giant until he drops. The bugbears wisely bow out of the proceeding at that point, and we finish off the last orc. Svela bandages up Bardalph well enough that he stops dying, but this brings up an important issue, which is that it’s BAD when your only healer goes down. We’ll have to figure this out soon.

But for now, we load a very sleepy and bandaged Bardalph into the cart (hey, good we hid it), and Boris trotted eastward once again. We reach Noer’s Hold and deliver the harnesses to the customer, then go to the inn. We meet 3 brothers there, who are peak White Human Privilege. They think they’re going to win fame and fortune by becoming giant hunters, but their biggest prize so far was a black bear. Good luck, boys.

We traveled in the morning. About midday, we sighted two EXTREMELY giant-y giants walking west with big steps. They’re way bigger than the giants we’ve seen so far. We skedaddled off the road to hide, but Redfang went invisible and tagged along with them for a little while to try to catch a hint of what they’re after. He gleaned only that they defeated a hill giant recently, and that they were talking about some thing or event (but the name didn’t mean anything to Redfang). He circled back to us and we went on.

At nightfall, we met a merchant who’s happy to share a camp in exchange for protection. Just before we were going to turn in for the night, Lezerik and Marthon, 2 of the 3 brash brothers who fancied themselves gianthunters stumbled into camp. The third brother is evidently dead. Bardalph (now feeling much better) healed the really injured brother (Marthon), while Svela and Redfang asked Lezerik about what happened and got pretty suspicious by the tale. We both think he’s hiding something, but it’s not really our job to suss it out. The brothers stay the night, but leave early in the morning. They’re still heading east, so with our luck, we’ll run into them again.

We got to Everlund in the evening, and quickly found the inn run by Drall, the one-eyed half-orc. We flash the Triboar badge and slide over Lady Shendrall’s letter. In response, Drall brings us to the kitchen to talk secretly. There, he offers us all a drink of wine. We drink…..and are literally transported somewhere else.

If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s disorienting to suddenly find yourself in a room full of winged cats and a wizard…yes, it’s disorienting. But the wizard, Krowen Valharrow, is very friendly and explains that Drall simply sent us here to see if we can handle teleportation, because that’s how the Harpers travel sometimes. Yes, it seems we are now working with the Harpers on this giant issue. The wizard tells us that if we can gather information and help defeat the giant threat, the Harpers will reward us for our efforts. In exchange, we get some material support at Harper Hideouts, as well as access to the teleportation network if we need it.

And then we pushed on to Silverymoon, an extremely pretty city with an elven vibe. We did some shopping, mostly for healing potions, and Bardalph also put in an order for plate armor. We sold Boris as part of a deal to get four riding horses so we’ll be able to skulk about the area faster. Our intention is to ride to Zymorven’s Keep and see whether Z will lend us his giant-killing axe.

*Coast Guard?