Parley, but Much Bigger (Storm King’s Thunder #14)

We find ourselves surrounded by four giants, who have just been directed to kill us by Princess Mirren, who perches on the steps to watch the fun. Now I’m no fancy big-city lawyer, but this seems like a bad situation for us small folk. Svela makes a plea for calm, but only half the giants seem amenable. The stone giant is the first to join the fray, so we defended ourselves against him. Redfang pulled off some tricky psychic damage, Rolfe did ax-based diplomacy, and Bardalph hacked away with his sword. Meanwhile, Svela dashed into cover and queued up an arrow toward Mirren. That shot actually made Mirren yelp and hightail it out of there, so when we called for “Parley!” the now-beat-up stone giant agreed.

Warily, we all came out and talked like grown-ups. The giants explain that they are the heads of their respective clans, and that they’re ALSO waiting for audiences with Serissa, but they’ve been put off by Mirren and Nyx (?), the sisters. We all agree that a united front will be our best bet to actually get through to the throne room. We all march up together. Hill giant guards refuse to let the giants in because Rules, but they’re dumb, so we were able to trick them into opening the doors for small-folk. We told our giant allies that we would tell Serissa to meet with them, and then proceeded into the next room...

...Which is the throne room! Serissa sits in a big floating chair in the middle, flanked by two storm giant advisors, one of whom seems sketchy. We present ourselves, explain that the All-Father’s oracle sent us here, and tell Serissa that we’re willing to help find the missing Hekaton to help prevent a war. Her advisor warns against trusting us (but also maybe dropped that she knows Hekaton was abducted, rather than simply missing….sketchy!!!). Anyway, Serissa is actually impressed by our offer. She comes down to speak with us quietly, and tells us that she found a strange coin by her mother’s body, just after Hekaton went MIA. She gives us the coin, which has a golden goose on it. We in turn warn her to be wary of her sisters and her advisor, who might not have her best interests at heart.

We leave the throne room through another door, and a guard takes us to a mediation room that is also helpfully a teleportation room. We ask to go to Waterdeep, and moments later, that’s exactly where we and up.

Now, to hunt the golden goose!