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Freki and his
men had placed ropes and hooks attached to the cliffside trees and had
been caught by the rope and swung away from the falling skeletons to
the side of the hill. They climbed back up the ropes in time to help
the second group finish off the last of the defenders. From the caves,
Freki could see hundreds of red eyes slowly coming closer. He hoped his
trick would work more than once. The undead might be mindless, but they
were being directed by an intelligence. He hoped the defenders were an
automatic response to invasion rather than a directed attack by the
dragon.
The strike force and their reinforcements lined the cliffs
edge waiting for the zombies to climb the hill. The creeping charge
showed only a few ranks of the mindless undead. Fearing it to be a ploy
to draw them into a charge, Freki kept the men waiting at the cliff's
edge. When the zombies did meet the norse, they quickly pushed forward
and fell over the edge while the warriors climbed back up the ropes.
Disappointed at the lack of worthy opponents, the strike force gathers
together and returns to the caves. They scour the entire complex and
find no evidence of any other tunnels, defenders or traps.
Though they do find a fresco upon a wall, deep in the
tunnels, depicting grey figures being tortured by four-legged horned
beasts. Freki stops and examines the image.
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A tinny and
somewhat familiar voice whispers in his ear to touch the largest of the
demonic figures. Freki hardly notices the oddity of the advice and
reaches out to touch the large central figure. At his touch the wall
swings open and releases a wave of bats, imps, flying claws and large
wasps followed by a host of crawling undead claws, small vicious
gremlins, and strange half-sized trolls with overlong claws. The
warriors stand together against the onslaught and destroy the host
suffering only minimal losses. The flying claws and short trolls are
the last to fall, they regenerate very quickly and return to the
battle. The warriors with torches were finally able to burn them to
ashes, stopping their regeneration.
Having soundly defeated the threat, the strike force moves
into the hidden tunnel. They are confronted with more of the mean
little gremlins and imps as they travel, but force them to flee at
every turn. The middle of the group suddenly find themselves being
slaughtered by several wraiths that seem to pour out of the floor.
Freki races to confront them, knowing his blade will send the tortured
spirits to their final rest.
His men suffer many casualties before Freki is able to
slay the last of the wraiths, but the warriors insist they must be
close. They press Freki to continue on into the warren to confront the
dragon.
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