AAR [4h] Rockfoots Quarry 6-24-2020 @ 21:00 GMT

[Reyntrannin]

Jorgun Rockfoot, a Human who had not long ago opened up a mining operation some ways away from Throal, was looking for a few brave souls to free his mine from a band of ogres that had taken it over recently. Of course, I had to go see what was going on here. Along with me came the Troll Azurea, Temur, an Ork Adept, and Nez the Beastmaster.

We followed Jorgun's directions to the mine, and along the way had a run in with a few death moths and Gate hounds. Unfortunately, as they attacked while I was sleeping, I only realized what they were some time later. The Moths incapacitated Nez and treated him to their... ministrations. Meanwhile the Gate hounds sated themselves on my and Azurea's magic, eventually causing us both to lose consciousness. I'm not completely clear on what happened after that (the Death Moth's magic was strong enough to addle my recollection a a bit even if it didn't completely wipe my memories, unlike poor Nez), but Temur somehow managed to chase the remaining beasts away. We spent some time recovering (including removing a few eggs from Nez before he woke up), but decided to move on before any more nasty creatures decided to feast on us.

Reaching the quarry, we ended up parlaying with the leader of the Ogres, one Steelhaft, who said that if we cleared the mine of the poisonous beasts that had inhabited it, he and his band would be willing to partner with the miners, splitting the profits. This seemed a reasonable (if suspicious) result, so we proceeded.

In the mine, we encountered both Dread centipedes and scorpions (dozens of scorpions based on what I could detect with Hunter's Sense) and eventually fought them to a standstill despite their poison. In the back of the cave, we encountered another ogre, this one called himself Ironhaft and claimed to be Steelhaft's fraternal brother. He expected that Steelhaft was simply waiting to betray us and take the cave for himself (not truly a surprise). However, both he and Steelhaft were Ogre Twins, and Ironhaft said that if we could defeat Steelhaft, he could then take control of the remaining ogres and would keep the original agreement (I doubted his sincerity, but at least he offered to counter Steelhaft's Astral magics, so it worked out for us).

As we were told, Steelhaft was waiting for us outside the cave. He had not truly prepared an ambush so much as just a standard double-cross, but he did not expect us to have his brother's assistance either. In the end, the plan went about as well as we could have hoped for. We focused our attacks on Steelhaft and quickly brought him to ground. Without the ability to switch with his other half, he could not endure our onslaught, and once he fell, Ironhaft surprised us by actually keeping his half of the bargain.

Jorgun seemed pleased by this once we finally reported the development to him, since half was better than nothing, plus he now could also harvest the True Earth in the mine which he previously had not even been aware of.