Chapter 10

As the morning light begins to illuminate the small clearing through the densely packed forest around them, the adventurers wake, feeling well rested and energized. Their shared experiences are creating a bond and allowing them to grow stronger as a team.

Elar is already awake, and upon further examination they can tell that he hasn’t slept at all during the night. As they begin to talk with him, Elar shares that he is upset with himself for not being able to escape and save Vera earlier, while he was being held captive by the goblins. The group consoles him and, finally, Gven says “what’s done is done and now’s the time for action. Let’s go get her.”

As they pack up their campsite, careful to leave it as pristine as they found it for Lyra Swiftarrow, Elar shares what he knows about the hill giant, also known as the Great Mouth. The hill giant lives up the mountain, above the treeline, in a protected area that appers to have been created by an avalanche, some time in the past. Vera would sit on the arm of his haphazzardly pieced together stone throne while the goblins visited with their offerings. Otherwise, she was “kept” in a small shelf-like area that offered her some protection from the weather.

The group returns to the cave entrance, so that Elar can get his bearings and take them up the mountain. During their trek through the forest, Grindlefoot casts Pass without Trace, allowing them to move silently and without disturbing their surroundings. Like most folk in Eritz, Elar is suspicious of anything that seems like magic and curiously notices their tracks seeming to disappear behind them. When they reach the treeline, the ground becomes more barren, with small boulders, tall mountain grass, and low-lying shrubs sparsely populating the area.

As they stand in the cover of the trees, the group can see a large collection of rocks and boulders about 400 feet up the mountain. Elar confirms that area as where the hill giant lives and is holding Vera hostage. They can barely make out a large boulder that is split into two large pieces, likely during the avalanche, that have been positioned to create a throne-like chair of rock. Other large boulders have been placed as arms to the giant-sized chair, providing a perch for Vera while the Great Mouth is holding court. The large seat is currently empty.

They can see a well-used path from the treeline to the giant’s sanctuary and Elar confirms it is the approach used by the goblins. With his keen vision, Dolor spies a smaller, less-worn, winding path off to the side that appears to approach the giant’s dwelling from a different direction. The adventurers decide to follow the less-worn path, attempting to be stealthy in their approach and rescue Vera with the least amount of resistance.

Gven leads the way up the winding trail, followed by Xantic, McGillicutty, Elar, and Grindlefoot, with Dolor bringing up the end of the line. Because it’s used much less, the trail is covered with loose rocks and dirt. Halfway up the switchback path, Gven loses her footing and slides all the way down the mountain side, disturbing the rocks and creating more noise than they’d hoped to. She embarrassingly lands at the bottom of the hill, then they hear a loud groan, similar to a yawn, coming from the rocks above them, where the path ends at the crest of the hillside.

While Elar is distracted, the adventurers agree that Grindlefoot should wild shape shift into a normal-sized rat and explore what lays beyond the crest. When he realizes Grindlefoot is no longer among the group, Elar asks and Gven says “he’s, umm, taking a dump behind that boulder.” Several minutes later, Grindlefoot emerges from behind the boulder, as himself.

Gven takes Elar a short distance from the others, looks him in the eyes and commands, “look me in the eyes!” Elar, suddenly afraid of the towering half-orc, turns toward Gven slowly, looks into her face, and then begins to look away. “Don’t look anywhere else, only into my eyes,” Gven says emphatically. Elar, now even more frightened, straightens up his gaze and focuses on her eyes.

“Are you ready for this, Elar? We don’t know what we’re going to encounter up there and you need to be ready for anything, to help Vera escape. Can you do that?”

“Umm, yeah, um, I think so. I mean, yes. Yes, I can.”

“Good, because we need you in order to pull this off.”

During their chat, Grindlefoot briefs the rest of the group with his findings. The Great Mouth is a hill giant, as Elar thought, and is now awake, thanks to Gven’s unfortunate and noisy slide down the hillside. It’s a bowl-shaped area that has walls around it with some natural caves interspersed, one that’s large enough for the giant to sleep in. He saw the giant retrieve Vera from one of the smaller caves in the walls, set up 10-12 feet from the ground. The large creature delicately set Vera on the ground in front of him and with his hand, made a small ‘boop’ action on her head. That ‘activated’ her and she began walking around like a wind-up doll while he giggled loudly. After a few seconds of this, he gently ‘booped’ her on the head again, she became still, and he lifted her back up to her ledge.

The group decides to have Grindlefoot distract the hill giant and draw it towards the large chair, which is around a corner from the bowl-shaped living quarters. While he distracts the creature, Gven and Elar will rush, as quietly as possible, over to Vera and help her get down from the ledge, then escape. Dolor, Xantic, and McGillicutty will keep an eye on the giant so they can warn Gven of its return.

Grindlefoot moves behind the boulder again and Elar asks, “where’s he going?” Dolor says, “I think Xantic’s cooking is catching up with him, he’s pooping again.” Elar gives a bit of a disgusted grimace, but says nothing more.

Encounter choreography

Grindlefoot quickly, yet quietly, walks around the hillside to the area where the giant’s chair is located. At the entrance to the area, he casts Thunderwave at the giant’s chair, to no effect, then quickly wild shapes into a giant goat and brays as loud as he can to get the hill giant’s attention.

Meanwhile, the others have crept up to the crest of the hill, and looking down into the giant’s bowl, they see it look quizzically towards the area where it’s chair resides and it heard the loud braying. It stands up, strips the meat from the large bone it’s currently gnawing on to create a club, and heads toward the sound, surprising the group with its nimbleness and speed. Dolor and Xantic move along the side of the bowl in the same direction as the giant, keeping an eye on it. Gven and Elar quickly walk-slide down the hillside into the bowl and over to the bottom of the ledge where Vera is motionless.

Loud enough for Vera to hear, yet as quietly as possible so not to alert the giant, Elar calls up to her. “Vera, sweetie! We’re here to rescue you. I need to you to get ready for us!” Vera is surprised to hear her father’s voice and says “Daddy, is that you? Where…what…why are you here?” “To rescue you. Now get ready.”

Gven kneels down, allowing Elar to get on her shoulders, and then she stands up so that Elar can just barely reach Vera. She jumps into his arms and Gven kneels down again, so that Elar and Vera can stand on the ground. “Now, go now! Get out of here, back the way we came,” Gven says to Elar.

The hill giant rounds the corner when leaving its living quarters, to see a giant goat standing by its chair. It shouts “dinner!” as it picks up a large boulder and throws it at Grindlefoot.

The boulder slams into the giant goat with such force that Grindlefoot goes spiraling into the tall mountain grass. The 24 damage received from the boulder ends Grindlefoot’s transformation spell and causes the halfling another 5 damage when he returns to his native form. Fortunately, halflings are small and the mountain grass is tall, effectively hiding Grindlefoot from the hungry hill giant. Realizing his situation, Grindlefoot casts Invisibility on himself and stands up, slowly and silently moving away from the area he landed.

The giant knows that it hit the goat and becomes confused—and increasingly angry—that it cannot find the goat that should now be a delicious breakfast. Reaching the area of mountain grass where Grindlefoot landed, the giant swings its bone club all around the grass, trying to find the supposedly dead goat. Grindlefoot is just barely out of the club’s reach and feels the strong whooshes of air as it moves back and forth, powered by the giant’s massive arm.

Peering around the entrance to the giant’s living area, Dolor can see the giant searching for the goat and it’s frustration. He smiles to himself at Grindlefoot’s apparent success in luring the monster away. Turning back to the bowl, he sees Gven, Elar, and Vera moving up the hillside towards the crest, closer to safety. Knowing that they need to move quickly, Dolor picks up Xantic under his arm—and McGillicutty too, of course—and dashes towards Gven. They want to be gone before the giant returns to its fire, angry at missing out on a tasty goat for breakfast.

As Dolor and Xantic reach Gven, Elar, and Vera at the top of the crest, Dolor hears the hill giant returning from the outer area. “We better follow Gven’s path!” Dolor plops on his butt and slides straight down the hill to follow the same path that Gven accidentally took earlier, crossing over the switchbacks, and stopping gracefully at the bottom. With a look of satisfaction on his face, Dolor begins to stand up when Xantic, having slid down the hill uncontrollably, suddenly plows into him from behind and pushes him face first into the dirt. Xantic has a big smile on his face, “that was fun!” Dolor emits a low groan without lifting his face from the dirt.

Slowly, but surely and silently, Grindlefoot makes his way towards the treeline, to meet up with the others. He turns visible shortly before reaching the group, where Vera is holding on to her father with a grip that not even Gven could break. They share a brief moment of congratulations before deciding that they’d better be off, when they hear a loud roar from up the hillside. Apparently, the Great Mouth has discovered that its favorite toy has gone missing.

Elar turns to Grindlefoot and says, “good thing that goat made an appearance when it did, cuz we got all the work done while you were dropping another load behind that boulder!”