Bad Archeologists (Storm King’s Thunder #3)

After the fire giants outpaced us, running away to the north, we returned to the campground, and decided to take a closer look at what they were unearthing. They grabbed SOMETHING out of the ground, but there’s a lot of SOMETHING left. It appears to be some sort of black metal in a long c-shaped arc, but none of us can quite figure out what it’s part of. A building? A huge ballista? Giant horseshoe? It’s all a bit perplexing. Everyone in town is very nice to us, and we are apparently now called the “heroes of Triboar”, which is quite fun. We didn’t even have to die!

We went back to the NorthShield Inn to get dinner and talk to Urgala about giants. She shared that she used to adventure with a guy named Harthos Zymorven, who now lives near Silverymoon. He’s got an axe that is known to be particularly good against giants. She suggests that if we want to continue fighting giants, we could look him up and tell him Urgala sent us.

Meanwhile, Narth (who works at the Lion’s Shield Coster provisions place) helped us resupply our basic items at no charge, and offered a job transporting some equipment to a little town called Noanar’s Hold, which is east of here, on the Evermoor Road toward Silverymoon.

Meanmeanwhile, we learn that Lady Shendrall is a member of a group called the Harpers (which is involved with protecting the Realms against threats). She asks if we’d be so kind as to carry a letter to Everlund, if we’re going that way. It needs to be delivered to a half-orc named Drall, who is also a Harper.

Meanmeanmeanwhile, Dars lets us know that while he can’t repay our efforts in cash, he’s got a potential reward opportunity. He knows of a fugitive dwarf named Weevil (GREAT name), who has a price on his head of 5000pg (what did he DO to get that?!) if he’s brought back alive to the town of Mirabar, which is quite a ways due north of here. Just something to think about.

We camped out near the dug-out giant pit, in case the fire giants return for the rest of the metal. Happily, they don’t , and it’s a peaceful night. In the morning, we collected the letter from Lady Shendrall, and advised her to have some folks hook up a team of oxen to the metal and drag it out of town, in order to minimize the risk of the giants wrecking the place again. (Assuming they come back at all. Who knows?!). At the campground, we picked up our delivery horse and cart, and 100gp advance payment (Nice!). We saw a couple of enterprising folks bickering over the metal, perhaps hoping to sell it? We didn’t get too involved because we’ve got places to be (one of the people was Narth’s girlfriend, fwiw).

Heading out of town on the east Evermoor Road, we got past Yartar and Calling Horns when we saw a hill giant and some attendant creatures coming across the moors toward the road. We decided to ambush them, bc we’re the heroes of Triboar. So we hid the horse and cart and took up positions and we’re all super sneaky. And then the giant and his orcs come bustling up….and Rolfe goes CLANG to the ground.

So much for the ambush. Let the fight begin!