The Ledger will take the form of short stories, some of them new works of fiction, others recaps of Dungeons & Dragons sessions. Regardless of its origins, the Ledger chronicles the tales of the Honest Coin mercenary company. The first entry in the Ledger is a recap of my recent Dungeons & Dragons campaign up to this point.
July 26, 3022
This job was supposed to be simple. The Guildmaster had said as much. Fergus, the giantkin hedgemage, and Dogface, a wilderfolk and expert in giant combat, were given command of a small company, just five other members of the company, and they were dispatched to distant Vale to deal with a giant uprising in the mountains.
The first leg of the journey took seconds. The imperial teleportation network dropped them in Delkinsmere, and from there it was a week’s journey through farmland to crumbling Hawk’s Hill where refugees, soldiers, mercenaries, and camp followers had turned a once peaceful village into a rambling, rough-housing tent city.
The Governor of Vale, sheltered in relative luxury in the teetering keep, had a simple request. Find Mimir, the so-called Giant King of Vale, and return with his head. There was an extra bounty on his lieutenants, identified by a simple wooden talisman marked with a runic “D.” The problem is that countless mercenaries had taken off in search of Mimir, and all those who returned had done so empty-handed. There were rumors that the giants had allied themselves with feyfolk, even that they were appearing out of thin air to ransack villages and raid farmsteads.
In a makeshift tavern amidst the tents, rumors of ghosts and sad stories abounded, but two bickering mercenaries just returned from the field pointed the crew in the right direction. A clear-cut circle deep in a forest valley a week’s journey east held a secret that the mercenaries refused to share, but the elder of the mercenaries promised that if they walked the circle counterclockwise, they would see why the other would-be giant-slayers had failed.
Dogface’s tracking took the company on a weeklong journey through a woodland of massive, black-barked pines with wide, twisting branches, and as promised, they came to the cutting. Fergus’s investigation revealed a web of ancient, primal magic ensnaring the grove in illusions. A hesitant counterclockwise stroll around the perimeter opened a path through the trees that had been obscured, and on the other end of that path, a city.
The city, a precursor ruin in a steep-sided valley along a river, was home to an encampment of giants, fey, and an army of giantkin and wilderfolk apparently in league with Mimir. Careful scouting over the next day revealed strange geography in the city; an impossible swamp, a pocket of densest jungle that was likely home to a serpent dragon, a temple shrouded in the shadow of tree decorated with skulls. But more unusually, the camp shuttered tight with no guards by night.
After flying over the city in the form of a bird, Fergus received a series of telepathic messages, goading the party to enter the city by night and meet with a creature called Goody. Tracing this message to one of the wooden talismans that the governor had given the party, Fergus tucked the talisman away in a magic satchel, sealing off its effects and ending the messages.
But the party still had to find a means of ingress into the city. The obvious paths were heavily guarded. Two possibilities appeared to offer themselves. An arena at the top of the valley overlooking the city seemed to offer unguarded paths into the city, and in the city’s opposite corner, a tower rose from the woods. The party opted for the nearer option of the arena, splitting in two. Fergus, Dogface, and the bright blue mechanical Heavy Metal would infiltrate the city, and the rest of the party would camp in the woods, keeping a watch over the city and protecting their exit.
The infiltrators made their way into and beneath the arena where they encountered the hidden arena guards. A giantkin astride a knifetooth drake along with a crew of fey archers met them in the tunnels under the arena only the Coin survived. Deeper in, they discovered the operations center for the arena, a series of cells, one containing over a dozen prisoners.
A treasure hunter called Jacques spoke for the prisoners. Through Jacques, the party learned that the city had been home to an order of monks and a mysterious entity known as the Lady of the Labyrinth prior to the arrival of Mimir’s forces. Now, it was deadly to walk the streets by night, and the only sure survivor of the previous inhabitants was a critically injured monk.
Jacques pointed the party toward a secret passage from the arena into the underworks beneath the city and gifted them a gem that would allow them to summon a fire elemental. In turn, the party directed Jacques and his crew to the rest of the company, advising the other Honest Coin members of the survivors and giving the Phoeban healer Aethilius permission to take the survivors and one of the carts and make for Hawk’s Hill.
Fergus, Dogface, and Heavy Metal made their way to the entrance to the underworks. They found themselves in a loggia, a long hall carved into the valley wall. On one side arches opened onto air, offering a spectacular view of the city’s many towers and parks. On the other, a wall covered in ornate geometric patterns held the secret entrance, but before they could open it, they were caught between twin giants.
Alas, for the valiant giants, they were no match for the Coin, and both lay dead after a swift and bloody battle. Others in the streets below began to sling boulders at the loggia, and the party rushed to open the secret passage and get away.
They followed a long, spiraling stairwell down. The valley wall shook under the onslaught of giants and soon the shaking was followed by laments for the dead, but the Coin continued on, finally coming to the underworks and the remains of trespassers past; a rotting wood table, a long-dry skeleton, and a book of unknown providence.
The Ledger will continue.
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