The Axe of King Gorek

Nonlegacy Game Statistics: +1 mithral dwarven waraxe; Cost 6,330 gp.
Omen: The Axe of Gorek glows faint blue when it is in 30 feet of an evil creature.

History

King Gorek was an dwarven king that ruled in the time before the First War. The knowledge of when exactly he ruled was lost when the Dragon's body fell upon the Sarakian Plains and destroyed most of the Dwarven nation.

Legend has it that during a battle against a Nothrog horde, Gorek and his shieldman were cut off from the main battle group. His shieldman was mortally wounded by a spear that was meant for Gorek. Surrounded by the horde and no hope of help from the main battle group, he was determined not to let his shieldman's sacrifice be in vain. He stood over his shieldman's body and held the Nothrog at bay. By the time the main dwarven force was able to fight their way to him over 200 Nothrog lay dead at his feet.

Legacy Rituals

Three rituals are required to unlock all the abilities of Axe of Gorek.

Unbeatable Odds: In a combat against greater numbers you must single handily defeat the strongest opponent. You must accept no healing during the fight. After the battle, you must focus and meditate for 1 hour. Cost 1500 gp. Feat Granted: Least Legacy (Axe of Gorek).

Axe of Gorek Wielder Requirements
Base attack bonus +5
Any non-evil alignment
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (dwarven waraxe)

Wielder Level	Attack Penalty	Ref Save Penalty	Hit Point Loss	Abilities
5th				Detect Evil
6th	-1			Hard as Stone (+1)
7th		-1	2	+1 Stone Dragon
8th			2	Battle Harden
9th		-2		-
10th			2	+1 Stone Dragon whirling
11th				+1 Stone Dragon brutal surge whirling
12th				-
13th	-2			Hard as Stone (+2)
14th			2	+1 Stone Dragon brutal surge dragonbane whirling
15th		-3		Spell resistance
16th			2	-
17th				+1 Stone Dragon brutal surge dragonbane shatermantle whirling
18th				Passwall 2/day
19th				-
20th		-4	2	Awaken the Stone Dragon 2/day

Detect Evil (Sp): Although Axe of Gorek glows faint blue in the presence of evil creatures, this automatic detection lacks precision and discernment. At 5th level and higher, at will on command, you can use detect evil as the spell. Caster level 5th.
Hard as Stone (Su): At 6th level, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to natural armor. This bonus increases to +2 at 13th level.
Battle Harden (Su): At 8th level, you gain a +4 bonus to saving throws against fear affects and a +2 bonus to initiative.
Spell resistance (Su): At 15th level, you gain spell resistance 5 + your character level.
Passwall (Sp): At 18th level, two times per day by holding Axe of Gorek forth and speaking a command word, you may use passwall as the spell. Caster level 15th.
Awaken the Stone Dragon (Su): At 20th level, two times per day as a swift action, you can cause a localized earthquake centered around you. All enemies with a 60-foot radius must make successful Reflex saves (DC 20 + your Str modifier) or take 12d6 points of damage and fall prone. A successful save allows an opponent to take half damage and remain standing.

Staff Meeting

Our meeting with Sorscha went much better than I anticipated. In return for giving her back all her assorted scrolls, potions, books, mirrors, and artifacts, she freed us, fed us, and explained much about the Medusan Lords. What a relief that we didn't alerady head out to explore The Pit or C.M.'s lair -- those being the homes of two powerful M.L.'s, according to Sorscha.

For now, I'm going to keep our alliance-of-convenience secret: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, especially if the former is just a power-mad wizard, last of a dead race, and the latter is a world-spanning genocidal cabal. I told Cassandra that another Beholder was responsible for the monster army, and that its death had ended the threat, and she seemed to believe me.

On the way back to Dragon Keep, we encountered several fascinating foes. The least imposing, but best equipped, was a trapper of some sort on his way to sell Borrow's favorite shade lion back into slavery. Malakar constructively picked a fight with him, and I was fortunate to liberate a potent Staff which he himself had taken from an elf. I have only begun to research the Staff's potential, but I now believe it to be an Archmage's Staff of Power, heavy with the weight of legend. It is perhaps auspicious that this has come to me now, as our exposure to the wrath of the mighty rapidly increases. I will strive to understand and master it as quickly as I can.

Now I must hurry, for it sounds like the others have gotten themselves into some sort of trouble. Typical! I wonder if it was Malakar or Ili who started it this time?

It's almost like home

We made our way back to Dragon’s Keep and things were buzzing along quite nicely.

Once Deepest Darkness saw all the friendly dwarves working in the caverns he seemed reasonably happy to settle within, and I arranged with the kitchen to ensure he was regularly fed.

We heard that there was trouble in another cavern complex the dwarves had been exploring, and they asked us to go and explore it.

The caverns were extensive, and I had to keep returning to the party to stop them getting worried, which kind of cramped my style.

We hit a few dead ends but then one of the passages started showing unmistakable signs of dwarven workmanship and it wasn’t long thereafter that I heard some conversation up ahead. I moved forward but it wasn’t a language I knew and when I repeated it back to the others they didn't recognise it either.

So we basically moved in ready for a fight, which turned out to be a couple of large reptilian creatures. They packed a wallop but, of course, we won. Aren’t we just too good?

They’d been beating on the dwarven tombs in the complex but didn’t seem to have found anything. One of the tombs was that of some old dwarven king I’d never heard of, but in the far wall I found a hidden door leading to the real burial chamber, and much as I wasn’t down for the whole tomb-raiding thing, it was clearly a good idea to reclaim whatever was here before more scalies came for it.

It was some axe that Dearthen found exciting, and I’m sure the dwarves won’t mind him using it with honour.

We moved through more of the complex, discovering along the way that the entrance cave had collapsed, so we’ll need to find some other way out.

None of the other passages showed any evidence of decent workmanship, but we did discover one that was closed off with some poorly-worked doors with murder holes along the walls. We decided to leave it alone but apparently the residents didn’t like visitors and sent a hunting party out after us.

We sprung an ambush on them inside and spanked them, and then moved off again to see what else we could find in the caverns before we return to teach the rest of the bug-eyes a lesson.

Caves

1. Cave Entrance. 500 ft. gradual slop of 10 ft. Currently caved in.
2. Signs of battle and six tracks.
3. Dead end after 300 ft.
4. 2000 ft King Gorek's tomb.
5. Mushroom farm.
6. Dead end after 1.5 miles.
7. Dead end after 1000 ft.
8. 2000 ft. unknown monstrous humanoid stronghold.
9. Cave with water.

King Gorek's Tomb




Monsters

Define "evil"

We the lunatic fringe contained, Sorscha was able to initiate a conversation.

Of course she demanded the return of her artifact, which Obegard eventually did, and then she invited us back to the keep to talk.

Ili refused to go, of course, and Erson and Dearthen stayed with her (hopefully to stop her doing something stupid). Malakar, Ili, and Obegard were beating themselves up for having not gone further from the tower. Yeah, for reasonably intelligent people they are pretty dumb. Me? I knew she’d find us there and I didn’t care—she knew lots of stuff we wanted to know, and I wanted Malakar and Ili taken down a peg.

When we got back to the keep the remaining lizardmen eyed us nervously, or at least that was my take on it, given that I don’t know lizardmen from clouds.

Sorscha had laid out a nice meal for us, and I dug in eagerly once the first few tastes had given no indication of poisoning. Obegard also partook, but I noticed that Malakar didn’t touch any of it—maybe we should have asked if she had any kibble?

During the conversation Malakar was constantly interrupted with irrelevant questions meant to annoy Sorscha and, I assume, expose her as the embodiment of evil. But let’s face it—Malakar has repeatedly shown that he’s not the sharpest stake in the pit and Sorscha harmlessly deflected his questions, and I think found some amusement in his unsubtle and ineffectual efforts.

She was a class act—she even restored some of our trust in the leaders of the Accordlands saying that probably nobody now in power had been aware of the warning from the Medusan Lords, though she was dismayed that those who had received it had apparently completely ignored it.


She told us a bunch of other things as well, about how she had been gathering an army of monsters, but it was to help the Free Kingdoms, and in fact by dismantling her army we’d dealt the Free Kingdoms a double blow—her army was gone, and one of the armies that will come against the Free Kingdoms is also composed of monsters which would have been drawn over to her side, so now that army will be able to attack at full strength.

The fact that the dwarves seem to be in the middle of this appears to be a matter of poor timing. According to Sorscha most Upworlders had relegated us to imaginary creatures, but with our recent appearance we’ve shown that to be untrue. The Medusan Lords are collecting artifacts and with our return they now have a whole section of lore they’d previously dismissed to now exploit.

Yet again I wonder whether despite the cost of our struggle against the Infernals whether we would not have been better staying below. How long will it be before the Medusan Lords try to find their way below and come on the dwarves unaware? We’ve given the miners of New Golden Axe a new mithral mine, but will that cover the costs of making the Upworlders aware of our existence again?

The Journey Home

Sorcha blabbed on a bit about how she was trying to help the entire free kingdoms, and how we had ruined her only chance for its salvation. I didn't believe too much of this of course. I suspected that once she had completed her task of revenge, she'd no doubt turn her efforts to back to reviving her race, probably at the expense of everyone else. We had to return the artifact, and fortunately for us, she hated the Medusan Lords more than us, and with the enemy of your enemies and all that, she decided that for the time being, we were better left alive. I made a note that once we prevailed against the Medusan Lords, wed have to begin watching our backs against her retaliation.

Even though Obegard had promised to not report back to our leaders that we had found a Medusan, I had made no such promise. However, I felt that the time wasn't quite yet right for me to let anyone else know. Any expedition to root out Sorcha would have to be done quickly, and letting Cassandra, the church elders or anyone else in a position of power know would do little for the time being other than to tip our hand.

On our way back to the Dragon keep, we encountered a strange fey-creature riding on top of a fell beast. During the fight, I was picked up by the mount and tossed to the side, but fortunately for all of us, Obegard was able to cast a spell that froze the fey in its steps, allowing me to cleanly separate his head from the rest of him.

After a few more days of travel on Obegard's mystical carriage, Erson reported that up ahead, he spied a group of goliaths surrounded by a number of trolls. Erson explained that goliaths were large, powerful, but friendly creatures that dwelled in the mountains, occasionally trading with humans. We agreed that we'd help, especially because Erson also saw a number of goliath children amongst them. We charged into battle without hesitation. I slashed a number of trolls while Obegard rushed in with his carriage to ferry the young ones out. In the end, it was a decisive victory for us, even though we were not able to save all of the goliaths . They expressed their gratitude, and told us that they were driven out by the trolls that had emerged recently. They also told us that several of their village had been captured by a woman on griffon-back. We knew that it must have been Borka, but what was she up to?

All my divinations were not able to reveal what she was up to, so for the time being, we had to continue back to the keep. Before we arrived, we encountered a human who had captured a Shade Lion. When confronted about it, he boasted that he was going to sell it to the Nothrog. Helping the enemy aside, I tried to explain that Shade Lions were intelligent beasts, no different than a human. However, he didn't seem to share my concern for intelligent life, and moved to attack as I was about to go to free the lion. Though he was a powerful skirmisher, he was foolish to try to take on five individuals. Erson soon had him completely grappled and helpless, he surrendered.

I promised that I'd let him free, with his equipment, though Obegard was disappointed that I had made such an agreement. I told Obegard that he wasn't bound to the agreement that I had made, though Obegard still wouldn't take the man's items, so I suspected that Obegard just wanted to complain a bit. The next day, I let the man go, though not without first placing a Mark of Justice upon him, in the hopes that he'll change his ways. Obegard still managed to walk off with a Staff, which we determined had originally belonged to an elf that the Shade Lion had killed.

Back at the keep, we learned that recently, several Dwarves had disappeared. I wondered if it was related to whatever Borka was up to now...

Wrecking Plans

We appeared in the other tower, and set ourselves to finding the heart of the complex. The first level was nothing but a maze of narrow corridors. It was all very strange, and the maze was populated with monsters, including a tough troll that fought much like Durthen. It made me wonder where and how such a beast of limited intelligence was trained how he could have possibly had the discipline and aptitude required to perform such martial techniques. It was tough to fight our way through the maze, especially when killing a monster caused walls to shift in a strange manner. However, it didn't take long before we made our way to the central staircase.

There was some strange affect in the stairwell, and standing in it made it feel like a ton of bricks was piled on top of me. However, being the determined group that we were, we were eventually able to overcome it, climbing up to the next floor, where we met some sort of strange rust colored beast. Durthen tried to fight it, but found his equipment quickly dissolving into a pile of rust. I retreated, and let Ili, who carries no metal weapons, take out the beast. After the fight, with Durthen crying over his lost weapon and armor, we continued onwards.

We soon reach the top of the tower, and found the heart of the machine. It was guarded by some strange brain-like creature that we sliced into pieces without much trouble. We also found a large collection of notes and a bit about the history of the Medusans as well. It turns out that about less than a century ago, the last of them were wiped out by the Nothrog, just as well, might I add. Fortunately, upon studying the machinery and notes, Obegard was able to determine how we could shut it down without danger. We did so, and we also took the gem that was powering the machine. We climbed the hatch to the outside (that we stood over a few days ago), and found that outside, the monsters were no longer entrhalled, and were fighting over each other.

We picked our way back to the Cyclops village and helped them to fend off a few stray monsters. There, we made what must have been our gravest mistake. We thought thtat with Sorcha on a different plane and away, she would be not be coming back any time soon. We were wrong, and didn't even take the precaution of staying inside a rope trick. This being the second time that we were caught in the middle of the night, I must remember to insist next time to Obegard that we take greater precautions.

We were surprised in the middle of the night by Sorcha, who cast a web spell. Ili used Detect Evil, and finally confirmed what we had suspected all along: that she was evil. I knew that Borrow was on watch at the time, but despite my cry for him to take action, he did not. Even though we were fighting our very best, and taking advantage of that fact that she'd foolishly came out alone, we still could not best her, and we were forced to temporarily cease fighting and see whatever it was that she had to say.