Dicing with Death Episode 135

Autumn 1509 - Day 5
Zweihard first casts detect evil and finds none inside room holding the Forge of Sayor. He then casts detect magic and finds the 3 engraved holy symbols on the holy forge it self radiate magic.

Zweihard wishes to cast the Analyze Balance spell to inspect the make and solidity of the Forge of Sayor, but he requires four iron coins to do so. With no free Iron at hand, Zweihard melts down his iron Holy Symbol and crafts four iron coins from the materials, using strength of stone to improve the quality of the mold. With the rest of the Iron he creates a new Holy Symbol, slightly smaller than the old one.

With the newly minted Four Iron Coins in hand, Zweihard casts Analyze Balance and determines that the Forge of Sayor is structurally sound and perfect surfaces beyond that of a normal forge.

Day 12
Zweihard decides that he will craft a mithrl face-plate for his helmet as his grand crafting project. But he is hungry.

"You can't forge on an empty stomach" - Zweihard's Instructor at Dwarf Academy.

Now low on food supplies, Zweihard sets out again from camp with his goat, searching west.

Half a day of trekking later, Zweihard finds himself in another valley and finds some running creeks that form the Pre-River stage of the Honey Rapids river. Zweihard spends about an hour checking around the creeks for the sign of civilization, and finds a old fishing trap. Zweihard manages to catch 3 fish. He camps the night, feeding fish to Goat. Goat the most is happy hes been since the trip to Tharnham from Dwarf Academy.

Day 13
The next day Zweihard fishes for four hours and only catches one fish. That afternoon he starts off looking for berries or other foods for 4 hours and finds nothing down the Honey Rapids river. He camps for the night.

Zweihard is ambushed at the night by two small humanoids. Eventually he discovers they are wererats. After a long battle of attrition, Zweihard kills one of them, causing the other to flee.

Day 14
Zweihard drags the body of the wererats back to his forge. On the two day trip back to the forge he finds 3 days of food. He casts purify good and water on the remains and kebabs the wererat.

Day 17
Zweihard starts work on mithrl face-plate for his helmet. He casts a series of spells, purify ore, log of everburning and strength of stone.

Zweihard spends the next few days foraging near camp for supplies.

Day 20
Looking for an abandoned coal mine. He finds a layer of shale and follows it to a old coal minesharft, three miles from the holy forge. The buildings around the abandoned coal shaft are in ruins. Zweihard changes his spells before heading underground with Goat.

Inside surprisingly he finds 20 feet of the minecart rails are still in place, and weren't removed when the mine was abandoned. There are pickaxes at the end of the rail and it appears that work on pulling the rails had been abruptly stopped.

Zweihard wanders deep into the mine. Eventually the goat stands still and won't move. Zweihard looks about and faintly sees movement. Goat and Zweihard back off. Zweihard ties up Goat and heads forwards again.

Zweihard fights Ooze. He impales the ooze with his halberd and backs off, getting out his axe and sheild. The ooze corrodes the halberd weapon head. Zweihard then uses strength of stone and throw large rocks at the ooze from a distance.

As Zweihard keeps backing off, the ooze slowly advances. Eventually dissolving much of the the minecart rails. As Zweihard is standing in sunlight coming in from outside, the ooze retreats into a crevase in the wall.

Zweihard gets to mining some coal and retrieves his halberd shaft, now missing it's metal point.

As Zweihard heads back to the forge, he notices two hobgoblins on foot, one wearing armor, quarter mile away. When they are 300 feet away, the hobgoblins break out into a run. Zweihard hits one with a sunscorch. After a few blows are exchanged between Zweihard and the hobgoblin, they exchange some words in common. The hobgoblins claim to be there to collecting animals for Polyphemus as offerings.

Zweihard kills the unarmored hobgoblin, the the armored one, still blinded from sunscorch surrenders. Zweihard questions the alive hobgoblin about this Polyphemus. The hobgoblin claims that Polyphemus is a cyclops that herds animals. Zweihard orders the hobgoblin to remove his chain-shirt.

The hobgoblin asks Zweihard for his name. Zweihard Blacksteel gives it, and the hobgoblin shows recognition to the Blacksteel name. Zweihard orders the hobgoblin to flee, who does so and he heads north.

On the dead hobgoblin he finds 10 days of food, bags, some axes and thin hemp rope. Zweihard hauls the loot onto the back of Goat's back and heads back to the holy forge.

Back at camp, Zweihard inspects the weapons for their metal to he gathered to forge a new halberd head. He decides to use his mithril on making a new head to the halberd instead of the helmet faceplate.

Day 21
The next morning he gets to work. After two days he creates a mithril halberd head.

EXP: 1500 (750 to each class). LEVEL UP: Cleric levels up to 3, Fighter stays at 2. HP: +4.5 to 18.0 as new total. +1 Proficiency Slot, learns Weaponsmithing.