Game summary for January 22, 2008; present characters included Grim Firestorm (shield dwarf barbarian/battlerager/frenzied berserker/warmain), Iapetus Hasur (hu-charad giant rogue/scout/vigilante), Lady Aridarye Phylund Brokengulf (human aristocrat/harbinger/ranger cohort), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/ring sage/warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), and Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor/pious templar).
After a few minutes of consideration, the Mercenaries return the items taken from the dead giants, and Morak goes about using raise dead upon them. They are then able to convince the giants to let them speak to someone in charge. Within a few minutes, the party finds itself addressing Kagro Thundersmiter, the Heartkeeper. They relay to him the tale of Dragotha and his phylactery, but Kagro dismisses it all as a ploy to get to the heartstone. He warns of the dangers of the siege and takes his leave of them.
Using magic and gold, Aridarye bribes the outer guards for information and learns the Citadel of Weeping Dragons contains a vault, and that is where the heartstone lies. She also finds that it takes two keys to open the vault, and one was stolen by Charlgar of the Rift Crawlers. Meanwhile, Morak communes with Moradin to narrow their search for the phylactery. Armed with this new information, the Mercenaries set off with Broogle the bugbear back to the Undercity to find Charlgar. After speaking with some other bugbear slaves, they discover Charlgar was last seen fleeing into the carrion pits. Wasting no time, the party pursues.
The pits are sealed off with a massive door, which Grim busts open with his prodigious strength. Within, several Mercenaries are trapped when adamantine bars fly down from the ceiling to form a cage. Then, crude nozzles spray poison over the group. Iapetus is nearly paralyzed, but fate and divine intervention prevent it. Grim begins breaking the bars (and his crowbar) until Iapetus can slip through and find the release lever.
The team investigates one room and finds it full of terrified troglodytes who don’t seem to want trouble. The party agrees to leave them alone. They head down another corridor and find a door. Moving through, Grim is snatched up in a cleverly concealed snare trap and finds himself dangling by his ankle fifteen feet above the ground. Within the room, a fully armed and armored Charlgar roars to attack. Grim quickly takes his massive axe and tries to sever the cord about his ankle, but his luck is poor, and he instead severs his foot! With a crunch, Grim slams back into the ground. The Mercenaries swarm through the doorway and begin an assault on the giant. To his credit, Charlgar fights with furious skill, battering the downed Grim to the verge of death. Several return blows from the dwarf, a vicious stab from Iapetus, and the magic of Lyrin proves too much for the chieftain. A search of the body and the room reveals no key.
The next room discovered is actually a massive cave filled with hundreds of carrion crawlers. A large cage suspended over the cavern provides a means for the giants to get to the crawlers and harvest their poisons. Unsure how to proceed, Iapetus uses speak with dead to discover Charlgar hurled the key into the bottom of the crawler pit. The Mercenaries decide to hole up and rest so that they can be at full strength and allow the dwarven priest to prepare spells to protect them from the paralyzing touch of the crawlers.
