Giantknee

Everyone one had the same story:

Dire straights, for some it was being surrounded by fire, for others the soldiers bearing down with no hope of escape.

Then, a spotted cat with big ears led them down a hole and out the other side.

Now the whole group stood in the shadow of the Giantknee mountian, home of the dwarves, and by all rights weeks away from where they had started.

To the south and west an ominous thunderstorm drifted in the far distance.

They all looked at each other, no answers, no cats.

In the foot of the mountain a door two stories high carved in ornate runes and images that evoked feelings of awe and wonder from times long passed.

Shiro shakes her head "Even in this world I guess dwarves have to compensate for being short with large feats of architecture." She muses out loud.

Ezma frowns at the comment "Dwarves are short where you come from?" Ezma inquires

Shiro nods and Ezma smiles at her before responding "Then you are in for quite a treat."

With that the party puts their puzzlement behind them for now and reaches the gate.

Sitting in front of the gate the flashy colors of a trade caravan draw the eye. Ezma tilts her head in puzzlement.

"Why have they not entered the city?"

Unease builds in the group at the strange events, by now city inspectors or some other agents of customs should be miring the traders in bureaucracy. Yet nothing stirred from the smoke of cook fires.

A figure mounted on something like a woolly rhino approached the group cautiously.

Ezma stiffens as the figure resolves into a wolfish looking individual, "Friend of yours?" Shiro whispers to her while Willow and Aspen walk over to make introductions.

Ezma shakes her head "Their clans live farther north than my people and during the deepest and worst winters there is a bit of… competition for resources."

Shiro got vivid flashes of bloody snow, and was unsure if they were her own vivid imagination or the effect of a strong emotion off Ezma.

The rider heads back to his people, which appear to be a smattering of humans and nonhuman traders on a second glance.

Willow and Aspen bring the group up to speed

"Apparently that caravan has been waiting for several days with no contact from the dwarves, they were thinking about leaving sooner but this is the most lucrative stop on their route and they are loath to abandon it without an explanation."

Lorna chimes in "Methinks a plague twoud be cause enow to close a city without a word."

Ezma shakes her head "Lest they are all to incapacitated there are policies in place to let people know of such things."

"More likely that thrice cursed crystal did something dramatic." Hassium adds.

Shiro shakes her head "At this rate I hope which there will be something left of what ever nation draws the short straw of being last on our world tour."

Hassium counts on their fingers quickly "With that in mind we should split up after we get Marble and see if we can minimize that risk."

With a cough Aspen says "Perhaps we should figure that after we check the state of the dwarves."

With a chorus of agreement they covered the last bit of distance to the gate.

**

It took some searching but eventually a smaller side door was discovered unlocked by the group, the merchants had not done much investigating out of a concern that it would hurt their profits to be caught nosing around like that.

What was inside the city was beautiful and terrible to see.

The nasty purple crystal that had encased the other champions now covered everything. At first it seemed like there was no rhyme or reason to the size and shape, until Ewan got close to a large crystalline formation and let out a gasp of shock.

Inside that large crystal was a nine foot tall man in classical dwarf looking attire, fear and panic twisted his frozen face. Upon closer inspection it was discovered that all the crystal pillars of that size held a person like that.

Shiro shot a look at Ezma "I though you said these guys were dwarves?"

She winks back "Legends say it was the giants who named them that."

Leaving Shiro with something to think about.

After some more inspecting the group determined that it was very likely all citizens of the city were now just as sealed as their champion, and from the amount of dust on the non- crystal surfaces it was a good bet that it happened around the time Hassium had been unsealed.

Following a hunch they followed the trails that linked one crystal to another deeper and deeper into the city proper. Past quiet shop, beyond dark forges, into tunnels that looked beyond ancient.

An unnerving watchful silence pressing heavily on them.

Ewan was feeling particularly scared and useless on this venture, the most he felt he had contributed was on the whole adventure was the couple times he had done some mending someone else had missed.

Yet because he was 'so useless' he had no prescribed place to look at for enemies, as luck would have it that allowed him to see the massive bulk of something glittering and heavy drop from the tunnel ceiling.

With a cry he pushed Lorna out of the way as disgustingly liquid drop of crystal rapidly solidified where she and Ezma had been standing.

A bloodcurdling hissing and gnashing emanated from above before a disconcerting scuttling faded into the distance.

The party proceeded more cautiously, no one daring to wonder aloud if they were going to run into monsters here like the ones they had saved the farmers from.

They did not get so lucky twice. Shiro was vanguard was the first to learn that something was wrong when the imperceptible lines of crystal that had been spun like webs pulsed with nefarious light and tightened incapacitating her as several of the mid sized crystals around them sprung into life as spiders of the same material.

'of course, of bleeding course.' Shiro thought to herself.