Rask settles into the comfortable chair, having scraped his battle-weary battered body off the floor. He slows his breathing and closes his eyes and seems to be on very of sleep when he mutters, “Hadonis… giants…”
His eyes open and he sits up.
“Hadonis was in league with the giants from the beginning! It was a win-win for him,: if we survived great, we are more powerful allies, if we died, potential rivals were neutralized and he would gain our treasures.”
He pauses, clearly tired to his very bones.
“His hearts-anchor thing must have been ruse…” Rask trails off, tired and deeply body weary.
He looks around for a moment to see if anyone registers that he has shared what he, in his exhaustion clearly believes is an important revelation, and collapses back into the chair. The warrior begins to snore softly.
Alexis cocks his head and strokes his chin from another chair in the room. Then he gives a grunt. “Doesn’t feel right.”
Alexis shakes his head slowly “We need to be careful now. Without the anchor-things, we’ll need to tread carefully.”
Alexis shakes his head again, sorrowfully. “Poor giants.”
Ca’armine chimes in. “Clearly the giants were aligned with Hadonis when they attacked us in underground. On the stairs of the dwarven city, however, it is unclear. They were roused, they came armed and immediately attacked. Hadonis’
summons placed us at a distinct disadvantage, as if he wanted us to be defeated. But it does not make sense to me that he would make such a specific demand– to remove the stone giants’ hearts– unless he felt he had something important to gain from our efforts. Hadonis was certainly focused on his own interests at all times.”
“Perhaps he was in league with the giants but planned to betray them? That might explain their willingness to be satisfied eating him, rather than continuing what was by then a rout of our party, there on the stairs.”
“That doesn’t explain how he would have convinced them to join him in league against us. No, I think Hadonis wanted us to take the risks, go through the traps, and collect the keys, then ambush us to take the prize. I think he was earnest when he asked us to take the stone giants’ hearts.”
“Which suggests, he spoke truly when he said we needed them, to find our way back to the time and place where we entered the mountain. I do not understand what that means, precisely. I believe we are about to find out, though.”
“If we look at all the pieces, the order of operations doesn’t make much sense. Assume Hedonis wanted to get to where we are right now.
Why start with attacking the giants? We do not know how many of Giants there are. But attacking them and still adventuring more deeply would mean the giants were always a threat.
Why not wait to deal with the giants until at least 3 parts of the key were in hand?
Further Hedonis attacked the giants when Alexis was attempting to parley with them. So if he was in league with them, he was willing to risk it to push us into battle.
The thing that is clear is that Hedonis is very focused on getting back to the Tear. We should not forget that.
There is a good chance we will see him again before before this is all over.”