Atlantean Bronze - 8
Holgar's Journey
After a victory party in Syracuse, we left the locals and their dryad to work out the new power arrangements and took our ship southwest, aiming for Carthage. The night of the first day, the druids said to anticipate storms, and by the end of the second day, we were engulfed in cloud, wind and rain. It was nothing our ship couldn't handle, but it drove us off course, bringing us to a small isle directly south of Italy. We pulled the boat ashore for repairs.
Kerinos spotted tracks, some manlike but huge, others of a large reptile. A dragon, perhaps? We couldn't see either. What we did see were some ruins up on a promontory, perhaps an old temple. So we left the crew to fix the boat, and started exploring the ruins.
Behind an altar was a tunnel, which I hoped contained the temple treasury. Instead it contained urns of the dead, and their angry ghosts. I don't hold with disturbing the dead (if there's no gold in it), and the ghosts were angry, but afraid of the light our magicians gave us. So we quickly withdrew.
The scene we were greeted by when we emerged was far less peaceful than before. The crew were scattered, most running towards us, fleeing a most strange and horrible beast, a huge reptile with many heads. I charged to intercept it, Osina shot it full of arrows, and Alexo caused a massive ball of fire to explode where it stood. Gianos summoned a storm, which threw bolts of lightning at it. And Kerinos summoned a pack of wolves, which charged in after the fireball and started tearing shreds off its hide. The hydra (as Alexo named it) died in seconds.
An appreciative audience of one-eyed giants gathered on a nearby ridge and applauded our efforts. Clubs and other weapons that had been at their sides disappeared behind the ridge, as they appeared to rethink the idea of taking us down after we had been weakened by the beast.
They spoke some Greek, and we managed to trade some wine for some information. Their recent ancestors had come to this island as refuge from other places, where humans would not let them be. The humans that had been here had been no more welcoming, but were weakened by the coming of a Medusa, who had whittled down their population to the point that the Cyclopsoi did not fear the rest. Amusingly, the Medusa could not use her famed gaze upon the giants, and found this most annoying.
Perhaps we will take her on upon our return. But now, we have finished our repairs, and set off again for Carthage.