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<blockquote data-quote="Hairy Minotaur" data-source="post: 3774099" data-attributes="member: 11574"><p><strong>Icy grip of death</strong></p><p></p><p>“Shouldn’t we get the horses?” Haimish asked</p><p></p><p>“Unnecessary, I’ve already dug us a tunnel to crawl through. It opens in the center of their encampment. The element of surprise will give us an advantage.” Xanthos answers</p><p></p><p>“That depends, how many giants were there?” Menthos inquires</p><p></p><p>“At least four, with a couple of dire bears as well.” Xanthos responds</p><p></p><p>“What? You’ve got to be joking. There’s no way we even come close to taking them out.” Menthos argues</p><p></p><p>“They have magic, lots of it.” Xanthos answers</p><p></p><p>Menthos’ countenance changes to meekness as he utters a weak “so?”</p><p></p><p>“I believe your participation has just been bought.” Xanthos replies</p><p></p><p>“I’ve made it no secret that I prostitute myself at the corner of magic and power avenues, and you sir are speaking my language.” Menthos relates</p><p></p><p>“Doopa not yet fight blue giants of tall mountains, Doopa look forward to adding to notches on belt.” The ogre advises</p><p></p><p>“Is that was those are for?” Menthos inquires</p><p></p><p>“Yes.” Doopa replies</p><p></p><p>“Huh?” Menthos says looking at his own belt</p><p></p><p>“Wow, you have lots of kills.” Doopa says admiring Menthos’ belt</p><p></p><p>“No, not really are notches are for different things.” Menthos answers</p><p></p><p>“Doopa like to learn taxi, taxa, texer; learn to mount heads of kills on wall. You do that?” The barbarian asks</p><p></p><p>“I’ve mounted plenty of things on the wall and most of them did have heads.” Menthos answers</p><p></p><p>“Okay, time to go.” Haimish interjects before the story gets even worse</p><p></p><p>“Wow, scary man teach Doopa?” The ogre asks of Menthos</p><p></p><p>“No! We are not going there, get moving.” Haimish demands</p><p></p><p>“Are you verifiably teifling? It would seem to me that you are more satyr than humanoid, perhaps there is a goat in your past?” Eeyore observes</p><p></p><p>“Ha, very funny. You got me there, say you smoke? I got these really nice cigars from Bulwark.” Menthos offers</p><p></p><p>“Thanks.” Eeyore says wearily before accepting the gift from the warlock</p><p></p><p>“Here.” Menthos offers, igniting a tinder twig and then lighting the cigar with it. </p><p></p><p>The group exits the keep and then circles around to the north side of the keep to begin their trek into the early winter, the group was easy to spot form the ramparts as Eeyore became a walking chimney as the group began assailing the southern reaches of the Majestics. Before long, Doopa was carrying the passed out Eeyore over his shoulder as the ranger’s white tiger growled softly at Menthos as it walked alongside of Doopa next to Eeyore.</p><p></p><p>Xanthos quickly located his hidden tunnel entrance and ushered the rest of the party into the hole. Doopa made Menthos drag Eeyore along in the rear of the party line, this made the going even slower as Doopa just barely fit inside the tunnel and several times thought he had become stuck in the tunnel. The party pushed their way for several miles, along the way Xanthos widened the tunnel so that Doopa could fit better and their tempo could increase.</p><p></p><p>The party realized at once when they had gotten close, even ten feet below the surface it was noticeably colder as Xanthos led them a few hundred feet further and stopped.</p><p></p><p>“Above is the giant encampment, a convincing show of might should drive them off. I want these removed so as to isolate Hledra within itself, no need to have giants hanging around while I’m trying to wrench the orc’s brain out through his anus.” Xanthos stated</p><p></p><p>“What a way to get your hands dirty.” Menthos replied</p><p></p><p>“That’s your plan, jump up through a gopher hole and yell, surprise like we’re jumping out of a cake with snow icing?” Haimish asks</p><p></p><p>“Your fear of the giants is understandable however misplaced, what you should fear more is defeat. The lives of thousands of sentient creatures, some you do not even know they exist are at stake here. For us to fail would be catastrophic to this ecosystem.” Eeyore explains</p><p></p><p>“I don’t fear defeat, I lose all the time and if I lose here I’ll just blame you and have you hunted down and your internal organs used to spice up a mutton sandwich for a carnivorous formorian.” Menthos responds</p><p></p><p>“You are a very disturbed individual, though I suppose with a gibbering mouther and a jackass for parents your density was doomed to wind up stirring the cesspool of nonconformity.” Eeyore replies</p><p></p><p>“Get a room you guys.” Haimish interjects</p><p></p><p>Xanthos excavates the ten feet to the surface and once breeching the ground and reaching the snow he slows down and slowly removes the snow. Steam rises from the bodies below him as he works to make the opening stable enough to allow them to exit and not fill in the hole with surrounding snow. Once done he peeks his head above the snow and spies three giants, one sleeping and two others are talking near an enormous tree that is covered in ice. Two dire bears are resting quietly near the sleeping giant.</p><p></p><p>Xanthos communicates the giant’s positions above to the party, Haimish nods and turns himself invisible and slips up the hole past Xanthos and onto the snow field above. Instantly shivering, Haimish fights off the cold and the urge to breathe trying not to give away his position but the small floating steam mephit-like breath coming from his mouth. Haimish reaches the sleeping giant as Doopa exits the hole with a flurry.</p><p></p><p>“Surprise! Doopa here for cake!” The ogre shouts</p><p></p><p>The two awake giants immediately turn and head for Doopa who is streaking across the snow field towards the east side of the valley. Xanthos exits next and heads out to help Haimish with his giant and the dire bears. Menthos and Eeyore remain in the hole waiting to see how well the plan goes off before tipping the giants to the fact that there are more enemies to battle. </p><p></p><p>Xanthos and Haimish savagely tear into the sleeping frost giant; the large cold man barely has enough time to rouse himself before his eyes close again forever. The sounds of battle stir the bears to action and they begin to charge towards the bard and shifter. Doopa’s chase to get the two awake giants away from their encampment works too well as the giants figure out Doopa’s plan before he does and they surround the barbarian before he can reach the valley wall. Surrounded a mere fifty feet from the hole, Doopa screams for his battle rage to take him to a painless place of an ogre smackdown paradise. Eeyore sees Doopa get surround and he rushes out of the hole along with his tiger to help the flanked ogre by flanking a giant of their own.</p><p></p><p>Menthos fires the occasional eldritch blast from his place of relative safety while observing the battle from the hole. The dire bears prove to be a much tougher encounter than a sleeping giant; they’ve managed to keep Xanthos and Haimish on the defensive. However the bard and shifter managed to get the bears turned around so that if they had to make run for it back to the hole they could do so without having to go through the bears to do it. While it was tense for a few moments, the party was clearly beating back the threat at this point and Menthos even halted his ranged support in order to watch the festivities from the hole.</p><p></p><p>Movement off the corner of his eye caught his attention; the tree seemed to shake a little, quickly turning on his warlock ability to see the unseen he stared out at the gigantic tree. The more he stared, the more he realized it seemed out of place for this valley, no other vegetation could be seen except for this tree and as quickly as the cold had descended there should be some clues here to plant life other than this tree. His supernatural sight saw nothing further than what his normal vision had detected. He decided the tree was a curiosity and nothing more and turned his attention back to the battles when the storm of ice blanketed the area.</p><p></p><p>Razor-sharp shards of water shredded the combatants. The dire bears were done in by this new threat; one of the remaining giants also fell to the assault, as did Eeyore. Doopa and the last giant staggered away from their engagement bloodied and confused.</p><p></p><p>“What was that?” Xanthos shouted</p><p></p><p>“I didn’t see. The weird guy is down though.” Menthos shouts back from his hole</p><p></p><p>Haimish and Xanthos rush to Doopa and Eeyore’s side as loud cracking sounds echoed off the valley walls, amplified by the falling snow the sound was nearly deafening. </p><p></p><p>“Enough of this, enough of mocking my plans!” a low noise that sounded almost like an intelligible friction noise.</p><p></p><p>“Who are you? The orc? Show yourself so that I may finish what you could not!” Xanthos shouts</p><p></p><p>“Xanthos, help me with Eeyore first.” Haimish huffed as he hauled the dying elf up and propped him against the downed giant. </p><p></p><p>A thunderous roar came from the tree as it hefted itself out of the snow and a huge root collection formed itself into a leg and foot as the thing stepped towards the party.</p><p></p><p>“Great tree spirit, we mean you no harm, we are here to stop these interlopers.” Xanthos apologizes </p><p></p><p>“It is you who are going to be stopped.” The treant answers</p><p></p><p>The tree shakes and more shards tear through the falling snow and slice across the battlefield. Haimish quickly dives onto Eeyore, while shoving a minor healing spell into the ranger, to protect him from the shards. Haimish’s back is torn to ribbons, his chain shirt offering no protection against the attack. Doopa falters as well slamming into the snow face first, his back studded with melting ice debris. Menthos was protected again this time from the attack, he peered out over to the party and watched as Xanthos tried to gather up Doopa as Haimish rolled off of Eeyore in obvious pain.</p><p></p><p>“Retreat!” Xanthos shouted </p><p></p><p>“There is no place for you to hide!” The treant answers</p><p></p><p>“Run to the hole now!” Menthos shouts as he leaps from the hole and intercedes himself between the party and the treant.</p><p></p><p>“I do not need a stationary target to make your sap drain away!” The treant calls and begins to shake</p><p></p><p>Menthos reaches into his pouch and pulls out the fire opal Statinisor gave him when they left Highcastle, the teifling throws the gem at the ice treant just as he sees the ice shards begin to stir loose from the treant’s branches. </p><p></p><p>Xanthos shoves Doopa through the hole and turns to help Haimish load Eeyore into it; his tiger companion had already fled inside the hole ahead of Doopa.</p><p></p><p>“Hurry!” Xanthos shouts expecting the cloud of icicles to hit any second.</p><p></p><p>The gem struck the tree just prior to it’s assault. The resulting explosion threw Menthos back off his feet a good ten feet and knocked over Xanthos and Haimish causing Eeyore to get dumped into the hole on his head. The heat from the fire melted everything within forty feet including the wax seals on Menthos’ potions. Deafened by the blast Menthos didn’t hear Xanthos shouting for him until after he saw the tree still stood, blackened and scarred but alive nonetheless.</p><p></p><p>The treant bellowed in pain and a new sound reverberated across the valley.</p><p></p><p>“Menthos!” Xanthos yelled for the fifth time, this time the warlock heard him and turned his head back to the hole.</p><p></p><p>Xanthos watches as Menthos pushed himself off the snow and stumble for towards the escape hole. Behind the teifling the treant agonized in pain and retreated back to it’s starting position, as it retreated and got smaller relative to Xanthos’ perception, a new figure seemed to rise in the background behind the treat. Cylindrical in shape the pillar rose to a height of thirty feet before bending at the top. A huge tooth filled maw pointed it’s hunger at the party.</p><p></p><p>“Frost worm! Run!” Xanthos shouted fear cracking his voice</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hairy Minotaur, post: 3774099, member: 11574"] [b]Icy grip of death[/b] “Shouldn’t we get the horses?” Haimish asked “Unnecessary, I’ve already dug us a tunnel to crawl through. It opens in the center of their encampment. The element of surprise will give us an advantage.” Xanthos answers “That depends, how many giants were there?” Menthos inquires “At least four, with a couple of dire bears as well.” Xanthos responds “What? You’ve got to be joking. There’s no way we even come close to taking them out.” Menthos argues “They have magic, lots of it.” Xanthos answers Menthos’ countenance changes to meekness as he utters a weak “so?” “I believe your participation has just been bought.” Xanthos replies “I’ve made it no secret that I prostitute myself at the corner of magic and power avenues, and you sir are speaking my language.” Menthos relates “Doopa not yet fight blue giants of tall mountains, Doopa look forward to adding to notches on belt.” The ogre advises “Is that was those are for?” Menthos inquires “Yes.” Doopa replies “Huh?” Menthos says looking at his own belt “Wow, you have lots of kills.” Doopa says admiring Menthos’ belt “No, not really are notches are for different things.” Menthos answers “Doopa like to learn taxi, taxa, texer; learn to mount heads of kills on wall. You do that?” The barbarian asks “I’ve mounted plenty of things on the wall and most of them did have heads.” Menthos answers “Okay, time to go.” Haimish interjects before the story gets even worse “Wow, scary man teach Doopa?” The ogre asks of Menthos “No! We are not going there, get moving.” Haimish demands “Are you verifiably teifling? It would seem to me that you are more satyr than humanoid, perhaps there is a goat in your past?” Eeyore observes “Ha, very funny. You got me there, say you smoke? I got these really nice cigars from Bulwark.” Menthos offers “Thanks.” Eeyore says wearily before accepting the gift from the warlock “Here.” Menthos offers, igniting a tinder twig and then lighting the cigar with it. The group exits the keep and then circles around to the north side of the keep to begin their trek into the early winter, the group was easy to spot form the ramparts as Eeyore became a walking chimney as the group began assailing the southern reaches of the Majestics. Before long, Doopa was carrying the passed out Eeyore over his shoulder as the ranger’s white tiger growled softly at Menthos as it walked alongside of Doopa next to Eeyore. Xanthos quickly located his hidden tunnel entrance and ushered the rest of the party into the hole. Doopa made Menthos drag Eeyore along in the rear of the party line, this made the going even slower as Doopa just barely fit inside the tunnel and several times thought he had become stuck in the tunnel. The party pushed their way for several miles, along the way Xanthos widened the tunnel so that Doopa could fit better and their tempo could increase. The party realized at once when they had gotten close, even ten feet below the surface it was noticeably colder as Xanthos led them a few hundred feet further and stopped. “Above is the giant encampment, a convincing show of might should drive them off. I want these removed so as to isolate Hledra within itself, no need to have giants hanging around while I’m trying to wrench the orc’s brain out through his anus.” Xanthos stated “What a way to get your hands dirty.” Menthos replied “That’s your plan, jump up through a gopher hole and yell, surprise like we’re jumping out of a cake with snow icing?” Haimish asks “Your fear of the giants is understandable however misplaced, what you should fear more is defeat. The lives of thousands of sentient creatures, some you do not even know they exist are at stake here. For us to fail would be catastrophic to this ecosystem.” Eeyore explains “I don’t fear defeat, I lose all the time and if I lose here I’ll just blame you and have you hunted down and your internal organs used to spice up a mutton sandwich for a carnivorous formorian.” Menthos responds “You are a very disturbed individual, though I suppose with a gibbering mouther and a jackass for parents your density was doomed to wind up stirring the cesspool of nonconformity.” Eeyore replies “Get a room you guys.” Haimish interjects Xanthos excavates the ten feet to the surface and once breeching the ground and reaching the snow he slows down and slowly removes the snow. Steam rises from the bodies below him as he works to make the opening stable enough to allow them to exit and not fill in the hole with surrounding snow. Once done he peeks his head above the snow and spies three giants, one sleeping and two others are talking near an enormous tree that is covered in ice. Two dire bears are resting quietly near the sleeping giant. Xanthos communicates the giant’s positions above to the party, Haimish nods and turns himself invisible and slips up the hole past Xanthos and onto the snow field above. Instantly shivering, Haimish fights off the cold and the urge to breathe trying not to give away his position but the small floating steam mephit-like breath coming from his mouth. Haimish reaches the sleeping giant as Doopa exits the hole with a flurry. “Surprise! Doopa here for cake!” The ogre shouts The two awake giants immediately turn and head for Doopa who is streaking across the snow field towards the east side of the valley. Xanthos exits next and heads out to help Haimish with his giant and the dire bears. Menthos and Eeyore remain in the hole waiting to see how well the plan goes off before tipping the giants to the fact that there are more enemies to battle. Xanthos and Haimish savagely tear into the sleeping frost giant; the large cold man barely has enough time to rouse himself before his eyes close again forever. The sounds of battle stir the bears to action and they begin to charge towards the bard and shifter. Doopa’s chase to get the two awake giants away from their encampment works too well as the giants figure out Doopa’s plan before he does and they surround the barbarian before he can reach the valley wall. Surrounded a mere fifty feet from the hole, Doopa screams for his battle rage to take him to a painless place of an ogre smackdown paradise. Eeyore sees Doopa get surround and he rushes out of the hole along with his tiger to help the flanked ogre by flanking a giant of their own. Menthos fires the occasional eldritch blast from his place of relative safety while observing the battle from the hole. The dire bears prove to be a much tougher encounter than a sleeping giant; they’ve managed to keep Xanthos and Haimish on the defensive. However the bard and shifter managed to get the bears turned around so that if they had to make run for it back to the hole they could do so without having to go through the bears to do it. While it was tense for a few moments, the party was clearly beating back the threat at this point and Menthos even halted his ranged support in order to watch the festivities from the hole. Movement off the corner of his eye caught his attention; the tree seemed to shake a little, quickly turning on his warlock ability to see the unseen he stared out at the gigantic tree. The more he stared, the more he realized it seemed out of place for this valley, no other vegetation could be seen except for this tree and as quickly as the cold had descended there should be some clues here to plant life other than this tree. His supernatural sight saw nothing further than what his normal vision had detected. He decided the tree was a curiosity and nothing more and turned his attention back to the battles when the storm of ice blanketed the area. Razor-sharp shards of water shredded the combatants. The dire bears were done in by this new threat; one of the remaining giants also fell to the assault, as did Eeyore. Doopa and the last giant staggered away from their engagement bloodied and confused. “What was that?” Xanthos shouted “I didn’t see. The weird guy is down though.” Menthos shouts back from his hole Haimish and Xanthos rush to Doopa and Eeyore’s side as loud cracking sounds echoed off the valley walls, amplified by the falling snow the sound was nearly deafening. “Enough of this, enough of mocking my plans!” a low noise that sounded almost like an intelligible friction noise. “Who are you? The orc? Show yourself so that I may finish what you could not!” Xanthos shouts “Xanthos, help me with Eeyore first.” Haimish huffed as he hauled the dying elf up and propped him against the downed giant. A thunderous roar came from the tree as it hefted itself out of the snow and a huge root collection formed itself into a leg and foot as the thing stepped towards the party. “Great tree spirit, we mean you no harm, we are here to stop these interlopers.” Xanthos apologizes “It is you who are going to be stopped.” The treant answers The tree shakes and more shards tear through the falling snow and slice across the battlefield. Haimish quickly dives onto Eeyore, while shoving a minor healing spell into the ranger, to protect him from the shards. Haimish’s back is torn to ribbons, his chain shirt offering no protection against the attack. Doopa falters as well slamming into the snow face first, his back studded with melting ice debris. Menthos was protected again this time from the attack, he peered out over to the party and watched as Xanthos tried to gather up Doopa as Haimish rolled off of Eeyore in obvious pain. “Retreat!” Xanthos shouted “There is no place for you to hide!” The treant answers “Run to the hole now!” Menthos shouts as he leaps from the hole and intercedes himself between the party and the treant. “I do not need a stationary target to make your sap drain away!” The treant calls and begins to shake Menthos reaches into his pouch and pulls out the fire opal Statinisor gave him when they left Highcastle, the teifling throws the gem at the ice treant just as he sees the ice shards begin to stir loose from the treant’s branches. Xanthos shoves Doopa through the hole and turns to help Haimish load Eeyore into it; his tiger companion had already fled inside the hole ahead of Doopa. “Hurry!” Xanthos shouts expecting the cloud of icicles to hit any second. The gem struck the tree just prior to it’s assault. The resulting explosion threw Menthos back off his feet a good ten feet and knocked over Xanthos and Haimish causing Eeyore to get dumped into the hole on his head. The heat from the fire melted everything within forty feet including the wax seals on Menthos’ potions. Deafened by the blast Menthos didn’t hear Xanthos shouting for him until after he saw the tree still stood, blackened and scarred but alive nonetheless. The treant bellowed in pain and a new sound reverberated across the valley. “Menthos!” Xanthos yelled for the fifth time, this time the warlock heard him and turned his head back to the hole. Xanthos watches as Menthos pushed himself off the snow and stumble for towards the escape hole. Behind the teifling the treant agonized in pain and retreated back to it’s starting position, as it retreated and got smaller relative to Xanthos’ perception, a new figure seemed to rise in the background behind the treat. Cylindrical in shape the pillar rose to a height of thirty feet before bending at the top. A huge tooth filled maw pointed it’s hunger at the party. “Frost worm! Run!” Xanthos shouted fear cracking his voice [/QUOTE]
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