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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9425791" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 58: FROM THE NORTHPC Roster: Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 15             Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 15             Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 15             Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 15NPC Roster:Orchid, elf druid 15Game Session Date: 17 July 2024 - - -There was a light snow blowing down from the mountains outside when a knock upon the door to the Trained Professional Adventurers' extradimensional dwelling brought Harlan to see who it might be.  After all, it was after dinner time, and the weather had kept the Dark and Light Club fairly empty; nobody really wanted to go out into the cold just to grab a drink or listen to a bard's songs and tales."Beggin' your pardon, sir," replied Oscar Poppert, a large-eared member of the town's messenger guild, "but Mr. Slade's called an emergency meeting, and he'd like you all to be there.""We'll gather our gear and be right there," the half-elf paladin answered.  Oscar nodded his head in gratitude - there wouldn't have been a whole lot he could have done had Harlan refused to attend, not that Mr. Slade would see it that way.  But he dashed back the way he'd come, so he could tell his boss the message had been delivered and the TPA would be there shortly.And indeed they were.  Arriving at the town's meeting hall, the five adventurers saw a few unfamiliar faces; Ghourmand Vale was a boom-town, constantly taking in new members, and although the main Guildmasters were in attendance (as expected), there were some fresh new faces as well.Slade wasted no time.  "This here's Purly," he said, indicating a young human still huddled in his winter gear, the snow crusting his coat showing he'd been outside for some time.  "He's a member of our ranger patrols, and he brings word of an attack by frost giants coming down from the north.""Yes, sir, that's right," Purly piped up.  "The giants, they took our patrol by surprise, 'bout 15 miles from the Vale - the others sent me back at top speed to warn the town proper, that the giants're coming down in great numbers and headed our way.  I...I don't rightly know if any of the others got out alive.""Tell us what you can of their numbers, and their tactics," suggested Harlan.  Purly recounted what he knew: they'd fought at least half a dozen frost giants, armed with massive axes and swords, but they could see other groups on parallel courses, heading down from the mountains.  Then they'd been hit by an icy fog, making visibility difficult, and the patrol sergeant sent Purly back to give the Vale a warning, so they wouldn't be taken completely unawares."I reckermend we send these five out t' deal wit' th' threat," suggested Draemon Klarbatch, newly appointed head of the Slippery Shaft Mines.  "Along wit' any others we kin round up, that're likely t' be able t' hold their own against bands o' frost giants.  We've already sent runners t' warn th' others in th' vicinity," he explained to the five heroes.  The Hieronean clerics and paladins of the Stone Keep would be sending their own teams out to combat any frost giant invaders they might encounter, but there was a lot of ground to cover between the two areas.  "An' I reckermend we put a bounty onna head o' each giant slain - that'll add some incentive t' get some o' our local folks out an' fightin', what don't normally do this fer a livin'."  The sum of two thousand pieces of gold per slain frost giant - as proven by its decapitated head - was quickly suggested and approved (much to Ageratum's delight, as she suddenly viewed this excursion out in bad weather to be less of an intrusion on her quiet night and more of a money-making scheme with the opportunity for a rather large payday)."Can you tell us exactly where you were when you were attacked?" asked Chaevaris."I can do better than that," replied Purly.  "I can take you there."  That was also quickly agreed upon, and Chaevaris offered the young ranger the use of her horse Talkacha, as she'd be riding upon her new carpet of flying.  Purly's own horse had run itself ragged getting back to the Vale as quickly as possible, and deserved a good rest.  "If we can make good speed, we might be able to meet up with them at the logging camp," declared Purly as they group set off, everyone as warm as possible in their winter gear.  (Alistair's endure elements spell certainly helped in that regard as well.)As they approached the camp, Alistair cast a mage armor spell upon himself and his grackle familiar, Ambrose, then cast a Rary's telepathic bond spell upon the group (including Purly, who found the experience quite unnerving) and a maximized flame arrow spell upon the group's assembled ammunition.  Orchid likewise cast her customary longstrider spell, then followed up with barkskin spells cast upon herself, Harlan, and Nova.  Knowing they'd be up against frost giants (and fearing they'd be accompanied by frost-breathing winter wolves), she also cast resist cold spells upon herself and Ageratum while Alistair did likewise for himself, Ambrose, and Shushitan.  The timber wolf was also the recipient of a greater magic fang spell cast by his mistress, and Ageratum received an air walk spell from the same source.  Then, as the group dismounted from their horses (all but Harlan, that is, who remained upon Nova's winged back), Ageratum and Chaevaris used their individual magic items to slip into invisibility.Chaevaris let Carruthers out of their extradimensional dwelling and Alistair instructed the shield guardian to attack anyone who attacked any of the group.  As a final thought, Ageratum started applying a dose of stone salve on her invisible skin, coating her with the benefit of a stoneskin spell.  Against giants, a halfling couldn't be too careful! warned Chaevaris over the link.  <Could be a group of frost giants.>  As they'd agreed upon, Purly took the steeds back a bit in the direction from which they'd just come, keeping them well out of the area of battle.  Alistair cast a quick haste spell on the group now that combat seemed imminent, and Harlan applied a bull's strength spell on himself for the same reason.  Orchid cast an animal growth spell on her loyal, lupine friend, and Shushitan sprang up to the size of a dire wolf.Stepping forward through the blowing snow just ahead strode a pair of five frost giants, their fur-wrapped legs kicking up snow with each easy lope.  Between them was a mobile pile of snow, something like the trail left by a mole as it burrowed through a yard; something was apparently moving along with them, its body just under the pile of snow cover.  None of them seemed to have a care in the world, as if confident in their ability to handle whatever obstacle might show up before them.Orchid wasted no time.  She brought a fire storm spell down upon the assembled group, and all of a sudden the giants' faces lost their carefree looks as they howled in unexpected pain.  The snowbank between them melted, revealing the top of a white-scaled beast whose scales blended in quite well with the surrounding snow and ice.  Alistair mused over the link.  It was, thus far, impossible to tell for sure.Ageratum, invisible and air walking, charged through the sky and straight into the closest frost giant's face, popping back into visibility as her magic short sword cut into the poor bugger's nose.  From his vantage point, flames had suddenly dropped from the sky, and then a halfling materialized, swinging a blade into his nose before he could even think about blocking her strike.  This wasn't anything like what he had expected!But he was not without the ability to retaliate.  Now that the floating halfling was visible, he was able to swat at her with his massive greataxe, cutting into her arm but nowhere nearly as deep as he'd have expected.  (Inwardly, Ageratum was thankful for her application of stone salve, which greatly lessened the damage that actually made it to her.)  Another giant charged forward with a roar, swinging his greataxe at Harlan astride Nova, hoping to sunder the flaming blade the paladin held before him as a light source in the darkened environment.  His efforts were in vain, for the nimble half-elf's magically-increased strength helped him keep the sword in his grip despite the giant's best efforts.  Another giant, this one a female, ran up on the other side of Harlan and swung her own blade at him, aiming at his armor instead of his weapon, and she made it past his shield, carving a dent in his plate mail.  A fourth giant ran behind her, having started from somewhat farther back; he couldn't help but notice that the fifth giant in their party seemed to be lying dead in the snow, a victim not only to the flames falling down from the sky but also the wounds he'd received earlier when they took out those humans on their horses.Alistair cast a delayed blast fireball, opting to forego the delay so the bead exploded between three of the frost giants, expanding into a ball of flames that engulfed them but didn't touch any of his friends.  After the burning they'd received from Orchid's fire storm spell, that was enough to drop all three, leaving but one frost giant standing and whatever white-scaled pet traveled along with them.  Then Carruthers raced forward, bringing a massive fist into the side of the sole remaining frost giant's jaw, causing him to spit blood.Up on her carpet of flying, Chaevaris peered down at the white beast and perceived a pair of batlike wings stretched out at the creature's sides.  Almost positive now this was a white dragon, she took careful aim down the shaft of her readied arrow, waiting for the reptile to raise its head; the archer was hoping to get off another eye shot, a move which was quickly becoming her specialty.  <It's a white dragon, all right!> she warned the others.Harlan squeezed his legs together, the signal for Nova to charge, and the pegasus flapped forward, allowing the paladin to swing his Starblade into the frost giant's side.  This close to the dragon, he could see it start to raise its head in preparation of blowing out a gout of frost from its mouth.  The paladin began to give out a warning, but Chaevaris had been waiting for just this to happen.  She released her arrow, and it crossed the distance between them to plant itself smack-dab into the dragon's left eye.  The archer gave a silent cry of exultation (which came out loud and clear over the telepathic link), as flames and thunder accompanied the massive damage she'd just done to the dragon, easily twice as big as a horse.  Of course, the attack had rendered Chaevaris - and the carpet upon which she was balanced in mid-air - fully visible, but the dragon wasn't worried about any of that.  Brought down to near death from the fire storm spell and the arrow-strike, he opted to turn tail and flee.  Taking wing, the wounded dragon flew erratically back the way he'd come, dripping blood from his left eye socket the whole way.Unnoticed, Nova trailed him, hanging above and to the dragon's left, well out of the line of sight from its impaired field of vision.  <I'll see where this beast lairs, and direct you back to it!> Harlan promised.  Chaevaris gave thought to following, but she realized her carpet was nowhere near as fast as the pegasus.  Plus, she noted, Ageratum had already started going from frost giant corpse to frost giant corpse, making sure each was indeed dead, and beginning the process of decapitation to earn their bounty; she'd best give the halfling a hand with that, as Ageratum's little halfling-sized short sword was not the best blade equipped for the task. - - -Sorry, I've gotten a bit behind in my write-ups of our various campaigns, as I also do farewell caricatures for several branches of my office in my free time and I've been swamped on that front for a bit now.  But this ended up being a very short game session, in part because everything we fought was vulnerable to fire damage and we had two primary spellcasters able to take advantage of that.  Dan decided that if Harlan was going to track the wounded dragon (it was down to 27 hp, I think he said) back to its lair (we decided what was the point of slaying a dragon if we didn't get to loot its hoard?), that would be the logical next adventure.  So this would end up kind of being the first of a two-parter, since the very next adventure took place literally minutes after this one ended.</blockquote>

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