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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mikeawmids" data-source="post: 7850962" data-attributes="member: 6776411">Spires of Xin Shalast, Week 2 / Part 2Although it pains him to talk about it, Silas recounts the events leading up to his brother's demise."We came out here, just Karivek and I, to stake a claim and make our fortune from this ore-rich earth. We started digging, but we didn't strike gold, or silver or even copper. What we found was much older, and much more dangerous. We broke into a cavern and found a huge, golden door. We were dizzy with excitement, imagining what treasures might lie beyond. We never found out. As we approached, we were attacked by a massive blue demon with breath as cold as a widow's bed! Karivek held it off just long enough for me to escape, but I heard his screams as I fled. I still hear them now, every time the wind blows from the north....""Will you lead us to the mine?" Forbin asked gently, "We need to find that golden door and slay the creatures that guard it. You can come along too, it might be therapeutic!"Silas Vekker (reluctantly) joins the party and takes them to his camp.An unnaturally cold wind howls from the entrance to the dwarven mine. Drifts of powdery snow have accumulated around the brother's camp. Silas warns that he and Karivek set traps to defend their claim against thieves. The Faresight twins take point and proceed with caution, until Grogg gets tired of their dithering and charges ahead. He triggers every trap in his path but passes unscathed thanks to sheer, dumb luck.The party reach a shaft descending 60ft into the dark. Silas repairs the broken winch and lowers Karack and Aeleana into the pit. Karack pauses to light a lantern, but Aeleana rushes ahead and slips on a patch of treacherous ice. She bounces down a flight of giant-sized steps and sprains her ankle at the bottom. Looking around, Aeleana realises she is in a cavern, facing a huge golden door.'Ooh, shiny!' she thinks, completely forgetting everything Silas said about monstrous guardians.Aeleana hobbles over to the glittering portal and caresses it hungrily. She is still trying to calculate the street value of all that lovely gold when a massive blue demon (straight outta the Hellfrost bestiary) looms from the shadows and claws her back to bloody shreds!"Arrrggghhhh!!" she screams, then "Arrggggghhhhhh!!!" as two more ice demons pop up.Hearing his sister's shriek gets Forbin moving. It'll take too long for Silas to crank the lift back up, he abseils down the shaft and rushes to her aid.Silas panics! Those high pitched, girly screams!! It's just like last time!!! He can't do this! What was he thinking, coming back here?! Mewling like a newborn babe, Silas flees out of the mine, leaving the heroes to their fate.Noticing that the intruders have bunched up near the entrance to the cavern, one of the demons exhales a cone of icy breath in their direction. Karack's fingers go numb and he struggles to hold onto his giant-killing spear. Gritting his teeth against that life-draining chill, Karack presses forward until he is close enough to drive the spear through the guardian's chest! He whips the weapon free as the dying demon freezes in place.It's all Aeleana can do to defend against the first ice demon. Asha casts Protection to enclose the beleaguered half elf within Sarenrae's flaming bosom. The demon reels back from that hateful, holy fire. Seizing his moment, Forbin opens fire and the second guardian is turned into an ice sculpture, with an arrow sticking out of its eye.Grogg exchanges blows with the final demon. Suddenly, a cry from the darkness, as as a young, beardless dwarf in an oversized chainmail vest springs to the rescue! Leaping over Grogg's head, Silas swings his brother's pickaxe with all his might, burying the pointy end into the final guardian's skull! The demon falls backwards as its body turns to ice, exploding into a million frozen crystals as it hits the cavern floor."You fought bravely!" Forbin congratulated the young dwarf, "Karivek would be proud."Karack approaches the golden portal and spies a sideheron-shaped depression in the otherwise flawless surface. He produces one of the many Thasillonian medallions the party have accumulated over the campaign and slots it into the hole. Sorcerous glyphs inscribed into the door light up for the first time in millennia and the gateway to Xin Shalast swings open.Light floods into the mine, blinding the heroes. As their eyes adjust, they see the face of their hated enemy - Karzoug - carved into the side of a smoking mountain in the distance. The Runelord's stony likeness looks out over a sprawling ruin of giantish proportions - but between the heroes and the city lies a rime encrusted marshland, shrouded in glittering clouds of ice crystals.Before the party face Karzoug, they must first survive the Icemist Fen.TBC</blockquote>

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