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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6524683" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[sblock]FYI before I forget, you buys have 20 coins each.[/sblock]On this, despite his deafness, you're able to communicate with the dog somewhat.  This is what he is able to relay:Some time ago, people started going crazy and killing each other.  One man gouged another man's eyes out, for no reason, in the middle of broad daylight and bashed his head in with a rock.  The dog actually discovered him.  He was found just sitting there, with the body, babbling incoherently.  When he developed strange symptoms, the townsfolk executed him and burned the body.  People became terrified that there was a sickness and folks weren't leaving their houses much.  But more of the same followed not long after.  The murdered were buried in the cemetery.  The "sick" were executed and burned.Things got really, really bad shortly thereafter when the goats started all going mad, stampeding and killing people and each other.  More people died but several of the goats were put down.  All bodies were burned.  The men who were outside fighting the goats began to lose their minds and change.  It seemed like people did better if they stayed inside so the whole town banded together, fought off the afflicted, and barricaded themselves in the common building, thinking that they could wait it out and that there would be safety in numbers.  When tempers erupted later that night, two families fled the settlement together, sure the place was cursed.  They tried to convince everyone else to leave with them.  No one else would go.  The dog's master stayed so he stayed with him.By the next morning, everyone had killed each other or began changing and then cocooning.  The dog hid for days and then tried to escape when everything was still.  That is when you guys showed up and everything happened.You cut off a significant amount of travel via a handy shortcut you discover (2 rations off of your total used, so you spend 8 instead of 10).  You locate some elevation on the icy tundra and use the prolonged downslope to lessen the wolves burden and sustain momentum on the ice.  For a good 4 hours, the wolves expend no real energy and they're able to take turns resting on the front of the sleds.The land starts to rise and fall and is fraught with boulders and sharp rocks on the final approach.  The elevating earth ascends angrily toward the White Dragon's domain and the entrance to the Coldlands beyond.  In the distance, you can see the great open cavern, cut naturally into the bottom of the mountainside's face.  Earthmaw.  The small goblin stands up and points, beginning to celebrate.  The moment that he does so, a terrible sound begins beneath you.  To date, the goblins have guided you away from the lairs of nesting Wyverns, Perytons, and navigated around the dangerous terrain of false-floors.  However, when the sound of cracking ice begins and a jagged, zig-zagging line accelerates in front of the sleds (the cowardly, but useful, goblin was able to tie/rig together both sleds, creating something of a master sled with a larger platform (1) that could be pulled by all 8 wolves and (2) that he could drive as neither of the other goblins are proficient enough), terror turns his celebrations into a shriek.  Almost immediately thereafter, the false layer of thin ice gives way and the crevasse reveals itself with a terrible noise.  The cracking, gravelly yawn of the glacier threatens to swallow you all as the back end of the sled goes in first.  The goblin driver leaps for safety above and barely finds it.One of the two armored goblin brothers is almost immediately claimed by the deadly darkness below.  His brother dives for him and grabs hold of his arm...both of them hanging dangerously by a hand meagerly grasping the sled.  Rawr is easily able to use his claws to hang onto the sled but the dog is going to go over if he isn't saved.  And you two are going to need to defy some danger as well and figure this thing out.The wolves are up top, howling and growling...trying desperately to pull the precarious sled out.  But its far, far too much weight for them and, despite their efforts, they are slowly sliding backward toward the indifferent chasm...</blockquote>

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