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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6367430" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 84: THE ICE PRINCESS, PART 2PC Roster: Feron Dru, half-elf druid             Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian             Rale Bodkin, human rogue             Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage             Thunderwolf, human fighterNPC Roster:Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defenderDardonelle the Ice Princess stepped away from the looming arms of the two fire elementals towering above her, each frozen motionless but for the flickering of their flames by the mass hold monster spell the frost mage had cast.  Steam rose up from the feet of the elder fire elemental as its immobilized body melted away the ice floor of the cavern on which it stood, the water pooling at its feet and being vaporized from the heat of its body.  The process was painful for the fire elemental, for the brief contact with the liquid water ate away at its flames, but there was nothing it could do but continue struggling in vain to escape from the Ice Princess's mental command to remain immobile.  Infernia, having spent months learning not to burn things by actively decreasing the heat from the area she wished to contact solid objects (and due to the ring of fire protection her master had given her), was having no such similar problems with melting ice, but she struggled mightily against the spell as well, to no avail.Down in the lower cavern, Thunderwolf and Galrich were making quick work of the second ice golem, the former with his flaming arrows and the latter with broad applications of a vorpal greataxe and a barbarian's rage.  A final grunt of effort and the half-orc's weapon split the golem's body in twain, ice shards exploding out behind it as its upper half toppled onto the cavern floor and shattered.Feron, hovering on her drow floatdisk 30 feet above the lower cavern, pulled a little-used item from a pouch at her hip and tossed it towards the Ice Princess, calling out a command word as she did so.  The little figurine landed by Dardonelle's feet and expanded into a Huge constrictor snake - a modified rope of constriction in serpentine form.  It bit at the Ice Princess as the first step in entangling her, but she dodged nimbly out of its way, her bare feet uncannily steady on the slick surface of the ice.  She turned to face the constrictor, moving her hands as if to cast a spell at it - when she was suddenly grabbed from behind by a pair of powerful arms made of solid flame; the elder fire elemental had finally freed its mind of the Ice Princess's spell and caught her up in a bear hug, lifting her from the floor."What are you?" snarled Dardonelle to the intruders at large.  "Dragonslayers, come to take the head of my dragon?  Then take it and begone!  Treasure seekers?  Its treasure lies yonder in that pit - I have no use for it.  Or are you just plunderers, here to infiltrate my home and rob me of my belongings?"  She spit in disdain, the spittle hitting Infernia's still-immobile form and evaporating in a little puff of steam.Infernia wasn't going to take that from an enemy spellcaster, especially one who had tried to harm her master.  True, she was immobilized and still frozen by the frost mage's mass hold monster spell, but she didn't have to move to mentally activate the ioun stone still whizzing around her head.  Her master had been wise indeed to fill it with two combat spells!  She sent a scorching ray screaming towards the body of the Ice Princess, groaning internally to herself as the spell missed.Telgrane, also balanced on a floatdisk, tried a similar approach, casting a cone of cold at the Ice Princess, but using his archmage training to not only convert the cold energy to electricity but also have it avoid the space taken up by the elder fire elemental.  As this spell wasn't targeted directly at Dardonelle - although the end results of Telgrane's spell modification made it all but so - it was not reflected back at him, and the archmage grinned at the grunts of pain his spell invoked in the group's mutual enemy."We're here for the Orb," answered Telgrane."I have no idea what you're talking about," snarled Dardonelle in reply.  Rale, meanwhile, had made himself invisible again and flew over the struggling combatants to get a good look of the treasure pile of the slain dragon Kerrarpalax for himself.  He didn't see anything like an orb of white dragonkind among the dragon's treasure, but he smiled in appreciation at the many gemstones scattered along the treasure pit's floor.Infernia, still immobilized by the spell, tried casting the only other spell stored in her ioun stone.  With a mental push, a series of magic missiles went screaming from the stone to the Ice Princess's body, only to reverse direction at the last minute and go slamming into Infernia's fiery body instead.  Infernia silently shook off the pain and understood why she usually left the spellcasting to her master....Feron, seeing the problems her summoned fire elemental was having with the melting ice, cast another spell to summon an elder earth elemental at the base of the ice cliff on which the Ice Princess stood, still struggling to escape the fiery grasp of her foe.  But then Dardonelle suddenly ceased her attempts to escape, her mind cleared of the frenzied panic of face-to-face combat, and she spoke a simple word to a spell, sending her immediately...elsewhere."Crap--teleport!" cursed Telgrane."Or maybe dimension door," reasoned Feron.  "She might not have gone that far.  Everybody look around."  Rale immediately followed Feron's advice by lowering himself down into the treasure pit and getting a much closer look at the valuables stored therein.Thunderwolf floated his magical disk over to the Ice Princess's throne, still blocked by Telgrane's wall of fire spell.  At the fighter's request, Telgrane dismissed his spell and Thunderwolf looked at what once was an ornately-carved throne of ice, flanking its user in fearsome-looking dragons - and what was now a featureless lump of mostly-melted ice.  He looked around for secret passageways, finding none.  Telgrane followed, using his magical vision to look around, and immediately spotted a vertical shaft directly above the throne, rising up some 20 feet or so.  He flew up to investigate; the others opted to allow him to face any dangers there alone, confident that his immediate screams for assistance would alert them if they were needed.  In the meantime, Rale searched for secret passages from the treasure pit, absently pocketing a gem or two (or a dozen) as he did so.Feron, meanwhile, was curious as to the diagonal tunnel leading down from the higher level of the ice cavern where they had been fighting the Ice Princess before her sudden disappearance.  According to the ice mephit who had explored it and reported back to Telgrane, it continued down at an angle for some distance before being flooded with water.  Wildshaping into the form of a water elemental, Feron slipped down the tunnel, which she observed was easily wide enough to accommodate Kerrarpalax's massive body.  She hit the frigid water and submerged, exploring the underwater cavern in which she found herself.  It led to a spot directly under the sheet of ice upon which they had fought the ice trolls below, for the hole from which the aquatic cryohydra had attacked Galrich was visible just ahead, and the slain beast's corpse lay just below the hole in the ice, where it had fallen.  Over in the opposite direction, Feron found a smaller cavern which had apparently been the cryohydra's lair, and the druidess surmised the tunnel was merely a "back door" which Kerrarpalax might have used to exit his cavern through the pool of water rather than through the upper-level cave entrance.  She exited the water, resumed her half-elven form, and returned to the others.Telgrane, meanwhile, had found in the level above the throne a mere 10-foot-by-20-foot room, its walls apparently carved into maps of the local area, with colored gemstones marking what he assumed were cities, towns, and villages.  (He was partially correct; while the red and green gemstones did indeed represent towns and villages, the blue ones depicted white dragon lairs the Ice Princess had discovered during her explorations of the arctic environs.)  Nothing appeared magical to his enhanced eyesight, until he turned to look back the way he had come - specifically looking for hidden runes that might shunt him, say, naked to the Ethereal Plane - and saw the glimmer of a magical aura peeking out from a small cubbyhole down at foot level.  Bending down, he saw a spherical form and was convinced he had found the orb of white dragonkind, until he grabbed it and pulled it out to him, discovering in the process that it was merely a hemisphere, not a full sphere, and it had a small, half-cylindrical projection along one side of the bottom.It was, in short, an igloo the size of a crystal ball.Why in the world would she have a tiny igloo--? thought Telgrane, before realization struck: this was likely similar to their own Daern's dollhouse, and if that was the case....  With an evil grin, the archmage held the igloo in his hands and shook vigorously, hoping he was sending a tiny Ice Princess bouncing from wall to wall inside.  Then, realizing that if it were indeed like their own device the interior gravity plane would have no bearing on what was happening to the outer container, he brought it with him and returned to the others in the lower ice cavern.Puzzling over potential command words, Telgrane tried the one their own dollhouse used, but speaking aloud "minimus" had no effect.  He tried a couple other possibilities, before Rale took it from him, turned it over, and held it just right in the light from Infernia's flames, where the word "frigidius" could be made out engraved on the bottom.  He handed the igloo back over to Telgrane with a look that said that maybe archmages spent just a little bit too much time on fancy "book-learnin'" and not enough on basic common sense.There were two schools of thought about how best to proceed.  Rale was all for the group entering the igloo of the Ice Princess and tracking her down, while Telgrane argued that they should try casting dispel magic on the igloo, since a successful disruption of the igloo's magic should sent the Ice Princess back out to the ice cavern, where she'd find herself surrounded by her enemies - although that no longer included the elder fire elemental or the ice mephits, all of whom had returned to their native planes by then.  Feron was sorely tempted to try out one of her most powerful spells, elemental swarm, eager to see Dardonelle be shunted into a ring of powerful fire elementals, but the lengthy casting time had her opt to channel the energy for that spell into a summon nature's ally spell (the most powerful of its kind), and within seconds an elder earth elemental stood among the group.  The heroes arranged themselves in a rough circle around the igloo (Feron noted with a small smile that not only was Rale at the outer edge of the circle, but also that Telgrane had taken a protective step behind Infernia), and then the druidess cast a greater dispel magic spell upon the igloo.The results were immediate, and more than the heroes had bargained for: not only did the Ice Princess appear before them, as intended, but apparently she had also summoned the aid of a saber-toothed tiger and an ice devil and had a snowy owl as a familiar, for these three creatures appeared at her side.  And that wasn't all, for everything that wasn't a part of the actual structure of the igloo's five-story internal structure also suddenly manifested in the middle of the ice cavern, and the heroes found themselves fighting amongst scattered crates and barrels, a bed and dresser, a winter wolf pelt rug, various bits of alchemical apparatus, a dining room table and four wooden chairs, a metal birdcage, and assorted wizardly paraphernalia.Fortunately, despite all of the chaos, the heroes had made themselves ready for the Ice Princess's sudden appearance, whereas it was quite a shock to the inhabitants to suddenly find themselves shunted into the lower ice cavern of Kerrarpalax's lair.  Telgrane cast a modified delayed blast fireball (hold the delay) that slew Dardonelle's familiar Whitefeather and the saber-toothed tiger in an instant.  (Feron saw the tiger transform into a small figurine and, according to the long-established Wing Three custom, called out "Dibs!" in the heat of battle.)  The archmage was momentarily surprised to see the ice devil shrug off the blast as well as did the Ice Princess, and although he knew from prior experience that she was apparently protected from fire damage due to a protection from energy spell, it took him a moment to recall that devils - even those obviously more suited for an arctic environment, like the one they faced now - were immune to fire.Galrich, Aerik, and Thunderwolf were all positioned in such a way to make the ice devil the closest target and they tore into it with a savage bloodlust that surprised even the coldest-hearted of the denizens of Baator.  In mere moments it was peppered with arrows and wore deep gashes carved into it from two separate vorpal weapons.  Rale snuck up behind it and gave it a crippling stab deep into its vitals.  Thunderwolf finally took it down with another barrage of arrows, and then the Ice Princess found herself once more fighting alone.  As the massive earth elemental bore down on her, attempting to catch her in yet another grapple, she teleported to the upper cavern, away from the circle of enemies.Rale did a quick perusal of all of the gear that had shown up when the igloo had been dispelled and failed to find the orb of white dragonkind among the various goods.  Then he looked up at their foe, standing confidently down at them from the upper ledge, and did a quick estimate of how much could be stored underneath the icy headdress she wore.  Realizing that anyone who owned such a powerful magical device would likely wish to always keep it at hand, he called out to the others over the Rary's telepathic bond, "The orb's in her headdress!"As if in confirmation that the Ice Princess still had control over white dragons, a familiar reptilian form popped up, dripping wet, from the diagonal tunnel leading down from the upper ice cavern.  This dragon was smaller than Kerrarpalax, but the heroes were getting low on their spellpower by now and having another foe of this size and power was a somewhat demoralizing effect.  "Kill them, kill them all!" commanded Dardonelle, pointing down at the assembled heroes.The dragon did its very best.  It flew to the edge of the ledge and let loose with its frosty breath, catching most of the heroes in its area of effect.  But then Thunderwolf saw that he now had another target for his bow, and let fly with a series of flaming arrows.  Galrich and Aerik flew up to the upper level on their floatdisks, Rale following suit after returning himself to invisibility.  Telgrane flew up on his carpet of flying, dropping Infernia off to attempt to grapple the Ice Princess, since she was so heavily shielded from spells that that had been their most effective tactic to date.  Not wanting to be grappled yet again, Dardonelle cast a chain lightning spell at Infernia, having it arc off to hit most of the other heroes and their summoned allies as well.  She also tried casting a flesh to ice spell at Telgrane, hoping to have him fall and shatter to the lower level below, but he shook off the spell's effects.The old white dragon was finally pummeled to death by the massive fists of the elder earth elemental, but not until after having done a fair amount of damage to Galrich, Aerik, and even Telgrane with its teeth and claws.  But then the Ice Princess was again surrounded by her foes, and it was only a matter of time before she too succumbed to their numerous attacks.  Telgrane by this point had surmised that she had no particular protection against electrical attacks, and cast a modified cone of cold (cold energy converted into electricity, shaped to avoid his allies in the area of effect), and she finally fell, lifeless, to the floor of the ice cavern, the difference in coloration between the icy floor and her own icy flesh somewhat difficult to discern.Removing the headdress from the Ice Princess, Rale was pleased to see that he had been correct and that underneath it was a pearly-white orb the size of a crystal ball.  Holding it triumphantly in his hands, his mind was feverishly calculating the estimated values of Kerrarpalax's treasure hoard, plus the valuables that had popped out of the igloo of the Ice Princess, plus the 20,000 gp each promised by Gorlgoldand....Rale flashed a wide smile to the other members of his team.  "Let's gather up the goods and get on home," he said.  "I can't wait to cash this baby in!" - - -As is often the case with my adventures, this one went slightly differently that I had anticipated.  The igloo of the Ice Princess, despite being igloo-shaped on the outside, was a five-level sphere on the inside, and I had envisioned the heroes going inside to fight Dardonelle there.  Naturally, I had done up geomorphs for each level of the igloo, and I made them out of more durable cardboard this time rather than the desk calendar paper I usually use.  So I was a little sad to see the players all decide to just flush Dardonelle out with a greater dispel magic spell and not explore the igloo's interior at all.  But all that effort wasn't necessarily wasted, as the igloo was part of their treasure, and they may end up using it themselves on future adventures, in which case I'll be glad to have made the geomorphs.</blockquote>

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