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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zad" data-source="post: 3394205" data-attributes="member: 90">Frozen Elegy - Chapter 3Frozen Elegy – Chapter 3OOC Notes:Exp for last session is 3505 for 7th level characters, 3815 for 6th. Most of the party became 8th level with this.Exp this session is 1135 for 8th, 1400 for 7th.This Week’s Adventure:The trip to Hollowsky was… eventful. First we were attacked by a group of baboons. These monkeys were anything but lucky however and they were driven off handily. I couldn’t shake the impression that they were somehow hunting us specifically but it was just a feeling. Two days out from Hollowsky, we came across a caravan. It had been attacked, and there was plenty of blood. But there were no corpses of either man or beast. Inspection showed it to be a Lathenmire caravan of armor and weapons but the goods were still there. The strongbox was even there though it had been opened with the key. Papers, logs and letters of mark were still in the box but the cash was missing. Elizabeth took custody of the strongbox with the intention of returning it to the Lathenmires regardless of their distaste for her.It was only as she was walking away from the caravan that Bellsin noticed a slow sound – drip, drip, drip. He looked up and was gripped with shock and revulsion.Staked to the cliff-edge were the bodies of the caravan. Guards, teamsters, even the horse, all impaled into the rock face with bone spikes. Each had been methodically skinned. It was clear that this had only been done hours ago.No one said a word. There were no words to describe it. When Lady Ophelia asked, we told her “You are better not knowing, and not seeing it, My Lady.”Not too long after, we reached an inn and settled for the night. “Settled” is a bit of a wry joke actually – it was anything but.The creature responsible for the attacks launched an assault on the inn. I’m not clear if it was simply attacking outlying prey, or if its intent was to destroy everyone there. But it did, at one point, realize the Blue Tyger Legion was defending, and attacked with renewed fervor, calling in hordes of small kobold-like creatures. The battle was short but bloody, and we repelled the assault and destroyed most of the attackers. We could only assume that these were the creatures that Captain Skellerang wanted destroyed, but it was doubtful he knew the extent of the problem. Bringing back hides for the bounty was impractical to say the least – there were more than eighty creatures dead. Instead, the tally was counted and Lady Ophelia signed an affidavit as a witness. Lady Ophelia also spent some time with the innkeeper. I understand she gave him a considerable sum of money to fortify the inn and repair the damage. As a local noble, she had an interest in the safety of travelers.The next day we arrived in Hollowsky. It was a small, sleepy village – more like the middle point of a cluster of farming communities. Lady Ophelia assured us we would never again pay for a meal or lodging in Hollowsky, and we rested at the town’s small inn. The townsfolk were at first wary of the heavily armed Legion, but as other travelers arrived telling the tale of what happened the night before, fear turned to respect and admiration, and the townsfolk seemed to feel much better knowing the horde was destroyed. We talked to some locals about our destination and they were able to offer a few (very few) landmarks to help fill in our map. We also heard tales about a lost city in the jungle to the north which has reportedly claimed the lives of many adventurers. Some said it was a Spellweaver city, others said “snake people” live there, and the Spellmason wiped them out. Overall though, the locals seemed to know little outside their immediate demesnes.Lady Ophelia returned to the inn from her manor just as we were setting out the next day. She gave us a letter, requesting we deliver it to Priestess Jenya, which of course we were happy to do. The mountain itself was easy to spot – it was the tallest peak to the south, and its snowy cap made it stand out against the others nearby. We set off southward, going through plantations growing various grains. In only an hour’s travel, the wilderness took over and there was no sign of civilization. We saw different paths as we approached the mountain. Some were deer tracks, while others seemed worn down by larger feet. But we were in an open snowy area when Bellsin and Krisfallion stopped. They were looking up the mountain. “What is it?” Astrid asked.“I don’t know… something’s wrong,” Bellsin said. After a moment, Kris said “Why is the mountain moving?”An avalanche of snow had detached and was coming down the mountain. Needless to say, everyone started running.Kris got to Maris, spoke a few works and began walking on the air, moving straight up, so they were both safe. Once safely above, Kris used a spell to let Glyph turn into a thin white mist, and he too was safe.Elizabeth was running hard but didn’t think she was going to make it. It took a moment for her to focus her mind, but then she finally faded. She looked almost ghost-like now, partially here, and partially in the astral plane. She drifted upward.Bellsin managed to get to cover just on speed, but Astrid and Grinder were not so lucky. The snow overwhelmed them near the edge of the slide, and they were covered over. Once the snow stopped moving we began searching around but to no avail.It was Bellsin who finally had the epiphany, and searched for magical auras. In this way we tracked down Astrid before she suffocated and were able to dig her out. We found Grinder the same way, but of course there was less urgency since he wasn’t so much worried about breathing as he was rust.We had barely began moving again when we learned that the avalanche was no accident. Two creatures were lurking uphill. They looked like large blocks of ice with a blue light inside. They seemed displeased we had survived and began moving closer to attack.“Ice and chill, ice and chill, no further will you go up hill. This is the Black Order’s will,” they chanted together.It took us some time to get close enough to engage. The creatures were clumsy, and Astrid brought her halberd into one and the impact sent a network of cracks out into the creature’s icy body. Before much else could happen, Maris released a spell she had been working up for several seconds. She reached the crescendo of the spell’s power and fire erupted across the creatures. They immediately melted, and once breached the blue light and wind gushed from the icy body and they cracked, shattered, and then finally melted away to nothing.“Who is the Black Order?” Kris asked.“Beats me,” Maris answered. “Maybe if they re-freeze, you can ask them.”We moved further up the mountain, and in a short while came to a set of carved stone stairs. The height of the steps strongly suggested something larger than a human made them. At some points the steps weren’t needed and stopped, only to resume again farther up. They lead upwards and came around a bend towards a misshapen pile of rocks. A second look showed that it was an old fortress, with towers and walls partially collapsed. As we grew closer we could begin to hear music carried on the wind – something low and depressing like a funeral dirge.The entrance had a portcullis but it was raised and skewed and looked stuck. Two large statues flanked the doorway, but there was no ice on them. Bellsin watched them carefully and saw one scratch the back of his neck. Giants.Bellsin scouted a path through trees and cover that he thought would get us closer so we wouldn’t have to cross two hundred feet of open ground vulnerable to the giant’s thrown boulders. He cut the distance by half, and we braced to charge.The girls leapt out together and began running down the slope towards the giants, sped along by Maris’ spell of haste. The giant – and I say “giant” because only one seemed to notice – sighed in exasperation and then threw a rock towards the other giant, yelling at him to get up. They both grabbed their axes from where they were resting against the wall. They didn’t seem to be in a very big hurry about it. Grinder was closing the gap fastest and as it ran by the first giant it slapped at it with its axe. This was what Glyph had in mind, allowing Astrid and then Elizabeth to get inside the axe swing and attack the giant. The girls both landed hard blows, but when the giant went to swing at Elizabeth, the axe turned back and cut into the giant’s leg thanks to a curse from Maris.Between fiery spells from Maris and the weapons of Bellsin, Astrid, and Elizabeth, the giants didn’t last long at all. But what puzzled me more was the lackadaisical way they prepared. Were they attacked so often it was boring to them? Were their attackers so trivial to dispatch?  Why would they be so cavalier about it?The fortress was as run-down on the inside as it looked to be on the outside. If the giants ever cared for this place, they had stopped long ago. The music got louder as we entered. The foyer had several exits including some collapsed ones, and we went down a passage that the music seemed slightly louder from.In the next chamber we found a giant sitting on the floor. He had a torch in his hand and was burning his fingers repeatedly. From the scarring and charring on both his hands, it appeared it was something he did often. He paid no attention to us.“That looks like it hurts,” Astrid said.“It’s the only thing that makes it stop. Who are you? You don’t look like me. You’re not in my mind. What do you want?” The giant was trying to focus and seemed to be teetering on the edge, or perhaps past the edge, of sanity.“I’m seeking some answers,” Astrid said.“I don’t have answers. All I have is the music. It won’t stop… won’t stop…”“Where is the music coming from? Who brought it here?” Astrid asked.The giant burned himself again, lucidity returning to his eyes for a moment. “A foul thing, we locked it up. It makes the music. It won’t stop. We can’t leave, even if we wanted to give it up. It’s our charge. Until the quiet watch, but it is not my turn to go outside. So I have to burn it.”“Who is it?” she asked.“It’s not a ‘who’. It’s a thing – an abomination. We bound it. It is our prisoner. We took it from the field of battle and we bound it. It won’t shut up, won’t stop. Can’t you hear it?”I should mention that we came to this place to see if we could find something that was relevant to our set of keys. We had entirely no idea what we were looking for but this seemed promising somehow.“Do you want me to stop the music for you?” Astrid asked helpfully.“You can’t stop the music. You don’t have the power. We don’t have the power. We were tricked out of the keys, now there’s nothing to left to let it out.”Promising indeed.“What keys? Are there specific keys?”The giant singed himself again. “The demon general gave us several keys. Now they’re all gone.”“Who could have done that?” Astrid said.“We gave them away. We had to. So no one could let it out.”“So of the keys were brought together would that let it out?”The giant grunted. “That might unleash the binding. I don’t know. Might give us our powers back, might make us whole. It might release us from the curse.”Astrid nodded. “So where is this monster?” “In the icy prison below, guarded by the Jarl. Always guarded by the Jarl.” He was losing his grip again.“Down those stairs over there?” Astrid asked, indicating a set of stairs on the other side of the chamber.“There is no way to get to it. We buried the entrances so it is unreachable.”Glyph whispered “What is unreachable to a giant may be reachable by smaller creatures.”“And how many of you are there here?” Astrid said.“Not counting the Jarl, there are eight of the Black Order. Servants of Nabthateron. He marked us, told us to retire form the field and so we did, with our prize. That did not stop Nabtatheron’s failure though.”Kris commented “Well there’s your Black Order.” Astrid asked one final question. “Does this thing have a name?”The giant looked pained. “If we knew its name we may have been able to do more with it.” Lucidity retreated again and the giant began rocking and moaning.We went towards the music as best we could. We passed other giants – one was slowly pounding his head against a wall while another was holding his ears. They too had no interest in us and we did not provoke them. Another room held a group of ogres, the spirit beaten out of them – they cowered in a corner until we left.After several corridors we found a caved-in passage which we were able to alternately squeeze through or climb over. The music got noticeably louder once we were on the other side.The hallway was slick with ice and lead to a large chamber. In the middle was a large blue crystal. A skeleton was prostrate before the crystal, still wearing a cape the size of a tapestry. In the center of the crystal was a shadow or body of some kind. The crystal was floating in the chamber, bound by a series of chains from all sides holding it in place. The chains ran to metal plates in the floor and on the crystal.Personally I was waiting for the skeleton to rise up and attack us – the spirit of the Jarl still bound to this world. That didn’t happen. Instead, a piece of ice came at us from where it sat along one wall. It was as if a troll had been carved out of perfectly clear ice.Astrid looked at her halberd. I could practically hear the thought. Ice. Hammer. Hmf. She shrugged and lunged at the creature, Elizabeth on her heels. Astrid landed a flurry of deep strikes to the creature, and the body began cracking and chipping. After several blows, the creature was covered in deep cracks. Elizabeth moved for her own set of long cuts, but upon landing her first blow, the creature fell apart into a hail of fist-sized chunks.Everyone’s attack suddenly stopped short. Elizabeth looked to Astrid who shrugged. “I loosened it for you.”Glyph and Maris examined the ice carefully, worried that the creature might somehow reform like a real troll. Nothing seemed to be happening but after longer observation, pieces did begin to move towards each other. They consulted and determined that they would need to shatter the ice to smaller pieces to finish the creature for good. Glyph had recently enhanced Grinder to deliver a jolt of electricity with his bite, and Glyph now manipulated this enchantment to make the iron dog’s jaws vibrate with great intensity instead. Grinder set about living up to his name, grinding the pieces of ice into crumbs. He rather seemed to enjoy it.Meanwhile Elizabeth had the keys out, and she and the others were examining the crystal. Several plates holding the chains had keyholes, and one had two keyholes. They were even numbered, thus avoiding use of the master keys.We inserted the keys into five of the plates and turned them. As we did, each chain in turn fell away from the crystal. Oddly, nobody questioned whether we should release whatever thing was in here. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” seemed good enough for everyone. Finally we inserted the final two keys and turned them, and the last of the chains fell away. The music stopped.At first there was nothing, then slowly the crystal prison began steaming. There was a sudden flash and the room was filled with steam. After a moment, the steam settled to the floor, revealing the prisoner.He was tall, but not so tall as a giant. His white wings still had a hint of frost on them, and his white toga blew gently in an unseen wind, dancing over skin like ivory. His face was both happy and stern at once. He stepped forward away from the prison, and bowed deeply.Elizabeth found her voice first. “Are you well?” “I am free at last. I appear to be in your debt,” he said. His voice was musical and made other words spoken sound harsh and dull in comparison.“We are the Blue Tyger Legion,” Glyph said. “May we ask your name?”“Indeed, I know of you. I am Ulaaloo. I have been imprisoned here for many years, since the Redgorge battle.”Elizabeth was looking at him carefully, still slightly nervous. When she couldn’t find her answer, she asked. “May I ask whom you serve?” Elizabeth was most certainly not a student of celestial affairs, but she had the impression, both distinct and as it happens correct, that an angel such as this was a servant of some deity. “My time is short but I will answer what I can. I served St. Cuthbert, and serve Him still – fear not for me in that respect…” he said.Kris was bothered and broke in. “Wait, you said you know of us? How could that be?”“I have been kept appraised of your progress but now that I am freed I’m afraid you may have done yourselves a slight disservice. I have mere moments here before I will be politely asked to return to my place of origin, and after that not-so-politely, due to the current rules of astral mechanics. But an ally of yours has spoken to me several times of your situation.”“And whom might that be?” Elizabeth said, troubled.“Lady Jenya perhaps?” Glyph suggested.“No but her name is known to me. She is known to but one of you thought she has in her way watched over you. I cannot reveal her name to you now, though you would know her as “N”. One of you knows of whom I speak. Such involvement is, to some degree, forbidden.”“But how is freeing you a disservice?” Elizabeth asked.“It has cut one of your lines of communication. No longer can I offer advice to her, particularly on how to protect you. But I believe the days of you needing protection are coming to a close and soon the day will come when she must ask for help from you. Turbulent times are about to come upon you. Nabthatheron stirs.”Astrid asked “But wasn’t Nabthateron destroyed?”The archon looked to each side of him at some unseen presence. “Nabthateron was shamed and denied return to Hell by Grazzt. He resides on the Prime still. His particular dispensation is… vexing.”He paused and looked again. “We are on the border of politeness ending, so I must summarize quickly. I will help you in what way I can and sometime soon I may be able to return and help. If you seek counsel, speak to Jenya. She may be able to summon me for your aid. Tell her my name that she may ask for me. Should you encounter N, convince her that she walks a dangerous path. There are rules even we follow, more so than you.”He looked again at the nothing beside him and nodded. “My time here is done. Thank you again. I hope to return the favor someday.”So saying, he faded away. As he did, for just a moment, there was a strange hint of a shadow as if two robed creatures were standing next to him.“Well I suppose we found what we came to find,” shrugged Astrid. “Let’s get out of here.”And so we did. The giants were befuddled by the cessation of the music, but most were too far gone to understand they were really seeing us. Those that were more lucid were simply too confused to challenge us or give chase. We exited the fortress without incident and went down the mountain. It was a long hike but two hours after sundown, we entered Hollowsky, safe and sound.Loot:Two expensive necklaces from frost giants.</blockquote>

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