Higher up into the Frost Peak Mountains
The parry had left Bronsilav several hours ago. They had travelled about twenty miles from Bronislav zig-zagging up the mountain. Their trek higher into the mountains was going rather well until the weather started to turn. A light snow was beginning to fall and the temperature was dropping as the day lingered into late afternoon. As the light was fading they saw a large cave and knew this must be the winter home of the giant bear Nobu. They tied off their mules and made camp within the cave.
The entryway opened to a large chamber littered with bones, scraps of cloth and various bits of broken equipment. Toward the rear of the chamber was a curving tunnel covered in a thin layer of ice. A handful of icicles hung over the tunnel entrance. The barbarian urged the party forward as he was looking to find and battle the giant bear. He was the only party member excited about the proposition though.
The thin layer of ice on the tunnel walls became much thicker as they travelled down it. The icicles on the ceiling not only became more numerous, but they also grew in length and circumference. After several hundred feet they entered another large chamber. It was coated in ice. The ceiling was covered in icicles like the tunnel before it. A tiny stream of water ran down the far wall and formed a small pool. Just to the left of that was another tunnel wider than the one they just walked through.
As the party began to explore this chamber a handful of icicles came crashing down from the ceiling! As they fell the party heard a series of squeaky high pitched giggles. They looked up to dodge another flurry of falling icicles and say what was behind all this. Ice imps! They had recently fought their fiery cousins weeks earlier and knew how to handle these pests. As they fought the imps continued to rain more spears of ice down onto the party. As the imps died they would screech and explode in a blast of super cold air and ice. It was more of an irritation for the party than a threat. However, it seemed all the noise the imps made wasn’t just for show. It had a purpose.
As the last imp exploded so did a giant mound of fur, fang and muscle from the tunnel at the end of the chamber! The battle had awoken the great bear Nobu and he was angry! As he charged into the chamber he lashed out with a giant paw and nearly killed the dragonborn rouge with a single hit. He bit down on the monk’s shoulder causing him to cry out in pain. The barbarian flew into one of his famous battle rages, a smile across his face as he had found a more than worthy opponent to battle!
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| A little wider than this, but this seems proper scale for the party |
Nobu dwarfed the giant bear statue in Bronislav when he stood to fight. The monk even noticed that his hands hurt as he rained blows into the side of the beast. The rouge managed to pour a potion of healing down his gullet before thinking about engaging the raging beast again. All the while the barbarian kept the bear’s attention on him to try and keep the party safe. Sadly, Nobu’s anger could not stop the flurry of blows that began to rain down upon him. The giant bear eventually succumbed to his many wounds and fell. This winter his hibernation would be eternal. The barbarian removed one of the eyes from the great beast and devoured it to honor Gruumsh. The party took a much needed rest that night.
Day two and higher into the mountains they travelled. The snow was sporadic this day. The heavy coniferous forest was beginning to thin as they travelled father up and over the hills and valleys in this mountain range. The only sounds besides themselves were the distant howling of wolves. This was proven true a few hours later. The howling had stopped, but the hunt had not. A quartet of winter wolves had been staking the party and finally decided to strike!
Once again the group flew into action. The freezing breath from these beasts, that so many fear, was of little effect on this group. The agility of the monk and rouge kept them safe. The anger along with the winter wolf pelt he wore, kept the barbarian safe. After a furious start the wolves were put down. The group went about skinning them too. Knowing that their thick fur and hide could be used to fashion more cloaks to defend against the cold. Another day had passed as did more another dozen miles. It was time for rest.
The third day and more travelling. As the day lingered on small blinking lights could be seen flanking the party. They never approached, but seemed to follow them as they travelled. It was troubling, but they continued on for a few more miles until they stumbled upon an old woman surrounded by these little lights. She was hunched over something and looked to be tearing into it. Upon hearing the party she turned to look upon them. What they saw was a hideous sight! An old and very ugly woman dressed in various furs. She had a pronounced hump on her back that gave her the appearance of being hunched over. She held a gnarled wooden staff in one hand. The other held the entrails and organs of the dead dragonborn at her feet. Upon seeing the party she flew into a rage and unleashed a blast of ice and snow upon them. The lights following the party and surrounding her began to move in and attack with tiny bursts of electricity. Lady Millicent had been stumbled upon and was in no mood to talk or trade with the party.
The party split! The barbarian in a seething rage charged the old woman and was met be another blast of ice and snow. The monk dodged out of the way as engaged the floating balls of electric light. The thief along with the archeologist held back by the mules and found another pair of electric spheres. The crone continued to blast the barbarian with ice and snow, but he shrugged off the damage. The monk was able to dodge a few blasts as well while destroying the little electric spheres. He then rushed over to aid in fighting Lady Millicent. The thief and now battle hardened scholar continued to fend off the lights, for the time being.
Eventually, the barbarian was able to drive his sword through the belly of the old crone. Her body crumpled to the ground. The monk went to aid the other two party members. The barbarian was not sure if this “lady” was actually dead so he decided to hit her two more times for good measure. One swing hacked into her side. The other completely removed her head (rolled natural 20 with his vorpal sword ) and ended any further though to her standing back up. As she died, so did the capacity for the balls of electricity ( Will-o-Wisps ) to continue fighting effectively. The remaining spheres where dispatched.
Onwards and upwards….well for a while. Less than 30 minutes after the battle with Lady Millicent, the weather took a drastic turn for the worse. A light snow became a blustery snowstorm. That quickly turned into a raging blizzard that would be the end of the party if they couldn’t find some bit of shelter.
Strangely enough that is what happened. As the storm got worse the party discovered a small one room cottage with a light shining in its only window. They had no idea if the resident would be friend of foe, but it didn’t matter. If they didn’t find shelter, then the cold and snow would easily kill their mules and possibly the rest of the party as well. They approached the cottage and promptly kicked open the door. What they found inside was utter chaos. Looks like they may have found the home of Lady Millicent.
The interior was easily ten times larger than the outside! There were pagers and scrolls littering the floor. A fireplace contained a small crackling fire. A pot of stew was cooking over said fire. There was a long table covered in all manner of herbs, dried meat items and various pieces of plants. A trio of plain pine coffins stood along the wall near the fire place. A set of stairs went up to a second floor that was not noticeable from the outside. Along the wall near the staircase was a set of coat hooks, but there were no coats there. Instead five shrunken head hung there. Finally, they notice three small bowls with the names Spot, Fluffy and Bingo on them. They were placed next to a large round and raised bed.
The party entered and pulled their mules in for safety. They then began to search this room. The papers and scrolls were covered in insane writings. There were apocalyptic predictions, dictated conversations between two people, botched spell descriptions, poems, alchemical ingredient lists, lists of numbers in a repeating sequence, pages from multiple novels, drawings of forest animals, maps to unknown locations, diagrams of strange contraptions and all manner of other nonsense. They cautiously opened the coffins to find corpses of the barbarian, thief and monk with them. The corpses came alive walked forward and began to strike each other in some sort of comedy routine ( Three Stooge-esque ) for several minutes before shuffling back to their coffins. The bubbling pot on the fire was full of a delicious smelling stew, but nobody was brave enough to try it. The dog bowls has food remnants in them, but it looked to be a few days old. They made for the staircase and as they did, the five shrunken heads began to sing a jaunty tune ( something about sunshine, lollypops and rainbows… ).
The stairway against the wall soon turned into a spiral staircase that led into the center of another room. Here they found piles and piles of stacked and smashed crates. A long shelf containing various objects, a table with a dragonborn corpse on it, a pile of furs, feathers, blankets and all manner of clothing scraps that looked to be a bed and more crazy written papers littering the floor. Once again they split to investigate the room.
The dragonborn was of the white scale variety. His body lay in a state of scientific dissection. All his internals had little flagged pins with the associated organ names. There were all manner of strange surgical and possibly embalming tools around the body. The crates contained all manner of gear for mountain travel in various states. Some of this stuff looked as if it was packed yesterday while other equipment looked decades old. The pile of miscellaneous furs and clothing looked to be a bed or almost a nest. Finally, they checked the shelf and discovered more silliness; a necklace of humanoid thumbs, a giant jar of teeth, a pile of licorice root, a small brass bugle, a jar with a pair of preserved and always watchful eyes and what looked to be a jar full of various multicolored rocks ( just a store of delicious rock candy that the party never investigated )…………
The licorice root and general craziness confirmed this was the home to Lady Millicent. Obviously years alone here made her even crazier than she appeared. Lukas checked for the presence of magic, but it was of little help. The majority of the objects in the house emitted a faint glow. Still the party did grab the bugle, the jar with the eyes and the thumb necklace. They then returned downstairs to get some rest but still posted watch. They had no idea if Fluffy, Spot and Bingo would be returning tonight ( they were three alpha shadow mastiffs that would arrive if the party disturbed too much stuff, they did not so no angry shadow puppy encounter ).
A restful night in a mad house and the party was ready for another push through the mountains, hopefully a final push. They walked outside expecting a few feet of snow, but strangely enough, there wasn’t any. The whole blizzard was just more of Lady Millicent’s crazy magic as either a lure or deterrent from her cottage.
The party travelled higher and higher. By midday they were above the tree line and were actually passing through low lying cloud cover as if it were fog. It was if they would never reach this location if it even existed. Well that was until they reached a small valley. At the bottom was a small group of white dragonmen and a pair of what looked to be small wingless dragons. They were armed with spears and shields and once they noticed the party they began to advance up toward them.
It was decided that the thief should go talk to them since he is dragonborn. He reluctantly did so but as he approached he was met by a volley of spears and charging guardian drakes! The party flew into action easily dispatching this group that looked more and more like a patrol. The barbarian managed to restrain a dragonman for questioning. Then only problem is that they couldn’t communicate with him easily. His language was different enough ( actually just very very old ) from the language the thief knew. He was able to decipher some words, but others made no sense. The barbarian tried dwarven and had about the same luck. They did manage to glean that the citadel was near and the dragon was gone. Everything else was gibberish. The barbarian promised to let this guy live if he left now and did not return. He released the dragonman and he promptly scampered off they direction the party had come.
The group stood discussing options now and that was when the low cloud cover thinned out over the hill and valley. Now they could see that just up the next rise was a small road that led up toward a large stone structure. A castle carved into the side of the mountain. Half of it covered in ice and snow. The other half open to the elements.
Thunderdelve Mountain. It was real and they had found it. Now to deal with whatever was living inside.
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