| Session Date | February 4, 2023 |
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| Base XP Gained | 2475 |
| Player Notes | ZZ's Notes |
The party proceeded very slowly down the natural cave, Dane using his sword to sense for traps at regular intervals. Finally, the party came to a much larger cavern, at the other end of which was a White Dragon, alert and preparing to attack. The party moved to attack as well, but the Dragon hit them with a blast of icy breath. Though it did remarkably little damage, it did disrupt several of the spellcasters. It also proved rather easy to slay, though a second appeared from seemingly nowhere. It, too, was quickly slain and never got off a breath weapon attack.
The party discovered a modest treasure in the room. ZZ recalled that they’d found a secret door here, so the party, led by Deaglan, did a thorough search, but failed to find one. Instead, the northern end of the room seemed to be an extension of the natural passageway, but was blocked form floor to ceiling by a heaped pile of stones and some chunks of ice. The party decided to bypass this and Hans cast a passwall to skirt around it. This succeeded and the party found themselves in another natural passage. This was quite odd, as ZZ distinctly recalled the rest of this dungeon being finished corridors and the like. Additionally, as soon as he entered the new passage he felt a strange tingle form his jester suite (one which he’d first found in this very dungeon). It was all rather uncanny.
The party discussed this at length and decided that there might be some sort of portal or gateway buried under the rubble, something they’d passed through before but now had simply bypassed. So, they decided to dig out the rubble, Hans warning to keep an eye out for crawling things. Sure enough, as the party began to move the rubble, a large number of normal-sized, but bright blue scorpions crawled out and attacked. Burt’s plant was struck, hit by a surprisingly intense blast of cold that caused a sort of frostbite. Hans then cast wall of fire along the rubble pile, crisping all the scorpions and melting some of the ice. The rest of the rubble was then removed (after it had cooled a bit) without further incident. There was nothing below the rubble, just a natural cavern. The rubble had not fallen from above but had been placed.
The party had a brief debate, but it was clear there was nothing to do but go forward, or leave, so they went forward. They soon came to a T-intersection running northwest-southeast and took the left (NW) direction. They spotted a widening of the cavern ahead, so Deaglan went forward to investigate. With his infravision, he could sense something piled across the larger cavern but it was all uniformly cold. The party now came forward, finding a pile of dead, frozen Yeti corpses, none showing any wounds or indications of how they’d died.
The corridor continued more northerly now. They bypassed a side passage and began to climb, eventually coming to a very large cavern with a floor of broken, opaque ice. Deaglan speculated that it might be the remnants of a lake or pool, now frozen. The broken and uneven ice surface seemed to make the party nervous and, since there was no ledge to walk on, they contented themselves with Mordecai slinging a light coin across the chamber. This did not reveal anything new so, leaving the coin, the party proceeded to return to the previously bypassed side cavern.
About 50 feet or so down that cavern, they found a four foot-high wall of ice blocking the way with a floor of smooth ice beyond. They tossed another coin that direction and the lighted coin simply pucked across the ice without coming to a stop! ZZ now climbed over the wall, a loud screech or squeal rising up from the wall as he did so. The Dwarf was able to walk on the ice without trouble, but realized that it was essentially a frictionless surface and no one else would be able to do so easily. So, he began to run a long rope along the north wall, securing it with spikes along the way. After another 50 feet or so, the passage made a hard turn north. Peaking around, the Dwarf saw a much wider cavern, but crawling with Ice Imps who let fly a number of arrows at him, all exploding into shards of frost when they impacted something. He quickly withdrew.
The rest of the party now followed, using the flying carpet for three and everyone else sliding behind it on the frictionless floor. Rounding the corner, the fight started in earnest. The Imps had four ledges form which they had a large number of archers firing away. On the main floor of the cavern there were more Imps firing from behind rocky outcroppings. Sirius and Iban began by fireballing and cone of colding a fair number of the imps to great effect. This was countered oddly when a great swarm of horseflies appeared around them, making spellcasting impossible; fortunately the swarm remained confined to a specific are so they were able to get clear of it. Most of the rest of the party moved to get to melee while Deaglan and Dane fired arrows from the carpet to good effect. But the Imps had some surprises ready, as well. One had a Wand of Wonder (the source of the horse flies) and began popping it off at the party. One shot caused an intensely loud ringing of bells throughout the cavern, making verbal communication impossible. Deaglan and HelgaVinka were blinded for a few minutes by some weird flashing lights from the third, and last, blast. Undeterred, Helga rushed forward blindly towards where she thought an Imp was and managed to strike and kill it blindly! Sirius threw a grease spell at one ledge and all of the Imps fell off, giving new targets for the fighters and Burt’s plant to reach for melee. Another Imp appeared from nowhere with a Wand of Magic Missiles, firing at Hans but being thwarted by his minor globe of invulnerability. The lead Imp proved to be a spellcaster and fired its own magic missile volleys at Sirius, seriously wounding him. The wand Imp was subsequently slain by Dane and Mordecai rushed to cure Sirius’ serious wounds with a cure serious wounds. Meanwhile, Burt had made his way north behind all of the Imps. Not seeing anything of note, he turned back around and rushed the lead Imp, grabbing him from behind and pinioning him with fair ease. Meanwhile, two more invisible Imps tried to strike Helga from behind but failed. The tied had turned badly for the Imps and soon all but their chief was slain.
The Imp held by Burt was surly and unbroken. He made various threats to the party, naming the Ice Wizard as their impending doom. When asked about his wyvern, he said he did not have one. The riders were “another group” somewhere else. He also told the party that “everyone” knew they were trying to break into the Ice Wizard’s palace, so it was only a matter of time before they were found and slain. The party and their “Dwarven allies” were no match for the power of the wizard. Hans mentioned the wizard Gold a few times but it was clear the Imp had no idea of who he was talking about. When asked the way to the palace, the Imp smirked and said “beyond the graves.” Seeing no further use for him, the party slew him to his bitter curses.
A quick search found a small but decent treasure, including an evil Staff of the Serpent (Adder type), a well as the Imp’s meager spellbook. They also found a number of very small tunnels clearly used by the imps to man the ledges. Seeing as this was a defensible dead end, the party decided they would rest here over night to recover from this fight, continuing their explorations in the morning.