| Session Date | February 11, 2023 |
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| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
| Player Notes | ZZ's Notes |
After a good and uneventful night resting, the party decided to continue exploring. After casting strength spells and making everyone invisible, they made their way carefully across the super slick ice, aided by ZZ and the previously placed ropes, and reentered the previously explored tunnels. They verified that the “alarm” on the small ice wall still sounded when they crossed it.
They moved down the southeast, coming to a four-way intersection. Straight ahead the tunnel descended into a very dense fog. Sirius wondered if it might be an extension of the outside fog but then decided it was too high up to be the same level. Not liking the look of it, they turned more south, first finding a cave with stalactite-type ice formations coming down from the roof. Continuing south, they discovered that the passage was blocked by a full wall of ice from floor to ceiling and side to side. Dane approached it warily to get a closer look. Oddly, when he got pretty close, the air grew warmer. However, the ice was not melting in the slightest. He avoided touching it and peering into it did not reveal how thick it might be, but he sensed it was thick.
Blocked, they now took the more northerly way and came to a larger cavern with a floor covered in frosty crystals. Again leading, Dane used an unlit torch to brush the icy frost crystals to form a path and proceeded, followed by the rest of the party. As they got a ways into the room, the icy crystals suddenly began to swirl about to an unfelt wind, forming a mini ice storm in the room. The ice crystal cut like glass, not on the skin but in the lungs as the party tried to breath. They fled at full speed from the room and the mini storm slowly abated. However, Dane and Mordecai now began to cough uncontrollably, affected by some sort of lung damage. Cure disease from Dane later negated that effect.
Undaunted, the party now crossed the room ferried by the flying carpet. This seemed to bypass the danger and the party regrouped on the other side, where Dane’s sword detected a pit trap close by (it was 30’ deep and icy sided). Still all invisible, they came to a large cavern in which numerous white bats flitted about the high ceiling. Dane used the Ring of Mammal Control to test if he could control one and successfully made it bash itself into a wall.
They entered a tunnel heading northwest for this cavern and immediately saw a Frost Giant. It was clearly alert to some disturbance even if it could not see the party. Sirius quickly grabbed the shoulders of the party one by one and got them to leave with as little noise as he could, and the party regrouped around a corner. They held a brief whispered conversation, but the Giant bellowed out “I know someone is there. Show yourselves, cowards!” In response, ZZ drew his Flametongue and charged the Giant, followed by Dane and most of the others (Burt, his plant, and his other plant -Hans- stayed back). Charging the Giant with a Dwarven battlecry, the party ran forward and into the face of a cone of cold shot by a wand held by the Giant. This disrupted a spell by Sirius and caused him to fall back to Burt and Hans in poor shape. The others carried through the charge and a melee ensued, while Deaglan and Helga peppered it with arrows. Alone against so many opponents, the Giant did not last long and soon was slain. The party found a rather sizable treasure in what was clearly its lair, not the elast of which was the wand it had used.
But there was no way forward except into the fog. Back at the four-way intersection, Sirius cast detect magic and found the fog to be magic in nature (he also soloed back to the ice wall and found it to be not magic). Sirius and Mordecai tried to use dispel magic on the fog, but no effect. They theorized that, if it was a spell of the Ice Wizard, given what they’d seen it must be powerful indeed. After dismissing the idea of messing with the ice wall or returning to the cavern of broken ice, they opted to proceed down, first roping themselves together in line.
The air below proved to be still, chill, and dead with sound muffled by the surprisingly heavy fog. They descended 20’ or so (originally said 10’ but I decided deeper made more sense..makes no real difference). And sensed by sound that they’d entered a very open space. They decided to follow the right-hand wall to the south and moved forward very slowly, Deaglan leading. Visibility was limited to the extreme, perhaps a foot or so only. After a short distance, they could see an object to their left. Deaglan investigated and found a stone block, perhaps 3’ high, 2’ wide, and several inches thick. He examined it as best he could and soon spotted another close by. They looked like nothing so much as tombstones, albeit quite old and apparently long faded. Continuing south, they found more and more of them. Deaglan tried searching for secret doors or the like without result, though the first one he messed with he could move just slightly despite the frozen ground. Sirius suggested a rubbing but this proved ineffective as the slab was simply too old and/or faded. ZZ now cast true seeing to understand what was going on and found that the party was in a frozen, underground cemetery with hundreds of head stones. It was chilling sight. He could see a passage exiting to the east and one to the south, so they decided to continue south and hug the wall.
By surprise (except for ZZ and Sirius), skeletal hands erupted around them now and weird skeletons began to erupt from the frozen ground. ZZ tried to run them but to no avail and a confused melee in the fog erupted. The skeletons were oddly shiny and glossy, and when slain they would shatter into icy remnants. More seemed to be erupting everywhere, so Hans cast wall of fire to create a ring around the party for protection. Several were inside with the party and a few more erupted as they moved, but these were dealt with handily enough. The fog was burned away by the fire but rapidly backfilled, leaving the party on a fiery island as they proceeded south, the sound of many skeletons in the vagueness beyond.
As the party reached the narrower tunnel south, icy tendrils suddenly sprung from the ground and entwined Hans legs. Although he broke free, it was enough to break his concentration on the wall of fire and cause it to vanish. The party fled into the tunnel which was strangely fog-free (albeit misty) and Sirius threw a web to block the skeletons chasing them. One skeleton managed to break through by pure chance and rushed the party, running into ZZ who was covering Sirius. The skeleton struck first, a might swing that severed ZZ’s left arm! It was quickly cut down but the damage was done. The party staunched the bleeding and recovered the limb, while Dane passed the Ring of Regeneration to the Dwarf (and the “can I give you a hand” jokes flowed like wine). While they recovered, a female voice sounded from the north, screaming for aid. The party did not bite.
Shaken, the party proceeded down the tunnel, eventually coming to a larger cave at the center of which was a stone mausoleum or crypt. Gnawed human bones were scattered around it. It was clearly a very old structure, though there was no writing on it to indicate its origin or purpose. Deaglan tried picking the lock and, though successful, the door appeared to be magically locked. So, Hans used his wand once again to passwall around it. Inside they found a sarcophagus with a carved lid depicting a noble woman of some sort, though her features were strangely alien. Around it were strewn many more chewed bones, some not terribly old. After verifying there were not raps, the party slid the lid aside and found a bunch of ancient bones shoved to one side and a large treasure placed within. A large treasure which Sirius sensed a number of magic items. Even better, Deaglan decided to search the inside of the sarcophagus and by good fortune found a secret compartment containing a ring heretofore undetected by Sirius (lead lined compartment). Given the special hiding place, Burt cast identify on it and discovered it was a Ring of Wishes!
The party decided what to do now and realized this was a dead end. The web would expire very soon and there was little they could do to block the skeletons, certainly nothing that would not simply trap them here. So, they started to talk about blasting their way down the corridor with everything they had…