Session 4. - Into Salsvault

General Summary

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26th of Hearthfrost, 1439 A.P.

 

The cold chill set in as the memories of the previous night faded. The party double checked the map Elro had provided and after identifying a couple familiar landmarks, they set off towards Syren's Vale.

  The path through the mountains was bitterly cold, snow filled and thanks to the wildcraft of the two rangers, far less treacherous than it could have been. After about ten days of hard travel over very inhospitable terrain they reached the small prospecting village of Syren's Vale. Barely more than a semi-permanent collection of Yurts nestled in a valley within the Eiselcross, Syren's Vale was a common basecamp for anyone exploring mountains in search of the ruins of the ancient flying city of Aeor.
  When the group entered the small group of tents that made up the main village, they were approached by a tall, female Leonar with a shaggy red mane barely seen through her winter furs. She introduced herself as Morganna Huntress and welcomed them to Syren's Vale, after jokingly assuring them that it would get cold soon enough. When the party didn't laugh at her little joke, she seemed a little hurt but brushed it off and moved on to questioning why they came. When they told her about Urgon's passing and the Frigid Woe infection in Palebank Village, the leonar was sympathetic to their plight. She admitted that she hadn't known the little gnome personally but he was a frequent resident of the camp and confirmed that he indeed was close to Orvo Mustavit. With that she asked them to follow her.
  She continued to talk as they walked through the small village. Morganna pointed out talked as she walked and pointed out the clusters of others (mostly humans and elves by their size - it was hard to tell with all the furs) saying some were headed out on expeditions to search for Aeor's lost treasures and others were setting off to look for one of their lost prospectors. Eventually she stopped in front of a large yurt and beckoned to them while saying "You can stay here. Belonged to a fool rich elf named Bertron who came here looking for adventure. He found the inside of a saber-toothed tiger instead. Should be some food and the like in there. It’s yours now.” With that she walked away and the party went inside to warm up and rest.
  After depositing their gear and having a short rest where both Arbor and Oorr stayed suspiciously close to the fire (while trying to not look like they were suspiciously close to the fire), the party went out searching for clues. The rangers both needed arrows for they had depleted most of theirs on the journey over the mountains. The blacksmith worked mostly on a barter system but took pity on them in their bedraggled state and sold them each and handful of arrows for a few coins. They debated going to Orvo next or checking in with "The Buyer", a mysterious elven mystic who Morganna said purchased most of the ancient relics that the prospectors found.
  In the end they went to The Buyer first, hoping that he might have a cure to the village's (and Oorr and Arbor's) problems. Unfortunately, the Buyer had no supply of the antidote in stock, and had not seen any in several years. They did have an endless supply of knowledge in the form of a history lesson surrounding the origins of the disease but the group tuned it out almost completely and were only brought back to the conversation when The Buyer offered to pay them large sums of gold for samples of both the disease and the antidote. After settling on a price that seemed like a king's ransom, the party asked if The Buyer could identify the magic items they'd found so far.
  The Buyer was able to do so for a nominal price, and even commented that he remembered identifying the twin of Arbor's dagger for Urgon several months ago. None of the party corrected him and after they were done, they quickly left in search of Orvo, Urgon's partner
  They found Orvo, a genial goblin, sitting in front of his tent cooking dinner. At first, he was open and friendly and had an atypical personality that didn't fit the traditional goblin stereotype of greedy self interest. However, as the conversation progressed, he consistently quizzed Arbor on the Rules of Accquisition and seemed very suspicious of him. When the party told him of Urgon's fate, he broke down and wept, genuinely hurt by the loss of his friend. He told the party of his and Urgon's adventures finding the Salsvault and where they found the vials containing the frigid woe. Orvo assured them he never handled either of the vials himself and had long since sold his cut of the loot to The Buyer. After giving directions to the Salsvault, Orvo cut the conversation short, saying he wanted to be alone with his grief.
  The party headed back to their yurt and prepared for the next step in the journey. They briefly debated joining one of the expeditions to find the missing prospector but didn't want to delay their own search any longer. The directions Orvo had given them said that the Salsvault was hundred miles further north across an area described as the Thin Sheets. By their math, they figured it would likely take them at least another six days to get there and likely the same to get back here. Not to mention the week and a half back across the mountains to Palebank. There was worry that they wouldn't be able to make it back in time to save the village and when Arbor finally admitted that he was symptomatic and was starting to lose feeling in extremities, it added a further sense of urgency and sealed their decision.
  The party took another night to rest and set off early in the morning. The first day was uneventful and they made good progress. On the second day they were still within the treeline and they came across a small group of young Jotunar tribesmen that were hunting a pack of sabertooth tigers as a right of passage. They had run out of arrows and asked if the party could spare any. While, Deadeye was amenable to helping them, Urith insisted that they should succeed or fail on their own merits. The party left them to their hunt and continued on.
  Late on the third day, just after they'd left the treeline and were well out onto the Thin Sheets they came across a lone Saurial. He seemed to be raving and was, as Urith called it, frost mad. They kept their distance, fearing further infection but he collapsed in the snow and when they tried to help him, they realised that he had been infected by frigid woe and was frozen solid. Arbor volunteered to search him, figuring he couldn't get infected twice, but other than the shattered fragments of a frigid woe vial, the stranger had nothing on him and they had no sense of who he was or where he came from.
  The party left his frozen corpse in the snow and carried on. Subsisting on Urith's magical supply of good berries in lieu of real food. They had no real further encounters on their way across the sheets, though they did cross over the trail of a large group of humanoids heading in a roughly similar direction and once they witnessed a giant ice worm erupt underneath a herd of caribou (at a relatively safe distance).
  When they felt they were close to the location Orvo had given them, they started searching for any signs of the ice mephits that they had been told to watch for. They slowed their trek, contining north as they sought for any signs of the small elementals. The first day was unsuccessful. As was the second. It wasn't until mid-morning on the third day that they came across one of the elemental creatures. It was far enough away that it didn't notice them and so they trailed along behind as it made a beeline through the icy wasteland.
  As they were tracking it, it passed by a large camp and veered far around it. Oorr was intrigued and snuck closer to the camp before hastily retreating back to the group with bad news. The camp was filled with over thirty Bhanjax of various species. Oorr identified maybe ten Oghrym and at least two Mournghrym among the smaller Bhanjax. The camp looked like it had been there awhile and was likely the source of trail they'd crossed over earlier. What stood out for Oorr though was that they had digging equipment and were likely looking for something.
  After a quick collective affirmation that attacking the Bhanjax camp would be fatal, they jumped back on the trail of the mephit. After a short trek, they found it and a couple of others circling around a large stone entryway.
  The mephits finally spotted the party and started to attack. The fight was brutal with the little elementals being far stronger than expected. As the fight continued, the party realized that it didn't want to keep facing them out in the open. They headed to the entryway and Angrar forced open the door which was frozen shut. Once the door was open however, the mephits gave up any pretense of fighting and raced inside. Oorr followed them in only to discover that the little creatures had activated some mechanical defenses in the form of animated armour. Both the mephits and Oorr retreated from the hard hitting constructs.
  After managing to dispatch the mephits back outside the entrance, the party waited for the constructs. However they quickly realised that they wouldn't follow them outside the entryway. After quickly ensuring everyone was healthy, they headed back inside searching for the guards. They noticed that the structure sloped dramatically towards the eastern wall. In the first room they found a metallic statue that they assumed was one of the animated guardians but it didn't move, even when they took a swing at it. The next room they headed into had two open chests with sand inside just as Orvo had described. They could even see the two small sets of tracks in the grime and another set of human sized prints leading further south that they assumed belonged to the animated guardians.
  While they were searching the room, they must have made some noise as both suits of armour charged into the room and attacked. After a prolonged grind of a fight, the party managed to do enough damage to sever the connection holding the armour together and they collapsed noisily into the rubble.
  The room that the armour had come from was explored next and it looked to be some sort of smithy. As they were rooting around in the rubble, Oorr saw a boot sticking out from under one of the piles and he swore that it moved. Conscripting Angrar and Sujlurn to move the rocks, Oorr was certain he was rescuing a fellow adventurer (possibly a maiden in distress). Unfortunately the boot didn't belong to an adventurer or even a maiden. It belonged to a zombie wearing ancient tattered robes that attacked as soon as it was free.
  The party quickly dispatched it but were warier around the rubble in case there were more of the undead hidden. When they searched the zombie, the discovered a set of mithril smiths tools in his apron. They pocketed them for future sale and then Oorr had to pick the lock on the Eastern door before they headed through.
  Beyond the locked door was a long corridor with several doors leading off of it. The nearest door on the North side had a red X painted on it. Before the group had a chance to really investigate any of the doors, they realised they weren't alone in the corridor. Three more zombies in robes wandered the hall. Thankfully the zombies didn't notice the group until they came into the hallway swinging. The zombies fell fairly quickly to the attack, though one stubbornly refused to die, no matter how many times Urith filled him with arrows. It wasn't until Suljurn smashed his head in, that it finally collapsed.
  After a quick debate, the party decided NOT to open the door with the red X on it, instead opening the first door on the southern side of the hallway. The room turned out to be some sort of weapons storage that had not survived the crash. Broken, bent and rusted tools and weapons scattered across the floor making the room difficult to traverse. When Oorr went in to investigate, he saw there were no other exits and a thin layer of frost rimed everything. As they started searching through the rubble, hoping to find a magical replacement, they were surprised when five of the least damaged weapons leapt into the air and started attacking them.
  The weapons danced around and were surprisingly difficult to hit or pin down. With time and after surviving several bloody slashes, they severed the weapons magical connection and they fell to the floor. With the weapons now dormant, Oorr resumed his search of the room and was rewarded with finding an ancient longsword of a similar design to the dagger Arbor carried. It was rust free and sharp as a razor and likely well over 1500 years old. Suljurn greedily claimed it for himself despite Angrar's initial dissent. None of the others got involved as they were busy discussing whether or not they should rest and in the interests of keeping the peace, Angrar backed off and let the paladin take the blade.
  The group, were beaten up but not broken and decided to explore one more room, hoping to find the cure. They picked the second door on the southern side of the hall and when they opened it they were enthused to see various pieces of laboratory equipment across several tables throughout the room.
  When they fully entered the room they discovered they weren't alone. A humanoid male in similar robes to the zombies, shuffled around to the various tables working on something seemingly oblivious to the party. They tried to get his attention and when he turned, they saw his withered mummified face that marked him as one of the undead. He angrily shouted at them in Old Meradic and Suljurn was the only one able to piece together what he was saying. He wanted to know what they were doing in his laboratory and asked how the war fared. They managed to discover that his name was Ferrol Sal and that he was the chief researcher in Salsvault searching for ways to defeat the Bhanjax and hopefully Dhamoc himself.
  They were going to ask him about the cure when Angrar said something and drew Ferrol Sal's attention. He started screaming about him being an abomination and flew into a rage and attacked, focusing all his attacks on the half-ghrym giant. The undead Sal attacked recklessly and managed to get several good hits in that withered his foe but Angrar was hardy enough to withstand the assault. With Sal focused on Angrar, the others were able to concentrate their fire and the wight eventually went down.
 

They searched through the wreckage of the lab, hoping for an antidote but only managed to find what amounted to another vial of frigid woe. With Angrar on his last legs after that fight, the party headed back to the weapons room and used the bent weapons and tools to ensure the door was barred. They then lit a small fire and tried to get some rest, hopeful that tomorrow they'd find the cure.

Rewards Granted

• 256xp
• Mithril Smith's Tools
• A Magical Aeorian Longsword

Notes