17 - 5/9/24 : Lower Decks

"Your master sought the dark city beneath the ice, and met with an unfortunate end as he disturbed the heart of the crypt. Yet death is no end for one such as he, and he shall return to you when the time is right. When the night is darkest, the fight at its fiercest and death draws nearer than e'er before, he shall return to your side once again when you need his guidance most."  

Hethyl Arkorran

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  As they returned to the ground floor of the keep, Ragna set Fannar down. The two siblings argued about the impending invasion, with Ragna claiming it was a pointless and suicidal endeavor, while Fannar accused Ragna of forgetting what it meant to be loyal to their people. Ragna also tried to convince Fannar again that the duergar were going to bring harm to the tribe and that they needed to be stopped, but Fannar refused to hear it. The two were unable to reconcile, and Fannar took his people to the courtyard so that they could prepare to return and report the mission's failure.   Ragna, Melfina, and Tali checked on the bodies of the fallen Knights of the Black Sword, which had also frozen just as Kadroth's did. They noticed that each cultist was wearing pendants that were shaped like downwards-pointing swords, and the party guessed that these pendants were likely made of chardalyn, given that this would make sense with the cult's name. In a southwestern corner room, the party chanced upon another mock-up effigy of Levistus, made out of a mannequin holding a rapier and a goblet. Ragna destroyed the effigy despite superstition advising otherwise, but no ill effects were made apparent immediately.   Proceeding upstairs, the party followed the foul smell to the speaker's room, where they found Speaker Crannoc Siever sitting atop a chamber pot. Siever had taken ill while being held captive by the cult, but the party soon discovered through speaking with him (through a closed door) that he had handed control of his town over to the cult rather willingly. According to Siever, the cult promised not to harm the populace of the keep if they were given it to use as a headquarters. Given that the keep was clear of villagers, it seemed that they had not kept this promise, and Siever was quite unaware of this fact while on his comparatively comfortable house arrest.   Ragna pulled Tali and Melfina aside and proposed murdering the speaker, since he was clearly unfit for the position and the cult situation would make such an act quite easy to get away with. With Siever out of the way, a new and more capable speaker could be elected to help in the fight against the Broken Blade. While Melfina was quite enthused about the plan, Tali was horrified and protested against murdering someone out of convenience. Ragna and Melfina were able to convince them to let them go through with the act, but Tali remained uncomfortable with the idea.   With the party in agreement, Ragna re-entered the speaker's room and beheaded the man while he was still using his chamber pot. With the foul business concluded, the Lonesome Few continued exploring the keep.   In another bedroom on the second floor, the party encountered a black cat with glowing orange eyes lounging lazily atop a king-sized bed. Suspecting that the cat was magical, Melfina used the tongues spell to communicate with the creature, and her suspicions were confirmed when the cat spoke back.   The cat introduced himself as Touche, and the party soon deduced that he was in fact an infernal familiar in service to Avarice. Touche's job was monitoring the cult and reporting any unusual activity to Avarice. However, since the cult had been dispersed and Avarice had departed, Touche now simply lounged about until it was time for Avarice to summon him once again. Melfina attempted to pet Touche's belly at his insistence, and was scratched up for the effort.   In another nearby room, the party encountered a geriatric, peg-legged dwarf woman. The old woman was Hethyl Arkorran, a sworn servant of Levistus and a soothsayer by trade, who was responsible for handling the initiation rites for the cult. Near her was a table with several of the cult's sword pendants laid upon it, each of them made of chardalyn like the party had suspected.   Hethyl's time was drawing near, and her blunt manner indicated that she knew she would soon depart the mortal world to join her master in the hell of Stygia. In return for a drop of blood to pay her way through to Levistus' domain, she promised to use her powers to divine the answer to one question that the party had.   Melfina happily donated drops of her blood, and asked Hethyl about her master's location. Hethyl focused her magics for a moment, and then gave an ominous answer.   "Your master sought the dark city beneath the ice, and met with an unfortunate end as he disturbed the heart of the crypt. Yet death is no end for one such as he, and he shall return to you when the time is right. When the night is darkest, the fight at its fiercest and death draws nearer than e'er before, he shall return to your side once again when you need his guidance most."   After delivering her final prophecy, Hethyl stiffened and died on the spot, becoming silent in her rocking chair as she slowly froze over just as the other cultists had done. With nothing left to find in the keep, the party gathered their things and returned to the Uphill Climb to report their success to Roark the barkeeper, and to suggest that the town start thinking about choosing a new speaker.   Roark was surprised but gladdened at the party's return. At the bar sat the stable boy Alassar Sulmander, the tiefling servant Mere, and a shaken Huarwar Mulphoon. In addition, a mysterious human woman bearing scars and a large greatsword sat comfortably near the hearth not far from the bar.   After being informed of both the speaker's death and the impending barbarian invasion, Roark agreed that a new speaker was needed, and promised that he would help to get his fellow villagers together to stage an emergency election. As for Mere and Alassar, he promised to take care of the boys and give them work until they could figure out where to go.   The party then spoke to Huarwar, who revealed the horror he was struggling with over his actions with the cult. He had killed people and sold his soul to Levistus, and did not believe he could look his mother in the eye after such things. Ragna tried to rally the lad into doing good with the life he had left, but Roark ordered Huarwar to leave the bar, unwilling to house someone who had committed such crimes against his friends and neighbors.   Promising to speak to Huarwar later, the party then moved to the hearth, where they met the mysterious human woman sitting off to the side. She introduced herself as Ivory Farrowbane, a member of the Via Venatori; an order of warriors known as Blood Hunters, who ingested a potent alchemical concoction to take on aspects of the beasts and monsters that they hunted. Ivory had gone to the area with comrades in the order, and sought the alchemically valuable glands of a remorhaz for a client. None of her fellows survived the encounter, and she barely escaped, leaving her alone in the Taiga just in time for the Eternal Winter to roll in and trap her in the area.   From Ivory, the party learned about the Via Venatori, and talked her into seeking work as a mercenary with the aid of Captain Cinderswift, possibly fighting against the Broken Blade instead of just wandering about looking for increasingly scarce monsters to kill. When Ivory expressed interest in seeking recruits to the Via Venatori from the desperate defenders, the party recommended that she speak to Huarwar about the possibility, since he had very little to live for at the moment. Ivory agreed to speak with him later that night.   Ragna challenged Ivory to an arm wrestling contest before bed, and was barely defeated when Ivory tapped into the power of her blood magic. Impressed, Ragna expressed a desire to challenge her again in the future.   The following morning, the party traveled northwards to return to Lystheim. They met up with Captain Cinderswift at the Northlook, who happily coordinated with Ivory about seeking payment for services to be rendered. The Lonesome Few then suggested that they use the calm-before-the-storm to investigate the wreckage of Cinderswift's ship, the Lady of Pain, which had run aground near the Seacrest Heights to the Southeast, near Hole-in-the-Ice. Cinderswift happily agreed to accompany them, wanting to recover the treasure he had to leave behind when the ship wrecked.   The party, along with the captain, set out the following morning atop their avian steeds, and reached the Lady of Pain's wreckage after a day's journey. As they looked at the partially buried wreckage, Captain Cinderswift recounted the mutiny in his crew that had led to the wreck, from which he was the only survivor. His men disagreed about their sailing into the Taiga's waters, and reacted violently, though he was able to fend for himself until the ship crashed.   Together, they entered the wreckage, and heard the sounds of both large creatures lurking below, and the snickering of a likely much smaller creature on the middle deck. Tali also recognized claw marks from a large dragon on the top deck, giving the mission a new sense of urgency. They proceeded downwards quietly, and encountered a trio of kobolds standing atop each other, wearing a trench coat so as to appear as one tall 'human'. The kobolds introduced themselves as 'Hew Mann', and informed the party that they sought treasure in the ship. Seeing the kobolds as harmless, the party let them come along to investigate the rest of the ship.   On the bottom deck, the Lonesome Few encountered a pair of frost trolls, which quickly attacked. The ferocious creatures badly injured Tali and Ragna, and Melfina accidentally set parts of the ship ablaze with a fireball, but with the aid of Cinderswift and Hew Mann, they were able to prevail. Once the coast was clear, Cinderswift made his way to the secured cargo hold and began to remove the boxes of treasure that had been left behind while Melfina extinguished the fires.   While the treasure was being moved, the ship lurched as if its weight had shifted. The party realized in horror that the dragon that claimed the wreckage as home had returned, and they had little time to react. They quickly hid behind the wooden walls of the cargo hold, but Hew Mann clumsily broke a section of this wall and fell forward just as a familiar draconic head peeked into the hold. Arveiaturace, the mostly blind & deaf ancient white wyrm that the party had encountered weeks ago, sniffed about the hold, getting near enough to Hew Mann to nearly touch them. Ragna quickly yanked the trench coat they were all holding onto, saving them from being detected. However, the dragon still blocked their escape, and crawled down into the cargo hold to investigate further.   Thinking quickly, Melfina concentrated her magics and attempted to banish the dragon for a precious minute. Arveiaturace detected this attempt and quickly reared back to unleash her deadly frost breath, but the spell worked just before the freezing death was able to be unleashed against the party. With little time to move, the party rushed up to the top deck, making it just as Arveiaturace launched herself into the air after returning to the Prime Material plane.   Arveiaturace careened through the air to make a strafing run with her breath, but Ragna thought fast and launched a javelin into the nearby water as a distraction. This worked in the nick of time, and Arveiaturace changed course just soon enough to save the party from meeting a freezing end. As the dragon flew off into the distance to re-orient herself for another approach, the party scrambled off the ship and made their way to safety, watching the Lady of Pain finally sink into the ice floes after being jostled and disturbed by the earlier fighting.   Once safe, the Lonesome Few and their guests set up camp and divvied up the loot. Cinderswift held on to two of the crates for himself, while the party was given the third, which was full of treasure totalling up to about 1,750 gold in value. They decided that this would be enough to acquire the final work from the Anvil of Storms offered by the orcs of Storm's Call. Waking up in the morning, the party found that Hew Mann had disappeared, likely looking for future mischief to get up to. They escorted Captain Cinderswift back to Lystheim, rested for the night after the journey, and then made their way west to visit Storm's Call.   The Lonesome Few briefly stopped in Honeybrook to rest on the way, finding the townsfolk cooperating with their new orc allies with repairs and fortifications. The last leg of the trip to Storm's Call took little time, and they were greeted upon arrival by Thokgrim the Stormlord, who was preparing to bring his fellow warriors to Whiteridge. With his help and that of the shaman and forgemaster, the party was able to forge the final two pieces offered to them; a staff for Melfina called the Thunderer's Mercy, and a throwing axe for Ragna named Lofnheiðr.   As they prepared to return east and make their way to the dwarven settlement of Duhngrave, the party spied a shocking sight in the sky; a floating ship hovering over the Mirrored Reservoir that resembled the ship that Alithkav had crashed upon at the start of their adventure together. Realizing that this was likely the Githyanki vessel that had sent a threatening message of war to the Id Ascendant, Ragna and Melfina agreed to divert their course to check on this vessel in case Alith was nearby and possibly in danger.