DavesGaming

Ila

During the night, we received word that some tragedy had befallen Upper Kuldahar. This was an area we hadn’t visited yet, the village north of the great tree, it was all residential and we’d no cause to head that way. But now we heard a murderous ice storm had frozen the area solid, likely many fatalities. The survivor we spoke described the storm as a living thing, seeking vengeance on the town. We set off immediately to see what we could do.

Indeed, there was a living storm in the center of town. It was the wrath of the ice goddess Auril. This was partly our fault. Okay, truly, its all Lysan’s fault. But it was on us to finish the job.

Our best attempts at melee proved pointless. The bitter cold of the storm was painful to approach, and slashing with sword or crushing with mace seemed fruitless. But we could keep it away from Charity who had other ideas. She started with a Flame Arrow spell that hurt it greatly. So this fight was all on her, the rest of us just kept it distracted. She was nearly down to her last spell when the storm just sort of fell apart.

That was close for us. But it was over for too many others. Casualties were massive for such a small town as Kuldahar, maybe 20 dead? Only one woman was found alive in town (apart from the handful who’d been able flee quickly).

After a day of rest we set off for Dragoneye. Charity wanted a look at a haunted pond we had found reference to back at Kresselack’s tomb, that was nearly on our way to Dragoneye. This was, just a frozen little pond. But it exuded such a strong feeling of sadness. Apart from a few Winter Wolves, there was an old shaman camped out along the shore who explained this had once been a Holy place of sorts. A place where dreams could come true, or at least people had beautiful and happy dreams here. A cave he indicated nearby had been a place where locals gave offerings to the spirit of the lake. But a few years back something changed, and things took a sorrowful turn. Many who came here threw themselves to their death in the frigid waters.
We explored the area and revisited the Shaman. We described things we’d found, but no explanation for the change. Maybe make an offering back in the old cave? Shrimp were the preferred sacrifice. We did this then explored into an ice cave in the pond itself.

Charity thought we could maybe fix this. It might be possible to remove some of the taint that had built here. She needed a sample of the Lady’s water, then we’d check with some of the magically attuned sorts in Kuldahar to come up with a way to cleanse it. Sounds flakey to me, but Charity thought it would help the Lady to move on to a more natural sort of grieving and healing.
Arundel had no ideas, he’s more attuned to nature than magic. Surprisingly the gnome craftsman Oswald had an idea. He gave us a lengthy note for the mage Orrick the Grey, and soon we had vial of water. Ghost Filtered or something? Strange.
But it seems to have helped the Lady. We could feel her sense of peace as the cleansed water was given to her. After this little detour we finally got off for Dragoneye.

Shortly after we caught first sight of our destination.

Actually quite a few lizardmen. Also spiders and beetles. But mostly, those lizardmen. Some of them were fairly tough, and they had priests of their evil god.

We found a large cavern that served as a throne room for a huge specimen of a lizardman. Charity said she was eager to try her new Fireball spell. Jinella grinned big, “target me! I’ve got point!”
I knew that girl liked heat, but she wasn’t kidding. It regenerates her somehow.

We freed a large group of slaves, we’ve armed a few of them to stand watch. But we’ll need to head deeper down and see if there’s more we can rescue before getting this group back to Kuldahar.