1st Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Finishing the Glacial Rift

We had a nice extended session today to finish the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. It was an exciting day filled with joy and more tragedy. It is unclear if there were any true "winners" today.

We left off with Jarl Grugnir and his consort, Lady Amgroth, flanked by four elite Frost Giant guards and two huge winter wolves, confronting the party. Jarl Grugnir addressed the party, demanding information about what they were doing. Dalron answered, stating that they were here to stop the raids on the human lands and if the Jarl agreed to do that, they won't have to kill him (I'm paraphrasing a bit). The Jarl, feeling he had the upper-hand in this situation, laughed, then told the party that they were only alive because he is allowing them to live to explain themselves. The fact is that both the Jarl and the party were stalling for time. While Dalron was speaking, Bukro, the drow assassin, was hiding behind Dalron, Luapan and Cadwin, drinking a potion of invisibility. While the Jarl did not see the potion drinking, one of the elite guards to his right noticed it, and reached for a throwing hammer he had at his hip. This triggered an initiative for everyone and the fight began.

Bukro won the initiative and managed to go invisible before the hammer throw. Lady Amgroth pulled out a scroll, but had a late initiative and didn't start to read it yet. The party recognized that magic scrolls are bad and immediately focused all of their attention on her. Dalron threw four daggers at her, nearly, but not quite killing her. Sarril followed up with a Boccob's Rolling Thunder that stunned two of the guards (though not before they threw hammers with devastating effect at Dalron) and knocked the lady unconscious - just one segment before she read her scroll. An invisible Bukro tried to move into position to backstab one of the giants, but was set upon by both winter wolves who sniffed him out and gave away his position. The Jarl immediately attacked Dalron and the other two guards threw hammers at Luapan. They mostly missed, but at least one connected for a lot of damage (they threw two hammers per round, for 5d4+8 damage per hit). Cadwin, who had held his action up until this point, realized the party wasn't likely to survive to the end of the second round, and cast an Obscurement spell over the entire area, which reduced visibility for the party and giants alike to just 3 feet. His goal, which succeeded, was to eliminate ranged weapons from the fight.

At this point, things turned chaotic. A bit more fighting took place, with severe penalties as everyone had to guess where their opponents were. Then Sarril got hit with a devastating Cone of Cold spell from somewhere just below him (he was flying in the air at the time). Cadwin transformed into a giant eagle and made a dive attack at a retreating Jarl while Luapan decided to cast True Seeing on Dalron, to allow him to see through the obscurement and continue his devastating throwing dagger attacks. What he saw were 5 Ogre Magi closing in on the party. One was visible, having just cast Cone of Cold on Sarril, and the other five were still invisible, spreading out trying to find opponents. Dalron immediately began shouting "Ogre Magi! Bug out! Bug out!"

Cadwin grabbed Luapan and Sarril grabbed Dalron and they both flew straight up and away. Unfortunately, that left Bukro still on the ground, where the giants finished him off before the one remaining winter wolf (he managed to kill the first one) began ripping him to pieces. And just like that, in only three rounds, the fight was over. A single winter wolf was the only true casualty, as Lady Amgrath was seen being hauled away by two of the giants and they, presumably, had the means to heal her.

The remaining party retreated back to the secret cave hideout they previously waited in. They spent a entire three days healing and replenishing spells. Sarril fiddled around with a ring he had found earlier, and to everyone's surprise, a naked, but very much alive, Pontus appeared in the cave. The ring was a Ring of Three Wishes, and there were now two left. Pontus, very happy to be alive again, gave everyone a great big hug.

On the 4th Day of Patchwall, the party readied for a return to the glacial rift. The plan was similar to before. Using invisibility, flight, protection from cold and detect traps spells, they headed back to the rift. This time, they floated high above the rift and slowly spiraled down to the bottom to check things out. By all accounts, it was now deserted. The party checked all previously unexplored areas and, other than getting attacked by some ice toads, which the party was able to fly away from without breaking their invisibility, there was nothing interesting. They decided to explore one of the two large tunnels going south, which recombined and sloped downward, opening up into a very large cavern. The cavern was covered in carvings and tapestries depicting symbols and images of the frost giant clan and of Jarl Grugnir. A large boulder acted as a door covering a passageway to the west, while another boulder that was previously covering a passage to the east was moved aside. The party explored the passage to the east and found the lair of the two white dragons they had previously slain, along with an enormous pile of treasure.

A Detect Magic spell revealed there were magic items spread throughout the pile, but it would take hours to sort through it all. The party decided this was a good place to camp out and do just that, so Sarril cast Wall of Ice to cover the entrance, and the sorting began.

From a magic-item perspective, there turned out to be less than what everyone was hoping for. Some armor and potions, primarily. They grabbed as many valuable looking gems as they could, and left the coins where they were (there were well over 100,000 coins of all types - but no chests to put them in). They decided to spend the rest of the day and overnight here. In the morning, they replenished spells and continued their journey, using a Shrink spell to remove the boulder covering the west passage.

After exploring a number of empty passages - most of which appeared to be living chambers for frost giants and their guests, and finding most items of value having been taken, the party came to another boulder that Sarril used Shrink to remove. This room appeared to be a prison, and chained to the wall with massive manacles and chains, was a storm giantess. Once the party convinced her that they were not hostile and, in fact, were trying to hunt the Jarl and his remaining clan, the giantess offered to help. She introduced herself as Olgani, an ambassador from her own clan who was summoned by the jarl in order to solicit their aid in the attacks on human lands. When she refused, the jarl imprisoned her and has been using various means of torture ever since to persuade her to change her mind (ineffectively). Sarril was able to free her by casting Enlarge on her manacles, allowing her to slip out of them. Olgani offered to assist the party with the remainder of their search of the rift and defeat any remaining enemies they may find. Pontus decided he was in love with the 24 foot tall exotic woman, and spent the rest of the day trying to woo her (and, as unlikely as it may seem, actually made some progress on this front).

Continued searching revealed a room full of ogres that the party chose to ignore and a holding pen for four hungry polar bears that the party carefully released before running away (thinking the polar bears would likely find the ogres and the strongest would survive). The Jarl's great hall was completely abandoned, and the party left the jeweled throne alone. Searching north, they found a trophy room full of treasures from various conquests. Sarril determined that several of the items were magic and, upon collection of said items, and alarm was sounded. There was no one to respond to the alarm, and it was quickly silenced. Olgani was able to recover her personal armor and weapons here as well.

Further searching to the north of the Trophy Room revealed a concealed escape tunnel. Sarril had Detect Invisibility, Detect Magic and Detect Traps spells all operating together. Detect Traps was indicating a trapped object along a high shelf, completely invisible. Despite being obviously invisible, neither Sarril's Detect Magic nor his Detect Invisibility spells revealed the object. Whatever was hiding it was powerful magic indeed, and, possibly, the Jarl wasn't even aware of its existence. They decided to have Pontus open the trapped box, since he can generally just take anything a trap throws at him. The trap was a poison gas cloud that enveloped everyone within 30 ft. Save or die. Everyone but Cadwin made their save. Luckily for Cadwin, Luapan had a Slow Poison spell readied, which held the poison off long enough for Cadwin to cast his own Remove Poison spell, and avoid death. There's one more wish that Sarril doesn't have to spend.


Next, they found a hidden lever high off the ground. The party asked Olgani if she would pull it, and she did, which caused everyone in the immediate area to teleport away. They now found themselves in a hot, volcanic area. The smell of burning sulfur all around. Before them were a pair of massive iron doors. This must be the entrance the Hall of the Fire Giant King, and possibly where Jarl and the remaining frost giants escaped to.

It is the afternoon of the 4th Day of Patchwall, CY 580, and the party is wondering where they can find shelter to rest before they venture into the hall (hint: they don't call these the Hellfurnaces for no reason).

1st Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Into the Glacial Rift and. . . tragedy

This week we return to the "main" party continuing to explore the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.

After resting for two days to heal and recover spells, the party decided to trek back into the glacial rift. They knew if any frost giants were left, they would likely be better prepared - maybe even setting a trap, so the party took extra precautions. Sarril cast Fly on the three strong fighters, each of whom then were able to carry Sarril, Cadwin and Luapan on their backs. He also cast Invisibility 10 ft. Radius, rendering the entire party invisible, as well as Detect Invisibility on the fighters so they could communicate with each other with hand gestures. It consumed a fair amount of Sarril's daily spellpower, but it was worth it. They used the invisibility to float just above the surface of the ice, ignoring any slick areas or traps while making no noise at all.

At the entrance were posted two very cold hill giants - some of those who had escaped from the burning hill giant fortress. The party slipped right past them and began exploring the caves. Most of the caves in the northern rift were empty except for two area where the hill giant champion and few others were camping out. The hill giant champion would have been extremely tough as he was of higher hit dice than the other hill giants, wore plate mail, carried a shield and had a huge sword. But the party has a specialized double-wielding drow fighter/thief named Bukro with them now, and Bukro does what Bukro does, which in this case meant flying invisibly behind the hill giant champion and completely eviscerating him in one attack. As if three backstab attacks for x3 damage wasn't enough, he also rolled 2 natural 20s on the die. The resulting bonuses and multipliers resulted in over 160 points of damage to the hill giant before he even had a chance to scream. The other hill giant in the room, who just watched who he thought was the toughest fighter in the world get cut to ribbons by a flying, now visible drow, failed his morale check and panicked. But before he could act (it was still the surprise round), Pontus struck at him and Dalron tossed four daggers into him and, with Dalron's giant-killing bonuses added, they were able to drop him before a sound came out of his mouth. The party then went into another nearby cave where three more hill giants were located, and quickly took them out as well.

After Sarril re-cast invisibility on the visible fighters, they party headed further south, into unexplored territory. They came into a room with five stone giants, whom they decided to ignore. In another room they found three fire giants, and decided they needed to take them out. Following a similar plan to before, they started with Bukro doing an invisible backstab, with Dalron and Pontus following-up on a surprise round. This time Bukro came close to a kill, but not quite, so this fight actually went into round 2, where the giants got to hit back. Still, the fight was over quickly and those wounded were able to get healed, but the three fighters were now permanently visible. The party found three large sacks of gold - payments received or payments to be delivered, though it was unclear which.

The party decided it was time to fly down into the bottom of the the rift. From the map they had recovered from the hill giants, they could see semi-circle wall at the southern end of the rift that would be worth exploring (7D on the map below).

The icy mist was heavy down here, so even in daylight they only had obscured vision for 30 ft., and could see nothing further than that. The party carefully stepped into the enclosure, which was about 60 ft. across its diameter. They could see human and demi-human skeletons piled along the interior wall. Suddenly, are large shadowy figure moved across their peripheral vision before disappearing back into the fog. As everyone tried to ready their weapons and get their bearings, anticipating where an attack might come from, in the confusion there was quick flash of something blue and scaly that struck out like blur before disappearing back into the fog. Where Pontus was standing, there was now an empty space. As soon as he could determine where the thing was, Cadwin cast faerie fire and lit up an outline of what Sarril determined was a remoraz. The party launched an all-out massive attack, hoping to kill it quickly and rescue their friend from its belly. Sarril thought he had read somewhere that these beasts regurgitate their victims when killed. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and two rounds later, when they had felled the beast, Luapan and Bukro started immediately cutting open its abdomen. A burning hot magma-like substance poured out, melting a hole into the ice. A magic shield and sword were found inside, white hot, but resisting the magic of the items were resisting the heat. There was no sign of Pontus. May the great Fruztii warrior be remembered.

RIP, Pontus of the Cold Crow Clan

The party had no time to grieve their fallen comrade however, as a shadow loomed overhead and two of the living party members were stricken with fear. Sarril, realizing a dragon was upon them, immediately flew straight up into the air in the hopes of avoiding its breath weapon. Dalron did the same, about 30 ft. in front of Sarril, hoping to get a couple of good head-on attacks in. The dragon released its breath weapon on both of them, but, due to the Endure Elements spell Cadwin had cast on them earlier, the already weak white dragon breath damage was halved before saves, and they both took only superficial wounds. But while white dragons may not be the strongest, they are the fastest and most maneuverable of their kind, and the dragon flew past Dalron and swung around to attack Sarril while getting pelted by thrown daggers from Dalron. One more round of fighting and the party thought they had the upper hand when the second dragon came in and released its breath weapon on Luapan, Bukro and Cadwin on the ground. Sarril released a numbers of offensive spells at the dragon, many of which did not get through its magic resistance, but there was some effect.

The first dragon then managed to hit Dalron with both of its claws in mid-air and get him into a hold. That's when Luapan rushed at the dragon with a heroic acrobatic move. Using the Jump spell to leap off the top of the ice wall, right at the dragon with this +5 staff spear, plunging it deep into the dragon's side in mid-air, then held on for dear life as the dragon sped away with its prey. The dragon flew past the rift and far out over the glacier, making bite attacks against Dalron as it flew. But Dalron is incredibly strong, and was able to make a Bend Bars check to get free of the dragon's grip while Luapan managed to pull himself up onto the dragon's back and pull his spear free. The dragon wasn't stupid. It knew that Luapan would us that position on his back to drive that spear in, and it was already severely injured from Dalron's first assault at it. The dragon went into a nose dive, spinning as it flew and sending Luapan into a free-fall. Dalron kicked himself free and since the Fly spell was still active, he stayed airborne while throwing another volley of daggers at the dragon. The dragon continued its nosedive, straight into the glacier below - dead. Luapan, who was slowly descending with the use of a Feather Fall spell, was picked up by Dalron and together they started flying back toward the rift.

In the meantime, Sarril, Cadwin and Bukro were dealing with the second dragon. Cadwin unleashed two lightning bolts at it, doing considerable damage, but he was very limited with what he could do on the ground. Sarril wasn't having as much luck, and was getting quite frustrated that his spells were not penetrating the dragon's weak magic resistance (it was just unlucky rolls of the dice). Sarril had cast Mirror Image on himself to buy a few rounds against the dragon's claw and bite attacks, but he was nearly out of images and things were starting to get desperate. Finally, in a last ditch effort, he cast Polymorph Other on the dragon, which failed its magic resistance and its save, turning into a sea bass and falling to the bottom of the rift below. The fight over, the party gathered back in the Remoraz nest to search more thoroughly. Although they found a few magic items on the skeletons, they found no sign of Pontus' body.

DM's Note: The question is likely to be raised at this point "why are there skeletons if the Remoraz leaves no trace of its meal?" I had to ask that myself. I am using the 2nd edition Remoraz description which says that anyone swallowed dies at the end of the same round in which they were swallowed due to the extreme heat within the Remoraz. The heat is so intense that any non-magical metal weapons striking the creature melt (and I did forget to say that, so technically Dalron should have lost his daggers that he threw at it, which would have resulted in the dragon killing him as he would have been without throwing daggers to deal with it, but I'm not a perfect DM and the party often benefits from that). I decided that since Pontus had a Ring of Fire Resistance on, I would give him one round to be saved, even though there is nothing in the rules about that. It took more than a round to kill the beast, however, and in that time, even minor magic items were destroyed inside (I did roll saves for the items). Pontus is not only dead, his body has been utterly consumed by the volcanic heat inside the remoraz. There is no resurrection from this. So what were all of the skeletons? My best guess is that this was originally a lair for something else and the Remoraz moved in - possibly eating whatever was here before that created those skeletons.

Jarl Grugnir

After Cadwin and Luapan healed everyone up, the party decided it was time to go again. They were out of spells and in no shape to fight. Only Sarril could fly at this point, so they decided to walk north along the bottom of the rift toward a set of stairs along the northwest wall. Little did they know that the bottom of the the rift is a dangerous place, full of all kinds of foul creatures, like that remoraz. The first thing they ran into was a pack of 7 winter wolves. These weren't so bad. At 6 hit dice, they could only land attacks on a natural 20 against most of the heavily armored party, and their ice vreath was nearly useless with Cadwin's protections in place. The party made short work of the wolves. But the wolves weren't the problem. As they were fighting, they heard a horn blast in the distance, and then felt the ground shake. After they killed the winter wolves, the party continued north to find the stairway they were looking for collapsed, trapping them down in the bottom of the rift. That's when the Frost Giant Jarl, Grugnir, stepped forward, flanked by 6 of his his strongest warriors. He addressed the party "You have beaten my warriors and killed my pets. That earns you my attention. Tell me who you are and why you are here."

And with that, we have ended the session. It is mid-day on 1st Day of Patchwall. The party is out of spells and short one melee fighter. How will they deal with the frost giant jarl? (it probably involves Dalron sticking him with daggers, but who knows).

6th Day of Brewfest, CY 580 - Continuing in the Glacial Rift

It seems like most of our sessions lately have been 5 hours of mostly one big fight. This was no different. Giants have a lot of hit points and take time to kill . . .

The party searched around the smelly cave of the yetis and found two sleeping snow leopards up on an ice shelf. The floor in the area was smooth as glass and very slick, so the party knew better than to walk in and get pounced on when they fall on their backs. Cadwin decided to charm one of the leopards, which worked because it woke up and didn't attack him. Unfortunately, Cadwin had no way to communicate with the charmed creature and Pontus, who looked like a delicious meal, was standing right next him. The leopard pounced on Pontus, who was forced to kill the animal, but not before the second leopard woke up and pounced as well. The barbarian only suffered minor injuries before the rest of the party jumped in and helped finish off the other leopard. After using a Spider Climb spell to get to the ice shelf, the group determined there was nothing of value, and decided to move on.

Heading south along the rift ledge, they reached another series of caves. Cadwin's superior hearing determined that there were giants in these. Sarril cast Invisibility 10 ft. Radius so they could sneak inside and get surprise on the giants. The plan was successful, and Bukro was finally able to show the party what he could do with a triple backstab (the answer was over 100 points of damage and enough to kill a giant). Unfortunately, it was a one-time move that then leaves him exposed. With more giants coming up from another corridor, the group quickly found themselves facing 10 giants. It was a difficult fight which consumed most of the party's remaining healing and other spells, but they managed to prevail.

Knowing they were running low on spellpower and hit points, the party needed to rest of the evening. They decided split into two groups. Cadwin, Luapan and Sarril would search within the caves where the giants came from while Dalron, Pontus and Bukro (all three with 18 strength) worked outside to pile giant bodies in front of the cave entrance. As the three fighters worked on giant bodies, 6 more giants came up from the south along the edge of the rift. Knowing they couldn't take them all on without help, Pontus and Dalron turned the corner to try to ambush them as they came by, while Bukro made a run for it into the cave structure to alert the spellcasters. Unfortunately, half of the giants chased Bukro, and with their long strides were able to catch up to him. One giant cut him down, but just as he went down, he used his innate magical ability to summon four Dancing Lights in the shape of an exclamation point, and sent it 120 ft. down the hall. That turned out to be within 10 ft. of the distance needed for Sarril to see them.

While Dalron and Pontus fought brave and hard, Sarril cast Fly, grabbed Luapan and sped down the hall toward Bukro. Seeing the drow lying bleeding on the floor, Luapan immediately cast a healing spell on him while Sarril read a scroll of Repulsion. It turns out that Repulsion was a great spell to use in this situation. All three giants in the hall were pushed out of the cave complex and over the rift, falling to their deaths. That left only three more to deal with, which wasn't too hard. Unfortunately, at the end of the battle, most of the party was severely injured and there were no healing spells left at all. The party realized they needed to get out of the rift if they were going to properly recuperate, so they promptly exited.

With a barbarian, a ranger and druid, finding a safe and secluded place to rest in the mountains wasn't difficult at all. They went into a small cave away from the rift and rested for two whole nights. They are very aware that the hill giants they were trying to beat here will have likely arrived by now, but there was little they could do about it. They had killed 22 frost giants in total, which they figured was a good portion of their forces, so they've struck a blow either way.

It is now the morning of the 1st Day of Patchwall, and the party is ready to make another foray.

5th day of Brewfest, CY 580 - Now to pay those frost giants a visit. . .

The party had to decide what to do with nearly 100 freed orc slaves, an elf and human prisoner, and a ton of paperwork - evidence of what the giants have been up to. They also knew that some of the hill giants escaped, and could be on their way to frost giant jarl to warn him. They estimated the giants would get there in a couple of days and the party had no way of catching up to them, but they could beat them there if they used the teleportation device they found. Doing so would leave the prisoners at the mercy of the orcs, who could not be trusted, and no one reporting back to Lashton in Istivin about what was found. They toyed with the idea of sending the orcs after the escaped giants, but again realized that not being able to trust them was problematic and they didn't want to replace raiding giants with raiding orcs. In the end, they talked to the orcs, who agreed to return to their tribes, and decided to send the elf and the merchant prisoner to Lashton to report. It turns out the elf prisoner, whose name is Oaklock Gilderlief, is a capable fighter/magic user and the party had plenty of extra equipment to give him, including a spellbook for which he was forever grateful and indebted (its good to have allies in the world). With Oaklock on his way to report to Lashton, the party used the magical chain they found to teleport to the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl Grugnir. They hoped that getting there before the hill giants arrived would allow them to sneak in unexpectedly.

The plan seems to have worked. They found themselves high up in the southern Crystalmist Mountains standing on an ice shelf with cold wind whipping through their hair, but otherwise nothing around. Giant tracks were obvious in the snow on the ground, telling them they must be in the right place. They followed the ice shelf as it sloped down along a fissure. This must be what was meant by the Glacial Rift on the map they found. Speaking of maps, among the papers they found in the hill giant chief's war ready room was a map of the rift itself. (The map didn't tell the players much, but it sure made the DM's job easier).

When the party realized that any one of them could slip and fall on the ice and potentially fall to their death, they decided to tie ropes around their waists and connect themselves to each other. At least several of them would have to fall in order to for the whole party to go. Pontus, who was used to these conditions, pulled out a pair of manticore spikes to use as ice picks should he slip. The only one who had trouble was Dalron, and after several slips and the party struggling to get him to his feet, Luapan decided to cast levitation on him and pull him along like a balloon. That worked fairly well.

The shelf continued down some stairs near, but not quite all the way, to the bottom of the rift. From there, the shelf continued around the rim of the rift and led to a series of caves to be explored. Sarril cast Invisibility 10 ft radius and they all went, invisibly, still tied together, into the first side cave. They found a total of seven frost giant guards, not quite on duty. Four in one room, three in another. Guessing that fireballs and other massive area of affect spells might cause a cave collapse, they decided a sneak attack by the melee fighters was in order. They wanted to see what the drow could do. Unfortunately, the drow, even with his attack bonuses for backstabbing, couldn't hit the first frost giant. He was, however, now visible, and the rest of the party had to cut the ropes connecting them and leap into battle. Of course, Dalron is still a giant-killing machine and Pontus can still take a ridiculous amount of damage and, between the two of them, they soon took out the three giants in the first room.

The noise brought the other four, but Sarril and Cadwin were ready with lightning bolts, which seemed safe enough with the ice. It wasn't enough to kill them all, but it did enough damage that Dalron finished them off in short order. Seven 14 HD frost giants down - easy peazy.

Exploring further they came across a winter wolf mated pair and their three pups. Cadwin sprung into action, casting Animal Friendship on the male and asking it to communicate to its family that the party are its friends. It worked, and the party now has a whole family of winter wolves for now. Around the corner were eight bodies frozen in ice blocks, each holding something of potential value. They understood the breaking or melting these blocks could cause a cave-in. Not only that, but the chance of collapse would be cumulative for each block destroyed. If the party wanted something, they needed to prioritize the order. Luapan cast Detect Magic to determine which blocks contained magic and Pontus used his newly acquired flametongue sword to melt those first. One body looked like a cleric, but with a holy symbol no one recognized (a hand clutched around an eye), and was wearing a ring of fire resistance. Another body had a wand and another a scroll. The party had the smart idea to have the smart idea to have the winter wolves re-freeze the bodies after the melted them to restore the ice column and fill in the cracks that were forming. That actually worked and reset the percentage chance of collapse after the first two bodies were recovered, after which the winter wolves had exhausted their breath weapons for the time being. The last body they were able to recover was wearing a full suit of magical plate mail, but just as Pontus got the body out (he was sliding the bodies out of the room), the room collapsed on his. Pontus took considerable damage, but the party was able to dig him out.

After this, the party headed back to the stairs and crossed over to the other side of the rift. They entered a cave that had a foul, musty smell. As they moved closer to explore, a horrifying creature carrying a magical longsword leapt at the party to attack. This foul beast was intelligent, had white fur and piercing blue eyes drove fear into everyone who looked at it. But no one had to look at it for
long as Dalron quickly dropped it where it stood. It's tremendous howl, however, brought six more from the other room. These were not carrying swords, instead swiping ferociously with their claws. Pontus soon learned when these things got both claws on someone, they grabbed and squeezed, doing both physical and cold damage. The cold damage was reduced, thanks to a Protection from Cold that Luapan had earlier cast, but that was little comfort when being crushed to death. But the party was soon victorious again, though starting to burn through healing spells.

And there it was that another session reached its scheduled end. It is the morning of the 6th Day of Brewfest, CY 580 and the party just killed 7 yetis. This fun is just getting started.

4th day of Brewfest, CY 580 - Trapped beneath the hill giant fortress

The party rested in the dungeon below the hill giant's stronghold. Sarril had a rough night, being haunted by strange dreams of purple and green mists, tentacles and the feelings of insanity. In the morning, both Sarril and Luapan discovered that their connections to their respective gods is more difficult and prayers for spells took twice as long. Additionally, clerical healing spells seemed to be weakened (possibly other divine magics as well).

Once rested and healed up, the party decided to search the dungeons thoroughly, hoping to find another way out. In a previously unsearched room, they found a secret door leading to a hallway full of levers. Another secret door at the end of that hallway led to a large room with portcullis gates, which they assumed the levers controlled. Behind one of the portcullis gates were a pair of insane manticores which attacked the party with their spikes. Although the spikes don't do a lot of damage each, the two manticores were throwing 16 spikes per round, most of which were hitting Cadwin.

Pontus began carving the beast up for a trophy as the rest of the party searched the room beyond. Another room to the north appeared to have some chests within, guarded by two more manticores, calling for another brief fight. Once the maticores were dispatched, Pontus opened the chests, taking on the traps with his superior poison save. Dalron managed to recover some of the spikes and throw them right back at one of the manticores, killing it. As easy as that was, for some reason the party thought the best course of action to kill the other manticore would be to open the gate, causing the large beast to leap on top of Dalron and claw and bite at him. Fortunately, Dalron's superior armor class prevented the manticore from doing any damage and he was able to finish it off as well.

Sarril had earlier cast "Detect Traps," showing that two of the chests were trapped. Not having a thief who could disable traps, however, the party chose to have Pontus open the trapped chests, using his superior hit points and poison saves. The first trap was a blade on a spring that nearly severed a limb, but a lucky roll of the die meant he only took damage. The nest trap was a poison needle, which, thanks to his barbarian constitution, didn't manage to kill him. There were seven chests in all, filled with platinum, gold, electrum and silver coins as well as jewelry. All seven chests went into the portable hole.

Continuing to explore the area, and using Sarril's Find Traps spell to avoid several traps, the party was able to find another set of secret doors leading to another treasure room. This was turning out to be quite the lucrative adventure. In this other room, they found a map and a magical chain, with instructions written in the giant tongue. Since Dalron could read the giant's language, he was able to determine that the chain would transport up to 6 people to the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. Based on earlier documents found, it seems these frost giants were co-conspirators in the attacks on Sterich and Geoff. The party discussed this and decided not to immediately make the trip, but to finish searching the dungeon, specifically an area where the hallway had been intentionally blocked off. They first spoke to the orc slaves they previously freed, asking if they knew what was beyond the blocked off area and if they knew what the giants were searching for with all of the digging. Although the orcs could not say what the giants were looking for, they did say that a strange temple was uncovered on the other side of the wall and that troglodytes had been attacking and harassing them, hence why the tunnel was blocked. The party asked the orcs to help unseal the tunnel while they explore the other side, which the orcs only agreed to do if they could seal the tunnel behind them.

And so the party began exploring another area of the dungeon. They didn't get very far before they found the temple that was alluded to. Cadwin began feeling his way around and was immediately chilled by the cold walls. Pontus could see to the far side of the temple, behind an altar was a wall with shifting, amorphous/swirling purple and green hues that induced nausea to look at. Remembering a similar wall in a temple the party had found in some caves between Hommlet and the Temple of Elemental Evil, which nearly drove the barbarian insane, Pontus decided to leave the room rather than deal with anything inside. Cadwin, who became overwhelmed with nausea just by touching the walls, also decided it was best to leave. And so the party left, not even exploring the rest of the dungeon area, but clearing the blocked hallway and returning to safety on the other side.

It is worth mentioning at this time that the day was nearly over, and we had a new player in the group whose character was not yet introduced. The group was fairly confident that this player's character would be found somewhere in the dungeon and the player, who had grown impatient, blurted out a clue that led the party back to explore a cistern that they previously only partially investigated.

In the cave that held the cistern was an opening in the south and north wall. Water from a stream flowed from the north, into the cistern, which then overflowed to another stream that went out the south end of the cave. Cadwin had previously explored the south tunnel and part of the north tunnel, but this time decided to explore the north tunnel further, finding that it opened up into a large natural cavern with an underground river flowing through it. The stream that filled the cistern flowed from the larger river. The party decided to all crawl through the tunnel and explore the cavern beyond. The river flowed from the northeast, where another chamber of the cavern could be seen, but there was no way to walk there. Using a combination of levitate spells and spider climb spells, however, the party was able to make their way over the river and through.

On the other side, they saw a carrion crawler with a drow elf in its tentacles, about to eat it for dinner.

The party sprung into action, doing what they do best and killing the giant bug, freeing the paralyzed drow. Before they were safe, two more of the things popped up out of the ground, paralyzing Pontus before themselves being killed. The party decided to disarm and tie-up the elf before making camp to rest.

That night, the elf awoke during Sarril's watch. Sarril questioned him and he explained that his name was Bukro Shrazino from the hidden drow city of Ust Natha. He explained that he serves the wizards of Ust Natha, who do not worship Lolth, and was sent to spy on the noble houses of Erelhei-Cinlu - specifically House Eilservs, who seem to have tapped into some great unknown power. Unfortunately, Bukro was discovered, and inadvertently revealed (due to ESP) the location of Ust Natha, which was destroyed by magma a few months ago in what seemed like a natural disaster, but with suspicious timing. And Bukro was not the only one suspicious. There was one lone survivor from Ust Natha, a human sage who lived among the drow wizards who went by the name of Lucas. Lucas told Bukro that he suspects House Eilservs was behind the disaster, and that it was more important than ever that someone discover the secret to their power, which threatens both the underdark and the surface world. Lucas told Bukro that House Eilservs is orchestrating giants to attack the surface world as part of a larger unknown scheme. If he could find out the purpose of the giant attacks, it may lead him to some much needed answers. And so, Bukro came up from the underdark seeking the hill giant chief's stronghold when he was attacked by a carrion crawler.

The story was interesting, but it wasn't until Cadwin cast Detect Alignment to confirm that Bukro was not evil that the party decided to trust him. They invited him to join them as they share a quest to investigate the giant menace. Not wanting to travel into the underdark, and not wanting to explore the rest of the caves beyond the uncovered temple, the party decided it would be best to dig their way to the surface. Since another day had passed, the raging inferno upstairs was little more than smoldering ash. Using the Dig spell, Sarril was able to remove the collapsed rubble at the top of the stairs and make a path back to the surface. It was the first time that Bukro had ever seen sunlight, and it blinded him and burned his skin. Cadwin gave him a cloak and helped protect his exposed skin and his eyes eventually adjusted (for the most part).

It is the morning of the 5th Day of Brewfest and the Badass Motherfuckers are now a party of 6, standing in the foothills of the Jotens where the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief Nosnra once stood.