Session 43: In the Dead of Winter


 * Frosty the wurm time. It is barreling down on Vikrit from its cave.
 * Tork shoots a bolt of lightning at it. Vesun gets down off the boat and heads toward the wurm. Vikrit turns invisible with his armor and runs out of the way. Frosty continues going straight, stops right in front of Mogen and shrieks horribly; Tork, Orielle, and Sarienne are stunned by it. Mogen fires the Mogun directly into its mouth and there's a faint splintering sound down its gullet. Cornerio tries to slap some sense into Tork and Sarienne, but it doesn't do much, so he jumps down.
 * Vesun gives Orielle a loving tap with the Cudgel of Clarity, and she attacks the wurm. Frosty attacks Orielle and Vesun. Vikrit clambers up the side of the ship and shoots the wurm from the deck. Mogen blasts it with a hot potato. Cornerio rolls a natural 20 on jumping onto the wurm's back and then rolls another natural 20 on the grapple check to stay on; it flails around wildly but Cornerio digs his hammer into its back and miraculously hangs on. Sarienne comes to and shoots an arrow. Tork lightning bolts it again while it's distracted by Cornerio.
 * Vesun buffs himself and drinks a Mage Armor potion, and Orielle whacks Frosty with her flail. Frosty tries to throw Cornerio off of it. Vikrit fires off a couple shots but snaps his bowstring with the third. Frosty whips its body around and flings Cornerio loose, and he slides down its back onto the ground; Frosty then chomps on the armorless Vesun again. Mogen rolls a natural 20 firing another hot potato directly into its mouth, "Here comes the airship!" There's a pause and there's a horrible ice splintering sound deep inside the wurm, and a bit of fire shoots out of its mouth. Cornerio rolls a natural 20 AGAIN when whacking Frosty with his hammer, but a 1 on the confirmation hit; he still does a healthy chunk of damage. Sarienne leaps off the boat with her sickles ready. Tork finally gets in range and blasts Frosty to death with a Scorching Ray.
 * Tork, Mogen, and Sarienne go below deck to check on Brezhnia.
 * Mogen asks in Ignan how to help her; she says she needs to fly because it's too cold here--which means we need to fix the ship.
 * Sarienne asks Gettafix what we need to get the ship airworthy; he says we need soarwood to patch the hole in the side of the ship. Vikrit points out geographically this is the area where it grows and points out the forest they can see plus a smoke trail up ahead, around an hour away.
 * Mogen determines we need to get the snow and ice off the ship. Vikrit rolls a 1 on this survival check and thinks it could snow more at any time; he points out the cold here is weird geographically so it could just be magic shit.
 * We discuss the plan: the party will go check out the forest; Dax is trying to clean stuff up in the workshop but Mogen convinces him to work on clearing the snow ("laziness is the mother of invention!"), NPC Vanesse will help watch the ship while we're gone (she broke her foot in the crash but made herself a very shitty boot that she is very proud of) with Orielle and Gettafix.
 * Vikrit heals himself and Vesun heals himself and Cornerio, then armors up. Tork finally gives Sarienne the harmonica he got for her in Sharn. Vikrit tries to figure out what time it is and is freaked out by the sun not really moving; there's a permanent twilight feel to the light here.
 * We head off into the forest. It's very cold.
 * Vikrit notices some soarwood growing and points it out to the rest of the party; Vesun points out that harvesting it might piss off some druids. Cornerio ignores this and manages to whack off a small 1.5 ft. piece and puts it in his pack.
 * We make it to a creek where there is a small encampment. There are wolves circling a wounded owl. Vikrit asks Tork to make a loud sound to scare them off; Vesun belts a song and Tork blasts trumpet sounds accompanying him. Vikrit casts Speak with Animals and hears the wolves whining, "OW!" but not running away. Vikrit yells at Tork to stop and he does eventually.
 * The wolves advance a bit and seem defensive about their prey. Cornerio tries barking at Vikrit and he hears gibberish and part of the word "yellow". The owl is signaling to Cornerio to come to the tent. Vikrit tries to convince the wolves to leave by saying his friends are aggressive; they start barking at the owl after saying it's the only prey left. One of the wolves goes up to Cornerio and he whacks it nonlethally; the wolves run away.
 * Cornerio spots the almost-frozen body of an elven woman. Vikrit and Vesun are convinced she's dead. Sarienne checks the chest in the camp. Cornerio starts dragging the body towards the fire. Vikrit talks to the owl, and it says the woman is its friend and that she's alive; it unsuccessfully dive-bombs Cornerio as he drags her. Vesun notices finally that she's moving a little bit and thinks she's "an ice zombie" (foreshadowing?) so he casts a CMW heal on her; the woman comes to and asks who we are.
 * She says she's a Gatekeeper named Fennel.
 * Mogen says, "We are SO glad to meet you!" Sarienne drags the chest toward the fire, saying, "hey guys, look at all this stuff!" Vikrit yells at her that it’s Fennel's. Fennel says it wasn't like this (frozen) when she went to sleep. She says she came there with some other Gatekeepers, and their leader, Kashani. A few weeks ago they had visitors… who sound an awful lot like the Stargazers, including "one of Godara's chosen" which is why Kashani told them to accept them. Mogen recalls that Godara is an ancient Gatekeeper (Tork, however, does not). They apparently poisoned someone important named Lucien Greatoak, though she says his roots are still alive.
 * Fennel mentions that The Gloaming is expanding. Vikrit suggests the Stargazers likely were responsible. She points out a gigantic cliff of ice that's appeared out of nowhere, and she says that's where they went. She takes out a scroll and casts something, and a small cottage suddenly appears.
 * Vikrit asks where the rest of her group went; she says Kashani followed them because they took something: Lucien Greatoak's heart; she saw him wilt before her eyes. The heart apparently looks like a gigantic rambutan. We all go into the cottage.
 * It's nice and warm in here and there are 8 beds. Vikrit asks where she got it from, she says Kashani, the GK, "walks 2 paths" and made it. Vikrit says Kashani sounds like a lizardfolk name, she says Kashani is one of Godara's chosen like Vikrit, who is confused because his people don't use that term at all, but eventually realizes that she means lizardfolk. She says the legend is that after the Age of Demons, the land was blighted and needed to be repopulated, and Godara brought the lizardfolk over from Sarlona. None of this squares with what Vikrit's clan teaches.
 * Mogen asks delicately if we can chop down some soarwood, and Fennel doesn't recognize the name. Mogen describes it. "You mean Mahana's Pestilence?" It is apparently like a weed, and it would be fine for us to take it.
 * We decide to go back to the ship; Cornerio stays behind to laze around in the magic cottage. Vesun takes out the crystal ball and peers into it, looking for the heart. He sees a large warforged (Dread) dragging a massive thing behind it--the heart--and Castor, Burhan, and the hobgoblin. They are walking across a nigh-endless plain of snow; following the heart is a mindflayer (presumably Konstadin; Mogen recognizes he's a mindflayer) that looks up… and the sun looks super dark like a singularity. Vesun makes a will save and feels a presence as the vision fades, and he sees a terrifying gaunt face in a flash, then it disappears.
 * Vikrit mentions that the mindflayer is probably Konstadin and asks how to kill mindflayers; Mogen doesn't know. Mogen gives Gettafix one of the Messenger Apps to keep in touch. Tork gets his giant wand and we head back to camp.
 * Cornerio and Fennel are napping; we knock at the door and there's no answer.
 * Sarienne starts picking the lock; Cornerio wakes up and gets ready to whap whoever enters. He barely misses Sarienne as she opens the door. We squabble and Fennel says she made us sandwiches. She asks what we saw; Mogen tells her about Konstadin, and she says mindflayers are evil creatures from the plane of madness that were expelled with the Daelkyr. She says the legends are that they came from the future. We ponder this and rest.
 * After resting, we head to the wall of ice. Vikrit casts Easy Climb on it and we all start heading up; Tork and Vesun have trouble and slip down, but eventually make it up. Off in the distance, we can see a large rock formation in the center of a glowing ring.
 * It seems that the 4 druids are there, casting something. The glowing circle fades as they finish their ritual. Vikrit and Sarienne approach and listen in as they talk. "It's no good, the roc did not see them." They sound like they're talking about finding the Stargazers.
 * Meanwhile, Sarienne notices some kind of icy skeleton (a corpsicle?) at the far end.
 * Vikrit moves up and he and Vesun introduce the group; we say that we're looking for the same people they are. Kashani (the lizardfolk) approaches Vikrit and lifts up his head to examine him and says something about being touched by Godara. Sarienne sees the creature pull the druid in the back straight down into the ice, but she's hiding so she doesn't say anything. Mogen and Vikrit notice the creature moving and sound the alarm.
 * The 3 remaining druids (Terris'Kashani, Cicely, Jacques) join hands. Vikrit tries shooting the entombed and the arrows bounce off, even the lightning. Sarienne activates her Deathstrike gauntlets (so she can sneak attack it; it's undead) and slashes it with her sickles, shattering part of its leg. The monster lumbers at Sarienne and smacks her hard; it then tries to grapple her, but she rolls a natural 20 and shoves it away. Vesun blasts it with Searing Light. Tork magic missiles it but it doesn't do much. Cornerio runs and attacks it.
 * The druids finish casting; the area is hallowed. Vikrit runs toward where the missing druid was. Sarienne hits the monster again. Where the other druid was pulled beneath the ice, another ice skeleton (entombed) rises out of the hole. The original entombed hits Sarienne again hard. Vesun raises his holy symbol and turns undead; it doesn't affect the original one, but does affect the new entombed. Tork hits it with Shatter (unfortunately makes its Fort save). Cornerio continues punching.
 * One of the druids comes up to Vesun and begs him to get rid of the other entombed. Kashani moves up to Vikrit, watching him. Vikrit moves up to get near Sarienne and misses his shot at the original entombed. Sarienne starts dragging herself away. The original entombed hits Cornerio once. Vesun closes the distance and crushes the original one's arm. Tork magic missiles it but does no damage. Cornerio smashes it to bits with his fists; the other one continues fleeing.
 * Cornerio whines for healing; Vesun and Vikrit ignore him and run over to Sarienne, and Vesun heals her up. Kashani heals Cornerio. Tork considers using his wand, but he STILL thinks it's a wand of Ice Storm, so doesn't bother; he Scorching Rays the remaining one into a puddle. Vesun finishes healing up Sarienne using his healing wand. The other druids start circling the perimeter.
 * We hear Jacques scream; Vikrit, Tork and Cornerio see him get pulled underneath the ice. Another entombed emerges.
 * Cornerio rushes over and starts hitting the new one. Mogen shoots her second to last hot potato. Vikrit hits it with 2 arrows (still doing no damage) then breaks his bowstring yet again. The entombed hits Cornerio hard. Vesun yells at everyone to get in the circle and moves up to heal either it or Cornerio. Tork mage hands and picks up Cornerio, but he wriggles out of his jacket so the entombed doesn't get an AoO on him.
 * "Are you going to scream 'put me down'?" "I think that's his natural response to being picked up by anyone."
 * Kashani finishes casting her spell; a wall of thorns shoots up. Sicily runs over. Cornerio disengages and Vesun heals him. Mogen fires her last hot potato and crits, completely melting the entombed's arm. Vikrit and Sarienne climb up onto the rock with Mogen. The entombed goes up to the hallowed circle but appears not to be able to enter. Vesun casts Cure Critical Wounds on it; the skeleton writhes around inside the ice and is nearly finished. Cornerio uppercuts it and its head flies off, then it shatters.
 * Kashani is breathing heavily. She says that we must have been sent by Godara. We talk about what happened. She thinks the Stargazers have breached the seal, and that it must have been divine intervention that we arrived to help them.
 * We follow her to the top of the ridge. There's a huge featureless landscape in front of us; we can see the eclipse-like thing, a singularity in the distance, and we feel a tug pulling us in that direction.
 * Off in the indeterminate distance, we can see the 5 figures of the Stargazers as they drag the heart behind them.