Players (Characters)
Scott (Rain)
Jeremy (Grokk)
Catherine (Amber)
Rachel (Horkina)
Tom (Garlen)
DM: Tony
As Rain looked over the three pages of clues, he noticed the first line of each poem seemed out of place, but that they seemed to fit better with each other. This suggested the "keys" might be a way to get into Roland's tomb on Occipitus. Amber stood in Roland's tower and cast hindsight, viewing the events of the previous month in accelerated motion and gaining insight into Roland's plans. He'd spent a lot of time contacting elderly dwarves regarding the mines of Kerah, cast several divinations, researched and created something like a prismatic sphere within a defensive structure, and created a "grocery list" of important objects including a mithral mining golem. He'd been developing plans to safeguard his own tomb, as well as plans for the Rubble Rousers to be able to make their way inside. The vision also showed Roland creating the magical painting with his father as his last action before the nondescript figure threw the antimagic dagger at him. The figure followed by digging through Roland's desk, taking his dagger, and touching his brooch to teleport out as Roland's body dissipated.
Amber also cast a Vision spell (through Miracle) to gain information on the Snowbound Queen, a name Rain recognized as referring to a great white dragon. The Snowbound Queen was only two generations removed from Tiamat, living in a place often referred to as "the cursed glacier" at the northern end of the world. Even small pieces of her, like single scales, were heavily prized and used to make magic items. Skye's adventuring shop had a brooch of minor cold resistance that had been made from one of her scales, so Amber borrowed it to allow her to cast discern location, finding good coordinates for the crevice the Snowbound Queen lived in. Unfortunately, the distance was too great to teleport all at once, so the party stayed the night in Kerah before making the final teleport.
In the morning, Amber and Garlen gave the party protection from cold, ability to walk on snow, and ability to turn into gaseous form. Amber also gave the party several other protective effects. The party teleported to the glacier, finding themselves in the middle of a nasty, windy blizzard. Amber again rode on Garlen's back because she couldn't reliably fly in such winds. The party fought against the strong winds, walking for over an hour before they reached a calmer area near the opening of the large crevice where the Snowbound Queen lived. In the distance, the party occasionally spotted huge animals through the hazy snow. At the head of the crevice, an intelligent polar bear and a pair of huge white tigers looked at Amber's symbol of Ehlonna and smiled. "There's something unnatural here. She sent you to fix it" they said. Garlen asked what had happened, and the bear tried to explain "dead walk. He came and stole our friends. Came and collected dead. He dead." The party knew they'd be fighting undead, probably some sort of lich.
Some distance down the crevice, the party heard a cackling voice speak out: "Snowbound Queen, my rotten ass. You're nothing now. My mistress has given me what I need to defeat you." A loud sniff was followed by "I smell warm blood. Since you're busy, I'll entertain them" and another cackle. Just around a bend in the icy crevice, the cackling lich-cleric of Wee Jas stood surrounded by his minions and looking into an icy block that held a beyond-colossal dragon and her minions. Garlen immediately sparked flame on his swords and charged at the frontmost undead minion, some sort of ice scorpion that fell quickly to the ranger's blazing blades. A Winter Wight breathed a cone of cold at Garlen and Amber, hurting her slightly and missing him entirely. The lich disappeared and rematerialized at the back of his pack of minions, covered them with a shadowy aura, granted them a life ward, and surrounded himself with an antilife shell. An undead troll-dragon wielding an axe shaped like a saber-tooth tiger breathed a line of lightning on Garlen and Amber. Amber responded by triggering her bead of karma, flying above the pack of undead, and speaking a Holy Word. A heavily armored undead polar bear stood paralyzed and a pair of zombies carrying icy spears went blind and deaf. Amber also used three spells to dispel as many magical protections as she could, including the shadowy aura, which prompted the lich to shout many profanities.
A skeleton in an icy body seemed to swim down into the ice below, and then came up next to Garlen, but missed his slightly-blurry figure due to his recently acquired cloak of displacement. What looked like an icy human mummy cast a spell of Ice Flowers on Garlen, making the terrain difficult to pass but dealing very little damage. Horkina drew her "axe of kicking your ass in many varied ways, sucka" -- which she nicknamed "Mr. T" -- and her construct-bane axe, and shattered the huge ice golem that stood in front of the remaining enemies. Rain carefully and acrobatically made his way into the middle of a group of undead, holding his breath due to an unnatural stench. Amber triggered her fire seeds, heavily damaging a frost giant ghoul. Grokk furiously leaped at the icy skeleton, crushing its icy frame several times and leaving it barely functional. The heavily damaged ghoul and the blinded zombies retreated toward their lich master, allowing Rain a chance to deal a painful blow.
Garlen attacked and destroyed the icy skeleton and then tumbled behind the Winter Wight, which clawed and bit him, lighting a black flame on his body that threatened to suck out his life force. The lich cast Shield of Law on himself and his minions, and conjured an unholy-enhanced ice storm that healed some of the damaged enemies. The dragon-troll jumped out of the reach of Garlen and Rain and hit Amber in the back of her head, stunning her. She fell toward Rain, who caught her and set her on her feet. The strange mummy created an extraordinarily cold burst that slightly injured most of the party. Horkina used Lightning Throw to hit the mummy and the lich with her Mr. T axe. Rain took a stab at the Winter Wight and Grokk stood over Amber to protect her. The blind zombies continued to retreat, drawing attacks from Rain and Horkina in the process.
Garlen stabbed the Winter Wight several times, killing it and casting haste on himself to counteract the slowing effect of the Shield of Law. The lich continued dealing out icy and unholy damage, but the party continued to resist significant amounts of it. The dragon-troll used his own Lightning Throw on Grokk and Amber, causing her Fortunate Fate to trigger due to the serious injuries she'd taken. Amber cast Bigby's Grasping hand on the lich, but it turned back on her, having no effect due to her freedom of movement. She cast another, which failed due to the lich's own freedom of movement. She then cast greater dispel, which his ring counterspelled. He taunted "you think you can take a cleric of the god of magic?" Amber's fourth spell then dispelled most of the lich's protections, including his antilife shell, leading him to shout even more profanities. The mummy tried and failed to trap Rain in a tomb of stone, and Horkina used truestrike to hit the mummy solidly. Rain tumbled into position behind the lich and waited for another party member to provide him with flanking. Grokk's mind suddenly focused in on the lich, so he leaped and hit it right through its blurry magical concealment, giving Rain a clear shot as well.
Garlen jumped over the icy rubble and cast Lion's Charge, allowing him to kill the dragon-troll with several stabs. The lich fired off more ice and unholy energy, and cast a spell the party wasn't able to recognize on himself. Amber used Mass Heal to restore most of the party and harm the remaining undead. The mummy used harm to restore herself, but it turned out to be worthless as Horkina smashed her to pieces with both of her axes. Grokk focused all of his rage on the enemy lich, cutting it to pieces with several furious strikes. The lich exploded, injuring everyone around it, and the ice wall shattered.
As the ice wall collapsed, the white dragon's minions began to move aggressively toward the Rubble Rousers. Suddenly the Snowbound Queen called out "halt", and everyone and everything in the area was magically compelled to hold still. She spoke out "it's not that I couldn't have handled that eventually, but many of my children could have been damaged, so, thank you. And you," she said, looking at Grokk, "you wellspring of chaos, for you." The axe the dragon-troll had wielded floated into Grokk's hands. "He took this, but now it's yours." A chorus of female voices called Grokk a "useful tool", and he expressed his somewhat confused thanks to them. The remaining undead, unable to act, fell quickly to the fury of the Rubble Rousers and the Snowbound Queen's minions. The Snowbound Queen agreed to allow the party access to a powerful artifact, the Staff of Winter, if it was needed. Grokk experimented with his new saber-tooth tiger shaped axe, "smiledon", as the party returned to the warm comforts of Kerah.
Roland's book provided the party with one more poem:
"Hell will tremble at the sun's ascent
Where demons and angels mingle freely
A battle will soon ensue
An abyssal army marches on Ober
Seeking the keys of magic true"
Rain recognized Ober as a legendary school of magic located in the outlands.
There is a full size image on Djinn_In_Tonic's photobucket site.
