Hammer 27, 1489
Dre'zel my love,
Angajuk shuddered as we breached the surface and saw the island of Solstice encased in fog, floating to the north. A massive, crowned skull was faintly visible far off through the mist.
Angajuk brought us to the southeast corner of the island, where we found a massive dock made of beautifully carved ice. Clearly made for giants, the dock was in good shape, though some portions had shattered and fallen into the sea.
Beyond the dock were giant steps leading toward the center of the island.
Intent on waiting for Auril to depart before we boarded the island, we agreed to remain on Angajuk and circle the underside of the island until midnight, hoping to find the sunken Ravager Taimen had heard about.
Circling clockwise, our search didn’t take long. After passing by an ancient sunken ship, we found the partially submerged Ravager.
The protective bubble vanished as Angajuk broke the surface and Taimen led the way up the anchor’s large chain. As I scrambled up the side of the ship toward the bow, I heard shuffling on the deck, and Taimen said the boat was haunted by undead.
From the top of the bow, I saw corpses littering the deck, and as my companions boarded, many of the corpses rose and shambled toward them.
I climbed onto the bowsprit and shot two ghouls down from the nearest crow’s nest. Ambrose cast Spike Growth on the center of the deck, and JoJo promptly slipped into it.
Then Talyth was there, and summoning her divine power, destroyed seven of them, their remains blowing away like loose snow.
More ghouls scrambled over the sides of the ship to the deck. As two of them charged at me, I shot one down as I withdrew further onto the bowsprit. As the other lunged at me, I let myself fall off the tip of the bowsprit, and it fell into the water as I used my slippers to hang onto the underside of the bowsprit. As I ran along the bowsprit’s underside, I gave Angajuk a wave as it swallowed the falling ghoul.
When the battle was over, Taimen pointed out that the captain’s quarters were submerged underwater. Rowan and I entered the freezing water first.
Within, we found a glorious-looking trident encased in glass. Investigating the enclosure, I detected a trap. Stepping back as far as I could in the captain’s quarters, I shot an arrow at the glass, and electricity briefly sparkled around the glass as it shattered. I also found a journal that seemed to have been written by the captain. Emerging from the quarters, I handed both to Taimen.
Further down in the ship, we found a chest containing 2,500 gold coins.
As we were gathering our loot, a creature appeared on the crow’s nest. The 7-foot-tall, hunched bipedal creature had the head of a snowy owl with ram's horns, cloven hooves, sharp, black talons, and grayish-white wolf fur covering her from the neck down. After a moment, the creature—who Talyth later explained was the Cold Crone of Auril—disappeared. Talyth was dumbstruck.
We were silent until Angajuk returned, but JoJo immediately blurted out to the whale that Auril had been there, and Angajuk fled before we could explain. Chastised by his companions, JoJo spoke with a fish and asked it to retrieve the whale. It was two hours before Angajuk returned.
After explaining the misunderstanding to Angajuk, we loaded the gold onto the whale’s boat and continued to circle the island.
We soon found a mostly submerged ship inhabited by merrow and continued around the island.
We continued around the island until we found a fully submerged giant vessel. Rowan, as a plesiosaurus, Ambrose, as an octopus, and I explored the ship. Long-dead frost giant corpses were still chained to the oars. There was a thumping coming from the front of the vessel, where an undead frost giant was still drumming a steady rhythm for his long-deceased rowers. When it saw us, it rose, dropping its mallets and grabbing the giant chain attached to a massive anchor. Swinging the chain through the water, it hurled the massive anchor toward us. I rode on Rowan’s slick back as they swam away, and Ambrose released an inky cloud to hide our escape.
We continued to the island’s western side until we found a giant upside-down coracle made of whale-hide near the shore. Angajuk snorted with disapproval as we approached and saw a door and windows carved into it. The light from the windows revealed the silhouettes of multiple women, one of them emerged singing to her “sisters.”
Taimen soon confirmed my suspicions that these were hags, recognizing the singing hag as none other than Maud Chiselbone! I eyed Taimen with some suspicion, gauging her reaction to the discovery. She expressed no interest in engaging with them, and to my surprise, neither did JoJo, who these very hags had enslaved. JoJo insisted that he did not want to risk endangering Taimen’s family, failing to understand that these hags could not be trusted, including their threats. But seeing how much Talyth wanted us to save our strength for the island, I acquiesced.
We continued north until we found a ship with its deck ripped off. Giant clams covered the floor of the hull. We quickly searched the clams but found nothing for our efforts.
As we continued around the island, Angajuk soon pointed out the dock where Nass had departed for the island.
Safe in Angajuk’s bubble, we decided to take a long rest so we would be at our best when we entered the island, while Auril covered the north in darkness.
As soon as we climbed the giant steps from the northwest dock to the island itself, an ice mephit was waiting there and chirped “Söpo” at us.
Taimen said it was willing to be our guide and that it could lead us to Nass. We hesitantly agreed and followed it toward the center of the island. The light mist permeating the island was surprisingly oppressive, making it hard to catch one’s breath.
An hour later, we reached an ice garden filled with frozen cadavers. In the center, an outstretched hand protruded from the snow, holding a smoky orb. A white weasel standing next to it turned to look at us. As we approached, the orb spoke, introducing itself as Professor Skant.
I accompanied Talyth as she retrieved the orb. I retrieved the weasel, but after eagerly climbing up my arm, Zelennor quickly jumped onto Talyth’s shoulder and made itself comfortable.
A large ice troll appeared from across the garden and charged at us. Ambrose put a spiked growth in front of it, as I sank an arrow into it and Taimen blasted it with a chromatic orb of fire.
As the troll charged across the Spiked Growth at Talyth, Rowan hit it with a Burning Sphere, and it went down.
With the battle over, we conversed with Professor Skant, who shared Nass’ plans to retrieve The Codicil of White from Grimskalle, the ancient home of the frost giant queen, Vassavicken. It claimed to be an expert in the subjects of Netherese history, vampires, fine wine, and terrasques.
After another hour, we reached a six-hundred-foot-tall mountain of glacial ice. Enormous stairs of ice, clearly made for giants, wound up the mountain to the fortress’s entrance. The double doors were made of huge slabs of solid ice. High above, the mountain’s peak was carved to resemble a gigantic skull wearing a spiked crown.
As I climbed up the skull mountain, Rowan transformed into an eagle and ferried everyone else. Peering through the skull’s eyes, I saw a giant throne room.
I continued up, ascending above the fog until I reached the crown, its spires rising another forty feet up. At the top of the crown, we found what must have been the giant nest of Auril’s infamous roc.
In the nest was a five-foot-tall egg made of a silvery hide. Taimen said it was a silver dragon egg that would hatch in eleven days. Unfortunately, it was too heavy for us to take with us, so we agreed to come back for it if we could.
We descended a long staircase into a giant bedchamber. Through a large open doorway was the throne room I had seen through the skull eyes. From the semicircular throne room’s ceiling hung many icicles, larger than Rowan. As we entered, they fell upon us. The damage was minimal, but I was furious at myself for not observing this trap.
The stairway down was circled by ice mephits, and we heard a voice call out from below, “Returned already, my queen?”
No comments:
Post a Comment