Midwinter, 1489
Dre'zel my love,
At the command of Queen Bjornhild Solvigsdottir, JoJo’s birth mother, dozens of tiger tribe warriors threw their spears toward us. Most of the spears fell short or wide, but one grazed me.
Bjornhild was flanked by two saber-toothed tigers, two burly Reghedmen, and a frost druid. The druid stepped forward and battered us with an Ice Storm.
After directing Hell’s Teeth to get the pack to safety, I jumped back and up onto the Shield Guardian’s back. From over its shoulder, I let loose three arrows, and one of them struck Bjornhild, but it bounced off her, and as she ignored me and commanded her warriors to bring down Talyth.
Then the druid summoned beasts to attack us from behind. A woolly rhino charged toward Rowan, and a cloud of stirges swarmed me, three of them piercing me with their long proboscises and sucking the blood out of me.
The queen’s two saber-toothed tigers charged the elk tribe, who soon fell to their teeth, and the tiger tribe spears, except for Hangvar.
Hovering off the ground, Talyth blasted the tiger tribe with a Cone of Cold, dropping eight of them at once.
Bjornhild transformed into a weretiger, leaping into the fray, where she was intercepted by Duke Ulder.
Rowan cast Call Lightning, dropping a tiger tribesman and breaking the druid’s concentration, causing the rhino and stirges to disappear. Then Rowan transformed into a polar bear.
Taimen charged forward on Princess Skullcrusher and stabbed the druid through the neck with her trident.
From the cover of the Shield Guardian, I hit Bjornhild with two silver arrows, and they sank deep into her skin. Then she was struck by Rowan’s lightning.
JoJo soon cut Bjornhild down with Orenea and chopped her head clean off, yelling something about his upbringing.
I shot down one of the saber-toothed tigers, and the other fled. The few tiger tribesmen remaining refused to surrender, insisting that even though their queen was dead, they fought for the Frostmaiden. I wanted to shout that their queen was a misguided fraud and that Talyth’s divine power was evidence that she had the Frostmaiden’s favor, but there seemed little point as they would soon be dead anyway.
And they soon were, as Taimen pointed her trident at a group of tiger tribesmen, felling all four of them with an ear-shattering crack of thunder.
By the time Duke Ulder and I took down the last two, JoJo was still yelling at the severed head of his mother. Orenea, his enchanted sword, appeared to have lost its glow.
As we caught our breath, Hell’s Teeth returned, her mouth dripping with blood. She barked at me insistently, clearly wanting to speak, so I used my ability to Speak with Animals. She told me that she had caught and killed the injured saber-toothed tiger as it fled. She also told me of the smell of death coming from the glacier and that she and the pack would wait in the hills for three days for us to emerge.
Once Bjornhild had been slain, Talyth revived Mjenir, who was grateful for the opportunity to witness the culmination of his life’s mission: the reading of the Rime of the Frostmaiden and the opening of the glacier. But he and Hangvar said they would stand guard by the entrance but would not be entering with us.
After a short rest, we approached the actual glacier, and Talyth stepped forward, confidently taking out The Codicil of White and reading the Rime of the Frostmaiden.
We bow to She who wears the crown,
Let the world shiver with dread.
Clad in winter's whitest gown,
Her snow enshrouds the dead.
Her fury sheds but frozen tears
as gray clouds issue forth.
Her wind across the wasteland shears,
bringing blizzards from the north.
Ice-kissed flowers caught mid-bloom,
Beauty kept in all its grace.
Summer's gone to its silent tomb,
stilling in her cold embrace.
All the world in winter's white,
sheathed in sleet and ice.
Set upon never-ending night,
She conjures paradise.
Behold Her everlasting rime,
See how it covers all,
Weep not for those she traps in time
behind her glacial wall.
Sovereign of summers lost,
general of winter's war;
Long live the queen of cold and frost.
May she reign forevermore.
As soon as she finished, there was a loud crack as the glacier split, starting at Talyth’s feet and streaking a hundred feet up the glacier, widening to thirty feet—a fetid odor wafted from the darkness within.
As I approached the dark tunnel, I heard an inhuman cackling coming from deeper within the tunnel, but the cave’s echoes made it impossible to determine how far away its source was.
I cast Pass Without Trace as we quietly entered. Talyth gave Darkvision to those who needed it to see in the darkness.
In the first chamber was what Professor Skant explained was a ruined Netherese skycoach, now covered in webs. The corpses within wore Netherese robes. Duke Ulder found a heavy iron safe half-buried under the rubble and managed to pick the lock. The lid creaked loudly as he opened it, and before he could examine its contents, four hovering skulls, wreathed in greenish flames, flew toward us, two from the east and two from the west.
After shooting one and discovering that it was resistant to my arrows, I hid around a corner in a passage leading south.
JoJo took one down, but two others blasted the area with Fireballs, leaving my companions hurt but still up and in the fight.
Taimen took down the one I had shot, stabbing it with her trident.
As I sniped at the flameskulls from my concealment, a small figure silently jumped onto my shoulder and bit me in the neck. As I jumped away, I saw it was a kobold with glowing red eyes, which Professor Skant explained was a vampire spawn. I hit it with an arrow as I withdrew back into the larger chamber. Vellynne hit it with Magic Missiles as it followed.
Taimen, Rowan, and Talyth took down the last flameskull to the east while JoJo, Duke, and the Shield Guardian took out the last one to the west.
Rowan, no longer transformed, melted the ice around the kobold vampire spawn, and Talyth blasted in with a Sacred Flame, causing it to scream in agony as it melted into the water.
As Duke Ulder returned to examine the contents of the safe, Talyth handed him one of the eldritch wands that Vorrin and Dredavex gave us.
I felt drained from the kobold’s bite, but Professor Skant assured us that I would recover after a night’s rest. He also mentioned that many more of these vampire spawn would haunt these caves. Hopefully, we can survive until the morning.
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