Storm King’s Thunder. Session 32: One Dwarf Falls

16^th Ches 1458DR

The Griffons next decided to investigate the remaining buildings. On one, the door seemed to have collapsed and seemed inaccessible, and peering through a crack in the door of the adjacent hall to the south they saw a vast cavern of ice filled with yetis feasting on rotten meat and blubber. The western hall seemed abandoned: detritus scattered around the floor yet a small room was present at the back that contained chests and the south-eastern hall appeared to be the Jarls: locked yet without an apparent key.

They opted to tell Maganose to try and unblock the impassable doorway of the first hall to the north west by casting Firebolt repeatedly and the old wizard set about his work. In the meantime, Carlan sent her imp to scout out the yeti enclosure. The door was barred externally but there was a small crack that the imp wriggled through and flew invisibly over the heads of the yetis. Flying through, it seemed that the roof had long since collapsed, yet the iceberg had formed overhead leading to a vast ceiling of ice. The wall to the adjacent hall (that Maganose was trying to blast an entrance to) had also fallen through, creating a vast ice cavern. As the imp soared above the yetis, it saw something interesting: several cages hanging from the ceiling. Several dwarves sat sadly in the cages, squinting down at the yetis below. The imp heard a terrible roar. Despite being invisible, a gigantic yeti had sensed it’s presence and roared in alarm, alerting the rest of the pack. The imp swiftly flew back out and Carlan described what she had seen through the imp’s eyes.

They considered how to approach this, believing a straight-forward assault to be foolish. They settled on dragging some of the Uthgardt corpses out in front of the doorway and laying them out as a trail and hoped they would be able to lure the creatures out individually and not fight the whole pack at once. Amadeous elected to walk up the side of the doorway with his Slippers of Spider-climbing and hide at the top of the gigantic doorway. They unbarred the door and gently opened it slightly, running around to the side of the building to hide. Seeing the door ajar and smelling blood, a yeti pushed the door open further, roaring as it saw the bodies. The others moved to follow it and as the yeti feasted on the first Uthgardt body it joined by two more. As the pack devoured the Uthgardt, they moved to eat the second body further on. As they scrambled forward to eat the third corpse, they noticed the party and roared.

Realising they had been seen the Griffons drew their weapons and prepared for battle. Carlan cast Hypnotic Pattern on the yetis near the front and the two at the rear stared blankly forward as their minds were bewitched by confusing and hypnotic images. Fenris slammed two arrows into the yeti at the front as Darius charged forward with Hewen to engage. Meanwhile, Amadeous scrambled across the ceiling of the cavern, desperate to free the dwarves. The alpha Yeti managed to push past the others and fix Darius with a chilling gaze, freezing his heart and paralysing him. As the battle raged on Amadeous reached the lever and as he grasped it to release the dwarves he watched with horror as it grew teeth and eyes: it was a mimic!

Outside, the first yeti died under a hail of arcane blasts and arrows. Darius managed to shake off the curse of the alpha yeti and charged forward to engage it with Hewen. The alpha Yeti took a deep breath in and blasted Darius, Carlan’s Imp and Hewen with a huge icy breath, injuring all three terribly. It followed up with glaring at Hewen, who fell to the ground dead. Swearing vengeance, Darius hacked at the alpha yeti as further arcane blasts and arrows slammed into it’s hide. Inside the cavern, Amadeous frantically chopped at the mimic, slaying it quickly and managed to release the dwarves. The cages lowered safely towards the ground and the dwarves scrambled out of the cages.

 The alpha yeti fell under a final arcane blast and was quickly followed by the smaller two yetis who died still mesmerized. The Griffons dusted themselves off and took a brief moment to mourn Hewen (very brief in Fenris’ case). Amadeous spoke to the dwarves inside, convincing them to side with him that there had been a horde of monsters inside the cavern that they had all fought off. He lead them outside and the Griffons insisted upon being introduced to them. For dwarves, their names were extremely strange to the Griffons but apparently were quite common in Fireshear.

The dwarves described the battle inside the hall, which Fenris did not believe at all. Fenris spoke to one of them in particular, a grumpy ginger male dwarf who stated his name was “Daisy Bloodaxe” that Hewen had unfortunately fallen and asked him to take Hewen’s effects to his family. He described the Uthgardt hall to the south and said they could find food and weapons there.

Feeling drained, yet knowing that the Jarl would be returning later that day they decided to gamble on resting. Taking care to hide the corpses outside, they concealed themselves and rested. Fortunately the Jarl did not return during their rest. However, when they woke Fenris saw the shape of the Jarl’s longship returning on the horizon, spying 7 frost giants on the ship in total. They debated what to do: they were aware that the Jarl possessed an amulet that served as a key to her hall yet fighting 7 frost giants at once seemed foolhardy at best. There was only one space left for the ship to be moored so they laced the ground nearby with caltrops. This was immediately near the drinking hall they had fought in earlier so they tipped over the furniture to serve as a means of cover and concealment. They warned Thalassia and the rest of the elves and dwarves that the Jarl would be returning soon and they needed to prepare for battle as they did not have the means to flee in the boats in time to escape the giants. Hoping to evade the giants completely, Carlan quickly flew her imp out to the Jarl’s ship, remaining invisible. She saw the Jarl standing proudly, one foot on the prow looking out towards Svardborg. Further behind, near the rowing giants was a strange sight: a white serpentine form with a long draconic head yet no wings. It was chained to the mast, apparently a prisoner or pet of some kind. Taking advantage of a sudden wave, the imp managed to seize the amulet and swiftly fly away. However, this was not unnoticed by the Jarl, who roared and cursed in anger as she felt the amulet stolen.

By the time the Imp reached them back in Svardborg, they could see the Jarl’s ship perilously close. They would have only 10 minutes or so before she arrived. They Griffons hastily finished preparing their defences and bid the elves and dwarves steel themselves to stand against the wrath of winter.