From: Sir Fulhoff of Clan Balderk, Knight of Hawk’s Nest, Battle Mage
To: Helja and Adrik of Clan Balderk
Mother and Father:
The Great Digger has been more obvious in her signals. Perhaps it is that we are in a holy place? Or it could be that she wants to make sure we stay focused on our mission. Whatever the reason, she quite literally lead the way…
Leaving the magical gate, we decided to explore the rest of the temple complex. One wing turned out to be cells for those giants who were just visiting the temple for a spell, or possibly monks who used to take care of the complex. There were two notable features of the hall, the first being a large crack in the wall of one of the cells, the other being the rounded shape of the floor, like a gutter. The magical statue at the end of the slightly sloped hall was another clue.
Before heading into the crevice ourselves, Bran used his bag of tricks to summon a creature to send into the hole. And this, dear family, is where the Great Digger made herself very clear, as the summoned creature was a giant badger! With Bran’s crow perched on it’s back, they went in. Bran reported that there were 2 main chambers, one was creepy, and the badger didn’t want to go there, the other was full of icy webs, and had several cocooned things. Thorin and Bran were pretty sure it was mountain goats, but Joda and I felt that this was important.
Heading in, we had to move slowly because of the icy uneven ground, and we soon found ourselves fighting ice spiders in the cramped confines of the tunnel. Their web attack was chilling, but we snapped out of it, and squashed the spiders. Following the tunnels to where Bran saw the cocoons, we hacked our way through the webbing and found an old corpse of a dwarven prospector, a mountain goat, and a seer of the Wyrmblood tribe. The seer was the only one of the three still alive. She told of a vision that brought her to the Eye: a blue dragon, a wyrmskull throne, and a scepter…
I said final rights for the prospector, and then piled rocks over his corpse to send him to his rest.
Deeper into the tunnels we came to the creepy chamber, and spied a mound of eggs topped by a bloated spider. She was so focused on turning her eggs, she didn’t notice us until we were on her, and because of our surprise and the intensity of our attack, she was blasted off the pile of eggs, her body crushed! But the eggs… They ALL hatched! There was much flailing and stomping, but the swarm of baby spiders were… well if not all killed, enough so that it will be years before they’re a real threat again.
Among the debris and crushed bits of spiders we came across a fancy hammer, which I haven’t had the chance to spend any time with, but I suspect it’s magical.
Back in the hall, we continued to explore the different cells, and triggered a giant boulder trap! Seeing the massive rock coming toward us, I told everyone to run for Harshnag, and as I reached him I completed the enchantment of flight on him. We were clinging on for dear life, while he hovered up and over the boulder! And then the magic statue at the end of the hall pushed the boulder back, resetting the trap, and opening the doors to the cells which had magically sealed.
In the upper section of cells, the back half had collapsed, but we discovered a satchel containing a magical ice shard!
Going back to the main room, we opened the far doors, and in a chamber that the word massive is inadequate to describe, a trio of remorhaz were basking by a (magical) fire pit. The door opening was enough to get their attention, and they charged toward us. Joda got her flame on, while Thorin hacked away at them. Aramel turned one into a goat, but that didn’t do anything to change it’s mood. I called on my lightning magics, and aside from the splatter of their fiery blood (which really did burn) we slaughtered the oversized vermin.
