They are standing outside a cave, having followed footsteps to a cave. They are on a side adventure, on their way with Harshnag to the seat of the Allfather, to speak to the Oracle in the Frozen North where the spine of the north is in a giant temple. On the way, Thoradin plans to stop at Belador, an old Dwarven Fortress to get a ring.
The sun has long since set, it’s dark. The weather has calmed and the moon has emerged from the clouds. The ground is frozen and glittering like broken glass. The entrance to the cave is just up ahead. There are icicles hanging down like teeth from the roof of the cave.
Harshnag is crouched, nearby. Gunther is trembling and talking in a low voice. He’s cold.
Londer hands out some potions and Miss Moss tosses her dark vision goggles to Londer. He takes them and Miss Moss stealths within a bush. Harshnag moves over to where she is hiding and says “I’m not much good at stealthy, I’ll stay here in case you need anything.”
Miss Moss gives Londer the bag of holding to fill up with loot. Thoradin pushes him towards the cave. All except Harshnag, Gunther and Miss Moss head to have a look. The cave is extremely dark. The moon from the night outside is reflecting on the ice.
The cave is one room, about 30ft high, icicles hang from the ceiling and at the back wall of the cave is an absolutely enormous white, fur creature. Larger thank Harshnag, It’s lying on its back, mouth open with gusts of steam coming out of his mouth. Leshanna can see glints of light everywhere, something catches her eye – there appears to be some sort of remains – human or animal. A flash of red, gleaming glint is within. While the creature is a yeti, it’s clearly an abominable yeti, far more potent than the other yetis we have faced.
They back out of the cave and Londer tells Harshnag – the giant hasn’t fought one before. Londer wants to get the ruby.
Londer and Gunther prepare, and creep back towards the cave. A couple of other details become apparent. On two separate points of the room there is are boulders and behind them are dark passages. There is also a ridge that could be used as a ledge. Finally, there is a large icicle above the yeti.
Londer goes for it. He jumps onto the ledge and his foot catches, spilling down rocks, making a tremendous noise. At that the creature rolls, makes a large outward breath – but doesn’t wake.
Londer keeps moving, he makes some more noise. The beast wakes.
Outside, the others hear the noise – they spring up and Harshnag pulls himself to his feet. “Oh shit.”
Gunther makes a fire, taking some whiskey and rubbing two stones together. Except it doesn’t light so instead he’s just standing there smashing two rocks together. Miss Moss gestures to him with her eyes and a tinder box. A small fragile fire appears at his feet. He sings out a sweet lullaby to Londer, granting Bardic Inspiration.
Harshnag sighs and wanders into the cave.
Miss Moss dips a torch into the fire and moves towards the cave. She takes out her longbow and fires, she misses.
Thoradin moves over, casts Hold person and paralyses the Yeti.
Leshanna walks up to Gunther and asks “are you willing?” She reaches out and touches him, granting him flight.
Londer swings his axe at the gigantic icicle, missing once but hitting the second time. He smashes the icicle and nothing happens at first, but then it begins to crack and give way. The tip of the icicle plunges right through his skull, through his windpipe and makes a squashed pie, stabbing him through the ass.
Harshnag says “Whoa, I cannot say I’ve seen that before.”
Thoradin has had his eyes closed up until now and feels a disconnection with the yeti – he looks up to see the impaled yeti.
Leshanna looks over at Gunther, the 7 foot cat floating in the air and feels a little sheepish.
They rifle through the viscera of previous kills and unfortunate creatures and find a gold ring that looks well made and beautiful. The metal work is a fire, curled around a red gem. It pulses with magic energy.
Leshanna can tell it’s a ring of fire resistance, granting the wearer resistance to fire damage. It has probably come from someone wealthy, an adventurer or a mage. It’s unusual to find something like this.
Gunther rummages through, picks it up and romantically kneels before Londer and repays half of his life debt by putting it on Londer’s finger.
Gunther flies down the tunnel and very quickly comes out the other side in a loop.
They take a long rest, Leshanna sets an alarm at the door.
In the morning Harshnag gathers them together. They set off for the next day’s journey. It’s a tough path, they head towards the mountains in the Spine of the World. The terrain is increasingly tough. Harshnag looks over to Thoradin and says “You mentioned you wanted to make a stop along the way – it’s about a day’s trip”
They head up and down the mountains and valleys, heading towards Berlador the Dwarven fortress. By the time they arrive, the sun is setting. Thoradin is heading to the fortress, the others come along.
There have been stories of dwarves up this way, it’s an outpost, it looks a little like they were religious in some way.
There are no lights in the windows, the sun is low in the sky but there doesn’t appear to be any kind of torches or humanoid life. No tracks in the snow.
The path is treacherous as they step sometimes the stones crumble and fall into a cloudy abyss – it is high and dangerous. They are heading upwards.
Thoradin suddenly realises he needs to go on alone. He bids his fellow travellers well and continues alone.
As he walks up, he catches sight of something, and poking out of the snow he sees a bit of armour. Thoradin kneels, blesses himself and steps forward toward the armour. “I, Thoradin Frostbeard are here to be tried. Open and do your best.”
Nothing happens.
He digs at the armour and sees nothing magical. It’s a largely preserved dead dwarf. The armour reminds him of his days serving in Mintan. He realises again it’s just a trick of the light – it’s nothing like the armour he used to wear.
He suddenly becomes overwhelmed with the urge to wear the armour. He removes it, it’s fairly deteriorated – no use at all for protection. He puts it on over his adamantine armour. He waits expectantly.
Suddenly he is thrown into flashbacks of battles fought, fire, the horrors of war. It only lasts a moment but it is terrifying, then he is standing back in the snow wearing the armour.
He kneels down and prays to mathamaduan for guidance. He walks up to where the body of the dwarf was and crouches down where he was.
As he does, he sees a spectral creature moving towards them, with a faint blue light around it. He recognises it immediately as a snowbear. It head over, like a dog and looks at him lying against the wall.
When Thoradin looks down he sees a ring with rams horns on it. When he looks up the owl bear is gone.
Great tears roll down Thoradin’s face, overcome by the memories and he prays for strength and forgiveness. His tears freeze in his beard.
Just then they all notice a cloud pass over them. They look up, in the sky they see an enormous red dragon flapping its wings.
Harshnag looks over and says “Well, I’ll be… that’s old Snarl.”