Well now, that wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it will do.
My aim has been to connect the Barrens to DCC 30 as part of the next step for the party that s battling Archomentals.
We recovered from the falling ice trap, continued to harangue the snirfiblin so they would stay away, and, using all of our ropes and spikes, continued on into that vast ice cavern.
From the entry portal we could see how big the cavern was. We could also see that there were snirfiblin huts in the ice, as tho there had been a vaster society that was caught in an advancing wall of ice. The cavern had a shoulder ridge on this side, another on the other side, and a flowing river that had worn its way deep into ice/earth. Scouting about revealed a portal on the other side. Here I took liberties to ensure that which ever portal was found it would be room D-12. Rhiannon and all got across after a bit of a hassle from frosty stirges (who did more squawking and flapping). Because of the stirges some guards came out and there we met a language barrier. Two more guards came out while the party kept their shields up but hands away from arms. Ultimately, out came a frog man (I said, Velder) who seemed affronted by having their work delayed. 'Deryn' had been told how long the excavation would take and there was no need for this extra hassle (?)!
(Deryn is Deryn the Black found in room 3-6 of DCC 30, the 10th level Mage)
We were issued away and the lighting had turned poor, so we were able to stay safely back on our initial side of the cavern, which we explored and found D-13. In this room, which was difficult to actually get into, there were many arcane writings on the wall and a pedestal that looked like it supported a goodly sized piece of art. Hmm.
Back across and under better conditions, we approached the lit doorway (unguarded) and into a chamber where clearly work was being done to excavate something. The four guards we had seen were hard at work under the direction of frogman and a skimpy witch looking woman, none of whom were happy to see us. Here, much like Khalil the other night, Rhiannon's die were awesome, with low percentile when needed and high to hits almost upon demand.
The bad guys dispatched, we had a look at what they were doing. Locked in the ice was some type of stone head. Rhiannon punched some spikes into the ice and the used heat metal to easily release a goodly sized dragon head made of stone. Back across the other way, the head was put on the pedestal, text in the wall became more prominent, lights were released and, once touched, bestowed a permanent skill upon the recipient (I am saving you a bother of how this was worked out).
We opted to camp out in this room, now being seriously depleted of spells and such. After a spell (ha) part of the wall faded out of existence revealing a space in time that was not of where we were from. IN walking into the glacier and all we certainly have an idea of how the surrounding geography is/was, and, this was totally different. Then, looking high up, we saw a dragon fly across, landing on a ledge 150 feet above an escarpment.
There was no way we were able to address anything like a silver dragon and/or a 150 foot climb.
So, we have captured the idol and now the head and are returning to speak with Doc who may know more about all of this than we.
Losloris
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