Scouring Ravenscraeg

The party had reached the deepest depths of Ravenscraeg’s dungeons, and found themselves locked in mortal combat with the leader of the Frozen Shadows: the oni Kimandatsu and her ninja minions. She had been making it difficult to target her by disappearing and flying to a new location after each of her attacks, but Sandoval had solved that problem by coating her with Glitterdust. But she was still well out of reach on one of the ledges 20’ above the floor of the room.

Zhustin tried to blast her with a Fireball, but the magical flames seemed to flow around her without even touching her. From her perch high above the floor, Kimandatsu focused her evil will on Shinjiro. For a moment, the monk couldn’t understand why anyone would want to attack such a charming and powerful creature, but then he shook himself back to his senses. He and Sawyer were still battling the remaining ninjas. He hammered one to the floor with a flurry of blows, while Sawyer’s sword was a whirling blur of steely death, killing one ninja and badly injuring another. Marie, knowing that the oni was their greatest threat, rushed to Sawyer’s side and cast Fly on the big fighter. “Go get the oni!” she shouted.

But Bella was one step ahead. She’d already used potions to make herself invisible and flying, and she swooped unseen to a point just above Kimandatsu’s head. With a cry, she slashed out with rapier and dagger, leaving the huge creature bleeding badly. But she was visible now, and she’d attracted the oni’s attention. With a snarl, Kimandatsu unlimbered an enormous club studded with wicked metal spikes. Sandoval, thinking quickly, cast Grease on the club, but she maintained her grip, and swung at Bella’s head like Derek Jeter going after a hanging curve ball. She connected, and Bella bounced off the wall.

Zhustin tried to hit her with a burst of Empowered Magic Missiles, but once again the spell fizzled as it reached the oni. However his summoned Lantern Archon was able to hit her with its light rays. Sawyer flew up to engage her, but she dodged his sword thrust. By this time, Bella had managed to clear her head, and she charged in to the attack again, driving her rapier deep into the oni’s vitals.

So far, Nicki had played no role in the combat; he’d taken on Gaseous Form at the outset and had been slowing drifting up towards Kimandatsu’s position. He finally reached her ledge, and became substantial directly below Bella’s position. He immediately cast a pair of Empowered Scorching Rays. With a piercing shriek, Kimandatsu was engulfed in flames, and fell to the floor below with a bone-shaking thud. Marie’s mace took care of the lone surviving ninja, and the room fell quiet.

Once Marie had administered some healing, everyone began searching the bodies and the room. Among her other possessions, Kimandatsu had a keyring with three keys; Bella thought one might fit the door to the treasury they’d found, but the other two were a mystery. In the southeast corner, Marie discovered a secret door, and Bella quickly moved to check it out. It opened into a dark corridor, with a noticeable chill. Along the corridor were a pair of heavy wooden doors, both secured with large locks.

As Bella approached the first door, she heard a low growling coming from the other side. The door itself was covered with a thick layer of frost. A deep, gravelly voice came from beyond the door: “You have killed the oni – I can smell her blood! It is good. Release me, and I will not kill you.” Bella decided this was not a conversation she was interested in having, and moved on down the hall, but Marie was intrigued. “Who are you?” she asked. “I am Skygni, Lord of the Steppes!” came the reply. “Release me!” Marie started to reach for the door handle, but Sandoval grabbed her arm. Prevented for now from seeing who or what Skygni was, she kept talking. “What are you doing here?” The response was a snarling growl, like the tearing of heavy canvas. “I was captured by the oni’s lackeys. She thought to tame me, to force me to do tricks for her like a common dog. Skygni is no dog! Release me and I will not rip out your throat.” That seemed like a fair trade to Marie, but Sandoval still held her back.

While Marie was chatting with Skygni, Bella had proceeded down the hall to the far door. The walls and floor were dripping with damp, but there was no frost on this door, so Bella quietly picked the lock and pushed open the door. Inside was a dark stone cell that sloped down into a slime-choked pool of water. The air was thick with a fishy smell, along with the stench of unwashed bodies and human waste. A filthy, bearded man slumped against one wall, but Ameiko leaned against the opposite wall! Surprisingly, neither looked up as light spilled into the room through the open door.

Blindheim

As Bella stepped into the cell a squat, frog-like creature rose up from the scum-covered pool. It opened its bulbous eyes, and intense beams of light washed over Bella, leaving her blinded. The thing leaped out of the water and snapped at the sightless thief, and she heard another (or possibly many) splashing out of the pool. She swung blindly, and felt her rapier connect with flesh, but she had no way of knowing how badly she had hurt her foe, or how many she faced, so she cried out for help and then fled blindly back down the hall, bouncing off walls until she collided with Marie. Hearing her voice, Ameiko looked up hopefully. “Bella – is that you? Beware of the guardians in the dark!”

Nicki rushed down the hallway, and managed to avert his eyes in time to avoid being blinded himself. He saw a dead blindheim in front of the open door, flanked by two more, and cast a Color Spray that stunned one of them. Zhustin moved close enough to cast an Acid Dart on the stunned one. Shinjiro rushed into the room, squinting, and slammed the active one, which bit him back. Sawyer clenched his eyes closed and swung at where he hoped the blindheim was, slicing it neatly in half. He performed a coup de grace on the stunned blindheim, and the cell was clear.

Marie came running when she heard they’d found Ameiko. She quickly performed healing on Ameiko and the other prisoner, who proved to be the missing Ulf Gormundr. Marie only had one Remove Blindness, and she cast it on Ameiko. They turned to leave, but found their way blocked by an argument between Sandoval, Nicki, and Bella. Nicki and Bella wanted to open Skygni’s cell, but Sandoval thought that was a monumentally bad idea. Sandoval finally relented, retreating back into Kimandatsu’s chamber, and Nicki used one of the oni’s keys to unlock the cell. As soon as the lock turned, Skygni came bounding out. He was an enormous Winter Wolf, and he leaped into the

Skygni

corridor and turned to face the party, hackles raised and teeth bared, crystals of frost forming from his breath. He and the party faced off for a long moment, then he backed slowly away. As soon as he exited the hall, he turned and dashed off, towards the stairs leading up to freedom.

As they waited for Ulf and Bella’s vision to clear, everyone filled Ameiko in on what had been happening since she’d been kidnapped and what they had discovered about the Rimerunners’ Guild, the Frozen Shadows, and Kimandatsu’s followers. When they finished, Ameiko looked at them expectantly. “But did you find Suishen? Kimandatsu taunted me that she had it, and that it would never threaten the Five Storms again.” The party had to admit that they had not discovered the Amatatsu family’s ancestral sword. They knew there was at least one room upstairs they had not explored, but they could not rule out additional secret rooms they might have missed, so they began slowly retracing their steps, making sure to thoroughly search every room and hallway. They found nothing new save for a small hoard of arm rings and gems that the trolls had buried beneath their pile of coal.

They finally returned to the water room. A waterfall poured out of an opening high in the wall, filling a turbulent pool some 20’ across. There was a ledge on the far wall with a small wooden cask and a heavy wooden door. Marie cast Water Walk  on everyone except Nicki, Ameiko, and Ulf, but initially only Bella crossed to the other side. The door was locked, and Bella didn’t see any signs of traps, but the cask had an aspergillum laying on it, usually used for sprinkling holy water. On a hunch, Bella filled the aspergillum from the cask, but what came out was certainly not holy water – it was extremely potent rice wine. Bella looked from the cask to the door a few times, then shrugged and sprinkled the door with door with sake; better safe than sorry. She then picked the lock and opened the door.

Inside was a  small musty room hewn from the solid rock. Near the far wall stood a low well, its opening only a foot in diameter. A winch and chain with a rusty steel bucket hung from the wall above it, and in the far corner was a pile of old wooden buckets and other debris, rotten and broken, with several different kinds of fungus growing on their remnants. As the door opened, a ruddy red glow suddenly shown forth from inside the well.

Bella moved cautiously across the room to peer down into the well. Some 15’ down, a sword was wedged crossways across the well, flames playing along its blade. She recognized the sword immediately from her vision back in Brinewall Castle – it was Suishen! As she turned to call to the

Executioner's Hood

others, a leathery creature dropped from the ceiling and tried to engulf her head. She managed to bat it away, and it fell to the floor, where it began to pull itself back towards the wall on short tentacles. Looking up, she saw the ceiling was writhing with the creatures, all trying to maneuver into position above her head. Forgetting Suishen for the moment, she rushed back out of the room and called for help. “I’ve got this,” Nicki said calmly, and cast one of his pet Flaming Spheres inside the room. He spent a few minutes dribbling it around the room, bouncing it between floor and ceiling until all of the Executioner’s Hoods were dead.

Once the room was clear, Zhustin came in and cast a Mage Hand, which had no trouble flying down the well, grasping Suishen by its hilt, and extracting it. Once they had it, no one was quite willing to take hold of it, so the Hand delivered it to Ameiko, who gripped it confidently. As she did, a booming voice came from the sword. “At last! It is good to be back in the hands of a rightful Amatatsu heir, granddaughter. Now, who will wield me? We have oni to kill! One of the Five Storms is in this very building! She calls herself Kimandatsu, and she sought to dispose of me by casting me down that well. As if one could be rid of Suishen so easily. She must pay for her insult to our family! Come! Who wants the honor of helping me remove her head from her shoulders?”

“You mean this head?” asked Nicki, holding up Kimandatsu’s severed head (Nicki had once again indulged his fetish for decapitation). “Excellent!” Suishen thundered. “I wish you had saved her for me, but you have done well. As a reward for her death, I will permit you the use of one of my special powers. But now, who will carry me? We have many more oni to kill. The Five Storms have been systematically wiping out all the royal families of Minkai, and I suspect by now they have killed the emperor himself. We will have to defeat them all if we are to place granddaughter in her rightful place on the Jade Throne. Who is worthy of wielding Suishen, Guardian of the Amatatsu?”

Everyone exchanged looks. No one was quite sure what it would mean to wield Suishen, and the sword’s personality was a little … forceful. At last Sawyer took a deep breath, and extended his hand. Ameiko handed him the sword. Sawyer felt as if Suishen were looking him up and down skeptically. “Hmmph,” it finally snorted. “I suppose you are … marginally worthy.” With a flash of insight, Sawyer suddenly understood all the powers of Suishen – at least all the powers it was willing to let him use. He sensed that the sword was keeping something in reserve, waiting for him to prove himself.

The party prepared to leave Ravenscraeg, at least for now. They needed to retrieve Lute Haggersly from his hidey hole upstairs and return him to Kalsgard. And they planned to return with Sandru and one of the wagons to haul out all the fortress’s loot. Ulf had readily agreed to lead them over the Crown of the World, although he warned that an off-season expedition would be very dangerous – and expensive. But they had Suishen, they had Ameiko, and they had a mission: to crown a new Empress of Minkai!

This is the end of book two, Night of Frozen Shadows. The PCs earned 4,800 XP for the night, putting them at 33,719 XP. 35,000 XP are required for level 7, and you should reach that next week, so start looking at your next level up. We’ll be at Rich & Joette’s next week, and Roger will be on call.