Hostile Reception

Ulf had taken a detour to the village of Iqualiat, concerned about what looked like bad weather on the horizon ahead. Upon arriving at the village, they found the locals less than welcoming, although Ulf’s old friend, the hearthmistress Sonavut, took them into her home. There she gave them the bad news: the Path of Aganhei was blocked by the morozkos, the “hungry storms” that normally never came this far inland or south off the High Ice. She said that their shaman, Tunuak, blamed the storms’ presence on the villagers' lack of devotion to the wind spirits they worshipped. “He says that first the wind spirits called the dragon to punish us, and now they are bringing the morozkos to wipe us out.”

That last statement left the party a bit speechless. When they recovered enough to ask “Dragon?!?”, Sonavut nodded sadly. “The white dragon, Vegsundvaag, has lived somewhere north of here since my grandfather’s day, but she has never bothered our village, other than to attack the occasional hunter who ventured too far out onto the High Ice. But a little over a month ago, she suddenly attacked the village. Many of our people were killed before they could retreat into the tunnels, and she carried off most of our goats. Since then, she has returned several times. We sent a party of hunters to try to kill her, but they never returned, and now we have too few hunters left to risk another attempt.

“I wish I had some better news for you. You are welcome to stay here in Iqualiat, but I fear it is only a matter of time before the dragon comes again. I see no way forward for you; the Path of Aganhei is impassable, and even if you wished to attempt a crossing of the High Ice, that way is guarded by Vegsundvaag. Perhaps it would be best for you to return to the south before the storms reach here.”

The party questioned Sonavut closely about Tunuak. She had said he had “changed” after undertaking a vision quest to the Nameless Spires, a fabled lost city at the north pole, and they wondered if his return had coincided with the dragon’s appearance, but she told him he had been back for at least two years before the attacks began. Still they had their suspicions. As they talked, Nicki happened to glance out the window, and saw a crowd gathering outside. “Umm, Sonavut? You might want to take a look at this.”

When Sonavut opened her front door, they found a mob gathered in the square outside, muttering darkly. Most of the surviving residents of Iqualiat were there, and as might be expected from Sonavut’s description of the dragon’s ravages, they were mostly old men, women, and children. At their head was an old man, leaning on a twisted staff. His brown eyes were yellowed with age, as were his few remaining teeth, and his balding head was a patchwork of short, wiry hairs around the temples. Tribal tattoos decorated his liver-spotted pate and face, wrinkled and worn by wind and sun. He carried himself with an air of importance, expecting to be heard.

Tunuak

“You see!” Tunuak cried, pointing at Sonavut. “She continues to provoke the spirits’ wrath by inviting outsiders into our midst! The wind spirits think Iqualiat has abandoned them, and welcomes unbelievers to turn us away from them and to foreign gods. They will surely repay such faithlessness by sending the dragon against us once again, this time to consume all of our children. Now, even the traditional sacrifices to propitiate the wind spirits will not suffice.” He waved his bony hand at the party. “The outsiders’ taint can be removed only by sacrificing one of them, and the rest must leave at once!”

The party knew they had to counter Tunuak’s harangue and win the village over to their side if they were to avoid an ugly confrontation. Nicki stepped forward, and Marie muttered a quick Prayer to Desna that he wouldn’t make things worse. Sandoval began softly singing, trying to at once bolster Nicki and calm the crowd.

Nicki led with what he knew best – Intimidation. “You think you fear your precious wind spirits, old man?” he blustered. “You think they have power? If you want to know about real power, and real fear, let me tell you a little about the powers of Hell!” As Nicki spoke, Sandoval and his harmonizing sword began weaving discordant minor chords. The sun seemed to dim, and Nicki’s shadow darkened and grew larger. Children began to cry, and their mothers pulled them close, while hardened men blanched with fear.

Nicki saw the miserable peasants quivering with fear, and felt a rush of power. This is what he’d been born for! To have power, and to use it to make the masses cower before him! While he knew that his comrades would never attack unarmed women and children (the cowards!), the people of Iqualiat didn’t know that. “Be careful, old man!” he Bluffed. “We can slice you apart without blinking, and I will feast on your miserable soul!”

The tactic backfired. The citizens of Iqualiat had known Tunuak all their lives. He had healed their loved ones when they were sick or injured, and he’d helped patch their roofs and tend their goats, and he had taught them to revere the wind spirits. Sure, he might have become a little crotchety in his old age. He might be a crazy old man – but he was their crazy old man. The crowd clustered protectively around Tunuak. Men began fingering cudgels or skinning knives, and women began scanning the ground for fist-sized rocks to throw.

Nicki saw their mood shift, and knew he was on the verge of losing them. He quickly shifted gears – it was time to try a little Diplomacy. “But there’s no need to come to blows. We could use our power to aid your village. We know the dragon has been hurting you terribly. We could take care of the dragon for you, and save your remaining goats.” Sandoval’s song changed, to one of battle, followed by triumph and celebration. People began nodding to one another. As Nicki spoke of confronting the dragon, there was scattered applause, and when he promised to replace their lost goats (because that’s what everyone listening believed he promised) the crowd erupted in cheers. Tunuak saw that the mob’s attitude had shifted irreversibly. He scowled, muttered a disgusted curse in Erutaki, and vanished from sight.

When Tunuak disappeared, Sawyer invoked Suishen’s See Invisible power. He spotted the shaman running off between a set of buildings on the far side of the square. Pushing his way through the crowd (who were now eager to slap backs and shake hands with their newfound saviors), he set off in pursuit. Reaching the spot where he’d lost sight of the shaman, he found a narrow street. There were several closed doors in buildings along the street, and it ended in a tunnel into the cliff face. Betting that Tunuak had taken the tunnel, he hurried forward. The narrow, twisting tunnel led upwards for several hundred feet, until it opened out onto the vast plateau of the High Ice. Around the tunnel’s mouth were dozens of shrines and altars made of reindeer antlers, hung with hundreds of bone wind chimes, each carved with intricate Erutaki runes. The expanse of the arctic ice cap stretched off as far as the eye could see in every direction, but there was no sign of the missing shaman. Dejected, Sawyer retraced his steps.

When he returned to the square, he found the rest of the party talking with Sonavut and Iqualiat’s headman, Chief Nalvanaq. They were continuing their inquiries about Tunuak’s odd behavior. “Did he have an apprentice?” Marie asked, and Sonavut nodded. She led them across the square to Tunuak’s “tower” (the only two-story building in town aside from the guard tower beside the gate). Their knock was answered by a middle-aged man; he was holding a piece of bone that he’d been engraving with runes. Sawyer pushed past him to use what was left of his See Invisible spell to search for the invisible shaman, but found nothing.

With prompting from Sonavut and the Chief, the apprentice, Gloktuk, acknowledged that Tunuak hadn’t been himself since he’d returned from his vision quest. “He preached about how the villagers were neglecting their devotions to the wind spirits, but if anything he was the one who was neglecting his duties. He stopped making sacrifices and offering prayers to the spirits; I had to perform all his duties for him. It’s almost as if he’d stopped worshipping the wind spirits altogether, but of course that couldn’t be true. He did spend more time than ever at the wind altars. Although …” He paused, and Sonavut gently prodded him to continue. “Well, several times he said he was going to pray at the altars, but when I came there later he wasn’t there, even though I’d seen him go into the tunnel.”

The party exchanged looks; it sounded like it would be a good idea to examine this tunnel a little more closely. Leaving Sonavut and the Chief, they retraced Sawyer’s steps, and began slowly working their way up the tunnel, searching the walls and floors for secrets. Their efforts were soon rewarded; Sandoval and Bella both spotted a secret door hidden in one of the tunnel’s corners. As Bella looked it over, she spotted something odd about the floor, and quickly determined that a large section of floor was actually a trapdoor that would give way if the door wasn’t opened just right. Warning everyone off the suspect area, she carefully disarmed the trap, then opened the secret door.

The passage behind led up about 100 feet. As they climbed, they heard a dull pounding coming from up ahead. The passage ended in a blank stone wall, and a tall Erutaki man in furs stood pounding on the stone. When he noticed the party he turned. “Tunuak came this way, but I can’t figure out how to get this wall to open so I can follow him.”

“And you would be …?” Bella asked suspiciously. “Oh – sorry. I’m Naquun. I’m a hunter, and I was on guard duty by the wind altars. I was returning through the tunnel, when I saw Tunuak come running up and go through a secret door in the wall. I managed to slip in before the door closed, and followed him up this passage, but he went through here, and closed the wall behind him before I could catch up.”

The hunter seemed earnest enough, but there were things that just weren’t adding up about his story. For one thing, the chief had told them earlier that they didn’t post any guards up on the plateau, because they wanted all their warriors close by to defend the village if the dragon attacked. And while Sawyer had been behind Tunuak while he was pursuing him, he hadn’t been that far behind – there would have been a very narrow window for Naquun to have seen Tunuak and slipped through the secret door without himself being seen by Sawyer.

Nicki sidled up to Marie and whispered, “What’s that thing on your head think of this guy?” Marie sighed, and telepathically consulted Helgarval. “It’s funny you should ask,” the helm responded. “I’m sensing both good and evil in him. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Marie passed this along to Nicki who nodded, then gave Naquun a friendly smile, while at the same time casting Charm Person. He’d be keeping a close eye on this one.

Meanwhile, Bella had been examining the wall at the end of the passage. She quickly spotted the secret door, and unlike the previous one, this one didn’t seem to be trapped. She motioned everyone to be quiet, then pushed it open. Inside was a wide, irregular pit in the upper cliffs. A dim light shown down from a crack in the ice far above. A narrow ramp circled the pit, spiraling down to a slushy basin some 60 feet below. The path’s surface was shiny and slick with ice.

Everyone paused to fasten cleats onto their boots, grateful that Ulf had had the foresight to purchase a set for everyone before they left Kalsgard. Then Bella motioned Naquun forward. She batted her eyes. “Would you mind going first? I’m a little afraid of this ice.” Naquun just laughed. “I grew up on the ice – this is nothing!” Sure enough, he moved easily over the slippery surface, while Bella followed slowly, exaggerating her clumsiness. She paused periodically to hammer pitons into the wall, fastening a rope for the others to hold onto. One by one, the others followed, moving slowly to avoid slipping and falling off the narrow path into the pit below, and soon they formed a conga line on the icy ramp. Sawyer didn’t want to get stuck with the crowd, so he drew Suishen and, using its Air Walk ability, began descending directly down towards the floor below. Marie cast Fly on herself and followed suit. Nicki took up a postion at the top of the ramp, just inside the door, where he’d have line-of-fire to the entire pit.

As Sawyer neared the slushy floor at the bottom of the ramp, he saw that it was littered with hundreds of bones, all marked with a curious rune like a frost-rimed, three-fingered skeletal hand. To the south, dozens of skulls had been piled into a crude altar. Painted along the icy walls of the pit were Erutaki pictograms, along with scribbled lines of Erutaki runes. He immediately recognized the symbol on the bones – it was the sigil of the demon-lord Sithhud, the same as they’d seen on the black monolith where they were attacked by the frostfallen mammoth and its hoarfrost spirits. Marie cast Dectect Magic as she descended, scanning the floor for any sign of magic, but saw none.

Naquun had pulled ahead of everyone else, and Bella hurried to catch up with him. As she did, a pair of hoarfrost spirits suddenly leaped from their hiding places in concealed niches above the path. They attempted to knock her off the narrow ramp, but she dodged their blows, and responded with a critical hit of her own against one of the attackers. Another pair launched themselves down at Sandoval, and he wasn’t so lucky. He tumbled off the path, and fell 30 feet, where he just managed land on the path below instead of falling all the way to the bottom. One more jumped just ahead of Shinjiro, and two more leapt out midway down the first circle of the ramp. As the hoarfrost spirits launched their ambush, it suddenly grew very quiet around Nicki, Zhustin, and Shinjiro at the back of the party.

Marie was unaware of the Silence above her, but when the spirits attacked she suspected Tunuak was still somewhere in the room. So she cast an Invisibility Purge and sure enough, the shaman suddenly appeared, hovering in the air some 15’ above and 10’ to the right of the cleric; a pair of translucent, cloud-like wings sprouted from his back. Seeing him, Sawyer climbed up to engage. Sandoval began singing, but of course those in the Silence spell couldn’t hear him.

Shinjiro stepped up to engage the nearest hoarfrost spirit. He landed a pair of solid blows, but with each, he took cold damage from the spirit’s intensely cold body. He ignored the pain, and kept hitting, taking damage himself with each strike. But then the hoarfrost spirit’s claws slipped past the monk’s defenses. Their cold as they pierced his skin was glacial, and he found himself paralyzed.

Nicki and Zhustin were caught in the Silence, the worst possible place for a pair of spellcasters. Nicki racked his brain for any spell that didn’t require a verbal component, and come up with just one: with a blink, he assumed a Gaseous Form, and began slowly drifting down the cliff face, hoping that by the time he reached the next circuit of the path below, he’d be out of the range of the Silence. Zhustin didn’t have that option. Taking a deep breath, and moving quickly so he didn’t have time to talk himself out of it, he leaped off the ledge, hoping to survive the 30 foot fall to the next ledge down. Unfortunately, his adrenaline was flowing, and he overshot that ledge completely, falling the full 60 feet to the bottom. The slush at the bottom was only a couple of inches deep, and did nothing to cushion his landing.

Tunuak had no appetite to go toe-to-toe with Sawyer. He took a five-foot-step back, and summoned a Spiritual Ally to guard him from the fighter. It hit Sawyer, but the big fighter just laughed it off. Marie flew up to flank the shaman, and the three of them began a mid-air dance. Tunuak would shift around his spiritual bodyguard, only to find himself confronted by either the cleric or the fighter. Sandoval hit him with a Slow spell, and Zhustin groggily sat up from his crater in the slush, and cast a flurry of Empowered Magic Missiles at the shaman.

Meanwhile, Bella was surrounded by enemies. Naquun, to no one’s surprise, attacked Bella, and she turned to confront him. She too landed a solid hit, but it seemed to do less damage than she’d expected, and the hunter smiled evilly at her. They traded blows, but she was flanked by a pair of hoarfrost spirits as well, and she could see what they had done to Shinjiro. Deciding to take her chances, she made one last attack against Naquun, then stepped sideways off the ledge, falling 30’ to the path below. Unlike Zhustin, she stuck the landing.

Up in the air, the battle rapidly turned against Tunuak. Sawyer and Marie were pounding him mercilessly, and he was reduced to simply casting healing spells on himself to stay alive. From his bed of slush, Zhustin fired one more round of Magic Missiles, and the shaman’s body tumbled out of the air to the floor below.

But Tunuak’s death didn’t seem to affect his allies. With only the paralyzed monk above them, Naquun and the hoarfrost spirits began charging down the spiraling path towards Sandoval and Zhustin. Sandoval centered a Sound Burst among them, doing minimal damage but managing to stun one of the spirits. Nicki finally reached the ledge below him and returned to his material form. He immediately blasted the two leading hoarfrost spirits with a pair of Scorching Rays, and was gratified to see that the fiery rays did extra damage to the cold-based spirits. Bella, safe (for the moment) on the lower ledge, drew her bow and began firing arrows.

Back up at the top, the spirit continued to claw at Shinjiro’s paralyzed form, knocking him over and nearly off the 60-foot high ledge. Marie flew over to use her Channel Positive Energy to deliver healing to the motionless monk (and Sandoval, on the ledge below her), while Sawyer charged at his attacker, killing it with one blow. Sandoval cast another Sound Burst, killing one spirit and stunning two others. But the one in the lead reached Nicki, and sunk its claws into him; luckily Nicki managed to deal with the bone-chilling cold without being paralyzed. He fired a pair of Scorching Rays into his attacker at point-blank range, and it exploded into a cloud of ash. Zhustin ran partway up the ramp to get a good angle, then unleashed a Fireball on two more spirits along with Naquun. Unfortunately, in his excitement, he lost his footing and fell off the slippery ledge again. Bella fired an arrow that took out one more spirit, and Sawyer killed the last one that had been lurking up by Shinjiro.

That left only Naquun. The hunter showed no signs of surrender, charging down the ramp with an axe in each hand. Sandoval threw his net over him, but it merely slowed him down. Nicki cast a Spectral Hand, then used it to deliver a Corrupting Touch, but still Naquun continued attacking. Weapon attacks seemed to partially deflect off him, and wounds he’d received began closing even as he fought. Zhustin hit him with round after round of acid, but still he kept coming. Finally Bella lunged forward with rapier and dagger, sinking both deep, and Naquun’s lifeless body slumped to the floor. A moment later, a quasit flew up out of his mouth, confronting Bella – it seemed the poor hunter had been a possessed slave of the shaman’s all along!

The PCs earned 4,192 XP for the night, putting them at 53,226 XP. They are now at level 8, and need 75,000 XP for level 9. We’ll be at Rich & Joette’s next week, although Roger may be on call.