Off the High Ice

Surrounded by a horde of ravenous zombies, things were looking grim for our intrepid heroes. They were battling furiously atop Dead Man’s Dome, and undead were falling left and right, but for every walking corpse that fell, five more stepped up to take its place.

Bella, fearing that simple steel would not suffice to stem the onslaught, threw a vial of Alcehmist’s Fire into the crowd in front of her. One zombie burst into flames, and went down in a column of greasy smoke, but the little burning liquid that splashed onto its neighbors had little effect. Sandru, on the other hand, had no other alternative, and used his sword to start to clear a space around him.

Ghostly Hero of Dead Man's Dome

Likewise, the ghostly spirit of the original defender of Dead Man’s Dome, who had risen to join in the fight, was laying into the crush of undead and creating a wall of bodies around him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to slow their advance. The southern arm of the horde pressed forward, overwhelming that side of the party’s perimeter. As they swarmed around the defenders, there was a blood-curdling scream. Ameiko, torn by countless clawing hands and voracious mouths, went down beneath a mass of rotting bodies.

Ameiko’s screams caught Nicki’s attention. He was already fighting off the remnants of the northern side of the horde, but he risked their claws to toss an Empowered Fireball onto the back side of the southern horde, hoping that he’d judged Ameiko’s position correctly. He had, and when the smoke cleared, there was little left of that segment of the horde but a field of smoking bodies. Ameiko dragged herself out of a pile of corpses and into one of the wagons, where she curled into a fetal position and prayed that her friends would save her before more of the zombies found her hiding place.

To the west, Sawyer and Sandru were holding back the last organized attack. Shinjiro, who had been so shocked by the sheer numbers of the undead attackers that he had lost precious minutes simply standing in dumb disbelief, now sprang into action. Shamed that he had let his empress fall into the zombies’ clutches, he now launched himself against the horde to the west, and zombie bodies began flying through the air. Marie and Spivey flew overhead, Channeling the power of Desna against the undead. Koya pressed forward as well, her holy symbol her only weapon, and the organizing force keeping the zombies together crumbled before their combined heavenly might. As the horde dispersed into individual mindless creatures, the laughter they had heard high in the clouds above turned into a screech of fury, which quickly faded away into the distance.

But although the organized horde was dispersing, the threat was not over. Despite the fact that most of the undead began to wander aimlessly into the snow, a few rabid individuals were still intent on the party’s destruction. But having held off the attacks of hundreds of their mates, the party made short work of the last remnants of the horde. Ulf and Sandru finished off the attackers on the north, while Sandoval and Bella took care of the east. Zhustin tossed off a Fireball that cleared the south, and Shinjiro and Sawyer mopped up the west.

As the zombies scattered, the storm which had been dogging them along with the undead army suddenly broke. The snow stopped, and clouds evaporated with uncanny quickness. As the sky cleared, it revealed a light on the southern horizon. With a golden blaze, the sun rose into the polar sky for the first time in months. As the rising sun bathed the summit of Dead Man’s Dome in light, the ghostly warrior turned and faced the party. He raised his sword to his forehead in a solemn salute, then lowered it and pointed to the ground at his feet. Then his spirit slowly dissipated, sinking back into the fallen stones to stand guard until the next time he might be needed. Bella, examining the ground where he had stood, found a small magical terra-cotta figurine wedged between the stones.

As Marie, Koya, and Spivey busied themselves healing the badly injured, everyone else stood uneasy guard, worried that the remaining undead would regroup and attack again. But whatever will had directed their actions seemed to have collapsed, and the surviving zombies wandered off in all directions, with no apparent interest in the humans on the hilltop. They camped atop Dead Man’s Dome for the rest of the day and through the night, giving the yaks much-needed rest, and nothing tested their defenses.

The next morning, Ulf led them down off the ruined fortress and through a narrow pass that led down off the plateau of the High Ice and onto the lowlands below. They were back on the Path of Aganhei, and in the basin of Ruun Uvas, a vast depression in the polar plateau. Glaciers and frozen waterfalls drained down the cliffs all around, and fed into countless frozen streams, that eventually led to Saltsea Lake. On its shores, several days later, they came at last to the village of Ul-Angorn, the first (or last, depending on your direction) sign of civilization on this end of the Path of Aganhei.

Although it was larger than Iqualiat, the last village they’d seen, Ul-Angorn was still a small town of only a few hundred souls. But everyone of them was fascinated by these strange characters descending off the High Ice after the worst winter in living memory. Ulf needed to spend a good week in town, taking on supplies, trading out some of the most worn-down yaks for fresher livestock, and repairing wagons and replacing their sleigh runners with wheels again. During that time, the party found themselves the center of friendly attention, constantly fielding questions from the intrigued locals. They had agreed not to say anything that might give away their true identities or objectives, but it was impossible to be unobtrusive.

After several days of rest, the party began to get itchy to be back on the road. They busied themselves by doing some shopping of their own, trying to procure what little they could that might be of use from the small-town market. Bella shopped for potion ingredients to give to Koya for some special project they were cooking up. Nicki inquired into purchasing a slave girl, but unfortunately, they were too early in the season for the slavers to have arrived yet. Sawyer felt an itch of a different variety. He struck up a conversation with a pretty young thing selling baskets. She found his flaxen hair exotic, and his scars dangerous and exciting, and soon the two were whispering about a quiet rendezvous. Just then, an angry voice was heard over the bustle of the marketplace, as a very large, angry woman began bulling her way through the crowd to get her daughter away from this no-account foreigner.

Before Sawyer could try to spirit his new paramour away from her mother’s protection, an even larger, even angrier figure suddenly appeared on the edge of the market. It was easily 10 feet tall, with dusky red skin and protruding fangs. It was clad in eastern armor and carried an enormous greatsword, and began shouting in some unknown language. At the sight of it, panic gripped the marketplace as shoppers and merchants alike began to flee in terror.

Those who had done their homework, and read the book The Ecology of the Oni that they’d found back in Ravenscraeg, recognized it immediately as an Ogre Mage, a lesser form of oni. Sawyer hadn’t done much reading (ever), but that didn’t matter; Suishen was screaming in rage, and it was clear that the ancestral sword wanted nothing more than to cleave the oni from nose to navel. Sawyer excused himself from his “friend” (who was already being bodily dragged away by her mother anyway), and charged the oni, just as Zhustin popped off a quick Haste spell.

Ameiko, having learned her lesson atop Dead Man’s Dome (at least for the moment), moved away from the threat, as did most of the other citizens in the marketplace. But not all. A handful of figures in the crowd were moving towards the party, and pulling swords out from under their coats, or out of barrels of dried fish. One young man rushed up to Ameiko and grabbed her by the arm. “Hurry! Come with me and I’ll get you to safety!” he urged, but Ameiko wasn’t buying it, and began to struggle to escape. Bella rushed to her aid, but in the jostling crowd wasn’t able to hit the young man. Nicki made no attempt at subtlety; he blasted Ameiko’s assailant in the face with a pair of Scorching Rays, reducing him to a pile of smoking ash.

Sandoval began singing a Dirge of Doom, unsettling the attackers who were converging from all corners of the marketplace to assault the party. But once they had a moment to recognize the ambush for what it was, the party quickly rallied. Thugs began to fall in quick succession beneath their swords. But the real threat was the oni. Marie called down a Flame Strike on his head, and Zhustin tried to hit him with Scorching Rays of his own, but a fleeing merchant with a tray of sausages on sticks bumped him and sent his rays shooting harmlessly into the sky. Sawyer charged at the ogre mage, Suishen screaming challenges in ancient Minkaian. The oni got in one good swing on the fighter before Suishen eviscerated it. It fell in a bloody heap, and within seconds all its minions were also dead.

As frightened bystanders gradually began to trickle back into the square, the party made a quick search of the bodies. The ogre mage had nothing that would identify who he was, but the party had no doubts as to his allegiance. “Do you think he’s someone important in the Five Storms?” Zhustin asked, but Suishen snorted derisively. “He’s little more than a lookout, posted here to watch, in case we came through, and to try to abduct or kill the princess if we did. But he’s no doubt sent word to his superiors, so they’ll know we’re coming.” The thugs each had a pouch with 20 newly-minted Minkai gold pieces, and the townspeople identified them as local lowlifes, and seemed neither surprised nor upset that they’d met violent deaths.

After a week in Ul-Angorn, Ulf declared that the caravan was fit to travel again, and the party once more hit the road. They skirted the northern shore of the lake, and began to climb once again. Ulf explained that they’d cross the last rim of the High Ice on the far side of the Ruun Uvas basin, going over Ovorikheer Pass, then descend off the High Ice once and for all. Sure enough, within a week, they were back on the familiar polar plateau, but this time they could see the lowlands stretching out into the far distance below them.

Giant Snow Phase Spider

But as they struggled over the highest part of the pass, a gargantuan spider suddenly appeared next to Shinjiro and Sandru’s wagon. It was larger than the wagons, and covered with thick white hair, and it had simply materialized out of thin air. It lunged at Shinjiro with dripping fangs, but seemed to slip on the ice, and missed badly. Then it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

The party froze, knowing another attack was imminent, but not knowing where it might hit. Koya began muttering a Prayer to Desna and Ameiko jumped off the wagon and moved away from the side the spider had been on, unfurling her flag. But everyone else waited nervously, fingers, bows, and swords at the ready.

Sandoval had an idea he might know what this was. He’d heard tales of Phase Spiders, creatures that could cross between the Ethereal and Material Planes as easily as other spiders traverse their webs, although he’d never heard of any even approaching the size of this one. On the chance he was right, he cast Blink, causing his body to begin to rapidly switch in and out of the Ethereal Plane. Sure enough, in the moments when he was ethereal, he could see the dim shape of the huge spider scuttling across the gray and ephemeral landscape. He tried to work warnings of its position into the lyrics of the song he was singing, but there was nothing the others could do until it rematerialized.

Which it did, dashing back to Shinjiro’s wagon before crossing to the Material Plane and striking again at the monk. Once again, it seemed to have trouble with the crossing, and missed. But its appearance opened a floodgate of action. Arrows and spells flew, and Sawyer charged towards its location. Nicki cast a Charm Monster spell, but being unable to speak arachnid (or even sure if it could understand speech at all), he simply made shooing motions in its direction.

Sandru fired off an arrow and the hairy thing towering over him, but his shaking hands make the arrow fly wide. Wanting to put as much distance between him and it as possible, he turned to leap off the wagon. But the spider struck with surprising speed, its fangs ripping open his back. As he fell to the ground, he felt its poison burning through his veins, and barely had enough strength to struggle back to his feet. Shinjiro pummeled it with a Flurry of Blows, but it struck at him once again, and this time it found its target, and Shinjiro found himself weak as a kitten.

Marie hammered the spider with a Flame Strike and Zhustin let fly a Fireball, and the huge arachnid disappeared again. Once again, the waiting game began, but Sandru and Shinjiro were growing weaker with each passing minute as its poison worked its way through their systems. Marie hurried to Sandru’s side and cast Neutralize Poison. He immediately felt the venom fade away, but was still left so weak he could barely raise his sword. Koya offered Shinjiro a Bit of Luck, and he was able to resist the poison’s effects until Marie had a chance to cast Delay Poison.

But the spider was still out there, somewhere on the Ethereal Plane, waiting to attack without warning. Sandoval could see it moving through the fuzzy landscape, limping and scorched, but wary and dangerous. Sandoval knew he was the only one who could attack it on its own turf, and so he charged, praying that his blade would strike in one of those random instants when he was ethereal. The gods must have heard his prayer, because it did, slicing one of the creature’s tree trunk sized legs clean off. Stumbling, the gargantuan spider lunged at Sandoval, and would have impaled him with its venomous fangs, but in the split second before they struck, the bard returned to the Material Plane. Sandoval lunged at the spider again, and again the gods smiled on him, for his blade found the creature’s ethereal heart, and it rolled over onto its back, legs curled above its body.

When Sandoval announced that the creature was dead (its body remained in the ethereal plane), Nicki quickly spoke up. He’d been watching Sandru and Shinjiro struggle to overcome the effects of the venom, and the clerics working feverishly to restore them. “I don’t know what kind of poison that thing has, but I’d sure like to have some.” Sandoval sighed. He climbed atop the spider’s ethereal corpse and, working quickly before the Blink spell expired, managed to extract the thing’s venom sac without poisoning himself in the process. “Here,” he said, tossing the bloody pouch to the delighted Nicki, “just don’t use it on any of us.”

The PCs earned 8,114 XP for the night, putting them at 85,169 XP, with 105,000 required for level 10. We’ll be at Leo’s again next week, although Joette will be missing.