1. Journals

7. Rime or Reason

October 12, 2025

12th Nymm, 998 YK

  • Tamara does the recap, earning an Advance on Nerys' least developed theme
  • Standing outside of the icy spire, the party proceed to enter. If there's a fight, there's a fight.
  • Damien is in front and enters first, encountering the deathsgaters: Aena Thennas, Ferrin and Gor'aashta. Ferrin is being played by Chloe today.
  • Damien opens with "Ah! You're fortunate you're not dead!"
  • Ferrin sneers. "Well, lads, look! The little heroes from Sharn are alive! That's a miracle itself"
  • Ban says it feels like one, not gonna lie
  • Both groups are looking pretty rough
  • Nerys mentions that they came on an elemental galleon, so the group can go back with them. Might wanna be careful though, there's a Remorhaz outside.
  • Ferrin is despondent. Close the fucking door!? What do you mean there's a remorhaz outside?
  • Damien explains this is a survival situation. We don't like you, you don't like us, but we can get through this together
  • Nerys says "we don't like them?"
  • Oh Nerys
  • Ferrin agrees, this is a matter of survival. Whether they like it or not, they're all...here right now
  • Ferrin thinks they bring more to the table than the Clifftoppers do
  • Damien looks at the frozen corpses of the rest of the Deathsgaters expedition and says "sure"
  • Ferrin crosses her arms and side steps to cover one of the corpses
  • Gor'aashta ruins the illusion by asking if the group has any food?
  • Oh do we have the guy for you! They introduce them all to Banazir d'Ghallanda
  • "IF we're talking about bringing things to the table, nobody does that better than I do"
  • He begins making a stew. Nerys asks about bread, but Ban didn't bring any flour with him.
  • Ban's mark kicks in and he produces one of the best stews ever stewed. It's like a 5 star meal, and he did this in a cave with a frying pan and a fire.
  • Ferrin gets a whiff of it and instantly begins salivating. "Fine, in exchange for letting you use our safe house, we'll share a meal with you"
  • Ban is personable but Damien immediately begins clashing with them
  • "Food brings people together" is Ban's motto
  • The meal also heals! Ban is truly amazing
  • Ferrin asks what the group's plan is to get out of here?
  • The party explain they have an elemental galleon. They saw the deathsgaters ship, it seemed to be a wreck
  • Ferrin tries to downplay that, it's fine! Right now they should count their blessing!
  • So the clifftoppers have a galleon. Cool
  • They ask if the deathsgaters got anywhere with the mission? 
  • Oh, they're on the same mission! They finally sent the B Team!
  • "Oh cos the A Team is doing so well!"
  • Aena huffs. Nobody told them they'd need to read ancient dwarven, but she's been cracking it!
  • She has a notebook where she's been codebreaking
  • Nerys and Charlie both ask to see her notes!
  • Ferrin says she wouldn't
  • Nerys' parents forced them to learn ancient dwarvish as a teenager! They can read the runes!
  • Well that makes things easy
  • "Another heartbreaking case of parents being right"
  • Aena explains what she thinks is going on, there's a puzzle on the door but she can't read the runes. There are four columns of runes, 3 rows, with 4 empty spaces at the bottom.
  • Nerys being able to read the runes makes the puzzle easily solveable. Hooray!
  • Nerys praises Aena's progress anyway, she was getting close! It was just important to Nerys' parents that they learn the rules
  • Damien tells Nerys not to be humble
  • Aena fumes silently and just walks back to her group, while Nerys is talking
  • Nerys puts the plates in the appropriate places, and the doors slide open, revealing a spiral staircase that goes up.
  • Well, only one way to go.
  • As the main party go up, the Deathsgaters hang back a bit and have a private discussion.
  • Ferrin suggests they team up for now, these clifftoppers are idiots! They just shared food without asking for anything! They should let the clifftoppers clear the dungeon and then take advantage of the situation.
  • The only reason the clifftoppers are on top right now is because they didn't have to deal with all of the harrowing shit they had to deal with.
  • Gor'aashta isn't comfortable taking advantage of people who have come to help them
  • Ferrin says these people love being taken advantage of! It's rewarding for them! We're just letting them do what they love best, dishing out resources and not getting back for it.
  • Gor'aashta says they won't fight the party, but won't let harm come to Ferrin either.
  • Aena asks if she should "put the fallen expedition members to work"
  • Ferrin says yes, that's a resource. But save it in case of a bad situation, don't reveal their hand yet.
  • Ferrin gives a little speech about taking advantage of the situation, getting her squad on board. They will be allies for now. Don't worry Gor'aashta, they won't be betraying them. While it suits them.
  • Camera pans to the others climbing the stairs, with Nerys saying they should wait for the others to catch up. Damien says fuck em, if they stay behind, he doesn't care. Charlie says he doesn't want to wait, they're so close to finding out things!
  • Nerys shouts down the stairs, "do you want us to wait for you!?"
  • Ferrin puts her head in her hands and mutters that she doesn't know if they're going to survive this, and then shouts back "We're coming!"
  • At the top of the stairs, several hundred feet up, is a set of icy double doors with an ancient dwarven rune in the middle. Nerys can read it, it says "Melt"
  • They say that, and say they need to sit down for a second.
  • Nerys says the rune says melt, does anyone have fire?
  • Aena says, with full condescension, "have you tried touching it?"
  • Nerys touches the rune, and the doors instantly melt, exposing them to the blizzard outside. It seems their path continues as a ledge on the outside of the spire.
  • They discuss tying a safety rope to them all. Charlie suggests he could summon a roof above them to protect them.
  • "Why don't you just go out, you have no problem with the cold"
  • Charlie goes out onto the ledge. Ferrin asks if he's gonna be okay, he hasn't even got warm clothes on? Isn't he gonna die?
  • Damien lays it on. "Yeah, we sent a scholar on ice magic to the coldest place on Eberron."
  • Ferrin kicks off. "Oh yeah you were a specially built party, this job just fell in our lap!"
  • They continue to verbally clash while Charlie explores.
  • Charlie walks around the tower, to another set of double doors with the same rune on. He touches it, and the doors melt, revealing another set of stairs, thankfully indoors.
  • Charlie considers just continuing on his own, but goes back for the others.
  • As he goes back, he uses his ice magic to create a fence on the ledge. His magic isn't working as effectively as he's hoping, so he starts dancing to try and make him seem more interesting to curry favour with Luca Syara
  • He sings too, out in the blizzard, about him trying to date people from different nations, playing into stereotypes. Damien is offended
  • but Luca seemingly isn't, because it gives the magic the extra juice he needed!
  • He then returns to the others, where Ferrin and Damien stopped arguing because of the absurdity of Charlie singing and dancing in the snow
  • Right. Back to it then.
  • Charlie explains there's another door, he opened it up and also built a fence. You're welcome.
  • Ruckus braces himself to go back out into the cold.
  • Damien buttons his shirt back up (but will unbutton immediately when back in the warm!)
  • Gor'aashta just flexes so hard the cold can't approach.
  • They proceed out into the snow and walk around to the next door, protected by Charlie's fence. Nerys hates being so high up.
  • They proceed up the stairs, and Damien rushes forward excitedly to press the next rune, but it's a normal set of doors. He is deflated.
  • They emerge in a wide chamber with 5 alcoves in it, each one containing an ice sculpture of a dwarf. The alcove opposite the door is bigger, and the sculpture there is 10-foot tall and encased in full plate.
  • Damien gives Nerys a boost to get a better look at the statues.
  • But they have no discernable features to determine who they might have been, other than dwarves.
  • There don't seem to be any artifacts in here, and no other doors. Just statues.
  • Hmm
  • Damien goes and puts his face up to the big one, to see if anything is inside of it. The statues grabs his shoulder and throws him across the room, where he goes down the stairs. He bunches up and teleports back to the top of the stairs.
  • The statues reaches out to grab Nerys. She tries to speak to it in ancient dwarvish, saying "we are not enemies please don't hurt us"
  • Upon seeing that's not working, they get out of the way, leaving Charlie in its path
  • "I've done it once, I could do it again. I could just yassify it"
  • Charlie starts casting, but gets picked up by the golem and then smashed into the ground. Ugh
  • The deathsgaters get involved. Ferrin commands Gor'aashta to try and grapple it, whilst she and Aena attack it.
  • Ferrin tosses her boomerang whilst Gor'aashta gets the golems attention. Aena tries to disrupt the magic in the golem, but comes against its magic resistance.
  • Gor'aashta gets smashed in the face whilst Aena yells that its resistant to magic
  • Ferrin yells at the clifftoppers. "If any of you wanna get involved!?" and then she singles out Ban and Ruckus as being most effective.
  • Ban swings his pan into the golems leg and chips away at it, and then gets sent flying by a backhand
  • Ruckus deploys his suit and goes toe to toe with it, and smashes its ankle with his wrench. The wound then refreezes over and heals. Fuck.
  • Damien springs back to his feet, teleports behind the golem and then runs into the alcove it came from to look around. He sees that the alcove has an open top, and leads to a tunnel that goes further up. He theorises that the golem itself is the way forward.
  • Aena has been analysing the fight, and calls out that she thinks the big statue is connected to the small ones!
  • Nerys calls out "okay thanks"
  • They then get their axe and attack one of the smaller statues. The statue instantly shatters, which seems to injure the big one. It takes umbrage to this, grabs Nerys' cape and swings them over its head, smashing them into the ground.
  • Damien follows suit, going to the next alcove and smashes it with his rapier. The big one reaches for him as he does so, but the shattering of the small statue causes its arm to shatter into small pieces, saving Damien.
  • Ban's up next, rolling to his feet and smashing another statue, which causes the golems last arm to fall off. It responds by blasting a cone of freezing cold air from its face in the direction of Ban, Ruckus, and Aena.
  • All of them mitigate the blast somewhat but still get hit by some of it, making them freezing cold.
  • The Deathsgaters are up next. Ferrin throws a boomerang at the last remaining statue, whilst ordering Gor'aashta to smash it as well.
  • The large golem uses its last moments to head butt Gor'aashta, shattering as it does so and cutting him up.
  • With the golem defeated, water begins to drip down the alcove and freeze into the shape of a spiral staircase leading up to the top.
  • Nerys rips some of their cloak off to make a bandage for Gor'aashta. They ask for it back later though? Meanwhile, Charlie is embedded in a Charlie shaped depression in the ground and is also bleeding.
  • Damien tends to Charlie, whilst shooting disapproving glances at Nerys. He's always prepared, so he gets his first aid kit out. Turns out, he's very good at that!
  • Charlie's all good for now.
  • Ruckus tries to help Aena, who is freezing now, by building a heat pack. Damien also takes umbrage with that, where was that when they were all freezing in the fucking blizzard!?
  • Aena thanks him, and he says something like "hey we're all in this together"
  • Aena then asks Ferrin if they're going up? Yup, if everyone is good
  • Charlie says he feels great
  • They head up, one last time, to a small chamber adorned like a crystalline garden. The Hoarfrost Flower is here.
  • Nerys is suspicious of traps. They shouldn't just run up to it.
  • Damien says if there's a flower, he's going to pick it. He walks up to the flower, but pauses. Does anyone educated in magic want to check things over?
  • Aena whispers to Ferrin that she thinks the flower is keeping the tower up. Ferrin says they'd best leave, then, and they start heading down whilst the clifftoppers go into the room.
  • Charlie goes and has a look, drawing the flower. He draws the same conclusion as Aena. Damien asks how they long they'd get? Not long
  • Damien suggests the others all leave the tower and Damien will grab the flower.
  • Wait, where did the deathsgaters go?
  • Panning to the bottom of the tower, Gor'aashta is complaining to Ferrin that he doesn't like this. What if they die?
  • Ferrin says if they can't figure out the trap, then it's nature taking its course! They can just wait and see what happens
  • Gor'aashta points out that they tended to their wounds. Aena agrees, clutching the heat pack.
  • Ferrin is weighing up the pros and cons of betrayal, lets out a heavy sigh, and relents. Whether she likes it or not, they probably wouldn't have made it this far without them.
  • Ferrin suggests getting Aena to animate the dead to help them if they get stuck, and Aena starts casting as the others (minus Damien) come down the stairs.
  • Aena freezes, and Ruckus asks what's going on?
  • Ferrin says "wouldn't you like to know, weather boy"
  • Ban asks if they need help getting their fallen comrades to the ship. Aena stutters and says yes.
  • Nerys asks if they need help carrying them? Aena holds her arms out and says "yes, I'm so...weak"
  • Ferrin does the same. "Oh, I'm so short"
  • Gor'aashta picks up two of the corpses, one over each shoulder.
  • Ferrin asks what the plan is? "You've left the Aundarian boy to grab the flower and run?"
  • Yeah basically
  • "You guys wing it a lot, don't you?"
  • Damien waits patiently for a bit to give them long enough to get to the bottom and then just plucks the flower.
  • He immediately starts running, and realises quickly that whatever enchantment was making the ice not slippery has faded. He's steady on his feet though and avoids falling down the stairs.
  • In the chamber with the ice golem, the ceiling starts to collapse around him. He darts between the debris, teleporting when he needs to, and gets to the stairs without injury.
  • At the bottom, the others see the doors to the stairs close, as all of the Melt doors re-freeze, without a rune.
  • Ruckus jury rigs a bomb to blow the double doors open, and opens the door at the bottom of the stairs.
  • This causes shockwaves to travel up the tower, fissuring the ice beneath Damien as he gets onto the outside ledge. Damien uses his momentum to slide along the ledge. He slips and falls, and hits Charlie's fence crotch first. The whole group winces.
  • Feeling like he's gonna vomit, Damien gets to his feet and hobbles to the stairs, where the door has reappeared without a melt rune!
  • He gets out the ice pick from his cold weather survival kit and starts trying to chip at the door. If he can just get a whole big enough to see through, he can teleport through!
  • As soon as he can, he teleports into the stair well and bolts down the stairs into the foyer, where the others have already left (and taken the fallen deathsgaters with them)
  • Damien sees the wreckage at the bottom of the stairs and mutters to himself "I fucking love that goblin"
  • He rushes out of the tower before it finishes collapsing, sending a cloud of snow in all directions. With the tower gone, whatever energy was maintaining the storm seems to have gone too and the sun breaks through.
  • Damien immediately unbuttons his shirt.
  • The clifftoppers rush to Damien, their hero, to check on him. He says he's good in a higher pitch than normal, and then coughs. Charlie asks if they can do anything and he asks for an ice pack.
  • Damien grabs some snow and puts it in his trousers.
  • Ferrin capitalises on this. "What a sight for the hero of the hour!"
  • Nerys says not to be mean
  • "It's fine, he left his dignity behind but he saved the day"
  • It's just some friendly banter!
  • Damien says they aren't friends, and starts walking.
  • Ruckus asks what to do with the bodies, and Aena says they have families in Sharn. They're taking them back.
  • Nerys comments that maybe they could afford resurrection! Aena scowls. The deathsgaters are not wealthy (unlike the clifftoppers!)
  • They return to the Undeniable, in record time! They haven't finished fixing it yet!
  • Nerys tells Helja everything they saw! They go to show him something that fell from the golem but they just have an empty, wet pocket. Ugh.
  • Nerys tries to say it was part of the statue but it melted!
  • The Undeniable takes them all back to Stormhome, and the Clifftoppers take a chartered airship back to Sharn. The Deathsgaters haven't been paid for.
  • Nerys wants to pay for them. Ban manages to negotiate a reduced rate for them, but Lyrandar isn't a charity.
  • Damien gets out his immense coin purse and puts some platinum coins down. Ban also pays with his moderately full purse.
  • The Deathsgaters have never even seen a platinum coin
  • Ferrin wants to hate them but they're making it very hard, but she's a survivor and pragmatic. It would've been an arduous and horrible journey back. She doesn't make any more snide comments, just going quiet and keeping to her group.
  • She even ignores Damien's attempts to start shit!
  • She's soured by the situation. Aena gets on with Charlie, and Gor'aashta is chill af.
  • Damien gives them a twenty minute lecture on how shit airships are.
  • They return to Sharn, and the clifftoppers get paid. The deathsgaters get a dressing down from their leadership, souring them further.
  • Yashira earns 3 advances due to Chloe's roleplay today as Ferrin