FROST GIANT RIFT
We return to Lasthaven and give the Snow Leopard Kittens to the Dwarf Druid Kilver Packfinder to raise. We then use the chain to return to the Frost Giant Rift.
We head into the lower levels and find that it is all ruined and smashed. We are attacked by a group of ice toads. Once we defeat them, we then explore the downstairs. We realize a lot of this area is artifice, it’s all faked to dissuade people.
We find a secret passage into another area. And in it we find Opal, the White Dragon. A young white dragon, it is willing to speak to us, and we negotiate a deal to give us some indication of where the hell the Jarl is. We note that there was a second creature in there with it, we think it is a second white dragon.
Opal tells Codex that he met his father, and mentions that he knows the Cinnabar clan is from the Northern Reaches. Opal also has in his possession a painting of the young King Tomas and Catherine, and his three sons at the age of 13, 11, and 9. He quickly identifies the people on the painting as relatives of Bale.
We leave peaceably, but Opal wants ownership of the mountain from Duke Abel. This is something that might cause problems later.
We head into the secret door shown to us by Opal, and fight the Frost giant guard. Then we enter into a room where we fight an Oni and his four Ogre servants. On the Oni’s person, we find a letter from the Jarl offering the Oni Lord a sizeable sum in exchange for them joining the war against humankind.
We murder an adjacent barracks of 8 ogres.
We then encounter a Cloud Giant, who offers us a wager. Rather than combat him, we play a game. Initially he offers us both draw from a deck of many things, and whoever gets the better outcome is the winner. Codex offers a counter offer – a game of chicken. Each would bid an amount of cards they are willing to draw, and whoever backs off would be the loser. The winner must draw the cards.
We have to bid at least two more cards because we are bidding as a group. And we privately agree that we have a limit of 5.
So Maud sits down and the bidding begins. The Cloud Giant bids 1, and Maud bids 4. The Giant bids 5, and Maud tells him to draw.
The Giant wins, but has to draw the deck. He draws the idiot twice, his intellect dropping, then the Rogue, an ally becomes an enemy, then the fates, and he restores some of his intellect, and finally the Void – and he drops comatose.
We put him in his bed and take his things, the Deck of Many things and the Dice of Oldimarra. We plan to use a Sending to the Stone Giants later to collect and care for him. Poor Cloud Giant and his crippling gambling addiction.
In the next room, we find a Storm Giant Prisoner. Verena Strike the Distant Mountain is her name, she tells us she was captured by Viscidious the Cloud Giant, the one that was in the other room, and offered as a Gift to the Jarl. She was incapacitated by a Toxin, and was chained in dimensional shackles before she could defend herself. Now the Jarl is trying to “convince” her to join him via offerings of food and, when that failed, constant beatings. The Ordning is strict, the Jarl cannot kill her, but so long as he provides food and drink, he can convince her however he likes.
We find the key to the shackles on Viscidious, disguised as a gem on the belt. After we free Verena, we heal and feed her, she could not eat the food or drink the drink offered as it would make her indebted to the Jarl, due to the rules of the Ordning. She is grateful and gives Codex permission to use a Sending to her to repay her debt of gratitude. We tell her that we are enemies of the Master. She warns us that the Master has relocated to the Fire Giant Castle, and resides there. Also, she tells us that the Master alone is not that powerful, he is only dangerous as a conduit to Vecna. If that conduit is disrupted, then he can be defeated.
We also find out that Yadagraph Blademaker is Verena’s cousin.
She leaves peacefully. We continue deeper into the Jarl’s lair.
We trick a Frost Giant Guard into approaching us by mimicking Viscidious’s voice. We ambush and kill him.
We then head towards a massive meeting chamber and throne room. Berdyn sees two giants hidden, on sniper positions 30 feet above the cavern floor. They have a pile of boulders, ready to attack those below.
So we come up with a plan. We get Maud to polymorph Simon into a Fire Giant, and have him lure the Frost Giants down from their perch. We set up the lone sentry to look like he is drunk. So Simon heads out, snaps his fingers at the Giant Snipers, and has them come into the previous chambers, pointing at the “drunk” guard. They are shocked and approach the “drunk” guard, then we attack, and super murder them.
We then approach the throne, and kill a throne guard Frost Giant. Beyond is the Jarl’s personal chambers.
We discover that there’s a creche beyond, a group of frost giant youths tended by a nanny and two guards protecting them. We send in Simon the Fire Giant to tell them to leave. They buy it, and leave. The rest of us are hidden behind the throne, Codex hears them talking about the Fire Giants attacking the Frost Giants. We may have started a war.
We meet the Lady Estia and Jarl Grugnar in the room beyond. They have two winter wolves, and they attack. After a pitched, desperate battle, we are victorious.
After we loot items, Codex realizes that Varena, Strike the Distant Mountain is Blood Daugher to Arientz, Ruler of those who walk the Skies. She is next in line to rule the Ordning, and a devoted worshipper and friend to Bahamut. She is scourge of evil and death to those who worship the evil gods. And a known acquaintance of the Lady of Pain.
There are only a few rooms remaining, and we still haven’t found the teleportation object to get us to the Fire Giant’s stronghold. We continue the search.