as written by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.

Starday, Abadius 31

Everyone was affected by Bevelek’s death, but we also realized that we were not yet safe. We asked ourselves (and answered, mostly from Kali) what we may know about yeti.

1) They can climb.
2) What we’ve seen so far is normal behavior.
3) They are well-adapted to the cold; in fact, they radiate cold themselves.
4) They emit a fear effect of some sort which can cause one to hesitate for a period of time.
5) They have no trouble seeing in the dark.
6) They have no particular weakness, except maybe fire.
7) They may have a language, called aklo?

So while the yetis could not cross the anti-life shell on the bridge, they were good climbers and might have another way to reach us. Heaven knows we’ve made some assumptions before that we were wrong about. So we spent more time than usual setting up our watch to make sure any attack would be promptly noticed, and notice quickly given.

Around 11pm, Qatana saw a yeti on top of the shelter that Kali had conjured up, but it just sat there and watched us as she watched it.

 

Sunday, Calistril 1

Around 3am, Nehali flew up and looked behind the shelter. There was nothing there.

Around 5am, everyone was rested and up. Qatana used stone shape to create a ten foot high wall behind us – hopefully that will stop the headless miscreants from coming up behind us again.

It was around 6:20am when Suishen gave me airwalk, and the others used their various methods to cross the chasm into the necropolis. There were no yeti waiting for us on the other side.

We carefully made our way to the ornate door in the “tree” room. The revenant’s body still lay silent on the ground where it fell the last time we killed it. Qatana cast hide from undead on us, and Ivan did a hand-plant to his forehead.

“Just a minute,” he said, and ran off back in the direction of the caravan. He returned shortly, explaining he’d just cast the same on the folks in the caravan.

Radella, inspecting the door for traps, immediately noted that the door was gilded, or mostly so. It was obvious that some of the gild had been scraped off, though. Ivan did a detect poison on the door, and the two of them concluded that the door had once been both locked and trapped, but no longer was either. The door opened towards us, and bore a demonic, tusked skull face on the door.

Inside there was a flickering firelight illuminating the room and corridor. A large shadow began to materialize; more undead. It approached Radella and took a swipe, noticeably weakening her. I had Suishen turn on its flame. But then from behind us came a deafening scream. The revenant arose, and made a beeline to the shadow. He started to hack at the shadow, but his efforts seemed ineffectual.

“Force weapons” yelled somebody. Sparna called upon his spiritual ally, but it missed. I had no such force option but held Suishen at ready as I looked for an opening. A lantern archon appeared, courtesy of Kali, but also missed the shadow. Ivan hit it with some arrows, but the damage looked small. Qatana’s spiritual ally thumped the shadow pretty good; then the shadow made a point of giving me an opening by approaching me and taking a swipe. I felt a bit weaker but swung hard with Suishen. The sword and the flame hit solidly and the shadow evaporated in fading black wisps.

At the same time, the revenant dropped to the ground and lay motionless, its reason for life gone.

We paused a second before Qatana, of course, stepped toward the body, and I swear I heard her say “third time’s the charm!” For the first time, she successfully picked up

[434] rapier +1
[435] cloak of elvenkind
[436] goggles of minute seeing
[437] MW thieves tools
47 platinum pieces
a backpack
[438] 200-300gp worth of scraped gold leaf

This appeared to be another “converted” room. There were red demonic faces on the walls; certainly not a Desna design. The center of the room was dark, but a skeleton with a mask was lying on a blue stone there. Here there was

[439] crystal lamp with a continual flame
[440] ghost armor +1 (breast plate)
– can cast death watch 3/day
– automatic protect from evil 1/day when attacked by undead
[441] ghost touch sword with nine rings +1
– use 1 ring – undead bane for 1 min
– use 2 rings – attempt to banish a possessing spirit (DC17)
– use 3 rings – destroy an undead creature
sword recharges at 1 ring/wk
[442] 8 matching bracelets
[443] 8 matching rings
[444] mask, gold w/jade eyes

Outside, in the “tree” room, Ivan and I both used our airwalk to walk up to the ceiling and see why it seemed to sparkle with starlight. Turns out it was just reflective flakes in the rock.

It was 8am now, and we had decided to head in to the yeti. I asked Suishen to give me protection from cold.

We passed through the catacombs and continued north. I could see ahead there were two yeti with their hands held palm out towards us. Clearly they understood the symbol for Stop 🙂

Kali, at this point, cast a special spell that would allow her to create and then use a special language with the yeti; at least that’s what I think she said. Qatana was included in the magic, and they did indeed seem to have some sort of conversation with the yeti. Kali told us that the King had said we were not to pass. He foretold one or two moons ago that strangers in wagons would appear and now here we were. In fact, we must be killed, also per order of the King. The King is very smart, and has a glowing rock flying around his head. We were assured, however, that we would be killed honorably.

During this conversation, many in our group received resist cold. I wonder what may them so nervous …

It was pretty clear that talking was not going to solve this problem. In fact, the conversation suggested a party may have already been dispatched to “greet” us. Reluctantly we retreated to the “tree” room again. Kali used a magical shelter to block one entrance to the room and we waited. It wasn’t too long before, sure enough, yeti started to appear.

During the course of the battle, several of us were momentarily struck by fear, but never enough at once that there wasn’t at least one fighter available to defend us. Additionally, Qatana cast both confusion and aura of madness at one point, and this caused the yetis to start attacking each other. Ivan created a wall of fire that made them very uncomfortable. I think all the fighters eventually got a killing blow on a yeti, and even one of the yetis got a killing blow on a yeti 🙂

But then it got weird. As the last yetis ran off, injured, Kali ran after them! Qatana threw a look of, sure, why not? and ran after her too! I looked at Sparna, and he looked at me and we shared a look that said, “I suppose we need to go protect them.” As we approached, a giant sleet storm enveloped them both. We each heaved a sigh and prepared to move in when, just as quickly, it disappeared: we found out later that Qatana had successfully dispelled it.

Now Kali created 4 smallish fire elementals and sent them into the yeti passages. What? This seemed like a good time to retreat, having driven them off, but it seemed we were moving forward with an attack. Yet Kali seemed to be telling us to fall back. Having intentionally introduced confusion, were we not now going to attack? Sparna and I were ready to move forward and make the most of this advantage, but moving forward, we found nothing to fight. If we continued to move farther, we would be even more separated and nothing good comes from that.

“Hear anything?” I said softly to Sparna. He shook his head no.

Confused, we headed back, and then the group as a whole moved back to the caravan to regain spells and decide on a strategy.