Category Archives: Jade Regent

The Jade Regent adventure path.

Character: Olmas

Annals of the Order of the Dragon

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as written by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.

Sunday, Calistril 1

It was unusual to be doing battle so early in the day.  After arguing with the yeti, and then killing a half dozen of them, and dispelling an ice storm … it was still at least two hours before lunch.  Our magic wielders found their magic moderately depleted much earlier in the day than usual, and we’d really made very little progress.  So we decided to spend much of the day resting and, for our magic wielders, recovering spells.

To ensure that we would not be surprised and they could indeed recover their spells, we were extra diligent with the guard around the caravan.  To the rear, we had a stone wall that (we hoped) the wardens would not be able to get over or around.  And then, to the yeti side of the caravan, we had the bridge with the anti-life shell over it.  But we weren’t entirely sure the yeti couldn’t bypass that.

There was a long discussion about the ghost sword we had obtained.  We now had the ability (or at least the opportunity) to banish a possessing spirit.  Should we be trying to defeat the yeti king, or exorcise him?  Sparna agreed to take it up, but as a group we were still undecided on how to proceed the next day.

In the meantime, I tried to find some common ground with the yeti.  I saw one yeti watching from behind a rock, and I wanted to show him we were harmless, so I tried standing with my sword sheathed and my arms open.  That got no reaction.  I told him to come out with open arms and we would welcome him, but of course he did not understand Common.

Shortly, however, three more yeti appeared, also taking cover.

I asked Ivan to cast continual light on a small rock, and I underhanded it towards the yeti.  The yeti looked a little nervous, but didn’t approach it.  “C’mon, pick it up” I yelled but they just looked at the rock.  I conferred with Ivan, and he cast light on a bigger, slightly-smaller-than-head sized rock. The other rock stopped glowing, and I tossed the bigger one.

The yeti disappeared, and then reappeared with an object. One tossed it to us over the chasm – it was the revenant’s head.  Clearly he was not understanding.  Sparna kicked the head into the chasm.

I threw another large glowing stone.  It was ignored.

At this point, Sparna and Ivan talked quietly for a moment and then Sparna turned and faced the yeti.  Ivan mumbled quietly and Sparna suddenly increased in size to that of a small yeti, and Kali, getting into the swing of things, created the image of an ioun stone circling his head.  With a look of anger, Sparna took the head of Katiana (I missed how THAT made it out there!) and in a split second and with a gesture from Ivan, it too was glowing.  Sparna threw the head across the chasm.

The yeti threw the head back.

Ivan cast comprehend languages and began translating for us as Sparna kicked the head into the chasm and stared hostilely at the lead yeti.  The staredown was on.

The yeti did not break gaze as he said, “Come, cowards, and meet king.”

Kali made the ioun stone circle Sparna one last time before it flung itself at the leader.  The leader dodged and called for more yeti, including “the king’s men”.  And soon, 10 or so yeti were crowding the entrance, now some with spears.  They were gesturing and shouting and the leader said, “Come now and be escorted to king for death sentence.”

Clearly this little bit of negotiation was not working, and I was tired of it.  Now that there were distance weapons (spears) on the other side, I was feeling less charitable.  So I drew my bow, nocked an arrow and hit the leader.

He was clearly surprised, but on our side, Ivan was quick to let more arrows fly and they too hit the leader.  In a twisted bit of logic, the leader threw his spear at Sparna (!) and hit him good.  Another spear missed him.  Kali cast an aqueous orb as this strange, distance battle over the chasm continued.  Both Ivan and I hit our targets again, and the leader looked to be bleeding pretty good.

After a bit of confusion the horde of yeti hastily retreated to less open positions, and no clear target presented itself anymore.  Ivan defiantly threw an obscene gesture that, I think, transcends spoken word.  Qatana healed Sparna as both Ivan and I hit with arrows one last time before the yeti disappeared entirely.

Diplomacy is harder than it looks.

(around lunch)

We heard a noise from the rear of the caravan.  Qatana flew high enough to see over the stone wall she had erected, and saw more of the headless zombies mindlessly trying to walk through the wall.  While they appeared to be in no danger of reaching us, Qatana nevertheless lit them on fire with oil until they stopped twitching their charred limbs.

That night, after dinner, Kali proposed a startling plan: she would go invisible, and fly into the throne room and see if there was evidence that the king was an oni, or evidence that the king was Katiana’s ghost.  Although it was of general consensus that we needed to deal with the yetis in order to make progress, there had been absolutely no consensus on how best to do that.  I was convinced that if we could limit the yeti to one or two at a time we could methodically slice through them.  Kali, and I think one or two others, were opposed to the needless killing of the yeti.  Frankly, I was too if I could be shown it was really needless but I saw no other way.  Sparna, bearer of the ghost sword, was willing to plunge the sword into the king if we had evidence that he was possessed instead of being a polymorphed oni or even just an angry yeti leader … but he could do much more damage with his usual weapons if there was no need to exorcise a spirit and was wary of going in under-armed.

Kali elaborated on her plan. With detect magic running, she should be able to make that determination.  We would advance to a point nearby and she could use a Message spell to communicate what she learned back to us.  We would then adjust our strategy appropriately.  It was a plan that put Kali at great risk, but it also gave us a possibility of resolving the situation without annihilating the yeti.  If the king could be made our friend, a simple command from him would save us many battles.  And even if I thought it possible to destroy all the yeti, I was by no means certain that it would not come at the cost of the lives of some of our party.

So while I believe the group was still divided on what the yeti king actually was, we did come to the agreement that Kali’s plan gave us the best chance of success.  Normally, the well-armed and buff Radella would be our choice for spy, but this mission required more magic than mere silence.

Moonday, Calistril 2

It was around 7:15am, I think, when I heard Sparna yell something across the chasm and – did I hear right? – something in the language of the yeti?  Later, he told me he’d spent much of his watch learning and practicing the language.  Astonishing.  I later asked Suishen if he could learn new languages, and with typical disdain, he responded that language was only useful in slowing down conversation and the world would be better if everyone was telepathic.  I took that as a no.

We prepared for our foray.  In addition to all the spells Kali would need, we used resist cold (I used protection from cold, from Suishen) and variants of fly or airwalk and dark vision. Kali added magic circle; if she was right and Katiana’s ghost was involved, that ward might give a possessed creature another opportunity to shake it off.

We crossed the chasm and noted there were no yeti present.  Kali added comprehend languages to her spells and took off. We needed to give her 30-60 seconds to get there first and communicate back to us.  I told Suishen to turn the flame on.

We quickly reached the other anti-life shell, and two yeti – I think at least one was one we’d hit yesterday – silently glowered at us from the other side.  With the assistance of Ivan, I took another glowing rock and tossed it over to them.  They were unimpressed. Apparently somebody had updated them on the fact that not everything glowed was fire.  Sparna announced, “Let us pass, and will spare your lives”.

Surprisingly, the yeti replied, “Ok”.  And they each stood off to one side.  This soooo smelled like a trap, but this was the plan.  We flew or walked over the anti-life sphere, as appropriate, and proceeded to the throne room.  Although there were many yeti there – probably more than a dozen – they just stood and stared at us. Qatana announced there was a magical aura over the whole room.

And no king.  Sparna pointed this out: “Where is your king???”  Qatana cast invisibility purge – cleverly missing Kali – as one of the yeti moved down off a ledge and announced, “King? You want king?  ATTACK!”  And the battle we’d hoped to avoid began – including a lightning bolt directed at me.  Wait, lightning??

The mayhem had barely begun when another yeti emerged from a stone wall. Really.  Judging from the others’ reactions that had to be the king.  Kali, who saw the lightning and already knew what the king looked like from previous scrying, realized this really might be Katiana and that this was her chance. Kali flew over the king and put him within the influence of her magic circle.  It had some of the desired effect, as the king cried out, “Stop fighting! Evil spirit … help me defeat evil spirit!”

The yeti stopped, but were very uncertain.

Sparna stepped up and explained before he swung that he must hit the king with the magic sword to expel the spirit.  The king agreed, as Kali reached down and applied a magic circle directly to the king.

The sword hit, but the king was still fighting possession and Katiana was still shooting lightning.

Sparna hit again and this time, Katiana’s ghost emerged from the king, cackling as though it was all her idea.  With her flying, and incorporeal, only we could defeat this enemy now.  There was dispel magic, and there were magic missiles, and there were force beings, and there was, of course, Suishen and flames and shrieking (from Katiana).  She summoned a lightning elemental, but just as quickly Ivan made it go back.  It was Radella that had the killing blow – or at least so we believe since it seems we killed Katiana once before – and the room was finally silent for a bit.

Now the real diplomacy began, as praise was heaped on each party, and gifts exchanged: the king gave us the ioun stone, and we gave him a magic breastplate. Backs were slapped, hands were shaken, and promises were made.  We told the king that the revenant was dead and he was pleased.  We told him the shadows were gone and he was pleased.

[445] ioun stone of Alertness (dark blue)

The king spoke Common, thankfully, but that also meant I got to hear the exchange between the king and Qatana about how Pookie was responsible for his being freed.  It’s a tortuous story, but the next party coming through the caverns will likely find yeti-art resembling a warrior mouse-yeti.  And Qatana will be insufferable for a week.

The King, whose name was Bormurg, also, of course, gave us free passage through his realm, but commented that only a few minutes away the road ended in a blank wall.  He was confident his powerful new friends would figure out how to pass through the wall however.

Character: Kali

Kali’s Journal, Calistril 1 – 2, 4713

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Calistril 1, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, evening)

The counter-attack I was expecting never materialized, though we did get the next best thing, I suppose: several yeti emerged from the pool room and stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the cavern, forming a living wall between us and the necropolis. Why did they take a defensive position instead of making an assault? I don’t know, but I can speculate: they didn’t want to fight us on our terms. A theme that has emerged with them is “come see our king”, followed by some variation of “so he can kill you”. And if we were to be surrounded by yeti deep in their territory I have no doubt that they could follow through on that.

Obviously, they plan to ambush us when and if we do as they ask. We figured that one out even before they explicitly said so. They are not very subtle, nor are they particularly skilled at intrigue,

According to the others, the yeti just stood there watching us. After a while, Sparna and Ivan got bored and started a ridiculous pissing contest with them. It began with tossing pebbles at each other and then escalated to whatever was on hand, including the revenant’s corpse and Katiyana’s head. Because of course it did.

I think Sparna was trying to intimidate them into leaving, or going to get their chief, or something. Whatever his intention, this was making them agitated. I wasn’t sure this was the best use of our time or resources—we were supposed to be resting, healing, and planning, not starting another fight—but I didn’t want to be accused of not being a team player again. So I participated in the silly game until it stopped being silly. That would be when Olmas actually took a shot at one of them, burying an arrow in a yeti’s chest.

For all Olmas’s and Sparna’s talk about a discipline and order, it all comes down to the pot and the kettle both being black. I may have my moments of immaturity, but at least I don’t shoot people because I am bored and out of ideas. Desna was with us, however, and the yeti retreated before anyone died. On either side. Yours truly may have had some influence over that.

I was not in a good mood. I am still not. My wonderful theory about the Yeti chief? I couldn’t convince anyone at all, and after talking to Koya I was beginning to doubt it myself. It took the wind out of my sails.

It all came down to what the yeti meant by “two moons ago”. She suggested that the spirits they worship may be connected to the moon, or that they might find the moon sacred in some fashion. How they count days is still a mystery, but the suspicion was that their chief ventures outside from time to time for whatever passes as worship or ritual.

This is where the idea that the chief was not possessed, but rather replaced, started to take root. The Five Storms knew, more or less, where we were and where we were headed. It would not be unreasonable for there to be oni waiting for us at the pass. Faced with the same storm, said oni might have turned to the Path of Spirits as we did, only from the Tian Xia side where he or she encountered the chief. We know an ogre mage can assume a human form, but there’s no reason to believe that it must be strictly human. They could just as easily take the form of a large humanoid, like, oh, say, a yeti.

An oni in the chief’s place would be just as reasonable, if not more likely, than my theory of Katiyana’s ghost. It all makes perfect sense.

Except it doesn’t explain the storm, and there is this big hole in the logic. I get that the others believe this oni theory. I get that they want to believe it. But we all heard that voice on the wind. We all saw the storm expand behind us as if it were following us. That, and Sithhud and the Five Storms working together just does not make sense. How would they even make such an agreement? How would that even work? What bargain could they possibly make with one another? Demonic beings working together is a stretch on its own, especially when they don’t have common goals.

So I wasn’t ready to give up yet. And I made a proposal: that we test the theories.

They think I am out of my mind. They … may be right. What I suggested we do—that I do—is unbelievably dangerous and bordering on suicidal. It is an idea even worse than my plan for the white dragon.

“I can fly in under invisibility, and use a spell to mask my scent. The wand will give me the ability to see in the dark. I’ll have a protective spell up that will prevent mental control over me. And I’ll use another spell that will let us exchange whispered messages, if needed. I can get in to the chief’s throne room completely undetected.”

To what purpose? To find the yeti chief, and see what spells, if any, were on or around him. I would be able to tell the difference between mental control and shapeshifting. It would give us valuable information.

Sparna didn’t like it. Neither did Olmas. What if I was discovered? What if I was hurt? I’d be surrounded, with no real hope of rescue. I could be facing the chief, who is able to cast spells, and the entire yeti tribe. The objections kept coming.

“I can always teleport away. That’s my escape plan.” And it was a pretty good one, too. It was enough to get them to agree to it.

The problem, of course, is that it wasn’t foolproof. Meet a yeti’s gaze, and I might be overcome by the magical fear it instills in you. Alone and paralyzed, I would not be able to do anything except fall to the ground. I didn’t point this out. Because they’d never let me do it if they knew it could fail. But “certain” can be an impossible standard. You could waste your entire life waiting for “certain”. That, and, I am not some gods-be-damned fragile child! I wasn’t then, and I sure as hell am not now.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to do this. I mean, I do, but I don’t. But the thing is, I don’t want us to have to kill every living thing here in order for us to leave (am I the only one?). This may be our best shot at that.

Calistril 2, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, morning)

Nothing happened over night. I was worried they’d come after us while most of us were asleep, but it seems they are confident we’ll come to them eventually. Where they assume they’ll have the upper hand. They are right about the first part; the second remains to be seen.

I am more than a little nervous. One unpleasant side effect of these rings is that you have lots of time at night to fret and worry. I spent what felt like hours thinking of all the ways this plan could go wrong and what to do about it, which was nowhere near as productive or helpful as it sounds. I used to be able to break these mental loops through meditation, but…that was a long time ago.

We’ll stay together until we reach the anti-life shell inside the necropolis. Then I am on my own. The plan is for them to give me time to enter the throne room, then they’ll launch a raid to provide a distraction while I figure out what, if anything, has happened to the chief. I’ll have very little time to do this. If l screw it up, if I am discovered, or if our theories are just outright wrong, then we’ll be completely surrounded and fighting the entire Yeti tribe.

Please, Shelyn, let this work.

(afternoon)

I am still in shock. It worked. It worked! My muscles still ache, I was so tense, but it worked! And it’s over.

Panic almost set in when I reached the chief’s throne room and he wasn’t there. I knew what he looked like because I had seen him before, and there was no sign of him at all. But, if we was invisible or shape-shifted or hiding through magic, it was only a matter of time before I found him.

The yeti knew we were coming and they were waiting for us in absolute silence. It was unnerving. The tension was so thick it felt like I was swimming through it. I couldn’t so much as whisper without giving myself away and that meant that I couldn’t warn the others, either; couldn’t tell them I needed just a little more time, that there were more than we thought, or that a group of them could make a run at the caravan if they felt so inclined. I just couldn’t risk being heard. The yeti didn’t know I was there, and I was not about to lose that advantage and make myself a target.

In the end though none of that mattered. I was still sweeping the room when the others came in. It was too soon, which meant that they had been able to just walk in. I guess we should have expected that; this was supposed to be a trap after all. As the saying goes, we had them right where they want us.

I didn’t see where the chief came from or how he had remained hidden, but I saw the first spell go off and then I knew, I knew, it was Katiyana. She’d used that lightning strike on us before, and the chief was using it now. What were the odds? And then Olmas called out where he was and I turned around and saw him.

The start of the skirmish, though a ways away, made just enough noise that I could risk a whisper. I messaged to them that I was sure it was Katiyana as I flew to the yeti chief’s position, still under the cover of invisibility. I stopped directly above him, letting the protective ward that was surrounding me envelop him.

And then chaos erupted.

The chief stumbled back, almost falling over, then cried out “Stop fight! Stop fight! Bad spirit! Friends, if you help me!” He was struggling against something that we couldn’t see. It was Katiyana, of course, fighting to regain control. But as long as the ward was up she couldn’t do it.

I reached down and placed a similar ward directly on him, so he wouldn’t be dependent on me being so close. I saw that Sparna had the nine-ring sword out, intent on exorcising her spirit. “This sword can force her out,” he said, “but I have to strike you with it.” This seemed like a bad idea to me, but the chief not only consented, he pleaded to Sparna to do it. “It’s trying! It can’t take me! I give you magic rock if you get rid of bad, bad spirit!”

Lightning kept striking around us. That spell she had cast was still active, and she didn’t need the yeti’s body. It took only her will to unleash each bolt.

Sparna struck, but to no avail. “Oh!” the chief cried out as the blow landed. “It’s hanging on!”

Spells were going off everywhere now: I remember seeing at least one to protect Sparna from lightning, and another to dispel the protections Katiyana had cast on him.

Sparna struck again, and finally it worked. Katiyana’s ghost was literally flung from the yeti’s body. Then more spells went off as we tried to take her down. I fired blasts of pure force, and two spiritual entities appeared next to her and pressed the attacked. Some of these bounced off her harmlessly, and some struck true. A lightning elemental materialized and came to her aid, but just as quickly it was banished from the material plane. I lost track of what was happening until Radella moved in and struck the ghost down. Katiyana cried out something about being the Avatar of Sithhud, and then she was gone.

And it was over.

The yeti chief or king—I am still not sure which is correct—was true to his word. He thanked us for what we had done, for expelling the spirit that had forced him to confront us, and offered his ioun stone to Sparna in thanks. We forged a welcome, if awkward, truce. Several yeti were dead. Bevelek was dead. It was not their fault or ours, but that doesn’t undo what was done.

It’s some 700 or 800 miles to Ordu-Aganhei. It will be two weeks before we can raise Bevelek. But at least we’ll be moving again. We won’t be able to leave until tomorrow morning, though—it will take a few spells we don’t normally prepare to get across the chasm and out of the Necropolis—so I’m going to spend some time with Koya and see if we can’t remove the stain of Fumeiyoshi from this place. The necropolis was originally built to venerate Desna, after all. We shouldn’t leave it like this.

Character: Qatana

Qatana’s Journal for Calistril 1st and 2nd

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Fireday, Calistril 1, 4713 evening

Caravan, Necropolis, Path of Spirits

This has been a bizarre day, even by our standards.

After returning to the caravan area Kali, Koya, Radella and I gathered in the eastern tower of the necropolis to see what we could dig up about yetis in general and what length of time a “moon” would mean to creatures that lived underground.

We had a small collection of books and scrolls, and each of us grabbed a stack and began to sift through them.

In the meantime Sparna, Ivan and Olmas had been irritating the yetis that had been sent to watch us.

They started with a single yeti peeking around the corner. After some posturing by Olmas and an arrow shot over its head courtesy of Ivan, the single yeti scout became four yeti warriors armed with spears.

By the time the rest of us were done with our research (it turns out a “moon” means a month to a yeti, just as it does for everyone else), the yeti were grunting and stomping about mightily while Ivan and Olmas snickered, and (I kid you not) the barest hint of a smile had formed on Sparna’s lips.

We joined in on the fun, hoping to provoke the yetis in an attack on us here, where we held a defensible position.

Ivan cast Enlarge Person on Sparna at the same time Kali created an image of an ioun stone circling his head. I pulled out Katiyana’s severed head (the rest of her body is still inside one of our bags of holding, naked as the day she was born, or hatched, or however beings like that come into the world) and used Light to make it glow.

Sparna took the head and threw it across the chasm at the lead yeti’s feet.

They seemed nonplussed by this turn of events, which was disappointing considering the effort we had put into the show.

The big lug simply kicked the head into the chasm, where it landed at the bottom with a squishy thud.

“Cowardly children people! Come meet king now and die bravely.”

With that Kali sent the image of the ioun stone flying over their heads, which elicited an unexpected response. “Witch stone! Go get king’s men. They are attacking.”

At last, we managed to spur them into attacking us.

The “king’s men” arrived, and while they looked a little bigger than the other yetis and were armed with spears, they did little more than gesture at us.

Things began to look hopeful when Olmas and Ivan shot several arrows into the lead yeti, and Kali scooped up another in an Aqueous Orb, but rather than advance the attack, the yetis simply retreated — one bleeding from multiple arrow wounds and the other crawling away on all fours like a wet dog.

“Well that was boring,” Timber unhelpfully added. “Nobody died, or lost a limb… or even bladder control.”

We kept a wary eye on the tunnel through which the yetis had fled, but did not return. I strolled over to the back of the caravan and climbed atop the rear wagon to peer over the wall.

Half a dozen of the headless mummies were bumping against a wall. They seemed unable to climb over and we were probably safe, but the damned things gave me the creeps. Several flasks of oil later and they had been reduced to charred piles of smoking bone and sizzling mummy goo.

Starday, Calistril 2, 4713 early morning
Caravan, Necropolis, Path of Spirits

It’s morning, but of course as dark as usual, except for the glow from our magical light sources. They cast a harsh bright light that tinges toward blue, which when combined with the azure glow from the lake cavern have finally set me on edge. Any sort of sky would be a welcome sight: even one agitated by storms.

We plan to assault the yeti king and his forces this morning, and spent much of last night making plans. Two hours after midnight I cast Nightmare on the yeti king in the hope that it would make him less a formidable foe today.

Obviously we do not think it is the actual yeti king causing this trouble. Most of think he has been replaced by a shape shifting oni, although Kali has an alternate theory that somehow Katiyana is behind it.

This morning’s plan is a compromise (as are most): Kali will become invisible and use additional spells to both improve her perception and prevent others from perceiving her. She will fly through the back caverns and enter the king’s throne room via a side passage. The rest of us, with various forms of Fly or Airwalk spells active, will approach from the main passage, crossing up and over the anti-life shell.

The intent is that Kali will scout out what the king is up to before we arrive, and communicate that through a Message spell to the rest of us so we can best plan the attack.

Sparna is wielding the ghost touch ring sword we took from the shadow room yesterday, just in case Kali’s theory proves correct. Likewise Kali and I have prepared various Protection from Evil spells, but I think that we’re going to find purple ogre behind all of this.

Starday, Calistril 2, 4713 late morning
Caravan, Necropolis, Path of Spirits

“And then king Bormurg said, ”Hail Pookie” and ordered his artists to paint a portrait of me!”

It was at least the fifth time she had told the tale. Most of us were tired of hearing it, but even a gentle, “We know Pook, we were all there,” did little to curb her enthusiasm for regaling us with what was (in her mind) the highlight of the morning’s events. Star and Timber were already making rude gestures behind her back, but Beorn had been egging her on just to annoy the others.

Things kind of did not go according to plan (again).

Kali infiltrated the throne room undetected, but there was no king.

We flew over the anti-life barrier and after a short discussion with the guard (with the usual topic: “You come to die.”) we entered the chamber. No King.

Even more unexpected was the reaction from king’s followers: they just stood there and stared at us. Creepy.

There was some sort of magical area affect in the room, which I pointed out to my companions. We were moving about with various detection spells or skills active when the yeti king stepped out from a wall and his guards hurled spears at us.

A bolt of lightening arced down from the cavern ceiling and struck Olmas. I created a Spiritual Ally that struck at the king, but even though it hit, it appeared to have done no damage at all.

“What the hell?!” Star demanded. “Language,” I reminded her for she had not used the word ”hell”. But I shared her dismay and confusion. The barbed devil was a thing of pure force, and it was typically effective against anything.

Sparna moved down next to the king and was bashed by his guards.

Playing on her hunch, Kali flew down beside the king and cast Magic Circle Against Evil.

The king staggered back and shouted, “Stop fight! Bad spirit try to control king!” His guards looked confused, but they obeyed. The king looked at Sparna and said, “You help get rid of spirit, I give you my magic rock.”

Sparna grinned and said, “I will help, but this may hurt a bit.” as he struck the yeti with the spirit sword.

A shimmering incorporeal form erupted from the king’s side as a gale force wind of snow and ice filled the chamber, followed by a familiar cackling laugh.

It was Katiyana!

“You fools cannot kill me, I am now the avatar of Sithude. The storm never dies!” She gloated as she flew about the room.

The yeti king called upon his people to attack her, but there was nothing they could do against such an enemy.

Ivan and I both cast Dispel Magic upon her, and we saw a pair of defensive auras around her flicker and wink out.

Katiyana shrieked and summoned a very large lightening elemental, but she had failed to notice that most of us were also flying, and able to close in on her.

Radella gutted her like a fish as my barbed devil and the others closed in.

She shrieked, “No! I am the Voice of Sithude! I cannot die.” just before she perished.

The storm vanished and relative calm returned. The king walked over to his throne and sat down. “My new friends, come to me.”

We gathered around and he proclaimed, “We now friends, you and yeti people. I grant you free passage.” and he pointed to a ramp leading up and out. He then gifted us the ioun stone that had been circling his head, which Sparna accepted.

We thanked him for his gift, and gave him a breast plate in turn, which made him happy.

I chatted with him for some time after that, and discovered that the ramp led up to a large cave, but the cave was blocked by a wall of stone.

“It take yetis but a few minutes to walk there. We think wall was put there to block others from using the tunnel, but I think it not stop my new powerful friends.”

I thanked him for the information, and passed on good wishes from Star and Pookie, leaving out Badger’s quip that “If the yetis’ butts smell any worse than there breaths they need only bend over to send their foes fleeing.”

All in all he was quite taken by Pookie (she is a rather charismatic mouse) and really did commission a painting of her (in yeti form) to be added to his walls.

The king was happy to hear that we had slain the revenant near the lake (“My people tired of killing it.”) and gave us that his name was Bormurg.

With such pleasantries over with and done, we returned to the caravan. Tomorrow, with multiple spells of Wall of Stone prepared we will be able to leave this place, and I hope exit the tunnels not long after.

[445] ioun stone of Alertness (as the feat): a dark blue rhomboi
Character: Olmas

Annals of the Order of the Dragon

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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.

Character: Ivan

Ivan’s Journal

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My lack of insight along with the inability to plan ahead have lead me to the situation now find myself in tonight.  I know that Kali wouldn’t consider my gathering of personal supplies as planning but she gets a little nuts with her planning.  Hey I am not complaining because the caravan planning she has been doing is a task that I would not wish on anyone, I truly believe it would be pure torture for me.  So back on topic in the last town I forgot to get bacon and marshmallows.  Marshmallows and this wall of fire would be perfect together. It probably would have been a bad idea anyway, the wall is to protect us from the undead and their aura that paralyzes. To maintain the wall I need to concentrate so getting effected by one of them would be bad.

Just before Sparna and I were supposed to begin our sleep someone spotted a Yeti. The Yeti seem to watch us for a little while and then they retreated back into the caves or wherever.. It felt good to get some sleep, keeping the wall of fire up is not in itself difficult but not casting other spells or doing things that would break the concentration is the hard part. Luckily I didn’t forget to concentrate on the wall of fire and cast a spell. Since it was fire it was a little easier to remember to not cast other spells.

I thought the idea was to spend the day recovering but Qatana was feeling better than expected and was able restore some of Olmas’s lost mojo with a restoration spell. So it was decided to move ahead and explore.

To the gold door we headed. After some checking it was discovered that this door was broken into before. Qatana cast hide from undead on us and it occurred to be that I should have done this on the people in the caravan. The others waited while I ran back and put hide from undead on them.

Once I was back they opened the door and a major spectral creature appeared and started to attack. I moved away from the door but as it turns out not the safest location. The revenant jumped up and started moving towards me. While it was standing next to me someone attacked breaking the spell. I really should know by now that sharing a hide from undead with the fighters is a bad idea. This was my first big mistake for the day. Luckily for me the revenant was after the spirit. Turns out this was what was keeping the revenant around. With two spiritual alleys Qatana and Sparna were able to beat down the revenant to the point where we could kill it. For my part I put some arrows into the creature but it was not doing as much damage as expected, well I know that ghosts don’t take as much damage. I know that there are ways to get around this with either magic or enchanted weapons but I am just not sure that we fight enough of these to get a weapon enchanted and the force spells such as spiritual alley and spiritual weapon might actually be a better option.

The spirit defeated the revenant was freed from his torture. I have to wonder about spirits like this one and how they became spirits. Did we just kill it for a second time and now soul is free? Well if Kali is correct then the spirit is truly dead otherwise the revenant would not have been released.

In the room with the Spirit we found armor that protects from ghosts and spirits plus a weapon to hurt them. The sword has these rings on it that provide additional magic effects. Freeing someone from possession seems to be one of the abilities I have to wonder why the gods provided this weapon to us. Is there someone we need to free, maybe the Yeti king or is one of our group possessed? I should keep these thoughts to myself or Olmas and/or Sparna may use this on some of us to free us from a so called possession.

We headed down the hallway and those in front decided to check out a side path. We had traveled down the side passage and around the corner when I commented that by not being on the main path the Yeti could walk right passed us and attack the caravan without us noticing. I was a little surprised when the others agreed with me and we headed back to the main path.

As we moved down the main path we found another magical barrier that Kali said was another anti-life spell blocking our path. This time there were two Yeti on the other side holding their hands up and telling us to stop, I am so glad Qatana the gods granted me comprehend languages. It got a little weird when Kala and Qatana set down their weapons, walked closer and then started talking in some type of jibberish that was beyond my spell. The whole time she was talking jibberish I was trying to decide when and how to attack. Trapping them between a wall of fire and the antilife area seemed like a good idea but shooting arrows also has its advantages. My second big mistake for the day was letting them walk away unharmed. I have no idea what was going through Kali’s mind or if she even had a plan. All that I know is that she told them that she was going to surrender.

We headed back to the water room and waited for the yeti. My plan was to get haste and then move up 35 feet out of reach of them and the fear effect that seems to follow the Yeti. The time arrived and no haste so rather than standing around being a target I move up into position. This is a great tactic only if we are fighting creatures with limited range capabilities.

Qatana was using one of her share crazy abilities and we were doing pretty well with the first wave. Sparna, Radella, Olmas, and Qatana were smacking the yeti while I provided range support. Kali once again brought out her pit spell and it seemed to be that she was very close to getting Olmas and radella caught in the pit trap. I keep hoping that she would get less careless with the spells. At least she thus far has stopped blinding Sparna with glitterdust.

The second wave started heading towards us from the main corridor so I put up a wall of fire to greet them. They don’t appear to light fire so this at least in the short term is a good way to control the Yeti movement. I suspect that the person with magic with dispel the in the future to try to get the drop on us. He or she better have a lot of dispel magic spells available.

The first wave was finished off and the other were pulling of things from the bodies while they waited for the second wave. The second wave arrived and we start to fight them when it occurred to me that the new Yeti were basically trapped in a narrow cave. I put a wall of fire down the length of the cave to catch both of them.  This was the third big mistake I made today as the two Yeti just ran to get away from the fire. I should have just shot them with arrows.

At this point everything went crazy and I was wondering if all of them were possessed. Kali ran ahead to do who knows what followed by Radella and Qatana. There was some confusion I think in the ranks of the Yeti so Olmas and Sparna rushed forward to take advantage of the confusion with Kali retreated? Clearly everyone seems to have their own plan and is expecting everyone to go along with the crazy shit in their heads. I just kind of put myself between everyone so that I could see if we are moving forward or backwards. I just felt that if I wanted to be stupid like the others that I should run down the main hallway! In the end I calmly decided that being impulsive is one thing and being stupid is something else.

Character: Kali

Kali’s Journal, Abadius 31 – Calistril 1, 4713

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Abadius 31, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, night)

I spent some time pouring through the books I brought with me, looking for every scrap of information I could find about yeti. I really wish Etayne was still with us. What took me close to an hour she probably could have done from memory, and maybe she could have given us something we hadn’t already learned from personal experience.

They are well adapted to the cold, obviously, as well as the dark. As we’ve learned, their bodies actually radiate a bitter cold, and if you are unlucky enough to meet their gaze you are hit with a paralyzing fear. On top of that is their incredible strength, rivaling that of even dire apes, and a ferocity to match. They don’t really have any weaknesses, either, except perhaps to fire. They are, in a word, dangerous—extremely dangerous—and there are dozens of them here.

They’re also intelligent, or rather, intelligent enough. One of the books I have suggests they speak aklo, a language of the darklands. In theory we would try and talk to them, but of course none of us understands it.

I have an idea about that.

Calistril 1, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, early morning)

In my dream, I was standing on a hill at the feet of the Wall of Heaven, staring out at the expanse of Tian Xia below. The Path of Aganhei faded into the rocky plains in the distance, and a chill wind whipped around me. The caravan was behind me, silently waiting, the animals still in the cold air. I would find the way. The Path was important here. Stray too far from it, and the horse riders would no longer be bound by the traditions that protected us.

We had to stay on the road, but we couldn’t follow what we couldn’t see. I approached the two figures that were up ahead. I hadn’t noticed the tents making up the small village just beyond them. The Tian-La are a nomadic people, and move their villages with the winds and the seasons, following the wild horses that they would capture for breeding with their own.

The woman looked up at me. I skipped the introductions and pleasantries, and got to the matter at hand. In Tien, I asked, “How do we follow the Path from here?”

She looked up at me, smiling, and answered, “Chi bol gadaadyn khün shüü dee.” I didn’t know what it meant, and didn’t have the right spell prepared.

I tried again. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. How do we follow the Path from here?”

Still smiling, she said, “Tanyg tusalj chadakh khün bii. Namaig daga,” and then gestured with her arms as she turned around and began walking away. I still didn’t understand, but she obviously wanted me to follow her, so I did. She occasionally turned her head back to check on me, to make sure I was keeping up. “Ireerei! Namaig daga!”

An enormous field of flowers spread out around us. There was no sign of the village or the caravan, just flowers as far as I could see in all directions. We were walking in between low hedges of flowers and thorns, and up ahead was a tall woman tending to her prizes. I was alone now, and she looked up and beckoned me towards her.

She had long, black hair, curly like the others I had met, but different somehow. It was much longer than I realized: it hung down around her ankles, and I thought I could see hints of red, green, and gold there out of the corner of my eye. When I looked directly it, though, there was just black.

“Bi tand beleg ögdög,” she said. I still didn’t understand, but she held out a flower to me and I knew that she wanted me to take it, so I did.

“Ene beleg tany ayalald tuslakh bolno.” This gift will aid you on your journey.

It was a delicate, red rose, the most beautiful rose I had ever seen.

“Bayarlalaa,” I replied. Thank you.

It needed a vase so I reached for one of the tall, empty glasses on the table in front of me. The glass was made from a lead crystal, extravagant for drinking but perfect for this. The table stretched nearly the width of the hall. It was a lavishly decorated palace, and also immaculately clean. The white table cloth that covered it looked as though it had been made just for this occasion, but I knew that it had been used many times, and fastidiously cleaned to return it to this state. There was not a speck of dirt anywhere. Not on the table, not on the people seated with us, or even on those we had met since entering the city.

“Tavtai morilno uu!” boomed a voice from one end of the hall. Welcome, travelers! I didn’t recognize the speaker, but everyone stopped talking and turned to face at me. I couldn’t see my friends anywhere, just hundreds of apprehensive faces.

I rose from my seat, and replied, “Urikhad bayarlalaa. Bid tantai uulzakhdaa bayartai baina.“ Thank you for inviting us. We are pleased to meet you.

Their expressions turned to smiles as the dream faded.

Our travels will takes us through Ordu-Aganhei in Hongal, and Hon-La is Shelyn’s gift to me.

Now we just have to live long enough to use it.

It was a long night. We faced threats from both ahead and behind, and the shadows and mummies had taken their toll on us. Qatana used the last of her spells to block the rear, while I conjured a stone building to partially block the passage a ways ahead of us. It’s normally used for shelter in the wilderness, but we needed a wall that we wouldn’t have to break through later and this fit the bill, especially since it lasts for several hours. Of course the yeti can just climb over it, but it was still useful as a bottleneck.

From what we can tell, a few of the yeti did, indeed, spend part of the night on top of the structure but stopped short of approaching us. They simply sat on the roof line, watching us as we watched them. Eventually, they got bored and left. Amateurs. Keeping a night-long watch is kind of a whole thing for us.

(Uqtaal Necropolis, morning)

People are upset with me. I get it. I changed tactics in the middle of that fight, and didn’t really have time to explain what I was doing while I was casting spells. We can’t function effectively as a team if we aren’t communicating with one another. The problems didn’t end there, either: afterwards, when I explained what I had done and why, it seemed as though they still weren’t hearing me. I was not trying to press an attack, nor did I think it wise to do so, but somehow that is the message that was received.

I don’t know how to fix this. I am not a tactician, and I don’t really understand the finer points of combat save for what I have learned from watching Sparna and Olmas. It’s difficult for me to explain my thinking in the heat of battle, especially when I’m reacting to a situation that no one else can see, and I don’t know when I am causing alarm or confusion.

All I was trying to do was stop those two yeti from getting away. If they could make it back to the rest of their tribe, they could rally a counterattack with more force than we were prepared to handle. I tried, but they were too fast and the caverns were too difficult to navigate. And then I found myself in the middle of a conjured storm of ice and sleet. I recognized the spell immediately—I actually know it, myself—and it was hardly dangerous, but it meant that a spell caster of some sort was coming. It meant the counterattack may be coming.

I did the only thing I could think of: I summoned a small cadre of fire elementals and sent them running amok through the caverns. My idea was to get the rest of the yeti tribe panicking so that the warriors and the spell caster would be forced to deal with it. I wanted their attention on the chaos, not on us. Qatana was up near me at this point and had a spell running so she could understand their language, and from what she told me this hasty, desperate plan was working. There were definitely panicked screams of “Fire!” and “Get water!” along with the unmistakable sounds of battle.

The others, though, seemed to think this was a waste of time and resources. I didn’t, and still don’t, understand. There was also this tense moment where they wanted to go on an offensive to take advantage of the chaos. Again, I didn’t understand. There were still far, far more of them than there were of us, and we could very easily be surrounded in caves which the yeti knew and we didn’t. But, eventually, Qatana and I were able to convince everyone to withdraw while we could, and use the time to prepare for retaliation.

I am not sure how I could have done things differently, how I could have prevented this confusion. But I need to figure it out; our lives are at stake.

Obviously, having had a skirmish with the yet more or less implies that our attempts to parley with them were not successful. Not entirely, anyway.

We were able to solve the communication issue with that spell Thadeus taught me, the one that creates a shared language among the participants. It’s the same one I used with mom and dad back when all of this began. But communicating turned out to be the easy problem: the hard one was making any sense of what was going on.

Qatana and I sat opposite two of the large creatures, separated by one of the necropolis’s anti-life barriers. The conversation, if you can call it that, was mostly a mix of threats and bravado, all of it directed at us. It was not a waste of time, however: we learned that their chief insisted on destroying the caravan and killing the people that he called “the outsiders”—that would be us—and that his subjects fully intended to carry out his orders. Negotiation was clearly not in the cards. This bothers me. There’s no reason to have to fight our way through here.

Two more things came out of the exchange. The first is that the chief normally did not talk like this, and that even the members of the tribe found this to be unusual. The second is that this whole change started “two moons ago” when the chief was “blessed by the gods”.

What does that mean, “blessed by the gods”? I don’t know, but I can’t help but wonder about all the little coincidences that are piling up.

Back at Dead Man’s Dome, I know, I know, I heard a voice laughing out in the darkness, almost as if it were the wind itself. That laughter turned to rage when the last of the frozen dead had fallen. More recently, we had that massive winter storm—we may as well call it a morozoku—parked over the only mountain pass into Tian Xia, and doing things that storms just did not do. Like, staying in one place for days. And following us. And that laughter; the same voice we heard at the Dome.

I admit that this sounds crazy, but I have a suspicion that we are still dealing with Katiyana here. Look, I know she’s dead—we have her corpse, for gods’ sake!—but maybe what we’re up against here is her spirit. It would explain the laughter. It would explain why all of this seems personally directed at us. It would explain the chief’s recent change in attitude if he was possessed (and, to the yeti, that might look an awful lot like “being touched by the gods”).

It’s not a perfect fit, admittedly. I can’t explain the storm, nor the timing of “two moons”. But I’m not an expert, and the one person in our group that should be an expert knows even less than I do and has no interest in changing that. The basics line up, though.

And remember that this place used to be a shrine to Desna. In one of the chambers we found armor and a sword that were made to destroy spirits, as well as exorcise them from the bodies they possess. What if the exact things we needed were sitting right in front of us? Wouldn’t that be some amazing stroke of good fortune? The odds of that must be astronomically small. If only there was a goddess of luck…

The others are skeptical. Ivan sees Oni and Five Storms everywhere. Olmas is on board with the possession idea, but is pretty sure it’s not Katiyana because she’s dead and he doesn’t understand how ghosts work. I don’t even know where to begin with that. I’m afraid to ask Qatana’s opinion because she’ll give it to me. Maybe I should work up the courage to talk to Koya.

I hate this place.

Character: Qatana

Qatana’s Journal for Calistril 1, 4713

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Fireday, Calistril 1, 4713 late morning
Caravan, Necropolis, Path of Spirits

“You can never have too many diamonds.”
— Takkad of the Shoanti

One of the things I noticed when reading through the journal’s of the Sandpoint Heroes that were available from the Pathfinder Society was that Takkad carried a lot of diamond dust and diamonds. I thought it a bit much. On their trip to the city of Xin Shalast he wrote that they brought over twenty thousand gold pieces worth of the stuff. “Seriously,” I thought, “who needs that many diamonds?”

Apparently we do. Maybe not that much (Takkad seemed obsessed with healing), but more than the meager amount we have… had. We are not fabulously wealthy like the Heroes, but it seems we should have invested more of what we did have in this crucial spell component.

I woke this morning feeling much better and sure that I would fully recover by the afternoon.

Olmas did not fare as well. I placed a most of our remaining diamond dust in an outline surrounding him, and as I cast Restoration the glittery, sparkling dust turned to ash and vanished as if blown away by an ethereal breeze.

I wondered if the process could be reversed? Start with ash and absorb life force to create diamond dust. Beorn seemed intrigued by the idea, but the others thought it best to not dwell on it.

In any event Olmas felt noticeably better, but is still in need of another casting. He’ll have to wait until we can get more diamonds. As will poor Bevelek, who remains dead.

The night had passed mostly sort of without event. Some yetis climbed atop the portable shelter Kali had used to partially obstruct the passage from Yeti-ville to the caravans, and they kept watch for most of the night. Nothing came up the tunnel from behind us, which after restoring Olmas I blocked with a make-shift wall of stone (courtesy of several castings of Stone Shape).

Kali told us some useful things about the yetis: they are aggressive, they are adapted to living in the cold and in fact radiate intense cold. We had already discovered this about them the hard way, and decided to focus on the gold door and leave the yetis for later.

Using combinations of Fly and Airwalk we crossed the chasm and approached the golden door. Upon closer examination we saw that it was a heavy wood door gilded with gold, which had been scraped away in places. A daemonic tusked skull grinned back at us from the center.

Radella looked carefully at the latch and said that it had once possessed a lock and trap, but both now were broken.

I cast Hide from Undead upon the party, after which Ivan raced back to the caravan to do the same for those left behind. When he returned Radella opened the door.

A short hall led to an octagonal room from which firelight flickered. As we gaped a dark shadowy form materialized and approached. From behind us came an unnatural screech of hatred and despair. The revenant had reawakened and was heading our way.

The shadow arrived first and touched Radella with its ghostly claws. She recoiled, looking visibly weaker, and wisely stepped back.

Sparna summoned his dwarven Spiritual Ally, which hacked at the shadow. Kali hasted us as Ivan shot arrows into the shadow.

The revenant moved through our group ignoring us and setting its pale gaze upon the shadow, which it clawed at ineffectually.

I created a Spiritual Ally to pair up with Sparna’s, and the two beings of force hammered hard on the shadow, which fled towards Olmas. Why do things always flee toward Olmas? He managed to land a solid blow with Suishen and the shadow dissipated into a swirl of smoky wisps that faded away.

The revenant dropped to the ground.

“Third time’s a charm!” Timber quipped as I reached down for the revenant’s possessions.

[434] +1 rapier
[435] cloak of elven kind
[436] goggles of minute seeing
[437] master-work thieves tools
[438] backpack with 200-300 gp of gold leaf (from door)

We used three charges from our wand of Lesser Restoration to bring those of us touched by the shadow back to full strength. Kali sent an archon lantern summoned for the fight into the octagon room to reconnoiter, and it reported back, “Bodies laying in state, not moving.” We moved in and found dark blue walls painted with red daemon faces. Atop a large blue painted stone sat a skeleton with a golden mask. The light came from a crystal lamp.

We took the time to relieve the skeleton of its accoutrements.

[439] crystal lamp (continual flame)
[440] +1 ghost touch four mirror armor (+1 breast plate equivalent)

  • Wearer can cast Deathwatch (CL1) 3 times a day
  • When the wearer is attacked by undead it automatically casts Protection from Evil
[441] +1 ghost touch 9 ring sword. Each ring holds a charge and glows when ready — one charge per week.
As a swift action the wielder can use charges for the following effects:

  • 1 charge undead bane for 1 minute
  • 2 charges attempt to banish a creature possessing another on successful hit (Will DC17)
  • 3 charges destroy undead creature (DC17)
[442] 8 silver and brass (with gemstones) bracelets
[443] 8 rings (decorative)
[444] gold mask with jade eyes

Sparna said the theme of eight items was symbolic of Fumioshi.

Having had a successful encounter with the shadow we decided to push on and explore the catacombs that led to the yeti king’s throne room. As expected burial niches lined the walls in the side corridors. Back in the main corridor more red faced daemonic faces were carved in the corners of the intersection leading to the yeti king.

Some distance down the corridor stood a pair of yetis with their hands out, palms up (the universal sign for, “Thou shalt not pass!”). A large area of magic lay before the corridor: another anti-life shell, making the yetis’ gestures moot.

Kali cast Code Speak and include the yetis and myself, and so we put down out weapons and approached as close as possible to parley.

A yeti opened the discussion with “You stop here.”

Kali countered with, “We mean you no harm. We simply wish to pass.”

“King say you not pass. King prophecy you come, and here you come, just as king say. King powerful.”

“We can offer your king a rich tribute for our safe passage through his halls.”

“No. King say you evil and must be destroyed. You wait there and we come get you.”

“How does your king know we are evil? We only wish to pass.”

“Not many moons ago our king become smart. Now has power stone that goes ’round his head. He say ”soon humans arrive in wagons, and we must kill.” Now here you humans are in wagons, just as king prophecy. Soon you all die.”

It was clear that negotiations were not the way past the yetis, and it was equally clear that they had signalled for a force of yetis to circle around us while these two cretins kept us distracted. We opted to move back to the lake cavern and take on the yeti force as it arrived.

Kali erected another magical shelter that blocked the narrow way into the cavern, and we used Resist Cold spells to prepare for the encounter. This slowed them down, and as the yetis began to force their way through the shelter, we began to pound them with attacks.

Yetis began to drop at a steady rate, but as the last one fell more began to squeeze through a narrow tunnel to join the fight. An aura of confusion courtesy of yours truly soon put their plans of an organized attack to rest, and as they began to retreat back down the tunnel Ivan placed a wall of Flame along their path, causing much harm and even a fatality.

Kali asked for Ivan to drop the wall of flame and sent fire elementals swarming down the tunnel and into the yetis’ living areas. The sound of yells and caterwauling told of the mayhem they were wreaking. I followed a short way down the tunnel when an ice storm struck.

Behold, our king has power to protect us. All hail king!

Hmm, ok, a spell casting yeti. I used Dispel Magic to stop the ice storm giving those of us caught in the area of effect a chance to retreat.

Or were we advancing? Sparna, Ivan and Olmas though now was a good time to press the attack, which I thought sounded reasonable. But Kali thought we should return later when we had a full complement of spells. This too seemed reasonable, especially considering we had just learned that the yeti king was a spell caster.

After an intense discussion we decided to head back to the caravan and wait for tomorrow. We are on high alert and are expecting an attack before the night (or even the rest of the day) is over.

Character: NPC

The Dalmuvian Brothers

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Starday, Abadius 31 4713
Creduvian House, Magnimar

The hearth was still warm, but the embers were dying. Dinner had been welcome, but not very filling. Often, it wasn’t, these days.

Money was no longer flush in their home, but Roxanda and her parents had managed to finally get a place of their own again for the family. True, there had been better times in the past, but out of respect for her father, they didn’t bring up the past.

As it was, the family already found they had to remind him frequently he was now “retired” and any obligation to support his children had long since been met. It was his turn to be taken care of. With a muttered grunt and silent acknowledgement, he made it clear that while it may be true, it chafed him greatly. It had been a while since the day when Tobar was the patriarch of Creduvian Couriers, a successful and respected courier and shipping service. At times, some very wealthy merchants would trust nobody but him to get their shipments of goods to and from Sandpoint, Roderic’s Cove, or even Korvosa.

But then there’d been a dishonest driver, missing goods, and a soiled reputation. Competition for deliveries was fierce, margins were thin, and his competitors could sense blood in the water. All it took was a few anonymous innuendos and a few discounted offers from his competition, and his wealthy customers were gone. Too often loyalty is measured by the gold piece, and under the shadow of accusation, the business struggled and for all intents and purposes, succumbed.

Effectively, it was gone now. The business that Tobar had hoped to pass to his sons Vankor and Bevelek was nothing but a weight around their neck. The family name, a symbol of prestige for so long, was now a hurdle to overcome. “Creduvian, you say? Sorry, we have all the drivers we need.” Tobar and his wife of over 35 years, Ioanela, were, officially, among the poor.

Retirement. It may be a thinly veiled euphemism for her father, but it was not an option for her younger brothers.

These days, it was Roxanda who was the main source of income with her job as an assistant at The Old Fang. Vankor and Bevelek had been working hard at their father’s business when the bottom fell out and they found themselves unemployed, and unemployable because of their name. Thank the gods for Sandru, who never did follow the mainstream. While he couldn’t restore their good name, he helped them create a new one (Dalmuvian) and offered them a place on his team. Eventually, the plan was to establish new credentials, escape their old, and perhaps still become successful businessmen. In the best case, they might take up some of Sandru’s business when he retired.

They rarely accompanied the caravan to Magnimar for obvious reasons, so the road was their home these days. But business with Sandru was good, and they both sent a healthy percentage of their earnings back home to support their parents. Being associated with a delivery service still had one important benefit: letters home were delivered quickly. Those ‘in the business’ knew how important they could be, and personal messages from drivers and employees were delivered by whomever was going in the right direction, free of charge, as a professional courtesy.

Although it was barely twilight, Roxanda was willing to let the fire die and go to bed. But her gaze turned to a box overflowing with different kinds of parchment and paper. Bed often came early these hard days, but reading her brothers’ letters comforted her. She was closest with Bevelek, which was good because he was a much more frequent writer. On second thought, she threw a bit more fuel on the fire, lit a lamp, and started sorting through the letters.

Character: Olmas

Annals of the Order of the Dragon

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Starday, Abadius 31

The guard towers were not empty.

I’m not sure why a necropolis needs guards anyway – aren’t dead and undead people enough of a reason to steer clear? – but these headless wonders seemed to be everywhere.  The biggest problem in dispatching them is that they look so … startling, that it causes people to freeze up sometimes.  This has happened to myself, and Sparna, and others.  While you’re struggling to refocus, they get free attacks on you.  And their attacks are not just physical damage – they do something deeper.  At some level, they just make you feel weaker, like they’re also draining life force yomehow.  And every one of them can do this startle thing from a distance.  They are most easily handled  one at a time; with a group it’s far too likely that at least one of them will startle you.

And so we’ve developed the strategy of separating them with walls of fire. The wall not only visibly blocks them and their startle ability, but also does them damage. Ivan is also great at picking them off with arrows.

So as they started to come out of the guard towers, up went the usual wall of fire.  I got a swing at him as one walked past me, but then without even turning, he startled myself and Kali.  While we stood stock still and gathered our wits, Kali, Sparna, and I watched Radella and Qatana destroy those that walked through the fire.  When I finally recovered, most of the headless were dead, and Radella got the last one before I could move closer to take a swing. Disappointing.

Qatana ran into a guard tower without backup, per usual, to check it out.  I quickly followed her, and we found that inside the tower was a room that looked to have alcoves suitable for bodies.  A door at the far end led to a more ornate room with room for a few more bodies.  All looked like they’d been disturbed, but whether by grave robbers or these headless creatures themselves I couldn’t tell.  There were pictures of the dead attacking the living which, given the history of this place, I have to believe were a late renovation.

Exiting the guard towers, Qatana next went to the bridge. There were runes on the supports of the bridge, that seemed to translate to “Here the dead walk. Trouble them not and do not bar their path.”  And there was a whole pile of magic surrounding the bridge, according to our staff who could see magic.  Qatana tried crossing the bridge and was stopped – we surmise the abjuration magic we detected is an anti-life field.  We were not able to dispel it, so for now we decided to go around it.

Suishen gave me air walk, and others used either air walk or fly to cross the bridge. Radella received darkvision since she was the most adept at finding traps and would be near the front.  We judged that the caravans would be safe since there could be nothing behind us, and everything in front of us had just been killed.

Ahead lay a purple glow, and as we approached we found that it came from a pool of water surrounding a tree like pillar.  The ceiling looked like a night sky, with tiny lights resembling stars.  The pool seemed deeper than we could see, and at the end farthest from us, on the ground there was a corpse.

“Undead” warned Ivan briefly.

Qatana reached down to take its sword, and it came to life. Or at least, it attacked.  It had glowing red eyes, which is always a good clue to identifying enemies.

We surrounded it easily, but at the same moment, a creature entered the room to the north – looked to be a yeti, according to Sparna.  Now there were issues on two fronts.  Kali summoned (ironically) a dire ape, and the ape and Sparna battled the yeti while the rest of us battled the revenant.  I managed to put a final blow onto the revenant and was going to turn my attention to the yeti, except Qatana again reached for the sword.  And it sprang to life again and we had two enemies again.  The revenant actually got ahold of Qatana at one point and started to squeeze her, but it was Radella this time who brought it down and saved Qatana.  Meanwhile Ivan managed to nail the yeti with some well shot arrows and it too fell.

There was healing all around and then we noticed something flitting about on the tree/pillar.  Qatana stepped to the water’s edge, and it came over and touched her. She visibly withered, and I rushed over to attack it and with a particular adept hit, Suishen momentarily created an even bigger burst of flame – perfect timing!  But our blows didn’t seem to damage it as much as I might have thought they would.

We quickly realized that weapons of force – magic missiles, spiritual allies, that sort of thing – was our best bet.  But at about the same moment it got through my defenses and touched me as well … and, just like Qatana, I suddenly felt weaker, like I’d lost a step.  I backed off, and the group slowly attacked them (there were 3 altogether) by force and distance weapons.

And just as we were getting the upper hand, two more yetis appeared near the corpse of the other yeti.  Ivan threw up a wall of fire, and it looked like the battle would never end when Kali paused with a distant look on her face and yelled, “The caravan! The caravan is under attack!” She cast haste on us all and we all hurried back as fast as we could. For Ivan and me, with airwalk still in effect, that was as fast as I could run. Others required another application of a fly spell.

The sounds of battle led us to the rear of the caravan, where we found Ameiko, Sandru, and Shalelu grimly holding back more of the headless wonders.  Ivan immediately threw up the ever-ready wall of fire to put some space between the undead and the caravan.  I immediately moved to protect Ameiko, who threw me a quick look like, “took your time”.  I asked Suishen for protection from cold, on a hunch, while we waited for the undead to try to come through the wall of fire.  Others began to arrive, and Sparna used his flight to stay above the undead while still being beyond the range of their startle ability.  Radella was able to engage them and start slashing at them.  I think she laid the killing blow on all three.

I had thought we were lucky to have gotten back to help before any of our party was seriously injured.  Ameiko, of course, was my first concern, but Sandru seemed stricken by grief.  I asked if he were seriously injured, and he gaped at me momentarily before gesturing to the ground beside one of the wagons.

There lay Bevelek.  Dead.

We’ve been very occupied with how this quest has affected us and our lives. We are scions now, and heir to the throne after Ameiko.  We have been learning new skills and spells, and acquiring new magic items, and to some extent enriching ourselves, in the name of increasing our chances of success, but because he’s a driver and not a swordsman or a woodsman or a cleric or a wizard, we have not done the same with all of our companions.  The idea was that they would never face danger, but when danger came anyway, he grabbed a sword and did the best he could.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was startled by the headless undead and made easy prey by his hesitation.

A quick discussion with Qatana, Kali, and others revealed they felt similarly.  I think we have a consensus that if we can, we will resurrect him.  A gentle repose applied now will allow us to acquire the components necessary for that spell … which may take some time.  But he is important to our journey and our goals too.

It’s the right thing to do.

Character: Ivan

Ivan’s Journal

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The necropolis has lived up to its name thus far.  Lots of dead or should I say undead. We have only just arrive here a few hours ago but we have already taken a heavy toll in our group today.

It all started out fine with two walls of fire blocking the tower doors and giving us some leverage.  It was a good thing that we did this as Olmas, Sparna, and Kali were all shaken by the weird fear effect that these creatures have. I positioned myself in a way to try to keep out of range of their effect while providing support for the others. The effect of freezing people with fear was the most dangerous thing about these creatures. Once the fighters were not frozen the fight ended quickly.

Investigation of the towers uncovered a number of alcoves that looked to at one point house the dead, presumably these are now the undead. Our count showed that there are actually a lot of these undead still unaccounted for and likely wandering somewhere in the necropolis.

Qatana in her normal forge ahead attitude could not cross the bridge.  After some investigation by Kali she proclaimed that it was a anti life shield,  no not shield. She proclaimed that it was an anti-life thingy? Anyway living things cannot pass.

I made an effort to dispel the magic but the magic is just too strong for me at this time. There was a discussion about the difficulty of getting the wagons across but to me the problem seems to be more about getting horses across to the other side. It seems like we could push and pull the wagons across one at a time if needed. But I will leave the planning to the others.

With the really cool spell air walk from Qatana I was able to get across the span. I know that in the wind this spell may not be as good in combat as fly but I really like it anyway. Maybe it goes back to the days on the high ice with getting blown through the air while levitating. I am sure Kali would have had something to say about it but with the darkness “what happens on the high ice stays on the high ice”.

We moved forward to a pool of water with a body on the other side. With deathwatch running it was clear that this was the body of an undead creature. Kali later told us it was a revenant. Nasty creature from what Kali told us can’t be killed until the creature killed it dies. I was ready to light it up with fire, even with Qatana stating not to use fire. It was almost like Gorum was encouraging me to light him up.

One of my companions noticed something by the tree in the middle of the water. Specters appeared and the others moved in to engage them. The others discovered that regular weapons were not as effective on the Specters and there touch was disastrous. Both Olmas and Qatana were touched and as a result were weaken. It was like they were drain of life. These things drain you and now we have to wait a see how many castings of restoration will be required for the two of them. This is the kind of unluckily thing that normally happens to sparna. I guess taking on the Yeti saved him from the drain.

More yeti began to show up but a wall of fire discourage them, I guess those with fir should not play with fire. Between the spiritual weapon from Qatana and the spiritual ally from Sparna they were able to take care of the Specters.  For just a moment when Sparna cast the spell I thought the weapon was a greatsword.

We were feeling good about the situation when Qatana announced that the caravan was under attack. With the power of air walk from the wind spirit through Qatana the gap was not an issue for me.  I took off in a dead run back to the caravan. It turns out that the undead had come up from behind and attacked the caravan. I got there two late as one of the brothers had been killed. I was able to protect the others by putting up a wall of fire. We the advantage we were able to dispatch these undead.

Although we have lost one of our own after some discussion we have decided that once we get back to a town we need to bring him back. I suggested that we use speak with dead to ask him if he wants to come back. His brother insists that he would want to come back. I look forward to a day soon when we can once again enjoy a drink with him as he propositions the barmaid.  I have come to understand that these barmaids are pretty used to drunk men hitting on them.

Kali used magic to scout ahead and it was a good thing as there are a lot of Yeti ahead and from what she said there king is huge. I have to wonder if the Yeti are going to be friendly, although since we killed one of their own that might be highly unlikely.

My plan is to stay awake until the last watch so that I can keep the wall of fire up pretty much all night.