Clynthia ferried Ganeth from the Hollerith Temple to the Wind Temple's Icelands HQ, where he had a chance to talk with Mountain Breeze, his former sponsor among the ki-rin. She was concerned about his current body and wanted to check him out on the altar (where they have lots of past readings on file for comparison) but thought it would be prudent to get the mission done first. She also confirmed that the ki-rin could no longer travel to the northern continent and were prohibited from tracking G's wind mirror (thus their lack of response during G's kidnapping).
Ganeth remarked that Mountain Breeze's old idea of setting him up as a role model for the younger Nirduks was pretty well moot, since all of the Nirduks were gone. She replied, "We have information otherwise." She also said that part of the reason the high elven infighting had gotten so bad was a lack of challenges from outside -- a situation she believed was likely to change.
Ganeth used the pentagram in Hurricane's lab (25' diameter, 5x weight capacity, also used for binding nasties so call ahead) to bring the rest of the party to the Icelands, and Beeel had a meeting with Morning Breeze, the ki-rin in charge of full-fledged mortal followers. She was basically happy with Beeel, particularly with his leadership during the Dustplane mission, and explained his next step as a Wind follower: entering the whirlpool. When Beeel feels ready, the ki-rin will send him to the astral plane and through a astral whirlpool, where he'll be transported someplace where some particular good needs doing. The catches are that Beeel will need act unobtrusively (the fewer who notice his presence and actions, the better), and will need to use his abilities in ways he hasn't had to thus far. Beeel's attitude is that this requires thinking for himself, and he won't be ready to handle that for quite some time. (Some might argue he's been doing this for a while now, even if he hasn't noticed.)
Beeel asked if there was some way to contact the temple to ask for advice if some emergency arose. Morning Breeze gave him a flask of water that was somehow bound to her (and could be used to nasty effect in the wrong hands). Intended usage is for Beeel to drink from it and meditate quietly when seeking advice, and the flask contains enough water for three consultations. She also gave him a necklace with a snowflake design; this is a holy symbol similar to Ganeth's mirror, but rather than allowing the ki-rin to locate Beeel, it gives Beeel a sense of where the temple is.
Beeel also mentioned Ganeth's musings about setting up a school/network/guild for good (and benign neutral) adventurers. Though the idea is pretty nebulous, the ki-rin felt Ganeth should be encouraged in this direction.
The Wind Temple's investigation of the cloud over Banzeel turned up some interesting facts. Though the ki-rin couldn't discuss Arkelik, they were able to tell the party that a demi-plane had fully formed in the sky over the city. In principle, it's like any demi-plane you'd find in the ether, but it's embedded directly in the Prime. The demi-plane is visible from the Prime, but the volume originally inside its borders is gone (sealed off, so the edge won't rupture), and an attempt to breach the demi-plane's boundary will break through into the Void. Things like this have been done before, but only in remote places that are (currently) uninhabited. The ki-rin expect the clouds to disperse over time, revealing the embedded structure. They said the demi-plane poses no danger to the people of Banzeel and might be thought of as a way of escaping natural disasters. In any case, it's "something worth watching."
The Wind Temple was in a mountain range south of a snow plain, which stretched north to the sea. A nomadic tribe lived toward the western side of the plain; their religion was based around mammoths, who fed on nutrients under the snow and formed the basis for the tribe's subsistance. A group of ice worshippers lived to the north/northwest; these folks scoot around on ice devils (like the spell, not gelugons) and have some connection to the Ice Creatures (who live on the undersides of the icebergs and weren't expected to figure into this adventure). The wind paladins have been in contact with both groups for some time. Each tribe speaks a dialect of Eastern Common.
The valley itself was about 20 miles east of the temple. The northern end was partly submerged, indicating that the crevice might continue underground until it reached the sea. It ran about 10 miles north-south, was about 100 yards wide for most of its length (but widened to 500 yards toward the south end), was 250' deep, and had nasty wind currents that made flying down into in a risky proposition. The western face was sheer (though one path sloped down it for several miles), while the eastern face was gentler but rose about 100' higher; parts of both were made of dark black rock that didn't seem to have much snow on it. From above, it looked as if someone way bigger than a titan had come by with a ten-mile long shovel, shoved it into the ground, and pushed up the western side of the plain. The canyon has been here a very long time, and there are connections to other planes at the bottom.
A school of ice liches lived toward the northern end of the valley. These mages started at 9th level and headed up from there, and they'd been unaffected by the magic crash of AK 579. Most were LE, but some tended toward LN, and many of them did mercenary gigs from time to time.
The party, coated in endure colds, headed out in the cloudship and took a peek at the valley from above. Apart from a group of five frost giant (possibly a hunting party) heading north, there was no obviously interesting activity. The party decided to start toward the south end and work their way north, so they set down on the western cliff (opting not to fly across the valley and alert the universe to their presence). Using a combination of MC B and MC A fly spells, they reached the canyon floor without incident. From the ground, they noticed a shelf running along the west face that had been hidden from above.
The party started walking north (very slowly, since the snow was up to the elves' waists) and soon spotted a cave in the west face. It was guarded by a pair of ice trolls, so the party avoided the encounter.
Some time later they encountered a polar bear, which Silvana charmed. His name was Fishfinder, and he'd been munching on baby seals and minding his own business when someone called Death Who Comes At Night charmed him and his brother and brought them to the area. They went into a cave and fought some polar bear zombies.
- Fishfinder:
- "My brother died, and I ate him, and Death Who Comes At Night died, and I ate him, and after that there was no more food."
Silvana fed him a staggering portion of created food, and they all moved on together.
A few hours later, the party reached another cave, 4' high and 12' wide, with tracks heading north toward the sea. They were also attacked by some yeti, who panicked and surrendered when they realized some of the party had ways to see them even when they were hiding. One of them knew Eastern Common and offered to work for the party, citing his extensive job experience: "Hide. Jump. Kill. Steal." When asked about ice moss, he said he'd seen some; when asked what it looked like, he said it was mossy and icy.
There was a lot of snow inside, sloping down at a 45-degree angle to an open door at the far end. (The "cave" was a chamber half-filled with snow, and the "cave mouth" was the top few feet of a big arch.) There was a red symbol above the door; said symbol registered as a trap to Silvana. [Someday I'll scan in my sketch of it; for now I'll describe it as a cross between a stylized illithid head and a four-legged version of the Tick's emblem, with three diamonds in a triangular pattern that seemed sort of eyelike.] There were also black columns rising to the ceiling, carved to look like braided rope. All the exposed surfaces were covered with some sort of spiral script, and the party took some rubbings for later examination. The snow had been cleared away from the door, but it mostly covered a burrow through the back wall.
The yeti had arrived at this cave the day before. They'd seen a group of people come out of it, so they followed them, but their quarry disappeared. So decided to set up outside and ambush them when they came back, but the party came through instead. The talkative yeti's third wife had gone through the door and didn't return.
Thorongil found a set of elven footprints near the door -- probably between two and four elves, definitely not the party. Either drow or high elves would have been plausible, but which one was anybody's guess.
- Ganeth:
- "It's hard to tell high elves and drow apart."
[thinks for a moment...]
"Drow don't kill their relatives as often."
Thorongil cast a locate plants and detected ice moss 40' beyond the doorway. Silvana left a scrying device in the masonry to check on who came by.
The yeti went back to their ambush, and the party moved some distance away to the south and camped for the night. (Inside the snow-white Leomund's Tiny Hut, it was a tropical 40° F.) The evening's scrying showed a flying black-robed humanoid touching the inscriptions with a rod, reading them with a rod, and writing stuff in a notebook. It was accompanied by a cyan version of an umber hulk (pretty similar to the standard, but its claws were adapted for quickly scooping away snow and ice).
After most folks had gone to sleep (snuggling with the back half of Fishfinder for extra warmth), the polar bear woke up screaming about a "bearkiller." It was a white pudding, it was nasty, and it did a lot of damage, but the party eventually took it out.
A while later the yeti came by to report that there was activity at the cave. Silvana scried again and saw that the cyan hulk had opened another tunnel into the chamber, and two mummies were going in. The yeti hit the party up for some food and went away. Then Fishkiller hit up Silvana for more food, to "save for later." Then everyone went back to sleep. Then another ice pudding came through and inflicted more damage. Then Stealth put a Leomund's Secure Shelter around the Tiny Hut. Then everyone went back to sleep. And then it was morning.