Tag: Icewind Dale

Dead People, Gnolls, and A Dragon

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

Twitch says we have to go find his friend who is now a bad person, so we go down a ladder to a room with frozen dead bodies in it. There’s water down here and a little boat, so we put Eggy and Leshy into the boat, Saalym climbs on the walls, and the rest of us swim in the cold water. There’s bodies in the water, too. Off to one side, there’s a little room of grain and a hungry rat – boring. Off to the other side there are even more bodies in the water. These have chainmail on them. Maybe they were the Speaker’s guards or something.

The next hall leads to a wooden statue of a person in a block of ice. Twitch says he thinks it’s for their demon god, but this seems real lazy. They got all these dead bodies and they put a wooden guy inside the ice. I guess the demon god guy got encased in ice, maybe they shoulda caught a demon to put inside, but at least a person!

The next room has the tiefling lady we’re looking for. She is really rude. Twitch wants to kill her, but she says he’s wrong about her and is going to be in trouble. He attacks her anyway, but she made the air all wet and disappeared. He looks all over the room, but doesn’t find anything.

That’s boring though, so Doc and I go down the other hall and pull a lever we find there. There’s a big noise and a new tunnel has opened in front of the boat. We all head back out into the water and find another tunnel. This one has all the servants of the Speaker, so we give them food and help them get back through the water to the keep.

Leshy says she’ll clean all the water after Twitch and Saalym get all the dead bodies back out of it. Folk are worried about Twitch and want the Speaker to sign papers saying she was bad, so she can’t get Twitch in trouble. I don’t know how that’s supposed to help, but he seems happy about it. Nothing left to do here, so we head back to check on East Haven.

The dwarf lady owes us money for the killer we killed, but it takes a couple days for her to show up and pay us. People say some gnolls have been raiding and attacking people. They killed one lady and took her magic fishhook that catches magic fish. Leshy doesn’t believe in magic fish, but my Dad caught one and it took him to the faewild so there!

We head out to our ship on the way to the gnolls. The were-polarbear we had heard about is sleeping inside, but everything looks fine. He’s really nice so we tell him he can sleep there whenever he wants. He says there’s trouble with some of the nomads, so he’s going to try to help. Then we head down to the gnoll chasm to camp.

After we rest, Eggy finds a way down, but also a cave, so we go in there first. There are a bunch of gnolls in there and they attack us, so we kill most of them. Doc really doesn’t like it when people hit me. But Twitch talks to the survivor and tells him not to attack people anymore. He agrees and runs away after telling us that Chizga is the leader down below. Doc and I find a big table in the next room covered in blood, and Doc smashes it up.

We all head down into the chasm where there are a bunch of gnolls on spike and weird echoing laughter. I wonder if they were a rival clan or if Chizga worships the stupid winter goddess lady. We work our way around to another cave. This one has pictures in blood on the wall. There’s a fish cooking over little fire and a fishing pole and spear. Doc and I head in to go see if that’s the fishing pole we’re looking for and trip over a sleeping gnoll.

This is Chizga, I guess. I take the fishhook off the pole and put it in my shirt. Twitch talks to him and tells him to stop killing people, but Chizga doesn’t seem happy about it. Twitch says he doesn’t think he’ll stop if he gets hungry again. But we decide not to kill him anyway.

Further up the chasm, there’s a guy in a cage with a black javelin made from the demon rock. I let him out, but then he tries to stab me, so Doc knocks him off the cliff after grabbing the javelin from him. It’s not tingly, and Twitch takes it away with an invisible man. He says it is bad and made that man crazy.

We keep going and find a bunch more gnolls. They look really, really hungry, so we give them some food. Eggy starts getting mad then. He wants to go back and kill Chizga for being mean to his tribe and not taking care of them. Seems like they oughta take care of it themselves, but a couple others agree. We all agree to go back and talk to him at least.

We go back and ask about the crazy man, he says he caught him in the chasm, but he was too dangerous to kill or something. Doc tries to challenge him for leadership of his tribe, but he refuses. I turn into a gnoll and try, but he says I don’t smell right. We leave then, and Eggy shoots him dead.

We head out after that, to go find the last castle of blue dwarves who have come up from under the dark. It’s a few days away, but Eggy knows where to go. The walls are really huge here, and there’s a big staircase to get up to the doors. As we get close, a big dark icy dragon flies out of one side and heads up towards the Towns. We can’t go as fast as that, so they’ll have to take care of themselves. Maybe it’s just going to talk to the white dragon that’s mad at us. We’ve gotta get inside and see what the dwarves are doing first.

Evil Wizards and Bad Men

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

The old dragon’s real mad, so everyone wants to get far away. There’s evil wizards way up north, Doc says, who might be doing all this winter stuff, or maybe they just know about it. So, we rush all the way up along the coast to a big scary building out over a cliff. Twitch says it’s just one wizard, and he wants to just talk to him. He used to be one of his brothers and now he’s not or something. So, he, Saalym, Sandro, and Leshy go inside, but we have to hold all their things so the guards don’t take them away. I whisper in their heads in case they get in trouble, but this sounds way more boring than what Doc said. Eggy, Doc and I stay outside with Yogi and the mummy lady.

They go inside for a really long time. Saalym says one of the guards is a bad guy, so I tell Twitch. He asks me to tell Saalym to seduce a guard so he can seduce the prisoner. I wonder what’s happening in there. But they say they’re fine. When they finally come out, they don’t know anything new. Ugh, boring!

What now? We’ve gotta figure out this winter goddess lady thing so people will feel better and help us get our ship back. Eggy thinks maybe we could make the sun orb bigger to really make her mad so she’ll show up instead of just sending dead things to fight us. Or maybe do something at a shrine to her to get her to answer and find out what she wants. We’ve gotta go back and get our sleds and axebeaks, though, so we head to Bremmen, and back through Targos to Bryn Shander. I stop to buy my dad a pint and tell him all about the dragon who is probably hunting us. The magic folk get stuff to make the sun orb bigger and Eggy and Saalym make chainmail for Yogi. The orb’s not ready, though, so we had over to Caer Dineval since we haven’t been there yet.

Their speaker is missing or sick or something. One of the people in the tavern says there are weird people at his house. The barman says the Inn is closed and if we want somewhere to sleep we should go up to the Speaker’s house because it’s really big and there are lots of us. So, we go up there, but the guards don’t want to let us in because the speaker is ill. They don’t even want Doc or Leshy’s help. Call him a heathen, whatever that is.

Everybody says we have to go in for sure now, so we sneak off and hide for a bit. We see a person in rags with a glowing necklace get let in, so Doc and I sneak up and climb over the wall. Then through a tower and into the keep. There’s a burned up room, which is weird. Why didn’t they clean it up? The next room is a really nice bedroom. It’s the speaker and he’s being held prisoner. The guard shouts so I throw my mind blades at him and he stabs me. That makes Doc really mad and he kills him. The speaker says they’re bad men, Knights of the Black Sword.

I call the rest of the group to come in, and Doc calls for more guards to come fight him. The speaker says there’s a tiefling in charge here, but also a Levistus guy. Twitch says that’s an Arch Fiend, so these are definitely bad men. We kill some more guards on the way through the keep until we meet up with the rest of the group. They found a tiefling, but he’s just a servant and not the leader guy.

There are a lot more rooms, so Doc and I keep looking. First we find an old lady, though. She’s one of the bad knights, but she’s not a knight anymore and she knows about the blue dwarves from under the dark, so I call Twitch to talk to her. Next we find a kitty, but it’s scared of all Doc’s shouting. Next we find a bad man without weapons and since he doesn’t attack us, and Eggy has caught up, we don’t kill him either. Then we find the Tiefling and he’s a really bad man so we stab him a lot. Eggy is frustrated, even though he’s usually the one killing people. Maybe that’s why, he’s mad we got there first. Twitch asks in my head to not kill the leader, but we moved on by then, maybe Eggy stopped him dying so he can kill him later himself.

We go through the kitchens and leave all the staff alone cuz the speaker said they’re good people. Then out in the courtyard, more people come out, and they’re all bad, so we kill them, too. Seems like everyone’s dead so people start searching the place and Doc calms down. There’s one spot on their map of the blue dwarves that we haven’t been yet, down in the mountains to the bottom. There’s some goblins and goliaths down there that we need to talk to, too.

Gotta Hunt a Druid

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

I had a great time with Dad. Told him all about my life and about home and about space. He told me about how he talked to a fish once and it took him to the faewild and that’s how he met Mom. I wrote down what everything he had carved was. But eventually The Best Friends Club came back and said they were heading to the next town, so I said I’d come back and maybe take him to see more fantastic things later.

I got lost in thought then, for a while. Until we started talking to a big water dino things with a big long neck. It was awake, too, and was afraid the druid that woke it up would make it sleep again if it didn’t attack fisher ships. That’s silly and also, we need to stop that druid. The dino said it would stop attacking if we’d protect it from the druid. The druid likes the winter goddess lady, so we definitely need to do something about them. Name’s Raveson or something. Saalym went swimming and brought up some dead bodies and booze.

We gave the fisher people some big fish and they gave us some stuff. We go to the five taverns and get more booze. Some of them were asking about the druid, but it seems like they’re not here anymore. Went towards the Lonely Woods, I guess.

So, we head there and ask around. There’s a big white moose up here attacking people. That druid has been real busy. It’s only attacking people trying to cut wood and it hides from any hunters that come after it. The speaker lady and her kids are really nice and since the Inn is closed, she lets us stay with her. I try to teach the kids to make daggers, and we have lots of fun.

Eggy’s a real good hunter, so we go track it down in the morning. It’s a big ritual place with big crystal pillars and a big fancy coffin box, and a house without walls, and a bunch of statues with worn faces. Twitch says it’s something to do with the moon and time. He wants a dead elf to give him a moon sword. Do they do that? We mess with the pillars and the signs for a bit. Some snow and twigs and pinecones and fire. But nothing happens. Maybe it has to be a certain moon. The moon Twitch says we need is in a few days from now.

We look around instead. There’s a hole busted into a hill, and a lot of bones inside. There’s also a bunch of sleeping animals of all kinds. And that big white moose. Who shouts at us for the Frost Maiden and charges before we can make friends with it. All the smaller animals ran away while we killed it. Poor moose, it shoulda listened.

Looks like a lot more to explore here, but we take a rest first.

Dad!!!

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, JinLeave a comment

I found my Dad!!! No, not in the blue dwarf castle, that was before. Dad was after. Okay. Wait. Start with the mushrooms.

We rested in the mage’s bedroom with all his shiny rocks. Then Twitch looked at and took all the rocks and a lantern that changes colors. And he said the dagger and armor from the stabby guy was also magic, so we took that, too. Then we went back out through the drop doors. And we found a goat out there eating a new dead dwarf. He sat down when he saw Saalym and he’s got fangs just like her. He’s a good boy.

Then we went out to the entry place and down the next hall. There’s noise behind the door so I opened the door and then hid behind it. These big mushrooms can wandering out. Like really big. Then shook some spores on Twitch and Sandro when Eggy tried to talk to them. So, of course he shot them. They started punching my friends, so I threw my psy blades at them. Then I got hit and went to sleep.

When I woke up again, there were lots more and they were all dead. Some of them had people inside them. Dwarves and humans. Leshy said his spell was going to go away, so we rushed up the next set of stairs. We only found a couple dwarves in their bed covered in mushrooms up there, so we stabbed them so they wouldn’t turn into mushroom monsters. Then we took all their stuff, including some really pretty carved pearls.

We decided it was time to sleep so the magic people could be magic again, so we went back to the mage’s bedroom. Eggy didn’t want the good boy goat in the room with us, even though Yogi was allowed in the room. So we put him out to guard the metal suited dead dwarves instead. Kit isn’t so sure about him either, but I like him. In the morning we gathered up everything useful from the metal suits and all the armor and war picks to sell and headed down to the town to find Garry and Good Boy.

Their Speaker sleeps in the snow. He’s silly. Called us thieves! We’re not thieves, but we found and killed the thieves. Told us that the Inn is missing a pretty lantern. When we go there, she’s really happy we brought back her color changing lamp, so she gives us free drinks. Says the goats came from the tavern and the carved pearls from the supply company. Eggy and Saalym go off to talk to those people. Saalym said she wanted to buy the good boy goat from the guy because she gave it fangs. I don’t understand, but the ale was okay. Then we had a drinking competition that night and Sandro won! I dunno, I slept through most of it.

The next day we went back to Targos. Garret had left before we got to the inn the day before so he made it back to his husband just before we did, and they were all very happy to see us again. They gave us some cute little figures carved out of bone. There was a fox just like Kit. They said there was another carver in town who was much better and his name is James Brewer!

I ran off then, but I had to get my friends to help me find the house because I forgot to listen to where it was, but I found it, and his front room was all filled with carved bone things, but he wasn’t there, so I snuck around back and he was in the kitchen carving something else, and I knocked and he opened the door and I told him he was my Dad and he was really confused and I tried to explain, I even showed him my face and everything and he thought it was a dream and pinched himself, but I’m not a dream and I asked him if he hated me cuz Mom said he never wanted to meet me and he said Mom never asked him about that, he’s just been having dreams for a couple years now but I think I’m more than that old and I showed him my pretty daggers, and then someone shouted to ask if I was okay.

I told him those were my friends and asked if we could come in his shop and he could come meet them when he was ready. He said okay, so I went back outside. Back around the front to tell them all I found my Dad, and then I brought them into the shop. The carvings were all really good, so I start explaining what some of them are. There’s some of the trees I exploded. And some plants I recognize. And there’s one that looks like Auntie’s hut. There’s one that Eggy recognizes of the MeanHead like the one Doc and I chased in the woods the other day. He says he had it in a cage but he forgot and the cage got broke when we crashed our ship. He’s really worried that it’ll take over all of Ten Towns or something, but it’s a little scaredy, it ran away from me and Doc.

Dad came in then and I introduced him to everyone. Then I started explaining the carvings to him. and people told him he made a good kid, and Eggy said he’s fae touched, but I think it takes more than touching to make a kid, but I don’t know for sure, Mom’s real tricky. Dad seems really confused, but he says I can stay with him if I want to, and there’s so much to say, so I say I will and get Leshy to leave us some mead and tell Doc to stick with Saalym so she doesn’t get scared because I’m not there.

Storming a Castle

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Are we storming a castle? Sneaking in? What we doin? Eggy wants inside. Seems like there’s only a couple ways in. I go sneak up to look. The dome has tiny windows way up. The buildings are all shut up with no way in. There’s a little stream coming out one place, but the bars are too close together for me. Sandy comes up to squeeze through. After a while, he comes back and says there’s a well inside, but then in just goes into the mountain. The rest of us can’t get though this way. The big doors are so heavy there’s no sneaking in that way and there’s big things moving around inside. So, we head back to the group.

What if the people inside need help? The blue dwarves are from under the dark not up on the hill. What if they got attacked by the blue ones or just saw them? Maybe they’re not the bad guys. We can’t all sneak up anyway, and that big door is obvious. So, we just start walking up and calling out to them that we’re here to help.

They shoot us. From the dome.

Eggy says it is the blue dwarves after all, so we shoot back. Saalym gets right up on the side of the dome and Sandy goes right inside! The windows are too small for anyone else, but Twitch says he can make me tiny and he can magic himself inside. So, Sandy, Twitch, and me go inside to scout. Doc says he’s going to take a quick nap until we get back, and Leshy makes my eyes glow or something.

WOW! Seeing in the dark is so cool! Is this what Doc sees all the time??? No wonder he’s so sneaky.

We head down the ladders and into a tunnel and back up another ladder. The first room is pretty empty, but the second room has piles of supplies and stuff. And some really big blue dwarves who attack us! We attack them right back. I miss Doc, but we put them down and take their money and stuff. I get some more rope and climbing stuff and Twitch gets some herbs. The next room has even more big blue dwarves, so we have to fight them, too. I guess the others got bored waiting, cuz we hear gunshots from the next room over.

The others had bust in and killed some dead ogres and goats and big blue dwarves. A bunch of them fell in a pit, but not all. Everybody’s tired but it’s really not a good place to stop, there’s doors everywhere! So, I sneak off down a short hall to a bit empty room, there’s a couple doors to another room with a lever in it. I can’t tell what the lever does, but there’s another hall with a door. Sounds like there’s people in there. This seems better than the front area, so I whisper for them to come here.

I really want to find out what this lever does, but I just hold it. The group comes to join me and when Saalym gets in the doorway, someone else pushes the lever down! It wasn’t me, I swear! I stabbed him real good, too, to prove it. the two doors came down with only Saalym getting through to me. A bunch more things come rushing down the hall. Some of the dwarves were inside big metal suits! Eggy gets the door back up so everyone can get through. Nobody wanted to break the suits, I guess, cuz they just kept trying to stab the dwarves inside. I had my hands full with the dwarves not in suits.

One of them ran away down the hall after all his friends were dead. We chased after him and when he opened the door, the hallway caught fire! It hurt a lot, but we kept going. Killed him and his magic friend. This room is nice and quiet. It has pretty rocks in it. This seems like a much better place to rest.

Wait. Where’s Doc?