Ronin Session 40

The imp took the group further down the Vrauktom's shore, a frozen little strip of beach leading to his Lady. Butting on the right was the endless mercury seas stretching the gap between the planes of air and water, and beyond that a cosmic vista of angry stars, lancing dust trails, and gathering storms so massive they dwarfed planets. To the left, the sheer ice cliffs that comprised most the isle, alien shapes reminiscent of long-forgotten terrors, primal fears mortal races spent millenniums repressing. In the gray haze of the distant shore, the group could ever more clearly make up an ice mountain in the shape of a winged woman, what they began to refer to as Angel Mountain, assumed the Lady's abode.

Along the way, the frozen shore grew deeper and deeper with snow, first to the shin, then the waist, and by the highest sprawls chest-deep. Also along the way, the group passed by albino savages known as the frostfolk, a proud, aggressive culture that, if they smelt but a moment of weakness, attacked with unrelenting ferocity. The first camp the group passed, it only numbered four, and they managed to walk by without incident. A little further on, they passed a camp of twenty, which tested them with howls and clanged weapons. Again the group managed to keep their reserve, though some just barely. However, when the snowy mists revealed twenty campfires and about two hundred frostfolk camping the shoreline, the group wisely opted to go around them.

Izaki opened his magic origami boat, placing it in the water and watching as it grew into a 4 person dingy. The group entered, Izaki using weretiger oomph to launch them all over the waves and into open water. As they passed the shores where the frostfolk camped, all were startled as massive whale-like creatures with serrated fins and toothy beaks exploded from the sea, things the imp called malasyneps. They disturbed the water, rocked the boat, and splashed the stinging mercury onto the group's exposed skin. Worse, the creatures were jumping and landing closer and closer.

The frostfolk immediately dragged out kayaks and canoes loaded with spears and nets and cast off. Two of the malasyneps seemed to sense the danger and swam off, but one leaped so close to the group's dingy that it nearly capsized (but for Sera's skill with boats). Finduilas was flung from the boat, but managed to catch the violent planar winds toward the shore, where she just managed to crash land, lest she be smacked against the sheer cliff wall.

The malasynep bull leaped out of the water once more, this time aiming to land right on top of the dingy. In a desperate counter, Sera launched her magic box and said the power word. The box transformed into a large boat within the creature's mouth just as it was biting down. Shards and splinters of wood pierced the monster's soft palate and skewered its brain. It fell limp, just missing the boat thanks to Sera and Izaki's mighty pull. The made it to shore, even as the hundreds of frostfolk passed them by in their own, intent on salvaging the kill.

Once ashore, everyone began washing in the snow, trying to get the burning mercury off their skin. The imp revealed his name was Karb and continued to lead the way. Not too long after, the group reached two twenty-foot cairns, frozen over and rune-riddled. Karb passed through them, remarking this was the beginning of the Lady's estate. When the group walked through, the runes glimmered momentarily and went dead. Wasn't long after a mighty hulk burst from the waist-deep snows, a blue cadaver entombed in a suit of ice. He and Karb traded words, as they were familiar. The imp tried to convince the undead gatekeeper to let them pass, but things got ugly and the group had a fight on their hands.

The managed to wound the entombed enough for him to retreat back into the snows. From there, Karb led the group another hour to the base of some stairs. Hundreds of feet up was the narrow, black ice doors leading into the Angel Mountain. Everyone but Sera had some means of flight, thus she hitched a ride on Izaki. When they reached near the top, they found the entombed waiting for them, and three icy hags by his side. The filth-caked crones launched into the air and attacked the group, one pulling Sera from Izaki's arms and letting her drop to her impending doom. Finduilas summoned a celestial griffon, which managed to catch Sera, but then began to ice over from the extreme conditions of the plane that it was not properly protected from. Another hag summoned a funnel of boreal wind to slow the griffon, and it seemed Sera and her savior would fall. She made a leap for the stairs, but tripped, and went plummeting to her doom. It was a VERY close call before Finduilas could reach Sera, both only several dozen feet from the ground. The cleric managed to cast an air walking spell on the pirate, then pull up, though she still crash landed hard.

The boys took care of the rest of the hags above, but Izaki was knocked unconscious in the process and began to plummet to his death. Before Matthias could decapitate the last hag, the wicked woman summoned a wall of ice in mid air, which fell hurtling toward Sera, Izaki and Finduilas. Sera just barely caught Izaki as he whizzed by her, then dodged the ice wall. Finduilas cleared away from the wall as it shattered across the ground, but the shards caught her in the wings and body.

The four regrouped on the small platform before the black ice doors leading into Angel Mountain, on snows chest-deep. The entombed had long since retreated into the ice doors, as if he were some sort of ghost, and things were silent but for the howling winds against the sea-side slopes. Waiting for Izaki to come to, the group regained their composure and healed up, knowing inside would probably be twice as hard as the journey to.