We’re not exactly making friends here. “oh hi. nice to meet you. We’re just passing through. Oh this?  This is just an ice scepter, it’s nothing. Wait, don’t… <WE KILL THEM ALL>”.
Kill, rinse, repeat.
You know, given how today went, it’s probably a good idea if next time I hide the scepter before we go introducing ourselves.

The day began well enough. At least for those of us who didn’t sleep on the beds.  Here I tried to be nice by volunteering to sleep on the floor and it turns out the beds gave everyone nightmares or something. Even my generous impulses can end up being curses. They all had nightmares about dying in the snow or being impaled by giant icicles.
Klajdu was a little unsettled even and said he dreamt that he kept falling through thin ice. He had trouble shaking the image later I think, cause I caught him tiptoeing a few times out of the corner of my eye.  And from having witnessed it I can safely say that Klajdu sucks at tiptoeing.  Good tiptoeing starts with not being 8 feet tall and wearing plate armor.

After the dream-addled ones pulled it together a bit, we stoked the fires, made a quick breakfast and took apart the barricade we’d set up in front of the doors.  It felt lame in the morning but hey I still think it was a good idea.   I chose the leftmost door to open first and it’s wolf turds, bones and bloody rags. Check please.  Boy I’m good at choosing things. Maybe I’ll shut up for a while.  The next room was more promising or if not exactly promising, at least shit-free.  The walls were filled with carvings of dwarves and dwarven script.  This reminded us of what we probably should have remembered without prompting — that Nimozaran had told us the Winter King erected his tower of skulls after conquering a nearby dwarven stronghold. Which stronghold obviously we’re inside now. Good thing I studied all that history so I can forget something I was told TWO DAYS AGO. Damn it.  Fitz was reading through them a bit and I was keen to stay and research but we heard clanking sounds coming from some stairs nearby. History can wait forever but apparently clanking cant wait 5 minutes.  Down the stairs we go into an old kitchen and there we find some new friends.  Oh good. One lank looking fellow with black hair, black robes and an unsettling-looking staff, and three dwarves with axes in their belts. All 3 dwarves and the mage are soaking wet. The dwarves don’t seem to care and they’re sorting through the jumble of pots and pans on the tables, looking for food I think. The human is wringing water out of his robes.  In the back of the room is some kind of horrible stinking trash pit but we dont give much thought to it then.  They don’t tell us their names but they claim they were frozen here by the Winter King and only recently thawed out.  What would have certainly been a long and happy friendship is ruined the moment they see the ice scepter.  They start saying and thinking silly things, like that they need the scepter so they can exchange it with the Winter King for their freedom (sure he sounds very reasonable).  We point out that they look pretty free to us already, that the outer door is just over thataway. The phrase “gtfo” crossed my mind but things proceed rapidly and these guys are not interested in simple plans.  Instead maybe they want to be filled with arrows, turned into ice and then axed apart mercilessly into little melty ice splinters. OK this sounds acceptable.

That reminds me–  Fitz made a comment about the dwarves being dumb as a bag of hammers or something, when Tungsten said “Wait aren’t you a dwarf?”.  When Fitz said no, he was only half-dwarf, Tungsten countered with “Well are they only half as stupid as you or twice as stupid?”. Gotta remember that one.

So, the battle. Here goes.  After we dropped the first dwarf, some slimy noises came from deep in the stinking trash pit and a tentacle snaked out and grabbed Tungsten.  Not your average tentacle either. A nasty thing, kind of thick at the end and bristling with barbs and thorns. While I’m trying to calculate how to rush in and attack both the tentacle and all our newfound friends with wind magic, the symmetry gets ruined.  Tungsten gets pulled towards the pit and away from the other bad guys and the mage mutters and bangs his staff and swaps places with Carn’ibald across the room.  But that’s not all folks; some more lank hair-pulling and mumbling and Fitz is turned into a piglet.  Wow. Neat tricks. I think someone should Axe him how it’s done, don’t you?   I try the wind magic anyway even though it’s only going to hit the tentacle and of course it just misses.  Mr Fancypants whacks the ground again with his staff and those of us near the pit stumble but recover, well except for Carn’ibald who falls in. I kind of lose my shit at this point and unleash the power of the Ice Scepter right at the two remaining dwarves. The sheer excellence of seeing their expressions as they were frozen will keep me going for a while.  And the damn scepter’s good for something at least.

So meanwhile in the stinking rotting pit, Carn’ibald is having a rough time.  Something takes a big bite out of him and he goes down. Beulah hops over and heals him, and then to remind us that she’s not all sunshine and roses, spins and sinks a couple arrows into the mage. Carn’ibald saw an opening right then and signaled to Klajdu something they were talking about this morning and Klajdu follows up with another mighty blow on the mage. We need to talk to this Carn’ibald guy some more because that was cool, and because when he tried it later with Tungsten it didn’t work at all.   But back to the action. Tungsten suddenly shatters one of the frozen dwarves. The wizard tries to run but as he turns Marco and Klajdu land solid blows that cost him an arm and a lot more blood than he can safely pay.  Klajdu then lets out a battlecry that scares the shit out of us (well, out of me) and charges the remaining dwarf.  Although his expression when he was being frozen was already pretty shocked, I swear he widened his eyes. Fitz is still a piglet but he’s capering about amiably, the dwarf goes down and so things are looking good. So naturally this is when the Otyugh decides to steal the show and it does so by clambering up out of the pit and jarring our senses with its unimaginable reek.

I may never complain about the smell of Klajdu’s boots again (although I promise nothing).  An otyugh smells so bad that it’s visual appearance as a huge green monster with a great gaping jaw and big barby tentacles seems almost boring.  Behind it a second kind of tentacle rises up and we can see it’s eyes back there glowering down at us stinkily.

The team working together brought the Otyugh down eventually but as they say there’s no rest for the wicked.  Oh and once enough blood left the wizard we got Fitz back so the jokes about having babyback ribs for dinner came to an end.  Which was sad because they were funny and took our minds off the killing. or maybe just mine.  We were still trying to clear our heads and find some fresh air in the room when we heard footsteps running toward us and who runs into the kitchen but a giant skeleton.  A new friend?  Signs point to No when he bursts into flame.  He’s an angry skeleton and behind him comes an angry rabble of 4 tieflings and 3 humans.

“Whoa whoa whoa there fellas. No need to get excited.  We’re here to see the Winter King”.  They weren’t really magic words but they did slow things down briefly.  They fight for the Winter King. OK.  Uh, yes OK fine I AM carrying the Ice Scepter (thanks for that Beulah).
And oh crap here we go again…..