After the battle in the throne room we explored a little and discussed a little. Klajdu had found a magical key around Anger’s neck so I took a look. It’s magic seemed to relate to something back down the big hallway so off we go with a stop off at that Forge room first.  Beulah was pretty feisty, I’ll say that.  Maybe this fight was a bit more frantic than normal and she was still coming down.  More later.  I wasn’t going to put on the Winter King’s crown just yet but then when nobody was looking I did it.   It’s got at least 2 powers but I haven’t used either one yet sadly. It’s maybe a bit strange that I’m carrying *both* of the magic items that we’ve found, but until someone else brings it up….  And we discovered that the magical forge imbued our weapons with an icy frosty bite so everyone got a little something, for now.

Before I forget them, some quotes:

Shazia:  “Something’s gonna happen with this crown.”
Tungsten: “Yea, you’re gonna fall and break it.”

Beulah: “What else can you put in the forge?”
Klajdu: “Image of unwelcome.”

Marco told us he felt he’d done his part and took off. He said he’s not going back to Fallcrest at least and that’s probably for the best. They’d kill him if he’s lucky which he’s not. He didn’t want any gold or any anything so whatever.  Beulah was pissed at me for putting on the crown. I guess she’d said she wanted to wear it.  Gave her some wine and then shortly after some more.  We found a storeroom with thousands of books and scrolls and codices and I would have never left except that the scrolls were all thawing and rotten and dripping.  Not my day. Beulah found a minotaur’s horn that had been turned into a flask and damned if she didn’t just drink it down right away.   Took a while to find out what magic we were dealing with. (you’ll see).

Beulah drank more of my wine after which there was some puking.  At first I thought the wine didn’t agree with her.  We break down another door and come face to face with a small army of frozen warriors with a white dragon frozen and suspended in loose chains from the ceiling. Winter king had some cool toys I see.  The dragon had a key around it’s neck and I reached up and took it.  Another great idea cause the Dragon immediately thaws and attacks.  I considered briefly trying to put the key back but all I could tell was that this key was related to the other key so we’re gonna need it anyway.

There was some kicking of ass. We got the dragon on the run but a charge from Klajdu, a taunt from Carn, a blast of vomited fire from Beulah (aha the potion!) and a somewhat spastic burst of magic from myself and the dragon went down (I tried to use the crown but instead managed to teleport twice with some wind magic in the middle. Played it off well I think as long as nobody reads this journal).

More quotes:
Tungsten, regarding the idea of just massacring the frozen people:
“We’re not barbaria…”  {looks at Klajdu}   “Oh.”
Klajdu, addressing the thawing people:  “Make first left, second
right. If you hit room with sausage you go too far.”

One more extremely-broken-down door later and we’re in a room packed of traps but the traps are all frozen in a sort of half-engaged position. There’s a lever that Fitz and Carn try to snag from across the room but not today.  Then Tungsten makes his way through the room to find next to the lever there’s a trick lock and a riddle. Four tumblers.  Something about dwarven and giant being written in the same script. I get distracted cause when they say tumblers I naturally assume they’ve found a bar over there.

Suddenly there’s the sound of a lot of booted feet approaching behind us. Aside from Fitz and Tungsten who are in the trap room, we all turn to find some humans that I think wanted to talk to us, and an Ettin that wanted to kill us, twice.

We make with the asskicking, but in a rearguard action drawing them back into the trap room. I figure out that there’s no bar, but I head that way no less eagerly.

I’ll skip to the truly awesome part.  A maniacal half orc throwing the actuator lever this way and that while a baker’s dozen of different traps spear, impale and saw our enemy’s to little quivering bits.  At the end I wanted to clap and throw some coppers at them but they were on the verge of death and thus unlikely to take this magnificent show on the road.

And I’ll leave you with more quotes:
Shazia: “I’m beginning to feel sorry for the Ettin”, after Ettin’s leg
gets mostly sawed off.
Fitz, at his most un paladin-like: “I will steal life from the bloody one.”
Klajdu, after being compelled by Carn’ibald to reach around and attack
a barbarian: “What if Klajdu not want reacharound?”

Tungsten:  “She (Beulah) can teach you, but Carn’ibald would have to
charge”.  You had to be there. Or even if you didn’t, I’m not
explaining it.’

Someone. maybe tungsten:  “What kind of an animal are you? You’re just
going to urinate on him?”