Curses are not sufficient, or at least not the written ones.  The idea of easy money for this quest has gone by the board, with us very nearly with it.  Instead of sipping fine ales by the fire we sit huddled in an ice cave high in the Frostjaw mountains.  How high or precisely where, I could not tell you because we came in a flying boat.  Someone enchanted the boat to talk but then again I didnt feel like asking about our exact position — it’s conversational repertoire is meager and skewed towards hurling bolts of lightning.  The whole thing is a long story but I cant sleep so I might as well tell it.

Fallcrest in June was the spitting image of Fallcrest in January, but with more yelling and more things on fire.  With the harvest buried under a foot or two of snow it seems Lord Markelhay had ordered all food confiscated from the merchant stores and warehouses. His thinking was to institute food rationing so the town could make it through not just this freak summer but the fall and winter too.

Of course this did not endear him to the merchants whose capital was sunk into those warehouses. In fact if our silver-tongued friend the boat had not descended into the midst of things Fallcrest may have seen some sort of sloppy attempt at a merchant uprising.  But I’m getting ahead of the story.

There was a great commotion in the Market Green so we headed there. As a side note. we passed a dwarven paladin and his mercenary friend as they made a woman cry, and with our usual knack for picking up the strangest people possible, these same two are now in our party.
Anyway, we got to the green to find quite a show. Sehanine priests and the Pelor priests were wailing about this and that. The merchants were protesting the lord’s actions, the farmers were protesting their farmer-ness.  The dwarf, who I suppose I’ll have to start calling Fitz, put forth the sensible idea that this was a business for adventurers (neatly stealing our line). I tried to set the stage for the merchants paying us for the adventuring, so as to make themselves look good to the farmers.  Some rough types in the crowd were moving a little too inconspicuously and, well,  it turns out that THIS was the perfect moment for a flying warship full of undead soldiers to land right there on the banks of the Nentir.

Almost all the townspeople turned and fled. Some found themselves doubly stricken then, confronting Klajdu as he barrelled full speed through their line into their pursuers. I laughed a little, but only a little.   Beulah took the first down as I remember, and thus with a shower of bones we found that amongst our foes were some of our old friends the skeletons. Klajdu must have bewildered a few with his occasional battleshout of “Agggh, Non-Premium!!”.  The mercenary and the dwarf (alright Carn’ibald and Fitz) proved to be capable of more than making ladies cry, and they laid some serious hurt down in the center of the line.  And a quick and relatively vicious half orc called Tungsten ended up on our side too.  I’m not quite sure where he came from and I dont think anyone else knows yet either (at this point it’s almost too awkward to ask).  But he sank his axes into many an evildoer and that’s pretty much the only ticket required for this ride.

I have to relate a couple choice images. When some voice from the crowd suggested that we try engaging with the undead diplomatically, Klajdu bellowed back the question “Which side of axe is diplomatic side?”.   Beulah was keen to test some new ‘healing’ magic she’s been trying to pick up but we all managed to beg off.  We do need to solve this problem eventually. For one thing it’s quite possible this guide we brought may need some experimental healing.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Klajdu saw one of the enemy rush into a tent and exclaimed “Ah! he goes to take battlenap!” It was a bit less funny given that there was a family in that tent no doubt quivering in terror but all’s well that ends well I suppose.

Which it eventually did.  Towards the end the boat issued a demand – “Return the ice scepter to the realm of the Winter King or else [something really really bad will happen]”.  I cant remember exactly what it was at the end cause of the killing and all, but it sounded bad.  For some reason and failing to draw on any lessons learned in childhood, I listened to a half-orc’s advice and attempted to parley with an enchanted boat. Nearly died as a result. See previous comment about the boat’s rather serious conversational shortcomings.  The big quiet mercenary came from nowhere and proved his skills a second time (third if you count the lady crying) by casting some healing, so Bala’s little pawn lives to curse another day, and pen this lively tale by dying torchlight.

So where was I?  Ah. The last undead falling. And then falling again. I say again because they had a nasty tendency to get up, as though they really were just taking battlenaps. Ask Beulah about her sticky charge-happy friend down on the left flank. But after they stopped getting up some lively and electrical debate with the boat ensued and apparently the boat just wanted to take people who have the Ice Scepter back with it, or at least it wanted people who think they have the ice scepter.  Tungsten (the half-orc) told the boat that he had the scepter and while this was the winning move as far as not getting struck by lightning, when the boat demanded that he board the rest of us retreated to a somewhat cowardly distance and had a chat.

Orest Naerumar offered the interesting fact that even he has never heard of anything like an ‘ice scepter’, which is pretty definitive given the tiefling’s background. Fortunately Nimozaran was out and the old wizard shared some stories from before the time of Nerath (!!). He said that the Winter King was a human warlord that united several barbarian tribes to the north (I need to ask him first thing on my return where exactly this was).  He also laid claim to a dwarven kingdom and erected a pile of skulls for some reason I didnt quite catch.   Which is fine since that same tower of skulls is now literally outside this cave. And the purpose is pretty clear.  It’s simply the world’s largest “Go Away” sign.  Which marks him as a relatively unpleasant fellow. Nimozaran went on to say that he made a pact with the “Prince of Frost” and ended up frozen by the same inside a block of ice.  The “prince of frost” sounds familiar to me in an unpleasant, twitchy, screaming sort of way that suggests that he is from the Feywild. And Nimozaran called him a warlord but if he makes pacts with archfey I think the old man may have been off by a couple letters there.  I am keen to try this scepter in battle to say the least.

So, during all this storytelling, one weasely looking fellow was spotted sneaking away and promptly pinned down by Fitz, Carn’ibald myself and others, and then kicked by quite a few locals for good measure.  Not exactly the best liar we’ve seen and inside of a minute we’d extracted the very same Ice Scepter from his pack.

He spilled a strange tale of having been condemned to work in the mines among the Frostjaw peaks, and having escaped somehow.  He found his way to the tower of skulls and ignoring its spiky toothless subtext, he went inside.  And after a time he pulled the Ice Scepter from the hand of the frozen Winter King and thus protected from the cold he departed and made the long journey back to Fallcrest.   How he did all this I have no idea and I intend to ask him when we have a spare moment.

But spare moments were not in great supply since we got on the boat. I have no idea how much time passed but if someone makes me pull another oar or haul another rope or patch the enchantments on another deranged figurehead, I hope they like being on fire.   The torch is really out now and the snoring hasn’t reached full blast yet so I think it’s time to get some sleep.