The heroes had fought their way through
the various haunts that infested the Vekker Brothers cabin, and while they had
discovered what had happened here long ago it still wasn't clear why it had
happened. The final haunt, the spirit of Silas Vekker himself, had told the
party that if they would help him reconcile with his brother Karivek he would
return the favor by revealing the way to Xin-Shalast. The party decided to take
him up on his offer, but their night of rest was plagued with twisted dreams of
cannibalism, which just reinforced the still remaining question: what had
happened here all those years ago?
The blizzard raged through the night, but
had lessened by the next morning. The party had made it this far without the
hindrance of snow, but that was not the case anymore. According to the maps they
had found the mine they were looking for was maybe only a mile away, but the
direction was almost straight up and the path would now be covered with a foot
or more of snow all along the way, making the trek all that more treacherous.
What might have been a fun hike in the summer time now turned into a
grueling ordeal, until the party found the ledge that supposedly led to the
mine. The ledge led around a mountain peak, with a sheer cliff face on the other
side. The wind blew extremely strong and the party members had to step carefully
to avoid falling into the chasm.
The ledge in question was near the
mountain's peak. The other side of the ledge was a sheer cliff face, the bottom
of which was lost in the gloaming far below. The ground of the 5-foot-wide shelf
was rough and uneven, covered with rubble and rocks, and the treacherous footing
was made more dangerous by the presence of an eerie fog that hung over the path.
The party managed to avoid falling into the mists below, and soon stepped into
an indentation into the mountain side with a long flat area covered with piles
of snow.
Near the eastern end of the ledge a small
number of gravestones protruded from the mist, each marked with dwarven names
(including that of Silas Vekker). Towards the back of this small plateau was
what appeared to be the entrance to a mine, and in front of the entrance there
appeared to be a snow covered body. The heroes approached cautiously, and
Reynard used a Mage Hand to carefully brush away the snow from the
body. The corpse still wore its padded armor,
but was itself in frightful shape. Not only was it broken and mangled as if it
had fallen from a great height, but the body's legs ended in charred, blackened
stumps where the feet had been burnt off. There was no doubt this was the body
of Karivek Vekker, the one the heroes had been searching for.
 |
| Karivek Vekker |
The heroes decided to drag the body back
down the mountainside to the cabin, but as they attempted to secure the body the
ghostly presence of Karivek Vekker was awoken, at which point he flew up into
the air to attack. In death, Karivek's mouth was filled with fangs that dripped
streamers of blood that faded away to mist before they stuck the ground.
Although he was incorporeal, his freezing temperature left a rime of ice across
any surface he traveled near - such as by leaving frosty hand prints on walls as
he passed through them.
Among the various powers Karivek had
gained upon becoming a ghost was an ability to attract and manipulate certain
creatures with the cold sub-type. Currently, an enormous frost worm, attracted
by Karivek's supernatural control over cold, dwelt in the area and served the
ghost as a guardian. The huge beast lay in wait under the packed ice and snow in
the middle of the ledge, and erupted from hiding to attack with its breath
weapon as soon as it the battle ensued.
The battle was brief but intense. The giant worm soon fell to
fire-related spells from Reynard and Selinor, and Stike’s mighty sword and
Kheo’s bow soon killed the ghost of Karivek. On Karivek’s brutally mangled body
they found a set of +4 Improved Cold Resistance Padded Armor, but as
soon as the battle was completed a mysterious howl echoed across the mountain
peaks. This same howl had been heard previously when the heroes first approached
the cabin. The first howl had sounded like it was far off in the distance, but
this one sounded like the echo was right on top of them. A sudden snow storm
picked up again, with the snow and gusting winds reducing visibility even
further. Seeing few options the party gathered around Reynard and the party –
plus the corpse of Karivek Vekker - Teleported back to the safety
of Vekker’s cabin.
Upon their their return to the cabin with
Karivek's bones a strange sense of calm seemed to fill the structure. Even the
howling sounds of the blizzard outside seemed muted and quiet. As soon as the
heroes brought in the bones Silas Vekker appeared again, an expression of
sadness and forgiveness etched on his face. Yet Karivek was not yet quite ready
to accept his brother. The cannibal ghost manifested as well, his bones
crumbling to dust and reforming in his ghostly incarnation. The two ghosts
silently faced off against each other, seemingly caught in a struggle of wills
as wispy strings of ectoplasm and wafts of ghostly presence lashed out and
coiled about one another.
 |
| Wendigo |
As soon as the reconciliation of the brothers began a huge bang was
heard, as if a monster outside the cabin was trying to knock down the walls of
the sturdy cabin to get in. The banging continued, and the heroes experienced
the feeling of someone or something trying to inflict further desires of hunger
and cannibalism upon them. The two brothers continued their reconciliation, but
Kheo decided it was time for action and sprang through the door and unto the
front porch, only to see their nemesis – a Wendigo. This hideous creature had
the head of a feral elk with jagged teeth and sharp antlers and its humanoid
legs end in blackened, burnt stumps.
Suddenly it became clear to the party what had happened to
the Vekker’s. Beings of ancient evil, wendigos were known to haunt the minds of
mortals, driving them to desperation and, ultimately, cannibalistic madness.
They enjoyed whittling down prey before they struck, often trailing their
victims for days, even weeks, as they plagued their victims journeys with
nightmares and foul weather. The heroes had inadvertently stepped into the
wendigo’s playground, and now the fight was on.
The wendigo’s preferred choice of attack was to grab an opponent, fly
into the air with them, have them run in mid-air so strenuously that their legs
became blackened stumps, and then drop their victim many hundreds of feet to the
ground below to their death. This explained the condition of Karivek’s broken
body, but the heroes managed to avoid this fate and soon the wendigo was dead,
but not before he had commanded the ghostly Vekker brothers to join him in the
attack.
 |
| Wendigo |
As before the heroes quickly put down the ghostly brothers, only to
see the two bodies reconstitute themselves, and their reconciliation begin
again. After ten long silent minutes Silas won the silent confrontation with his brother, at
which point Karivek's ghost suddenly relaxed and sighed. His teeth returned to
normal and his feet grew back before he faded away into nothingness. Silas
turned to face the heroes, his expression now at peace but not without an
element of sadness. His final words to the heroes before he faded were a
warning:
"You have saved my brother. You have saved
me. I should reward you by simply taking the path to Xin-Shalast with me into
the beyond, yet I sense that you still harbor a desire to see those golden
ruins. Very well. Look to the pages of my ledger for the way, and may Torag
watch over you in the darkness to come ... "
As he finished
speaking Silas faded away as well, and as he did several parchment pages
appeared and floated lazily to the ground. These were the missing five pages
from Silas's ledger, the ones that provided exacting details on the route to
Xin-Shalast. With the brothers now at peace and the Wendigo defeated, the
Vekker’s cabin was a good place to rest up and study the directions Silas had
left behind.
The first step for the heroes, according
to the Vekkers' directions, was to continue traveling up the Kazaron River until
they reached the second tributary. The ledger identified this river as the
legendary River Avah, yet it also said the winding route between the Kadar
Mountains was not one for the faint of heart. There were no banks to walk along
and the river itself often rose in cataracts of up to 300 feet in height as it
climbed ever higher into the mountains. The waters of the River Avah were
freezing cold, yet they themselves never froze. As the heroes followed the river
upstream, the air grew thin and the sky a deep blue. When the party reached what
they thought was their target they had climbed thousands of feet to a height of
just over 15,000 feet above sea level, and the effects of the thinner air began
to present themselves. (DM Note: The rules
for high altitude effects are included at the end of this
post).
Despite following the directions provided by Silas Vekker,
the River Avah could not be found. Several additional days were spent as the
heroes plodded through the snows trying to find the fabled river, but no clues
revealed themselves – no empty river bed, no gaps amongst the hills or trees
could be identified, and any magical attempts to find the source failed to
reveal the secret as well. Finally in a moment of frustration it was decided to
re-read the pages of Silas Vekker’s ledger. In the corner of one of the pages
they found the word “fast” and it was decided that perhaps the brothers had
ventured too far from home on one of their trips and in their hunger they had accidentally stumbled onto the secret. After the first full day without food a
glittering full moon shown down on to a heretofore unseen river bed that led
further into the mountains and the heroes continued their advance.
The phantom River Avah led through a
partially frozen wetland - the Fen of the Icemists. Once a lake, this region was
clogged with silt by several volcanic eruptions at the time of Thassilon's fall,
creating this treacherous and unique high-altitude fen. The waters of the
Icemists were in a constant state of freezing and thawing, with the mix of high
altitude and latent volcanism creating a mist-shrouded frozen region of water
and swaths of icy mud. No plants existed in the Ice mists apart from the
ever-present stalks of strange pale fungi and clots of floating lichens that
covered and hid deep tarns of freezing water - the entire region had about it a
chilling aura of frozen menace.
The Fen of the Icemists was riddled with
hummocks of solid ground and protruding rocks. The heroes were careful to move
through the fen without falling into the water, but doing so required a slow and
cautious rate of movement. Once Kheo took a misstep and fell into a hidden pool
of slush and went in over his head. The other party members quickly drug him
out, only to see the pool quickly freeze over directly behind
him.
The Icemists maintained an eerie silence, the whistling of the wind
being the only noise present. No chirping of birds, no furry creatures jumping
in and out of the water, and no sounds of animals scooting through the feeble
underbrush. The party did spot what appeared to be an otter that stood on a far
hummock, its gaze intense upon the party as they crept past through the
treacherous fen. Later an owl was spotted, its gaze too never leaving the party
as they continued their slog through the half-frozen swamp. The presence of
these two creatures only further highlighted the otherwise barren nature of the
fen.
 |
| Svevenka |
Suddenly a creature appeared in front of
them, a beautiful elven woman with long dark hair, pale purple skin, and
exaggerated ears and limbs. The icy nymph introduced herself as Svevenka.
She stated she was quite well aware of who the party members were, and expressed
that she had a pretty good guess as to why they were here in her fen. She
further explained that Selinor still carried her cousin’s Myriana’s inspiration.
She had learned of her cousin’s death back in the swamps near Fort Rannick and
her fey contacts had told her of the heroes role in putting the tortured
Myriana’s soul to rest.
Svevenka warned the party that all was
not right in the region, and that they would do best to avoid traveling farther
north. For one thing, the city of Xin-Shalast and the mountain of Mhar Massif
stood at a point that closely interacted with a foreign plane named Leng. The
heroes reported they had been feeling a sense of wrongness about them as they
had continued north, and Svevenka explained that was the magic of Leng leaching
through to this plane. Leng was something the party had read about in the
ancient Thassilonian library underneath Jorgenfist, but its relationship to
Karzoug or to Thassilon had never truly been explained.
When the conversation turned to
Xin-Shalast and the desire to confront Karzoug the nymph grew thoughtful and
perhaps a bit excited. While she did not wish to leave her beloved Icemists
unprotected, she volunteered her aid and told the party that this place could be
a safe harbor for them if they wished. She also agreed to put her spells at
their disposal. Svevenka knew quite a bit about the region, and when the heroes
asked for advice she was able warn them about the giants, lamias, and abominable
snowmen that had recently been seen streaming north and now dwelt in
Xin-Shalast.
She also warned them about the occluding
field that surrounded Mhar Massif's peak. She suspected that the denizens of
Xin-Shalast had created the field to protect it and that they must have some
magical method of protecting themselves from the field, but these were merely
guesses on her part. She also thought whatever magic was needed to get past the
occluding field would also allow the creature to survive at the great height of
the mountains peak where the lack of oxygen would otherwise incapacitate a
normal creature. She knew little of Leng, but expressed the opinion that there
must be a reason that Karzoug had built his castle home there.
Svevenka also stated that not all of the
city’s residents may not necessarily be enemies. She told the party about
Xin-Shalast's skulks - descendants of the city's original citizens that
still lived still in the city's ruins. Svevenka knew there were two factions
among the skulks - the relatively peaceful (and less powerful) "Spared" and the
vampiric minions of the Hidden Beast, a creature with whom Svevenka has fought
before. She expressed a doubt that the heroes would actually be able to find a
member of the Spared, but she had little doubt the Spared would be able to find
them. She further expressed there may be others within Xin-Shalast that may be
willing to help, as the possible return of Karzoug and the rise of a new
Thassilon empire may not something that was universally welcomed by all within
the hidden city.
Svevenka provided several tokens of
thanks to the party for their assistance: a +3 Dagger, Headband of
Inspired Wisdom +2, Ring of Force Shield, and a Ring of Major
Fire Resistance. Svevenka
also safely guided the heroes through the remaining area of the fen
until the waters were joined by an ancient road paved with flat stones that had
a faint sheen of gold to them. The nymph stated this road continued north to
Xin-Shalast - from this point on the party had a physical route to follow and
need no longer depended upon the phantom waters of the Avah. The road itself was
100 feet wide, and while its surface had occasional patchy swaths of ice,
it provided a welcome flat surface upon which to travel.
And
we’ll pick it up there next time. For
tonight’s effort the party earned 108,450 XP, giving them (731,550 + 108,450)
840,000 XP earned so far, with 890,000 XP required to reach Level 16. The rules
for the effects of High Altitude (Core Rulebook, Pg 430) are as
follows:
Low Peak or High
Pass (5,000 to 15,000 feet): Ascending to the highest slopes of low
mountains, or most normal travel through high mountains, falls into this
category. All non-acclimated creatures labor to breathe in the thin air at this
altitude. Characters must succeed on a Fortitude save each hour (DC 15, +1 per
previous check) or be fatigued. The fatigue ends when the character descends to
an altitude with more air. Acclimated characters do not have to attempt the
Fortitude save.
High Peak
(more than 15,000 feet): The highest mountains exceed 15,000 feet in height. At
these elevations, creatures are subject to both high altitude fatigue (as
described above) and altitude sickness, whether or not they’re acclimated to
high altitudes. Altitude sickness represents long-term oxygen deprivation, and
affects mental and physical ability scores. After each 6-hour period a character
spends at an altitude of over 15,000 feet, he must succeed on a Fortitude save
(DC 15, +1 per previous check) or take 1 point of damage to all ability scores.
Creatures acclimated to high altitude receive a +4 competence bonus on their
saving throws to resist high altitude effects and altitude sickness, but
eventually even seasoned mountaineers must abandon these dangerous
elevations.
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