Cold Storage (3 Brewfest 586 OY, 8/24/98 RL) Elmarth, Camen, and Oolsen continue exploring. They come across a humanoid creature coated from head to toe with some kind of frozen material. He calls himself "Ice" and asks for their help. He is cowering behind a statue of a gargoyle, which is pouring a stream of water from its mouth into a sarcophagus. Fire is blazing from the sarcophagus. If someone will block the water flow, Ice promises to reward him with the contents of a chest that is also behind the gargoyle. Camen blocks the water with his shield, and the flame leaps up, burning very bright and hot for a minute. Then it goes out, plunging the room into darkness. Ice runs off. The PCs pursue. Camen skewers the prisoner orc, freed by Ice.

Elmarth suddenly finds himself a spectator to his own actions, as Ice mentally takes over his body. He gives up the chase and heads back to Ice's former cell. En route, the remaining two orcs (who had somehow died previously) rise up as zombies to attack him. Elmarth/Ice defeats them, using Elmarth's combat skills. Just as he opens the chest in the gargoyle/sarcophagus room, Elmarth breaks Ice's domination and regains control.

Meanwhile, Ice had run outside. Camen and Oolsen give up the chase and go to explore another area. They find a strange double-sided mirror floating in a chamber. Camen sees a horrifying vision in the mirror and flees into another unexplored chamber. There he encounters a flumph (yes, really!) He handily flips onto its back with his spear, disabling it. Elmarth hears the noise and rejoins the others. They loot the chest, finding a runed sword, a highly polished and reflective shield, a girdle, a large ruby set into a broken holy symbol of St. Cuthbert, a couple of potions, and a couple of scraps of paper.

Later, studying the papers, they determine that they are maps. One is to a location on Kule, but the location of the other is unknown. Both use several runic symbols common in the Flanaess, and both bear the symbol of Zagyg, the mad god.

Having explored the entire "tomb," they leave. Some wonder what the purpose of the place was, and why such an odd variety of creatures were sitting around in adjacent rooms? (GM comment: there is a reason...) On the way out, they disturb the mirror thing. It comes to life and attacks them. Eventually they smash it, but not before it hits Camen a few times, stretching his arms out to 10' long and shrinking his legs to 1' long. Fortunately, he returns to normal after a few minutes. They make it to the surface and head for the hobbit village.
Last modified: Wed Jul 21 17:03:54 MDT