Category Archives: Conversation

Frostbite Keep Seen

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The group has passed around the guard post a while back. Tonight they are going to camp before arriving at Frostbite keep tomorrow. The group is a couple hours from their camp for the night. Alexis addresses the group.

“Before we go in, Red and myself will get the blessings of greater insights of the college of Raiden. This will boost the two of us for half the day. And to keep more in reserve, I figure we won’t pass tracelessly or detect who might be scrying on us.”

“I’ve been thinking about what we’re going to do in the keep. As the holder of the Tear, I’m going to be the target for cunning opponent. For this reason we should shift who gets more protection. My bare thoughts: Gus shields myself and Red. And I stand right next to Gus so I can heal him if he gets too low.”

“I’m a little torn about who gets your Bothers in Arms, Carm. But as the holder of the Tear, I think I should have this extra protection.”

“Gus, I might call on you for talking to any animals in the keep to get more information.”

“Red, you’ve been keeping a ether-form spell for yourself. You might need to make a quick getaway with as many Tears as you can carry.”

Alexis keeps discussing with the group about who they might find in the keep. The possibility of Sheyeeni, Thraan, or anyone else they’ve encountered along the way. Alexis reminds the group of the other tools they have, including Old Sava stones and Gustav’s arrow with the lightning bolt.

Alexis asks what else they might have missed in the conversation up to this point.

Always Watching Over

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Gustav and Alexis have been standing outside Ca’armine’s working while Ca’armine cleanses the crystal ball. When the working shatters and the ball goes clean, a shudder runs through Alexis and his body slumps. Gustav turns to look at him. Alexis straightens slowly, and Gustav thinks he sees a shadow leaving Alexis’s eyes, but it’s dim out here and hard to be sure.

Alexis looks at Gustav and smiles.

“Utiog did not enjoy that. I felt it in the Tear.”

He picks up his hat, knocks the dust off it against his leg, and puts it back on.

“Thanks for standing out here with me, Gus. Watching my back when I didn’t ask you to.”

He tips his head toward Ca’armine, a signal that it’s time to go, and starts back toward the group.

Horns? Not Six Arms. 3 gems.

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In camp, after the stone shepherd and the stone sheep, a natural snow storm brewing, Rask catches Alexis attention.

“That creature in the stone carvings back there, you talked about the gems it had seeming similar to ours. But it’s not Sagi? Not the six-armed creature right? But it had horns?”

“Gus felt like there was something special there too…”

Rask looks over at Gus.

“Horns, not antlers.. What do you think it was?” Rask asks Alexis

I May Have Erred

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Thing happen fast, sometimes. Even when one can stop time! Battling Ezrin– a foe my companions used to trust– I used the time amulet received when we entered this new world, to pause the flow of time, heal my grievous wounds from fighting the undead minions the wizard deployed, then ran to a fighting position, where I joined Rask in battling the wizard at sword point. Rask dealt him a flurry of mighty blows, maiming him grievously. He teleported away, leaving his severed arm in the dirt, and we ran him down to deliver the coup de grace.

Even as his last breath left him, Ezrin’s body split and a demon came out of the accursed armor he wore! I was preparing to Dismiss the demon, when a rider appeared! She dispatched the demon with her powerful magic sword, before I could cast my spell.

My fellows knew this warrior woman, and they spoke. She told them she had now dispatched the last of the Abyssal Lords (meaning, the demon she had destroyed in front of us), and that she was now resuming her quest to “kill the gods.”

My fellows tell me that she is in earnest. She was gifted a uniquely powerful magic item, the sword chaotic, to accomplish this quest. My fellows tell us (for Rask, also, did not know this warrior) that they convinced her to kill the Abyssal Lords first, before starting her quest to kill the gods. With that quest complete, however, by her words she vowed to kill Hood, the God of Death.

Could I have stopped her from riding off? Could I have dismissed the demon more quickly, and in so doing, prolonged her quest?

I have a holy charge, to free the land from the corruption of the Dark Hand, and I cannot turn aside from that quest. But in all the world, only we few people know, that a fell warrior woman now seeks to kill the god of death, and if she succeeds, the world will be forever changed. How? We don’t now know. But to me it seems clear, this would be a Bad Thing.

If I did not have the power to roll back time, my dismay over this turn of events would feel less onerous to me. But I alone could turn back time, giving up years of my life to do so, in order to repeat the moment when she dealt the mortal blow that killed the demon. Not only did I err, by letting her kill the final Abyssal Lord, but– though it took minutes for the tale to be recounted to me– I also failed to turn back time and try once again to prevent these events from unfolding.

Raiden help me, I am weak– I could not give up those years of my life to roll back the relentless tide of time’s passage, for a possible intervention in those sudden actions. The certainty losing years of future life, in exchange for only a possibility that, knowing what I know now, I could have stopped them from unfolding, was not a worthy exchange.

Add one more quest to the growing list of wrongs to right. If we eliminate the Dark Hand, without dying, and if we fulfill our promise to retrieve and turn over Dauntless, then I have a deep conviction that thwarting Earica’s quest, must be in my future.

Time Is On Our Side

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In the morning, under the hip bone of a giant creature, Rask absentmindedly addresses the whole group:

”Where and when -ever we are is where Raiden wants us, no doubt…”


“I think there are… is? Not really more than one timeline. You all know more about magic and crow-know-mancy than me, but it seems like as little as possible has changed since we saw the Dragon in Nodden Tor compared to before we used all four keys.”

He looks towards Alexis briefly,

”You’ve talked about threads weaving themselves together around Frostbite Pass… you said you saw… various versions of Hadonis and Alikimo… What if those are POSSIBLE versions not different versions?”

”’Our’ Hadonis… he saw the tear twice? He’s different from everyone else you’ve looked at, that way…”

“Somehow Time or The Dragon compensates…”


“or something…”

”No matter. We are here. Now. To stop Sasherak and Bandesing.”

Planning in the Mountains: 200 Miles to Go

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The group settles down to camp in the rib cage of the giant, Alexis looks at Gustav. He adjusts the whip at his hip.

“Gus. I want twenty arrows on you before we go into the pass. And we still need to refill myself and Rask who’ve donated you arrows.”

He shrugs slightly. “Shafts and fletching we can make anywhere. Good heads we can’t. Stone won’t punch through armor. Red and I talked about shaving down coins for arrowheads. Not ideal, but better than stone against chainmail.”

He looks north, then back at the group.

“Sixty-five miles behind us. Call it a hundred and eighty-five ahead, fifteen days if the weather lets us, and it won’t. We lost a day to one storm and there’ll be more.”

He looks at Gustav, then at Ca’armine.

“The two of you made us a powerful grove of Raiden outside Nodden-Torr. I’d like that again coming up. Twice if we can manage it. Food is already scarce and it’s only going to get worse up here. The extra time buys us arrows, keeps us safe from the storms, Red might get his shield finished, we make progress on cleaning the Tear and the crystal ball, and we learn a little more about what’s ahead before we walk into it.”

He looks expectantly between the two of them.

The Cracking of the Altar; It Was Noticed

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The group stands in front of the, now cracked, altar of Razar. Ca’armine has just finished unleashing the power of Raiden at the undead and at the altar.

“Did you feel that? There was a moment where it pushed back.” He nods slowly. “And then you overpowered it; brought Raiden against it.” He looks at Ca’armine, smiles, and clasps him on the shoulder. “That’s what a champion of Raiden looks like, Carm.”

He turns to the cracked altar and tilts his head slightly.

“Although it would have been easier to study intact.” A small shrug. “Or carry back as treasure on our way back.” He chuckles.

He heads back toward camp with the group.

The Black Iron Crown That Binds

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As the group is leaving the mountain lion cave they shared with Sava Alexis is thinking out loud.

“I’ve been thinking more about ‘the crown that binds'”.

“Given what you’ve said about your past, Carm, it seemed reasonable that it could have been Ædelfred’s. But there are a few other crowns at play.”

“Tarkus Vell took his orders from a shadow with a broken crown sitting over its head. I’d still wager that was Bandesingh. And the bronze standard of those ice soldiers: the eye with eight points rising out of it. It reminded us of a crown, and it was carried by the orcs at Nodden-Torr.”

“But then there’s the third image. The image of a crown. A crown of black iron, hanging above an empty skull. And the skull is somewhere in this world. But there is a half formed thing standing in the void watching the crown and the ritual around it.”

“As a little aside, if Shasharak has a skull in this world, could it be something like Zrithrak’s skull or the skulls in the Drayek crypt? Is this a connection?” Alexis moves back to his talk of crowns.

“The three ‘crowns’ are not worn. Two of them hang in the air. The third rises out of an eye.”

“And then there’s the iron connection. The red iron shipments from Tarkus Vell, presumably north to Frostbite Pass. The black iron for the crown over the skull. The iron crown worn by Utiog. And then there’s the verse” he closes his eyes to recall it “Eager are princes who feed him with ore, Edged in red iron and promise of war.” Keeping his eyes closed he continues “and there’s the directive to Find the one who feeds him iron and blood.”

He opens his eyes and adjusts his hat.

“Is red iron just iron that’s been fed blood?”

Alexis shrugs and keeps moving with the group.

Goals and Strategy

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During a short break while walking north after the first storm, and burning the dead Nal’cir, but before the frozen waterfall and Savvah, Rask addresses the group. He asks several questions that have clearly been on his mind while walking. His words tumble out, his pauses are brief as he looks at his companions, mostly to Alexis and Ca’armine for their thoughts, but Ethelred and Gustav too.

”We’re headed to Frostbite Pass, and it seems Bandy hasn’t fully gotten Sassy to return, right?

“What is our number one priority? To kill Bandy? Stop Sassy from returning? Eliminate the Dark Hand? Break its power?”

“Do we let Bandy get away if it means we can destroy what is left of Sassy and capture another Tear?”

“Do I protect Ca’armine at all costs? Including letting Sassy return? How do we protect our Tear?” He looks mostly at Alexis for these questions.

“If we get jumped and Bandy is there, who do I focus on? Deadly intent or subdual?”