We still had a bit more searching through the lodge, to make sure it was secure, of course. Not because we wanted to see if there was anything valuable lying around. Though we wouldn’t say no to finding useful treasure.
In the first room we checked, we found a footlocker. Terry immediately got to work trying to pick the lock. Almost two minutes later, Burin piped up. “Did the keys not work?”
“Keys?” Terry said, making a noise of chagrinned realization.
“The ones we found on the guy.”
“Oh, right. I was just practicing my skills.” She was lying, of course. Trying to save face. She’d simply forgotten.
“That’s okay. I’m here to help.”
The box looted, we then moved on, finding a sick room with several bandits inside. They had some kind of flu-like bug. I tried to explain germ theory to my companions, but only Terry seemed interested in listening. The others opened a window so it wouldn’t be so stuffy in the room. I think because I’d mentioned that the closed off room was likely a hotbed of viruses.
The bandits were completely delirious and posed no threat to us. Burin spent some time spoon feeding them soup and keeping cool damp cloths on their heads to help their fevers.
While Burin was doing that, we secured the building, setting traps and barricading entrances. We also found a winter pixie in a cage. It had been tortured and was unconscious. We felt bad for it, but we still didn’t trust it, so we wrapped it in ionic tape, leaving only its head exposed.
Terry and Lady Argentea slept in one of the bedrooms. For some reason, the girl seemed protective of the woman even though she’d never wanted to come rescue her in the first place.
Meanwhile, I camped out on the bearskin rug by the fire. Not sure where Gregor and Burin slept. I think Burin slept in a chair in the sickroom, if I’m being honest.
We took horses from the stable and rode back to Heldren with no problems. Yeah, we’d left the bandits, but they were looking better and would probably be fine. Also, there was the possibility that the woman who had been there the previous day would return to help them. Thankful for her safe return, the noblewoman gave us a sack of gold.
After Ionnia Teppen came and begged us to find the source of the unnatural winter, we woke up and interrogated the fairy. Terry went a little insane with it, pulling out a cold iron nail and trying to push it through the bound fairy’s foot. Only Burin’s quick actions prevented it from being more than a scratch.
I was relieved. She goes from zero to torture a little quick for my tastes.
“I was just trying to scare it,” Terry said defensively.
“You don’t need to lie. It doesn’t get anyone anywhere. That goes for you too, little fairy. What’s your name?”
“Vrixx tell you nothing! She will do worse to Vrixx than you could imagine, much less do!”
“She?” Terry pulled on the thread.
“Will tell you nothing!”
He was obviously more afraid of this mysterious woman than us. “What about Teb Knotten? What can you tell us about him?”
“Bigger than you! He will crunch your bones!” He seemed confident that leading us to Teb would result in our deaths, so he didn’t have any problem telling us about him.
“And how do we find this Teb person?” Terry asked, rolling the nail between her fingers.
“Cross the ravine, seek the camp.”
We left the fairy, wrapped up in its cage, and discussed it. “I’m keeping him, by the way,” Terry said.
“Fine, whatever,” I said. I didn’t like the idea of giving her a chance to keep him to torture later, but I’d have to deal with that later when it actually came up.
I looked out the window and saw Gregor training again. Not at all surprising. He did seem to have adopted some new kind of stance I hadn’t seen before. Maybe the god of martial arts had taught him a way to deal with clerics. That would be nice.
The other two went outside and I did a soft boot of Cortana. While we had been riding here, Gregor had suggested that he might be considering leaving the group to go find a convent of nuns for training. I doubted he meant the kind of training I would have meant if I’d said that. No, I figure he meant to go fight the nuns to become stronger, because again, we hadn’t had the best luck against clerics. I needed a reason for him to stick with us, and that meant I needed a nice challenge to dangle in front of him.
“Cortana, given the parameters that a creature is bigger than me and a fairy has told me that the creature would ‘crunch my bones’, what are the most likely possibilities for said creature’s identity? Also, its name is Teb Knotten, if there’s any information on monstrous naming conventions in either the wiki or the Ranger database.”
“Indexing files. Search will take roughly two minutes.”
“Take your time,” I replied.
I looked out the window and watched Terry and Gregor talking. I heard Burin call out to them from by the doorway, though I couldn’t be certain what he said. After a few moments, Gregor walked over to the tree and punched it, causing a mass of snow to fall and completely cover Terry. It was only about waist high where Gregor stood.
Cortana gave me her data. It was perfect.
I stepped out the door. “Hey, guys! Cortana says that there’s a forty three point six percent chance that Teb Knotten is some kind of troll!” Not the internet kind. The real life under bridge kind.
Burin had to fish Terry out of the snow, then we set out, heading back to the lodge – there was a bridge over the ravine there. We could probably travel a mile or two either way and find another crossing, but we knew there was one there.
On the way, we found something strange on the side of the road. Unable to tell what it was, Burin hopped down and carefully prodded it. It was the corpse of a half orc woman frozen nearly solid in the snow. She was carrying gear that tied her to the bandits.
Had she been meaning to ambush us – or other travelers – and got caught in the storm? Well, she wouldn’t trouble anyone now.
Nor would the sick bandits back at the lodge.
Something had broken in and torn out their throats.
Gregor thought the tracks looked like wolves. So, with wolves about, we surveyed the bridge, realized we couldn’t take the horses across and set the horses free, telling them to run back to Heldren.
They’d be fine.
Probably.
And at least if Daddy ever hears about that and tries to say anything, I can point out he sent his horse off with some people sick with ghoul fever and got her eaten.
The bridge itself was pretty rickety, covered in ice and blowing in the wind. So Burin just marched right across. Terry, Gregor and I were trying to figure out the best way over and next thing we know, Burin’s calling to us from the other side.
I want some of those boots. Especially since I fell off the bridge while trying to cross.
Don’t get me wrong, I had rope tied around me and the others were able to catch me and get me to the other side. But it was embarrassing. I’m more graceful than that, dammit!
It was an additional insult to injury when no one else had any trouble. Gregor even ran straight across, doing that nonsensical bird run thing where you throw your arms behind you as you run. And even worse? HE RAN ON ONE OF THE ROPES.
I’m so turning him into a toad at some point. Or lighting him on fire. Jerk.
We continued forward, eventually coming to a point where we could hear the sound of fighting ahead. So we crept forward until we spotted an ice mephit and two wolves fighting some skeletons. We slinked forward, closer still, until we could hear the mephit speaking.
“Stupid skeletons! Don’t attack my wolves!” She kicked one of the fallen enemies.
Then Vrixx cried out. “Izoze! Look out! They’re coming for you!”
The mephit flew back a ways and the wolves turned to engage us. Gregor did a flying leap, landing on one wolf’s skull with a sickening crunch. Burin trudged forward and engaged the other. Terry threw one of those primitive fuse grenades, which rolled through the snow and landed near the mephit’s feet.
The mephit didn’t seem to notice the grenade.
Gregor leapt forward and hit the grenade with a flask of alchemist’s fire – we had gotten a few from the lodge’s armory – shortening the grenade’s fuse and bringing the mephit’s attention to it. It didn’t matter, she didn’t have time to do anything before Terry fired, setting off the grenade with a loud bang.
Then Gregor whipped around and delivered a swift roundhouse kick to the other wolf, bringing it down and getting it to let go of Burin’s leg. Thankfully, Burin was wearing more than a lightly armored kilt now.
But it had still scuffed up his magic boots. Stupid wolf. Those are nice boots, even if he went a little heavy on the fur.
Continuing forward, we came upon a clearing filled with massive boulders made entirely of translucent ice. In the center of the clearing was a massive hill of snow with what looked like a shack of some kind atop it, nestled in some trees. Perhaps this had been a watch post that had gotten buried in snow and ice?
We thought we saw a little girl in the maze of ice, but she ran off. Burin chased after and we followed.
Suddenly, we heard words from within a block of ice.
“I’m sorry! Don’t hurt me! I never meant to call you names!” Within the ice, we saw the image of a little girl cowering in fear.
“Who are you?” Burin asked.
“My name’s Thora,” the girl replied, then was gone. We pressed forward. Another image appeared in a block of ice. “Please don’t keep me here. It’s so cold. I miss my mother.”
“Why are they holding you?” Burin asked.
“I said mean things about the lady. Please, I just want to go home!” Once more, she disappeared.
Gregor, probably tired of the illusions or memories or whatever, tried climbing the wall of snow. He was nailing pitons into the soft powder. No, I don’t know why. He managed to make it a couple feet up and the snow collapsed, causing him to fall a couple feet back to the ground.
Burin pulled out a shovel and started trying to dig his way through the snow. After I’d learned the truth, Daddy had once joked that “If a dwarf thinks digging a hole is a viable solution, that’s the solution he will choose almost every time.” I was suddenly no longer sure he was joking. I looked at the ‘maze’, where I could see a fairly easy path. Terry and I exchanged a glance and left the boys to their silliness.
They rejoined us in time for another apparition in the ice. “I don’t want your stupid doll! I want to go home! Take me back!”
“Doll? What doll?” Terry seemed apprehensive. The image faded and Terry checked to make sure her gun was loaded.
We pressed forward and saw what turned out to be the final image. The girl was looking right at us. “I have to get away! And you should, too, before they see you. Run!”
“Before who sees us?”
“The bad lady!” She disappeared and the image was filled with haunting, traumatic images of the poor child’s past. The faces of countless frozen dead appeared as well, and my companions bolted in three directions in fright.
“Wait! Where are you going?!” I called out. “It’s just a memory, or maybe an illusion! It can’t hurt you!”
They didn’t seem to hear. Terry had an excuse, she was firing wildly at anything that moved in the maze as she ran. Mostly she just shot her own reflection.
Meanwhile, Gregor climbed a tree.
A few moments later, Burin called out. “I think I found a path up this hill!”
Gregor jumped down. “The hut looks like something out of an old tale I once heard. We must be wary, for this is the realm of witches.”
We followed Burin up the path and came to the shack. The trees below it made it look like it had chicken feet. There was something nagging at the back of my mind, like that should be important, but I couldn’t place it.
I didn’t have time to think about it, because by the time I’d reached that point, Terry had walked into the hut and Gregor was following her. And I could see the creepy doll. I readied myself to cast. I just knew that something was going to happen, that doll was going to get up and things were going to get awful.
The doll did as I expected, hopping up and stabbing Terry with a small knife, then jumping down from its chair. Just into range of my spell. I didn’t even think. Just boom, a gout of flame, and the doll was a smoldering lump upon the snow.
Gregor gave Terry a look. “Why do you always go alone?” She muttered something I didn’t hear. “What did you say?” His tone sounded annoyed.
“Uh…” was all Terry could say in response. She looked at the doll and changed the subject. “Let’s see if it’s carrying anything valuable.”
“Wait! Don’t touch that!” Burin said.
“Why must you all act like my baby sitters?!” the girl pouted, but made no more move to touch the doll.
Burin examined the doll, searching for magic. He confirmed that one of its eyes – a beautiful sapphire – was filled with powerful mystical energy. He smashed it with his axe, and released that which was held within.
The spirit of the little girl, Thora, appeared before us. She smiled. “Thank you,” she said, before disappearing. We now realized what had happened. Someone had taken that girl and used her soul to power the doll. And those images before had been her memories.
Terry pulled a beautiful blue ribbon from the doll and tied it into her own hair, then somberly buried the doll. The whole experience seemed to be hitting her pretty hard.
As we left the clearing, we triggered a trap and were hit with a burst of cold so powerful even I felt it. That replaced my melancholy mood with an annoyed one. It seemed to have the same effect on the others.
Also, now we were cold. Well, they were. I was still fine, aside from being annoyed. So we started searching out a place to camp. It took over an hour, but eventually we found a decent place. It wasn’t nearly as good as that cave we’d found, but it would be fine.
At camp, Burin went to bed pretty much immediately while Terry and I played chess by firelight. I was surprised that the game existed here as well. “Can you tell me anything about your family?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t trade with anyone. I hit the parental jackpot. I do wish they didn’t have to work as much as they do, but they still always found plenty of time to spend with me and my younger siblings.” I don’t think I’ve mentioned them in my writings. They’re small and boring. And I don’t really want to think of my brother and sister right now, since I’m trying desperately not to think about the danger they might be in right now.
They were with our parents. They would be fine. They had to be. There was no other possibility.
I must have shown my worry on my face, because Terry changed the subject. “How did you start learning magic?” I told her an abridged version of the story where I had learned about my gift. “That’s pretty crazy.”
“I know, right?! One day I’m living a relatively normal life, then suddenly everything shifted. It was amazing!”
We played for a bit more and the topic changed to religion. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”
I shrugged. “It exists. My father died and went there.”
“Really?! So if someone dies, it’s possible to bring them back?” Wait. How did she not know this? Had I actually found an atheist on a world where the works of gods were constantly evident, where wizards could summon beings from the afterlife and converse with them?
“Absolutely. Though the amount of magical power necessary depends on how they died, whether you have their body handy and how long they’ve been gone. Ultimately, all we need is money to buy components and a powerful enough cleric to do the casting.”
“How much money?”
“Worst case scenario? Twenty five thousand gold worth of components plus the cost of buying the casting, if I recall correctly. Oh, and it won’t work if the person died of old age. Only if something else killed them.”
“So there’s a way,” I heard her whisper. I pretended not to hear. She could tell me when she was ready.
“And that’s game,” I said. She had put up a much better fight than I had expected, but I’d been playing against my parents for years. Daddy NEVER holds back at chess. For some reason, he’s really competitive about it. The only thing I’ve ever seen him take more seriously is the whole shoes on the carpet thing. “And with that, it’s probably time I turn in for the night. Wake me when it’s time for my watch.”
Terry invited Gregor, who had watched our game intently, to take my place at the chessboard. I didn’t hear much, falling asleep quickly.
I dreamt that I was flying through space, skipping and dancing across asteroids despite the fact that I know real asteroid fields aren’t like you see in movies. I waltzed along the rings of Saturn and swam through a nebula comprised entirely of argon. All the while, beautiful music followed me wherever I went.
I was pretty upset about being woken up, if I’m being honest.
I woke Terry once the sun had come up enough to strike camp. She jumped when I woke her and immediately cast a suspicious look at Burin. “Wait, where’s Vrixx?” I looked over. The cage lay empty, its door hanging open.
“Iet him,” Burin said jokingly in a fake gruff accent, then licked his lips. Or tried. Doing that voice must have hurt his throat, because he coughed. I laughed at his joke.
Terry wasn’t laughing. “Don’t play with me! Where’s Vrixx?!” Had she really gotten attached to him? Or did she really just want to torture the poor thing?
“Calm down, little girl,” Burin said, back to his usual voice. “He got out. There was a second fairy, so it may have been a jailbreak. They blasted me good then ran away.”
“And you didn’t wake anyone?”
“They were gone. Didn’t seem right to bother anyone’s sleep since there was nothing we could do about it.” Terry gave him a look that could have withered crops, then grabbed her stuff and joined Gregor.
“Are you injured?” I asked, reaching for my wand.
“No, I’m fine. It was just a bunch of colored light. Stunned me a bit, is all.”
“Ah.” I knew what spell he was talking about. “Don’t worry, she’ll get over it. Probably.” And, to be honest, I was kinda relieved that we didn’t have to worry about that fairy anymore – or about what my companions would do to the poor thing.
Later that morning, we came across some blood in the snow. We tracked the blood to a nearby cave and ended up fighting a giant weasel. That crazy hunter in town had been right. We took it down quickly, but not before it managed to chomp down on Burin and hang on. At least it didn’t have cheek pouches to stuff him into.
After healing up – and skinning the weasel, because apparently we’re fur traders as well as adventurers – we pressed forward. It was becoming clear that we were heading in the right direction as the temperature dropped and snow began falling more steadily.
Before we knew it, we were in a full blown blizzard.
We tied ourselves together so we wouldn’t get lost in the snow, giving about seven or eight feet of rope between each person. Terry kept me between her and Burin. She insisted. Must have been one hell of a freaky dream, or she was still mad about Vrixx.
We could tell we’d entered some kind of clearing by the way the sheer cliff wall and thick vegetation parted. We plodded forward – I REALLY wanted a pair of boots like Burin’s while we trudged through that thick snow – until we ran into an igloo. AN IGLOO.
Gregor bent down and moved inside to scout. He came back a moment later. “No good. There was pit under rug in there.” We continued forward, finding another igloo. This one seemed safe enough.
Perhaps a good place to ride out the blizzard.
A pair of fairies came out of nowhere, running right into us. I reacted immediately, hitting them with some flame. My companions stabilized the one that had survived and we taped it up. Then we tossed it into the cage, which Burin had set on the ground.
Then someone threw a thunderstone. There was a loud crack and suddenly everything went silent. I touched my ear, there was a little blood coming out of it.
I managed to cast a spell, despite not being able to hear myself chant. I touched Burin’s shoulder, causing him to grow larger and bursting the rope tied around him. Then I pulled out a flask of alchemical fire. I couldn’t see more than five or so feet in front of me. There was no way I could safely use my fire magic even if I could manage to get the chant right.
But maybe I could toss a flask.
I could see Gregor and Burin fighting something and I think Terry tossed a grenade, so I flung my flask. I could see the flash of flame and the silhouette of something big, so I grabbed another and threw again.
Gregor cut himself free from the rope, then ran between Terry and me. Then he disappeared, as if he’d teleported.
I took another hit from one of those stupid little fairy arrows. I was starting to get annoyed. If it hadn’t been for my inability to see in the snow, I would have torched every fairy in the area. Or at least all of the ones holding bows. Probably not the one we’d left taped up by the igloo.
Unless his friends shot me again. Then all bets were off.
I felt the shockwave of an explosion and saw the flash as the grenade Terry had thrown went off. A moment later, a large figure loped through the snow towards us. I was relieved when it was just Burin, returning to check on us. He said something, but I still couldn’t hear. Everything was ringing, which was an improvement, if not much of one.
I did try reading his lips, though. I think he was offering to tie Terry up, and Terry’s expression confirmed that whatever he’d said had been pretty badly worded, at the very least.
After Gregor had skinned – to no one’s surprise – our foe, which turned out to be a troll – Teb Knotten, maybe? – we followed the troll’s tracks to a cave.
Well, first, we followed them to an igloo, which was empty. Then Gregor found evidence that the troll had leapt over the igloo on its way to us and retraced its steps. By climbing over the igloo instead of walking around it, if you’ll believe it.
Inside the cave, we found a chest filled with coins of several metals. It was a massive haul of treasure.
There was also a bunch of food in crates along one wall. It was enough to feed a small army, which might have been the plan.
The food had been preserved by the chill temperatures of the cave. There was no way it would survive warming. So, since there was no sense in letting it go to waste, we used the magic box to process it from raw foodstuffs into more portable and storable items, like jerky and even a few goo tubes. The latter required a small investment of gold for the box to make the vacuum-sealed tubes.
I also had Cortana make me a pair of boots like Burin’s, though mine were more fashionable, with a half-inch heel and white weasel-fur trim. Perfect for either a girl traveling the dangerous wilderness or a girl who simply didn’t like the idea of slipping on an icy walkway while attending an opera in January.
Once we were done, we made our way out into the clearing, heading towards the source of the storm. As we got closer, we began seeing a strange light in the distance. Eventually, we reached a point where the storm seemed to stop around us, as if we were at its eye.
Before us, in the center of a ring of frozen stalagmites, was a giant portal. We couldn’t see much on the other side, but it was apparent that this was the source of the midsummer snows.
A small figure came crashing through the portal. It bounced on the snow twice, then rolled the rest of the way, coming to a rest at our feet. It took only a moment to identify the tiny corpse, even with the massive gashes across its abdomen and back.
It was Vrixx.
Terry’s eyes bulged in her head and she readied her gun to take on whatever came through. I prepared to cast a spell, and I saw Gregor ready his shield and Burin draw his axe.
A monstrous figure in coal black on the back of a terrible steed rode through the portal. He regarded us for a moment. “You’re not hers. Thank the stars.”
Then his horse vanished and he collapsed to his knees in the snow. His armor disappeared, revealing him to be nothing more than a wounded old man.
I could see that he was injured, so I drew my wand and rushed to his side. He stopped me with a wave of his hand.
“Thank you, but there is nothing that can be done for me now. But please, listen to my words. There is little time, and much I must share.”
“Who are you?” Terry asked skeptically.
“Once, I was called Illarion Matveius. Now I am known as Black Midnight. I am Baba Yaga’s Black Rider, harbinger of the Witch Queen’s return.” Baba Yaga?! THE Baba Yaga? From Russian Folklore? I had heard the fairy tales, but I had held little interest in them. They were just stories. There was real magic in the world, and that was what I’d been interested in.
“Who did this to you, friend? And why?” Burin asked.
““The servants of Queen Elvanna, ruler of Irrisen and betrayer of her own mother. “Something has happened to Baba Yaga. Every hundred years, she returns to Irrisen to place a new daughter on the throne. But Queen Elvanna has other plans, it seems.
Baba Yaga has not appeared as planned, and Elvanna intends to slay everyone loyal to her mother.
She hunted down those of us who would herald Baba Yaga’s return and slew my associates. I am the last of the Three Riders and a threat to Elvanna’s plans.”
The name Elvanna sounded familiar to me. And Irrisen I had heard of. The Voidstrife Cartel had begun doing some minor trade up there a few months prior. I’d even considered it as a place to seek out adventure. There are always monsters lurking in the cold.
“Wait,” Gregor said. “Strange old man comes through portal, and we’re all just going to believe his crazy story?”
I considered quoting the Adventurer Wiki to him. A random encounter with a supernatural being who tasks a party with something is like the third most common beginning for a proper adventure, right after meeting a strange person in a tavern and having your hometown invaded or destroyed by the minions of some nefarious power. Instead, I just shrugged.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Gregor sighed. “Fine. What are this Elvanna’s plans?”
“She wishes to take Baba Yaga’s place, and claim all of Golarion as her personal kingdom. Irrisen is a land of endless winter, created by Baba Yaga’s magic.
Elvanna seeks to cover the entire world in ice and snow, using portals like this one.”
“There are more?” I asked, receiving a nod. “Can we stop them?”
“Seek the Pale Tower on the other side, if you wish to stop this one. Doing so will save this kingdom, but there are many others and the whole world of Golarion will still be doomed.”
I couldn’t accept that. This was about more than an adventure now. This was about saving lives and preventing the whole world from falling into the tyranny of winter. “What do you want to do?” I asked the others. “I want to help, but I can’t do it alone. But this can’t be my choice. If this world falls, I don’t have to live here when it’s over, but you do. So what do we do?”
“We can’t let people get hurt by this,” Burin said, as I knew he would.
“At very least, we should seek Pale Tower. Saving world may be too big a challenge for us, but we can save kingdom.” Gregor said. “Though, truth be told, saving world could be exact challenge I need.”
“I don’t like the cold,” Terry said. I think that was a statement of agreement. “If we decided to stop this queen, how would we go about it?”
“You must find Baba Yaga. Only Baba Yaga can defeat Elvanna. Only the Queen of Witches can undo what her daughter has done. You must use her Dancing Hut to follow her. The hut is a powerful artifact that can cross great distances, even travel between worlds. If you can control the hut, it can take you to Baba Yaga.”
“And where is this hut?” Terry had gone into professional mode, that look of a killer in her eyes.
“Elvanna stole the hut and put it on display in Irrisen’s capital, Whitethrone, as a symbol of her power. You must go through the portal to Irrisen and find the Dancing Hut.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Are you sure we can do nothing for you?”
“No. I am finished. Take these. Place them inside the cauldron within Baba Yaga’s hut to begin to trace her footsteps and ultimately find out how Elvanna betrayed her.” He drew out a lock of white hair and a plague doctor’s mask. “But they have lost their power. That, at least, I can do something about.
Good luck, heroes. The world rests on your shoulders.” He drew out a knife and slit his own throat, spilling his blood upon the artifacts. They drank in his power and I could see a momentary glow within them.
I also felt power surging within me. It was strange, but I felt like my mind could make connections it could not before. I finally figured out a magical puzzle I had been struggling with – a new way to harness my powers.
We gathered the objects he’d given us and buried both his and Vrixx’s corpses – Burin dug the hole in almost no time at all. Then we stepped forward through the portal and into the blinding snows beyond.
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