September 6, 2026
15th Thelkhastix
The Torchbearers took a week of recuperation. Alwin studied his spells, and Gunter, who had little to do, patrolled the wilderness. He found a refugee family straggling south toward the presumed safety of Alfsdyke; he escorted them back to Vira’s lair.
23rd Thelkhastix
The party set out again for the mountain.
28th Thelkhastix
They climbed the rear face of the mountain.
30th Thelkhastix
One day out from the ice cave, an unseasonable sleet storm kicked up and forced the Torchbearers to make camp. Gunter dug a bivouac into the snow pack.
In the night, Gunter awoke to meltwater dripping on his face. Dorethin, as customary, had fallen asleep on his shoulder. Outside his tent, he heard the sound of bells approaching. He tried to rise, but found he was paralyzed.
The flaps of his tent parted, and a dwarf with a short beard and a jester’s headdress entered the tent. Gunter, who had held a special dread of dwarf jesters ever since being killed by one, struggled against the paralysis, but to no avail.
The dwarf rolled Dorethin off of Gunter and pulled from his cloak an alarm clock attached to a pint keg helpfully labelled “GUNPOWDER.” He set this on Dorethin and approached Gunter.
Bending low over Gunter’s face, the dwarf pinched Gunter’s nose and clapped his palm over his mouth. As Gunter smothered, swimming spots blocked out his vision.
31st Thelkhastix
When Teilo arose in the morning, he found Gunter’s body rigid, slick with cold sweat, and staring fixedly at the ceiling. Identifying the cause as a curse of nightmare, he checked Gunter’s vitals. Satisfied that Gunter would survive at least a single night of this, he prepared a pot of tea.
When he “awoke,” Gunter was somewhat the worse for the psychic attack, but perhaps more affected by the sleep deprivation.
The Torchbearers set out for the ice cave.
At the lip of the crevasse, they fought their way through horrid snowman constructs, which were made in the usual fashion but with real body parts for facial features: torn-out eyes, severed noses, and broken teeth.
Descending carefully into the cave, they found that the bottom of the crevasse had been lined with bear traps. They collected these for Ormar’s use.
They decided to return to the harpy first, where Hilda had seen treasure. But first, in the chamber where they had fought the troll skeletons, they found the donors of the facial features: several rukkator zombies, frozen solid. They dispatched these with ease only by placing their polearm wielders in the mouth of the entry tunnel.
In the harpy’s cave, Gunter, Dorethin, and Vira trained their ranged weapons on the dark niche that held the nest. Alwin cast a flare of fairy fire, revealing the harpy. Gunter and Dorethin loosed first, dropping the harpy and obviating the need for Vira to alert the beast below by firing her arquebus.
The Torchbearers proceeded across the bridge and into uncharted territory. They came to a chamber not melted or cracked like the rest of the upper level but rather delicately carved with care and artifice, shaped like a pair of concentric squares. In the center were a set of gargoyles made of ice (not architectural grotesques, Magrun emphasized, but ice sculptures of the monster type hight gargoyle.) In the north corner was a statue of a nude ice fey, her hand held out offering succor. In the south was a door with a mirror of ice on it and, carved on the lintel, the words “ANSWER RIDDLES THREE TO PASS / IF IT TAKES YOUR LAST GASP.”
They investigated the room thoroughly without touching anything. Finally, Gunter took the nymph statue’s hand. He quickly found all his equipment teleported away, leaving him naked and barefoot on the ice.
Alwin gave him a change of clothes, not quite long enough for him, and Vira lent him her arquebus.
The rest of the party returned to positions at the other doors. Gunter went to the southern door and peered into the mirror, hoping to find his clothes. He did not.
Vira suggested he fog the mirror with his breath. He did so, and three questions appeared as unfogged negative space in the center of the mirror. They were written very small, so he gingerly stepped very close to read them.
WHAT IS HEAVY ENOUGH TO CRUSH A BUILDING BUT LIGHT ENOUGH TO BE CARRIED AWAY ON THE BREEZE?
Vira supplied, “Snow.”
WHAT IS AS WHITE AS SNOW BUT BRINGS DARKNESS TO THE LAND?
To this Gunter answered, “A cloud.”
WHAT HAS BEEN STANDING WITH ITS NOSE TO THIS MIRROR LONG ENOUGH FOR A GARGOYLE TO SNEAK UP BEHIND IT?
Gunter suspected he knew the answer to this as well.
