The Shackled Hut

From Lexicanum

Journey To Whitethrone

lA couple of days later the Party were ready to depart for Irrisien’s capital, Whitethrone.  They had obtained two dogsleds laden with supplies for the journey, Nadya and her family were in the lead dogsled and Gunnar, Caedwallis and Sylziria in the second. Gulbrand, Katya and Kelsidor followed on foot, suitably wrapped up for the cold. As they departed the forest, Gunnar nervously handling the driving duties, they were attacked by ravens, but fortunately no one was seriously injured. Towards late afternoon, Kelsidor and Sylziria scouted ahead and found a campsite for the night, tents were set up and watches decided, but a quiet’s sleep was had by all.

The second day’s travel was uneventful, but that evening during Katya’s watch their rest was interrupted as she heard something moving in the undergrowth. Waking her colleagues, they discovered it was in fact a wild boar rooting for grubs – which was easily scared off by a light spell from Sylziria.

Next day again was uneventful, but in the night as Katya handed over the watch to Caedwallis, they discovered that the camp had been infiltrated, their possessions had been ransacked and various trinkets stolen. They also discovered that their supplies on the dogsled had been ransacked and the food supplies spoiled. Sylziria suddenly heard what sounded like giggling in the undergrowth and casting a light spell saw several small bat-eared horrors, grimacing like maniacs and glaring at her with glowing orange eyes! Identifying them as some kind of gremlin, she cast burning hands, and called her friends to help. Caedwallis followed up with a colour spray, that took out half of the grinning imps, while Gulbrand, Gunnar and Katya attacked, soon overcoming the jinkins despite not being equipped with cold-iron weapons. Somewhat oddly, Kelsidor hung back from the combat looking indecisive.

All Fur Coats …

The next day’s travel proved fairly uneventful, at least until a polar bear tried to take Katya out for lunch – and not in a nice way! Fortunately her friends rallied round and the bear was slain. Kelsidor and Nadya then skinned and butchered it to replace some of the supplies spoiled by the jinkins.

That evening as they settled in the camp Nadya came running up her son Orm had not returned from fetching firewood and she was getting worried. Kelsidor immediately rounded up Katya Gulbrand and Gunnar, began organising a search party and fortunately quickly managed to find the young boy’s tracks in the snow. Following the tracks they found the young lad being held at bay by a small pack of boreal wolves.  While Gulbrand immediately charged in to action while Gunnar and Katya began firing arrows, Kelsidor seemed once again hit by a bout of indecisiveness. Fortunately the wolves left the boy and turned to face this new threat – a fatal mistake for them as things turned out which meant that Kelsidor now had some wolf pelts to add to his stash of furs.

The next day was uneventful  but that evening,  on Katya’s watch , the smell of fresh meat and untanned furs piled on the dogsled, attracted a wandering yeti to the camp, but in short order Kelsidor had another fur to add to his growing  pile. Later that night, on Kelsidor’s watch, he heard something moving around in the direction of where they had dragged the yeti corpse, but the ranger decided to leave well enough alone.

Part way through the next day they were hit by a strange magically infused weather hazard – a howling gale, where the icy wind literally leached the heat from their body, but apart from that it was an uneventful day and night.

Next day about lunchtime, Kelsidor spotted what looked like a falcon flying high above. Closer examination by Katya using her spyglass revealed a jess on the falcon’s leg. It was obviously  a tame bird so there must be hunters nearby. Half an hour or so later, as they passed a series of small bluffs they were ambushed by four Winter Guard falconers, firing arrows. Katya hung back, returning fire, while the others charged forward clambering up the bluffs as the falcons pecked at them and arrows rained down. As the battle was joined Katya was unaware of a large Winter Wolf stalking her, until it attacked, knocking her to the ground. She quickly scrambled to her feet and withdrew, badly injured. The winter wolf followed until Gulbrand, having despatched his opponent, charged it quickly followed by Kelsidor and Gunnar who had equally swiftly despatched their opponents. With the combined effort of the party the winter wolf was quickly slain.

After stripping the bodies of their anything useful– especially some potions of cure light wounds, Kelsidor went to skin the body of the winter wolf when Nadya pointed out it had different coloured eyes which meant the pelt could be used as  a magical item known as a rimepelt.

A Missing Husband

 Later the next morning they stopped at a cottage in the woods to check directions and conditions on the road ahead. The lady of the house, who introduced herself as Sylgia, seemed very pleased to see them and invited them in, though  Gunnar sensed she  had an ulterior motive. As the lady bustled about Kelsidor spotted what looked like a fox’s tail swishing beneath her long dress. After the meal she explained the reason she was so pleased to see them  , her husband, Finngarth,  had vanished a few days ago and yesterday she had seen a moos troll in the area he was heading towards. She asked if the Party would rescue her husband or if too late avenge him, for which she would give them a magic scroll in her possession.
 
The Party agreed, and leaving Nadya and the kids resting, Kelsidor led them towards the small cave the lady described. As they approached stealthily, Kelsidor spotted a figure entering the cave, but with his experience as a Ranger eyes it did not look like a moss troll, rather more like a man covered in a filthy green fungus! Vaguely he recalled hearing of a dangerous mould that  could infest and control a living creature, and surmised that this was in fact the missing husband!
 
After a brief discussion they tried to work out how to free Finngarth from the mould,. Eventually they had what passed for a plan in the Party and Gulbrand sneaked forward to the cave entrance , while Gunnar called out . Finngarth emerged, and the party laid into him, trying to either do subdual damage or target the moss infesting him. Eventually they rendered him unconscious, enabling Katy to pull away handfuls of moss from his body, while Gunnar cut at it with his knife.  Once freed, they returned the unconscious woodsman to his wife, who delighted gave them a scroll with three uses of Remove Curse to help them against the witches.
 
 
Next morning, as they set out, Sylgia warned them that the ruined village to the north had a reputation as a bad place and to be wary if they stopped there. Their trip northwards was briefly interrupted when they came to a wide area where the magic winter that covered Irrisien appeared to have been somehow abated and there was summery conditions and no  snow! The kids and Nadya were delighted, never having seen anything other than winter, but the lack of snow meant they manhandle all the gear and sledges across the grass. Things weren’t helped when they were attacked by a pack of hungry worgs, but the Party managed to fight them off. They decided to camp in the summer area that night, and as they rested they were visited in the camp by Ivan, a druid, who explained that he and his friends were creating these small patches of summer when they could to strike a blow against the unnatural endless winter Baba Yaga had foisted on the land.
 
Next morning tyhey set out again, quickly crossing through the summer zone and back into winter. They resolved to avoid the village, but the unwelcome appearance of a storm front moving in caused them to seek shelter. As they approached the village, most of buildings save the church were little more than piles of rubble. Two clerics were working outside the church and urgent called them to the shelter of the building, though they noted that, somewhat oddly,  the clerics kept calling “Hurry children!”.
 
As they neared the churchyard, suddenly they were surrounded by an apparition of crying children being grabbed by trolls and giants. The two clerics cried out “No!” and revealed their true nature as huecuvas! After a brief battle into whch somewhat atypically CAedwallis threw himself with some gusto, the party were triumphant and took refuge from the storm in the church.

The T(r)oll Bridge

The Party struggled to secure the old church against the oncoming ice storm, but with everyone helping and then huddling together, including the dogs,  they managed a reasonable night’s rest. Next  morning, Gunnar went to open the doors but they were frozen shut. It took several of them working together to force them open.  When they did it was a brilliant clear morning outside, though everything was covered in a thick sheet of ice. Kelsidor and Gunnar went out to check on the situation and almost immediately were attacked by ice elementals. Their friends quickly rallied to help them and the elementals were destroyed, leaving them free to depart.

Several hours later they came to a bridge, where a figure hunched in bulky furs, demanded to see their papers and also a “bridge toll”. Sylziria attempted to bluff the figure,  but it didn’t go well, and the figure pointed and demanded one of the dogs as payment for crossing the bridge. The Party refuses, needing al the dogs to haul the sleds, and suddenly everything erupted into violence! The figure grabbed at Sylziria, emerging from the furs revealing itself to be a merrow  . As the party deployed to help the sorceress, two more merrows emerged from under the bridge. As the Party attacked, the merrows, including the one holding Sylziria leaped into the icy water and dived.

The party stood for a moment in shock then urgently began shucking their winter gear and diving in afterwards. Fortunately the river, though icy cold, was relatively slow-moving around the bridge and the water was only about 15ft deep so there was enough light to see, albeit not very clearly! Kelsidor dived straight for the merrow which was in the process of taking a bite out of the hapless Sylziria and somewhat awkwardly swung his sword at it – fortunately managing a solid hit. A  strange underwater combat ensued, with Caedwallis acting as a spotter above. The party were ultimately triumphant though Kelsidor was nearly slain. Fortunately for the Ranger, Katya spotted his body sinking to the depths and was able to drag him to the surface before he drowned. After the battle Caedwallis’ s healing was very much in need!

Deciding to rest here for the night, they moved on next morning arriving at a small village near Whitethrone in the late afternoon, where Nadya told them that her friend lived here and where she hoped to resettle.  After a pleasant meal they made plans for the next day. Nadya told them that she would take them to the “Fishcamps” a shanty town near the capital on the shores of the lake, where her  deceased husband’s uncle Ringeirr would be able to help them get into the city.  Early next morning they arrived in the shanty town only to find that Ringeirr had been arrested!

Gaol-break

While canvassing the reluctant citizen of the Fishcamps as to the whereabouts of Ringeirr, Sylziria spotted some guards roughing up one of the fishermen.  Calling on her friends with a message spell, they intervened. Killing all but one of the guards and allowing Caedwallis to heal the badly injured fisherman. From the surviving guard they obtained the information that Ringeirr was in the “guardhouse” at the edge of the settlement.

Caedwallis hatched a simple plan to get himself arrested as a “foreigner”, however the ogre doorkeeper at the guardhouse didn’t seem particularly interested in arresting him,. Kelsidor and Katya tried infiltrating the guardhouse from the back and the roof, to little avail, and the plan soon disintegrated into a frontal assault.  While Caedwallis went in through one of the windows convenient smashed by a mis-timed blow from on eof th eogres, Syziria slid a feather token under the door, causing a mighty oak tree to spring up smashing the doorway, part of the wall, and the roof above. They quickly despatched the two ogres within, along with the guard captain and found Ringeirr badly beaten in a makeshift cell. While Caedwallis and Gulbrand freed Nadya’s uncle, Katya managed to locate the captain’s stash of loot and liberate it for the cause.

Returning to Ringeirr’s house, Nadya bid them farewell and returned to her children, promising to visit her uncle soon. The Party discovered that Ringeirr was a member of the Heralds of Summer’s Return, and knew someone who could forge papers which would identify them as a group of young Jadwiga and the non-humans as their foreign mercenaries, which would get them into the city. He agreed to take them to the forger on condition they helped him smuggle some food into the city for the poor, to which they readily agreed.
Next morning, they set out, their arms and armour hidden under a load of salted herring in a cart. Ringeirr advised them that the best way in to the city was through the Howlings,  an area controlled by the infinitely more bribeable winter wolves, rather then the Ice Queen’s Winter Guards.

They passes though the entrance to the Howlings with relative ease, paying the “Gate Tax” without question, helped no doubt by the fact the winter wolf guard there , a silver haired, blue eyed female called Greta, seemed quite taken with Sylziria, inviting the sorceress to “look her up sometime”!

The Howlings

With Ringeirr pushing the cart ahead of them the headed deeper into the Howlings. The streets of the Howlings wind back and forth crookedly, and were lined with wooden houses covered in intricate and detailed woodwork. Unlike in the Fish camps, even the poorest homes are in good repair, pleasantly decorated, and painted a clean white or light pastel colours. The rooftops were steeply pitched to allow heavy snow to slide off. Covered alleyways ran between some closely adjacent buildings, sheltering ground floor entrances from the elements. In other places, open-air bridges or crosswalks joined buildings together at their upper levels. Snowdrifts lay heaped between houses, but the streets were shovelled and brushed clean. There was little sign of domestic animals, but hand carts were parked outside some residences. Suddenly Kelsidor spotted movement among some carts parked on their left near an alleyway. He just had time to shout a warning when some arrows came flying out at them. A local goblin gang -  the Back Alley Boys – had decided to try and hijack their cargo of herring. It did not go well for the goblins, Gulbrand and Kelsidor overturning two of the carts to expose their assailants, and in short order the sole survivor was fleeing through the alleyway. They quickly hid the bodies and swiftly moved on.

A little way on, they spotted a hooded figure standing across the road. When Sylziria pointed the figure out to Ringeirr he immediately paled and, abandoning the handcart,  ushered them into a nearby alleyway. He informed them that the Mirror Men were agents of the Winter Guard and that as the witches could scry through them, it was best not to draw their attention. Fortunately, though the Mirror Man paused to examine the abandoned handcart, it did not spot them hiding in the alleyway.

They recovered the handcart and quickly delivered the herring to its destination and recovered their gear. Ringeirr said he would now take them the forger, Mortin’s,  house when they were accosted by a couple of belligerent drunks, spoiling for a fight. Sylziria  tried to calm the situation, but one of the drunks swung a wild haymaker at her. Katya stepped forward swinging her sap at the drunk, who suddenly shifted form into a winter wolf, his friend immediately doing the same. Suddenly, Gunnar stepped forward, drawing himself up said very softly,” Lads, we don’t want any bother!” The two wolves looked at each other and suddenly loped of - somewhat erratically.

Arriving at Mortin’s they just managed to avoid attracting the attention of  Winter Guard patrol, before getting inside – Katya having to pick the lock. Mortin was a twisted broken figure of a man who had obviously undergone torture at some point in the past but was happy to produce the documentation for them, and even happier when they offered to pay him.

Freshly minted papers in hand, they managed to get through another Mirror Man checkpoint with little fuss and entered the city proper. At Sylziria’s request Ringeirr led them to the Market, but stopped suddenly as they Market appeared to have been engulfed by a forest and was surrounded by Winter Guard. They found some makeshift stalls and shops nearby and were able to sell off their loot and resupply, before Ringeirr took they m to the hidden base of the Heralds of Summer’s Return.

Safely ensconced they told their story to Solveig, a priest of Milani. After listening to their tale she told them that she believed the Hut was still in the market area and that it was somehow  responsible for the magic forest that had mysteriously grown up. However they would need significant help to get through the army of Winter Guard surrounding and trying to contain the trees. She told them that the Heralds had been in touch with the remnants of the Iron Guard still loyal to Baba Yaga and believed that they would agree to launch an attack as a distraction if the party could remove one of the commanders of the Winter Guard, Logrivich. The Party agreed, though Sylziria was somewhat concerned when she discovered Logrivich was a white dragon!

The Clock Tower

Kelsidor spent the next couple of days scoping out the Clock Tower where Logrivich laired while the others mostly went shopping or in Sylziria's case hooked-up with Greta, recruiting her to help them. Eventually they were ready to make their assault.  Later that night, In the alley  at the side of the building Sylziria cast spider climb on the group and they began their ascent.  There were a couple of close encounters on the way up but they made it to the broken clock-face without incident. Unfortunately, something had alerted the dragon and he came flying out roaring and blasting them with his breath weapon. . They swiftly clambered in to the dragon's lair and took shelter firing spells and arrows at the angry white as he flew by repeatedly, blasting them with his breath weapon.

Eventually Sylziria's fire-spells took their tool and the dragon crumpled to the ground below. Greta was immune to the cold damage and Gunnar had quaffed a potion of resist energy but most of the others were damaged and had to resort  to healing potions and wands. They found the dragons horde interspersed among the clockwork mechanism of the clock, and retrieved a few pieces before deciding they had better move on.

Kelsidor led the way though  a trapdoor in the floor and on the level below, they found Bella captive in room, Katya made short work of picking the lock and the opera singer was freed. She told the Party about the loathsome Granny Nan, a witch who was procuring children from the local orphanages and feeding them to the trolls in the tower. Katya, outraged at this declared "the witch must die" , and led the way down. They found Granny Nan locked in her bedroom, but once Katya had picked the lock and once Gunnar and Gulbrand surrounded her, the witch was swiftly slain. In a nearby room they found Inga an eight year old waif locked in a nearby room, and leaving her in the care of Bella, continued exploring the clock tower. In the kitchen, Katya had a nasty run in with the Gobbler, Granny Nans construct oven, but emerged relatively unscathed if not a little singed once her comrades destroyed it.

Descending down to the ground floor Gulbrand was ambushed by two ice trolls, but s his colleagues swiftly came to his aid and they were slain.

The Fountain of Earth

After clearing the rest of clock tower of Winter Guard trolls and rescuing more children from the holding cells, the Party finally lit off their firework, after which they returned to the Herald’s hideout to rest. Kelsidor, Katya and Gulbrand started to maintain a watch on the Market, before deciding a night’s rest might be a better option.

Next morning they set out, heading into the city. The streets were awash with rumours that  “several” senior officers of the Winter Guard had been assassinated and that fighting had broken out near the palace. Arriving at the Market, they found most of the troops had been withdrawn, presumably to protect the palace. There were a still a few guards around and when initial attempts to bluff their way past proved fruitless the party made hard work of fighting their way past them, Sylziria nearly being killed in the attempt.

Heading in carefully through the single path, as the vegetation functioned as a wall of thorns, the  forest rose ominously around them an impenetrable wall of vegetation. At the first intersection Caedwallis headed down the right hand path when suddenly he heard a child’s voice calling for help from above, where a house was perilously balanced atop  large tree. The young boy explained that he, his sister and father had been trapped in the house when the forest grew up and his  father had broken his leg. Sylziria cast spider climb on Gulbrand, who shinnied up the tree, managing to avoid most damage from the wall of thorns effect to investigate. After stabilising the house somewhat with ropes, Gulbrand managed to help the stricken family down from their perch, where Caedwallis was able to help heal the broken limb. As a reward the father gave Gulbrand an amulet of natural armour.

Moving on along the path they found a strange fey, perched atop a large outcrop of rock surrounded by levitating boulders. The few offered them, the opportunity to withdraw, which Caedwallis declined, before assaulting them with a sonic blast from his pipes. The Party charged forward and began trying to climb the outcrop, made difficult by the fact that it had had a grease spell cast upon it. The dawn pier cast various speeds against them, trapping Gulbrand with a spiked pit spell before their combined assaults eventually brought him down. As the fey and his pipes were silenced, the levitating rocks fell to the ground with a thud.

Fonts of Air and Water

 The Party moved on and almost immediately were ambushed by a pair of, quite understandably, very annoyed perytons who's mating they had interrupted. The perytons proved difficult foes with  their  flyby attacks before the pair were slain. After healing up, they moved on, to hear what sounded like a party ahead of them taking place outside a shop surrounded by trees. Three red-headed women and very drunk men singing dinking songs and attempting Cossack-style dancing , and mostly falling over. The women invited them to join the party, offering them  wine - Kelsidor and Gulbrand felt strangely compelled to join in, swigging the wine, which proved to be excellent. Katya followed along, though Sylziria hung back until another pertyon attacked her as she was on her own. As she ran into the glade one of the women offered her wine, which she refused. At the refusal the woman's aspect changed,  assuming a bestial form and she attacked. Her two sisters followed suit and battle was joined. The baccae, proved little challenge, except for Sylziria who was nearly killed (again), and the Party were triumphant.
 
Leaving the drunk men to sober up as the wine had run out, they moved on to be confronted by another glade in which a dead tree was surrounded by swirling leaves caught in the breeze - another dawn piper, this one female,  waited them here, and like the first, offered them a chance to withdraw. They declined the offer and battle was joined the dawn piper blowing on  her pipes. As they deployed to  attack a twigjack attacked them from the woods nearby. The battle with this dawn piper was a difficult as the first, though this time, before she was slain,  Kelsidor was stuck in the pit trap spell and Sylziria was almost killed (yet again).
 
Badly battered by the combat, they decided to rest up in the shop nearby where the night passed peacefully except for the snores of the merchants sleeping off their three-day drunk. Next morning they headed out heading northwards to find their way blocked by a vortex of energy. After examining for some time she identified that it was being supported by some kind of powerful ritual magic and was gradually dragging the whole market area out of this reality. She suggested that the reality vortex was beings sustained by the dawn pipers and as it was still active there must be another one somewhere. Searching the area they found a third dawn-piper standing in a pool of water where there were droplets of water falling upwards around him. This dawn piper was accompanied by two enlarged  spiggans who attacked. This combat once again proved brutal with Sylziria once again being nearly slain.
 

The Hut of Baba Yaga

The party moved back to where the mystical barrier had been to find it now gone. In the clearing beyond, though as gap in the trees, they could see the Hut chained up behind a bone fence on which two corpses were impaled. In front of the Hut a blonde haired witch rose into the air, her fingers weaving as she cast a spell. The party unleashed a flurry of arrows and spells against her, but the arrows just seemed to glance off her and a large winter wolf appeared in front of them and attacked Kelsidor. A Spectral Hand appeared over Sylziria, through which Nazhena cast Touch of Idiocy on the sorcerer.

Sylziria dashed through the gap in the tress aiming spell, only to be immediately attacked by the breath weapons of two ice golems on either side. Fortunately despite her injuries she managed to get the spell off and Gulbrand and Gunnar dashed forward to confront to golems. Katya and Caedwallis meanwhile moved to help Kelsidor fight the winter wolf, but Caedwallis almost immediately fell afoul of its trip attack. He fell to the snowy ground, just as Nazhena dropped an Ice Storm spell on them. As the battles raged, Nazhena cast Slumber on Sylziria , causing her to fall to the ground unconscious. Gulbrand killed one of the golems causing to explode throwing deadly shards of ice about. As she did so Gunnar called for aid, but badly wounded, Gulbrand instead paused to drink a potion, causing Gunnar to have to withdraw, before Gulbrand moved in to destroy the second ice golem

The others had finally managed to despatch the winter wolf despite Nazhena using the spectral hand to cast Vampiric Touch on Katya, fortunately Caedwallis was recovered sufficiently to channel some healing for his friends. Gunnar meanwhile filched a potion of Fly from, Sylziria’s pack and rose into the air to attack the witch. Kelsidor moved forward firing magic arrows while Sylziria managed to recover enough to get off some spells and the witch was vanquished.

Which Sylziria looted Nazhena’s body, the others moved to the fence. Gulbrand instinctively new that the corpses impaled there belonged to the Red and White Riders of Bab Yaga. Caedwallis and Katya clambered over the fence and began examining  the chain that constrained the hut. There seemed no way to break the thick heavy chain made of some unknown metal. There was no lock and it seemed resistant to spells and the metal spike that held it was embedded in permafrost. However when Gulbrand grabbed it, it simply shattered!

As the chain shattered the hut lowered itself to the ground presenting its front door to them. Caedwallis was the first to move forward opening to the door to reveal a large room dominated by a cauldron which was twice as large as the exterior of the hut. They moved carefully in, noting several exits – presumably to other rooms. The room appeared empty, and Gunnar immediately headed to the double doors at the other end. As he opened the doors a Glyph of Warding briefly blazed into light but nothing else happened  -revealing a room where five thrones circled an illusory map of Golarion. As Gunnar passed though the doorway without harm, a voice next to Caedwallis exclaimed – “Ah, you are friends!” and a strange fey creature appeared next to him offering him a cup of tea. As the others explored the throne room they were attacked by a bone golem which proved a difficult foe, before they destroyed it.

As they drank cups of chamomile tea and ate stew provided by Zorka, they puzzled over what do next.  Zorka commented that they had better hurry as the Witch Queen would have realised that her golem had been destroyed and be on her way with reinforcements. Eventually Sylziria remembered the keys the Black Rider had given them and dropping them in the cauldron, the hut began to move!