Session 41

# September 12th, 2019 - The Frozen Throne

## The Frozen Throne

The session began the night after the new moon when the party had used “*The Breeze 4*” to scout the giant lodges on the island of Svardborg. They had planned their incursion, prepared all they could, inspired the soldiers with them, and began near midnight. As quietly as the gnomes could fly the airship, they lowered from the sky and hovered about twenty feet above the roof of the largest frost giant lodge, the only with three stories. This was the one where “*The Breeze 4*” saw through the open window of the second floor the giant’s throne, and sitting on pedestals next to it were the two artifacts they sought. The group lowered three ropes down to dangle in front of the open third floor window.

The plan began with Lachlan casting *reduce* on Harshnag so he could easily descend the ropes with them, and Thia casting *pass without trace* to silence their approach as best she could. The entire party including Harshnag quickly repelled down the ropes and entered the smaller third story room, filled with barrels, crates, chests, and a wooden giant owl cage. The giant owl inside immediately began flapping about violently trying to make noise, but once Cadmus arrived he cast *silence*, ensuring it wouldn’t alert those below. On the short timer from Lachlan’s *reduce* spell the assault party slid down the giant-sized ladder to the second floor. Even though they approached silently, when the two giant white worgs in the room smelled and saw them appear from the floor above they alerted the four frost giants guarding the throne chamber, and the fight began.

Seconds later Harshnag returned to his natural size, and the group engaged trying to kill as many as possible quickly, first focusing down the wolves and then the giants. Rachen blocked the only exit door to the first floor, but the frost giant on the far end of the room went to the open window and yelled for help. During the fight, Rufus got pinned against a wall and rolled away and took cover behind the seven white dragon eggs in one corner of the room. Perhaps twelve seconds after the frost giant began yelling for help the sound of the warning horn from the lodge nearby began blaring once again. If all went according to plan, the group would be gone before it would be of any consequence.

It was not long after, when the fighting was at its peak that the group began hearing another horn much further in the distance. This one was blaring a different pattern, but the party focused on finishing their battle. Once the group was certain of their victory, they began executing their escape. Alburt cast a *wall of fire* around the door to the first floor, and then went across the room to pick up the smaller of the two artifacts - the mithril spear tip. It was still sized for a giant’s spear however. It was near this time he heard the shouts of the soldiers still atop their airship, and heard the ballistae from it firing down to the ground below. Peaking out, he could see frost giants from the nearby lodge pouring outside and beginning to throw ice boulders and spears up to their airship.

After killing the final frost giant in the throne room, Lachlan cast *reduce* on Harshnag again after he grabbed the larger of the two artifacts - the rune carved mammoth tusk. The group then promptly retreated back up the ladder to the third floor. Just before climbing the ladder last, Cadmus cast *shatter* on the clutch of white dragon eggs, causing them all to explode. The two wizards each peaked out the third floor window and cast *dimension door* (with Lachlan holding onto the reduced Harshnag), so they teleported up to the airship with the artifacts. The rest of the party climbed the ropes back to the airship as fast as they could while frost giants from below threw massive projectiles at them. Rachen had gone up one of the ropes last, and tied it around one of the chests from the room, such that it was pulled away by the airship.

Rachen’s guards were giving cover fire with bows and the ballistae from the deck of the ship, and one ballista bolt caught a giant in the face. Even before they were all back on the deck of the airship, the gnomes began to raise the craft to get distance from the giant’s and their projectiles below. The frame of the ship had taken some damage, but the balloon was intact, and they rose into the air with their mission seemingly successful. It was at this time someone shouted and pointed out to the edge of the island, where the sound of the second further horn was emanating from. A giant longship larger than the three within the bay was closing in on the island, and more than a dozen frost giants were leaping into the water swimming to the shore.

More distressing was the sight of a large white dragon that had been chained to the deck of the massive ship, and a few frost giants breaking it free of its shackles. The hearts of the party and all aboard sunk as the adult white dragon spread its wings and took to the air, heading straight for their airship.

And that is where the session ended, on the night of day one hundred and eighty since the raid on Greenest.

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