30/06/2020 - Obnoxious orcas, pooey penguins and snowstorm suspicions

## TL:DR

* Half of the group attempted to cross the icy bay by boat whilst the other half hopped across the ice. Excluding a brief encounter with some obnoxious orcas, the journey went well.
* On arrival at the very pooey shore the group met a charismatic penguin called Fredericko who displayed some runic abilities similar to Narko’s .
* Fredericko invited the group back to his house.
* Half-way to his house a violent snowstorm blew in. Ves , Brena and Leo  became suspicious of Fredericko’s motives and persuaded the rest of the group to leave Fredericko and turn back.
* As soon as Fredericko left, the group realised they were in the middle of a violnet storm with no shelter so changed their minds and decided to follow Fredericko back to his home, though staying very wary of him.
* On the way to Fredericko’s several group members got stuck in some sinky mud, but thankfully everyone was extract with minor (though not negligible) damage.

## Travel logistics

After admiring the penguins (with Caitlin being particularly enthused by the furry little fellows), the group realised that they needed to cross the treacherous looking bay of drifting icebergs that lay between them and the shore. Having told Trimaeus  to wait on the Wildmane  for their return, Rocky  confidently proclaimed that he could navigate the rowboat across. Unfortunately, the rowboat wasn’t big enough for everyone, so only he, Caitlin, Pierce and Brena hopped in, with the others opting to try and jump their way across. Seeing Narko  lower himself down onto the ice, Pierce offered his fellow boaters a wager on whether the “quadrupedal fleshbag” would fall in. It was universally agreed that this was inevitable. Their conversation then inexplicably turned to the location of Narko’s  penis and whether it would be in danger if Narko  ended up in a Bambi-on-ice splits situation…

As the intrepid ice-hoppers descended to the nearest slippery iceberg, Leo  offered to give them all the blessing of his God, Rillifane . Ves  was initially suspicious of this, but allowed it after Leo  assured her that Rillifane  had an excellent GDPR policy. Ves  then used her sneaksy druid magic to give the whole group the ability to breathe water, just in case anyone took a dip. With all travel logistics in-place, both groups set of across the bay. For the first half of the journey, everyone made great progress, with Rocky  rowing powerfully under the direction of Pierce and Caitlin, and Narko  proving surprisingly dextrous on the ice.

## Obnoxious orcas

However, about half-way to shore Caitlin suddenly noticed three strange shadows in the water heading towards the walkers. As she called out a warning, the three shadows reared out of the water and generated a large bow-wave that crashed into the iceberg currently inhabited by Leo , Ves , Narko  and Azurial . The impact of the wave proved to much for Narko’s  skiddy hooves and he slid inelegantly into the icy waters. As the others showed great sympathy for his plight by laughing and/or making seahorse jokes, the three shadows darted angrily towards Narko . Realising he was in danger, Narko  quickly invoked the protection of his Hill-rune. This proved to be a good manoeuvre, as even with his runic protection the three shadows, now identified as a trio of particularly obnoxious orcas, savagely bit into his submerged body, doing much damage. Seeing that Narko  was actually in great peril, the others quickly darted in to help…

Ves  immediately summoned her cheeky spirit puppy to heal some of Narko’s  wounds, before spraying a cone of grim poison towards the nearest orca. As Pierce made use of a well-placed shatter spell, Rocky  ambitiously attempted to ram one of the orcas with the rowboat before inspiring Caitlin. The rowboat ram proved ineffective, but the inspired Caitlin aimed true and dealt some significant damage. Unfortunately, Narko’s  attempts to strike back were less effective, but a holy-swearing Leo  was on hand to place a divine sanctuary over him. Then, literally out of nowhere, a penguin popped up and said “welcome friends” before firing a large lightning bolt towards the orcas. This infuriated them greatly and they once again tried to snap at Narko . However, this time their attacks failed to penetrate Leo’s  sanctuary and, realising this was a fight they couldn’t win, all three turned tail and swam away. The penguin then popped up out of the water near the rowboat. However, before it could say anything Rocky  freaked out and rammed the boat into it. Despite making contact the penguin didn’t seem too hurt, though it dove deep into the water and disappeared.

## Pooey penguins

With the orcas gone, Narko  was pulled out of the water and the ice-hoppers all made it safely to shore. The boaters guided the rowboat in as close as they could before getting out to join the others on the ice. This proved no issue for most of them, though Pierce’s metal feet proved as unsuitable to the icy conditions as Narko’s  hooves and he slipped straight into the water. Thankfully, Rocky  was on hand to rapidly pull “the silly tin can” out.  Seeing this, Ves  suggested that they should make some snowshoes with knifes, asking if anyone had any of Kunai’s ? Rocky  helpfully clarified that Kunai  definitely had some of Kunai’s  knifes, adding that Khrom might also have one in his back. Despite the lack of Kunai -knifes, Caitlin was able to scrounge enough materials to make Pierce some rudimentary snowshoes, with Leo  suggesting that he could perhaps forge more later.

As Rocky  single-handedly carried the rowboat to a safe place onshore, the group were hit by the rancid smell of the penguin poo that had stained the once white ice to a grim brown.  Brena then noticed that further up shore the same penguin from earlier appeared to be gesticulating wildly at them. This generated a discussion as to whether it was feasible for penguins to meaningfully communicate. With a cheeky glance at Narko , Leo  joked that if horses could talk why not penguins? With a glare, Narko  warned Leo  that he was walking on very thin ice…. This statement proved unfortunately prophetic, as a few moments later the ice beneath Narko  and Leo  began to crack and splinter ominously. However, before disaster could strike, the peculiar penguin darted forward and with a complex wave of his hand re-froze the ice. Surprised, Narko  immediately recognised that the penguin had invoked an old giantish freeze-rune.

## Fredericko

The penguin formally introduced himself as Fredericko, adding that he was impressed and surprised that the group had found their way to the island. Ves  asked Fredericko if the island was responsible for their raging the previous evening? He replied in the affirmative, explaining that it was a strange though recent quirk of the island that he and his penguin-friends had quickly learnt to avoid looking at. Leo  then outlined to Fredericko that the group were from the Ilbidor  Archaeology guild and were on the island to investigate an ancient artefact written about by an old Iysgarthian  general. As Leo  spoke, Narko  took a close look at the strange penguin, noting that he had several strange items on his person. Around his neck was a triangular glass prism in which was a glowing orange flame, on his arm was a metal bracelet on which was a large pendant of ice, and around his body was a sash that was flapping incongruously. Ves  then asked Fredericko about he and the other penguins. Fredericko explained that he was the only one like him, the other penguins couldn’t do what he did, and that he knew little of what lay beyond the magical aura that protected the island.

Noticing that certain members of the group looked a tad chilly, Fredericko excitedly asked them if they’d like to come and shelter in his house.  As the others shrugged non-committedly, Narko  keenly replied “yes” in giant to see whether Fredericko understood the language. He did, as surprisingly did Rocky :

“Wait, you speak giant Narko ?”

“Yes, I do, but more to the point you speak giant Rocky ! You can’t even count to 10 but you speak an entire other language!?”

Looking somewhat offended, Rocky  responded: “Hey, I’m not stupid!”, before adding in giant “Fuck of horse”.

## Snowstorm suspicion

Deciding to let the horse-barb go, Narko  and the others followed Fredericko deeper into the island. As they walked, they were able to get a better look at the islands landscape. Behind the main arc of mountains was a huge peak with a very imposing sheer face, as well as several outcrops of strange black bulbous rocks that looked quite uncharacteristic of the rest of the geology. The more arcane members of the group also began to feel a strange tension in the air. Pierce realised that there was a powerful essence of wild magic and warned all the spellcasters that their spells could lead to unintended consequences. Typically, this warning fell on deaf ears and Azurial  and Rocky  both immediately cast spells to see what might happen. Nothing seemed to befall Rocky , but Azurial  experienced a powerful and potentially long-lasting feeling of sobriety wash over him.

Up at the front of the group, Narko , Rocky  and Leo  continued questioning Fredericko about the island, specifically inquiring about Iysgarth, whether any other communities still lived on the island, and how Fredericko was able to speak giant. Fredericko explained that Iysgarth had left ages ago, (though he wasn’t sure how long ago as he wasn’t even sure how old he was), but some other people still lived across the glacier. Hearing this, Ves  and Brena shared a discreet yet suspicious glance at each other. How could this guy not know how old he was? Fredericko went on to say that he didn’t really know why he could speak giant, the island just caused lots of strange things to happen. Fredericko then turned his attention back to the guilds mission, seemingly very interested in how they’d heard of the island. Narko  explained that they’d come here based on some information found in an old book. Fredericko seemed very interested in the book and asked to see it. However, as Narko  reached into the bag of holding to retrieve it, Brena and Ves  pointedly suggested he shouldn’t. Shrugging, Narko  put it back just as a huge geyser of steam erupted out of the ice. Fredericko seemed unphased by the geyser, so Narko  turned his questioning to Fredericko’s apparent runic abilities. Fredericko excitedly described how he gets visions of runes in his mind and had slowly learnt to read and invoke them. Narko  found this fascinating and eagerly asked Fredericko whether he could read the runes that covered his arms and torso. Inspecting Narko’s  arms, Fredericko reckoned he could read some, but not all, and asked Narko  if they could share knowledge with each other. As Narko  excitedly expressed his keenness for this, Brena suddenly noticed some very unpleasant looking storm clouds approaching.

Seeing this, Fredericko hurried everyone along. However, snow was soon falling heavily and the progress of the heavier folk became very laboured by deepening snow drifts. After a while of trudging blindly through the snow, Ves  and Brena called a halt to the proceedings, saying that they thought they were off the path and should head back to the bay. Fredericko was clearly irritated by this and strongly encouraged the group to follow him to safely. Pulling everyone bar Fredericko aside, Ves  and Brena explained that they were getting bad vibes off the penguin and had seen him greedily eyeing up the book Narko  had been about to show him. They didn’t trust him and would rather not walk blindly into his home. Leo  added that he too was slightly suspicious of Fredericko’s motives.

Seeing the group whispering, Fredericko walked over to Narko and implored him to follow. Though clearly early torn between going with the groups wisdom and learning more about runes, Narko  eventually sighed and told Fredericko that his friends weren’t comfortable, so on this occasion he would have to decline his invite. Fredericko said he was heartbroken that his hospitability had been denied, but, pointing towards a crag ahead, make it clear that the group could change their minds and seek him out anytime. With that, Fredericko zipped off into the storm.

## A change of mind

With Fredericko gone, the group realised that they were now in the middle of a violent snowstorm with no idea how to get back to the bay. Rocky  pointed out that shelter with a possibly suspicious penguin was surely better than freezing to death, and even if the penguin was bad surely between them all they could deal with one penguin! After some discussion the others reluctantly changed their minds on going to Fredericko’s. They would make their way to Fredericko’s home, but would be very very wary of him and not trust him for a second. Ves  also suggested that she should take the book off Narko , just in case Fredericko tried to steal it. Narko  agreed this was wise, adding that he would keep the bag of holding in an obvious place as a honey-trap to test if Fredericko was really after it.

## Sinking snow

By now Ves  and Brena were very much suffering from the cold, so Ves  turned into a dire-wolf for Brena to ride on. Ves  then used her excellent wolf-senses to follow the slightly pooey smell that Fredericko had left. However, after 30 minutes or so, wolf-Ves , Leo  and Rocky , who had been leading from the front, found themselves suddenly sinking into a suspiciously flat portion of snow. Fortunately, the others stopped in time to avoid this peril and were eventually able to pull Ves -wolf and Brena out with rope. Pierce was also able to drag Leo  out with his spiked-chain, though Leo  took some non-negligible injuries from the chain in the process. Rocky  proved somewhat harder to extract, but eventually Azurial  was able to majestically fly over and pull him out one-handed. Seeing the damage sustained to Leo  by the chain and Narko  by the orcas, Azurial  then did some cheeky group heals to ensure everyone was well prepped going forward, before using his remaining wing-time to take a better look at what lay ahead. Flying high, he realised that the storm was mercifully retracting towards the mountains. He could also see the cliffs and crags not far ahead, but couldn’t yet see anything resembling a penguin home...