Session 40

# August 29th, 2019 - Retreat from Svardborg

## Retreat from Svardborg

The session began after fourteen uneventful days as the party flew north aboard the gnomish airship provided by the Lord’s Accord. Once they reached the eastern shores of the Far North it only took one full day flying around the cloud level to spot their destination, the frost giant village Svardborg. Of all the floating glaciers in these treacherous waters, they easily spotted the doughnut shaped iceberg with a few giant-sized wooden buildings atop it - they looked like enormous viking lodges. About half of these lodges were buried under the ice, and the remaining four were all at least partially entombed in ice as well. It looked as if the village had not been lived in for a long time. In the central lagoon, the group could easily see three giant sized ships hugging the ice.

They scouted a nice landing zone atop a small adjacent glacier attached by an ice bridge, and decided to lower the ship and hover over it. The entire party, Harshnag, and one of Rachen’s ten soldiers, Fred, disembarked. After hammering in the mooreing spike into the ice, the party approached the nearest lodge. This was not the largest, but was a two story giant lodge. They approached the front entrance, which had two massive wooden doors closed. The party waited behind Harshnag as the giant knocked on the door, with the intention of parlaying with his kin. Inside, the group could barely make out what appeared to be arguments in the Giant tongue, until the knocking.

When the door opened, one of the four frost giant occupants stood in the entryway and was slightly befuddled at the scene. A single frost giant, with a number of smallfolk of various races - well armed - arrayed behind him. And none of them in chains. Barely after Harshnag tried to start talking to him, one of the now clearly intoxicated giants sitting at a long table in the center of the lodge stood, grabbed her axe and yelled “Intruders!”. It all happened so fast, the giant in the doorway heaved his own axe against the unknown Harshnag, who immediately fought back. The party stayed outside and those with ranged weapons fired at the giant blocking the doorway.

The drunk giant was not prepared for battle, and actually lost grip of his greataxe in trying to swing at Harshnag, who swatted away the weapon with his own axe. Lachlan cast grease on the frost covered floor underneath the giant, who slipped and fell immediately. The other three giants had picked up their weapons and were charging, until Alburt cast a *wall of fire* across the entryway. The fire blocked line of sight into the lodge, began engulfing the fallen giant who then perished from two massive greataxe swings from Harshnag and the shots from Rufus and Thia. A few frozen boulders were thrown through the fire, one impacting Harshnag then he backed down the steps dodging the second.

At this point, everyone realized the *wall of fire* was not just filling smoke the lodge, but also billowing out into the cold blue sky, rising into the air. Worried this would alert the other inhabitants of the island, the whole group split up and tried to push the enormous wooden doors closed. They were able to move them inwards, but could not shove them closed with the burning frost giant corpse blocking the way. Anticipating crazed giants bursting through the *wall of fire* swinging their weapons the party braced for a few seconds, but no giant came. Perhaps ten seconds later, the sound of a massive warning horn bellowed from the second story of the lodge.

The party immediately panicked, realizing they had been foolhardy in just charging in, and decided to retreat to their airship while they still had the chance. They were able to get back aboard and take off into the sky before more frost giants had come around to their location, trying to hurl ice boulders at their airship’s balloon. The island was now on high alert and the party had to rethink their approach. The collective group decided to stay flying high in the cold air for five more days, until the night of the next new moon.

In the darkness provided by the moon’s absence, the airship returned and dropped low enough that Albut could control his familiar. The wizard’s owl, *The Breeze 4*, then flew around the island scouting the various locations to see how the giant’s were guarding at night. It seemed all the inhabitants were within their lodges, as the owl could fly by the open balconies and peer inside. The lodges also were all lit by the pale blue glow of what the wizard’s identified as *continual flame* spells. Lastly, the largest three-story lodge was clearly the main building, and through the open balcony of the second story Alburt could see a massive stone throne. This was clearly their destination that the Oracle spoke of.

The party left once again, and decided to return the next day. This time, the airship stayed high above the cloud level concealing their position, and Alburt sent the owl down to scout. Unable to directly control *The Breeze 4*, the wizard instead waited for the bird to return and telepathically report what it saw. In the simplistic terms the bird could convey, there were indeed a few giants patrolling the ice, but most of the activity came from the lagoon. Two of the giant greatships were freely floating and moored, while one was half-entombed within the ice wall of the glacier. This trapped ship, had over a dozen human barbarians and a few yeti’s chipping away at the ice under the watchful eye of a frost giant overseer.

The owl also reported a carved out cave, who entrance was on the inner side of the glacier above the lagoon, that was home to the pack of yeti. Finally, it appeared as if one of the other lodges - the one with only a tall single story - was a dry dock with its huge doors open during the day. Inside of this building is where the human barbarians had their tents. And so, that is where the session ended, with the party planning their next move against the giant’s in an attempt to reclaim the two stolen artifacts the giant Oracle demanded returned.

It was the one hundred and seventy ninth day since the raid on Greenest, just about six months.

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