12.11.22 - Where Snow-man Has Gone Before

We couldn’t hear anything around us as we came out of our tents, but when we emerged we unleashed our full might upon the creature. It seemed like it might want to flee, but it also might have just been trying to eat Pey who had run in front of it to be between it and Dense. In the end, we slayed the creature before going back to bed in peaceful silence to finish our rest.

When we woke up in the morning, we could hear the winds blowing furiously around our tents and through the trees around us. As we emerged, Pey became a peynther as we were surrounded by a blizzard. I tried to lead us towards the winter lodge. After a few hours, I wasn’t sure we were going in the right direction, so I asked my arm. They only pointed in the direction we were supposed to go every so often, so we slowed down quite a lot in our journey. We eventually came to a valley that blocked out the storm a bit better than the trees had. From the valley, we could see some smoke in the distance that might have been the lodge or at least somewhere where we could warm up for a while to wait out the storm.

As we approached the smoke, a small village I didn’t remember being near the lodge came into view, and as we came into the small town there was a sign that read “Welcome to Hoovale”. The smoke seemed to be coming from a larger building near the center of the small spread of buildings, and it was the only one lit from the inside. Inside we were greeted by many long faced tabaxis all sitting by a weak fire within the hearth. From behind the bar, the innkeeper– whose name was Endless Thyme–welcomed us to the Vagabond Goose Inn. Pey went to warm the hearth again while we began to ask why everyone seemed so sad. A few people around the room spoke up saying that their children had been taken by a lich four days ago. They had sent out people to look for the children, but those people had not returned.

Just then, the door to the inn flew open to reveal a little Persian tabaxi girl standing in the doorway. She ran to some people who must have been her parents while hot chocolate and blankets were brought to her. The little girl told us her name was Bitemarks and she had escaped from the lich. Then, she began to tell us everything. On the night when the children disappeared, they had been taken by little scaly dudes with sticks who took them to a cave nearby and had forced them to make toys for the last four days, but not cute dolls or anything, the little scaly people wanted toys with lots of legs and eyes that looked like monsters.

In the morning, we set out, following Bitemark’s instructions, past the blacksmith towards the mountain. While we were climbing up the icy mountainside a group of living snowmen ambushed us. As we were fighting our attackers, we noticed that they were snowmen built around the bodies of living, breathing, tabaxi. We quickly dealt with the snowmen and pulled the tabaxi free of their snowy casings to send them back towards the village.

A little further up the mountain, we spotted a cave that we could hear voices coming from. We peeked inside to see the children all chained to work tables around a fire pit, crafting toys under the watchful eye of kobolds wearing bright red hats with little tufts of mostly white fur around the brims and ends. At the back of the cave we spotted a door that was being guarded by kobolds who were brandishing wands at any children who misbehaved. Quickly, we rushed in, only to be shot with webs that stuck Pey and I in place at the door. However, they missed Marko and Dense, so they ran into the room to begin taking out the children’s captors. While they were running around, they found that there were specific spots on the ground that triggered traps.

By the time that Pey and I were able to free ourselves, there were not that many foes left so we set about freeing the children from the tables. Bitemarks had been right about how ugly the toys were and there is no way any tabaxi shield might like them (but perhaps another child might). Once they were all freed and the kobolds were taken care of we told the children to wait here for us to come back to take them back to town. We then took a look at the door the kobolds had been guarding. There was an inscription on the door that referenced a light that was out of place in the string around the outside of the door.

It took some deliberation and trial and error, but we found the right one. The door swung open to reveal a green lich and a decorated tree that tried to grab and eat us, but we could also see at the far end of the room, there was a treasure chest. Pey turned the tree into a little turtle that couldn’t eat us while we dealt with the lich. It turns out that the lich was not a lich at all, just someone dressed like one. However, he would not back down, so we made sure he could not steal anymore children. Inside the chest we found a new rapier and a gem that would fit inside my arm like it had told me that it was missing. We took the kids back to Hoovale where we were celebrated as heroes. In exchange for our heroics, we were given a snow globe containing the town of Hoovale inside.