Dwarven Valley Ambush

"**Dwarven Valley Ambush**" is the second episode of *Queen of Cold and Frost*, played on airing on June 29th, 2022.

The session was DMed by Adonvel and hosted on his server on Discord.

## Summary

*...continued from session one*
Departing from Keegan’s house with Boy, the party heads out of Targos and along the road back toward Bryn Shander before turning northeast toward Termalaine, fighting against the winds blowing in from The Sea of Moving Ice to the northwest. Falidus uses his telepathic bond with Boy to examine the dog’s memories of the night that Garrett went missing: after reaching a base camp in the foothills of Kelvin’s Cairn, Garrett left Boy and five rented dogs with his sled at the camp and headed up the mountain with his clients, after which the sled became overturned and the dogs were trapped, but Boy managed to free himself and return to Targos, where he spotted Lucine, Falidus, Armamore, and Dharwyn. Lucine gives Boy some more bacon and uses her Mage Hand to scratch his ears while the party continues.

By midday, the group reaches a point at which a trail breaks off to the east of the road to Termalaine, and Dharwyn takes a moment to fill his flask with fresh snow before noticing a blizzard making its way down the mountain toward them. They press on along the trail, making surprisingly good time through the growing storm until they reach the Dwarven Valley, a fifteen-foot-deep ravine carved by a clan of dwarves that lived in Kelvin’s Cairn in order to provide a shelter against the wind. As the party moves into the ravine, Lucine is struck in the back of the leg by a javelin while dodging a second projectile. They spot five kobolds along the ledges above the trail and engage them in battle, summarily picking off the enemies one by one without taking any additional damage themselves.

As the blizzard dies down, the party spots Kelvin’s Cairn about a mile away and continues onward for another two hours, reaching the base of the mountain as night begins to fall. As they approach, Boy breaks free and rushes to an icy outcropping where they find two tents set up, a sled overturned nearby with five sled dogs still harnessed to it. Falidus and Dharwyn release the dogs while Lucine feeds them jerky, after which they immediately flee in the direction of Caer-Konig; the party investigates the tents, which were pitched within the last few days by Garrett and his clients, and discover that the overturned sled is still functional. Beneath it, they find two barrels, one empty and one mostly full of provisions

The party decides to rest for the night, and Dharwyn casts Sacred Flame to start a fire in the firepit, filling a kettle with snow to brew tea; using his Divine Sense, he is able to discern that there are no evil beings within sixty feet of the camp, after which Armamore attempts to Detect Magic, but senses no enchantments in the vicinity. The team settles in, and the night passes uneventfully: Lucine takes first shift and makes a snow Solar, Falidus takes second shift and spots an owl before adding a sword to Lucine’s snow Solar, Armamore takes third shift and spots a rabbit before adds wings to Lucine’s snow Solar, and Dharwyn takes fourth shift. He places his Greatsword into the fire to heat it and spends two hours staring into the flames, ruminating on the fact that he had killed a creature that was fleeing with its back to him; without paying much attention to what he's doing, he adds a pair of twisting devil horns to Lucine's snow Solar.

As dawn should be breaking, he spots the tail end of a winged creature passing across the sky with a trail of night following behind it, covering over the sun as the rest of the party wakes for the day.

*continued in session three...*