Yeti, Aim, Fire

## Synopsis

In Season 2, Chapter 17: Yeti, Aim, Fire, Graven took the opportunity to speak privately with Bahira but received only morsels of cryptic information regarding Booraj and his predicament. Bahira never even got the chance to meet him face-to-face, instead traveling to Mukmu to consult with Sengri-la before giving up her search.

Apparently Booraj had "given his heart to the sun, his soul to the shade and his body to the void" – but whatever that meant, it wasn't going to help us with our pursuit of the Coldlight Walker… and it was time to turn our attention to the Tapered Tunnels.

After much deliberation over which belongings we'd be leaving behind, we agreed to pick up our horses at Gol'Esheka – a trading post to the northeast that would serve as a convenient jumping off point for the next leg of our journey along the coast.  Foregoing a rest to keep our momentum moving forward, we once again let Praxis lead the way – and so our ascent began.

Our first test came before we even got inside the tunnels, as several White Moose were ambling around the entrance and seemed unlikely to vacate the area without a little encouragement on our part.  The creatures were large and the trail narrow, which gave us the idea to send Erland up to preemptively set traps – and then get their attention while the rest of us prepared for an ambush.

The caltrops and spring-loaded snares that we'd been hanging onto for so long were the perfect tools to slow the stampede, and next came a ranged barrage from the back line that felled all but one moose before they got within striking distance. It was a clean and well-executed plan, one that required very little expenditure of resources – and we felt good as we headed into the mountain with the cautious understanding that this was unlikely to be the *only* fight as we circled up toward the peak.

Guided by the glowing, blue-tinted crystals shining through cracks in the rock, we tread carefully and quietly – which turned out to be the right move, because in the next chamber we found two sleeping yetis who'd crawled inside to find shelter for the evening.

From the expression on Praxis's face, we could tell that tangling with these beasts would be a significant step up in difficulty from the moose – and we would have been content to let them slumber if not for an additional wrinkle in the room ahead.  Miners who'd worked in these tunnels years ago left behind a pressure-plate activated door, one that because of the ice forming on top of it required a very heavy object to trigger its activation.

There was virtually no hope of opening the door without waking the yetis – and since we didn't want to risk a fight to the death that could result in casualties on both sides, we needed to lure one of them onto the pressure plate and stall for time until we could dash beneath the raised barrier.

Things got off to a worrisome start as the hearty nature of these creatures meant it was difficult for Erland and Safira to hold them in place with stuns and entangling arrows – but the silver lining was one of Orba's newly acquired Reaper spells, Phantom Anchor, which ensured that only one of them was close enough to wail on us with its powerful fists.

The yetis' paralyzing gaze was another hurdle to overcome – for even when the plate was activated and the gate was rising, Graven found himself unable to move to the exit.  There was a scary moment when the shackled beast finally broke free and we still hadn't vacated the room, but Graven finally gathered himself and made a risky disengagement that paid off as we just barely got the door to slam shut between us and our foes.

From here, we needed to find a spot to lick our wounds – and Praxis (having traveled the route before) led us to where the path looped back around to the outside, and we prayed that no further hardship stood between us and a safe bit of respite.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: two natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 each by Riley and Matt.