And I Thought Rugs Were Comfy

Looking through the Red Wizards' room the group disposes of the body of the wizard (after ensuring the prevention of resurrection by removing the wizard's head) by pushing it over the ledge of the ice shelf outside the room. Looking through the room Arno finds an ancient book. The writing is in demonic infernal but the gnome senses the book's importance as well as recognizes some of the patterns drawn in the book are for summoning. Summoning something with the infernal language can't be good. The gnome tucks the book away in his possessions for safe keeping.

Lithariel finds underneath the body of the Red Wizard, a staff. Lithariel excitedly inspects the staff only to be told by Arno that it can only be wielded by a sorcerer or wizard not a cleric. Lithariel, disappointed hands the Staff Of Fire over to the gnome wizard.

Moving their way through the ice castle's corridors the group finds a simple storeroom. The room is filled with barrels and burlap sacks of dry goods: salt, flour, spices and crates of various vegetables. It is of course made of ice, so it is also a cold room where there are huge slabs of meat hanging from hooks. Arno and Lithariel grab what they can. Smallfang glances in and whispers, "Any pickles?". Once he hears that there are no pickles he returns to the hallway, disappointed.

Once the plundering of food is finished the group moves across the large hall to yet another room. They arrange themselves in their manner which they have fallen into, opening these large doors. T'an, sitting atop Smallfangs shoulders, moves in the doorway once opened and finds himself inside an ornate room. Well furnished and warmly lit by a brazier in the far corner he also sees Rezmir, the large black half-dragon sitting on a bed at the far end of the room. On each side of him sits two guard drakes. "What business do you have entering my chambers uninvited?", the half-dragon snarls.

Rezmir's Chamber
3,800 XP

T'an wastes no time. He tells Smallfang to move towards the half-dragon. They have seen this creature back in Castle Naerytar and Smallfang has already announced, a few times, that he wishes to take this creatures great sword. Smallfang runs across the room. Unfortunately, the rug they are running across stirs to life as they step upon it. It wraps quickly up the legs of Smallfang. Smallfang teleports past the rug to safety but T'an who was on Smallfang's shoulders is dropped to the Rug Of Smothering below. It quickly wraps around him crushing his legs as it moves up his body.

The others, still outside the door throw spells across the room but to little effect. Lithariel summons two double-headed death dogs. which run around the rug and attack the two guard drakes. Soon T'an is able to break free of the rug of smothering and attacks Rezmir. Arno uses his poison spray spell to damaging effect on the guard drakes. Lithariel moves around the rug in order to aid Smallfang who is trying to attack Rezmir but is at the same time being harassed by a guard drake.

But before Lithariel can aid Smallfang the rug surprises the room by moving and grabbing the elf. Lithariel is soon wrapped up to his face with the rug. T'an hits the rug, trying to damage it enough to disgorge Lithriel but instead ends up hurting Lithariel just as much. Without aid coming to him, Smallfang is bit and slashed at by the guard drake until he falls unconscious to the ground. Fortunately, the gnome Roman Bishop, a fellow gnome they have encountered within the walls of the ice castle, is able to run to the aid of Smallfang and revive him.

Between, the now revived, Smallfang and T'an they are able to defeat Rezmir and Arno and Roman Bishop are able to dispatch the guard drakes. But while they are fighting for their own lives, Lithariel is now completely encased within the rug of smothering and is unable to breathe. Seeing the struggle from within the rug as well as the sound of breaking bones, the T'an starts to damage the rug using arrows away from the body of the entombed elf. Soon the rug begins to unravel and the body of Lithariel falls to the ground at their feet, Dead. Again, Roman Bishop is able to heal the elf and bring him back to be among the living again.

Smallfang runs to the body of the black half-dragon and pulls the great sword from the dead creature's hand. Raising it up he excitedly inspects it. The blad is black and barbed. Dragon markings cover the sword and their is a name written in Draconic on it: "Hazirawn". Looking around for a creature to hit and try out his sword he finds none and briefly contemplates hitting one of his commrades....just a little....just to see what it does. But thankfully doesn't.

Turning the room over to find any sort of treasure they find little.

• letters to and from other dragon cult members. There is a sense that an alliance between the Red Wizards of Thay as well as several Giants is tenuous at best and that none of the parties involved trust each other much. Each has their own goals but the alliance is deemed necessary at the moment.
• A large chest, which was open when the group first entered the room which looked liked it contained a black dragon mask has now been closed. Some of the party noticed that when Rezmir closed it a bright light issued from the cracks around the lid momentarily. Lithariel excitedly opens it. A needle shoots out from inside the chest, barely missing the head of the elf and embeds itself in the wall dripping what looks like poison. The chest is now empty.
• T'an moving under the bed finds a piece of ice which sits higher than the rest of the floor and finds hidden underneath gold coins.

After emptying the room the group moves on. The open the next door and find it leads to the lower courtyard of the castle. Looking carefully around they see a few creatures, perhaps ogres, moving about the courtyard. They are under the overhanging upper courtyard and are in shadow. They run for a doorway across the way which will keep them out of sight. The group moves quickly and quietly, except for Roman Bishop who has to be hauled along by Lithariel and Smallfang. Smallfang is feeling pretty proud that he is not the one creating a racket this time when the group is trying to be stealthy.

The Kitchen

950 XP

The group is able to open the door just enough for T'an's mirror to fit through. Using the mirror he can see the room is a kitchen with over 2 dozen kobolds frantically moving about in food preparation. They are loud, disorganized and quick to distract each other. But as soon as one of the kobolds begins to get out of hand there is a large noise which gets the kobolds back to work. The noise is like a cross between a caw and a roar. The group debates.

They decide why not. They burst through the room. T'an moving swiftly through several kobolds, killing as he goes. Lithariel summons four great eagles which fly through the room attacking kobolds. Smallfang, Arno and Roman soon begin dispatching kobolds as well. They find that the creature that was in charge of keeping the kobolds in line was a griffon, sitting atop a tall shelf. Before the griffon or any of the kobolds are able to do much, the adventurers are able to kill them all.

Smallfang realizes that he is running short on javelins, having a bad habit of leaving them stuck in either walls or creatures and not retrieving them. He begs the fast and stealthy T'an to go back and retrieve the last two from their previous battle. T'an moves quickly across the ice surface and back to Rezmir's chambers and retrieves the javelins. Running back across the icy courtyard T'an is moving a little too fast and finds himself not entirely able to stop in time and smashes into the wall on the opposite side. He has been noticed by one of the ogres. The ogre moves across the courtyard, calling to other ogres as he goes and they move towards the kitchen where the others are still hiding.

Lithariel uses his great eagles as a distraction. They fly over the heads of the ogres towards the towers which are now moving their ballistas into position. With two ballistas on each of the two towers they fire repeatedly until the eagles are killed and Lithariel summons worgs to attack the ogres. An alarm rises up, sounding like a howling wind which rises and lowers rhythmically. Ten cultist in dragonwing garb enter the courtyard from their barracks to aid the ogres in response to the alarm. Using the worg attack as cover the group moves into the shadowy overhang and up a small hidden flight of stairs.

Ogre Guard Tower

3,600 XP

Moving up the stairs the see a couple of caves which lead off from the stairs but they decide to continue moving up the stairs. They soon come to the upper courtyard. In its center is a large mountain of ice from which three tower rise. There is noise coming from the front part of the courtyard so the group moves in the opposite direction.

The move to a large tower and decide to just walk in. There they meet four large ogres.Three are playing at a game of dice, the dice carved from some sort of skull. The third, who is actually trying to do his job stops the group and questions them. After a bit of misdirection the group convinces the ogres that they are there to find out why the alarm has been sounded and move up the ice stairs to the top of the tower. There they meet 3 more ogres who they now must convince again that they are not the cause of the alarm. Surprisingly enough they are able to enter and leave the tower without a scrape.

Esclarott's Tomb

Leaving the tower they move across towards the mountain of ice. In a small alcove they discover a shrine. Entombed in ice is a sarcophagus sits upon a raised dais. The group is able to discern writing on the base in giant. It reads: :Here Lies Esclarotta, Beloved Of Blagothkus"

But the tomb seems to have no entrance that they can find. They try a few spoken words in hopes of opening a door or being teleported. "Open", in several different languages, doesn't work. They decide to move on. Moving around the mountainous ice structure they find another cave opening. Above the cave entrance is carved the word/name "Glazhael"

Ice Cavern

Moving through the caves they eventually come to a large cavern inside the ice mountain. From the mouth of their tunnel they see numerous giant ice stalagmites and stalagtites as well as a large shelf on the far side which glitters with a mountain of gold treasure. T'an notices though, there is the sound of deep breathing. Perhaps they should scout out the tunnel system first, Smallfang suggests. They move through the tunnel system and find narrow tunnels criss-crossing through the ice mountain. They decided to wait until rested to move towards the treasure hoard.

Arno conjures Leomund'sTiny Hut in a section of the tunnels which can accommodate the spell. There the group takes it's refuge until they are ready to face the owner of the the treasure hoard.