as written by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.
Sunday, Calistril 1
It was unusual to be doing battle so early in the day. After arguing with the yeti, and then killing a half dozen of them, and dispelling an ice storm … it was still at least two hours before lunch. Our magic wielders found their magic moderately depleted much earlier in the day than usual, and we’d really made very little progress. So we decided to spend much of the day resting and, for our magic wielders, recovering spells.
To ensure that we would not be surprised and they could indeed recover their spells, we were extra diligent with the guard around the caravan. To the rear, we had a stone wall that (we hoped) the wardens would not be able to get over or around. And then, to the yeti side of the caravan, we had the bridge with the anti-life shell over it. But we weren’t entirely sure the yeti couldn’t bypass that.
There was a long discussion about the ghost sword we had obtained. We now had the ability (or at least the opportunity) to banish a possessing spirit. Should we be trying to defeat the yeti king, or exorcise him? Sparna agreed to take it up, but as a group we were still undecided on how to proceed the next day.
In the meantime, I tried to find some common ground with the yeti. I saw one yeti watching from behind a rock, and I wanted to show him we were harmless, so I tried standing with my sword sheathed and my arms open. That got no reaction. I told him to come out with open arms and we would welcome him, but of course he did not understand Common.
Shortly, however, three more yeti appeared, also taking cover.
I asked Ivan to cast continual light on a small rock, and I underhanded it towards the yeti. The yeti looked a little nervous, but didn’t approach it. “C’mon, pick it up” I yelled but they just looked at the rock. I conferred with Ivan, and he cast light on a bigger, slightly-smaller-than-head sized rock. The other rock stopped glowing, and I tossed the bigger one.
The yeti disappeared, and then reappeared with an object. One tossed it to us over the chasm – it was the revenant’s head. Clearly he was not understanding. Sparna kicked the head into the chasm.
I threw another large glowing stone. It was ignored.
At this point, Sparna and Ivan talked quietly for a moment and then Sparna turned and faced the yeti. Ivan mumbled quietly and Sparna suddenly increased in size to that of a small yeti, and Kali, getting into the swing of things, created the image of an ioun stone circling his head. With a look of anger, Sparna took the head of Katiana (I missed how THAT made it out there!) and in a split second and with a gesture from Ivan, it too was glowing. Sparna threw the head across the chasm.
The yeti threw the head back.
Ivan cast comprehend languages and began translating for us as Sparna kicked the head into the chasm and stared hostilely at the lead yeti. The staredown was on.
The yeti did not break gaze as he said, “Come, cowards, and meet king.”
Kali made the ioun stone circle Sparna one last time before it flung itself at the leader. The leader dodged and called for more yeti, including “the king’s men”. And soon, 10 or so yeti were crowding the entrance, now some with spears. They were gesturing and shouting and the leader said, “Come now and be escorted to king for death sentence.”
Clearly this little bit of negotiation was not working, and I was tired of it. Now that there were distance weapons (spears) on the other side, I was feeling less charitable. So I drew my bow, nocked an arrow and hit the leader.
He was clearly surprised, but on our side, Ivan was quick to let more arrows fly and they too hit the leader. In a twisted bit of logic, the leader threw his spear at Sparna (!) and hit him good. Another spear missed him. Kali cast an aqueous orb as this strange, distance battle over the chasm continued. Both Ivan and I hit our targets again, and the leader looked to be bleeding pretty good.
After a bit of confusion the horde of yeti hastily retreated to less open positions, and no clear target presented itself anymore. Ivan defiantly threw an obscene gesture that, I think, transcends spoken word. Qatana healed Sparna as both Ivan and I hit with arrows one last time before the yeti disappeared entirely.
Diplomacy is harder than it looks.
(around lunch)
We heard a noise from the rear of the caravan. Qatana flew high enough to see over the stone wall she had erected, and saw more of the headless zombies mindlessly trying to walk through the wall. While they appeared to be in no danger of reaching us, Qatana nevertheless lit them on fire with oil until they stopped twitching their charred limbs.
That night, after dinner, Kali proposed a startling plan: she would go invisible, and fly into the throne room and see if there was evidence that the king was an oni, or evidence that the king was Katiana’s ghost. Although it was of general consensus that we needed to deal with the yetis in order to make progress, there had been absolutely no consensus on how best to do that. I was convinced that if we could limit the yeti to one or two at a time we could methodically slice through them. Kali, and I think one or two others, were opposed to the needless killing of the yeti. Frankly, I was too if I could be shown it was really needless but I saw no other way. Sparna, bearer of the ghost sword, was willing to plunge the sword into the king if we had evidence that he was possessed instead of being a polymorphed oni or even just an angry yeti leader … but he could do much more damage with his usual weapons if there was no need to exorcise a spirit and was wary of going in under-armed.
Kali elaborated on her plan. With detect magic running, she should be able to make that determination. We would advance to a point nearby and she could use a Message spell to communicate what she learned back to us. We would then adjust our strategy appropriately. It was a plan that put Kali at great risk, but it also gave us a possibility of resolving the situation without annihilating the yeti. If the king could be made our friend, a simple command from him would save us many battles. And even if I thought it possible to destroy all the yeti, I was by no means certain that it would not come at the cost of the lives of some of our party.
So while I believe the group was still divided on what the yeti king actually was, we did come to the agreement that Kali’s plan gave us the best chance of success. Normally, the well-armed and buff Radella would be our choice for spy, but this mission required more magic than mere silence.
Moonday, Calistril 2
It was around 7:15am, I think, when I heard Sparna yell something across the chasm and – did I hear right? – something in the language of the yeti? Later, he told me he’d spent much of his watch learning and practicing the language. Astonishing. I later asked Suishen if he could learn new languages, and with typical disdain, he responded that language was only useful in slowing down conversation and the world would be better if everyone was telepathic. I took that as a no.
We prepared for our foray. In addition to all the spells Kali would need, we used resist cold (I used protection from cold, from Suishen) and variants of fly or airwalk and dark vision. Kali added magic circle; if she was right and Katiana’s ghost was involved, that ward might give a possessed creature another opportunity to shake it off.
We crossed the chasm and noted there were no yeti present. Kali added comprehend languages to her spells and took off. We needed to give her 30-60 seconds to get there first and communicate back to us. I told Suishen to turn the flame on.
We quickly reached the other anti-life shell, and two yeti – I think at least one was one we’d hit yesterday – silently glowered at us from the other side. With the assistance of Ivan, I took another glowing rock and tossed it over to them. They were unimpressed. Apparently somebody had updated them on the fact that not everything glowed was fire. Sparna announced, “Let us pass, and will spare your lives”.
Surprisingly, the yeti replied, “Ok”. And they each stood off to one side. This soooo smelled like a trap, but this was the plan. We flew or walked over the anti-life sphere, as appropriate, and proceeded to the throne room. Although there were many yeti there – probably more than a dozen – they just stood and stared at us. Qatana announced there was a magical aura over the whole room.
And no king. Sparna pointed this out: “Where is your king???” Qatana cast invisibility purge – cleverly missing Kali – as one of the yeti moved down off a ledge and announced, “King? You want king? ATTACK!” And the battle we’d hoped to avoid began – including a lightning bolt directed at me. Wait, lightning??
The mayhem had barely begun when another yeti emerged from a stone wall. Really. Judging from the others’ reactions that had to be the king. Kali, who saw the lightning and already knew what the king looked like from previous scrying, realized this really might be Katiana and that this was her chance. Kali flew over the king and put him within the influence of her magic circle. It had some of the desired effect, as the king cried out, “Stop fighting! Evil spirit … help me defeat evil spirit!”
The yeti stopped, but were very uncertain.
Sparna stepped up and explained before he swung that he must hit the king with the magic sword to expel the spirit. The king agreed, as Kali reached down and applied a magic circle directly to the king.
The sword hit, but the king was still fighting possession and Katiana was still shooting lightning.
Sparna hit again and this time, Katiana’s ghost emerged from the king, cackling as though it was all her idea. With her flying, and incorporeal, only we could defeat this enemy now. There was dispel magic, and there were magic missiles, and there were force beings, and there was, of course, Suishen and flames and shrieking (from Katiana). She summoned a lightning elemental, but just as quickly Ivan made it go back. It was Radella that had the killing blow – or at least so we believe since it seems we killed Katiana once before – and the room was finally silent for a bit.
Now the real diplomacy began, as praise was heaped on each party, and gifts exchanged: the king gave us the ioun stone, and we gave him a magic breastplate. Backs were slapped, hands were shaken, and promises were made. We told the king that the revenant was dead and he was pleased. We told him the shadows were gone and he was pleased.
[445] ioun stone of Alertness (dark blue)
The king spoke Common, thankfully, but that also meant I got to hear the exchange between the king and Qatana about how Pookie was responsible for his being freed. It’s a tortuous story, but the next party coming through the caverns will likely find yeti-art resembling a warrior mouse-yeti. And Qatana will be insufferable for a week.
The King, whose name was Bormurg, also, of course, gave us free passage through his realm, but commented that only a few minutes away the road ended in a blank wall. He was confident his powerful new friends would figure out how to pass through the wall however.