Ash rotates out to mind the liberated githyanki pirate ship. Ten rotates in for landing party clerical duty.
Watc and Sqyylarr investigate the demised elite skeletons and the alcove they fought so terminally to protect. One skelly is dispossessed of his fancy half plate armor [+2] which Ander stuffs into extradimensional storage for later cleaning and tuning. There is nothing special about the alcove other than it is slightly less miserable than the rest of the snowy, blowing, icy cave.
Eager Barika scrambles forward to the large ice cavern ahead where she finds less blowing snow but more ice crystals that sprout from the floor, the walls, and, if it were not too high to observe well, the ceiling.
Ten avails himself of the dimness to night step over the slippery floor, floating past Barika to a heavy, icy table set into one side of the cavern. Frozen in chains converging from the corners across frozen blood tell a tale of torture. Conspicuously placed gold coins in the center of the table tell a tale of entrapment. When Ten’s deputized mage hand helps himself to the loot, a mousetrap section of the table smashes over, instantly killing no one. Ten finds the “loot” is gold-painted lead.
Sqyylarr notices the cavern’s ice crystals, at least the ones stuck to the floor, contain people. Icy dead people, as she notes.
Barika examines a chest to the north of the table and cautiously removes crampons to distribute to the party for better hallway traction on the icy floors.
Ten checks out some cages and bones scattered around the sides of the torture nook. The bones appear dragonoid. Pithy Sqyylarr hopes they were not APPOTHROMAX, the mention of whom brings a roll of booming laughter that ominously fills the cavern. Watc, following the source of the mirth, finds a frozen waterfall on the south wall above which is yet more open than the already vaulted ceiling. Watc shouts up the waterfall for APPOTHROMAX, but the only response is a white dragon who bursts unwelcomingly from frozen storage in the southeast wall.
Watc ignites an immolation of Johnawd the white dragon. Johnawd frightens the party save Sqyylarr and Ten. Ten counters with a twilight sanctuary that removes fear and temporarily boosts their fortitude instead. He interposes a spiritual weapon and spits an ice cube defiantly at Johnawd. Ander-hastened, stone-slinging Sqyylarr charges just as Johnawd flaps up out of reach following a devastatingly critical bite on her.
Ander vortex warps Sqyylarr back between Watc and Ten and knocks Johnawd back with a ballista bolt. Ten uber heals Sqyylarr’s ouchies and wallops Johnawd with the spiritual weapon. Watc activates her mizzium apparatus, aided by Ander’s flash of genius, to give Sqyylarr flying lessons. Sqyylarr launches with the greatest of ease and triple frost giant daggers Johnawd. Supported by a barrage of bolts and spirituality, Sqyylarr endures Johnawd’s onslaught of bites and clawing and frost giant stabs him dead.
Sqyylarr, still raging on haste, considers flying up the waterfall to solo APPOTHROMAX, but a short rest seems more prudent.
Exploration resumes an uneventful hour later with a barracks room through a decorative rib cage to the north. Ander ponders where the occupants went, but the crunching of the ice-lodged bits, bobs, and bones of former people underfoot noisily answers that question. Barika leads the party into the crunchy hallway tunnel going west and gets got by a roper hiding on the ceiling. She chops at it with a disadvantaged hand axe. Despite that and a barrage of bolts, bullets, death tolls, and an ixin of scorching rays from her support group, reeled-in Barika gets munched in the face. The greedy roper snags up Sqyylarr for dessert. Ander featherfalls Barika and Sqyylarr comfortably down when the roper expires, unable to afford Ten’s death toll.
Ten cannot emphasize enough the importance of searching for more ropers down the hallway tunnel. Watc abides but poorly as a tendril grabs her up. The joke is on the roper as Watc misty steps away, replaced by a bullet slung by Sqyylarr. The joke is on Watc as the tendril is longer than misty step and the roper grabs her into a bite. Misfortunate Barika gets picked up again as well. Barika tries to use her more powerful greataxe this time, but the confinement is too awkward to wield such a large weapon and she makes a devastating error that results in more of her face bitten off. Watc misty steps away again and adds in some conventional running to escape tendril range, throwing back a firebolt in exchange. Again, it is Ten’s death toll that overdraws the roper, and again Ander’s featherfall gives Barika a gentle return to the ice bone floor.
The hallway tunnel ends in a ladder descending from above. Ten finds no danger lurking at the top of the ladder. Another short rest therefore ensues.
The descending ladder ascends into darkness. Ander ungloves a blue gem of brightness embedded into his constructed hand. The light reveals a smooth, branching tunnel which darkvisioned Ten is already exploring. Ten finds a glowing magmin clinging to the tunnel wall. Ten sets about ingratiating the party to the magmin occupants by getting Ander to light a small fire, not that Ander needs much convincing when it comes to fire. The magmin retreats. Ten envelopes the area with a beacon of hope imbuing the nearby magmin and party with mutual hope and vitality. Ten stows his weapons and Sqyylarr, now sporting a prestidigitated helm of flame, uncharacteristically does the same. Ander prestidigitates a flaming, yet soothingly unanatomical, heart. The chaotic magmin accept these gestures and withdraw.
The party filters south through the tunnels, organically formed by hot magmin moving through the ice, it seems. The magmin kumbaya is interrupted when a remorhaz pops out of the floor at Sqyylarr. Unbeknownst to Ander and Watc, their alternating firebolts and frosty rays are useless against the immune remorhaz. Even Sqyylarr’s frosty giant dagger is less effective. Ten gets some traction with death tolls, but he is also focused on keeping Sqyylarr in the pink with the single greatest uber heal of all time when the remorhaz bites and swallows Sqyylarr. Fortunately for Sqyylarr, her Ander-crafted armor lends immunity against the remohaz’s digestive acid and she lingers comfortably within. Ten shields her in faith while Ander’s ballista finally wears the remorhaz out. Sqyylarr emerges, dripping with gall juice but otherwise alive and well.
The ice tunnels reveal no other perils, so the party continues south. Perceptive Ten notices a whistling wind from a crack where the tunnels would otherwise simply end, unrewardingly forcing a time-consuming backtrack through the dungeon. An icy rock rolls aside revealing a short and narrow ice passage that dead ends in compacted gravel concealing a door. It seems like the perfect hiding hole to safely rest for the night.