Quastarte (a university for magical study) has a winter research station located North of Mithral Hall along the mountains known as the “Spine of the world”.  It is not a prime assignment, weather and environmental conditions are extremely harsh, so many a young student, hand (apprentice artisan from the university), or spellguard often find themselves assigned to a tour at Villa Glamhoth dal e’ Anto, which translated means “Orc with foot in mouth”.  The “villa” is actually an old Orc fortress that a senior professor cleverly managed to acquire from the orc chieftan Flas-Fotak, at the orc’s insistence in order for the orc to save face.

Research here is centered on mines, environmental studies, and studies of the flora and fauna this far north.  There are barbarians and orcs as well as giants that occasionally cause trouble which is why there is always a contingent of spellguard stationed at the Villa. 

Captain Garsteode Moestyn Von Foedenvensal VI (Sir Moe) is in charge of the defenses here at the the villa and Professor Fris (pronounced Free) Duratus is the resident principal researcher.  There are several other semi-permanent staff located here, and the total contingent from Quastarte fluctuates between 30-50 individuals depending on how rowdy the locals are being, although the fortress could easily bivouac several hundred individuals if needed.

There is an elfgate to the villa from Quastarte, but due to other environmental conditions in the area impacting magic, the gate is not as accessible as normal elfgates, often only working for one day when Selune is waxing between a half and full moon.  This allows for regular resupply of the Villa, but does not allow for at-will travel between the university and the villa. The villa does have good relations with several nearby settlements, and even employs some “locals” to assist with tasks in and around the villa.

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Mephit Roundup

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Watc’s (Wizard’s Assistant, Third Class) menial labor in the service of a misguided wizard with no regard for constructed life forms ended with the kind intercession of Professor Emeritus Anton Steele, a warforged wizard of modern imbuement. Steele arranged her assignment to The Winter Watch so Watc may explore her free will and the wizardly arts, but she’s reminded of the ubiquitous oppression when Quartermaster Schmeck inquires whether she should be loaded in with equipment.

Waiting at the intermittent elfgate to the villa with Watc, newly commissioned paladin Briar Quicksilver enjoys his last few minutes of southern warmth. His professional military bearing conceals deep trepidation about the unpleasant assignment to the frozen and perilous research station, but protecting others is his duty.

The elfgate link indicator turns green and the wounded pour out from the villa, some with wounded limbs and others with missing limbs. The last of the short timers come through, shedding alarmingly heavy parkas, and Schmeck orders the waiting sages, students, and hands through the elfgate.

Watc and Briar emerge into a corridor as full of commotion as it is cold. Flur, quiet, pale, scarred, and tough, orders the new arrivals up the stairs and into the villa. Now. Please go. Ignore the spellguard on the wall fighting something just outside.

Ebrek Frosthelm’s local druidic expertise of navigation, invaluable to the Quastarte mission, affords him broad authority and gruffness. He arrives gruffly and gruffly informs Flur that more help is needed at the mine. Ebrek gruffly takes charge of the newcomers, herding them to the villa with a barrage of carefully selected gruff dwarven insults. 

In contrast, dragonborn Barika Yarcan, towering over Ebrek, is quietly competent and professional. Native to the harsh northern environment, she’s more comfortable battling the menace of orcs, giants, and yeti than she is in the regimented confines of Quastarte bureaucracy.

Luther Witcake, kitchen patrol by day and bagpiper by night, follows a walking chest. The chest follows Jepos Whifflepuff, steward of the villa, as he glides across the barracks with all the poise his gnome legs can manage toward the gathered party. The gnome ascends the chest to address Watc, Briar, Ebrek, Barika, and Luther.

In all the commotion, some ice mephits have gotten loose in the villa. The assembled party, explains Jepos, must round up the mephits as there is absolutely no one competent available at the moment to complete this task.

Ebrek requires no further encouragement and begins directing the order of search, to begin with the hostel area. Briar, Barika, and Luther linger to ponder what an ice mephit might be so maybe they’ll know it when they see it. Watc, who spent a lot of time perfectly reshelving books at Quastarte, explains that it’s a little icy looking, mischief causing, elemental imp. As soon as she describes it, one appears upon Ebrek’s head.

Ebrek produces flames wildly flailing around his head and discovers the minor illusion. Luther laughs.

The hostel, with just a few beds compared to the large, open barracks, is in disarray. Luther, since taking on kitchen work, has stayed here and knows that kitchen manager Bonnie would never have left it in such a state, regardless of her hasty departure. Watc recognizes the telltale signs of mephit mischief. Ebrek rights Bonnie’s overturned chest and discovers an ice shard underneath.

Two eyes bulge from the shard and the ice mephit cold cones and flees recklessly out of the room as Briar, Ebrek, and Barika swing at it. Briar runs it down with his morningstar and Barika tosses a well-aimed throwing axe to kill it. It explodes ice shards into Briar.

Luther clears the adjacent altar room where the infirmary cleric petitions his deity. Watc begins systematically investigating the barracks, throwing back covers and looking under beds. Briar reckons ice mephits might not react well to fire and bludgeoning, being rather cold and brittle, and that maybe they can’t or won’t open and close doors, so doors of cleared rooms are optimistically closed.

As they regroup in the barracks, most of the searching party is covered by a sudden fog in one corner. Briar, Barika, and Luther find their way out in time to witness a mephit dash from the fog and another from a bed out the open door at the opposite end of the the barracks. Ebrek and Barika give chase while Briar uses a side door to try and cut the mephits off.

Briar, unfamiliar with the building, can’t find a way to rejoin the party and his return path becomes blocked by a new fog, signalling the presence of another mephit. Luther tries to guide him back through the fog by calling out, but the fogbound mephit strikes at him with icy claws. They have the mephit surrounded but can’t connect a weapon in the poor visibility. The mephit flees toward the morgue and Briar and Luther forego pursuit to rejoin Ebrek.

Ebrek and Barika know their way around the villa and split up to the left and right to corner the mephits in the dining hall. But the mephits prefer to turn to fight individually. Watc arrives behind Barika but the corridor is too narrow to get close so she sends a mage hand to slap the mephit into distraction. It cones some cold and attempts to flee, but Barika explodes it with her greataxe.

Ebrek and Briar harry the other mephit and trap it in the dining hall opposite Barika and Watc. Barika hurls a javelin and the mephit explodes, making her three for three on killing blows. 

A mechanical spider drops on Luther’s shoulder. Ebrek smirks.

The kitchen and a storeroom, off the dining hall, are investigated next. Mephits have scattered food all over the storeroom floor. A large slab of ice concerns the party until Luther assures them the ice is for refrigeration and not mephit-related. 

The general notion is that the mephits crave lots of orderly objects to disarray, and there is no more target rich environment than Fris’s personal laboratory just across the dining hall.

Briar opens the lab door and beholds several ice shards parked along the shelves of alchemical reagents and equipment. Barika notices a pattern as though an explosion deposited these proto-mephit shards in the building.

What’s needed is a significant conflagration in the lab. Ebrek identifies several vials of alchemist’s fire on the shelves near the shards, but obtaining them without awakening all the mephits is a dubious prospect. Watc mage hands a couple of vials while Briar and Barika draw off one awakened mephit. Luther dashes back to the kitchen to locate some cooking oil for fuel. 

Mephits are waking and Barika gets trapped in a corner of the lab. Ebrek tries to free Barika by beating on the mephits trapping her and Briar manages to pop one, opening a path out for Barika. She charges through but is savaged by icy claw attacks and falls out of the room unconscious.  

Luther returns with the oil and tries to slosh it on the shards, but he makes a poor job of it. Watc mage hands a vial of alchemist’s fire, tossing it on the most oil drenched shard. The oil ignites and mephits begin popping off causing a chain reaction of damage.

Briar shifts to beast form and lays hands on Barika. The mephits cornering her flee the fire but get trapped in the hallway. Two flaming mephits attack Luther and Ebrek, knocking Ebrek unconscious so he doesn’t see them pop from the fire.

Barika rages and destroys one of the two last mephits. Luther viciously mocks the last mephit hoping to foul any attack on wobbly Barika, but the insult profoundly affects the mephit and it dies with an explosion that ironically knocks Barika out again.

Briar restores Barika and Ebrek to nominal, if not good, health. A debate regarding the feasibility of pursuing the mephit in the morgue, and who know how many others, is interrupted by approaching Sir Moe.

Sir Moe directs the precariously injured party to the infirmary while some fresh arrivals are sent to clear the remaining rooms. He not so sure how Professor Fris will like the state of his lab.

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Anywhere But Ysenthorp

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The mighty mephit hunters assemble in Professor Fris’s lab for a very polite scolding from Fris. Sycophant Jepos apologizes from the bottom of his heart to the top of his ambling chest for the destruction of the lab. Newcomers Watc and Briar are introduced to Fris and his able assistant Whitmore Braddock and are questioned about the apparent failure of the elfgate during transport of some twenty people, more or less, from Quastarte. The fate of the other eighteen concerns Fris so the meeting relocates to the undulating and unstable elfgate.

Professor Fris reaches into the elfgate and yanks out the blockage: a drow who introduces herself as Lissandra. Fris and Braddock retrieve another seventeen people from their stasis between elfgates.

Lissandra, or Lissy as her probation officer calls her, was caught using her roguish skills for illegal purposes in Quastarte and sentenced to work with Ebrek the Grumpy at the Villa. The experience caused her to reevaluate her life and put her criminal background behind her. Maybe.

With the other transferees safe and sound, it’s time for a little repast in the common room. Luther goes to whip up some cold cuts in the kitchen but Jepos informs him his services are no longer required on kitchen staff. There is a new opening for general helper which Luther accepts on condition of continued room and board. Ebrek warms up with some mead. Lissy introduces herself around to everyone.

Flur, an unusually small and scarred goliath, enters with Sir Moe and gives Lissy a bit of stink eye. Moe directs Ebrek to head to Ysenthorp, by way of the stables, to appraise the earthquake damage and extend assistance. Luther, Watc, Briar, Barika, and Lissy volunteer to accompany Ebrek, drawn by the synergy of the mephit hunt. Briar proposes the handle “The Hateful Eight” for the six of them.

Jepos retrieves encumbering winter clothing for Briar, Watc, and Lissy from his walking chest and the party makes its way to the stables hollowed into the mountain just outside the gates.

Ebrek pushes open the heavy barricaded stable doors to trade barbs with the stable master Yjjentc. Yjjentc grants the adventurers use of six giant mountain goat mounts for the trip to Ysenthorp, but first they must demonstrate three levels of proficiency with the beasts: mount, balance, and control. Some time is spent learning these skills with Yjjentc supplying healing potions to bring Ebrek back to life in between dramatic failures. Eventually their competency satisfies Yjjentc and they hit the snowy trail to Ysenthorp.

The party benefits from the local map expertise of Ebrek and Barika. Unfortunately, Ebrek’s map is upside down and Barika recalls history from a completely different town. The party wanders, unknowingly lost, down a forest trail. Eventually Lissy, Ebrek, and Barika notice movement in the trees all around them. 

Within moments the giant goat-mounted party is beset upon by a colony of ravenous wolves starving for some giant cabrito. Ebrek feeds a bone-headed arrow and an insult to a wolf. Watc, Ebrek, and Lissy’s goats are brutally attacked. Watc butts her quarterstaff into a wolf and Lissy scatters dancing lights to frighten several of them back. Ebrek battleaxes a wolf but he’s holding back because the wolf is his spirit animal. Barika was, in fact, raised by wolves, but like any wolf she holds nothing back. Luther creates a minor illusion of a yeti in the treeline which sends several wolves into the opposite treeline.

Breaking up the pack with a little confusion makes maneuvering room for the party’s goats to ram and kill several attacking wolves. Briar proposes to take advantage of the wolves’ confusion to leave the area, but Ebrek wants to pause to collect wolf lard and pelts. Luther won’t desist chasing the wolves around with yeti sounds. Barika realizes the party has travelled the wrong direction.

Watc makes use of the short rest to heal the goats and adventurers tend to their own wounds. Happily, the wolves do not return.

Continuing in a new direction brings the party to the edge of a frozen lake. Examination of the ice reveals it may not support a mounted giant mountain goat. That would be less of a problem if not for the yeti suddenly closing in from behind them on the return path. Lissy prepares to charge the yeti when it gets close enough. Ebrek looses an arrow but misses the large target, to Barika’s amusement. Briar tries a javelin throw but the yeti is not discouraged. Luther creates a dissonant whisper in the yeti’s brain and it flees in anguish, at least for the moment.

The party skirts around the lake, on track toward Ysenthorp by Barika and Watc’s reckoning. The path eventually diverges from the lake and leads to an old tower. This isn’t Ysenthorp at all, but the sun is sinking low and the temperature will soon fall. Ebrek doesn’t mind the frigid weather and offers to tend the goats if the less hearty wish to seek shelter in the tower. 

Watc spies a lone figure observing the party from a nearby hilltop.

Luther and Briar, the party’s prettiest representatives, present themselves with some ample knocking on the tower door, but there is no answer. Neither Luther nor Briar is disposed to enter the tower without permission and so withdraw to Ebrek’s assorted meats roasting over his fire next to his tent. 

Lissy’s ethical boundaries have a different emphasis. She picks the lock and looks around a little inside the tower. She finds nothing very compelling and exits, re-locking the door as she found it. 

Barika, a woodswoman on par with Ebrek, builds a pine needle nest in the center of the warm grazing goats and sacks out.

Only Luther doesn’t manage a decent night’s rest.

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Bartolo Quint

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Dawn arrives at the same time as wafts of warm breakfast aroma. No one remembers the stranger joining the party, not even continuously observant Watc, but there he suddenly is making breakfast at Ebrek’s fire.

Bartolo Quint’s axe appears miniscule compared to his giant pick, and his giant pick is nothing compared to his enormous muscles, and his enormous muscles pale in comparison to the amount of hair he doesn’t have.

Quint passes around plates of roasted meats while Luther and Briar notice a very still body in the snow by the tower. The breakfast is nourishing but also awkward.

Ebrek and Quint exchange words in dwarvish and Ebrek abruptly refers to him as half-dwarf. Watc knows the epithet is correct, that Quint’s ancestral heritage is one of bred slavery, either from Thay or Zakahra.

Quint claims the fellow laid out in the snow with a fatal pick axe wound was tracking the party. The recently deceased human wears a red robe and wields a mean-looking magical kris dagger [+1]. Watc determines the two level five scrolls he carried are to contact another plane and for scrying. In short, this dead fellow was capable of messing foes up in a big way but instead got taken out by Quint with a pick, no problem. He also had a note encoded in an unknown language and a pouch of dust.

The party discusses with Quint their mission from Winter Watch to check on earthquake-stricken Ysenthorp and Quint indicates they have managed to turn a one day journey into a two day journey. On that topic, the party thanks Quint for the hospitable breakfast but they really must be on their way. Quint begs to differ and forecasts impassible windy conditions. Barika examines the sky and concurs. Quint invites the six travellers inside his sheltering tower and sees to the comfort of the giant mountain goats.

Quint passes around tea and the party warms up around his fire. Luther plays Lament of Lady Winter by request of their taciturn host.

The adventurers fill the time by sharing their life stories. Quint has not seen a warforged before so Watc, rescued from dull menial labor at Quastarte, is a real treat in that regard. Lissy reveals some details of her misspent past heisting a wealthy duke before she was sentenced to doing good. Ebrek once ran twenty-five miles to warn his clan of an orc attack but then ran the twenty-five miles back again to settle at Glamhoth dal e’ Anto because he liked it so much. Briar selflessly wants only to protect others and found fulfillment in the spellguard corps. Barika was in fact raised by wolves and is strongly bonded to the ones who don’t attack her. She is about to make fast friends with Jaws.

Jaws, Quint’s big dog, startles everyone but Quint when he thuds into the door and scratches to come in and doze by the fire. There is something really unusual about Jaws. It occurs to Barika he is probably fey.

Lissy’s curiosity isn’t curtailed by Quint’s reticence or his ability to pickaxe high level wizards. She probes a number of subjects and learns he was orphaned, enslaved by the red wizards of Thay who abused the “half-breeds”. Quint was eventually called to escape to this area by the winter wind. Jaws has been his companion for thirty years. He regards Winter Watch as meddling wizards blithely tapping into a high concentration of leylines, causing the recent earthquakes and related problems and disturbing the balance of nature.

Quint helps Lissy win 10 gp in a dice game against Ebrek by flipping Ebrek’s die from winning to losing. That prank doesn’t escape Ebrek’s attention, but he pays up good-naturedly. Lissy’s triumph disappears like her die when Quint sprinkles a tiny amount of the dust from the red wizard’s pouch on it.

Quint makes some meat pies and climbs out the roof hatch to yell at the wind in elvish. Watc can’t hear the yelling and Ebrek can’t understand the elvish, but Ebrek mimics the sounds well enough for Watc to work out that Quint is having a disagreement with his mother. “What would you have me do?” Watc translates. It’s the sort of awkward, eavesdropping situation about which social contract requires complete avoidance of discussion. 

Upon Quint’s return Lissy inquires, what’s going on with that whole mother / god / winter wind situation just then on the roof? And why elvish? Watc picks up that Quint is a mul: half dwarf, half fey.

The storm slightly abates late in the afternoon and Quint stands up to leave. Although reluctant to leave for a two day journey this late in the day, hanging around the tower any longer seems potentially ingracious. But it so happens Quint is headed in the vaguely Ysenthorp direction and accompanies the party. 

Quint’s surreal strides easily match the pace of the giant mountain goats and within mere hours the party finds itself at the edge of a bluff. Ysenthorp nestles in the valley below. Quint is gone.

Watc provides an extemporaneous lesson on the origins and sociology of the fey, emphasizing the caution needed when accepting their hospitality and verbal contracts. She invents a hand signal to warn the party for future encounters with creatures she can identify as fey.

The party threads through a dense forest to get to enter Ysenthorp. Lissy reports glimpsing a white wolf with green things.

In town, Ebrek and Barika secure the goats in the ruins of a building beside the town tavern. Upon entering the tavern they are met by Abbey, purveyor of libations. To Ebrek’s disappointment, Abbey’s tavern has no agreement to distribute Marley’s Marvelous Mead. She just has Alpine Ale, stew, bread, and jam. She now also has top-tier bagpiping, courtesy of Luther. 

Mechanical Watc draws accustomed curious attention, warforged apparently being unheard of in this area. A couple of men gesticulate at Lissy and she demands whether they have a problem, drow apparently being somewhat heard of in this area. Ebrek enjoins with some bellicose dwarven jibber jabber, whipping the two men into an agitated state. Briar, just realizing he’s in charge of the this mission, needs to talk to these men about the earthquake damage. Luther persuades Ebrek to visit the tavern across the road where they clearly display a glowing advertisement for Marley’s.

Ebrek, victim of Luther’s practical joke once again, charges across the road and barges into a home demanding mead from some startled citizens armed with their constitutionally-protected longsword. Ebrek apologizes and repairs their broken door.

Tensions are still a bit high back in the tavern. Watc signals to Briar that the men’s drinks are low giving Briar an opening to introduce himself with some purchased ale. He explains they are from the university visiting to gather some information about the local earthquake damage.

Bert’s flock of twelve sheep disappeared without a trace when the earthquake struck. No blood, no tracks, no sheep. His barn, south of town just past a large oak tree, collapsed into a lean-to which isn’t even half as good as a barn.

Sheriff Stan, Bert’s pal, suffered broken vases and cracks, but, as a carpenter and lawman, his livelihood isn’t threatened. Mostly he’s puzzled because the area never had an earthquake before. He refers Briar to Eugene who reported seeing spirits eating the sheep.

Ebrek and Barika, outside the tavern, observe a blue light in a tree down the road. Then it’s gone.

It’s too late to bother Eugene or walk out to Bert’s so Luther negotiates with Abbey to let them sleep on the tavern floor for the night in exchange for an encore performance the next evening.

The next morning Abbey returns to the tavern and makes breakfast. Stan wanders in and puzzles over Bert’s unusual absence. The party departs to investigate Bert’s missing sheep and missing self. From some distance off Luther can see a lot of blood outside the lean-to. Watc finds no evidence under the lean-to, but Barika follows the bloody tracks to Bert’s body. Watc can see that Bert stabbed himself multiple times, at least once fatally.

Ebrek sees the same blue light off in the trees. He and Lissy try to run it down but it zaps Lissy a bit senseless and she begins to despair. Briar, realizing their vulnerability, calls to have them regroup rather than pursue the light on their own. All agree that more information is needed so Briar collects Bert’s remains and they return to town.

Stopping off to meet Eugene, Briar breaks the bad news about Bert. Eugene has observed the blue lights, up to three at a time and primarily south of town, coincident with the earthquake.

Stan doesn’t take the news or Bert’s demise well, especially at the implication that Bert could have been in so much despair. He agrees to Briar’s suggestion to call a town meeting so that the citizens will know what they face.

Watc elucidates the assembled townsfolk upon will-o’-wisps, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a positive disposition and not chasing after them. Luther buys a round of ale for everyone for the after-party, carefully keeping the receipt for his expense report, and attempts to elevate the town’s mood with some bagpiping.

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Magic User Goat Man

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The adventurers awaken to a new day. The sun is up and the townsfolk are already gathering to memorialize Bert and rhubarb about their recent problems. 

Sheriff Stan blames the will-o’-wisp infestation and Bert’s subsequent despairing death on the earthquake, but he might be persuaded to blame the earthquake on these newcomers and their meddlesome university.

Lissy, exchanging combative glares with the townies from the shady comfort of the tavern doorway, asks the question on everyone’s mind: what’s the deal with those will-o’-wisps? All eyes turn to Watc who retrieves a tome from her pack and drops some ancient knowledge: will-o’-wisps are malevolent, wispy balls of light that haunt lonely places and battlefields, bound by dark fate
or dark magic to feed on fear and despair. They are neither living nor dead. In combat they resist much and are immune to some.

Outright defeat of the will-o’-wisps in combat sounds increasingly unlikely so the adventurers contemplate how to determine, locate, and eliminate the recent, earthquake-induced source. Sheriff Stan at that very moment yells out whether anyone has seen Vanwalt today? Vanwalt has a farm south of town near Bert and Eugene, known hotbed of will-o’-wisp activity. Sometimes the universe is suspiciously accommodating.

Briar requests Eugene’s help getting to the Vanwalt farm, but Eugene suddenly remembers an old dragonchess injury that makes it difficult for him to travel between town and his will-o’-wisp surrounded home. But he gives excellent country directions for anyone familiar with camel-stomach-turn conversions of curvilinear distances.

The party arrives at the Vanwalt farm around midday. Barika’s high metabolism demands nourishment, but she doesn’t care for the mini sweet peppers the party brought. 

Two buildings sit where the road tees at an intersection dividing fields and groves with low stone walls. Lissy, expecting trouble, conceals herself. De facto leader Briar, approaching the main house to knock on the door in accordance with the ethics and morals of the times, notices a bright blue glow emanating from the adjacent storage barn and calls out. Ebrek, eager to break off some will-o’-wisp, rides up to the storeroom but is distracted by the sound of branches breaking in some trees across the road.

A creepy figure, resembling a goat man, creeps from the hedges. He gesticulates magically and several stone golems form from the low stone walls and the wall of the storeroom to attack Ebrek, Watc, and Briar. Lissy calls for help and, with Barika, makes a goatline directly for the Magic User Goat Man. Briar holds off the golems. Ebrek disengages from a pair of golems to charge for MUGM, but an Ordinary Goat Man pops from the stone wall directly in his path and is knocked over by Ebrek’s charging giant mountain goat.

MUGM yells at Lissy and Barika’s giant mountain goats to be afraid and flee uncontrollably, so they do that taking Lissy and Barika far away from the battle as MUGM puts Lissy fast asleep. Barika slaps Lissy awake and warns her to stay that way or next time she gets the axe.

MUGM strides forward attended now by two OGM, one of them carrying what might be a mummified body over his shoulder. Luther recognizes the party might be significantly outclassed by MUGM and keeps his distance while warming up dissonant whisper to cover a general retreat. Briar and Watc disengage from the golems to converge upon MUGM. Ebrek transforms to a bobcat and pounces from goatback to attack. Briar and Ebrek receive telepathic warnings that their blood is not a necessary tithe. Ebrek cares little for subtle warnings, but the arcing bolt of lightning from MUGM, on the other hand, has some effect. One of the OGMs picks up Ebrek’s toasty, smoking, beaten to dwarven form and tosses it out of their way as they advance toward the storeroom.

Briar and Watc disengage and prepare to retreat. Ebrek transforms to badger to dig his way to safety. Luther picks that moment to dissonant whisper MUGM into briefly fleeing a piercing psychic headache, but MUGM collects himself and retaliates with a bolt of lightning streaking past Watc, deftly avoiding the path between them, that leaves Luther clinging to life, his hair and beard on end trying to ungratefully flee their host. Luther also receives a telepathic warning not to interfere further.

Lissy and Barika get their goats stopped and turn back to rejoin the other party members who have put some distance between the goat men and their inexorable march to Vanwalt’s storeroom. The golems arrange themselves outside protectively as the goat men enter. With a thrum of power the blue light extinguishes and the golems crumble. All is quiet.

The party, minus burrowing Ebrek, cautiously circles the storeroom to peer through the crumbled wall. The storeroom is unexpectedly empty of blue lights and goat men so Lissy and Watc enter to make a more thorough investigation. Watc determines that indeed a portal has just closed, but cannot determine where to or wherefore. 

Barika and Briar enter the adjacent house, not expecting to find Vanwalt alive or at all. Barika’s fears seem partially founded when she sees some boots hanging over a loft edge. She calls out and Briar climbs the loft to discover the boot wearer merely asleep. Briar awakens boot wearing Vanwalt Dergable with a generous portion of laying on hands, but Vanwalt is not nearly as relieved at being alive as Briar expected. Rather, Vanwalt is alarmed at the strangers in his house and, oh yeah, his missing ring finger, now a gushing mess of blood, where he used to keep his family crest ring. He’s quite sure he had both when he fell asleep and is especially upset about the loss of the ring. Sensing this is a good time to saturate in some more bad news, Briar explains to Vanwalt his storeroom wall was broken down by some golem-making goat men. And Bert is dead.

Vanwalt is upset all over again at Bert’s death; Bert owed him money. Matter of fact, Vanwalt suspects Bert arranged the whole goat man thing and his own death to escape the debt. 

It takes Briar and Barika a little while to steer the conversation back to the object of interest, the missing family ring. Vanwalt insists the Dergable family ring is nothing fancy, just featuring the family blimp crest. They’ve been settled on this land long before there was an Ysenthorp.

Luther inquires whether the recent earthquake caused any damage to Vanwalt’s homestead. Just some cracks here and there, nothing compared to the damage caused by golems forming themselves out of his walls, coincidently repaired with worked stones he found plowing his fields.

Barika and Ebrek, natives of the area, get a closer look at the golem stones. Barika discovers they are not only worked stones, but in fact are pieces of grave markers. That’s a compelling lead by any standard.

Lissy offers to stay with Vanwalt to assess and record earthquake damage and to protect him against further extradimensional incursions while the rest of the party follows up on the new lead to investigate the southern field where the gravestones were found.

Out in Vanwalt’s field the party easily finds exposed stonework. Ebrek immediately notices a stone staircase descending into the ground. Although no one can see or hear them, Briar detects creatures below within thirty feet.

---

Tyran

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Barika, Briar, Lissy, Ebrek, Watc, and Luther loiter around Vanwalt’s field at a hole in the ground, opened, presumably, by recent earthquake activity. It’s the stairs leading down to numerous creatures detectable by Briar as evil or good, possibly undead or worse, that pose the existential quandary.

A halfling introducing himself as Tyran steps out of some bushes, conspicuous to Watc in his brazen solitude in this perilously goat man infested area. Ebrek hurls insult-laced demands at Tyran to which he replies, hello. Luther and Briar intercede diplomatically and exchange some preliminaries with Tyran, who is in the area conducting his own investigations. He observed the magic user goat man and company, who gave the party such what for earlier that day, emerge from the hole with the wrapped body.

The adventurers, finding themselves potentially aligned with Tyran, adjourn a safe distance from the hole to rest and palaver. Briar retrieves Lissy from Vanwalt’s and she, with typical directness, coaxes Tyran into revealing he is a Harper. His investigations center on recent portals to the plane of Pandemonium.

Watc explains all about Pandemonium with emphasis on its most infamous resident, the Winter Queen, and her Unseelie Court. Tyran speculates that the wisps may be released into Ysenthorpe by the portals but it’s not clear to anyone how the ancient tomb of Amabilis Habundia, aka the hole, might be related to the portals. Watc, continuing in prime expositional form, explains that Amabilis Habundia was the legendary midwife responsible for the birth of the archfey into the mortal realm.

With that excellent lead from Tyran, Briar reciprocates by recounting the earlier events vis-à-vis the MUGM and accomplices leaving through a portal in Vanwalt’s storeroom with a mummy and possibly Vanwalt’s finger ring complete with ring finger.

Ebrek is raring to bust up whatever lurks in Habundia’s tomb so Luther pushes him to the front and he glides gracefully down the ice-slicked stairs announcing all is clear to the first room. 

Lissy follows Ebrek down less gracefully but has the courtesy to caution the group that, first, there is definitely ice on these stairs and, second, there are definitely two spriggan skeletons lurking in the corners of the room. After a brutal sneak attack that collapses the bones in a flash of green light, she updates her warning: one spriggan skeleton lurking in the corner of the room.

Briar follows next, staying on his feet only because of Lissy’s warning. He spots the skeleton in the dim light and treats it to his righteous morningstar. The skeleton returns a green magic missile at Briar. Tyran and Watc join against the skeleton at range with an arrow and magic missiles and it collapses with a green flash. 

Spiders, one black and one green, descend from the ceiling and bite Lissy and Tyran poisonously. Ebrek transforms to a wolf and engages with the black spider, Tyran pulls out dual short swords and takes on the green spider. The spiders don’t like these odds and scamper away on the ceiling, pursued by Watc. 

Swinging her staff across the ceiling, Watc doesn’t noticed the pressure plate beneath her feet and is hit by several poisoned darts which seem to have less effect than anticipated. Luther lights a torch and Barika finds a trip wire on the opposite side of the room from the pressure plate down another hall. Lissy disarms both in a single movement.

Briar searches through the bone heaps and accidentally sets off a green gem hitting himself with a magic missile. Tyran recovers a green gem from the other bone heap. Tyran fires a parting arrow at the green spyder. Lissy disappears against the wall and even wolf Ebrek can’t sniff her out.

Luther continues down the hallway beyond the disarmed pressure plate and Barika takes the other hallway beyond the disarmed trip wire. Luther emerges into a room around a single sarcophagus. The sarcophagus would be scary enough without the surrounding crowd of a pair of spriggan skeletons, a pair of spiders, and a pair of skeletons that may have been goat men armed with great axes. Luther’s surprised pose is captured as he’s restrained by a web shot from one of the spiders. He yells a warning back down the hallway summoning Wolf Ebrek who charges in to engage with spriggan skeleton Red. Briar, shield raised against being webbed himself, attacks Luther’s webbing with his torch and it starts to burn off. Tyran and Watc combine forces again to volley arrows and magic missiles into the skeleton goat man Yellow, visible from the cover of the hallway. They work like a well oiled machine and her agile friend. Enraged Barika enters the opposite side of the room and goes to work on the other spriggan skeleton, Purple.

Yellow comes chopping at Luther drawing the intervention of Lissy, Tyran, Watc, and Briar who draws off Yellow’s attacks. The web burns off Luther who collapses unconscious. Lissy scores a double dagger critical sneak attack on Yellow and drops him. Briar lays hands on Luther bringing him reluctantly back to awareness.

Tyran switches to short swords and joins up with Ebrek against Red to take it out. Watc spreads magic missiles to the remaining four trying to find a weak link and is rewarded when green spider collapses from the blue missile. Barika becomes the focus of the remaining crypt defenders and she concentrates on axe-wielding skeleton goat man Green. Lissy joins in and wolf Ebrek knocks Green down.

Green regains his verticality and swings his great axe right for Lissy, but Luther derides his axe swinging abilities and he just misses. Watc and Lissy heap damage on Green, but Luther charges across the room rapier first and takes credit for the kill. Dragonborn Barika ice breaths spriggan skelly Purple impressively as Lissy dances by, stabbing black spider dead and then Purple.

The hostilities ended, Ebrek transforms from wolf back to bombastic dwarf. He digs a green gem out of one of the bone heaps. Watc liberates one of the great axes from the bone pile goat men, sure that it has some magical significance to be studied later. Briar and Tyran search the tomb for its hidden secrets but it’s Barika who finds a bloody ring in the lid of that sarcophagus.

A blue skeletal ghost appears when Barika picks up the ring. Ankou, as the ghost will introduce himself, is a sworn eternal guardian of the lady Habundia, or was before her remains were removed by ring bearing MUGM. It turns out that one can do just about anything around Ankou, even contrary to his oath, just so long as one has the ring. When confronted with that loophole, Ankou shrugs and points out that possession is 9/10ths of the law making kidnapping a corpse 1/10th at best.

Ankou becomes suddenly interested in the wall behind the party. Luther, a prankster himself, knows Ankou just wants them all to turn around so he can leave. But in fact, locals Barikan and Ebrek realize Ankou refers to the fluctuating leylines around Glamhoth dal e’ Anto that have recently caused such disruption to the area.

The party has much to ponder for the evening and Tyran, evidently expected elsewhere, is subtly checking his sundial. Ankou assures them of their safety for the night in the tomb, courtesy of the undead guardians, so long as they control the ring.

---

Waylaid From Ysenthorp

---

Resting under Ankou’s guardianship in the midwife’s tomb is the safest anyone will be all day.

The party crowds into the unexplored corridor at the opposite end of the tomb. Tyran reveals a pressure plate that activates several poisoned darts and he mumbles something about “glancing for traps” as he slips into an unconscious death spiral from the poison. Watc jumps over Tyran’s crumpled heap but can’t see well enough in the darkness to identify the trap. Luther drags Tyran back into the corridor and they hear the plate reset. Briar lays hands on Tyran returning him to consciousness, albeit in no hurry to stand. Ebrek jams some goodberries into Tyran’s gob for good measure. Lissy slides up to the trap, intoning, “I’m a thief!” and toes a piton under the plate with no effort at all. Barika demonstrates her confidence in Lissy by bouncing her dragonborn barbarian carriage upon the jammed plate.

Luther helps wobbly Tyran back down to Ankou’s chamber to rest. In the course of chatting with Ankou, they realize he can perceive the recent portal activity the same way he sees the disruption of magical leylines far beyond the tomb. The pattern of portals around Ysenthorp suggests a methodical search and, now that that the activity has ceased, a successful find. No surprise there.

Luther uncovers an amazingly valuable amulet of absorption [reduces damage by 1 point per attack, maximum reduction 5 points per round] that earlier searches somehow missed, but possibly it only works when Toril is in a specific position around its sun.

Meanwhile Watc, Briar, Barika, Lissy, and Ebrek clear out a couple of remaining spiders from the tomb with Watc and Briar claiming those victories. Ebrek returns to Ankou with a mighty thirst for Marley’s Marvelous Mead. Ankou, powerful though he may be, can’t understand a word of Ebrek’s dialect of shortn’loud.

With the tomb cleared and Ankou mined for knowledge, the adventurers return to the surface where their giant mountain goats have managed to abide the harsh night without them. Ebrek’s goat, separated during the fight with MUGM the day prior, has not found its way back to the group so Ebrek transforms to a goat himself and goatless Tyran catches a reluctant ride from him as the adventurers return to Vanwalt’s farm house.

Vanwalt calmly accepts the news of the dangerous Ankou-guarded underground tomb. Barika returns his family ring sans finger, as he can’t help but notice. Vanwalt accompanies them to town.

Briar updates Sheriff Stan on what has been accomplished and learned. It just can’t be good news that MUGM found and absconded with the legendary midwife Amabilis Habundia, but at least the will-’o-wisp incursions have since subsided along with the portals. Sheriff Stan expresses his appreciation for their assistance.

The party departs midday, eager to return to the Villa, but elects to camp rather than press on straight through the night.

Briar and Ebrek, on the second watch of the evening, spot a troll sniffing toward the giant mountain goats. Ebrek shouts the camp awake, Troll! Troll! He tries to send over a shortbow arrow but his cold fingers jam on the bowstring. Luther can’t see anything but darkness beyond the campfire so he rolls over to go back to sleep, all too familiar with Ebrek’s bombastic excitability.

Lissy has no trouble seeing the troll lurking behind some rocks and casts dancing lights around it. Now Watc can see it well enough to strike with a magic missile volley. Lissy slips off to flank the troll and Tyran longbows it before it moves out of the illuminating dancing lights. Briar warns that it’s going for the goats and tosses a javelin ineffectively into the darkness. Ebrek transforms to a panther and circles around for a pounce.

Lissy puts more dancing lights on the troll and Watc plugs it with another round of magic missiles. Luther whispers at the approaching troll dissonantly and it shuffles away in pain, but hunger proves more powerful as it charges back into the middle of the tasty tethered goats where Barika was sleeping protectively. She swings the unidentified magical axe, looted from the goat men defeated in the tomb, and finds that it’s especially effective biting into the troll [+1 keen greataxe, +1 to hit, d12 +1 damage, 19 crit]. Briar joins beside her and his morningstar pierces the troll’s tongue rendering it magically inept. Panther Ebrek pounces on the troll and kicks off powerfully, but it’s Ebrek who is grievously clawed by the troll in the exchange.

Watc maintains a steady foomp, foomp, foomp of magic missiles. Luther invokes Tasha’s hideous laughter and the troll falls over laughing. Lissy makes an inspired offhand stab at the prone troll. Tyran hops onto Barika’s goat, Dory, but his longbow arrow can’t find its target. 

The troll regains its senses, rising to swipe Lissy and Barika and to bite Briar. This enrages Barika assisting Briar to smack it with his morningstar again. Panther Ebrek tries another pounce but is fatally rebuffed by troll claws, reverting him to dwarven form. Watc’s missiles strike again and Luther’s dissonant whispers finish the troll. Forever.

Lissy loots some yucky bones from the troll and Tyran attempts to calm and lead the goats away, but they’ll have none of it.

The dead troll gasps back to life, stands, and strikes down Watc’s goat, Billie. The troll starts to walk off with its cabrito prize, but Lissy stabs it out and the troll crumples again. Barika gapes at the apparently immortal troll. Briar thinks the troll needs to be burned up, but his first attention is to restore stricken Billie. Lissy dashes a lit torch to the troll, setting it afire and adead, this time for real.

Briar summons a huddle at the fire, but Watc has gone unexpectedly missing. Barika finds drag marks into some trees which they follow. Lissy points out a slim blue light visible through the trees.

Tyran arrives at the light first and sees a figure still crouched over still Watc. The figure flees, blue light emitting from a vial he’s carrying, and Tyran gives chase. Ebrek regains panther form and streaks through the trees to tackle the figure, pinning him with a non-lethal paw firmly on his red robe wearing face. Tryan holds a dagger to the figure’s throat but he rolls free. Panther Ebrek pins him again and hoses him down with copious panther pee.

Briar sees to Watc’s well-being. He gently shakes her awake and she seems completely fine, other than the sensation that someone was meddling around at the location of her warforged appendix.

Luther recognizes the pee-soaked, red-robed, pinned figure as incriminatingly similar to the menacing red wizard of Thay, slain by Bartolo Quint a few nights ago. When the figure refuses to identify himself, Luther skewers him nonlethally. Tyran tries to nonlethally kick the vial out of the wizard’s hands, but he grasps the vial tightly and casts a spell.

Barika and Panther Ebrek are still nonlethally beating on the wizard when Luther stops them and persuades them that the red wizard is actually their ally. Luther helps the red wizard to his feet and dusts him off. 

Luther’s sudden reversal doesn’t make a lot of sense to anyone else, but he is especially convincing. Whether Tyran realizes that Luther is enthralled or just gets impatient with this ridiculous plan to free the red wizard, he ignores Luther’s advocacy and stabs the wizard in his last remaining unpunctured organ with unequivocal lethality. The wizard dies leaving behind a vial, many unanswered questions, and bewildered Luther.

---

Urmerrderrur

---

The adventuring party stands around contemplating the unconscious red wizard of Thay dying in the snow. While they debate whether to wake him for questioning or let him freeze to death, Luther helps himself to the wizard’s red cloak, waist chain, and whistle. Luther binds the wizard, who is now freezing to death twice as fast without his cloak, with rope. Barika readies a smack on the mouth with the flat of her axe if the wizard begins to utter an incantation. Ebrek takes a final poll of interrogation versus abandonment and, finding all the others on the side of interrogation, takes the opposite view just to have some lively debate. Lissy persuades Ebrek to be less contrary so Briar lays hands on the wizard.

Flax, as the wizard will introduce himself, wakens with antagonism. Watc inquires what Flax took from her, referring to the sensation that her side had been meddled with when he kidnapped her. Flax doesn’t deny the intrusion and intimates that the heart crystal is the best part of a warforged, a dubious assertion that nevertheless has everyone convinced, especially Watc. Flax goes on to not explain the purpose of the blue vial, only recommending that it not be emptied into the snow. Watc’s own examination confirms the potion’s magical nature, but finds that it is strangely none of the classical magic specializations.

Lissy turns on of all her intimidating charm to learn Flax’s purpose. He claims to be self-employed at stealing the valuable warforged for her market value. Luther points out that Flax isn’t the first red wizard they’ve encountered and Flax admits to his association with the red wizards of Thay. Ebrek grabs Flax’s nose and demands to know his hiding place. Flax indicates a direction into the trees and off runs Ebrek, dropping Flax’s head back into the snow. Since martial questioning isn’t yielding profound results, Briar attempts to command the wizard’s friendship. Flax is not going for it.

The sound of hounds chewing on a belligerent dwarf simultaneously struck by four magic missiles off in the woods reaches Barika’s ears. Leaning on her axe, she points out that someone really ought to go help Ebrek. Thus delegated, Lissy slips into the darkness.

Lissy finds Ebrek. Her double daggers join his double-handed axe against the two double-headed, red-armored hounds. The hounds get the best of weakened Ebrek who drops from the onslaught.

Luther, wearing Flax’s red cloak, strides confidently through the dark forest toward the perceived source of magic missiles. In his finest doddering wizarding accent, he loudly demands to know the meaning of this outrageous intrusion. Luther careens right into an invisible red wizard. 

The now-visible, hound-siccing, missile-shooting red wizard quickly concludes Luther is not Flax and tells him so. Luther indignantly reminds her that he is Flax’s supervisor, but she is quick to counter that in fact she is Flax’s supervisor. Luther counter counters that he is her supervisor, whatever her name is, check and mate. But she’ll have none of that and brushes past him.

Barika finds Ebrek and Lissy and calms the hounds, already somewhat mollified by Luther experimentally blowing the looted dog obedience whistle. Ebrek miraculously recovers himself and hops up, finishing the gratuitous dwarven curse he had begun before he was slain. He strikes at the placated hounds undoing Barika’s animal handling.

Briar leaves Watc guarding Flax who might otherwise get free to resume his mischief. Briar sees the hounds drop wobbly Ebrek for a second time as Lissy holds them off. Briar lays hands on Ebrek. Ebrek tries to stagger away, but the hounds take him down for a third time. Briar gets him back up and then follows the sounds of Luther pleading with the departing red wizard to tell him her name which she reluctantly divulges: Urmerrderrur. Yikes.

When Urmerrderrur casts a spell at Luther, he gets almost very sleepy, but not quite. He tries unsuccessfully to grab her and bean her with his torch as she flees. Watc puts some magic missiles on her as she goes by. True to her name, Urmerrderrur sends a fireball that incinerates Flax, drops Watc, and does no small harm to Briar. Unable to keep stride because of his encumbering winter parka, Luther casts Tasha’s hideous laughter and stops Urmerrderrur’s withdrawal for a moment while Briar brings Watc back from the great recycling bin beyond.

Meanwhile Lissy has managed to slay one hound, but the other takes down Barika. Ebrek maintains consciousness just long enough to ice knife the hound before it takes him down as well. Lissy strikes and jumps away from the hound to draw it off Ebrek and Barika, but with both of her meat shields on the ground the hound runs her down too.

Briar calls for a general retreat and runs to Ebrek for another laying on of hands. Watc runs to gather the goats for a hasty departure. Urmerrderrur extracts herself from the laughter spell and flies into the air, vowing revenge on the losers.

Just then Tyran, absent on ill-timed Harper business, emerges from the trees to cure Lissy and draw off the hound. Ebrek makes some goodberries and gets Barika vertical again. Lissy makes two excellent stabs on the hound and puts it out of Ebrek’s misery.

The party collects itself around the campfire and elects to remain at this hard-won camp for the night rather than chance what awaits them in the forest. Briar and Luther complete the next watch uneventfully. Lissy, insisting that four hours of meditation is quite enough rest for her, takes the last watch. Lissy’s watch is also uneventful right up until Briar rolls out of his sack ready to start the new day and his coat pocket, where Flax’s blue vial was stored, explodes, filling the camp with mephits.

---

Vis

---

If anything is worse than awakening by an explosion of mephits from your clothing then maybe it’s to suddenly appear in someone’s glass-filled pocket, expel with several other mephits trying unsuccessfully to occupy the same space, and suffer brutal attacks by complete strangers in the first six seconds of existence. Even so, the mephits filling the camp of wakening adventurers find the verve to tee-hee treacherously.

Lissy, Briar, and Barika throw themselves at the ring of mephits while Tyran sends a volley of arrows and Watc sprays magic missiles, exploding a dust mephit into an obscuring cloud of, well, dust. Ebrek summons a flame blade and sinks it into an ice mephit, exploding it into ouchy shards of ice. Luther tries to imagine what mephits hate and conjures an illusory troll of fire, ice, and poison but the mephits are undaunted, preferring instead to claw, frost, and cinder cone the adventurers and their goats.

Lissy’s dual daggers make a dust mephit bite the dust. Barika axes an ice mephit and it explodes into Watc’s visual sensor array, blinding her. Undiscouraged, Watc unslings her quarterstaff and whacks a smoke mephit with Lissy’s guidance. Plucky Briar throws himself at the goats’ assailants. Tyran switches to short swords and joins Barika in taking out another ice mephit. 

Watc reboots her sensors and lines up burning hands on the three goat-sucking mephits, critically exploding one. Ebrek flame blades a second ice mephit. Luther makes a poor mocking of an ice mephit and the mephit’s cousin mocks Luther’s poor mocking. Luther loves a good insult, even one directed at him, and rewards his mocker with a dissonant whisper that psychically explodes it.

A mephitic breath of ice frost catches Briar and Watc and drops Luther’s goat, Ducati. Lissy avenges Ducati with a couple of ice-picking stabs and, inspired by Luther, narrowly avoids being blinded with ice shards. Briar smashes an ice mephit with his morning star. Tyran’s short swords take out a smoke mephit as he switches back to his shortbow. 

Barika makes a running javelin toss at the last remaining smoke mephit but it sails over. Watc concentrates an impressively fierce scorching ray but the fire damage has no effect. Ebrek swings his flaming sword also to no effect. The lonely smoke mephit reckons his foes will eventually puzzle out his damage type and so he flees into the cold forest to become the hero of his own story.

No one can figure out how to repair Watc so the party rests for an hour while Luther plays a soothing winter solstice hymn.

Ebrek, manically tapping his chin, is the first to notice Bartolo Quint lounging at the campfire and greets him laconically. Lissy, intimidated by nothing, opens diplomatically, What are you doing here? Bartolo obscurely refers to some interesting things the party has, prompting speculation and an exhaustive inventory of everything encountered or collected since their last parley. Bartolo clarifies: he’s talking about the vis \ˈwēs\. Ebrek, always eager to ingratiate, exuberantly declares, I don’t know what vis is I love the vis what’s the vis?? If Watc was ever sure of anything, it’s that she also doesn’t know what vis is, but she does know its etymology is related to power.

Bartolo declares this situation is no longer a game; where is the vis? Once Luther eventually determines that Bartolo’s “vis” might look exactly like a vial of blue liquid, he points accusingly at Briar. Briar recounts the tale of the vial recovered from the red wizard who kidnapped and possibly fiddled with Watc. Bartolo makes a quick tomographic assessment of Watc and declares she’s complete. Lissy speculates maybe something was getting added to Watc which seems plausible to Bartolo, but he again assures Watc she is complete, nothing more and nothing less.

Complete Watc cuts to the chase, What’s the vis for, beyond inconveniently hatching mephits? Bartolo explains that vis is the condensation of pure magic from the confluence of extreme cold and the nexus of magical leylines in the exact combination found at Villa Glamhoth dal e’ Anto, useful for all manner of boosting magic. He speculates that someone at the villa is working with the red wizards of Thay to furnish them with vis, and this nefarious activity ties in with the earthquakes and perhaps even the MUGM’s theft of midwife Amabilis Habundia’s entombed body. Watc recalls the incident in Professor Fris’ laboratory when an icy explosion spewed mephits all over the villa.

These revelations are interrupted when Jaws, Bartolo’s lupine companion, pads up with a bit of red cloak in his maw. Bartolo retrieves a vial of vis from the mess and, sniffing the cloth, determines the former owner was none other than their new former nemesis, Urmerrderrur. Small world.

Bartolo directs the adventurers to lay out their weapons in the snow. He chills the cloth with a bit of his wintergreen breath and uses it to apply the vis to the items, uttering sylvan encouragement to the metal, bone, and other materials until they are infused with magical power [+1 weapons] and items.

The adventurers part company with Bartolo. Tyran, ranging denizen of the mountains, leads them back to the villa without even the possibility of getting lost, to the great irritation of usurped and perpetually lost Ebrek. 

The goats are returned to Yjjentc, relieved after fearing the worst when Ebrek’s goat found its own way home days earlier.

At the villa, the group catches up with Flur in the ♪courtyard♪ and arranges a private meeting with her. 

Briar informs Flur of their entire adventure, omitting only direct references to Bartolo Quint. When Briar unveils their conclusion that someone at the villa is working to supply the red wizards of Thay with the concentrated blue magic vis, Flur, incredulous that anyone at the villa might be so duplicitous and that the pesky blue glowing fungus in the mine might be anything more than a nuisance, reproachfully mocks the group for their fanciful mission creep, rapidly flinging many clever urban puns from the pronunciation of “vis”. She eventually winds down allowing Luther the opportunity to persuade her of at least the potential of a conspiracy that could jeopardize all civilization. Flur concedes and commits to begin her own discrete investigation, immediately departing to examine this so-called vis in the mines.

Luther, though confident of Flur’s fidelity, volunteers to invisibly trail her. Briar bolsters his heroic confidence and Ebrek bolsters his eyesight. Invisible Luther finds Flur collecting her gear. She heads directly for the mine, offering plausible excuses to the villa guards as she passes.

Inside the mine, Flur draws her sword and turns on invisible Luther. Luther appears and pleads to the doctrine of trust but verify. They proceed down the passage to a fork where Flur recalls with certainty the way to the blue liquid is now solid rock, solid to the touch. Maybe it’s just coincidental earthquake damage.

Flur and Luther return from the mine and Luther confers with the rest of the party. Ebrek, familiar with the mine, confirms the changed layout from Luther’s description. There’s nothing left to do but turn in for the night and hope Flur is willing and able to shake something loose.

Hope is answered the next morning when Sir Moe springs a surprise inspection on the Spellguard barracks on the pretense of lax discipline. Moe and Briar exchange the subtlest of acknowledgements while all manner of mundane contraband is turned out. 

Outside, Barika and Ebrek discover the villa is unsurprisingly on lockdown. Ebrek argues with the guard to maintain the pretense of inconvenience, not to mention Ebrek’s reputation for conflict. 

Sir Moe follows the barracks inspection with a mandatory safety meeting for the villa’s civilian contingent during which Flur and other trustworthy spellguard are conspicuously occupied elsewhere. The intolerably tedious meeting ends immediately upon Flur’s return from doing certain deeds.

---

Ardak Battleboar

---

Sir Moe abruptly concludes the “safety meeting” once Flur concludes surreptitiously searching the civilian areas of the villa. 

Barika, finding the outer gates closed against her and Ebrek, calls it an early day and goes home to spend a rare day relaxing, not in imminent danger, with friends. To Ebrek, nothing relaxes more than hollering so he persists at the gates, issuing a continuous stream of dwarven imprecations until entry is again permitted around 2 pm. The marathon grousing induces a mighty thirst for Marley’s Marvelous Mead.

Rejoining the group in the common room after the safety meeting, Ebrek volunteers to check in with Flur and Sir Moe to learn the results of any covert searches that may or may not have just happened. Briar volunteers to accompany the truculent dwarf to apologize, muzzle, or restrain as needed. 

Briar and Ebrek find Sir Moe and Flur in Sir Moe’s closed office. Ebrek knocks three times and throws open the door. Sir Moe, no stranger to Ebrek’s consideration, does not bother to conceal the peculiar device on his desk but does firmly bid Ebrek to shush, close the door, and try not to break any furniture. Briar, sensing these requests may exceed Ebrek’s aptitude, starts to suggest he maybe go find some Marley’s Marve–. Ebrek is already gone, headed to the storeroom. Mead tester coming through! 

Sir Moe and Sir Briar, with the proverbial chain of command drawn taut between them, agree that Briar’s ragtag group have exceeded all expectations uncovering the secret existence of the vis supply under Quastarte’s custody. Briar now realizes their recent revelations are facts largely already known to Sir Moe, and Sir Moe wants to know how that information got out. Maybe it’s Tyran the Harper? Maybe there is … some other source? After a good, long Ummmmmmm, Briar spills the beans on their enigmatic Fey changeling informant, Bartolo Quint. Sir Moe infers that Bartolo must therefore be colluding with the red wizards of Thay, but Briar suggests this scenario is unlikely, considering the pickaxe-shaped hole in the first red wizard they encountered outside Bartolo’s cottage. Sir Moe concludes that the winter queen’s agent Bartolo Quint, the midwife-kidnapping MUGM, and the vis-wielding red wizards of Thay can’t all be coincidental occurrences, but he maintains confidence that Briar is not trying to ruin Quastarte, not intentionally at least.

Mutual trust restored, Sir Moe draws Briar’s attention to the device atop his desk: an eight inch square board drilled with a pattern of small holes and overlaid with a map of the mines. In the exact representative place where Flur and Ebrek remember a passage to the blue pools, now replaced by solid rock, four iron pins are stuck into the map. Sir Moe reveals the zinger: this device of geologic voodoo was discovered in the personal belongings of one Tyran the Harper who shall forthwith be the personal object of Briar’s uninterrupted attention.

Back in the common room meanwhile, Lissy, Tyran the Harper, Watc, and Luther pass the time playing Three-Dragon Ante. Lissy dominates handily, always drawing just the right dragon to win the gambit. The game breaks up as juniper and dwarven yak stew is brought out. 

Briar returns and whispers to Luther: Watch Tyran, Moe’s orders, Tyran has magical map blocking mine tunnel. While it’s true that Harper investigative methods seldom conform to the standards of law and order, Luther knows they invariably serve the purposes of good; the whispered implication is troubling to say the least.

Ebrek staggers in, refreshed from his storeroom mead-induced savasana amongst crates of Marley’s, and the group crowds around the table for supper, leaving absolutely no room at all for the elder dwarf who’s suddenly seated between Tyran the Harper and Lissy with room to spare.

Ardak Battleboar introduces himself pleasantly, and vaguely guarded chit chat ensues. Watc and Briar recognize him, if only by name, as a very important person from the university. 

Without any particularly leading context, Ardak vouches for Tyran the Harper: He is not the spy helping the red wizards. Ardak’s formidable presence, magical and otherwise, incite Luther to excuse himself for the chamber. He finds Sir Moe and reports the sudden Ardaking of supper. Sir Moe vouches for Ardak, forming a mobius loop of vouchworthiness.

Luther returns in time for a new game Ardak proposes involving a gadget that lights blue when a statement is true and red when a statement is false. Numerous tests are applied to discredit the gadget’s veracity, not to mention its ability to negotiate conundrums, until everyone is satisfied of its reliability. Ardak establishes that Tyran the Harper is, in fact, a Harper and in no way working against the university. This solidifies Tyran the Harper’s induction into the Hateful Eight.

Ardak solicits a retelling of the MUGM incident. He does not share Sir Moe’s conviction that the midwife incident is necessarily related to Bartolo Quint’s apparent interest in guiding and aiding the party’s investigations. Watc commends Bartolo’s assistance and Ardak proposes to make a point of meeting Bartolo.

Ardak excuses himself for the evening, intent on resting and baking dog biscuits in preparation for meeting Bartolo. He leaves them with encouragement that their fate will guide them to their destiny, or their destiny will guide them to their fate, either way they should just be themselves. Ebrek in particular embraces his validating council.

Left to their own devices, the party discusses the likely purpose of the map device Briar encountered. Watc would like the opportunity to examine whether the device might actually be used to configure the mine passages, as it would seem to imply. Luther would like competence at creating an illusion of the device, potentially handy for catching the culprit trying to set up Tyran the Harper. Ebrek would like to use a bear trap to catch said culprit planting the device when an inspection is announced, an excellent plan whose efficacy unfortunately peaked two days ago. 

Watc requests the device from Sir Moe who reports that Ardak took it with him. Watc redirects her request to Ardak, already retired to the VIP guest quarters. Ardak concedes to entrust it to her personally. They agree that removing the iron pins would likely have the expected effect of restoring the missing passage, but also agree that doing so merely to test this notion may be unwise.

Ardak asks whether Watc has any other questions for him. She recalls the incident when the red wizard Flax took an inconsiderate interest in her. Ardak demonstrates by slicing into Watc’s hand and squeezing out a bit of vis. He goes on to postulate that the reason for Watc’s wizardly talents, uncommon for warforged, might derive from this vis infusement. Ardak restores her vis and her hand.

With the evening growing old, the party sets aside the compelling desire to visit the mine right away and calls it a night.

The next morning, Ebrek dashes into the villa, barely escaping the Fey siege force assembling outside the gates. Spellguard rally to the wall to meet the goat men, armored constructs, and the MUGM himself. The MUGM is attended by a goat man carrying a wrapped body, like the first time they met him leaving the midwife’s tomb. MUGM hurls many nasty spells, keeping Professor Fris busily countering them.

A huge ugly goat man teleports into the villa next to Ebrek and prepares to punch him in the top of his head. Watc lays a few magic missiles on him. Luther mocks him. Ebrek’s hand suddenly grasps a flame blade which he buries into the beardless elf kisser. Lissy jams both daggers into him. Beastform Briar lands a morningstar on him. Tyran the Harper buries an arrow up to its feathering into him. Lissy encores with a perfectly placed dagger and the huge ugly goat man explodes in gore, red mist, and cheese-infused sausage balls. One down.

Panther-form Ebrek leaps up to the wall where an armored construct has managed to infiltrate. Briar brings along a searing smite, but the fellforged construct proves resistant to fire. It turns on Briar and attempts to absorb his life force. Tyran the Harper observes that bit of bad news and sends arrows in from a cautious distance. Panther Ebrek draws the attention of the fellforged away from Briar but his panther fitness is severely derated as the fellforged draws off its life force.

Fris sends great maelstroms of lightning through the attackers. Sir Moe throws a teleporting goat man assailant off the wall right at Watc. He regains his feet and swings his angry pike into Watc. He makes the uneccesary observation that, it kind of sucks to be you right now. That’s the next to last thing that goes through the goat man’s mind as an ordinary-looking spellguardsman leaps from the wall and kabobs the goat man with his pickaxe. 

The ordinary-looking spellguardsman warns Watc that this frontal attack is but a feint, why else would they attack outside the wall they could easily teleport through, that the real vulnerability is the mine, that Watc should probably lead her group to the mine, that this plan should be executed sooner rather than later, that Watc could probably just yell for Briar’s help to get his attention. The ordinary-looking spellguardsman leaps away to the top of the wall where he visits abundant havoc on the breaching fey invaders trying to murder the spellguard battle-cleric.

While Watc attracts Briar’s attention, Luther plays the university fight song with newly improvised lyrics advocating removal of the goat men’s horns by means of a serrated reciprocating blade. This nonsense inspires Briar and he safely extricates himself from the life-sucking fellforged. The party regroups and dashes for the mine entrance, hopefully not too late.

---

Idle Vis

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Acting on the advice of ordinary-looking spellguardsman Bartolo Quint, The Hateful Eight withdraw from the siege defense of Villa Glamhoth dal e’ Anto and regroup to dash to the mine to learn what mischief the axis of goat men and red wizards of Thay are cooking up in the vis pools.

Time is of the essence. When a goat man teleports into their path, Lissy heroically remains to cover their withdrawal by soloing the interloper. Naturally, she’s quickly and brutally slain. Possibly Sir Moe intercedes on her behalf, but there’s no time to learn her fate.

The party leaves out the keep’s postern and dashes down the valley past a fork to the cave entrance where Barika ineffectively hides. She reports trailing two goat men toting a wrapped body to the cave.

The party consults the map device and panther Ebrek as to whether the mine has a known second exit that might allow the evildoers to escape justice. The map silently reveals no such passage and panther Ebrek hisses an emphatic, No.

Barika and Luther notice a wolf with a crystalline mane observing their actions from some distance off in the valley and draw Watc’s and Tyran’s learned attentions to it. Watc and Tyran the Harper combine their knowledge, quickly determining the green-crystalled wolf is none other than a known incarnation of the fey summer queen as depicted in a poem. The summer queen is one of the the two most powerful people in Faerie, second only to the winter queen only in winter. Their mother, to put it mortally, is the midwife Amabilis Habundia of recent kidnapped-from-her-eternal-tomb-and-presumed-wrapped-in-burial-linen-and-thrown-over-goat-man-shoulder fame. The convergence is astonishing and frightening.

Briar, Barika, and Luther quietly enter the passage, carefully looking for traps. Ice along the passage has thickened, observes dwarf-form Ebrek, official guide of the Hateful Eight. He knows these mines like the back of his bulging, narrowing head. Ebrek pushes to the front where a bulge in the narrowing ice catches and freezes his axe to the wall and his hand to the axe and his other hand to the other wall.

Tyran the Harper reckons this ice, now encrusting over Ebrek’s frozen arms, is behaving perfectly reasonable for cave snow. Dubious Sir Briar detects magic and observes a fifteen foot section of bulging, abjurated, grabby ice. One man’s abjuration is another man’s evocation. Luther sucks in his ample carriage and slides carefully through the bulge to hold his torch under Ebrek’s bone-headed axe.

Although grateful for all the attention, Ebrek discovers the coldness makes it hurt to bellow dwarven curses from his lungs. He frees himself from the freeze by transforming to spider Ebrek, drops unharmed to the floor, and scuttles out of the bulge. The deprived ice bulge turns its unkind attention to Luther’s torch, hastening Luther’s side-stepping escape.

Example-setting Briar steps through the bulge without scraping. Barika barely fits her dragonborn bulk through. Small Tyran has an easy time of it. Watc’s low confidence isn’t boosted when she scrapes the ice on both sides and the ice bulge doesn’t even regard her as worthy to catch. Or is she too worthy to catch? No time to contemplate that now as Ebrek and Luther are eager to proceed.

Because of, or possibly despite, Ebrek’s claim he can see in the dark like a yeti can knit, the party successfully negotiates the uneventful, remaining passages which are surprisingly free of obstacles suited to Lissy’s special, yet unavailable, talents. They find themselves at the wall formerly known as the way to the blue stuff.

Prostrate Tyran discerns cloven footprints in the ice leading to / under / through the wall. Watc produces the map device from her luggage. Ebrek makes a pro forma motion to destroy the map, but everyone else intuits that the wall blocks the former passage because the iron pins stuck in the map holes make it that way.

Watc grasps the left pin and pulls it expectantly, but it is stuck. Ebrek suggests lubricating the pins with vis. Watc grasps the board while Barika pulls on the pin with mighty barbarian strength, but it remains firmly stuck and the board jerks from Watc’s hands. Ebrek suggests lubricating the pins with vis. Tyran the Harper grabs the map from Barika and ponders it. Ebrek suggests lubricating the pins with vis. Briar’s insight recalls to mind that someone recently suggested lubricating the pins with vis. Ebrek suggests lubricating the pins with vis. Luther holds his torch closer to the map while Watc examines it closely. Watc tries a hunch she has, slicing her hand the way Ardak did to release a little vis from her system onto the device. Barika pulls the left pin with unnecessary force and, when the pin comes out, the wall parts slightly. 

Watc gathers up the device parts once the wall is opened enough for the party to file through into a large chamber that only Ebrek can see across in the dark, despite a gentle blue glow from the large pool of vis. Attempts to remain hidden are sacrificed to the need for Luther, Tyran, Barika and Watc to see by torchlight. Ebrek loudly reminds everyone that he’s a good guide and declares OF COURSE I’M STEALTHY to Briar’s inquiry of the same. Ebrek wanders into the chamber to survey and describes in detail the multiple presumed-antagonistic ice things he can see that are even now turning their attention to the intruding party.

The four smaller ice things fight with icy stabbing. Briar defends himself against their attack. Luther positions himself next to Briar against an ice thing and discovers that wading into the vis pool grants enormous boons to magical prowess, allowing more castings and multiples of effect as he cures Briar’s wounds. Not one to bogart, Luther calls Watc over for a dip. She experiences similar results and is healed directly by the contact with vis. A tentacle of vis rises from the pool nearby and directs its formless, unmenacing attention at Watc. 

Barika figures, why not her? When she wades in, the vis affects her by enraging her against the ice things. She shoves Briar out of her way to get at one ice thing and chops at it with her magical axe.

Ebrek chooses panther form again, probably his favorite because the Quastarte mascot is the mighty Water Panther. Panthering doesn’t work out so great and an ice thing knocks the panther right out of Ebrek. 

Briar spends precious seconds laying his hands on Luther when the larger fey night thing sweeps its sword through the vis and knocks Luther out in a single one-handed blow. Luther avenges his concussion with a potent Tasha’s hideous laughter that drops the fey night thing laughing into the vis pool.

Watc, channeling enormous power from the vis, summons a mighty chromatic orb which overpowers her and explodes in her hands, placing her into standby mode at the bottom of the vis pool. Luther continues channeling vis-enhanced healing to restore and maintain Watc and Ebrek in fighting condition.

Tyran the Harper, using his just-right bow, neither too long nor too short, exploits the vis to magnify the effect of his hunter’s mark striking between Barika’s enhanced axe blows as she cleaves the first ice thing casualty. 

Briar, ever sensitive to the peril of others, commands “peace”, and the vis amplifies the command to all the ice things, briefly nullifying their attacks. 

Watc tries to form a second chromatic orb, but it doesn’t find the ice thing menacing Tyran. Ebrek draws a flame blade, drags it through the vis, and slays Wat’s target. Ebrek yells, You’re welcome! into Tyran’s overly-competent face.

Tyran the Harper shoots his next victim while Luther mocks it. This time Watc’s chromatic orb works perfectly, third time being the charm, and obliterates the ice thing. It explodes so violently that icy shrapnel strikes the adjacent ice thing Briar has searingly smote and the last ice thing drops leaving only the fey night thing, laughing uncontrollably, to deal with.

The prone fey makes easy pickings for Barika’s axe, Ebrek’s flaming sword, and Briar’s morningstar. They gather around pummeling it, amazingly not rousing it out of it’s Tasha-induced fit. Unfortunately, repeated contact of Ebrek’s flame blade with the vis generates several fire mephits for Tyran and Watc to contend with. Keep your sword out of the vis, soldier, admonishes Briar. Ebrek’s flame blade eventually puts the final blow on the fey. 

Watc’s magic missiles and Tyran’s hail of thorns, multiplied and amplified by vis, dissipate most of the mephits without too much fuss. Briar’s morningstar and a mighty critical hit from Barika’s axe clean up the remaining survivors.

---

The Ritual

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The adventurers explore around the vis cave, having vanquished their fey attackers and the resulting vis mephits. 

The summer queen wolf, identified earlier by Watc, follows them into the cave and drops dead Lissy into the vis pool with a splash. Lissy coughs back to life.

Briar greets the summer queen wolf, bowing respectfully as one does, and thanks her for preserving Lissy. She assures him that it was in her interest to do so. 

The summer queen returns the greeting of wild child Barika.

Luther finds a door on the opposite side of the cave, and what a door it is. Ebrek reckons this door is far superior to any door dwarven crafting has yet accomplished. It is perfectly worked right out of the rock and embossed with runes. Ebrek wants to like the door more than anyone should like a door, but resists doing so.

Lissy checks the compelling door for traps while humming her trap checking melody. Such a magnificent door as this would never suffer traps. She really likes this trapless door. And also the winter queen. Now that she’s thinking about the winter queen’s door, she’s really starting to get upset about the summer queen wolf over there threatening the door. The door must be protected.

Briar offers gratitude, but not quid pro quo, to the summer queen. Her only request is that they shut their eyes against the charming winter queen’s door. This really cheeses winter door loving Lissy. Ebrek uses his maslow’s axe to beat back Lissy, which she interprets as outright summer queen aggression. She stabs Ebreck with both daggers and slips off into the darkness muttering for the summer queen’s demise.

It doesn’t take a helm of intellect to know Lissy won’t get far trying to stab the summer queen. Briar readies protection from evil and good, Barika readies a tackle, and Luther sings a persuasive hymn suggested by Barika: If you’re charmed and you know it clap your hands! Lissy claps her hands and returns to her senses.

Now that Ebrek is good and riled up, he pushes open the door without looking at it. Three of the six stones hurled at him from beyond knock him out. Lissy drags Ebrek a few feet back into the vis which injures her and does nothing for Ebrek. Briar runs to Ebrek’s aid. Luther restores Ebrek with a vis-boosted curing of wounds.

The summer queen informs wild child Barika that time is short because the birthing ritual is starting. Considering that Barika observed the mummified body, presumably that of fey-birthing midwife Amabilis Habundia, brought into the vis caverns, a birthing ritual makes a lot of sense to Watc. The red wizards of Thay, working with a mole at Glamhoth dal e’ Anto, apparently endeavor to birth themselves a new archfey.

Luther fills his yeti waterskin with vis. Briar extends shield of faith around Luther. Lissy throws open the door. Luther tosses the vis skin through and Ebrek, standing in the vis pool, lights up his produce flame. The vis amplifies the produce flame spell to a high level fireball. Whatever was in the room, goblin or mephit or ordinary goat man, is now a smoldering flesh heap.

Impressed Ebrek studies his hands. Lissy steps around the mess to get to the next door. She peeks through. A red wizard is standing in a round pool, probably of vis, while magic user goat man MUGM, red wizard Urmerrderrur, and Fris’s assistant Braddock Whitmore incant a ritual around the edge. A mummy, perhaps the midwife, lies on the edge with an arm dangled into the pool. An impressively distinguished looking old and cold woman observes. 

If that’s the winter queen observing the birthing ritual, then the younger, warmer lady wearing a white stole suddenly standing behind the party would be the summer queen, no longer a wolf. In a chess metaphor, the party might be the pawns between two queens. The fey queens might be the queens, but they might be the players.

Negotiator Briar gets buy-in from the summer queen that interrupting this ritual would be in their mutual interest, but the summer queen emphasizes decorum. Briar knocks on the door. Ebrek also knocks on the door, doubling the decorum. An ordinary goat man answers the door and growls, What do you want? His demeanor improves when he sees the summer queen. He takes a knee.

Briar, improved by eagle’s splendor from Luther, enters and addresses himself with a bow to the winter queen. Briar wants to understand what she’s trying to do here. She’s not trying to do anything here. Traitor Whitmore Braddock, Urmerrderrur, and the MUGM, on the other hand, persist in chanting: ommmseleeturkturkturk. 

Barika and Luther take up supporting positions behind Briar. Ebrek, on his feet all day, helps himself to a bench along the wall of the round chamber. The summer queen enters, orders obeisant goat man to take his own life, and stands quietly next to her sister. Watc ponders why the two fey queens are passive observers of this ritual, but that’s the nature of fey.

Briar commands Whitmore Braddock to stop performing the ritual, discombobulating him and making him lose his place. Irritated Whitmore walks menacingly toward Briar and drops him with a critical blight spell that barely misses killing him outright. Enraged Barika buries her axe into Whitmore a couple of times, distracting him so that he’s an easy target for her teammates. Luther cures Briar and steps to Whitmore. Whitmore volleys magic missiles point blank into Barika and Luther. Lissy strolls past Whitmore, sneaking her daggers across his vital organs as she goes by. Briar takes his retribution on Whitmore with his morning star and Luther critically stabs him to death.

Watc observes that removing Whitmore from the chanting has slowed down, but hasn’t stopped, the ritual. She also observes the winter queen is holding exactly two ice goblets.

Ebrek, without getting up, slings some ice knives into the wall behind MUGM and Urmerrderrur splashing them with ice but they continue chanting, undistracted. Watc sends magic missiles at MUGM, Urmerrderrur and the red wizard, whom she reckons is the subject of this ritual, but the winter queen intervenes, suddenly arbitrating the fight, and the magic missiles all strike Ebrek. Ebrek is suddenly disposed to diplomacy. He rises, if somewhat wobbly, to request the right to parlay, but the winter queen denies the request, censuring his earlier ice knife attack. That sounds fair to Ebrek.

Barika spies a thin silver wire circling the vis pool at the same time Luther bumps into a magic barrier traced by the wire. Barika attempts to cut the wire with her axe, but it is impervious to axe damage despite Ebrek preheating the wire with produced flame. The flame, useless against the protective wire, does manage to irritate the winter queen and she drops a rebuking ice storm on Ebrek and Watc. Just before Watc passes out she remembers the iron pegs in the mine map device which might have some effect on the fey proceedings. Briar lays hands on Watc and borrows one of the iron pins.

---

Amabilis Habundia

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Barika makes her way around the vis pool, as closely as the magic force field allows, toward MUGM. MUGM is too absorbed in chanting the fey ritual to be intimidated so Barika lets her magic greataxe do her intimidating for her. Now MUGM notices the pain, but so does the winter queen who hurls Barika into the wall for disrupting the decorum.

Luther gets Ebrek back on his feet after the winter queen’s ice storm corrected his flaming breach of decorum. Ebrek begs the winter queen’s forgiveness, but also some sharing of the contents of her ice goblets. The ice goblets are for the red king.

The queens confer as the vis grows brighter, signaling the imminent conclusion of the ritual which will evidently transform the red wizard in the middle of the pool into one thirsty red king. The red wizard future king produces a dagger and slices down each arm to bleed into the vis pool.

Briar uses the iron nail from Watc’s map device to dig under, lift, and wind up  some of the force field wire. He drags the wire off the edge of the pool until it pulls taught around the red wizard future king, uncovering most of the pool and all of mummified midwife Amabilis Habundia. The red wizard future king screams. Reanimated Amabilis Habundia screams.

Watc and Luther wade into the newly available vis pool and magically rejuvenate. Luther casts a boosted invisibility spell that conceals Lissy, Watc, and himself.

Ebrek reckons the summer queen’s action item list has been accomplished with the thorough interruption of this ritual. Is there anything else we can do for the winter queen today? Besides fealty? Besides any commitment? Just forget he said anything. The winter queen accommodates so for the next few seconds Ebrek never existed. When he returns, he genuflects his way out of the room, backing toward the door which closes to prevent anyone’s departure.

Outraged and sweaty Urmerrderrur turns to exact revenge on Luther. Amabilis Habundia reaches for Urmerrderrur’s ankle and dries her into dust. MUGM kneels to Amabilis Habundia and takes his own life, presumably saving her the trouble of a few steps and six seconds.

Luther invisibly eases his way to MUGM’s torso heap and expertly removes all his valuables: bag of marbles, necklace, spellbook, sash, claw.

Amabilis Habundia joins her queenly daughters and they all exchange decorous pleasantries with ample bowing. The reunion is interrupted by the red wizard nearly king decrying his loss loudly and without any decorum. His throat freezes and the winter queen directs Briar to finish him. 

Briar swings his righteous morningstar into the red wizard’s brittle throat, ending him and ridding the winter queen of an annoying debt she was tricked into. Her speaking strips Luther’s invisibility spell.

The winter queen offers the spoils of victory to any winner who will drink her goblet. Sensible people decline, backing out of the opened chamber door with all possible decorum. 

Luther sees an opportunity for a life of ease performing in the seelie court where his bagpiping talents will no doubt be fully appreciated. He tosses MUGM’s spellbook to Watc and hoists the goblet to the health of Amabilis Habundia. Luther never could resist a pretty face.

The party, sans Luther, leaves the ritual chamber. Upon returning to the vis pool cavern, they find the beautiful winter queen door no longer. They return to Glamhoth dal e’ Anto to find the villa has successfully repelled the attack. The real Braddock Whitmore is alive and well and, as far as anyone knows, not a traitor at all.