[Let's Play] Fighting Fantazine Adventure 9: Return to the Icefinger Mountains

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to go further into this cave.

[Beroli]

Whatever killed the people who hang from the roof of this cave may not be far away, so you tread carefully as you move on, keeping close to the wall so as not to pass directly beneath the frozen cadavers. After several metres the light of your lantern spills out into a far larger cave, and after you have gone a few paces further, your breath catches in your throat as the illumination glints on the scales of some massive creature.

You stop still, signalling to Denati to do likewise, and peer forwards, soon working out that you are facing the haunches of a Silver Dragon. Luckily for you, it is facing the other way, and has not yet noticed you. You can also make out a faint gleam of daylight on the far side of the cavern, potentially indicating a way out, if you can get past the Dragon without attracting its attention.

Shielding your lantern so that the Dragon has less chance of noticing its gleam, you cautiously pick your way across the cavern floor towards the opening through which the early evening light gleams. Denati follows in your footsteps, repeatedly casting fearful glimpses at the Dragon. Roll one die; the result is a 4.

In places the cavern floor is strewn with bones, and you take great care not to disturb them as you pick your way to safety. At last you and your companion reach the mouth of the tunnel that leads out and, releasing a breath you had not realised you were holding, you continue out into the daylight. Restore 1 Luck point for avoiding a confrontation with the Dragon.

The sun is sinking low in the sky, but you want to put a lot of distance between yourself and the Dragon’s cave, so you press onwards until the decreasing visibility makes it too dangerous to go any further. Spotting a slight hollow in the ground that will provide a little cover, you make camp for the night there. You may eat here if you wish to; if you had not already eaten today you would have to eat now.

You and Denati take it in turns to keep watch while the other sleeps. The night passes without incident, though the Dragon does join the host of horrors which torment you in your dreams.

The following morning you set off as soon as the rising sun provides sufficient light that you can continue on your way, and the exercise helps banish the tiredness lingering after your bad night. Denati does not find it easy to keep up with you, and several times you have to deliberately slow your pace for his sake. He apologises for holding you back, but encourages you by saying that, even at his pace, you should be able to reach your goal before the end of the day.

Roll one die; the result is a 2.

Close to midday you have to climb several metres of near-vertical rock face, which is made easier by the large number of crevices that provide hand-and-footholds. Denati finds it less easy going, but manages it once you drop the rope to him. As you assist him over the edge at the top, his eyes widen in alarm. Turning, you are more than a little startled to see a lightly-armoured Barbarian in a fur cloak, standing right behind you, a large club in one hand.

You do have a bone club.

The Barbarian’s eye falls on the club. Recognising it, he raises his own weapon and charges at you, roaring a battlecry. You can tell that it would be futile to try and explain why you had to kill the club’s former owner, and steel yourself for another fight.

BARBARIAN Skill 9 Stamina 9

Pausing for votes on how to use Luck here, but mainly to check if you want to eat a Meal on emerging from the cave. JourneymanN00b's vote to do so is registered, but will not carry unless seconded by someone.

Name: Edmund Pevensie
Sex: Male
Skill: 11/11
Stamina: 13/19
Luck: 11/11
Inventory: Sword, Bone club, Winter clothing, Rucksack, Lantern, Rope, Blankets, Page from book
Provisions: 6

[Queen of Swords]

Sure, eat a meal.

[Thaluikhain]

Eat meal, don't use luck.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote not to use luck for this battle.

[Beroli]

Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 14, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 16. Edmund Pevensie's Stamina is 15
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 21, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 21.
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 16, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 18. Edmund Pevensie's Stamina is 13
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 17, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 18. Edmund Pevensie's Stamina is 11
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 20, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 14. BARBARIAN's Stamina is 7
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 14, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 12. BARBARIAN's Stamina is 5
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 17, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 20. Edmund Pevensie's Stamina is 9
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 16, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 11. BARBARIAN's Stamina is 3
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 20, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 14. BARBARIAN's Stamina is 1
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 14, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 17. Edmund Pevensie's Stamina is 7
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 16, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 16.
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 18, BARBARIAN Attack Strength: 13. BARBARIAN is dead.

With your last blow, the Barbarian falls over the edge. With a shudder, you turn away.

“They’re a dangerously unpredictable lot,” Denati observes. “Let’s be on our way before any more turn up and get aggressive.”

Returning your attention to the climb ahead of you, you take his advice.

As you continue upwards, Denati starts to gasp and wheeze, and before long you are also feeling the ill effects of the thinness of the air at this altitude. Take 1 damage. You stop to acclimatise yourself to the conditions up here, and may eat a Meal while you grow accustomed to the thinner atmosphere. Gradually, breathing becomes easier, and you set off again once your aged companion feels ready to go on.

Frozen Orc.PNG (50.72 KiB) Viewed 733 times

A little under an hour later you catch sight of a hole in the ground ahead of you, and are about to detour around it when Denati places a restraining hand on your arm. “Where are you going? That’s...possibly a way into the Crystal Caves. We should at least take a look.”

You tie one end of your rope around a decent-sized rock not far from the hole, attach your lantern to the other end, and carefully lower it down into the darkness. Soon it becomes clear that the scholar may be right: certainly, the light indicates that the hole leads into a spacious cavern. Not an excessively deep one, though, as the rope reaches to the floor of the underground chamber with metres to spare.

After checking that the rope is secure at this end, you climb down it, and reach the ground below safely. It only takes a moment to detach the lantern so you can use it to light your way around the cavern.

A layer of snow covers everything, at its thickest beneath the mouth of the hole. Nevertheless, you are able to make out a central plinth, with what appears to be a body sprawled on the floor close to it. Two other huddled mounds, which you take to be more corpses, one of them significantly larger than the other, lie a short distance from the mouth of a tunnel leading into the depths of the mountain. There is a similar tunnel entrance in the opposite wall of the cavern.

You call up to Denati and tell him to join you down here, and the old man nervously descends the rope, with you underneath, ready to catch him if he should slip. Almost as soon as his feet touch the ground, the plinth catches his attention, and he hurries across to it. Pulling off a glove to brush away some of the snow that covers the plinth, he peers closely at its surface.

Try and get your rope back?
Leave your rope and go over to look at the plinth Denati is studying?
Leave your rope and take a closer look at the snow-covered corpses?

Also vote on whether to eat another Meal.

Name: Edmund Pevensie
Sex: Male
Skill: 11/11
Stamina: 6/19
Luck: 11/11
Inventory: Sword, Bone club, Winter clothing, Rucksack, Lantern, Rope, Blankets, Circular disc, Page from book
Provisions: 5

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to get the rope back, and to eat 3 meals as soon as the opportunity is there for Edmund to do so over the next sections.

[Thaluikhain]

I second that, but only eating 2 meals when available.

[Queen of Swords]

We only have five provisions, so I vote for eating two meals and getting the rope back.

[Beroli]

Taking hold of the rope, you attempt to shake it free from the rock around which you tied it. Test your Luck; an 8 succeeds.

Your efforts bring the rope loose, and it drops down onto you. As you gather it up, you wonder if you have been wise. While you will now be able to use the rope down here if you need to, you will also have to find an alternate means of leaving the caves once you have finished down here. You cannot reattach the rope to the rock, though, so there is no point in continuing to dwell on the subject, and you turn your attention to the contents of this cavern.

Go over to look at the plinth Denati is studying?
Take a closer look at the snow-covered corpses?

Name: Edmund Pevensie
Sex: Male
Skill: 11/11
Stamina: 10/19
Luck: 10/11
Inventory: Sword, Bone club, Winter clothing, Rucksack, Lantern, Rope, Blankets, Circular disc, Page from book
Provisions: 4

[Thaluikhain]

To the plinth.

(Also, just shaking the thing got it loose? Is it friendly elven rope?)

[Queen of Swords]

Plinth.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to take a look at the plinth.

[Beroli]

Plinth Top.PNG (238.39 KiB) Viewed 710 times

Plinth Bottom.PNG (237.05 KiB) Viewed 710 times

Where Denati has rubbed away snow, you can see that the plinth has been carved out of ice, and it bears an inscription in unfamiliar characters. “It’s Cyrantian script,” he tells you in an awed whisper. “Preserved for centuries by ancient sorcery.”

You ask him what it says, and he haltingly translates: “A one who...no, that doesn’t make sense...” He blows away snow from the edge of the inscription. “Ah yes, the one who seeks the path... no, that’s a plural... paths of... now, that symbol can signify wisdom or power...”

After a couple of minutes of muttering and correcting himself, he has a translation with which he is satisfied: “’The one who seeks the paths of power must wait for the sun to rise, and it shall show the way.’ Well, the ‘paths of power’ sound to me like what we want, so,” he raises his eyes from the plinth and casts an uneasy glance around the chamber, “I suppose we are going to have to stay here until the sun comes up tomorrow.”

A glance up through the hole in the roof reveals that the sky is already starting to turn dark, so you decide that you might as well make camp here for the night. It worries you that, if Denati had not been with you, you would not have been able to make sense of the inscription and learn what to do here. If anything should happen to deprive you of his knowledge, you would have little chance of completing your quest. Still, worrying about something that may never happen is not the most productive thing you can do right now.

Examine the bodies?
Leave the bodies alone?

Name: Edmund Pevensie
Sex: Male
Skill: 11/11
Stamina: 10/19
Luck: 10/11
Inventory: Sword, Bone club, Winter clothing, Rucksack, Lantern, Rope, Blankets, Circular disc, Page from book
Provisions: 4

[JourneymanN00b]

I say to check out the bodies.

[Thaluikhain]

Graverobbing time.

[Queen of Swords]

Agreed, check out the bodies.

[Beroli]

Start with the lone cadaver near the plinth?
Start with the two corpses in the vicinity of the tunnel mouth?

Name: Edmund Pevensie
Sex: Male
Skill: 11/11
Stamina: 10/19
Luck: 10/11
Inventory: Sword, Bone club, Winter clothing, Rucksack, Lantern, Rope, Blankets, Circular disc, Page from book
Provisions: 4

[Queen of Swords]

Lone cadaver near the plinth. If it reanimates, at least we'll only have to fight one zombie rather than two.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to start with the lone cadaver near the plinth.

[Thaluikhain]

Makes sense.

[Beroli]

Brushing away some of the snow that covers the body reveals this to be the corpse of an Orc, his battered armour festooned with rusty weapons. Round his neck you can see a metal collar just like the one you were forced to wear when you were last in the Crystal Caves. Memories of that terrible time come flooding back, and you turn away with a grimace, unwilling to face further reminders of your past sufferings.

A frost-rimed hand clutches at your shoulder. Startled, you tear yourself away from the grasp of your unknown assailant and, spinning around, you are horrified to see that it is the long-dead Orc, which has dragged itself up out of the snow and is now lurching towards you, its collar emitting a dull glow. You hurriedly draw a weapon to defend yourself from the Orc Zombie.

ORC ZOMBIE Skill 6 Stamina 6

Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 13, ORC ZOMBIE Attack Strength: 13.
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 17, ORC ZOMBIE Attack Strength: 13. ORC ZOMBIE's Stamina is 4
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 19, ORC ZOMBIE Attack Strength: 11. ORC ZOMBIE's Stamina is 2
Edmund Pevensie Attack Strength: 13, ORC ZOMBIE Attack Strength: 10. ORC ZOMBIE is dead.

The Orc is dead once more. To ensure that he cannot rise and attack you yet again, you take the rusty axe he carries and sever his head. The haft snaps from the force of your blow, so you use the stump that remains in your hands to separate the collar from its wearer and fling it away. This victory gives you more confidence, and you may restore 1 Luck point.

As you step back from the body, you feel something hard underfoot and, raising your foot to see what you had trodden on, see a small bone die with strange symbols carved on its faces.

You decide to make sure the other two bodies cannot animate and attack you or Denati.

Digging through the snow that covers these bodies, you find that the taller of them is an Elf, the shorter one a Dwarf. Unusually for frozen corpses, they show some signs of decomposition. There is little of interest on either cadaver, but an ice-encrusted bracelet around the Dwarf’s left wrist catches your eye.

Attempt to remove the bracelet?
Leave it and investigate the nearby tunnel entrance?

Name: Edmund Pevensie
Sex: Male
Skill: 11/11
Stamina: 10/19
Luck: 11/11
Inventory: Sword, Bone club, Winter clothing, Rucksack, Lantern, Rope, Blankets, Circular disc, Page from book, Bone die
Provisions: 4

[Queen of Swords]

An elf and a dwarf, just like Redswift and Stubb.

Remove the bracelet.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to try to remove the bracelet.

[Beroli]

The ice which coats the bracelet also covers the dead Dwarf’s arm and will make removing the bracelet difficult.

You do not have a Flame Sword.

Are you determined to try to remove the bracelet anyway?

Name: Edmund Pevensie
Sex: Male
Skill: 11/11
Stamina: 10/19
Luck: 11/11
Inventory: Sword, Bone club, Winter clothing, Rucksack, Lantern, Rope, Blankets, Circular disc, Page from book, Bone die
Provisions: 4