"I don't have anything to make fire on me." Amira states, patting down her pockets and going through her backpack.
Menrozzar pulls out his flint and steel, then sparks it to light the oil.
Menrozzar finds a piece of cloth from a sack and lights it with his flint and steel. It burns slowly soaking up the oil and finally it sets a doused wooden casket aflame. The bigger the fire gets, the hotter the room becomes and the fire spreads more rapidly. the silo like building starts to fill with smoke and finally the whole room burns, creating a huge column of black smoke from the oxygen starved fire rising into the sky.
Again some giants come running to check what is happening, but it is too late to save the food or the building.
The fire lit, Menrozzar says, "Come on, let's get out of here now that we've caused more trouble."
Eyeing the oncoming Giants, Daseem makes an uncharacteristic suggestion, "Shall we hit the n-next target while they're busy?"
Of course he had no idea what the next target was.
"I think we start to run out of good targets. Or do you want to burn their tents over their heads?" Amira replies jokingly. But then her look gets worried, as Daseem might take that suggestion literally to please Gorum.
Daseem's eyes light up, "Can w-we?"
A collective shake of heads grounds Daseem from his violent day dreams. The group swiftly retreats into a nearby hiding spot up the mountain, watching the village.
After a few hours the two fires are dying and the buildings are completely destroyed. With nothing to eat and only melted snow left to drink, ever more giants wander off to get some food. And a good number of them doesn't return. After two days, half of the giants are gone. Watch duties are skipped, training stops, the whole camp is falling apart. Only a few frot giants whose home this might be remain at the end of the week.
On the way to the hiding point, the group notices something, they haven't paid much attention to yet. At the highest point of the village stands a temple with symbols of a fly with a skull like marking on the back . There are cave openings in the mountainside .
To the west of the temple in the mountainsade is something much more elaborate than the crude camp . Northwest of the village, a wide set of carved stone steps ascends to massive stone double doors set into the mountain itself. Two platforms to either side of the doors hold statues depicting a fierce and proud frost giant woman. Runic writing decorates the carved stonework above the doors.
You also notice something about the colossal burning wickerman that stands between the temple and the stone doors into the mountain. Even though standing there the whole time since your first visit to the village, it hasn't burnt down.
Daseem considered who might have a temple with a weird fly thing with a skull like marking...
Menrozzar watches as the giants slowly disperse. After the first day, Menrozzar says, "I think it might be safe to start investigating some of these caves on the mountainside. Once we've done that, we can look at that temple down there."
Bupkis asks, "Anyone knows what god temple is for? Looks ominous!
"I say we investigate caves."
Four large cave entrances gape here, set high upon a cliff ledge that overlooks the village. Their shadowed depths lead directly into the side of the mountain. The ledge outside the caves is approximately 20 feet wide and covered with ice.
Taking a peek inside you find that this is a slippery slope.
With distaste, Daseem spits the word out in answer to Bupkis's question, "U-Urgathoa!"
Daseem mislikes the slippery conditions, but managed to keep standing as he peers into the cave.
Bupkis creeps forwards carefully, whispering, "Icy, watch your step! Maybe some use rope?"
The caves lead to a series of chambers which are littered with bones and the refuse of multiple large predators. The northern ends of these chambers slope downward and are covered with rime.
You find that there are some dragons living in those caves, and they are not amused about the intruders. One immediately spits a ball of water, that bursts into a cloud of freezing mist.
Amira starts singing to get warm again.
Menrozzar heeds Bupkis's advice and ties a rope at the cave mouth in order to help stabilize himself and the others as they descend.
He still goes sliding down the slope.
From his place on his butt, he notes the section of the cave that is, in fact, thick ice.
Being on his butt may have saved him, somewhat, from the creature's breath weapon, though, as he avoids the worst of it.
Bupkis avoids being completely frozen. He powers up and shoots at the hostile reptilian creature. However, he loses his concentration and shoots wide.
The next drake spits a chilling ball of water.
Ivan manages to catch his footing, only to get a blast of frozen mist to the face. However, he is ready for the next one and catches most of it on his shield.
Daseem was startled by the sudden attack, but he recovered quickly, grinning "Gorum wills it!"
With a snarl he powered towards the closest Drake, blade flashing out!
The drakes spit more cold balls of water at the group, after one of them takes a very painful cut through the scales by _Daseem.
The two blasts of cold water leave Daseem shivering violently!
Bupkis could tell that his allies were suffering from the cold. Amira seemed to be in the worst shape, so he moved over to her and healed her, to keep her going.
Menrozzar got walloped by the breath weapons. It was almost more than he could stand. He quickly cast a spell to shield himself from the cold before getting to his feet.
Ivan uses his martial flexibility to cast a fireball.
The drake Daseem wounded dies in the fire. The others are burned to different degrees.
Amira keeps singing to keep up the morale in this chilling environment. The song about the heroics of the group that she composes as she goes gets a line added about the gracious healings of the heroic goblin Bupkis.
Another line includes the verbals to HASTEn the party.
The drake attacks Ivan.
Feeling like an icicle, Daseem shivers and growled "GORRRUM!" His hand flashed blue momentarily as he healed himself.
Then he laid into Menrozzar's target, hacking furiously, empowered by Amira's magic!
Daseem cuts the remaining two drakes down with powerful swings of his two handed blade.
There is a tiny dragon hoard in the cave.
Menrozzar shakes his head. "Well done to the rest of you. I spent most of that fight on my butt and freezing."
Daseem shivered violently and with chattering teeth he muttered "Should mebbe h-h-heal up before we do anything else."
Bupkis heals Daseem, since he seems to be in rough shape.
"We should rest soon — Bupkis feeling tired."
Between clattering teeth Amira suggests "We should make a fire."
"Good idea. Let's set about it."
Daseem knew that while a fire would be very welcome, it's smoke or flames would attract unwanted attention. So he looked around to see if there was any suitable place for them to construct a fire without being seen, and also for firewood.
There are two smoldering buildings that still send smoke into the sky. In the cave is nothing to burn, but in the village that is in the process of being abandoned there is easily some wood found. Even though most of the former inhabitants didn't care about the cold, they still liked cooked food. Also the woods beyond the village offer dead wood to collect. But the question remains, where to make it. To be on the safe side, the group retreats into the woods, somewhere, where the trees are dense and giants would have a hard time moving through.
And so the group gets to enjoy an afternoon off from fighting around a nice campfire.
Daseem liked a campfire, but he wondered what they wanted to do next. To Menrozzar he asked, "S-seen enough caves?"
"Well, no. I guess there are more 'caves' behind that large doors at the mountain. Whatever is hiding in there."
"And I wonder what this huge burning man statue is doing in front of it."
Daseem shrugged at the colossal wicker man but then he wondered if it might have some religious significance.
This humanoid-shaped colossus is a towering fury of burning wicker and wood.
"Eh! Strange burning t.t.thing, why's it not burnt out?" muttered Daseem darkly. He wasn't afraid of much, but he thought it unnatural and that he didn't like.
Menrozzar studies the burning wicker man.
"I don't know what it is, but we should probably be careful about it. Maybe we try and avoid it?"
"Being cautious is never a bad thing. But I don't think it is possible to avoid it, if we want to get a look behind that large doors in the mountainside."
Amira ponders the situation some more.
"Unless... we use magic to get behind the doors directly. There is some risk, as we don't know what is behind the doors. But I could bring us behind the door from roughly 800 feet away."
Daseem muttered distrustfully, "Hoodoo... Ain't gonna h-help if we have to come back the other way. 'Sides it's just some big b-burnin' thing. Not like is gonna c-chase us!" He seemed really certain of that!
After some back and forth, the decision is made to take a closer look, before making a decision. It looks like a burning man statue from afar and even when coming closer that impression doesn't change. It is just curious that it doesn't burn down.
Until the group decides to go for the doors. Then the colossal figure starts moving.
"Want me to get us all out of here?"
Bupkis powers up and tries to blast the statue.
"Might be an idea!", Bupkis replies to Amira.