Summary 212: Himile's Shrine (2019-03-10)
Hi,
You recollected, as you paused to bandage and heal, that Himile was an obscure god down south, and you knew little except that he was Subere's brother, ally of Valind the glacier-god of winter, and owner of the Cold rune, with power over frigidity and ice storms. Together, he and Valind brought the first great winter storms to the world in the Lesser Darkness; coating even these southern lands in frost and snow. His worshippers, mostly snow trolls up on the glacier of Valind far north, became ice-demons (called Hollri) upon death.
You chose the tunnel to the right, which led directly into a smaller ice-cave featuring a flow of black ice across its floor and dripping down its surfaces. It was slippery to cross but you all managed well. Beyond, its wall opened into a great chamber.
Natural stone tunnels on the left and right side here both opened into a roughly 9m deep x7m wide chamber that was icy, but ancient white stonework was visible underneath the heavy ice. The burden of ice hadcracked much of the stone and caused some collapses, evidenced by rubble piles. A small 1.5m archway led into a side-chamber. Between two icy pillars toward the far end of the chamber, a great bluish-white figure standing before a frosty stone dias bellowed a challenge that shook the ice of the whole chamber, and it charged! It was a demonically scowling giant troll-like form (a giant Hollri), crouched on all fours, with tusks of icicles and long hair and beard of clinking icicles. It shouted in Darktongue, “I smell your foul breath! It melts my cold ice-palace! I will crush that breath from your brittle rimy corpses!” And you all faced it bravely. With a rain of blows, and Fraud blocking its first ice-fist punch with his kite shield, you got it reeling, shattered its left arm, tripped it and then Boamund struck the death-blow that shattered its whole body via the chest. It had been made of ice and only blows of suitable force could harm it; either they did nothing or they shattered its brittle body parts. In this case, this was its crucial vulnerability.
As it fell apart, Miguel's keen eyes spotted a small glowing crystal that had been buried in its chest. Afraid of its deadly cold potential, he pointed it out to Boamund who picked it up without harm, feeling its inherent cold. It was a blue-white cloudy, faintly glowing crystal small enough to fit in one's palm. Boamund immediately knew it to be a Hollri Heart- a living piece of an ice demon-demigod. It can be attuned to with time and Willpower vs. 75% (2 MP to try). Success = immune to natural cold, and can cast Disrupt (cold) for 1 MP using its POW 8, which regenerates naturally. Feeling you could pause here, with the foe defeated, Boamund took time to attune to it.
The far dias held remnants of a sculpture made from ice, and Boamund intuited that this was a statue of Himile that was the focus of the shrine. It must be recreated, and in the small room through the archway you found out how. That room's back left wall had collapsed under the weight of ice. However, a white dias on the far right side of the chamber was intact, and only lightly coated in ice, with swirling ice crystals hovering in the air around it. There were icy objects on the dias that looked like tools, and Miguel discerned that something like an ice-hammer and ice-chisel might be used to put the statue together. Boamund knew the swirling crystals could be used by him here to help connect the pieces, so he led this effort; Bog tried to advise but was too inexperienced in the art of icework. Nonetheless, Boamund did a fine job! He created a tall, thin, humanoid form with frosty, angular features and a long ice-spear.
Boamund carried the brittle statue and returned it to the dias in the main shrine. Then the Himile priest's spirit appears: a great mother-Uz bloodied and broken, dripping bloody frost and weeping black snow. It was frightening to behold but you stood firm. It said in a grating voice, “Brief was the battle here. I, great mother Azfizon Breaks-the-Iron-Mostali, fell quickly. My Hollri kin, friends and servants cruelly turned on me and then on each other. It was Gbaji-work; Wakboth-deeds. Do not blame the dead who were fooled. Ice can now grow the right way here, for the dark and the cold will extend back to my shrine as I am freed to depart. Sing to me my funeral rite and I can go to my Wonderhome, of the great frozen fields where fat ice-locusts await my feeding.”
You knew the song to sing; a traditional Uz-rite: “Friend, don't be slow, To find the home all life must know, The Goddess will help you go. From the lands that see, I am bound and you are free, No longer bound you must be. Of Darkness you learned, For Darkness you yearned, To Darkness you are returned.” So you sung it, and some of you sung it well and were blessed.
The spirit walked back into the side chamber, lay down on the dias, a corpse appeared in the fragments of ice and those w/Uz knowledge knew they must quietly ritually eat it. Ugh. Well, Bog didn't mind at all; and Boamund had a strong stomach. Miguel faint-heartedly managed but Fraud at first would only lick then nibble, with much scolding and threats from Bog, that eventually convinced him-and then he partook with gusto! Perhaps its cold nature befit his Arkati faith; he actually enjoyed it.
Boamund gained blessing of the Frostbite folk spell, and a Passion of Uz-friend. And you had completed this quest; 2 done, 2 left! You left the same way you came in-but Bog had a very hard time in the first ice-cave, slipping around too much, so Boamund had to save him, and Fraud restored some of his fatigue from exertion that had left him almost crippled. Descending the pathway to the canyon floor, most of you chose to be heroic questers and keep your footing, nimbly succeeding, but Bog simply slid down on his buttocks.
Down in the canyon again, Miguel noted that there was a cave up by the waterfall; surely one of the two remaining shrines; but the canyon also continued straight ahead and split to the left around a bend. There, Boamund investigated and saw a fourth cave perched atop a crumbling cliffside that looked perilous to ascend. As he did this, another burrow-trap opened underneath him and he just managed to catch himself on its rim before dropping to its bottom, and he hauled himself back up to see a mottled brown giant cricket with huge clawed front legs - it was SIZ 20 so not a thing to be trifled with! You circumnavigated it and prepared to ascend the rocky slope, where darkness hung thick between great old pillars before the cave mouth.
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