Day 6: Flamerule 11
Temple of the Storm Lord
In the morning, you ask Noomworthy to show you how to find the temple that Dobulgruf mentioned the previous night.
"Is he sending you on this mission? Is this because of what 'the ladies' told him? Did you happen to ask who the ladies are? I'll tell you: They're imaginary wolves who talk to the speaker when he's alone. Well, at any rate, the temple is real. Here's how you get to it."
He draws a map with several notable landmarks. It should take a little over an hour to get there.
"It's long been picked over of any treasure, if that's what you seek, but I suppose it's something to do that doesn't involve public inebriation. Be back on time or your little sightseeing vacation comes to an end."
Setting out immediately, you find the large foothill Noomworthy marked, in a little over an hour. The old trail up the hill marked is by stone cairns, only the very tops of which rise above the snow. It's not terribly difficult to navigate. You pass through clouds as you climb, until you can see the summit. As you approach, the sky above is clear revealing the morning stars, yet you see a storm roiling immediately above the tower. Snow falls, but only around the tower.
You see a figure of a humanoid a few hundred yards ahead of you, walking in the same direction. Numchucku recognizes it as Dannika.
"I was several miles to the north when I saw this storm. Its unusual for lightning to form in this kind of cold and I had to investigate."
The three of you draw close to the tower. Through gusts of wind, you can make out what sounds like chanting coming from atop the tower, and… was that the roar of a bear? Before you can decide, a bolt of lightning strikes the tower. It's nearly deafening.
Numchucku scouts the tower from a distance. Walking around it, he notices two windows with rusted bars higher up.
As you pass through the entrance, you notice the extraordinary thickness of the wall - almost ten feet thick, it’s no wonder this tower still stands. Looking upward, the spiral staircase rises forty feet and ends in a timber ceiling. The stairs - large stone blocks, a foot deep and tall, and three feet long - are set directly into the wall of the tower. There is no railing to protect users from a misstep. A large metal pole runs from the top of the tower, down through the center of the stairs connecting to the base of a crumbling statue standing in front of you. Numchucku recognizes enough of the statue to know it represents Talos, god of storms.
The surfaces here are covered in bird droppings, dirt and twigs - this tower has at least had some residents of the animal kind over the years. You notice two distinct sets of footprints amidst the detritus - one humanoid and one ursine.
Above you, between crashes of thunder, angry yelling from above echoes down the tower to you.
A female voice, in Uliuk: "I consecrate this temple in the name of Saukuruk, Auril the cold goddess, bringer of the cleansing, eternal winter!"
An ethereal, deep voice crackles in response, "Talos will never see his temple desecrated in service of the ice hag!"
The crash of lightning echoes through the tower. The foundation rumbles. A piece of stone falls out of place, high in the tower wall and ricochets off the stone stairs on its way down. Crouching under the lowest stair, Elva locates a trap door. With great effort, the stone hatch comes loose, pulling in a gust of air; the first inhalation after centuries of holding its breath. Dropping a torch you estimate the floor to be seventy feet or more down. Tying your ropes together, and anchoring them to the stair, you lower yourselves into a cavernous hallway.
Once you reach the floor, you take in the scope of the chamber. The walls, frost covered, stretch above you, the hatch now gone to the darkness.
To your left are Stairs, waist-high, that ascend to a dead end, walled in by more foundation of the tower above. This hall of the giants obviously existed before the tower above was built and used as the foundation. It would seem that, in time, this hall was forgotten.
To your right: An entrance to another grand room with a domed ceiling, dominated by a pool of water. The water somehow unfrozen. On each side, the entrance six statues of giants stand, each slightly different though each bears a spear with a gold spearhead. Each statue bears an ancient Dethek rune, unrecognizable to all of you.
Above you, the tower begins to quake and rumble. This giant chamber acts as a megaphone for the cacophony above. The lightning has intensified, now striking the tower every few seconds. You hear the sounds of stones straining against one another, cracking and crumbling as more and more hit the floor above you.
Entering the pool chamber, you take in the dimensions. It is smaller than the room you left, but still vast. The domed ceiling, covered in stalactites of ice, reaches 60' at the center. Three large pillars, each at the base of a short flight of stairs surround the room.
All at once, the tower above the great hall you left only seconds ago, collapses, filling the room with rubble. A cloud of dust washes over the room turning the white, icy walls gray. You are trapped.
Numchucku removes his outerwear and steps into the pool. Following suit, you all begin searching with feet and hands, eventually producing twelve gold coins and a left-handed glove.
With no visible exit, you begin inspecting the walls for any trace of a way out. Pawing at the pillars reveals no movement, but you do find under each is a grate emptying into whatever is below. While searching, Numchucku spots an ice spider on the domed ceiling, so camouflaged as to be almost invisible. Spreading out around the room, you locate more of the creatures, apparently in hibernation, ranging from the size of your hand to almost a foot in diameter. Then Elva spots the largest creature, easily human-sized, nestled in the farthest side of the room. Perhaps if you stay quiet...
Using her cooking pot, Elva transports water to one of the pillars and pours it down the grate. You hear a grinding deep within the dome, ancient machinery set into motion. Doing the same to the other pillars, a hatch at the apex of the dome falls open and the stars shine through. You have a way out, if only you can reach it.
After an hour of searching through the rubble of the great hall, Elva is able to recover sixty of the hundred feet of rope used to descend. Battered, but intact, it's enough to climb out, if only there's a way to attach it to the ceiling. Eventually, Elva remembers the glove.
Numchucku examines the glove. Although he found it in the pool only an hour earlier, when he pulls it from his pack it is completely dry. Trying it on, a spectral hand forms around his own. Casting it forward, it responds sending the hand outward. It responds to Numchucku's exact movements. Testing its capabilities, you learn it can be sent out thirty feet in any direction. Grasping lighter items with it is easy, but while trying to pick up a stone weighing more than ten pounds, it slips through its fingers. This may prove helpful, but it still has its limits. For one, even while standing on the wall of the pool and stretching your arm upwards, it still falls twenty feet short of reaching the hatch.
Time is of the essence. Showing up late back in Bremen will put an end to your living arrangement - a small price compared to the thought of spending your last days stuck down here, but it's motivation nonetheless. There's debate about the best way out. Rubble could be brought over to fill the pool to build a mound, but it would take too long. Debris could be searched for timber. A structure could be built, but you lack the materials - rope is your only means of binding the timbers together and it's needed to reach the hatch. Elva considers the spiders. Poking one gently with the spectral hand, sends it scurrying. It seems they are very much alive.
After moving to the largest spider and nudging it awake with the mage hand, Dannika casts a spell of animal friendship, convincing it you mean no harm. Eventually, you convince it to carry a piece of wood with a rope attached to the opening, giving you a way out. Climbing the rope out of the chamber, you find yourselves downhill and 200 feet from where the tower once stood. Now, only the crenelations stand above ground. The tower completely collpased into the vast space that was entrance hall below.
Standing over the body of an Ulutian woman, is a brown bear. He notices you, but does not stir from his sentry over her. Numchucku notices a green line tatooed on her face, indicating, that like him, she was among the banished.
The bear speaks. "Her name was Ikiak, and she was my friend."
The wind howls, and you hear an avian scream, and twin glowing orbs are visible through the snow and darkness. The lights grow brighter as they get closer, revealing the emotionless features of an impossibly large owl, with two dark ram horns curling on either side of its dished face.
She opens her beak, speaking in a booming voice, like the crack of an avalanche, "NO! Talos, you have no hold here!" A searing light shoots down, hitting the corpse of the fallen druid. You blink back your vision, the form of the owl woman has vanished, as the corpse of the druid twitches with a sound of cracking ice and starts to stand. As it turns towards you, obscured by a dim light, now radiating out from where the face should be. It lets out a moan, like wind across the open tundra, and takes a staggering step towards you all. Its emanating light grows brighter.
The bear regards you for a moment, as he takes a defensive posture against this new threat. "Run," he says, as he takes the first swipe.
You move quickly through the snow, following the traces of your footsteps made on the way here. After the rubble and battle are long out of view, Dannika asks, “Do you understand what we just witnessed? I think it may be of great import. Auril is… or at least was, a member of what my order calls ‘The Deities of Fury' along with Malar, Umberlee, and Talos’.”
“Talos is the Storm Lord. That temple -- at least the portion above ground -- was dedicated to him centuries ago when the outsiders from the south first arrived in Icewind Dale. I believe that the Ulutiun priestess was attempting to de-consecrate it and convert its use to worshiping Auril. It’s said Auril has siphoned off powers from Ulutiu while he sleeps under the great glacier. It follows that she has siphoned off some of his followers as well.”
“It appears Talos sent one of his underlings, perhaps an elemental, to keep that from happening. Their fighting destroyed the temple and nearly us, and that must have displeased Auril. I believe that the owl creature we saw may have been an avatar of Auril herself. Whatever it was, it not only brought that priestess back from death but imbued it with that power of the blinding light.”
“Auril and Malar are the lesser gods among the Deities of Fury, and are believed to be bitter rivals, avoiding all-out-war only because Talos forbids it. But if Talos and Auril are now at odds, it may mean she has been cast out of the Furies entirely. That might explain why her darkness spell began years ago, but it's not clear to me what she seeks to achieve.”
“That bear had been ‘awakened’ by the Ulutian; given human-like intelligence and the ability to speak its mind. A spell like that comes at no small cost. I wonder why it was done. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to ask.”
“This is all too important for me to continue with my research for the moment. I must get back to Bryn Shander and counsel my superior - and the gates will close tomorrow and stay closed until the new moon sacrifices in five days. If I can find a way out of the city before then and return here, believe me, I will. But I’ll need you to stay with the Speaker for a bit more. "
You are approaching the bottom of the hill. There is no sign of the light-bearing being anywhere behind you.
“Elva, you asked me about my research earlier. I have been trying to track down minor elementals that have become more abundent recently. Most folk here call them ‘Chwinga’. I had a vision some tendays ago, or more of a feeling of certainty, really. I believe the Chwinga are the key to surviving the everlasting winter, although I have no idea how. That was my research: Find chwinga, attempt to communicate with them, and find out if my feeling is true. Now in the advent of this news, I doubt I will be able to continue that task any time soon. Perhaps it is something you could attempt as you travel the Dale. Think on it. I’ll be by the Speaker’s mansion early morning.”
With that, Dannika turns to head northwest as you continue southeast.
You make it back to the speaker's mansion just in time to meet Alistair and Dorbulgruf at the door. Noomsworthy asks how you enjoyed the temple and makes a condescending remark that he presumes the tower still standing. You don't reply.
At dinner, you ask Dorbulgruf about chwinga. He says he knows some chwinga quite well, and he meets with them bimonthly at a location north-northwest of town, usually, the same night he meets with "the ladies." He has to travel out on his own and in secret, because Noomsworthy wouldn't let him go if he knew ahead of time
You're not sure what, if any of this, you believe.