Day 15A: Flamerule 20
Foaming Mugs
Entering the Northlook Gate, you are greeted in a completely different manner than during your last visit: A cheerful female dwarf guard being friendly and deliberate with newcomers, as you and a half dozen others enter the gate.
"Well met, travelers! Keep yer fingers and extremities under wraps, lest Auril bite them off! Mind yer tempers, and you'll be most welcome here! Brought goods to sell? The market lies straight ahead."
She asks many of the same questions you were asked the last time you entered the city, only now she seems genuinely curious, not accusatory.
Your first stop is the Fancy Compass, to call on Raaf. Although Wiiba and Eldath are in roughly the same locations as you last saw them, Wiiba informes you that Raaf is somewhere in the Eastern Five.
Elva asks Wiiba about books on the Ten Towns.
"Oh, I'm not an employee. But yes, you'll find one there, on shelf five. I recommend the smaller edition by Jargogle Fub."
Elva picks up Where Dreams and a Good Number of People Go Die: A Painfully Comprehensive Guide to the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale. A lighter tomelet weighing in at two and a half pounds. It's twenty-five years old, but still the newest book on the subject available.
As Veronna returns from upstairs, Inverna asks about platt maps of land holdings. She's told to check with townhall. You decide to split up and and meet back at Knucklehead later. Elva and Numchucki head to Blackiron. Inverna heads to city hall.
Garn "The Hammer" Stifusip of Blackiron Blades
Blackiron Blades
A stout, one-story building made of heavy wood logs, cobble, and mortar beams sits at the edge of the market. Plumes of black smoke billow from a thick stone chimney rising from the far side of the shingled roof. Steps lead down to a heavy-set door, where overhead a sign plainly reads, “Arms” above a crudely painted sword. Tacked on, is another piece of wood reading, "And gear." The tinny sound of a hammer rapping on steel echoes from inside.
As you open the door to this outfitter's shop, you hear a metallic crash—a see a bucket hurled against the wall. Out of your sight, you hear Dwarvish being shouted:
Numchucku translates, "...And if I hear one more jackass speak ill of my blades, I'm gonna shove my fist so far down his maw I’ll clean his breakfast clear out clear to the other side!"
A raspy, feminine voice barks back in Common, "Take your screaming outside! One of us has to balance these bloody books!"
The main room is untidy. It's filled with cabinets vaguely organizing weapons but not much in the way of armor. Each cabinet is low enough to allow a dwarf easy access to the upper shelf. Weapons are laid haphazardly on top of and in barrels. On the opposite wall adventuring supplies are neatly organized and well-labeled, as though from a different store entirely.
After a few more muttered Dwarvish profanities, a dwarf with a ginger beard and sharp eyes comes from behind the corner to grab his coat. His eyes dart up to you and his demeanor changes in the instant. He asks, in Common, "Uhh… Welcome, honored customers. Have you come for a Blackiron blade? Best smithwork in all the Dale, they say."
Numchucku sells his club and purchases a scimitar - a weapon he notices is not of the best make, but the price is right. Garn explains the following while he’s giving it, “one more sharpening for good luck.”:
Elza Stifusip goes over the books
Garn’s apprentice, Yajath Binsky, recently robbed Garn of some coins and his prized bronze ring.
“He’s a lanky, scrawny human. Didn’t have the endurance to ever make it as a smith, but I was desperate for the help. He’d wear himself out just running the bellows. He always wanted to be in charge, but didn’t know a ball peen from his peen and balls. I know it’s a long shot to ask, but I figure if you’re traveling the Ten on a budget, you might run in the same circles of low-life arsesholes as him, no offense. Anyway, if you see that ring, I’ll give you fifteen gold for it - that’s more than it’s worth if you try to sell it elsewhere. I'll proffer no questions regarding how you got it, but I do hope it's painful for the thieving bugger. If he's still got any of my coins on him, you can keep those as well. The ring's got sentimental value, as they say. There’s an adamantine hammer as the signet- you know how to spot adamantine? Hard as diamonds and black, but shines green under candlelight.”
"Magic? Oh no, it was given to me by me sister before she died. She couldn't afford nothing magical."
"I'm right here, you wanker!", his sister yells from the back room.
"Ay, like I said, before she died."
You head to the Northlook. After Elva spots Elric Sunhair, she heads to his room intending to sell him the black ice shard she's been carrying, but instead is convinced to use it as credit towards one of his purified light sources. This new light source will shine as bright as your lantern without needing to refill with oil, but you will no longer be warned of elementals, including chwinga, in your vicinity.
As you leave the Northlook, three dwarves bundled in cold weather garb stumble toward you. The female holds up a gloved hand and says, through a thick wool scarf in a raspy voice, “Well met! I’m Hruna, and these are my friends, Korux and Storn. We need help, and… well, you look capable.”
“We’re the survivors of a group of dwarves tasked with delivering a sled of iron ingots to Bryn Shander. A yeti surprised us and scared off our horse. The rest of us fled as the yeti tore Oobok limb from limb. If it were up to me, I’d head back there myself, but my companions are scared that yeti will still be around. We’re hoping you can go and get the sled for us. As payment, we can offer you two-hundred gold, that’s almost everything we have - and if you happen to find that horse still alive, you can keep her. As you must know, the friendship of the dwarves of Icewind Dale can also be a boon in these harsh times."
You learn you'll have trouble moving the iron on your own and decide to check on getting some horses. You head to the stables where Fhai, learning of your plan, convinces you that horses won't do well in the deep snow of the foothills and that dogsleds are the wiser choice. When you ask how much it will cost, she informs you, "A quarter of whatever it is you're finding, because I'm coming with you."
Using every available dog in the kennel, Fhai makes two teams. She'll take the sled with ten, Elva the smaller team with six dogs. The iron will weigh a lot, so it's best to travel light. You both leave some unneeded equipment with Shratha, who will be staying behind.
You follow Hruna's directions, following landmarks to where two streams meet. After a few hours of traveling towards Kelvin's Cairn, you crest a snow-covered ridge and see a frozen, dismembered corpse in the gully in front of you. You see tracks in the snow all around the corpse, and the telltale grooves in the snow left behind by a sled that has been hauled away recently. There is no sign of the horse. The snow is now falling hard, limiting your vision.
Staying high on the ridge, you sneak east - the direction of the recently hauled sled. Dropping down to confluence of streams, you keep cover behind tree roots.
Elva crosses the stream and secures a rope. Noom falls into the waist-deep water. He won't have much time before he'll need to warm up. You notice a goblin near the shore and Elva picks him off easily with her bow.
Elva heads north over another log crossing the second stream. She is the only one to see the war wagon and polar bear in front of it, lashed to it. Perhaps unwisely, she decides to shoot the bear in its rump. It roars bringing everyone's attention to the fact something is going on. There is a blind volley of arrows, javelins, and darts across river, but as goblins approach they come into view an make easy targets. Elva crosses back to inform the rest of what has happened. They are less than pleased with her.
Pushing the goblins back, you recross the stream to the north. This time, Inverna falls in.
Approaching the wagon, you hear, "Take it and let us leave!", yelled from within. You agree, and back away carefully as the bears lumber forward, disappearing into the blizard.
It takes quite some time for half of your party to warm up from falling in the river, to unload ingots and carry them over the icy logs, and to redistribute them in the dogsleds. It grows late and you grow concerned. It's not a long ride back to town, but the snow doesn't seem to be letting up. Your tracks here will surely be covered, and the snow will make navigating back challenging.
Your worries subside momentarily when you make a discovery. After more than half the ingots are removed, you find there is much more to this cargo then you were lead to believe: Black Ice -- and a lot of it. Quickly, you move it to the sleds as well, trying to secure it away from you, placing all your metal belongings between it and you. It looks like you'll have some more questions for the dwarves.
Finally, you set off back through the foothills. It doesn't take long before you hear screaming, coming from all directions. It sounds almost human, but far more haunting.
"Crag cats!", Fhai yells. You pick up the pace. You search for a place to shelter and defend yourself until the crag cats and this blizzard pass. Heading towards some rock outcroppings, you see a strange sight. A bright beam of light extends straight up into the night sky until it fades from your sight. You judge it to be emanating from a spot a few hundred feet ahead.
As you grow nearer, you spot a dwarf on a tall rock, holding a metal cubic contraption above his head. The device eminates the blinding ray of light into the sky. The dwarf if shouting something, muffled by the falling snow and scarf around his face. You can’t understand him until drawing closer. Then you clearly hear, “Move it along! You’re slower'n a geriatric ochre jelly. I dunna have all night!"
