The party stands before the double doors in the arched entryway of the necropolis complex are easily 20 feet tall, with each door being 10 feet wide. The doors had just opened, enticing their entry.
They’ve prepared as much as possible and have finally breached the tempestuous veil hiding this magnificent and terrifying Ice Necropolis. Everyone takes a step towards the entrance except Qarzdaq.
QARZ: Hey guys. I have idea. I’ve gained a new ability to ask a favor of R’hllor and I’d like to Wish for us to gain permanent resistance to Cold.
The guys turn to him.
QARZ: Yeah. I know it’s risky. I could lose it forever, but we’re walking into this freaking place and I want to give us the best chances we can get.
Everyone defers to Qarzdaq’s judgment. He grabs a rock then Teleports everyone to the Nightfort.
Making a Wish
Upon arriving, they gather the Lord Commander and the five strongest, highest-ranking Rangers at the Nigthfort. Qarzdaq tells them they are about to call upon the gods to bless them all with resistance to Cold.
They all join hands.
Qarzdaq makes his Wish.
A crescendo of power that builds inside him until he feels he might shatter. Suddenly, the power leaves his body all at once and he collapses to the ground, drained of energy.
He looks around groggily, and has the sense that might be the last favor R’hllor might grant him.
Qarzdaq knows his wish was to aid the greater good. In service to his fellow man. For R’hllor.
QARZ: Rhllor shall provide…
Qarzdaq collapses to the ground.
He awakes 2 days later in a comfortable room feeling much better. He still senses his connection to R’hllor, but he’s now certain he no longer has any more Wishes.
Entering the Necropolis
The party reconnects in the courtyard, reaffirms to the maesters and their allies that the fight is about to begin, and Teleport just outside the doors to the necropolis.
Qarzdaq opens an Ioun portal to the cavern. Aran steps through.
Thirty seconds later, the portal flickers and Aran sees the Nightfort on the other side. Aran steps through.
Meanwhile, Qarzdaq sees his portal close, and immediately starts to reopen it.
He arrives at all of their allies assembled and ready for command.
ARAN: We’re going to need the Children of the Forest and the Inventorship!
All of the other factions give way for the Children and the Inventors.
Within 30 seconds of stepping through, the portal closes. When Maester Brance finishes summoning another portal, Aran quickly leads his allies into the cavern.
ARAN: Alright, everyone go through, quickly!
Qarzdaq sees his portal close again, and again, he immediately starts to reopen it.
Moments after everyone is in the cavern, the portal flickers again.
ARAN: Alright, one more time! Everyone through!
They all pass through the portal into a much colder environment than the Nightfort. The allies do well. The Children are more used to this environment than men, but the Inventors have gear to keep them warm enough to be functional.
ARAN: Ok. We’re about to step into something, and we’re not exactly sure what it is. What we do know is that we are dealing with water magic.
Stepping inside, the air feels less destructive. It is still very cold, but nothing like being outside.
They realize they are in a giant ice cathedral. It is about 200 feet wide and goes back about 600 feet. The large, evenly-spaced columns rise 50 feet to hold the ceiling.
A stretch of blue-colored ice runs beneath their feet all the way to the back of the structure, reminiscent of a blue carpet. It terminates at a set of giant doors at the rear that each must be 15 feet wide.
Along the way, the blue ice runs up a set of stairs that span the entire width of the structure, leading up to a dais with a wide podium and what looks to be many wooden containers. There seems to be some sort of shimmering translucent wall at the top of the stairs, protecting the podium and whatever lies beyond.
The stillness they experience inside this building is daunting.
Farron casts Crown of Stars then Foresight on Qhortho, providing him the ability to see a second or so into the future.
Qarzdaq spreads his wings and hovers 20 feet into the air. Seeing the shimmering wall, he casts a Firebolt at it, just to see what would happen. The magical bolt smacks into the wall and fizzles, unable to penetrate it. He calls for Balishna to loose an arrow at the wall, but it too shatters upon impact.
QARZ: We’re dealing with some sort of very powerful force field. Maybe we can push through it when we get up there.
They slowly continue forward into the cathedral.
An Old Friend
A dozen large ice spiders come into view, each with a faint blue glow. They climb along the columns and slowly descend from the ceiling along thin icy strands. Another dozen or so cling to the ceiling. They do not appear immediately aggressive.
At the back of the room, you see a tall man in blue robes at the podium call out to you.
TYRONE: If it isn’t my very own Unlikely Assembly… I’m pleased to see you’ve made it… I continue to underestimate you, it seems. You could still join us, you know. You could have immense power. You could exist for eternity. You just need to hand over those artifacts, and you will have everything beyond your wildest dreams.
QARZ: The only thing I want is you dead!
QHOR: You can take it from my cold, dead hands!
FARR: Who the hell is this guy?
ARAN: Well… we’ll tell you later… You just need to know that we killed him before and he needs to die again.
TYRONE: No matter. We will get those artifacts. Even if it must be from your cold, dead hands.
He waves one arm in a sweeping motion, and the creatures all around the cathedral become aggressive.
As the party looks around to the various threats, Tyrone raises his arms. Some of the boxes behind him break open. Except these are not just boxes… they are coffins… And from these coffins, a wave of corporeal wights rush forward through the shimmering wall on the dais!
All of their artifacts light up as they are calling for the allies to spready out at the rear.
Farron shoots a Qarzdaq Fireball from this ring, destroying several of the ice spiders.
Aran and Qhortho rush forward to engage the closest ice spiders to them.
Qarzdaq drops a Meteor Swarm into the area in front of the party and behind them, destroying not only the creatures in the areas of impact, but also the columns holding up the ceiling!
Immediately, most of the ceiling fractures and crashes down all around them, causing them to dodge the collapsing structure. Except this is not ordinary structure. This structure is made of ice. When the icy chunks slam into the ground, they explode into icy shards, piercing everything in their surroundings.
The ice spiders web a few of the allies and bring a few more closer to death.
The allies attack the closest creatures to them, destroying several of the remaining foes.
TYRONE: You have yet to see our POWER!
Tyrone waves his arms and points to several locations. As he does, another wave of corporeal wights crash through the remaining coffins on the dais, several ogre zombies with beaming blue eyes emerge from the rubble, and the blue ice “carpet” melts into water, revealing several Water Weirds and Water Elementals.
Of course, this does not deter our heroes.
Farron shoots off a mote from his Crown of Stars, harnessing the lightning energy of the Inventors.
Aran attacks an ice spider with his glaive, also harnessing lightning energy. The creature is standing in the water running through the center of the room, causing creatures closer to the entrance to be shocked in the process!
Qhortho likes the look of this. As Aran tears through a few more enemies, Qhortho destroys the closest corporeal wights.
The party destroys a few of the water creatures and makes headway into the remaining foes.
Tyrone attempts to disintegrate Qhortho, but Qhortho’s foresight announces the threat just before, allowing him to dodge the magical ray. Frustrated, Tyrone summons a group of undead spellcasters then suddenly vanishes!
The shimmering wall remains intact even though the Deathlocks and Deathlock Wights cast their attacks through the barrier, striking Aran multiple times.
The party and allies make quick work of the remaining enemies. With the final blow to the last creature, the shimmering wall dissipates. The floor remains cluttered with the unliving, both friend and foe.
The party takes a quick inventory of the remaining allies; just 8 Inventors and 4 Children remain. Luckily, one of the Children is Balishna, but losing 16 of them is a blow to their remaining population.
They search the area for about 15 minutes, making sure to burn the bodies as they search them. They find nothing of any use until they make their way to the doors at the rear of the room.
Keys to the Chamber
There, they find a blue ice shard sticking from its center. Qhortho pulls the ice shard, removing it from its cavity with a crackling sound. The ice shard fades from blue to transparent as the doors open with a low-frequency rumble.
As the doors open, it grabs the attention of a bunch of smaller flying creatures: Mephits. The last time they’d seen these things was in the kobold stronghold under the Pit of Light’s Sparks. Except, rather than being creatures of magma, these seem to be creatures of mud. Unlike the creatures they’d just faced, the mephitis do not appear to glow with any color at all.
Although this area appears to be sheltered from direct sunlight, a somewhat bright purple-magenta light pulses from a chamber behind the mephitis as if it is breathing.
The party makes short work of the mephitis and immediately approach the chamber. A large door is centered between two large viewing windows. Looking through the windows, they can see this is not glass, but some other field preventing their entry.
Inside the chamber is a very large Weirwood split vertically down the middle and pulsing the purple-magenta light. Its roots appear to be woven in and out of the ground, pulsing with the same light.
Focusing on the door, they find four cavities that appear identical to the cavity they’d just removed the ice shard from. Inserting the colorless ice shard into one of the cavities, it clicks into place and begins to pulse with the same purplish-magenta glow as the chamber behind the door.
As we close this session on Day 955, the party seems to have a clear objective: find the remaining ice shards, which are almost certainly guarded by the other four sources of magic, and destroy whatever is corrupting that Weirwood. They stand alongside 12 of their remaining allies, with another 120 waiting to be called from the Nightfort.
This session, each member of the Assembly gained 4650 XP, bringing their totals to 247.8 kXP, just over halfway to Level 18.