Krynn's Vanguard continued travelling through the blizzard almost aimlessly as they couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of them. A small bit later, they were able to make out an orange light that was piercing through the whiteout.
As they crested the final ridge, they saw it: a lopsided wooden shack with boarded up windows, leaning as though weary of its own existence. Crystals of ice clung to its surface, reflecting the eerie light from within. The door stood slightly ajar, creaking with every gust of wind, as if beckoning them inside.
The moment they stepped over the threshold, a sense of unnatural stillness settled over them, the air thick and heavy with an unseen weight. The chamber beyond was a chaos of parchment, strange baubles, and books scattered in careless disarray, their pages crinkled and yellowed with time. The flickering light came from an array of half-burned candles, their wax pooling onto surfaces long since abandoned to dust and decay. Strange symbols, scrawled in frantic, uneven script, lined the walls, overlapping in an intricate web of madness. The scent of melting wax, ink, and something less pleasant—something ancient and rotting—coiled in their nostrils.
Then, from the shadows, a figure emerged.
A man—or what remained of him—stood hunched over a table, muttering to himself in hushed, frantic tones. His robes were tattered, moth-eaten, and stained with ink and something darker. A wild nest of white hair framed his gaunt face, and his eyes, wide and bloodshot, flickered between awareness and madness. His fingers, thin and gnarled, twitched as though tracing unseen patterns in the air.
“They come, they come, they come,” he whispered, his voice a brittle croak. “Fire and shadow, steel and shrieking skies. They wake, they rise, they remember.”
The party exchanged uneasy glances before the bravest among them spoke. “Who comes?”
The wizard’s head snapped toward them with a disturbing speed, his eyes like two black holes swallowing all reason. He reached out, fingers clawing at the air. “The lost, the forsaken! The ones buried in silence, forgotten but never gone! Oh, but I remember! I see them, I see them in my dreams, in the ice, in the bones of this land. They stir, they hunger, they call to the weak-minded!”
He staggered forward, gripping the nearest party member’s cloak with a strength that belied his frailty. His nails bit into the fabric as he pulled them closer, his breath reeking of old ink and decay. “You do not understand! None of you do! They whisper to fools, to kings, to priests who have lost their way! And when they return, there will be no dawn, no mercy, only ruin! They have waited for so long! Their hands reach beyond time, beyond death!”
His breathing came in ragged gasps as he released his grip, his fingers trembling. His gaze darted wildly about the room, as though seeing unseen horrors moving just beyond the veil of perception. “I tried… tried to warn them. But they laughed, they mocked, they called me mad! And now, now I hear them laughing from the abyss, laughing because they know… they know it is too late!”
The wizard stumbled back, clutching his head, his nails raking over his temples as he let out a sharp, ragged cry. The sound echoed unnaturally in the small chamber, as if the very walls recoiled from the weight of his despair. His laughter erupted, a cracked and broken sound, filling the room and drowning out the wind outside. He clutched his head, shaking as if tormented by unseen voices, his words dissolving into incomprehensible gibberish.
The party stood frozen, the weight of his words pressing on them like the very ice surrounding the shack. Was he truly mad? Or had he glimpsed something no sane mind could withstand?
Then, from the depths of the ground, something stirred. A deep, shuddering groan rippled through the stone, as though the very foundation trembled with buried knowledge. The wizard’s eyes snapped wide, his breath hitching. His lips parted, and in a voice barely more than a whisper, he gasped: “They hear us.”
The wind wailed louder, as though the world itself had heard his prophecy—and wept in fear.
The man ran outside into the snowstorm disappearing in the whiteout. Following, Krynn's Vanguard found themselves in between a rock and a hard place. There was no trace of the man and they found themselves caught between 2 adult white dragons accompanied by a Sivak Draconian and a Traag Draconian. On the other side was 2 Frost Giant Everlasting, and a single Frost Giant. It appeared that the two factions were fighting. A fight ensued with Krynn's Vanguard attacking the dragons and the giants only attacking the party if they got in their way. After a couple rounds, the dragons and giants came to an understanding to kill the pesky intruders in their battle before continuing their conflict.
It was a tough battle, but once one creature fell, the others followed swiftly and Krynn's Vanguard lived to fight another day. Resting in the now abandoned cottage, Krynn's Vanguard gathered their bearings, and headed out towards Icewall Castle...at least they hoped that's the direction they were going.
As they were travelling, they came across a pack of Woolly Mammoths trudging through the snow. After debating whether they should mount, or kill the Wolly Mammoths (have we established that Krynn's Vanguard are pretty terrible people when left to their own devices?) the Woolly Mammoths broke off in a sprint changing their direction drastically. Looking behind them, Krynn's Vanguard saw a total whiteout blizzard coming towards them, with a dragon that appeared to be made of Ice coming right at them. As they ran and kept looking back, the dragon changed to a pack of large winter wolves, a few Frost Giants, Skeletal soldiers, and more. Each time they looked back it was different...and closer