(Following: Meanwhile)
Enemies of the Shadar-Kai
As the journey begins, Sudon tells a few stories of his time sailing on a Shadar-kai "Spelljammer" ship - able to travel between worlds, where they have encountered others also able to travel this way - some just merchant traders, some explorers, but some wicked and hostile invaders. Perhaps the worst of these are the Illithid, also called "Mind Flayers" - who often use living ships in the shapes of sea creatures ("Nautiloids") - with a shell and tentacles, not unlike themselves. They are considered a threat by nearly everyone else, for their name tells of their most frightening power - to imprison and control the minds of others.
When Sudon was assigned to join the Bregan D'aerthe in Luskan, he would still receive occasional messages from his people, sent through shadowy ravens. The day after seeing the meteor fall, as the group crossed the Spine of the World, one such message told him to watch for and learn of an Illithid ship that had been shot from the skies by his allies. Sudon believes this is likely what the group will find. He himself does not know much more about what to expect.
Vision of Auril
On the second day beyond the forests of Lonelywood, a fierce and sudden storm kicked up, entrapping the party in a blizzard. Before able to ready the group in the protections of Leomund's Tiny Hut from Alyks, the party was swiftly engaged by two of Auril's "Coldlight Walkers" as Dex and Phantom had encountered in the search for the Gnoobz.
Driven by ghostly steeds, their sleds closed with the group - with the wind howling words as if spoken by the goddess Auril herself, the swirl of the winds forming a shape of an enormous ram-horned owl-figure... an aspect of the Frostmaiden. This combat, though the party had the numbers, was harsh, and before the frozen and undead minions were silenced, so too did party members. But recovery came within the magical hut, and the journey pressed on, undeterred by the opposition of Winter.
Nautiloid Down
Indeed, within a rocky valley on the coast of the Sea of Moving Ice, at the end of a wide trench gouged into the snow is what appears to be an enormous sea mollusk: presumably, the "Nautiloid" that Sudon described. Numerous (and strange!) tracks surround the shell-and-tentacles, falling into four types:
- Humanoid snowshoes (Phantom reads as belonging to five Reghed tribesmen) - go to the Nautiloid, but do not exit.
- Many-footed insectoid (easily matching the two visibly wandering horse-sized caterpillar creatures seen near the craft).
- Wide sled-like lines emerging and diving into the snow and earth (one spot with a splatter of blood in the middle).
- A bizarrely-formed track leading west down the coast (in the direction of Revel's End).
Zaknalimar creates an illusionary distraction to pull the creatures attention away from the craft, and the group stealthily (or at least hastily) reaches the damaged ship. A ballista-like weapon is cracked in half on an external deck above the long and lifeless tree trunk-sized tentacles curled in the snow at the forefront of the crash. Behind, doors iced shut are forced open by Phantom, revealing what appears to be a cargo hold, whose crates, barrels, and pod-like containers lie scattered in disarray, many broken, as are most of the alien objects once contained within. Three Reghed tribesmen were in states of decay, while a fourth hid to ambush the group. All of these barbarians carried weapons of Chardalyn.
Four pods, cracked open like egg shells, are the most peculiar - each large enough to hold a warhorse and bearing glowing symbols and an icon:
- Two identical sets of symbols glowing green with an icon reasonably matching the profile of the caterpillar creatures.
- Amber-yellow symbols whose icon looks somewhat like a fish with legs.
- Red symbols that blink with an urgency, whose icon is a different shape each time it flashes.
The memories of what transpired within the craft have become muddled and inconsistent between the party members, attesting to the workings of these so-called Mind Flayers. After the party's escape, with wounds and spent mana from use of power, the only reliable record is the journal written during the exploration of the craft by Alyks Askaria, always obsessively documenting the new and peculiar in her travels, even at peril to her own health.
And so the party finds its way moving west-southwest, toward the prison of Revel's End, from which it had so recently just escaped!
(Next: Horrifying Halls)