The party asked the dragon for information on the area; it was forth coming. There were a number of threats in the area, the other dragon, who had gathered some Elementals and several yeti as its minions. They were in the North. To the left of them in the North-East was a demon that had broken into the region from without. In the South-East there was a Cloud Giant and his allies—who the party upon hearing this made the assumption that it was a good giant, probably because they did not want to face him or her. In the South-West, right beside their camp was a Fire Giant, guarding the portal to the Fire Prison. Due West was a clan of unalloyed yeti. That outlined the threats within the prison. They got together to decide how they might chose to tackle to gain a little power and treasure.
Their plan was interrupted by a flash and a toll of thunder that reverberated through the prison. The Ranger who was on watch noted that it was coming from the peak of the mountain, where they had arrived a few days ago. The group gathered at the base to see who was arriving. It was Muk'culuk and Gashnok the two orcs that the players had allied with a few weeks ago. They arrived after being sacrificed in the Air Temple. They told them that the camp was attacked by a force of humans and trolls. They were beaten to unconsciousness and then sacrificed in the temple and then they were here.
They brought their loyal henchmen to their camp, before they headed out to either remove potential allies for the dragon or in the least learn how to fight yetis for when they had to fight the Dragon's allies. There was also a plan to kill the yetis and skin them and maybe disguise themselves as yeti to get the drop on the dragon and its allies. The approach was easy, up a rising escarpment to a cavern up above the entrance to the Goblin warren that the party destroyed the day before. The entrance was unguarded and it was only when they entered and their eyes adjusted to the dim light that they noticed the baleful red eyes in the darker recesses of the cave, beyond where their darkvision could pick up.
Battle was joined right away, no choice really, but there were two caverns attached to the entrance and there were yeti in each cave, which ever group they faced, the other was going to close in behind. The party decided to engage both groups before they could do that. Vistra charged forth and readied for the yeti to come within range, and the Paladin charged past her to be the first in the fight. The Priest of the Red Sun cast a small red globe of fire past the first and second rank of yetis in the opposite cave, where it landed and exploded engulfing the first four and the two hiding behind them in a fire ball. The Ranger shot arrows trying to assassinate one of the yeti; it took all three of his arrows to bring one of the beasts down! The Druid cast flaming Sphere into the midst of the yeti, awaking their fear of fire, if the fireball had not done that. The yeti counterattack was savage. They attacked with two claw attacks and a fearsome yell which froze their targets in fear. The paladin and the Storm Cleric fell victim to this, and they were fast for large creatures, faster than them. The cleric of Xeric cast beacon of Hope above the battlefield, because it looked like the Paladin was likely going to need some healing quickly, again. The others would need healing too, the yetis began to rip the party asunder.
Initially, three of the characters froze under the onslaught, but they were able to shrug of the effects of the initial engagement quickly, it was just luck that the three that froze were the heaviest armoured and were able to block the beast's attacks. After they shook off the initial effects of the encounter, they brought the fight to the yeti. The Warlock/Bard seeing the Paladin, once again beleaguered by his exuberance to be the hero, perhaps the paladin with a death wish, was engaging six yetis by himself, cast a Bard spell,Hypnotic Pattern, on five of them to halt their progress on turning the diminutive Paladin into an appetizer in plate-mail. The ploy was successful and instead of six fearsome white shaggy terrors, he faced one.
One of the yeti attacked the still frightened Storm Cleric and while rending him was struck by lightning for the offense and knocked back ten feet. The sound of thunder seemed to regain his mindset and he gave the Yeti a solid and savage hit with his great axe, that opened the yeti up from the top of its breastbone to the bottom of its bowels, eliciting the comment that the yeti smelled worse on the inside than the outside; it died. The six on the right were methodically burned and worked down and killed while the mounted paladin, charged, disengaged and charged the yetis again and again to the left, by himself. With the rest of the yetis dead the party turned to support the paladin and his struggles with the second group of yeti. Granted, the yetis were all under the effects of the Hypnotic Pattern, but still. After the fight the party went back to camp to lick their wounds and they collectively decided that they were well enough to go after the Fire Giant.
They surveyed the lair of the Fire Giant and they found him patrolling in military fashion around the portal to the Fire Prison. Above the portal were several yetis hanging on hooks slowly drying out in the heat to make a yeti jerky. The party retreated around the edge to await the signal by the ranger that they should attack. The ranger then set up a couple delaying traps that he hoped might hold off the giant for a round or two and he stalked up to the Giant. His cloak and boots of Elvenkind made his character into the scariest stalker ever. Waiting until the Giant was both near to the ranger and with his back to him, the ranger fired a volley of arrows to assassinate him. Even with the Giant's cast iron frying pan thick armour, the ranger managed to hit the giant twice. And the battle began, with the giant charging for where the arrows came from and the ranger moving from that place to around the corner. The party was set up for maximum effect, the Bard/Warlock had his wand of Paralyzation out and ready to fire, the fighter types were spaced out to allow the ranger and the giant to pass between them, so the heavy armoured characters could cut block the giant from the weaker characters and rush to kill the giant if it should be paralyzed and the Ranger was going to pepper the giant to death with arrows from cover. Then the Druid stepped out and drew her sporadically effective Wand of a Wonder and zapped the Giant!
The giant stopped mid charge, thrust his super great sword into the ground and began to do a jig with his hands on his hips and standing in a squat legs kicking out from him and arms rising out above his head mid dance and yelling out the Giant equivalent, "Hey!" the character's stunned expression said it all, they rushed the dancing giant, timing their attacks for when he's dance made him most vulnerable. Deprived of sword, the giant lashed out with a kick that went between to combatants. The giant died with a very confused look on his face, and the Druid put her wand away, believing that her Wand, was the single best wand ever.
The next day the characters headed out to seek out the demon that the Dragon talked about. They found it and they charged forth. The demon decided to fly above the characters and seek out the best target to attack and eat. The ranger, did not care and fired his bow as quickly as he could to bring it down. The Druid drew her favourite weapon, her Wand and fired it at the Demon. The group was held in suspense, waiting for the affect of the wand. The demon laughed. The characters laughed, as silver coins began falling out of the Elf's ears for thirty seconds, well after the last of the demons blood had been shed by the party. The warlock had gathered the thirty coins from the ground and asked the Druid to do that again.
Next session, the players will go forth and fight the Dragon in the subjective North, as ninth level Charcters!
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