Chilling Adventures in the North

Shad looks at the ground at the mouth of the tunnel on this side of the bridge. He hopes to spot the tracks he saw earlier: Perception 12 (and Survival if you'd like it TheBritGeek 5)

"What do you think? Is this taking us towards the old woman and the skeletons or away? Maybe there's only one way to know?"

Shad spots the tracks that continue along the path.

Bjorn shakes his head, "I don't think this leads to that area of the caves."

Qinfaren rubs his backside as he follows along after Shad.

"I hope they's here someplace, after all this," Arogna says, looking around at the rock walls as if something was about to jump out of them.

You continue on your way along the only remaining path. You find yourselves coming out of the tunnel into an enclosed area. This cave contains an abandoned campsite.

Shad peers at the abandoned campsite. "Hmm," he says. "The tracks lead here, it seems." He will try to see why the site was abandoned. "Are there signs of combat? Bodies? Perhaps starvation was an issue. What," he says, "was left behind? Did they run away or walk off?"

He is also looking for signs of who the campers were. Did they leave fishing gear?. (Here is Perception 24 and Investigation 13)

While Shad checks the camp, Qinfaren examines the walls for any sign of hidden entrances or passageways.

Perception: 20  

Arogna stands guard at the entrance to the enclosed area, hammer at the ready. She listens out for any more wolves or other threats.

Perception 10

TheBritGeek, is this the campsite in the middle of the map? Is that a ten-foot sleeping bag? If so, Shad immediately hides: 16

As Shad searches the campsite he finds three torn-out pages, that are only partially burned, in the charred remains of the campfire. However, the writing is in a language that Shad does not understand.

Stepping closer, Bjorn takes a look at the pages, "They are written in Dwarvish."

He takes the pages from Shad and skim-reads the pages.

"This seems to be the musing about these caves. Mostly they discuss what we already know.

Here, 'These caves are sacred to the frost giants. The carvings on the wall suggest that the giants came here to drown themselves. Did they use the hot spring as a sacrificial pool?'

Also, 'The wind truly sounds like a wailing woman. One could easily go mad in this place.'

Then there's a mention of the woman that Qinfaren found, 'I think there’s someone living in these caves. Shortly after discovering the hot spring, I heard what sounded like a granny singing. When the song ended with a shrill laugh, dread sunk its teeth in me. Ye gods, that horrible cackle! I shall leave these caves in the morning and never return.'

Those are the most interesting parts that are on these pages."

Qinfaren looks around but finds no secret passages leading away from the campsite.

Meanwhile, Arogna keeps an eye out for any threats coming across the icy bridge. However, she fails to spot anything approach.

(Yeah, in middle, and yeah, I guess that's a 10-foot sleeping bag.)

Qinfaren listens to Bjorn read from the pages as he looks around the cave.

"I think we might need to go talk to granny about the missing anglers," Qinfaren says.

He nods back to where Arogna stands watch at the bridge.

"Thanks to my slip, we know where that frozen river below leads. We can just climb down and go around to see granny."

"All right," Shad says. "I guess we can go see her about them. Sounds like she has a scary laugh. She might not be a nice person." He thinks about what Bjorn read for a moment. "If the person writing the journal was one of the fishers, they might have already left. Those bones might not belong to them." He will pull his coats tight around him. "Should we sneak up on her or walk right in or some of us do each?"

If the others seem okay with it, he will prepare ropes to help them climb down, and then go ahead and do so: Acrobatics, with Advantage: 20

Qinfaren smiles.

"I'm not the quietest unless I scurry along on spider legs," Qinfaren says. "But we want to ask her questions so I think we just walk on in and ask."

He looks at the knots Shad put in the rope and carefully watches the agile tabaxi make his way down the rope.

Qinfaren grabs hold and does his best to emulate what he just watched.

Athletics: 26  

Arogna hangs onto the end of the rope until everyone else is down. (Strength 13) "She made him wanta leave the caves," she points out. "An' looks like he did." 

When everyone is down she will follow: Athletics 24

(Bjorn - Athletics: 18)

You all safelt climb down to the frozen river below.

Qinfaren helps Arogna get steady footing on the ice once she comes down then helps get the rope off the outcrop it was anchored to above if possible so they can reuse it later  (Survival - arranged the knot so it be like a loop they could shake off once down?: 10  ).

"I think that way is the way we went before, where the frozen waterfall was," Qinfaren says, pointing back down the tunnel. "It goes through to where the frozen giant and granny were for sure."

He looks the other way down the frozen river.

"This way could loop around and come up the other entrance I think I saw when I first saw her and her cauldron." Qinfaren says. "Want to try that way?"

Shad looks the other way down the frozen river. He looks in the direction Qinfaren is suggesting. "I think that's a good idea," he says. "Let's try that.But, how safe does the river look? Maybe we should tie ourselves together. The water is very cold." He shivers.

He will loop rope around the party members so they can't fall far into the river and will be easier to get out if they do, if Bjorn and Arogna seem to be comfortable with that. Then he'll start walking in the direction Qinfaren indicated. 

"Cheers, Qinfaren," Arogna says as she tries to balance. "Yeah, goin' in the way she maybe don't expect. Give yourself a lot a rope, Shad. I don't reckon it'll be you breaks the ice."

With the rope tied around her waist, she follows carefully with the others.

Bjorn nods and raises his arms slightly allowing Shad to tie the rope around him.

You then begin making your way north away from the waterfall, following the frozen river around to approach the site of where the old woman was spotted, from a different direction.

It takes you a couple of minutes to carefully walk across the ice, but manage to avoid breaking the frozen water again. Eventually, you come to an area where you can see a frozen pool of water beneath the ice. In this pool, you see large skeletal remains.

"This must be where the frost giants came to drown themselves," Bjorn says indicating the four giant skeletons.

From here you find that you have four exits that you can use to continue on your way. One to the the north which seems to slope down deep beneath the surface of the caves. One to the north east that seems to stop quite abruptly. Then one to the south and one to south east. Both of these seem to lead to tunnels.

Bjorn turns to Shad, "So, which way is it?"

"Uhm. Well," Shad says, "I would guess the old woman is south or south east from us." He'll glance at Arogna and Qinfaren. "Does that seem right to you? Of the two direction, I like directly south because the north is always so cold."

Shad is also curious about the large skeletal remains, under the frozen water. "Is this the skeleton you were talking about, Qinfaren? I thought you mentioned just one." No doubt the water down there is brutally cold, Shad thinks, but he does wonder if giants bury themselves with their treasure. He'll look for anything on the remains that would indicate that (Perception: 18) and see if he can recall any giant lore (History 20).