35. May 7, 2017

The shadowy eye remains stationery, and eventually dissipates after an hour. We turn west again, and in the military district we resupply, and in a stroke of luck find a shop selling two weapons that detect as magic—a beautiful heavy crossbow [+4 magic crossbow] with perfect balance, and an exquisitely beautiful rapier [a +1 weapon, it's a Bane weapon, meaning it is an additional +2 to hit/damage against creatures that can cast spells PLUS an additional +2d6 damage]. We make a hefty donation at the local shrine/small temple to Nol (foundational god of justice and protection) and give prayers of thanks as we leave, as he surely must have arranged to have these weapons on hand when we were in need of magic weapons to use against undead.

From writing to Nemoriana to ask for ideas on how to help heal Odette, we learn that in Honal there is a healer of Beseth, an older lady who performs healing miracles. She is a humble woman who travels from town to town obtaining sustenance from charity. Reputedly she is only able to provide healing to those who have led a life loyal to Beseth, or are truly in need.

We change direction, go north. We can't find a shrine to Beseth, and have to instead make a regular camp and Consecrate the ground around it. Overnight, undead approach (six of them). An unnatural cold steals over the camp, and waves of icy fog seep from the center of our camp out, seemingly keeping the undead at bay. We turn and see that Odette is the source of the cold! She is slowly freezing, and frost is emanating from her apparently slumbering body. Bel casts an Endure Elements spell to try to protect Odette, and there is a magical backlash—Bel perceives that she is sucked into a frozen state and is there for about a minute, but to Jessa and Ghard they see a flash of light and Bel apparently is blown backwards several steps, and looks befuddled for only a few seconds. Jessa sees the undead retreat further, while Bel looks around in confusion.

When Bel touches Odette, what she experiences is that she is suddenly in a cold place and is frozen and unable to move, her limbs growing numb from cold. In her field of vision are creatures that look like very tall, stocky elves who are similarly frozen and trapped. The elves are in positions in which they seem that they were caught unawares and completely by surprise; some of the elves seem like they tried to stand in front of and protect others, some look surprised or scared, others look like they tried to start running—all are frozen in place. It appears these elves were all caught in some terrible cataclysm and suddenly frozen. Bel doesn't see Odette, but she does see a light source moving across her field of vision from the left, over her head, to the right, then the blue light is dimmer, then the light comes again along the same circular course across Bel's horizon. Fearing that this represents the passage of time (the sun) though the light seems a bit dim and too low to the horizon to be the sun, and that several days have just passed rapidly, Bel invokes a focused prayer to Beseth to release her.

Bel experiences another flash of light and is back at the campsite. Odette is now completely free of ice, and over several minutes it grows warmer. Bel is in complete possession of her faculties. To Jessa it appeared that only a round passed, to Bel it was more like a turn. We wake Odette, and she is the same as before.