40. January 7, 2018

In the Aerden Capitol City

Aishling is still unconscious (previously, she was pale, shaky, feverish). The Healing Woman, whose name we learn is Zsofia, has gotten her calm, cooler, and now Aishling is simply sleeping—Zsofia says this is natural and expected. Jessa takes to meditating in the recovery room of her youngest little sister. Suddenly she gets the impression someone is standing right behind her, though no one is there. Jessa speaks in elvish, saying she's there

for Aishling. Jessa feels a puff of cool air behind her, and the impression of a presence behind her is gone. And Aishling is still asleep, but is sweating now.

Druij (the druid illusionist) explains to Jessa that Aishling can listen in on the dreams of others. Sometimes (rarely) she can send/project into others' dreams, but mostly she is able to listen. We speculate that Aishling may have projected her consciousness into the glacier with the Thelduin, and trapped her mind there. Jessa tries sleeping in the recovery room next (with the others monitoring). While asleep she feels the presence again, but nothing further happens. Overnight, Odette sleeps in the recovery room next to Aishling. She spends an uneventful night, feels refreshed in the morning.

The Glacier

We travel to the glacier (5 days of travel, 300 miles) to the dig site/melt site. It's a big camp site, lots of druids, hunters, cooks, lumberjacks, and Aoife herself, in small tunnels in the glacier; the melting is a slow process that only magic can accomplish. (Including magic weapons—but those destructive compared to Aoife's melting ability.) Aoife is busy and guards are preventing anyone from approaching, so we talk to people in the camp to get more information.

They tell us that since Aoife's magic is slow, Aishling did not need to be in the tunnels all the time. She wrapped herself in furs and would sleep in the tunnels near her sister, and then provide direction after waking. Maybe every few weeks she'd do this to confirm the direction. She traveled between the capitol and the glacier. She did not suddenly fall it, it appeared to come on her gradually and then she got worse over time. Ghard talks to the guards, and one of them tells him that:

• there are giants on top of the glacier, and occasionally they throw things down; there was a neat stone inside one of the snowballs that the guard kept.

• the guards occasionally have to carry out the creepy dead elves, who have icicles on them. The druids tend to the body outside, and a giant eagle will swoop down and take the elven body away.

• They also saw a white dragon. He says.

The glacier detects as strong magic; Aoife detects as strong magic; most of the Aerden people detect as faint to strong magic.

Some of the people detect as good; a few detect as evil. We note who are evil; a few laborers, but one is a druid. At some point later, Druij (who detects as neither good nor evil) walks up to talk to the evil druid. During their speech, Druij seems calm, but the evil one becomes agitated and remains agitated. Interesting.

Odette's Vision (which she can't tell us) During her Watch

We decide to stand four watches during the first night. Odette takes first watch. She zones out while watching, and kinda zones out staring at the ice and while watching feels like she becomes an ice crystal, and is floating and blowing on the wind. Then time seems to accelerate, and clouds blow in from the west and it starts raining. Torrential rain. By day 30, there's mud everywhere. By day 40, the rain is hot and there are bones showing; near

day 40, a skull starts to appear, attached to all the bones. A giant humanoid skull. And then suddenly she snaps to, because Ghard has woken and says “hey, it's my watch, why didn't you wake me?”

Ghard's Watch and Vision (which he doesn't speak of, either, during the night)

Ghard watches next. Odette is mumbling in her sleep. A shadow goes across Odette—it's a dragon, flying between the moon and the earth. It lands on top of the glacier and stares down at the camp. Ghard keeps an eye on it. It sits there for an hour, nobody else seems to notice it. Then it takes off, does a loop, and flies off over the glacier.

Jessa's Watch and Vision (which she speaks of, but nobody else sees it)

Jessa reflects about her dreams during her watch. They were weird; like she was sailing to Valkir in her dream and the mast snaps in a storm and she is able to run up and hold it in place until they reach land. And similar dreams where things kept happening in ordinary circumstances, but she had insanely-strong strength and used it in each situation.

During Jessa's watch the guard shift changes, and two walking into the tunnels the light from their torch hit the ice funny. She sees something like a huge Clydesdale horse that appears to be walking through the ice. A good size for a riding horse for 7-foot tall elves. Jessa wakes Bel early, but Bel can't see it. Jessa turns over the watch to Bel early, and then paces the horse outside of the ice and gets a good distance from the camp.

Occasionally it stops and looks at Jessa. At one point, it stops and it appears disjointed/split so top half of horse is suddenly 2 feet higher than back half. At that point there's a cracking noise back at the camp; Jessa glances there then back and the horse is gone. She walks forward, and the hores looked disjointed because there's a large fissure in the glacier here, and there's wind coming out of it.

Jessa squeezes into the fissure. It would never be visible from the camp. She plays out her rope; her fissure is more than 50 feet. She hears ice cracking—not earthquakes, but the ice is constantly settling.

Bel's Watch

Bel's watch is uneventful except for Jessa sneaking up on her. We wake the party to go into the fissure. Odette is distraught, she has had dreams but cannot communicate. Bel casts an Augury that tells us going into the fissure would be good.

The Fissure

So we go in, and wiggle through. We find a black stone, similar to what Ghard's buddy said was thrown at him by a giant. As we look at it, there's suddenly a large cracking noise, and an icequake! The path behind us is blocked, we can't see/hear behind us, it appears it may be sealed at the entrance so probably nobody will notice where we are. But we don't think it will be difficult to get back out, so we decide to continue in.