May 27th, 2023
Mors, Comitatus 23rd, 1194 (Continued)
We camp in the ogre’s den.
Vita, Comitatus 24th, 1194
We find a room with four ice pillars and Ralzer notices evidence of something really big rubbing against them while moving. We continue to hear that scratching noise. We come across a pool of water and Ralzer is convinced that he saw something at the bottom. He’s insistent on getting in it, only to discover that it was nothing.
We later find, what Ralzer believes, is a white dragon nest. White dragons are immune to paralysis, sleep, and cold. They have DR, are able to move through ice and snow without issue, and are able to cast gust of wind and fog cloud. Inside the nest we find a snallygaster, which is a kind of bloodsucking beast with tentacles and a nasty beak, as featured in Investigator Vale and the Deadwood Altar. This one, however, looks to be undead; specifically, according to Sigmund, frostfallen–which are created by icy deaths.
There’s a mined tunnel that goes very deep and leads to a natural looking cavern. Tolm’s journal mentioned something something like this. In the cavern we encounter a pair of fungal crawlers. Ty recognizes them from another Investigator Vale novel, Shadows of the Subterrane,they’re like a fungus that has infested a small creature and takes it over.
While searching a room full of mining supplies we are ambushed by a choker, nasty grapplers that like to strangle people, and two balabra (tanglers), floating jellyfish-like creatures that should only be struck with bludgeoning weapons. In another section of the cavern we find a shriezyx, an aberration used by drow and derro as mounts and guardians. Ty recounts how, in The Road of Belladonna, Investigator Vale has to track a drow fugitive that rode one of these; they have a fear of fire and are venomous.
We next stumble into an ettercap den, which Investigator Vale dealt with in The Wickedly Weaved Web, one of Ty’s favorites in the series. In said novel, an evil cabal of duergar were using mutated ettercaps to milk their venom and poison the food delivers for local schools.