As time resumed our heroes began looking for a new hill giant to take over as leader. They found a giant who had just finished blocking a doorway with a large boulder. Sadly, the only thing that wouldn’t be able to squeeze by the boulder are giants. Zesh talked to the giant with Fin’s help. The giant had a hard time believing them that the chief and his friends were dead. He did go have a look and tried to smack the chief awake.
As no one was waking up, Zesh started asking him about how many giants were here. He started to try and count them but seemed to be struggling to do so. Our heroes looked around a bit, they found some pigs down below, some goats on the outside, as well as some orcs. Seraphina meanwhile found some wolves that were kept captive. She fed them some roc meat, and tried to figure a way to open the portcullis. She made a pulley system but still needed help from her friends.
Finally, our heroes decided to give the hill giant conch to the dumb hill giant they found as a gift from the chief. He immediately went to eat it, but our heroes convinced him not to, and to keep it safe. They then used the conch of teleportation to return to the Maelstrom. Finn was blown away by the place. Since it would take Seraphina 2 hours to unattune to a magic item and attune to the meditation room Finn decided to take the opportunity to explore.
He first sketched the hulking crab in the great hall before exploring more with Kida. As they delved deeper they found some of the rooms were underwater, they even saw some storm giants sleeping with seaweed wrapped around their arms, which Kida was very excited about as it reminded her of otters. A bit of exploring later and they came to a shelf full of nice little nicknacks. One of these Finn identified as a force cube. Another was a beautifully crafted golden astrolabe. They then saw what appeared to be a library. Finn excitedly began reading the rocks, and he found a few spells on them. He suggested Kida bring Zesh over, so off Kida went to get Zesh.
On their way to see Finn, Zesh noticed a secret door. She made a mental note to come back to it. Kida showed her the force cube and astrolabe before continuing on to Finn. Finn showed her the spells, having forgotten that Zesh’s spells were granted to her by Gond, they were not things she needed to learn like he did. Going back to the secret door, Zersh and Kida opened it to see a spiraling staircase.
They first went up the staircase where they found a group of steam mephits in the room. A bit worried they decided to head down and explore the bottom floor. In this room they saw a pool of water with a large orca swimming in it. As Kida got really close it tried to snap at her. This scared her off for a minute, before Zesh pointed out there were boxes of fish. This made them think maybe the orca was hungry, so they took some fish and tossed it into the pool, delighted as the orca snapped up and ate the fish. Kida started exploring a bit more, having another mostly submerged room. She started swimming across when some sort of creature with long tentacle and sharp teeth tried to attack her. She and Zesh quickly fled back to the second floor.
By now Seraphina was ready for everyone, so they joined her in the meditation room. She was rather excited, and as our heroes gathered round, she teleported them without telling them their destination. Still the cold air chilled our heroes as they found themselves in Lonelywood, Seraphina’s hometown. Zesh and Finn were rather unhappy with this bitter cold, and were happy to go in to Seraphina’s home, where her mother was awaiting them. Her mother was overjoyed and seeing Seraphina back home, and was more than happy to have her new friends stay over.
Seraphina’s mother offered to make some nice hot soup for Zesh and Finn to try and warm them up. She started talking to Serephina’s friends, getting to know them a bit better, and thanking them all for taking care of her little Seraphina. She even embarrassed Seraphina by asking our heroes to keep her safe. When Seraphina complained she said any mother would feel this way and asked if anyone was a mother. At this point, Kida spoke up, saying she was a mother.
The entire group was shocked, as none of them had any clue about this. Kida started talking about how she had a son, but felt she failed him as a mother. He had died while fighting for the tribe, living how she had taught him to live. Seraphina went and kicked Kida, unhappy that Kida had kept this hidden from her, but then hugged her leg to comfort her, as Seraphina’s mother hugged KIda’s other leg. Our heroes talked a bit more, before settling in for the night. The next day they got their supplies in a nearby town before heading off towards the sea of moving ice. Thus the world came to a standstill once more.