As time resumed our heroes traveled towards their destination. They came across a herd of elk. Seraphina and Kida went off to hunt some and get some food for the road, while Zesh and Finn made a fire to try and stay warm in this cold climate. Our heroes easily managed to gather a few elk and get some rations off of them. Zesh asked Gond for guidance, and they noticed some griffins flying to the southwest. Believing this was a sign from Gond they decided to follow them.
A few days later, as they were still looking for Svardborg, they were engulfed by a giant shadow. Looking up they say a huge white dragon coming towards the group. On the back of the dragon was a saddle with a corpse in the saddle. Seraphina, recognizing the dragon as Arveiaturace, told her companions to hide. While Zesh and Kida jumped in some bushes, Finn was intrigued by this being. As it came down it made a bit of conversation with Finn, wondering why Finn wouldn’t cower before her. Finally, she grabbed Finn and flew up, dropping Finn a couple hundred feet in the air.
Being a wizard Finn instantly cast fly and tried to catch up to the dragon, yet couldn’t keep up to her speed. Seraphina was yelling at Finn to come back, but couldn’t be heard. She asked Zesh to use Thaumaturgy to try and reach Finn, but Zesh instead used it to call the dragon rude, who turned around and flew back down. Upset that Zesh would insult her, Arveiaturace took a deep breath and unleashed her cold breath on Zesh. Zesh realized she was in over her head and tried to runaway and hide.
Meanwhile, Finn had used the opportunity to attach himself to the saddle. When Arveiaturace realized this, she told him to get off, upset that he was sharing a spot with her friend. Finn pointed out her friend was dead, but she didn’t believe him until Finn convinced her to lower herself for a minute. He then brought the body down. Inspecting the body, Arveiaturace roared in agony, a certain madness in her eyes.
Terrified about what would happen next, Seraphina used Lightning Arrow to shoot Arveiaturace. The surrounding damage hit both Finn and Nyalla, knocking Nyalla out. Zesh saw this and tried to get over and grab Nyalla to get her to safety and heal her, but Finn wouldn’t let her go, not knowing who or what to trust. He flew away with Nyalla at his first opportunity and kept flying.
Zesh, now being the closest, became the focus of Arveiaturace’s attack. She was quickly knocked unconscious as the dragan attacked her. Kida tried to get Zesh to safety, but the dragan attacked her as well. Not stopping with just an unconscious target, the great white dragon continued to attack until its targets were dead, shattering Zesh’s armor in the process and cracking Kida’s shell. While Seraphina tried to help her friends at first, she quickly realized the best chance at survival was to hide, and did so. Once the dragon was out of visible living targets, she flew away.
Seraphina rushed to her companions and used revivify to bring them both back from the dead. They quickly got themselves up and rushed away in case Arveiaturace were to return. They tried to contact Finn using Sending but there was no response. Seraphina took a guess that Finn would end up in Bremen based upon the direction he and Nyalla were heading and the group took off in that direction as well, hoping to meet up with their friend once more.
Meanwhile, using multiple spells and flying at full speed the entire time, Finn arrived in Bremen. He tried the first building he came to, which luckily was an inn, the Buried Treasures. Seeing the distraught and exhausted Finn, the innkeeper, Cora, provided him with a room and told him they could worry about the money tomorrow. She also brought some food up to him, although Finn quickly fell asleep after making sure that Nylla was ok. The next day he made some small talk with Cora, and gave her the small clock that Elister had given them as thanks for payment. The party had reached out to him again via sending, and this time Finn responded.
The remainder of the group took a bit longer to reach Bremem, they ran into a group of hunters that had mentioned some frost giant tracks not too far away. The two groups traveled together until they reached Bremen. Seraphina headed off to the river to catch a fish, as the rest of the group went to the Buried Treasures. Zesh went to Finn, and the two talked a bit about what happened. Finn helped clean Zesh off a bit. As the two were talking Seraphina came in with a fish for Nyalla, she apologized to Nyalla, but Nyalla was still rather upset.
Finn and Seraphina had a drink at the bar and discussed what happened. Seraphina was upset that Finn didn’t listen to her, and felt that he didn’t trust her. Finn confirmed he didn’t fully trust her yet, and didn’t expect her to either, but she told him she had ever since he got into the gorgon mud to help the group. The two talked some more, each pointing out their view and why they felt they were in the right, and they drank some more. In the end, a slightly intoxicated Seraphina and Finn both went to their separate rooms for the night. The next morning they decided to go to Bryn Shander to try and get some new armor for Zesh, as Seraphina did not want to go to Targos. On their way, they passed Targos and some again questioned whether they could go to Targos, but Seraphina insisted they shouldn’t.
Thus the world came to a standstill once more.