As time resumed, our heroes took a rest before leaving. As they were packing up they saw a flash of purple lightning strike down in the direction of the frost giant stronghold. Finn in particular was very curious about this, and our heroes headed over. Once there they saw the giants that had been guarding what was assumed to be the jarl’s lodge running away, they decided to take a closer look. They noticed a burnt body on the roof by the third floor while flying down so Seraphina, after getting the griffons settled down, flew on up. While examining it Seraphina determined the body to belong to the mage that told them to leave the other day and had been calling them liars.
Seraphina then snuck in to the third floor. She saw a large caged owl, and some crates and barrels with a variety of goods which she took some of. She also saw the frozen corpse of a dwarf. Seeing a ladder heading down she saw a few frost giants, one who looked more distinguished, and a couple of winter wolves. She also noticed a bunch of very large eggs. She decided to turn into a bat and fly down for a closer look.
Meanwhile, Zesh and Finn walked through the front door. Looking up they saw the ice mephits that Seraphina had previously mentioned, however they neither engaged them nor did the mephits attack them either. Zesh started going through doors, although she struggled to open them. Finn let Zesh explore as he flew up to the rafters where the Mephits were. Zesh managed to make it up to the second floor after some effort, and saw a room filled with bones. She then tried to open another door as she heard a loud howl.
On the other side of the door Seraphina had been sniffed out by one of the wolves. She started heading back up the ladder as the turned invisible, the wolves sniffing her out howled up towards the ladder so the giants climbed up after her. They weren’t all able to climb up as the first one bumped into Seraphina. She took a risk and used her hunter’s mark rather than turning invisible, flying out the window shooting at the jarl. She also saw Mitsui run by with a group of frost giants chasing her.
The jarl tried to catch Seraphina in a net but she managed to avoid it before turning invisible once more. Zesh kept trying to open the door but couldn’t, as Finn was flying over. Upon arriving to Zesh and seeing her struggle he suggested she try pushing the door open rather than pulling, which Zesh was then able to open.
Running in, Zesh cast sanctuary on herself, but the remaining frost giant was able to overcome the effects and attack her, but were unable to hit. The two wolves also came after Zesh. Finn cast steel wind strike and did some serious damage, teleporting to the other side of the frost giant flanking it with Zesh. Together he and Zesh managed to kill one of the wolves, killing yet another pet. The two frost giants above started heading back down when they couldn’t see Seraphina. One of them headed straight to Zesh and knocked her out. Fin rushed away, drawing attention to himself, as Seraphina reappeared and shot at the jarl. Angered, he grabbed one of the eggs and threw it at Seraphina, angered she took a shot critically injuring the jarl, prompting him to surrender.
Seraphina agreed to let him live if he submitted to Hekaton, laid down his weapons, and called off the giants chasing Mitsui. Zesh proceeded to cast geas on the jarl, as Seraphina noticed the egg that had been thrown hatched and a white dragon wyrmling came crawling out. She headed over to try and take care of it and bring it over to its father. Zesh meanwhile told the yarl to bring the eggs to the white dragon. Going to the dragon she spoke with him, learned that his name was Cryovain, and indicated he wasn’t in a position to attack the frost giants. With that Cryovain left. The group decided to take a short rest. During this time Finn, who had previously curled up on a polar bear rug for a bit of a nap, headed over to talk with Mitsui.
Finding Mitsui in the barracks, she was telling the frost giants about the story of a bad bad frost giant known as Harshnag and a bad bad storm giant big blue dragon. Learning of this the frost giants started saying how maybe Harshnag wasn’t such a traitor after all and maybe he was a good guy, although Mitsui insisted he was a bad bad giant. Finn tried to talk with Mitsui, and eventually managed to get her attention. He asked her what happened to the burnt body, and she said she didn’t know. She explained she took him down to make him not bad bad Zhentarim anymore and that she cut the mage’s head off. She didn’t know about the lightning. Asking the giants they all pointed to Mitsui, and said she got all scary before it happened. Mitsui commented that she tries very hard to be scary.
Finn went back to start examining the body, pacing around and around trying to figure out this purple lightning. He examined the body over and over again, eventually casting detect magic and determining there were traces of evocation and necromancy.
The rest of the party tried deciding what to do, whether they should just head to Hekaton or continue with the last of the giants, the cloud giants. They decided they would head back to Fireshear and return the griffons first, and decide what to do after. Mitsui, learning about the castle in the sky, decided to reach out to Zephyros, their cloud giant friend through a paper bird.
After returning the griffons, Zephyros contacted Mitsui, and told her he would meet up with them and see what would be done. Mitsui told the party but they weren’t sure what to do, so they started heading south while waiting to see if Zephyros would show up. Thus time came to a standstill once more.