Winter's End?

So our next job (and I use the term loosely, I'm pretty sure Baradin volunteered us for this) was to head out to a remote cabin and deliver supplies to one Macreadus, some sort of magical inventor who had been working on a way to end the unnatural winter.
 
Hiking off road was slow going but we made it to the cabin without incident... The cabin itself was another matter entirely though.
 
Built right on the edge of and partially overhanging a cliff - the walkway was in disrepair, windows were broken, the cabin looked like it had been abandoned for years and was ready to fall apart at any moment. We made our way into the cabin where we discovered the blackened skeletal remains of Macreadus clutching a strange spherical device.
 
Despite the fact that the cabin was clearly in a poor state Baradin thought it would be a good idea to stomp across the room clad in his heavy armour and ignoring our attempts to stop him; he almost fell to his death through some dilapidated floor boards but that clearly wasn't enough to dissuade him so he proceeded to pick up the device - the one being held by a charred skeleton. Imagine our great surprise when the device immediately began to glow and give off heat. Fortunately Baradin had the sense to drop the thing and even more fortunately that was enough to halt it's activation.
 
Given a bit more time to investigate the place safely we were able to find notes and blueprints that let us piece together the situation... Macreadus and Copper had been working together on a device which they thought would be enough to end whatever magical influence had been extending winter indefinitely. We also discovered that Macreadus' spirit seemed to be bound to the cabin, he was able to communicate with us by moving a ball bearing - at least enough to answer simple questions and confirm our suspicions.
 
At his urging we decided to complete the device. Baradin made himself useful by forging a third ring, enough to stabilise the energy involved and Lirin was able to safely activate the device. Sure enough it improved the weather to just a normal level of cold rather than magically arctic. That seemed to be enough for Macreadus to pass on.
 
We headed out pretty quickly but not quickly enough, some sort of ghostly creature along with some ice mephits attacked us - presumably sent by Auril in response to the acivation of the device. We were able to defeat them but it seems she doesn't like people interfering with her winter.
 
We've travelled a bit further south since then and it seems the effect is unfortunately localised to within a few miles of the cabin, in hindsight it may have been better if we'd activated the device somewhere closer to civilisation. Maybe more devices like this or bigger versions could be used though?