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The Cold Cases

by Steel Claw

In the tomb of the frost giant Freja, we have opened three of the four small puzzle-rooms (we had been working on). Murg opened this third room, finding a small altar with wooden dice and a runed bowl. Izol noticed both the bowl and die are enchanted with transmutation magic. Using mage hand on the bowl and die, we seemed to circumvent whatever was meant to happen; both vanished and the fourth door opened. This fourth room, with a fourth altar, was covered with pale blue stones that are cut like tiles. Together, they spell "SAVIOR" -- Master Theo immediately jumped to the altar, moving them to spell "DECIEVER", as we had seen in the main chamber. This revealed the inside of the altar -- with a blue gem sitting on a small cushion.

We took it, and moved on to a branching path. The southmost room contained pillars with runic eyes carved into them, with one eye pointed into a corner (and the rest at eachother and the center of the room). Though nothing in the room was magical, Izol reasoned it was part of a larger contraption.

Murg headed onwards, through an identical pillared room, to a new room full of mirrors. Upon entering, ice began to slowly fall from the entrances and threaten to trap him inside. He yelled to Theo, throwing his life insurance policy to the wizard before stepping back into the mirrored room, alone. As the temperature dropped, Murg looked up to see carvings of the night sky. Moving around, he could see that in one position, the stars appeared to make the outline of a key.

Panicking, Steel and Izol cast a shatter and fireball to try and break Murg free. We did damage, heavily fracturing the door, but not enough to open it.

Still inside, Murg, noticed that of all the mirrors, when looking into one mirror, a blue key appeared in hanging around his reflection's neck. He grabbed it, and trusting in what he felt, used it to open the ice door that had fall in place. The room was unsealed, much to Izol and Steel's gratitude.

The ice room continued to one last room, a small one with two stone doors covered in runic giant:

"By inversion be undone / Lest thou hath shone two from one"

No one had any idea how to proceed -- we tried several things, with Izol and Steel heading back to the main room where the gems are to be set in the giant statue. We only figured out that the three gems will have some order to them. Murg and co. moved to the room with the water pool to see if there as anything else to learn. At the base of the pool was indeed another section of script (runic giant):

"To calm the waters of the mind, / Reflect on your first treasure.
The Key has always been with you, / If in the coldest winds, you still can see.
The eye shall turn / Where silver seas welcome the soul.
To the mortal coil’s cradle, offer the unenlightened."

Inside this room, an eye was carved above the door that seemed to look directly at the pool. When Murg reached out to disturb the waters, a light slowly glimmered into existence, beaming from the eye to the pool. Theo raised the blue gemstone up to the light, which split the ray into the colors of the rainbow. Magic collected in the room, with a fog billowing up to cover the pool. Though the pair took a step back, Theo took a moment before rushing headlong into the pool.

Mirror, mirror, ont he ice

Stepping through, Theo has moved to the ethereal plane, stepped out of a copy of the pool to an identical version of the room (but on another plane). Notably, on this side of the dungeon, each of the columns carved with an eye is moveable. Murg and Yrna moved to the southern room with the misaligned pillar. Aligning the "mistake" caused a new fifth pillar to rise from the center of the room, in both the northern and southern room (the two symmetrical rooms with pillars). The southern pillar in the etheral plane seemed corporeal, and on the materical plane the northern was corporeal. Both had scones for a fist-sized object. Theo moved the etheral sconce, revealing a panel beneath and a pale-white gemstone (that Murg revealed).

Theo continued, and between both planes and both sconese, placed each stone on a sconce on each planar side of the dungeon. This illuminated the gemstones (blue and white).

As a group split across the planes, we moved to that last door, in the small room, and placed one gemstone on each side of the planar dungeon. This seemed to connect the planes once more, and in a flash and a rumble the planes converged. We were all returned to the material plane, just as the doors before us opened. This led us down a small, winding corridor to a small door (normal sized), made of an opaque ice that doesn't seem to melt. A keyhole was set in the center, and as before in the ice room, Murg pulled an invisible key from around his neck to unlock the door. This time, the key became corporeal, to the same kind of ice as the door. All of this ice -- key and door -- melted to reveal a large room.

Set into the wall was a giant's statue of Freja herself, arms outstretched to offer us the last gem, of a light blue color.

We trouped back to the main room. Upon returning, the statues had shifted to the ethereal plane and now seemed to have the two smaller statues fighting for the larger one's attention or help. Strangely, the slots in the middle of the large central statue floated on the material plane, fity feet up (as the rest of the statue was in the ethereal plane). As Izol threw gemstones in the statue, Theo could see that runes began to line up to spell out something in giant. He directed Izol to move the gems accordingly, to spell out "REVELATION".

The ground rumbled, moreso than before, and the statues shift in response. No longer maidens, the statues were two fullplate valkyrie giants flanking Freja herself, who holds a staff in her left hand (wtih a gemstone tip). The doors behind them opened as well. At Steel's thought, Izol took the staff's gemstone (a pale blue stone that is worth at least over two-grand).

The Tomb of Freja

The doors led (winding around) to a small room, with a large urn on a dais and much art carved on the walls. This (we assumed) is the tomb of Freja, and though Izol saw a powerful necromantic spell on the urn of the last ruler of the ordnung, he stepped into the room nonetheless. Theo translated:

"A lie breaks truth with but an utterance."

Theo spoke aloud, and Freja's spirit then coalesced before us. She spoke of the last in her chamber, ones who were not worthy. After giving our names, Izol vaguely explained that we needed the artifact within. Freja could confirm the truth, as well as how the hall we stood in was "nothing but lies". She offered her Staff of Freja... and was genuinely delighted when we spoke plainly: that we would give the staff to the giants of Ibrithil once we had finished with protecting them. She warned us of Kreethi, and that betrayal is poison. Kreethi is still poison, and acts only for himself. "Do not give him any power".

Izol voiced his concern at shattering her urn (which she instructed) -- turns out her ashes were wrought into the tomb itself, and the urn is nothing but a dummy. Freja faded, and as instructed Izol shattered the urn to reveal an eye rune. Inserting the gem we had, Freja's Staff was revealed from a nearby stonework (hidden) cache.

As we left, Steel thought to use Freja's staff on the obelisk (that originally covered the tomb's entrance). Inside was a satchel labelled in giant: "for the clever ones". Inside:

10 plat (per person)

Spell scroll: flesh to ice

Spell scroll: Otiluke's frozen sphere

Potion of frost resistance

Potion of etherealness

Two (2x) pieces of giant jewelry, set with sapphires (circa 400gp each)

Francis was happy to see us, and the gryphon egg was unharmed. We made camp at that obelisk, one artifact down. Four giant heroes to go.

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The Cold Cases

Mirror, mirror, ont he ice

The Tomb of Freja

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