Ice Caves of Sorrow

I have returned the Shiverpeaks.   It is time to save Evennia.  I meet with the Dwarves of Droknars and they fashion me armour of the highest quality, though a bit drab, and they send me to my rendezvous point.  The Dwarves and the Shining Blade have come together against this common foe, the White Mantle, joined by the Stone Summit who are all now led by the fearsome Mursaat.  I've yet to see one, but I hear they are quite ungodly.  Crosses between magi, birds, and undead, the very images to freeze your soul.  We leave the safe point in to the dunes of snow, my breath freezes in my lungs.   We must find the Seer, but first, Evennia needs my help.

We sneak our ways to the frozen boats the Summit are using as siege ports and we slit the throats of their engineers.  Clumsily I lean on the lever and set off a seige of my own.  Surveying the damage I may have just caused I see I hit none other than a cage of yaks, who are extremely angry.  They stomp up storms of snow and stampede out of their enclosing destroying all the hostile trebuchets in their wake.  A lucky thing, those yaks deserve some praise.

Further into the mountain we search the ice cave and come face to face with our first mursaat.  Awed I am, they are indeed quite birdlike with talons and wings, they hover about the round, and are quick to attack.   They cast an agony upon me, my armor is of no use against it.  The mists swam in front of me, and I swear to it, I swear I saw Dwayna before me.  She spoke.  Her blue aura swirled around her, warm and comforting, and she said unto me, "Find the seer.  He holds my gift for you".  My vision cleared and looking down upon me was my old friend Alesia, and she offers me a smile.   After a quick breather we continue, and within a cage on the side of the mountain stands a familiar little ruddy face.  Rornak Stonesledge, and captured again! What a surprise.   I blast his cage open and he tells me where they hold Evennia, and Saidra.  They have captured Saidra! Also kin of him, Hamdor Grandaxe, has been lost on the mountainside. We must move, but before running off he begs us for a flagon of ale. Dwarves never change.

In the heart of the mountain there is a cluster of forges. The snow melted and the ground charred from the heat of the armoury.  Large patrols of Mursaat and White Mantle circle the bridges, and by a closed gate lies the large cage.  Mustering all the stealth we can, we make our way to a stack of powderkegs and blast open the cage.  Ofcourse they hear us, only a drunken dwarf wouldn't have been alert by the blast. The mursaat approach us, I know we are certainly lost until I feel a bow in my hand.  I look at Saidra, a forlorn look in her eye.

 "Take my bow" she tells me.  "I will not need it where I am going.  Take Evennia to the boat".  She looks at the sky, and dashes off towards the Mursaat, with basic weaponry.  There is no time to stop her, or watch how she does, she is sure to die.  We take Evennia. We make to the mountainside.

 I stop short at the opening of the cave.  Mursaat.  Atleast 10 of them if not more.  They've yet to see us, as they float casually towards our boat.  We allow them to pass, when I hear a cough. A small "Help" from the other side of the ice wall.  There we find Hamdor Grandaxe.  He is thrilled to see us, and even more thrilled to hear that Rornak is in safe hands again. "NEVER LEAVE A DWARF BEHIND" he yells and he runs off through the mountain to find his kin.  We follow the mursaat at a good distance.  Strange things occur around them.  They casually end the lives of all dwarves and white mantle in their way as if they were dust on their boots, and the white mantle and dwarves are attack eachother  frantically aswell.  It is as if all sense of loyalty and commeradery has gone from their heads, and chaos is the only thing the mursaat allow them to feel.  The chaos is the mursaats folly though, as soon as they reach the great bridge by our boat they are destroyed by the Summit engineers with their trebuchets.  Friendly fire, friendly to us atleast.  We dash up the mountain through some hostile dwarf groups and reach our boat.

On board, Evennia raises herself up, the very image of nobility.  Every inch a queen, though not in birth right.  She curses the gods.  We take a bow for Saidra.  A moment of silence for our fallen. "For every person the Mursaat takes," Evennia rasps angrily, a tear silently making its way down her cheek, "We shall take two of them."  To the Seer, she tells us.  "And if you ever meet Markis," she adds quietly to me as we watch the icy sea, "rip out his heart.  For Saidra."