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The Caves of Hunger
The party approached Reghed Glacier. Elk scouts warned them of Queen Bjornhild of the Tiger Tribe, though Oona sought an audience regardless. Declaring to the clan that her birth daughter not only survived but had slain dragons and braved the Sea of Ice, the party assuaged the queen to stand down. Crank recited the Rime of the Frostmaiden and shattered the ice holding the frozen waterfall together. And thus the party entered the Caves of Hunger. Within the glacial depths, they found the road was a graveyard littered with the remnants of Ythryn fall... and of creatures who bloomed or doomed themselves alongside it. Soon the party found themselves stalked by a gnoll vampire... Tekeli-li, the Hunger of Isolation.

At Reghed Glacier

#ReghedTribes Two Reghed nomads dressed in snow white polar bear furs were barely spotted on the horizon as Reghed Glacier loomed ahead. Here, the party met Whisper andRedtooth, two scouts from the Tribe of the Elk. They had seen the party's arrival in dream, just as their shaman Mjenir predicted. They reported that the Tribe of the Tiger along with its chieftain, Queen Bjornhild, were present along the Evermelt and near the fabled frozen waterfall. When the party pressed them for backup in case the Tiger Tribe proved aggressive, the Elk scouts assured them that their interests against the Frostmaiden aligned, and that they would be present in case the winter and its threats grew more dire.
#ReghedTribes Oona decided to press onward to have a talk with Queen Bjornhild. The Elk scout Whisper nodded and kept watch from afar as the party approached the Evermelt camps. Bold, powerful, and dismissive the Tiger Queen called out the party as false and meek emissaries of Auril, doubling down on her own boon and status in the eyes of the maiden. When Oona revealed to her their bond of kinship, only the most imperceptible trace of recognition was apparent in Bjornhild's eye. Her child was dead, she lied, a sacrifice of cruelty to the goddess herself. But her child had lived. Her party members stepped in, each professing Oona's survival and dominating the conversation with their feats of courage from felling the chardalyn dragon to venturing to Solstice Isle itself. Winning the favor of Bjornhild's tribe and briefly wavering the queen's faith, Oona forced her birth mother to step aside. They would approach frozen waterfall uninhibited.
#ReghedTribes #TheForgottenRealm #TheCavesOfHunger Guided or perhaps escorted to the frozen waterfall by the Tribe of the Tiger, the party stood before a glacial blue line within the hundred mile long Reghed Glacier. It looked like live water, tumultuous and whirling, but frozen instantaneously in place. Opening the Codicil of White, Crank cleared his voice, clearly an instrument he honed in his monastic days, and recited the Rime of the Frostmaiden. The ice brimmed with violent deep light, cracked, and shattered. Hundreds of glacial masses lay suspended in the air about them, and before them laid the entrance to Ythryn. Queen Bjornhild referred to the darkness within as the Caves of Hunger, a place of isolation and madness lost to time. Perhaps if they survived, directing her comment to Oona, then perhaps they be worthy of the Tiger Tribe's acknowledgement.

The Caves of Hunger

#battle #TheCavesOfHunger The party entered the Caves of Hunger and soon came upon a crashed Netherese skycoach. Professor Skant nearly burst out of Vellynne Harpell's coat pocket, his gloaming eyes delighting in the artifact. The party found a locked chest and, right before cracking it, its inhabitants. Four flame skulls cackled madly in the corridors. Ythryn was a doomed place.
#battle #TheCavesOfHunger #TheChosen Their journey through the caves unveiled more and more about Ythryn's past as well as the current state of the passage there. They sighted a kobold vampire spawn who hissed and scurried away. They reposed in a crumbling Netherese tower, once a site of magical restoration and now a fog-filled ruin. Crank activated a tourist's welcome sign powered by the arcane eye spell -- which he shoved directly into his orbital socket. Gadget and Fern lamented an iron golem's head, which could only blink in recognition. It had laid here since the fall of Ythryn. And the party found themselves stalked by a mad, gnoll vampire... a beast who called itself Tekeli-li. She was an ancient vampire according to Skant. She turned to mist, hyena, and hybrid form. She cackled madly and gleefully struck when the party was amidst battle against a dozen shadows. It unnervingly dissipated when challenged. It was likely alone for centuries, and it had lost its mind. If the road to Ythryn was through a graveyward, then it was haunted by Tekeli-li.

XP

Total XP: 38000

2000 ~ #ReghedTribes COMPLETE

Loot

Scroll of Mass Healing Word ~ Caves of Hunger skycoach chest ~ somebody
2 Superior Potions of Healing ~ Caves of Hunger broken spire chest ~ Crank, Oona
Arcane Eye, temporarily ~ Caves of Hunger Ythryn welcome slab ~ Crank