| 43 |
#TheFrozenGames As their sleds approached Angajuk's Bell several more tents than usual were set up. There was a small crowd of people gathering on the ice and at the center was Hazel. She pushed away her apparent followers to reunite with the party. During the past months she had first grown meditative, recalling fragment memories of her past life as Anga, and then had grown... bored. To pass the time, Hazel brought Monk University energy to practices of endurance, isolation, and preservation. In short, she created a winter game series. And as fishers, traders, and Reghed came to the seaside enclave, word quickly spread. |
| 43 |
#TheFrozenGames Hazel's entourage grew restless. A call to games was announced. Each member of the party competed in feats of strength and dexterity: the Ice Run, the Polar Plunge, the Mammoth Toss, the Snowball Duel, and the Ice Climb. These were clearly games designed by a Monk U alumni. Competitors included Huarwar, Thoob, and several Reghedfolk. In the distance Tinjong, the elderly fisherman who once housed them here at Angajuk's Bell, sighed and shook his head at the spectacle. Crank took first place while Fern and Tetro tied for second, just beating a sullen Huarwar Mulphoon. In the crowd clapping was an elderly dwarven man and his attendant. This was the former speaker of Bremen, Dorbulgruf Shalescar. |
| 42 |
#battle #ReghedTribes #Oyaminartok Onwards to Solstice Isle. Three sled teams head out towards Angajuk's Bell, the party's two sleds and that of Vellynne Harpell. Six hours into their journey, they were ambushed by grimacing husks of Tribe of the Elk warriors, all perverted by the influence of black ice. One carried a censer with a blue flame, and each laughed as their destroyed bodies endured seemingly forever. Worse, though, was the presence of Oyaminartok, a folklore beast of the tundra. Skewers of chardalyn jut out from her chest as she lunged at Oona. Fending off the goliath werebear, Oona saw not a beast, but someone she knew too well. Oya was her adoptive mother, who found and reared her when she was discarded as a child. Unable to reach the Oya she knew, our hero knew it was best to put her mother down. Soon after, the heroes snuffed out the chardalyn berserkers, quite literally, as when Gadget catapulted the blue flame censer into a tree, the battered bodies fell lifelessly. |
| 23 |
#AngajuksBell Hazel, coming to from the deluge of memories, was split between her own memories and that of Anga, a monk who ventured to the Sea of Moving Ice and found harmony in some, but not all, of the frost druids' teachings. Hazel awakened and reconnected with Angajuk, the great sperm whale. Ultimately, Hazel decided to stay at Angajuk's Bell to dwell on these new and old memories. Gadget Gearspark, an gnomish artificer armorer who had been following the adventures of the party, caught up with the crew moments later. She was seeking knowledge to invent armors in an effort to advance people's conditions in the cold of Icewind Dale and had heard of the party from Copper. The party gladly invited her in on their travels as they said their goodbyes to their friend Hazel for now. |
| 22 |
#AngajuksBell Hours later, the party arrived at Angajuk's Bell, a druidic hermit's enclave turned fishing outpost in the middle of nowhere along the Sea of Moving Ice. Here they beseeched a local, Tinjong, to grant them shelter. This being the night of the full moon, Tinjong let the party know he would be putting the fire out soon, a sacrifice honoring the Frostmaiden. Azgul intimidated the fisher, who did not budge on this practice but relented that they could stay in Anga's cabin and use whatever wood they find if they wished to defy the gods. The party decided to stay the night at Tinjong's in the end. |
| 22 |
#AngajuksBell #WhaleHunters Tinjong told the party that a brusque group had arrived, determined to kill the sperm whale Angajuk. Angajuk was a local legend, known in Ten Towns for having bonded with the druid Anga. The whale, along with other regional animals, would come to Anga when she rang the copper bell in the frozen harbor. This was decades ago, though, when Anga was still alive. Now her stone hut lay dormant and the bell rimed over. The fishers of Angajuk's Bell, once a village reared on the philosophy of balance, were challenged by these newcomers. On one hand, slaughtering the whale would be sacrilege, but on the other, the whale oil and ambergris could sustain them, especially as the cold grew ever-challenged, almost hellbent on ending life on the coast. |
| 22 |
#AngajuksBell Anga's hut lay quiet. The locals had left it alone in honor of the druid. Or was it a monk? The party heard mixed stories. The hut itself was coated in frost from seawater spray. An old wool blanket lay iced and rigid on a bed, and firewood still remain in the hearth, usable but wormed over. Above the hearth, Oona noted exactly three runes: glyphs marking the tenets of Isolation, Preservation, and Endurance. |
| 22 |
#AngajuksBell Stepping out on the ice, Angajuk's Bell stood glimmering in the soft snow. Hazel felt compelled by it. The bell, when struck, rang solemnly. Keeling over but standing, Hazel's vision tunneled. She did not feel her companion Fern's hand brace her. She instead saw herself, not as herself but as another. A hundred years of history. A trek to the north but not her journey. Or was it her journey? Her hands but not her hands, young but weathered from the wilds. A blizzard. Exhaustion. A meeting. Frost laden druids. An island. Solace. Contemplation. Sitting in the snow, smiling at the beauty in each unique crystal. A great whale. A better friend. An unexpected community. Her hands, aged and aching. Her woolen blanket, a gift. |
| 18 |
#AngajuksBell Hazel also took a gander at the Easthaven Library collection, looking for histories about the Sea of Moving Ice. She learned of Anga, a wisened druid, who had journeyed from the south and took hermitage by the sea decades ago. Each dawn she would ring a bell that would call-in sea life. Whalers in the nearby settlements, who otherwise led a harsh life, came to recognize Anga and enjoy her presence as she set out on her daily meditations. Though she continued her hermitage, the whaling community in the area became known as Angajuk's Bell. |