The return to Ptolus is interesting. It seems they have caught the eye of more than one interested party, for their return is marked by contact from the Defense Council that would like them to go disrupt the growing undead threat to the northeast. It seems that the capital of the old republic is either under siege, or has already fallen to an undead horde that is growing unchecked in the wilderness. Additional rumors abound of frost giants led by a giant-dragon hybrid that have destroyed the northernmost outpost of DeVost. The party is shocked …shocked, I say… to hear of the ill tidings, but they are unwilling to deal with that threat at the moment. They have a library to visit and a map to decipher!
There is additional intrigue that the group is uninterested in pursuing and so it is that Bayga makes his rounds and others make theirs. Kegdrain discovers more about the wondrous tome of planar travel, the house rebuilding begins to take shape, loot is divvied and sold. They make regular visits to the library and slowly a possible location starts to materialize. Once the lead is solid enough, the intrepid group departs the city again. The overland travel is uninteresting and the group makes good time across the plains.
There is an interesting morning encounter as they leave the comfort of their secure shelter, when they are ambushed by a sextet of invisible basilisks. Given the lack of basilisk the night before and the fact that the bloody things are invisible – good thing Sniffles traded away an eye and Fingers wears the robes – the group decides that someone sent the creatures after them. Once the stony lizards are vanquished, there is a round of head-scratching about which enemy on the rapidly expanding list of enemies might have done this particular thing.
Deciding that there are too many enemies to try and narrow down the offender, the group redoubles their efforts to locate the elusive mountain. Within a few days time, a likely candidate presents itself and the group ventures in that direction. Screaming winds whirl around the place and the group is forced to traverse the switchbacks. They are ambushed by a pack of kobold archers shooting envenomed arrows and this gives the group the impetus to charge up the mountain, where they are confronted by a fortress built inside the mountain. Only gates and a few exposed battlements with ballistas greet them.
Being in a heightened state of paranoia, the group flies atop the battlements and knocks out the kobolds manning the ballista on one tower. They enter the place and start moving swiftly, trying to get deeper into the mountain. Their initial foray encounters no resistance and they press on into a massive hall that contains dwarvish homes – from the plain to the opulent. A huge rift runs through a portion of the cavern and as they begin to investigate, they realize a kobold scout is running away from them…