The comrades eye the remorhaz, which has burst through the ice and positioned itself directly before their sled. Chunks of frozen debris scatter across the snow. Their Stygian polar bear growls, swinging its massive head and huffing great clouds of vapor into the frigid air. The remorhaz stands at a height of half a dozen feet over the sled, steam rising from its iridescent, ice blue scales that pulse with an inner heat. A low hissing issues between its mandibles, and the creature’s breath comes hot enough to melt the frost on their furs.
“I’ve got this,” Reklaw mutters, fumbling for something in his pack. He hurls a ration into the snow, far to the left of the sled. The wrapped food skitters across the icy surface with a thin scraping sound. The remorhaz’s head snaps toward the movement—it darts after the item in a blur of segmented body and clicking legs.
Vali lashes the bear. “Go, go!” The sled lurches forward and slides off into the dim light, runners hissing against packed snow.
It is very cold. The kind of cold that makes breath freeze in the lungs and turns exposed skin gray.
After another two hours of the unremittingly frigid landscape, the bear slows to a halt. Its sides heave and Vali can urge it no further. The icy ground begins to shake violently beneath the runners of the sled—a deep rumbling that seems to come from the world’s bones. Rising from the fracture in the surface of the snow, an enormous remorhaz rises from the crevasse that has opened at the feet of the bear. This one is easily three times the size of the first. Its tremendous head swivels toward the party, the compound eyes catching the pale light and reflecting the sled myriad times in each crystalline facet.
“Not again,” Arman breathes.
Kiki’s hands move in practiced patterns. She casts Create Food and Water, and the dull gray rations materialize in a pile several yards from the sled. Working quickly, she poisons the bland but copious food, her fingers already numb despite her gloves. She also lights one of the iron globes heaped bombs pinched from the arms dealer in Tantlin. The fuse sparks and hisses, and she tucks it into the mush carefully so it isn’t extinguished. The bomb is warm in her hand for just a moment. She Catapults the mess— food, bomb, poison— at the creature in a high arc.
The remorhaz catches it with shocking speed, jaws snapping shut. But then its mouth jerks open—spitting out the globe before the bomb can explode, though swallowing the poisoned rations. The creature’s head weaves uncertainly. It withdraws, massive body coiling back on itself, abandoning the prey. From thirty feet away, the explosive detonates, showering both sled and remorhaz in a pelting, icy downfall. The passengers watch in tense silence as the creature disappears back under the snow, leaving only a dark hole and a few drops of steaming ichor.
The group continues onward. No one speaks. The cold is beginning to affect them.
A thin grey line on the horizon grows larger, then larger still. The cliff face resolves from the white haze. Soon they are at the base of a large wall of striated stone and ice that rises a hundred feet into the colorless sky. Exhaustion now overtakes them, and although the Stygian bear does the work, the extreme cold has crept into their bones for except Arman. Eyelids begin to slide closed and watching for dangers on the tundra becomes a challenge.
The sled travels along the base of the rock face for many miles, the runners singing against frozen ground. Rounding an outcrop, they reach a gap in the cliff—a narrow defile that cuts deeply into the rock.
Here, they find another sled harnessed to a Stygian polar bear. The driver, a tall, bundled bugbear, pokes at a low fire that gutters in the wind. Orange embers drift up and die before being taken by the steady, arctic wind.
The comrades’ sled slides up beside the other with a crunch of ice. Vali hops out, boots breaking through the top crust of snow. “Hello,” he calls out, voice muffled by his ice crusted scarf.
They meet Thunk, a cleric whose amber eyes peer out from layers of fur and wool. Thunk looks as exhausted as themselves. The bugbear shares that they have come to the Nine Hells to find their friend and fellow merchant, Crunk. Their hope is that Crunk is to be located in the Chasm of Found Things—that great abyss where lost objects and souls tumble endlessly.
Although some of the friends are bone weary, they proceed carefully down the icy steps cut into the stone. Each footfall must be tested. Wind moans up from below. At the bottom, a pile of leather bags and packs lies half-buried in frost. No one comments that there are exactly one for each of them to open. The five pick at the frozen sinews that seal the contents, fingers aching, working the stiff leather until it begins to give.
Each of the adventurers finds within a small leather pouch containing a platinum piece and a soul coin, as well as a treasure, curiously, that seems to have been designed expressly for them.
To Reklaw, a hat that gives off the faint if unmistakable frisson of illusion magic.
Arman draws out a pair of finely made kidskin gloves, midnight blue with a nearly invisible silvery maker’s mark within, identifying them as Gloves of Opening. This rare item allows the wearer entry into any room or container not magically locked. A fine gift for a rogue.
Kiki finds a small wooden trunk filled with random machine parts. “Useful,” she grins widely, imagining what improvements might be done to the truck once they regain possession of it.
Vali draws out multiple costumes and an expansive disguise kit. The clothing all seem to be precisely his size. Curious.
And, Thunk, the newest adventurer in the group pulls from their pack a massive, ornately carved greatclub that radiates evocation magic. The bugbear marvels at how well the weapon is balanced, how natural it feels in their clawed and paw-like hand. Thunk also draws out an enormous and equally well made helmet. Strangely, the earpieces of the catlike helm fit perfectly over their own tall, pointed ears.
Before the group can question the aptness of each find, somewhere to the south, a low moaning growl begins. The air around them drops several degrees further as something shifts, unseen, in the darkness.
