We returned to the upper cabin, as the blizzard raged in full effect. Thord and Gulnyr had to hold the door open against the wind while the rest of us entered. Thord was the last to enter, but as he did so, he felt a bite on his neck from some sort of animal. Once we were inside, the ghosts of Silas and Keravec Vekker appeared. Silas began some sort of ritual to remove Keravec’s curse.
Just then, we heard the sound of wood rending apart, and an animal howling. We opened the door to the room from which it came, and saw that a large section of the cabin’s outer wall had been ripped away. Standing just outside the opening was a wendigo, a humanoid creature with the head of an elk. We attacked it, and discovered that it was particularly vulnerable to fire. After we dealt a significant amount of damage to the creature, it fled. Several moments later, we heard a crash coming from the lower cabin, and felt the upper cabin get knocked around, as if something were trying to pull the whole structure down from below.
We proceeded to the lower cabin to investigate. Thord and Takar went down the shaft connecting the two parts of the cabin. Once at the bottom, they opened the door to the next room, and found the wendigo waiting there. Meanwhile, Roy, Zacartas, and Gulnyr were outside the cabin on the lower level, and were assaulted by a tree that came to life and used trampling attacks. They fought and killed the tree, while Takar attacked the wendigo with fire, causing it to flee again.
At this point, Devin was on the stairway that ran down the shaft. The wendigo emerged in the upper cabin, and charged at him. Devin hit the creature with Flame Strike, and then tried to run down the stairs to get away, but the creature caught him in its mouth. It pinned Devin, and the two of them started to turn into wind, but Takar and Roy attaked the creature from below, and managed to knock it unconscious. Thord then destroyed the creature completely using fire. This caused the blizzard to stop.
Several minutes later, the ritual between the dwarven ghosts was complete, and Keravac faded away. Silas then gave us the last five pages of the ledger, and told us that they would lead us to Xin-Shalast.
The ledger instructed us to find the source of the Avah river. Once there, we must fast, and wait for the full moon. We traveled to the Avah river using Wind Walk, and once there, we followed it to its source. Along the way, some of us became disoriented. At one point, Gulnyr was just standing and staring at a wall, but believed himself to be traveling along the river.
We eventually reached the source, which was a fen two miles wide. Devin and Zacartas felt that flying in this area would cause offence to some creature that was present, so we explored the area on foot. As we made our way across, we heard a giggle, and saw a nymph sitting upon a rock. She introduced herself as Svevenka, and said she was the sister of Myriana, whose soul we had put to rest in the swamp near Bitter Hollow. She gave us her gratitude, and warned us that this area wasn’t right, and that we shouldn’t travel north. However, when we told her that we were seeking Xin-Shalast, she offered us her aid.
She told us that some giants, lamias, and abominable snowmen lay ahead. Karzoug lives in the occluding field, and Xin-Shalast is inhabited by skulks. The inhabitants known as “spared” are friendly, while the others are vampiric. Another plane known as Leng is hostile, and overlaps this region. Finally, she said that we could find the path to the city by starving during a full moon, but a True Seeing spell would also work.
We rested for the night, and the next morning, Zacartas cast True Seeing. He saw a ghostly image of the Avah river continuing up into the mountains. We used Wind Walk to follow the image for 50 miles, at which point the spell was suddenly dismissed. We fell and landed on a wide, flat road.
On one side of the road was a 60 foot high cliff. A frost giant jumped down from atop it, and said, “I, Bjormandal, say you are not welcome here!” He then attacked us, while four other giants threw boulders at us from the top of the cliff wall. We fought and killed Bjormandal, and then Takar grabbed Thord and flew to the top of the cliff, while Gulnyr and Roy teleported there. Once there, we killed the rest of the giants.
We continued traveling along the road. It soon began to rain, and we noticed a giant flying creature circling in the air above us. As we continued, the creature stayed above us, and thunderbolts periodically struck at us from the sky. Thord determined the creature to be a thunderbird: a creature that brings the storm on its wing, and can be placated with gifts. As we continued to be assaulted by lightning, we decided to try to kill the creature. Zacartas cast Disintegrate at it, but it resisted the effect, and retaliated by firing lightning back at him. Takar and Roy tried flying up towards the creature to get within striking range, but once they were about 50 feet off of the ground, they were suddenly repulsed back down; Roy was slammed into the ground, but Takar managed to catch himself before hitting it. Zacartas cast Disintegrate again, while Devin used Flame Strike, Takar blasted it with fire, and Ash used Magic Missiles. These attacks managed to kill the creature.
We traveled over a mountain pass, into a glacial valley. Within the valley, we saw Xin-Shalast, which was a large, ice-capped city. We saw a massive causeway made of gold, and many towers and spires rising up beyond it. about a quarter of the city was covered in volcanic rock, and the far side lay against the base of a large mountain. On the mountainside was a carving of a man with a stern expression.