3rd April 2022 - Session 41 - Answer me these questions six - Eoin

The party is inside the room of the frost giant axe after having slain a Ramorez. Dunbarr drinks a celebratory mug of giants wine which surprisingly doesn't kill him. The party finds a riddle carved into the wall. It reads:

Oracle wisdom lies within

Pass the clouds to get in

But only in the arms of kin

And only by the arms of kin

Contemplating this, we rest on the slabs near the fire for the night. On Kin's watch, something crucially important occurs. He sees 10 insects head into a grate under the fire. A mystery we have yet to uncover. The party wakes up bright and early, says the narrator, but we don't know when it actually is.

We take the frost giant Thrym's axe from the room and place it into the statue back in the main chamber. Nothing seems to happen. Graupel heads towards the glyphs in the chamber and presses the cloud glyph. Gravity reverses and everyone begins falling towards the ceiling taking fall damage. The gravity reverses again a minute later and everyone falls to the ground. Lesson learned. (a note from the DM: Was it really a lesson learned?  On several occasions more glyph-pushing was considered)

Everyone heads out of the room as Harshnag picks up Thrym's axe and activates the frost glyph. A portal opens up. Harshnag and Kin rush in to find an octagonal stone room with 6 statues holding lanterns. Each statue represents one of the giant races. There's also the dead body of a cloud giant in the middle, donned in golden armour.

Bearnabus and Dunbarr head into the portal. Graupel picks up the storm giant trident and heads in too. As the party approach the dead body, Egaron appears as a ghostly apparition. His betraying father, Blagatikus, left him here for dead and he wants revenge. The party says they'll add it to the list but doubt they can avenge this guy.  The party also noticed that there is an hour-long countdown timer around the edge of the arch they travelled through.

Dipple casts fireball on the ground to clear the ice and reveal dwarvish writing: “Ask Your Question and Know Truth”. Then the group start to ask questions.

Our first question to the oracle is "Where is King Hekaton?". A voice responds in giant "Unknown". One of the lanterns in the room goes out. We ask our second question, "Who should be the next king?". He responds "I do not care".  We begin to realise that this is not going well.

Our third question is "How do we stop the war with the giants?". He responds "Find a magic conch of the storm giant king, Hekaton. Use it to visit Hekaton's court. Root out the evil therein".  We ask Harshnag if he knows anything and he says "All the giant lords have a magical conch". The party begins wondering why Harshnag didn't tell them this already.

Our fourth question is"What must be done to stop the giants?". The voice responds "Speak to Serissa, his youngest daughter.  She has a clue about her father's whereabouts and she needs your help."

Our fifth question is "How can we find Hekaton?"  He responds "Speak with Serissa. She is in Hekaton's court". 

Our last question is "How do we find the giant lords?".  The voice responds "First, you must prove yourself! When human barbarians first came to these lands, they fought our kind and stole our relics, burying them in the ground.  The humans built altars to Uthgar, their god-king, atop these relics and surrounded their altars with burial mounds.  Go to these mounds, retrieve one or more of our lost relics, and bring them here as a tribute.  Do this, and your path will be made clear.  There are many paths you can take.  The more relics you deliver, the more paths you will have to choose from.  Several evil giant lords stand ready to oppose you.  You can ruin all of their plans by defeating just one of them.  Which one remains to be seen."

At this point, all the lanterns have gone out. The group go back to the main temple room and wait for the portal to close.  Once closed, they reopen the arch but the lanterns are still unlit.