We will be playing at my house. Start time is 5:00pm. I will be DM'ing this round. The Introduction to the game is provided below! See you there! ...Chris Stevens

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INTRODUCTION

You are trekking back to the Azure keep.  Gnasher's map shows that you must be very close to the actual storm gates.  However, you are trying to stay away from the direction of the cone of cold and more to the edges.

You have hiked to the base of a series of unique looking mountains. There is a line of mountains from the northwest as far as you can see. The mountain range ends with three mountains in front of you, forming a point.  What has you enthralled is a glacier that fills the chasm and abruptly stops at these last three mountains.  The glacier has forked on the middle mountain about half the size of the tallest mountain.  Facing the middle mountain the glacier forms two huge ice cliffs on either side of the center mountain. 

Gnasher offers an explaination that this is the Chasm of Cassis ("ka-cease").  It is a huge ravine made by the Storm Gates that flows from the storm giants land into the Azure Kingdom.  He explains that it should not be this far into the Azure lands.  500 years of ice must have created a minor ice-age in this area. 

The party moves up the west mountain to get a better look from on top of the glacier. (See photo)  There is a large out cropping of ice as if something was pushing something up, out of the ice about a 1/4 mile in diameter.  It is on the east side of the west mountain....See you at the game!

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Adventure of Kuda-Gar

(Written from Orens point of view)

"Hrmph" Oren had mumbled out loud. "This journey back to Javar is never ending in this cold!" Oren was noting to himself. Oren couldn't help but just ponder on a new occupation; for his experiences always left him half-assed. After quite a bit of trial and error, Oren finally found out who he really was, or were. Now, after this last adventure something went terribly wrong. It seemed like a horrible curse, for he was back to where he had started. Oren's best effort to describe what it was: half-assed.

Out here in the cold, the party arrived on this large mountain, which was frozen over. Glaciers seemed to fill the valley's, in an eternal shift. Someone from the group had mentioned they were at the "Chasm of Cassis". It didn't matter to Oren, for it looked like a "Chasm of frozen Crap." Oren wanted nothing more than to get back to a fire, and collect himself. Some members of the party were annoying Oren. Oren was as grumpy as a grumpy mixed dwarf could be.

While traveling down the icy 'Chasm of frozen Crap', the group came up to a rather large dig site. The tools, pots, and pans indicated something large had been working here. The party looked in confusion, as Oren thought, "how much worse can the day get?" Oren knew it was a digging site for a Giant.

Oren knew Giants in cold areas equates to Frost Giants. Oren knew the party wouldn't get a warm fuzzy welcome by his big band of brothers. At that moment when all that was hazy became clear, Oren pondered if he would let the others in on his secret. "Them blokes are too cheery. No need to break the mood." Oren had chuckled.

Over the hill, talking could be heard. Oren knew the sound of Giant. The bizarre thing was that the Giants conversation was only one sided. "Ah-ha!" Oren exclaimed. "While fighting is my nature, I think when I get home I will try my new occupation. Diplomacy. Yes, Yes. This is where I can see myself." During Oren's whimsy, the Giant had realized something was amiss in his campground. "Time to use my skills!" Oren though. While other cowardly members tried to hide, Oren hopped out into the open and attempted to hail the giant. An ice ball or two later followed by a few swings of sharp blades, arrows from Eytai, and some craftfull magic; Oren was quite disappointed in the inadequacies of this Giant. "Why would such a creature be ignorant to Oren's diplomacy skills?" Oren thought. The party quickly unleashed fury on this dense creature. Magic was filled in the air again.

Meanwhile, the party had other intentions. The giant had been talking feverishly about "finding it" or "becoming famous". "Who cares?" Oren had pondered to himself. This giant had no comprehension of what a great diplomat Oren was, therefore whatever his treasure was, was insignificant.

Yet, his party members wanted to play with some 'voodoo'. "Bring back a dense creature?" Oren had questioned. "Why do I have to talk to it?" Oren had thought there wasn't much left to talk to after jumping on the giants head.

After asking the giant a few questions (which had worthless answers), the party figured to finish digging for this unknown treasure. Oren didn't like this idea. "Why dig!? Let go back to Javair and have some ale!" The group saw no need in these inquiries. Just when Oren had seen the digging style of his comrades, wariness' crept up on him. While rigging a safety net to the edge of the digging site, the fools broke our ground.

Down everything went! All of the giant's tools, pots, and pans fell on everyone in combination with snow, and even Oren! Oren was the last to hit the group. In a tumbling motion, Oren rolled right into the party making a clattering noise that echoed in the caverns sounding as "strike".

Some party members went this way, some went that way. "Fools." Oren had repeated to himself over and over. Oren was observing the structure and slides of this mysterious cavern, when other party members took note of the split in the group. Zeek and Sir had fell into a different path. As soon as they fell, they were gone again. Murmur among the group indicated some 'creatures' had snatched them up. While the paths back to the top looked impossible to reach, a moral dilemma had faced Kit. Some party members tried feverishly to climb the wet icy slides, while Kit had been pondering about what to do next. Oren was trapped into another uncomfortable quest; recovery of the two party members.

The party followed dripping water to an open area where it had appeared to harvest greenery. After scaling the large dome, Oren had noticed many of the group shivering and turning blue. "Bah! Cold are we?" Oren had snickered to Eytai. Kit, Eytai, and Jeremiah seemed to be chilled from the downward adventure. Oren attempted to ignore Ganraith. His greediness from holding the keys had made Oren suspicious of him. "I will keep a close eye on this fellow. I didn't become half-assed again, and then have it all go down the potty for this organism."

The party decided to rest, and regain their strengths. The dome was full of edible greenery, with a waterfall turning into a small stream. It had appeared to be a subterranean harvesting center, enclosed in an ice dome. Further observations from the group had found a circular door, where hinges have been moved many times. Lots of ruckus was being made from the other side of the door.

A hop, skip and jump later Oren found himself at an entrance to the city square. While trying to observe the crowd, there were other dwarfs, elven-like creatures (which looked very similar to Kit), and a very ugly breed of some mixed dwarf creatures. These creatures seemed to be acting as the policing units. There were tents filled with people buying and selling goods, stages full of people that appeared to be holding meetings, vendors roaming around trying to make some money. The cave here was different. There were gold ore running through the walls, along with other hard to come by materials. Yet, none of the creatures running around in the area were a slight bit concerned about it. "How odd! This is a dream come true! That idiot giant did have some treasures down here. Yet, it looks like there are more imbeciles. I don't think I will waste my diplomatic talent on these."

A small kid had stumbled on the party, and Ganraith had asked him to do some tasks in exchange for some food. The kid was quite shocked on this type of reward for his deeds. This was quite interesting to say the least. Oren had observed Gainraith's interaction, and knew he was lazy for not doing such trivial tasks himself. "A true diplomat would have handled it quite differently," Oren had thought.

The party did notice one thing; no one seemed to take any noticed to us. It wasn't that we were trying to be noticed, but when a small community sees strangers, they usually act differently. While wondering around, it seemed the community was broken into factions. There were recruiters attempting to get people into different factions. These factions seemed to be petty religions oriented towards different goals. Each faction had a different look to the members, and there were three main factions; A, B, C.
Oren knew that the communities that the party was facing were dim, but this just proved all skepticism of any such thing. It was now apparent that this was the city of Kuda-Gar.

Ganraith being the diplomat he is (har-har), had some annoying merchant bugging him. The merchant had called himself Jakel. He was an Elvin creature, of the ice. Jakel was particularly interested in the food Ganraith had. "Its just food!" Oren had thought. It was very obvious Gainraith's diplomatic skills was under par, for the two were not striking any deals. While Oren would admit, this Jakel was quite annoying. For pleasure, Oren offered to buy Ganraiths meat for a measly gold piece. This made the elf quite mad. Pity.

Unfortunately, the elf couldn't take the hint of 'no'. He followed up with some comments, which quite upset Oren.

"Slave! Who are you calling a SLAVE? Slave to WHOM? I will show you a SLAVE" Oren had yelled at this merchant while rotating his axe in hand. The conversation wasn't very much more detailed, in which much tension was created in the party. There were mentions that dwarves were being slaves to the elves. "What ridiculous nonsense!", Oren had thought. This treasure was becoming more and more unpleasant by the moment; besides we were still missing two party members.

Attention was starting to be drawn to the scuttle occurring at the merchant's area. Kit stepped in to pull Oren away from the situation. Oren was quite uncomfortable with the notion that Kit was referring to him as her 'slave'. Anger had quickly filled Oren. "Diplomacy! Diplomacy!" Oren continued to chant. "If I am ever to become great, then I must use my diplomacy to walk away." Oren then made a b-line to another area within the Bazaar; with Kit putting on a show indicating Oren was her slave.

After the departure of Kit and Oren, the merchant knew something was different. The weapons, armor, clothing, and food items that the group had been traveling with were out of the norm. Again, Jakel had pressed into Ganraith. Jakel had believed the party was from the Vjordland or thereabouts. Ganraiths diplomacy must have been improving (thanks to the wonderful display from Oren) for the merchant had revealed of another faction, 'D'.

Meanwhile, Oren and Kit were observing a slave auction. Kit had seen another Drow like herself at the auction. Bewildered, Oren had brought Kit back into reality by noticing an Old friend on stage. Oren had noticed that his old friend was acting as a slave, selling a slave. This was very bizarre to say the least. After observing some of the cruelty from this place, Orin's friend had been kicked off the stage by one of the mutated policing units. After retrieving this comrade, Kit thought it was wise to rejoin with the group.

After much deliberation, the party decided to meet with this faction 'D'. This faction was the underdog in this realm. The party was taken to a room, where they met two Faction 'D' members; Jamal and Danth. What occurred next still baffles Oren.

Kit had opened mouth and started pounding questions. All Oren was interested in during this was the vines of ore in the walls. Before Oren realized it, a crowd of followers had rushed in the room surrounding Kit calling her an Oracle. "Oracle my crickets hair!" Oren thought to himself. "How could these dim-witted people think an ex-whore would be an Oracle?"

Soon, the followers attempted to escort all of the party members out. A higher member of the faction wanted to meet with Kit. The followers grabbed at Oren, in which he twirled his axe again. "Touch me again and soon you will find out who my Oracle is!" Jamal had witnessed this commotion, and indicated that if the party wanted to remain, they would have to sign the witness testimony for the Oracle.

Oren made it very clear, he isn't going anywhere without Kit. The party already had missing members, and it wasn't going to add another to the short list. Soon, other party members agreed, and they all stayed. Kasha, some priestess, soon joined in all of the rubbish regarding the Oracle and Kit. Meanwhile commotion started to occur regarding an arena battle. 'Ah-ha!' Oren had exclaimed. "Lets watch the fight."

At the arena, there were many levels of viewing. The top level was compromised of the current faction in power; faction A. It seemed like this group of people were in control of the fighting and crowd. The main event had started. This ugly creature, a formative foe most entered the arena. Soon after, this horrendous monster appeared all shaken up. Once he had stepped out into the light, it was obvious it was Zeek. This was an unfair advantage for the ugly creature (the one fighting Zeek), for it had weapons and in full health. Zeek was unarmed, and sissy looking. Certain death seemed inevitable for our friend.

All of the party started to frantically asks questions to our new faction 'd' friends. "Who is this guy? What happens to the looser? Who are the people up above? Has anyone ever tried to intervene?" The answers were logical. No one could intervene without getting certain death.

Kit had turned to Oren and said, "Oren we will power you up. Get in there and save Zeek." Oren had thought about commenting about the previous answer to everyone's questions regarding "certain death". Instead, Oren bit his lip and replied "Tell me when."

The rumbles, clangs, and wows from the crowd stopped when Oren had jumped into the arena once Zeek had been pushed back to a wall near the party. A very difficult battle was fought in that arena that day. Two titans fighting for their lives, only the great would prevail. Soon after the short battle, Oren had hurt the creature to the point of not being able to fight anymore. "Certain Death" had popped in to Oren's mind, and he had to be creative to save his own hide. As the guards rushed out to take this foe off the field, Oren raised his hands and made a notion indicating them to stop. What occurred next was quite remarkable. Oren gave the thumbs up - thumbs down action to the crowd. Soon after, the crowd went silent. The crowd appeared to look up toward the upper floor where Faction 'A' resided. Oren also appeared upwards, and noticed that all of the members were giving a thumbs down!

The crowd responded in cheer, and with the might of Oren's axe, he did a Coupe de grace; removing the creatures head from his shoulders. Oren then noticed Ganraith in concentration performing magical acts on the top floor. "Ah-ha!" Oren had figured out with the help of his friends, they had used illusions to fool the crowd.

Havoc soon broke out. People were cheering, and others were dazed in confusion. The guards on the arena floor stood in the same position clueless of what activities to do. Ganraith had been hit with a magical missile, and the party started running down the Arenas hall. After more altercations, everyone was rejoined again. The members of Faction 'D' were having us rush to perform some ceremony with Kit.

The party came to a statue, guarded by three trolls. Kasha has indicated that the ceremony must take place at the statue, and we had to eliminate the trolls; for the Faction 'A' group was chasing us from behind. Again, more slashing and fighting occurred. Magic was used to drop balls of fire on these trolls. Two of them had been slaughtered, while one ran off in fear.

A ceremony was rushed, which seemed to put Faction 'D' back in charge of Kuda-Gar. Lots of rejoicing occurred with faction 'D', which seemed meaningless to Oren. The adventure calmed down, and the party was escorted out of Kuda-Gar with promises of return. All Oren wanted, was to finally get back to Javair's castle and find his half-assed self.

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