With a Yo Ho Ho!

Whilst Antara went to fetch Dashawn and Meicoril, which had arrived through a portal of their own, Tara attempted to cast Sending, trying to let Sina know that they’d come home asap. However, she instead fell unconscious seemingly being told by Mystra that she’d see the message through, but that Tara couldn’t get a reply from Sina. By then Dashawn and Meicoril had arrived and because the rest was still bloodied from the cavernous icy depths they decided to stay in the entrance of the tunnels for a long rest. During this rest, some games of Dragonchess were played. It turned out that Lyuna had some rudimentary knowledge of the game, distorted by the millenia. (She wanted to play the side of the dragons, though dragons were just a type of piece on the board. Perhaps the game had a meaning long time ago that was tied to the dragon war, but its message was lost when the game changed.)

After rest and a couple of interesting games they moved through the tunnels and after but a little while came into a luscious twilight realm, eerie crystalline music echoing merrily. After but a little while, they saw a bubble, within which snow was falling as if it was some sort of life size snow globe, containing a little village (called Christmas?) A cursory examination showed that the bubble needed but a little pressure to allow one to go back and forth, and our brave heroes (six of them, plus Lyuna and Stelmaris) went forward through a magical landscape, with streets of gingerbread and candy cane trees. People in the town wore a colourful garderobe af reds and greens and Dashawn quickly disguised himself to fit right in this merry snow landscape. Gnomes, elves and pixies were the most common inhabitants of this picturesque little place, but they were not at peace. Combats happened all around them, and it didn’t take too long before a couple of elves challenged them to a fight.

Under regular circumstances this fight would have been easy but a pixie made sure that when Dashawn threw a snowball it grew to horse-and-chart-size and knocked Kromal straight off his feet, after which a different pixie attacked both sides with entangeling caramel. A third pixie appeared, and an elf was turned into a gingerbread man. Whilst Arthur and Kromal were wailing on the elves, and Meicoril and Dashawn were taking care of the cookie cutter elf, Alruna was raining fire on the opposants, and Tara attempted to distract the pixies and an elf with pretty lights. To which they apparently took exception, turning Tara (temporarily) into a swan.

After the combat, with an at the parties insistence more human Tara, the pixie {Masako?} guided them towards a cave where the Frost Father was located. First though, they were welcomed by Silaqui, a Drider that apparently functioned as some sort of secretary for the frost father.

After a little bit of fun and flirting between Kromal and Silaqui, the Frost Father fell into the conversation. Showing he knew quite a lot of all the party members, casually revealing some of their innermost workings and darkest secrets. He also had a gift for every one of them:

an enchanted piece of armour for Arthur, a boomerang shield for Kromal, playing on his desire to find his ancestral shield. For Meicoril, a gift that wasn’t thoroughly sarcastic, an item allowing her the chance to meet her parents once. Alruna as well got quite the thoughtful gift, a magical feather that could lead her to her mother, though is she failed to keep up with the feather it would be in vain. To the King of the Frogs, the highly sarcastic gift of a Bullywug squire/companion/friend? and to the girl her parents forgot 2 dolls, in the form of her best friend and her (former?) lover. During the exchange of gifts, Kromal and Silaqui went a little further than just flirting and the dwarf got to use his boots of spider climbing somewhere offscreen. As a parting gift Silaqui gave Kromal a tattoo, and his spider slippers melted with his feet, granting him the advantage permanently.

Lyuna apparently already had received her gift, with Santa alluding to it, asking her whether it was as she desired.

After Dashawn and Tara in turn gave the Frost Father a gift (a permanent talking and moving illusion of Santa himself and a Yuan-Ti bracelet respectively) they mounted the Frost Fathers sleigh. A sleigh ride and sick joke involving a deep fall later our heroes arrived in a little town at the coast of the pale ocean, mostly inhabited by Goliaths. Learning there of the current date Tara pretty much shorts out, going from anger at the gods to depression in very short order (with a bit of guidance from Mystra there). Arthur isn’t of much better recklessly threatening party members. Though the innkeeper puts forth a couple of his finest casks of mead for the heroes, it doesn’t do much to calm the very stressed out Lyuna, at whose insistence and to great joy of Dashawn they then pulled a raid at the library. It was there that, hidden in old historical documents, they finally found what they had been looking for, a detailed account of the final days of the Great War, of Dragons against Giants. Meanwhile Arthur learned that what happened the past three years wasn’t for them to learn, as psychic backlash hurt the knightly bodyguard. In the account of the great war they learned there that the war had ended because the Storm Giants disappeared at the end of the war into the sea, but promised they’d be back in a thousand years. The thousand years had now come to an end and as the ground started shaking, most of the party exited the library and watched in horror as the Storm Giants emerged from the seas, before Lyuna stormed forward thrusting her sword into the ground as they were enveloped in white light.