Fighting with Everything

The group moved in to the next chamber, a room with a red carpet running up to another of the alcoves with magic and scrollwork on the floor. Zacarius attempted to activate the portal but failed, causing the two ice sculptures of nymphs to attack the group. Ash and Doyle each took a sculpture on, and though the fight was vicious, it was also ended quickly with slivers of ice scattered around the room.

They moved on through the northern exit and along the hallway beyond, finding a door set in the outside wall. Doyle heard the sound of a woman speaking on the other side; he stepped to the side and flung the door open for Ash, who strode in and struck the visage of Lady Argentea while she was combing her hair in front of a mirror. In response, she cowered back and told the party a tale of woe, of being held here and replaced by a doppelganger; Zacarius had spotted something weird about her ear when they first came in and figured out she was lying. Upon being informed of her duplicity, Ash cut her down and she returned to a doppelganger's natural form.

A bit more searching about brought them to the kitchen and a short fight against the cook, a spriggan with a knack for cookies. One of the cookies was actually a vehicle for a nasty curse which he had planned on giving to the Ulfen soldier in revenge for the slights she had paid him.

With Hestrig's key, the group took the last teleporter on the floor in a chain, arriving up in the aerie. The sylph took flight and ordered her ravens to attack. Though Ash and Zacarius took numerous scratches from the ravens (including Ash losing his eyesight to blood and swelling around his eyes), the sylph was rather quickly taken down and Kyezra dispersed the ravens.

Returning to the previous level with the new key gained from the sylph, the group once again tried the teleporter by the remains of the nymph sculptures. They went in as a group into Radosek's summoning chamber; he had been watching them through the mirrors and had summoned several ice elementals in preparation. When they entered his chamber, Radosek flew up to the middle of the chamber and set his elementals on them while his goat familiar, prepped with a chill touch spell, waited for the first person to cross beyond the elementals. Radosek opened combat by spraying the teleporter alcove with magical snowballs.

During the fight, Doyle got charged by the goat and was able to resist the spell, Kyezra's cat went down to bludgeons from the ice elementals, and several people were able to narrowly avoid spears of ice raised from the floor by Radosek's wand. Seeing the fight going against him, Radosek fled through the window, leaving his familiar to die. The group then systematically ransacked the chambers of Radosek and his teacher. As Doyle was looking through the last room, he spotted the ice dragon sculpture down in the courtyard start to move it's wings...