It was only July but in this the Ice Year, Grettir was already fretting about winter. Last year a strong party of Frost Giants had suddenly appeard in Sequarl Town. This year, with no reconnaissance support from the Rangers in prospect, he feared the same or worse in the even colder winter in prospect. He was therefore very interested when Ubaron and Wilf returned from their exploration of the northern reaches of the West Otanga, with talk of the possibility of Frost Giants marching down the frozen rivers, and the prospect of identifying a potential ambush site. Killing giants long before they appeared in his lands seemed a good idea to him. So he asked Ubaron to take him to the promontary with the strange spiral carvings where their expedition had turned around to explore further. Wilf came with them. As Girindor was unavailable, Grettir asked a couple of elves from his recon group to accompany them instead. Kolgrim came too, so that the party contained two warriors and four fighter-magicians, each of whom could fly.
Somehow the original objective of finding an ambush site became lost in events as the party first encountered an Ettin – a two-headed giant – that threw boulders at the elves. It had a pet mountain lion of considerable size. They slew them both, looted its cave and set it up as a forward base. The cave was also occupied by some goblin servitors, who simply exchanged masters as Ubaron enslaved their minds and used them as servants and guides to the area.
This was mountainous territory and it seemed that griffins were endemic to it. They had several encounters with these prime-plane demons and looted some of their nests. The treasure with which they returned to Chittagong included several sacks of magically useful feathers, a couple of griffin fledglings and several unhatched but live eggs. These were traded to Tharakor the Cruel on condition that the party had first refusal on any griffin steeds that he managed to raise from them. This would probably take him some years. He’d let them know when they were ready.
F-29
OE Date: July 694
Characters: Grettir, Wilf, Ubaron NPCs: Kolgrim, Aliena, Gambelion
Real World: June 2003; Where: Surbiton
See also Ubaron’s Diaries