Two days after the ceremony in Augustana, the Raven Company was approached by a local merchant named Kimmel, who owns several shops in Augustana.
Kimmel had sponsored a heavily guarded caravan to travel to Augustana from Varisia, scheduled to arrive in time for the ceremony. It never did. With all the troubles in that area, he was disappointed but not surprised that they had been delayed, but the day after the ceremony, he received word from a contact in Skelt that one of the caravan guards – a man named Warl – had been found just outside the city. According to the men that found him, he had been suffering from extreme frostbite and died shortly after they found him, but not before telling them what had happened to the caravan.
He said that their caravan had been ambushed in the mountains seven days before, attacked by several blue-skinned giants leading a small dragon and a pack of white-furred beasts. Most of the guards had been killed trying to defend the wagons; Warl himself had been caught in the icy blast of the dragon's breath and left for dead.
As the guardsman lay there, he watched the giants capture or kill everyone else in the caravan, taking the non-combatants captive and carrying them up the mountain, including a lesser noblewoman whose entourage had joined up with the caravan for safety.
It had taken three days for the missive to get from Skelt to Augustana, so the captives had been held for just over a tenday. He offered 1,000 gold pieces up front and another 3,000 upon the successful rescue of his employees, including the noblewoman Lyndeen Calautia. He also offered a bonus for any of his wares that can be salvaged. Lucretia haggled over the prices, getting him to pay 2,000 on the spot and 5,000 upon your return.
Kimmel's associate, Rembe, was a talented wizard; he had already cast scrying to locate the site of the ambush and was willing to teleport you all there – albeit, by bringing three of you with him and putting the others into a portable hole and releasing you once you arrived. He teleported back to Augustana; he would cast scrying each day at dusk for the next seven days and teleport back to get you after you had returned.
The ruins of the caravan had been tumbled into a ravine and were half-underwater but a heavily traveled path – a heavily traveled, giant-sized path – led up the mountain, past the treeline and into the heights where winter never lets go. Late the following morning, you followed the trail to where it ended: a huge cave carved into the side of the mountain.
There were two frost giants standing guard; they fell swiftly beneath your blades, not even having time to raise an alarm. The icy passage led into darkness but everything was eerily lit by strange blue flames that burned cold, flickering along veins in the ice along the ceiling. You stumbled into one room where a huge altar to Kostchtchie stood in the center of the chamber. The cold fire seemed to be flowing from the ice-carved shrine, but the room was uninhabited.
Turning from the shrine, you saw that you had been found by two frost giants and a handful of yeti. Though you were able to defeat them, the element of surprise had been lost. You moved forward, deeper into the cave. The tunnel opened up into a large cavern with an exit on the far side; however, in the center of the cave was a 35' long white worm-thing.
It has been a back-and-forth battle with the thing; its body seems to emanate cold and any time you get close enough to strike it, you can feel it against your skin. The beast is vulnerable to fire, and you've been damaging it with every passing moment.
As it stands, the worm is bleeding and scorched; the next hit is likely to bring it tumbling down.
The only question is...who will strike the killing blow?