The
EARTH story - December 6, 1372
December 6th is gloomy. Sleet pelts you out of a leaden sky as you continue to march up the narrowing valley.
Late in the morning the valley opens up a bit, and you come out into a
clearing. Before you in the middle of the clearing stands a fair sized
house made of enormous logs. It is roughly rectangular shaped, and over
300' long on a side.
The trail leads straight to a great iron-bound door...a door sized for creatures larger than yourselves...perhaps giants.
There does not seem to be anyone about...though smoke does rise from several chimneys in the roof of the place.
There are no windows.
Aron tries to listen at the door.
Listening at the door, the monk hears nothing.
"Should we try to open the door?" questions Kithus.
"Any if you mages wanna open the door with a knock spell?" Al asks.
Jon also listens at the door, but hears nothing.
"Does anyone have resistance from fire? I could go down the smoke stacks."
"I have prayed for endure heat," Al says with a shrug, "That's as close as I can get for you!"
Drinor keeps his voice low as he addresses the group. "While I have no
love for giants, remember that this is Jotunheim - there have always
been giants here, and there always will be. Remember that we're not
just adventuring here, we are on a mission from Thor, and that mission
is to reach the Sword as quickly as possible while drawing as little
attention to ourselves as we can. Unless they charge out the door at
us, I suggest we leave these giants alone and continue on our journey.
The last fight slowed us down for more than a week, and we can't afford
to move that slowly."
"Good call, D, let's move out, people," Al says as he gets back on track for the search for the sword.
"I agree also, not all giants are unfriendly anyways."
You continue on, then, following the river across the clearing. On the
far side you pick up the trail again, and follow it along the south
bank of the river.
The rest of the day's march is uneventful. By nightfall when you stop
to make camp you are leaving the hills behind and starting to move into
the mountains. You set up a camp at the mouth of a narrow gorge which
winds back into a pass through the first of the mountain ranges.
Next day