Chapter 2: Do-si-do with Dame Fortune

Your group makes their preparations and sets out the next day for the further set of spires. Unfortunately, the aerial weather rapidly turns dark gray, bitter cold, and full of snow flurries, which apparently are relatively common this far north, even in the summer.

As you get out of the city and across the river, you have a choice to make. Do you turn east early, heading through the foothills before making an ascent directly to the spires or do you continue north by northeast to the mountains and make your trek there.

It's likely that the foothills will be faster and the mountains a bit more treacherous physically.

Your decision seemingly made, you set sights on the mountains and begin to make your way into the sharp peaks beyond. The first thing you notice is the weather. In the mountains it is absolutely horrid. As a group, you cannot move more than about half your normal speed, between limited visibility, treacherous terrain, and unfamiliarity with the location.

Whoever is taking a lead, please make me a survival roll as well as a general D20 roll.

You spend the first two or three days in the mountains moving along at a reasonably straightforward pace, with Baraq providing excellent guidance. Along the way, not much presents itself to you. There are a few skittering lizards and the occasional mouse. You manage to find secure little hovels to tuck away into when the sun falls. The weather doesn't seem to abate, however. There ends up being a fifteen minute clear window every few hours where the avians are able to get into the air to stretch their wings, but it doesn't ever last long.

Baraq leads you all for another few days, though after the third day it's become pretty clear that you're treading through the same twisted mountain paths, without the ability to get up in the air it's not nearly so easy to keep your course true. However, a break in the weather finally gives your avian crew a chance to get up for some observation and correction and once more your order is set.

Baraq, go ahead and give me two more survival checks, this time at advantage, and a single d20 roll.

It takes another few days of miserable trekking without sky cover, but you manage to make it to the pair of spires that were marked on the map. A brief search of the place reveals a small crack in the wall, about two feet wide and four feet tall. About four feet above that is a small circular hole in the rock. A cold whistling wind blows from the opening, though inside it appears to be pitch black as the sun has started to fall behind the mountain peaks.

The torch sails into the dark room, revealing a simple rectangular chamber about 20 feet wide and 40 feet deep. A single sarcophagus stands in the exact center of the room, with a relief carving of a regal figure on top.