Upon the shores of the frozen White Sea, / The ship meets land; the crew of water free. / A shivering city they find, as they disembark, / With a single, shining jewel amongst the dark.

The group made landfall a few days later in the Port of Baliguld. The city had been constructed of the finest materials: imported marble from the Blessed Isle; mighty redwood from the East. Even so, the populace had heavy, dark rings under their eyes, or wore obvious amounts of face pain in an attempt to conceal their fatigue.

The group made their way to the Iceberg, the second-best tavern in Baliguld. There, they found that prices here were at least twice as much as anywhere in the region. Additionally, they met Fergus, an old acquaintance of Iris, who confirmed the suspicious activity and that Gethamane had fallen.

Under orders to secure supplies by Ice Claw, the group had little success in the marketplace, though they did meet Nwoye, a fur merchant from the Scavenger Lands. He had been present at Gethamane when it fell, and recounted how Fate’s Frozen Tears had forcibly escorted the entire populace out nary an hour before the mountain collapsed. About this time, it was also discovered that most, if not all, of Baliguld‘s splendor was fake: The marble pillars were hollow stone, the gold business letters merely painted.

On their way back to Storm Rider, they came upon a religious service. A large group of worshipers paid homage and coin to Jobul, the Market God of Baliguld. After acquiring a tithe himself, Xhangda made a sizable contribution and was offered an audience with Jobul. Unlike the rest of the city, all of the finery ofJobul‘s estate was real. In fact, his sense of style was somewhere between tasteful and ostentatious–“ostentasteful,” if you will. Jobul thanked Xhangda for his contribution and bestowed gifts upon him andRigvar, who accompanied Xhangda while the other three made their way to the ship. In exchange, Jobulinsisted that they say only good things about their benefactor. Upon returning to the rest of the group, it was pointed out that these gifts were divine forgeries.

The group then decided to continue south toward Gethamane and forage as best they could along the way. They arrived at the foothills of the Gethamane Range several days later and camped outside of a village. In the morning, the village had congregated in its square. The group gave in to their curiosity, finding them grouped around a man with his leg missing, apparently hacked off by a dagger. The man revealed that a group of brigands calling themselves the Cauthon Bandits had expanded their territory into the Gethamane Range, and Fate’s Frozen Tears had nothing about it.



They marched into the mountains and found the bandits’ camp easily enough, located in a moderately deep bowl between peaks. Following a mishap involving the impersonation of a wolf, the Cauthon Bandits attacked. The group of 50 advanced on the group, and just after they clashed, the roar of voices and clashing blades sounded on all sides of the bowl.