The Departure from Y’hesfyre
The towering platforms of Y’hesfyre loom behind the adventurers, the small fort nestled in its valley between the cliffs of the central mountains. In the distance behind them, the sprawling expanse of the Y’hserin Wood stretches, ahead of them the mountains rise into the frozen peaks. The sky is a dull grey as if the heavens themselves mourn the coming journey, and a faint, haunting whisper of wind cuts through the party’s heavy cloaks.
The lowland forests, rich with the song of birds and the whisper of leaves, are soon left behind. The terrain shifts quickly from the pastoral beauty of Y’hesfyre’s outer reaches to the harsh, unforgiving frost of the frozen peaks. The ground here is cracked, the earth barren, save for the occasional patch of frost-rimed scrub or twisted tree. Snow falls heavily, and the cold presses against the adventurers’ skin like the fingers of a ghost, every step sounding like the crack of ice beneath their boots.
“I’m not sure how much farther we can get today,” Makhulim says, his breath puffing out in misty clouds as he surveys the land ahead. His sharp eyes narrow, scanning for the faintest trace of a path through the snow-covered mountainside.
The wind howls again, a constant reminder of the dangers of this land. The temperature drops rapidly as nightfall approaches, and the day’s weak sunlight fades behind heavy clouds. Shadows grow long and twisted, stretching across the barren landscape like skeletal fingers. The adventurers are far from civilization now, and the vastness of the wilderness begins to feel overwhelming.
Faylen, adjusting the strap of her longbow, turns to her companions. “Are we certain the elves spoke the truth?” she asks, her voice tight with suspicion. “This place… it feels wrong. It’s like it’s been touched by something… ancient. Something we shouldn’t be here to disturb.”
Marcho snorts, pulling his cloak tighter around him. “I think ‘wrong’ is an understatement, but we don’t have much choice. We’re here to find answers, not to question them.”
The towering mountain peaks loom ahead, their jagged silhouettes cutting into the cloud-choked sky. The group begins to ascend, their steps heavy in the deepening snow.
The Traps of the Wilderness
The snow is deeper than expected. The group struggles to make progress, their steps slow and weary as they push on through the frozen expanse. By midday, the path begins to grow narrower, the landscape around them growing even more treacherous. The snow feels thick, heavy, as though it were hiding something beneath its pristine surface.
Faylen, her sharp eyes always on alert, halts suddenly. “There’s something here,” she says softly, a touch of unease in her voice. She bends down, brushing aside a thin layer of snow to reveal a faint, nearly imperceptible rope running across the path.
Marcho looks at her with raised brows. “A trap?”
“Something worse,” she replies. Her hand moves to her bow, fingers twitching as she scans the area for signs of movement. The tension in the air thickens.
Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet shifts with an eerie creaking sound. A low rumble echoes through the mountainside as if the very land beneath them is waking from a deep slumber.
As the party gathers around to examine the trap, they notice the faint shimmer in the snow just ahead—just before the ice splits, creating a chasm that swallows the path before them. This isn’t a simple trap; it’s a construct of some kind, ancient and foul. The trap is designed not only to maim or kill, but to freeze the life force of any who fall into it, sealing them into the ice forever.
They are moments away from being trapped themselves when Makhulim, ever the prepared warrior, acts. With a powerful heave, he dislodges a boulder from a nearby cliff face, hurling it into the trap’s path. The boulder crashes down, triggering the mechanism that causes the trap to collapse in on itself, sealing the chasm once more.
The party stands in stunned silence for a moment, catching their breath.
“I’ve heard stories of creatures that prey on the unwary in these mountains,” Makhulim mutters, wiping sweat from his brow despite the chill. “But that… that was no ordinary trap. Whatever set it knew how to make it last.”
Faylen nods grimly. “It’s not the work of simple bandits. This is something ancient—an enemy of more than just this land.”
Faylen tells the party about what she knows. The ancient traps scattered across the mountains are said to be remnants of a long-forgotten conflict, a war that took place eons ago between the elves and a dark force known only as “Tzalyx,” a name that chills the bones of those who speak it. Legends say that Tzalyx’s power was such that it could freeze time itself, binding the dead to eternal frost. These traps are echoes of that war, designed to protect whatever lies at the heart of these frozen peaks, preventing anyone from getting too close.
The Desolation of the Peaks
The higher they climb, the more inhospitable the land becomes. The path grows steeper, the wind cutting through their clothing with a sharp bite. Frost coats everything, turning even the simplest trees into grotesque, frozen statues, their limbs contorted into unnatural shapes as if struggling against an unseen force.
Nayzungit grunts as he shovels through the snow with his greataxe. “We should rest soon,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “We’ve been climbing for hours.”
Marcho, always alert, glances back at the rest of the party, his eyes narrowing. “We’re not exactly the only ones up here, are we?” he says quietly. “There’s something else out there. Watching us.”
Faylen’s eyes scan the horizon. “I don’t see anything,” she says, but there’s an edge to her voice. “But I feel it too.”
As they continue upward, the landscape begins to twist. The trees, once sparse and twisted, are now replaced by strange, ancient ruins—structures of ice and stone that seem to defy all logic. Some appear to be half-frozen towers, their walls glistening with frost, while others seem to have been ravaged by time, crumbling into nothing but jagged remnants of a forgotten world. Strange markings cover the surfaces of these ruins, and there’s an unnatural stillness in the air, as if the land itself is holding its breath.
Then, they find it—a massive fissure in the earth, a dark chasm splitting the mountain in two. From deep within, a faint, unholy light flickers.
“This… this is it,” Makhulim says, his voice reverberating with a mix of awe and dread. “This is what we’ve been searching for.”
Marcho’s keen eyes notice something odd at the edge of the fissure—small, frozen creatures, trapped in the ice, their bodies contorted in unnatural poses, their faces frozen in screams of terror.
It’s a chilling sight, one that fills them with dread.
The Frozen Phantom
As night falls, the party sets up camp near the chasm, though sleep comes slowly. The air is thick with tension, and the oppressive silence of the mountains presses in on them. As the fire crackles, a chill suddenly sweeps through the camp. The fire flickers, and in the darkness, a shape begins to materialize—slowly at first, a faint silhouette, then growing clearer with each passing moment.
The figure of an elven woman appears before them, its face a pale mask of frost. Her eyes glow an icy blue, and her body is draped in tattered, frozen robes. She is an apparition—an ethereal spirit bound to this land by an ancient curse. Her very presence chills the air around them, and the song that fills the air is not a melody of peace, but of deep, endless sorrow.
“This is no mere phantom,” Faylen whispers. “It is a being bound to this place by something far darker than simple death.”
Marcho’s hand goes to his rapier. “Do we fight it? I’ve got no problem putting down a ghost.”
Nayzungit’s eyes flash with divine fury. “We will see what the gods have in store for this thing.”
Faylen realizes that the phantom is not simply an undead spirit but rather a manifestation of the land’s twisted curse. It is bound by the power of Tzalyx, cursed to haunt these frozen peaks for eternity, unable to escape the endless cycle of torment.
The Battle with the Phantom
The ruse broken, the phantom’s visage changes. Instead of an elven woman, the spirit grows, snarling and furious, into a ghastly orcish humanoid with spiked bony claws where fingers should be. With a eerie, deathly, fearsome howl, it lunges at the party.
The battle is swift and brutal. The Frozen Phantom’s icy claws strike out, and its haunting wail fills the air, driving at the hearts of the adventurers. The spirit lingers just out of reach, its spectral form flickering in and out of view.
Makhulim charges forward, swinging his waraxes with practiced skill. He grits his teeth as his weapons connect with the phantom’s icy form, but the blow seems to pass through, leaving no trace behind.
Marcho, ever nimble, dodges to the side, striking with his rapier when he sees an opening. His attacks are more effective, but even they are tempered by the eerie cold that radiates from the phantom.
Faylen pulls out her magical arrows, each one crackling with arcane energy. She aims and releases, the arrows shooting through the air with deadly precision. A few strike the phantom directly, causing it to recoil with a tortured scream.
Nayzungit calls upon Angradd’s divine power, his greataxe glowing with the holy light of his deity. He swings the weapon downward, his strike accompanied by a crack of thunder. This time, the phantom seems to feel the full weight of the blow, its form momentarily solidifying before it shatters into a burst of ice and mist.
As the last of the phantom dissipates into the air, a terrifying screech echoes through the frozen peaks. the party stands, breathing heavily, their bodies shaking not just from the cold but from the horror they’ve just witnessed.
The frost on the ground remains, but the oppressive weight of the phantom’s presence is gone.
