Hurried rest stops and shivering limbs marked the
rest of their journey, but luckily no more creatures stood in their
way, so they reached Easthaven with no more incidents. They found an
inn and rested there a night before enquiring about a local temple. The
temple of Helm
was not far away. On arriving the Mothers were disappointed to note how
young the attendant there was. Their hopes that a senior official of
this church would be in residence were dashed after Brother Cardule's
first utterances. He made it plain that no temple in the vicinity would
be able to offer the services that the Mothers sought, suggesting that
they would need to travel to Waterdeep or possibly to Silverymoon, but
he wasn't sure whether even the temples there would be large enough.
The nearest large temple to Tyr
was in Tethyr even further south beyond Baldur's Gate and the land of
Amn. Finally, when asked about how to get to the south, he
mentioned travelling on the Bryn Shander and talking to the Ice Mage
there. Bryn Shander was the largest of the Ten Towns and the Ice Mage
was the heroic defender of the town in times of crisis. As great magic
was at her disposal, she may have been able to help the Mothers travel
to where they needed to go. Jito and Fonesca hit the spellbooks to see
if there was an easier way to get to Bryn Shander than trudging there
over the ice for many days. They realised that if Jito memorised as
many Phantom Steed spells as he could, then the whole group could
travel for about seven hours in this way and then Fonesca could ensure
that they rested as comfortably as possible in a secure shelter for
most of the hours of darkness, then Jito could re-learn his spells and
they would be off again. The Mothers carried out this plan, and three
days later at the expiry of the third set of phantom steeds they stood
within a couple of hours walk of Bryn Shander. The evening was closing
in, but they decided to risk the trek in the twilight, hoping for a
warm bed and some hot grog to put them to sleep.