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The Mothers went north for over an hour on their way out of the Rift. They were searching for a place to rest and recuperate when they came across a crevasse. It was relatively narrow, but Siosiann had spotted that the ice was thin on the far wall. Jito flew over to investigate and he used his flaming sword to cut a hole in the ice. He discovered a chamber in the ice with a passageway leading off into the ice towards the rear. Jito threw up a rope to the others and they secured it to pitons driven into the ice. Jito secured the other end on the ledge and the Mothers made their way over the crevasse to join him. They all entered the chamber which was unoccupied. They carefully proceeded to the passageway which spiralled down into the ice. After a couple of turns the passage flattened out and became stone floored. After twenty feet this passage opened into a room carved from stone and ice which had eight humanoid sized cots and one door on the right hand wall. This door led to a small room with a circular hole in the stone floor plugged by an ice disk. The Mothers decided to rest in this area. Siosiann and Fonesca went back up to the cave above. Siosiann cast a wall of water and Fonesca froze it, using a cone of cold. This sealed the entrance. Levi then cast a glyph of warding in the upper chamber with Tyr痴 name being the pass phrase.

The group then rested and watched while Levi lit a block of his incense of meditation as he sat down for eight hours to play for cure spells and a raise dead for Guthranka. Siosiann, Jito and Fonesca also took the chance to recover or change their spells while Gaspode and Tettet warily scanned the ice passage for possible intruders, or perhaps home comers. The eight hours passed without incident. Levi stirred from his reverie and prepared himself for his ceremony as Gaspode unfolded his sheet of smallness and restored Guthranka痴 body to its correct size. When both were ready, Levi began to chant, holding his silver holy symbol tightly in his hand. The concern that he felt for the paladin was etched clearly in his face as the words came to him, but the power did not fail him and Guthranka痴 body soon glowed with life again. Levi sat back relieved while Guthranka slept. After about thirty minutes, Levi began casting the curative magics on the others in the group. When he was done, all of the others� wounds had been removed. He himself was still somewhat injured, but he slept before attempting to redress this. The others were taking shifts of watching at this time and although the settling sounds of the ice around them were disturbing, nothing interrupted the group. On rising, Levi prayed again, curing himself with the spells that he gained. Guthranka was also strong enough to lay her hands on him, completing his restoration. As the rest of the group were rested, they decided to leave the crevasse and return to the Rift. On their way out along another rope, Fonesca slipped and would have fallen, but for the quick action of Siosiann, who held on to the falling mage until Jito could take some of her weight on his broom.

Not long after this the Mothers had returned to the vicinity of the Rift. Jito went off to scope the area on his broom after he had cast an Improved Invisibility on himself. Wanting to find out more about the westerly ledges, Jito flew along that side of the Rift, the wind was too strong for him to fly high over the rift, so he hugged the walls of ice. Before he reached the first entrance that he had seen before, a wall of ice completely blocked passage along the ledge. The wind precluded going over or around this ledge, so Jito returned to the party just before his invisibility gave out. The Mothers then decided to go beyond the Rift entrance and try to spy down on the activities below from the edges. Fonesca tried various avian forms from her Polymorph Self spell before settling on the more stable polar bear form to peer over the edge. She saw ordered groups of Frost Giants patrolling the ledges fifty feet below and went back to discuss this with the other Mothers.

The Mothers debated how they should approach the rift given the guards that they had seen on the ledges below. While they were discussing their tactics a number of ice-encrusted boulders fell upon them and they looked up to see a group of eight frost giants hurling missiles at them from a good distance. Fonesca and Siosiann loosed lightning bolts at their opponents while Levi and Jito boosted their protections with a prayer and a mirror image respectively. The giants did not close for combat, but rather preferred to keep raining missiles down on the party, who were about to attempt flight when another group of enemies was heard approaching from the rear. A quick glance at these showed that not only giants were circling around, but yeti, wolves and other creatures were also advancing. The Mothers first thought of trying invisibility to escape, but Gaspode reasoned that the wolves would track them anyway and that their tracks would be seen in the snow. Phantom steeds were then considered, but enough of them could not be cast in time. So, using the cubic gate was considered, but then Levi called the group into a circle and promptly used his ring of spell storing to plane shift all of them to Plague Mort on the Outlands.

The remains of the abattoir surrounded them and the experienced Mothers tried to calm the two primes. They left the ruined building and walked across the town square towards the Arch-Lector's palace, trying not to look at the massive gate to the Abyss or it's fiendish guardians. They were met at the door to the palace by human-looking guardsmen, who were rather uncooperative about letting them through. That was until the Mothers mentioned that it was they who had killed the nascent demi-god in the abattoir some time past. At this point one of the guardsmen went to fetch a superior.

A gaunt looking humanoid in black and red robes arrived at the door. He took in the whole party in a glance and beckoned them through the guards. "Let us try and avoid the Arch-Lector" he said. Leading them by back corridors the attendant wove their way to a quiet side door to the Arch-Lector's throne room. He opened it and peered inside. When he was happy that the room was empty he ushered the Mothers through and asked them to leave as quickly as possible. Siosiann tried to ask his name, but he responded with a simple negative. The party made their way through the gloomy archway behind the throne.

The damp fetid air of the Lower Ward was familiar to most of the group, but Siosiann and Tettet displayed the usual prime awe of the physical topology of the Cage as well as the strange residents of the city. Guthranka quickly hailed two passing Arcadian pony cabs as Siosiann became overly interested in two barbed devils who seemed to be having a heated conversation on some esoteric topic. After a short jolting ride over the cobbled streets, the Mothers left the Lower Ward and approached the cleaner lines of the Lady's Ward. Soon they were deposited outside the Golden Bariaur Inn. Stronghoof himself was there to greet them as they entered their favourite stall. A few beers and some food calmed the nerves of the group enough for them to contemplate their next steps. Levi, Guthranka and Fonesca took Stronghoof's advice and cured the injured amongst them with their prayers and wand. They decided to head off to Hercanon in order to get the items that they had found in the ice identified and Jito's wand re-charged.

After another short cab ride the Mothers were greeted at the door by the tall drow himself. Siosiann surprised herself and the dark mage by being pleased at meeting a courteous drow, saying that he looked much more familiar than the other creatures that they had seen that day. Hercanon agreed to identify the items and to re-charge the wand. He thought that it would take about a week to cover all of these tasks. In the meantime the Mothers spent their days researching various topics in the Anarchists' Library in the Hive. Guthranka fed small chunks of gold to one of the runners who looked up requests on Frost Giants, glaciers, giant myths, Shar and other things. They learnt something of the humanoid peoples of the great glacier north of Vaasa. Another book spoke of the myths of Kara Tur, east of Thay across the Endless Plains, these myths spoke of invisible giants who could cast spells and compel people to do their will. It also spoke of celestial dragons and spirits who dwelt in the rivers, trees and forests. There was another book that spoke of a glacier that spread down over the ancient land of Netheril from the north after the fall of that empire in the mages battle with the Phaerimm that also caused the Anauroch the Great Desert to form. Shar is a goddess in eternal conflict with Sel甁e the goddess of the moon, her sister. Many of the gods of the Faer甁ian pantheon come from this war. The Mothers weren't sure what to make of this information.

After a week had passed the Mothers returned to Hercanon and discovered that the axe that they had left was magical, but less so than Tettet's. The box contained a wand of frost. The scroll tube contained a scroll of protection from elementals. The ring was a ring of fire resistance. The plate mail, however, was cursed, as it was plate mail of vulnerability that would have made the wearer more susceptible to attack. Hercanon also handed over a Jito's wand of fire which he had recharged somewhat. The Mothers thanked him and returned to the Golden Bariaur to plan their next move.