Do You Want to Build a Snow Man?
Like so many adventures before this one, this one started with a wizard in a tavern. Though this time he wasn't pushing a treasure map at you. No, this wizard is one of the non-field variety. A bloated, wheezing wizard with a healthy appetite by the name of Hogun, arcane craftsman to the rich and powerful. In between bites of roast beef and stewed onions, he explained that a client's daughter is having a wedding and she wants an animate ice sculpture. In the summer. That takes some powerful magic and powerful magic needs arcane ingredients. In this case, the heart of a Winter Wolf and as much blood as you can get into some jars.
While he's not the adventuring sort of wizard, he is skilled in divinations and translocation. Near the Ice Wall mountain, a lone specimen has been located, ready to be exsanguinated and relieved of it's heart. Luckily, it's an evil creature and has probably killed some northmen and left their bones and valuables to freeze in it's cave! After some haggling, a price is agreed upon and you are left to make proper arrangements before you are teleported a few thousand miles away into a still-frozen wasteland. The next morning, Hogun in the finest furs and stupidest knit hat possible weaves a spell of transportation and the summer heat is replaced with biting cold. With a bit more magic, a sturdy cabin is conjured around you, the fireplace tended by unseen servants. Here Hogun will await your return, and off he bids you with a simple talisman on a chain that will point you in the right direction.
Rakim has added some fur at neck and cuffs to his usual ensemble, and a cloak atop his leather coat. He pulls a scarf over his face as he looks around "Well at least some of us will be well insulated" he drawls with a sidelong glance at Tim and a faint twist of his lips before they are covered by the scarf.
Tim is also a fat overindulged mage, but, he has to actually venture forth and do real work. So he is here, dressed in warm clothing, standing in the snow and looking miserable. "Bah. This bodes to be a crappy trip."
Stupid though his knit hat may be, Hogun is by far better prepared to brave the Icewalls than the Veyshanti witch that answered his posting. With scant experience in Northern weather, and rare need to own a set of warm clothes, Alba has compromised by adding heavy, shaggy pelts to her normal clothing, topping it off with a cloak that looks to have began life as most of a bearskin, and altered very little afterwards. The end result is her faceless mask the only thing breaking up a shapeless mound of long, brown-gray fur and seeming to move little as she braves the snows. "Take heart," the voice behind the mask says in answer to Tim's grumbling. "The round one suffers not alone, and it is likely he shall not be so round upon our return."
Tiasa isnt looking that forward to cold. But does not mind too much. She has her regular gear, mostly that breastplate that looks made out of a storm cloud. She did add a heavy cloak. The sith looks at the others "It will build character." She rumbles a little in amusement.
Tim grunts, "It will remind me to learn a spell to deal with bad climates."
Rakim tsks as he makes sure his furred cuffs are aranged just so "I flatter myself that I have enough character already" he says, voice somewhat muffled by the cold weather gear. That said he braces himself and then opens the door and steps out into the cold, sharp dark eyes glancing around carefully.
The cold is not as bad it could be, since it's summer, But for adventurers that just came from Mediterranean style climates (if the world map to be believed), it's pretty brutal. Snow still lies on the ground and the Icewall mountains loom above you, a few miles away. It is an unforgiving trek, but a relatively short one. The talisman leads you to a cave in one of the few exposed rock face cliffs, wide enough for a rather large creature to pass through, though flanked by joined icicles that support a large...large cluster of sweating ice. It might be a squeeze to get through...