The party took stock of their situation. “This fresh corpse you discovered,” Varien said to Siegfried and Bob. “How fresh is it, I wonder?” “I mean, I took his badge so we could notify his employers,” Siegfried said, holding the guild marker out for Varien to see. “So that his widow could get a pension, even. But your idea’s better!” “We have diamonds for days,” Bob said. “Can’t I just heal him?” Varien looked the corpse over. The unnatural cold in the crypt had gone a long way towards preserving the body. “Hmmm. I’d say he’s been dead longer than a tenday, but less than a century. He’s past my ability to heal him.” “Ah,” Bob said. “I see. I can probably fix that.” “Stabbed in the back, I see,” Varien said, examining the body further. “He probably didn’t see his attacker,” Siegfried mused. “What if we put him in the portable hole , took him to Nero, and let him speak with dead so we can find out whether he’s worth bringing back to life? Maybe he was a wife-beater whose abused spouse put out a hit on him.” “Siegfried,” Varien said patiently, “We’re not in the business of moving bodies around. Let him rest. He’s already passed from this plane.” “I was going to tell his colleagues where to find him,” Siegfried replied. “We can do that for sure,” Bob said. “Sure, if you return that guild pin to the Order of Chandlers and Lamplighters I’m sure they’ll know what to do,” Varien said. “We don’t have to get involved in everybody’s business.” “Fair enough,” Siegfried said. “Back to my original plan, then.” Behind them, the Lost Watchman wailed in frustration. “Fight me, coward!” it called out, its voice fading as they moved deeper into the vault. The party entered the vault’s main corridor and approached the next intersection. Varien noticed a series of glyphs carved into the stone floor, barely visible through the rime of ice that covered the surface of the walls and floor. The first of the five glyphs began to glow as they approached. “Some caution is warranted here,” Varien said, wary of exploding glyphs. He approached the glyph carefully. “Might be one of those explodey-glyphs.” The glyph’s light did not increase as Varien approached. He stomped his foot onto the ice to break it up and kicked the shards aside to inspect the rune further. As he investigated, he thought that the glyph seemed somehow familiar as though its etchings were from an ancient language. “Why, this is written in Old Illuskan,” Varien said. “From the north. Old Illuskan is a parent language of Illuskan, spoken in the northwest.” Like many northerners, Varien was conversant in the Illuskan tongue. Varien saw four more glyphs on the corridor floor, similar in shape to the first, but with variations. He thought for a moment, then opened his mouth to ask a question Siegfried. He thought better of it, knowing that Siegfried was a southern Faerunian through and through. He turned to Perdita. “Can you read this?” he asked. Perdita straightened her posture and smiled. “Sure can!” she chirped. She toddled over and looked at the glyph. “Oh!” she said brightly. “This looks like the funny words in great-grandfather’s diary!” She blushed. “I read it once when I wasn’t supposed to,” she giggled. “Can you read what this says for me?” Varien asked again, patiently. “The glowing one? Yeah! It says ‘denial’!” Perdita said. Varien nodded. “What about this next one?” Perdita frowned. “Oh, this one says ‘anger.’” “Ah,” Varien said. “Gotcha. So then does that one say ‘grief’?” “No, it says ‘bargaining’!” Perdita says. “Okay, the next one must say grief,” Varien said. Perdita shook her head. “Depression,” she said gravely. “The last one says ‘acceptance.’” “I see,” Varien said. “Well, thank you, Perdita.” Skirting the glyphs, Varien made his way to the next intersection. Corridors continued past arched buttresses into the frozen gloom. Ahead was another intersection with a sealed door. Siegfried checked for traps on the door but found none. Varien tried to open the door, but it was stuck fast. He paused and examined the door, which had carvings on its front of a frozen, northern scene – a frozen lake with a woman in the foreground standing on a dock, her back partially turned, gazing out over the flat surface of the lake. Here and there were the huddled forms of ice fishers crouched over their holes patiently. “Wait a moment,” Varien said. “I recognize this landscape.” He traced the shoreline with his finger. “This is one of the frozen lakes of Icewind Dale – Lac Dinneshire. A little to the southwest of me, found in the region of Ten Towns.” Siegfried searched for a keyhole. He pulled out his wand of secrets and said, “reveal your secrets!” He waved the wand at the door. The tip of the wand drifted to a small indentation in the frozen lake, an ice-fisher’s hole. It was in fact a tiny hole in the door. Siegfried used his thieves’ tools but detected no mechanism within the tiny pinhole. Siegfried pressed his eye up against the hole and saw that he could see through it. “Violance, be a gent and take me and Bob through the ethereal plane?” Siegfried asked his horse, who snorted. The nightmare ferried the two into the Ethereal Plane, where there was a gloomy, grey version of their surroundings. They were surprised to discover that they could not penetrate the door. Nor could they walk around it by pushing through the ectoplasmic framework of the crypt. They returned to the material plane. “The builders of this tomb must have used some expensive tricks to thwart the determined,” Siegfried mused. “Seeing as locks only stop honest men.” Varien walked down the eastern corridor to explore further. As he approached the next chamber, he could hear the sound of running water. He stepped out into what looked like the aftermath of a disaster. The worked stone of the floor seemed to have been broken up by constant freezing and thawing of the waters that pooled in this chamber. An underground source of water, perhaps a tributary of a river or an errant storm sewer had penetrated the crypt and was now interacting with its wintry enchantment. A half-frozen waterfall cascaded over what remained of the stone blocks that once made up the wall of the crypt chamber, and even the sarcophagus therein had been moved off its plinth by the generations of erosion and natural forces of decrepitude. It lay half-submerged like a wrecked fishing boat on the shore of a frozen lake. The lid of the sarcophagus bore the carving of an axe and the profile of its occupant, likely another forgotten Deepwinter noble. Varien climbed up on the rubble and tried to get past the waterfall. He could see a fissure in the crypt wall where the water was coming in. “Perdita, do you know how to open this door?” Siegfried asked. Perdita looked at the door. “I don’t like it! I want my mommy!” she said, shying away. Siegfried found an inscription above the door. “Hall of the Matriarch,” he said. “Well, I think your mother might be beyond this door, if we can find a way through.” Varien heard the sound of cracking ice. Creatures began to claw their way through the ice that covered the shallow pool of water in the chamber. Humanoid, they had extra appendages that sprouted from their shoulder blades that ended in bony spikes. They howled mournfully at the sight of Varien, their cold dead eyes like black holes. They lurched and shambled towards Varien. “JOIN US!” they howled in unison. “LONELY!” “Never,” Varien said, as he hopped onto the high ground. He slashed down savagely at the first creature that came within range. He bashed it with his shield, but the creature stood its ground. Varien slashed it again with an uppercut, slashing its limbs off. “WHY?” the creature moaned “I have combat here!” Varien shouted down the corridor. Siegfried grabbed Violance’s saddle horn and let the nightmare drag him into the chamber. Bob rushed in after Siegfried and found a target-rich environment. Bob let loose a guiding bolt that blasted the creature nearest Varien, causing radiant energy to play over the monster’s body. Siegfried ran forward and struck the glowing monster that Bob’s guiding bolt had lit up, cleaving into it with his greataxe, severing its bony limbs. With a defensive flourish he utterly dismembered the creature. Without missing a beat, Siegfried turned his attention to the next creature, slashing it wildly. The first monster sprawled onto the ice in about six pieces. The next screaming creature lunged towards Varien, wailing horridly as it tried to catch the paladin up in its bony embrace. Varien cast shield to block the bony spikes, which bounced off. Tears of black ichor spilled from its lifeless eyes. “What even are you?” Varien asked. Another creature tried to grab up Siegfried but couldn’t get past Siegfried’s defensive maneuver, howling impotently. Its howls were returned by a horrid roar and something thundered up the stairs to the south. The creature looked like an ambulatory iceberg with rusted swords and other weapons sticking out from the ice. It had too many arms and legs, and looked like skeletons caught up in a chunk of ice. Varien turned to Siegfried. “I’m sure you can handle these creatures,” he said, nodding towards the large undead creature shambling towards him. The chamber began to darken with each wailing scream from the monsters. Varien’s weapon reflected the light of his mantle of flame as he attacked the frozen undead creature with his sword. He carved off sections of ice from the creature’s bodies as its skeletal faces screamed in unison. Chunks of ice sublimated away from Fiendsbane as he cut the undead monster apart. Varien struck it with an upwards slash, leapt above the creature, and then inverted his sword and plunged it down into the creature’s heart. The monster fell apart. “Stygian ice!” Varien said, recognizing the hellish origins of the creature. VIolance stomped on the nearest creature with his fiery hooves. Bob looked over the melee. “Should I do the thing?” Siegfried nodded. “Do the thing!” Bob nodded, used his staff of power to cast fireball and blasted the horde of monsters with a fiery explosion. The ice melted under the blast wave. Siegfried tried to jump aside but the slush beneath his feet messed with his boots. Siegfried laughed at the fire as it washed over him. There was a whoosh of flame and a flashing hiss of steam. Still smouldering, Siegfried turned to the nearest creature and struck it with his axe. He swung again, severing another limb. “LOVE ME!” the creature howled and tried to grab Siegfried in an embrace. “That’s what my mother says,” Siegfried said, batting away the creature’s advance. Another creature reared up behind Seigfried and tried to plunge its bony appendages into him. Siegfried cast shield to ward off the blow. Another creature lurched towards Violance and attacked the nightmare. The bony spike stabbed into the hellish horse twice. Varien rushed down the stairs and surveyed the crypt. There were chunks of ice but no evidence of more Stygian monsters. He turned about and rushed to aid his friends. He cast a fire bolt at one of the raggedly-looking monsters. It staggered back under the bolt, but remained on its feet. Varien cast a searing smite on his sword. Violance said “you don’t pay me enough for this,” and disappeared into the Ethereal Plane. Bob moved onto the rocks and cast lightning bolt from his staff of power , blasting radiant energy in a straight line that caught up two of the creatures. The first one began to shake and vibrate as the electrical damage arced through it, incinerating it from the inside out. Siegfried dropped a hexblade’s curse on the creature who stabbed Violance. “You touched my horse,” he said, and sent a barrage of eldritch blasts as it. Blast after blast of eldritch bolts blasted the monster, killing it on the third strike, and then redirected the blast at another monster, leveling it. “Now, are you going to keep wasting my time, or are you going to die!” Siegfried shouted, walking away from the last creature. It tried to slash him but it failed. It followed angrily, trying to stab Siegfried. Bob reached out and embraced the creature in a shocking grasp . The creature shambled forward and tried to hit Siegfried, missing both times. “You want to hold him so bad?” Varien called out to the creature, who turned to face him. “Hold this!” he shouted. He sent a fire bolt at the monster, which missed. Varien frowned, quickened the spell and fired another one, burning the creature’s head down to its shoulders. Its body slumped to the ice. Silence descended on the cavern, which began to brighten at the destruction of the monsters. Siegfried kicked one of the dead creatures onto its back, gazing into its black, lifeless eyes. “These are a form of sorrowsworn, a manifestation of loneliness, grief and despair from the Shadowfell,” he said to his friends. “I can’t help but see my mother’s hand in this.” “I see a hand, too,” Varien said, indicating a melting section the icy pool. Indeed, there was a form laying just beneath the melting ice. It was the frozen, rotted, desiccated corpse of an orc. “Well, well!” Siegfried said. “From this chap’s tattoos, I’d say he was a ranking member of the Black Horde, who laid siege to Waterdeep in the 13 th Century DR.” Erwen nodded. “I would say this orc once held the Ettin Axe in his hands,” he said. “I think it’s somewhere nearby.” He looked around. “When this orc died, the crypt here was intact. I think the water is new. Look at the water marks on the walls here. We’re on the right track though.” “So, follow the water?” Siegfried said. Erwen shook his head. “I think the orcs were cornered here but fought their way out and escaped elsewhere,” the Halfling said. “Then nature took its course and broke through the walls.” “How long would it take to disperse this water?” Siegfried said. “A good long while,” Erwen said. “Fair enough,” Siegfried said. He noticed Perdita huddled in the corner, sobbing. Alec’s voice called out from down the hall. “Something is happening down here!” The party joined the barbarian in the main corridor, where another glyph had begun to glow. “Depression,” Varien said. “Let’s continue on.” “What’s the matter, Perdita?” Siegfried crouched down next to the ghost. “Those things…” Perdita said, her cheeks stained with tears like liquid moonlight. “What were they?” Siegfried made as if to hug the ghost, hoping it would comfort her somehow. “Those were loneliness personified,” he said. Perdita sniffled. “Uncle Erktos, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been so lonely. Please help me find my mom.” Siegfried considered this. “What else have you been feeling, Perdita?” Perdita balled her hands into fists. “I’m so angry!” she hissed. “And where do you feel angriest?” Siegfried replied. Perdita pointed to the southern chamber. Varien entered the western crypt. It held four sarcophagi, but more curiously, it also contained a large contraption that looked like an oversized set of balance scales, with weighing pans large enough to climb into. Beyond the scales, standing like a silent sentinel, was a 15-foot-tall humanoid with blotchy purple skin stretched over a misshapen frame. The creature was hairless and, more worryingly, faceless. Naked and sexless, where its abdomen would normally be was a great toothy maw. In its arms it was holding an enormous hammer. Its featureless head turned to regard Varien as he approached. Varien walked forward. “So, what are you, then?” he pointed his sword at the creature. In his mind’s ear, he heard a low monotonal glossolalia of a language unfamiliar to him, a tongue so ancient that it threatened to burst his skull. In the other chamber, Seigfried turned to his companions. “Bob, Alec, seek out Varien at once.” He sheathed his axe, made as if to take Perdita’s hand, and walked unarmed into the southern chamber. Varien readied himself to attack the creature that stood placidly before him. He sent Fiendsbane through a number of flourishes, cutting shapes in the air between him, the scales, and the creature. In Infernal, he snarled, “tell me what you want.” Let us try again, the creature spoke telepathically to Varien. I am called Thaluud. The Faceless. Have you come to make Death’s Bargain? And what is that bargain? Varien thought back to the creature, lowering his sword. Only you can determine the stakes, the Thaluud replied. What would you give? The creature’s hand left the haft of the hammer and pointed to the scales in front of it. For what? Varien replied. For what? The creature repeated, its tone incredulous. What would you offer when Death stares you in the eye? The creature pointed at the scales. What would you offer to turn Death’s gaze aside? What can you offer to forestall oblivion? Varien held his sword aloft. I would give all my might! He said telepathically. He brought his blade down on the balance. So be it, the Thaluud said. Varien unleashed a searing smite on the scales, blasting it with fire and radiance. As his sword struck down on the weighing pan, he suddenly felt his strength pouring out into it. A wave of exhaustion rolled over him. His sword became heavy in his hands, and he staggered under the weight of his plate armour. Don’t you see? What can you offer in the face of Death? There can be no bargain. With effort, Varien took a step forward and attempted to point Fiendsbane at the creature. The blade of the sword wavered before him as sweat beaded on his forehead. Who brings me this death? Varien asked. Death is a part of Life, the Thaluud replied. Even heroes must reckon. This is the lesson. The Thaluud returned to his watchful position, both hands on its hammer. Outside in the corridor, another glyph began to glow.