Installment the Fourth

Chokpa Rinpoche turns into a narrow defile west of Mount Kailash, the Navel of the World, riding with five minions, the end of the world, perhaps, in the kegs of lutefisk they carry.

The party, loyal Ox towing the cart, turns up-valley in slow pursuit, tumbling Oma’s arrow-studded corpse to the ground to await an informal sky burial. As dusk falls, so does the snow, coming on to a massive blizzard. Urged forward by a maniacal Maiyn (what has gotten in to that elf?) Håkon, Åsker, Ludde and Maiyn forge ahead at high speed while Markku stays with Ox (and Osbald, the blue guy tied up in the bed). Markku soon loses sight of his companions in the blizzard, and contents himself with prayers to Perkunas.

Realizing that they are not gaining on Chokpa, Maiyn talks a trusting Håkon into using the flying drum to scout forward. Håkon will use his infravision to see in the dark. It’s a good theory but goes awry when Håkon, successfully airborne, discovers that the blizzard has created a white out and all his infravision can see is white. Nothing daunted, Håkon speeds forward until he smashes into the valley side. Persistent, if unwise, Håkon caroms from valley side to valley side.

Running out of mana, Håkon crashes to the ground and starts to make his way back to where he thinks Maiyn and Åsker might be. Resting, Håkon hears stealthy steps in the snow, and spots a couple of vaguely human figures dressed all in white crossing the slopes above him. Håkon trails the figures until they turn up slope and disappear into the blowing snow.

Meanwhile, Maiyn, Åsker and Ludde heard muffled hoofbeats. Åsker knew from the hoofbeats that it was an enraged yak. The beast materializes out of the blinding snow running at full yak speed and butts Maiyn 10 feet through the air onto his backside. Ludde is the first to land a blow on the white-colored yak, and gouges long furrows in the ice frozen into the yak’s hairy hide. The party realizes the grim truth – it is an ice yak, armored with thick ice formed by repeated wetting and freezing.

The yak makes multiple passes at the party, randomly attacking party members. Åsker makes a remarkable shot with his crossbow, putting his last bolt in one of the yak’s eyes. It only seems to make him mad. Or madder.

On the valley side wall, Håkon has faintly heard the thumps of yak-beats and the sounds of battle. He whips his war hammer high and charges towards the noise. As a dark shape looms out of the blowing snow, Håkon swings a mighty stroke! Startled, Åsker ducks out of the way and Håkon realizes he has fortunately missed pulping the head of his fellow adventurer.

Ludde succeeds in his second attempt to jump on the back of the yak, clawing and tearing from his post. Håkon makes amends for his mistake with Åsker by landing a tremendous blow on the flank of the yak, sending cracks in the icy armor from the face of his hammer.

Ludde gets greedy and tries to throw the yak by leaning out to one side. This allows his claws to slip and Ludde falls off. The yak decides to stay and trample the poor bear. Ludde claws at the yak’s ice-encased legs while the others beat on its sides. At the end, even Markku, who has been flinging light spells into the sky, arrives for the kill.

Markku’s arrival is also somewhat exciting, as he has botched a light spell and arrives in the midst of a total blackout. Fortunately, he too is unsuccessful in his attempt to slaughter Håkon.

Exhausted, the party elects to camp at the kill site, over Maiyn’s objections. Disgruntled, Maiyn skins the yak and rolls in the hide to sleep. He chooses the hairy side, which is also the icy side, but is so tired he is soon out.

Markku checks the yak carcass for magic, discovering something faint in the skull. It ends up in the wagon.

Markku, after some divine inspiration, builds a Finnish snow cave in which he and the rest of the party snooze in comfortable silence.

The next morning dawns bright and clear. Four or five feet of snow covers the valley. Up ahead, Chokpa and his minions struggle up a steep ridge crest towards the summit of Mount Kailash. The party hastens forward, Maiyn running on top of the snow, as befits an elf, while Ludde breaks trail and Håkon plows through the snow. Åsker, Markku and the Ox bring up the rear. Impatient with the slow pace, Markku seizes the flying drum and starts to ascend – only to realize that the drum does not climb very well. Fortunately Markku realizes this before he gets too high or uses too much mana.

Two odd things happen as the party climbs towards what is now clearly a saddle between two high peaks of the mighty mountain. First, two distant figures appear on the far side of the valley, well away from the where Ox and wagon have been abandoned. Second, clouds start to form on the distant horizon. The weather changes quickly in the mountains, but perhaps not so quickly as when a magic user has spotted his pursuers. Soon the party, separated into two groups, is climbing in a white out.

Maiyn and Ludde are the first to reach the saddle. Warned by some sixth sense, Maiyn is able to spring the ambush prematurely. Three swordsmen with shields burst out of snowdrifts to attack Maiyn and Ludde. Maiyn immediately casts Dark, to take advantage of his blind-fighting skills, and succeeds. Ludde, in the act of charging a swordsman, is disconcerted when the light goes out and charges right across the tiny saddle and over the edge on the far side, rolling down the slope in the deep new snow roaring and flailing.

Maiyn survives the blackout, and also his failure on the next blackout, and is eventually joined by the entire party. The swordsmen acquit themselves valiantly (despite accusations of cheating, their rolls were both fortunate and honest) and beat Ludde and Markku to the ground. Healed, they spring up and resume the fight. No such succor awaits the swordsmen, who perish one by one, valiantly defending their master.

The party races up the final pitch, following Chokpa’s steps to the summit. Maiyn is the first to emerge from the clouds – finding a bare summit. Where is Chokpa! He is over on the other summit, holding a keg of lutefisk in front of a large, quizzical, winged dragon! Maiyn in his haste has been duped by a false trail! Chokpa appears to be performing some sort of ceremony. Maiyn quickly persuades a gullible Håkon to fly over using the flying drum and smash the keg of lutefisk.

Håkon’s flight catches the dragon’s attention. Markku casts blur, creating multiple Håkons. The dragon bats at all of them with its mighty wing, causing the imitations to pop out of existence and Håkon to tumble off his line. The dragon casts a careful, suspicious look at Markku across the sea of clouds separating the two peaks, then turns its attention back to the lutefisk. It now looks hungry but cautious.

Maiyn suddenly raises his hands and a towering cylinder of roaring flame leaps into existence around Chokpa and his lutefisk keg. The cylinder reaches from the peak to the sky. Chokpa is trapped within.

Markku chooses this moment to hurl the Instant Sauna spell at the dragon. Unharmed, but annoyed, the dragon launches into the air and with slow, powerful sweeps of his wings, flies over to the party’s peak and snatches Markku away while the rest of the party looks on dumbfounded by this unintended plot departure. Markku and the dragon flap away into the distance.

Led by an indefatigable Maiyn, the party descends to the saddle, to find a full Ludde happily cradling the second keg of lutefisk – now an empty keg of lutefisk – that he has dug out of one of the snowdrifts in the saddle.

Ascending to the true summit, the party finds Chokpa sitting in his circle of fire meditating on the lutefisk keg set before him. The charred bones of his two acolytes mark the places where they attempted to pass through the fire.

Stealthily drawing his short sword, Maiyn walks fearlessly into the circle, which promply vanishes. Before Chokpa can react, Maiyn has driven his sword deep into the old man’s unprotected back, killing him. In his last words, Chokpa claims that as long as the lutefisk exists, the Bön will find it and bring the world to an end.

Maiyn smashes in the end of the keg and begins to each the vile glabrous stuff with both hands. One would not think an elf of his stature could hold as much lutefisk as fits in a fair-sized keg, even assuming an elf would demean himself to be within a mile of the stuff, but Maiyn’s gluttony is an all-devouring flame, until the last bit is licked from the inside of the keg. Then Maiyn collapses into the snow with a baffled look on his face.

It takes Håkon and Åsker some time to realize that Maiyn is somewhat more confused than even someone who just polished off a whole keg of lutefisk should be. A strange tale emerges in fits and starts. Killed in the fight at the pass with the fort, Maiyn woke up reincarnated in the Bön Dzong cell with his mind possessed by the Norse God Loki, the trickster. Loki, the Trickster, the Fire God, and winner of numerous eating contests, has been sent by the Æsir to prevent the end of the world. The circle of flame was Loki’s, not Maiyn’s, and the urgency Maiyn has displayed was divine impatience. With the lutefisk destroyed, the end of the world is not longer nigh, and Loki has returned to Valhalla, where a hot Valkyrie or two await him.

The party has triumphed! The world is safe! --- Or is it?