Having saved the world, those valiant adventurers, Håkon, Maiyn, Åsker and Ludde the Bear, stood atop Mount Kailash, the navel of the world, watching a small dot on the horizon, which was a dragon carrying Markku the Finnish Wizard off into the north. Pity filled their minds.
“It’s a pity I didn’t pick his pocket before he left” thought Maiyn. “It’s a pity he’s got the map,” thought Håkon. “It’s a pity I couldn’t get a dragon scale,” thought Åsker. “It’s a pity the GM is stealing jokes from Bored of the Rings,” thought Ludde, now being played by John.
The party straggles down the mountain to the valley below to regain the shelter of their cart and the incredibly patient Ox. As is usual in mountain stories, the night became cold, snowy and dark. Håkon took the first watch. In the middle of the watch Ludde rose from the snow, shook himself off, and started up the north side of the valley. Stirred from his sleep, Åsker also rose, and muttering to himself went after his bear. Håkon did not appear to notice.
Åsker eventually caught up to Ludde using Ludde’s tracks, and persuades him to return to camp by telling him that there is a leg of beef waiting down below. Ludde thinks it over and rumbles back down the hill. In camp, knowing that there is no leg of beef and fearing Ludde’s wrath, Åsker makes himself scarce. However, Ludde looks in the wagon and discovers the frozen corpse of Oma Lama. Snapping off a leg, Ludde returns to his snowdrift upwind of camp and gnaws contentedly.
During Maiyn’s watch, however, Ludde, drawn by weak but persistent urges, again arises from his burrow. Thinking ahead, he snaps off Oma’s other leg for provisions for the journey and again ascends the north wall of the valley. The snap wakes Åsker. Maiyn wakes Håkon after picking his pocket for practice. Practice was all Maiyn got, since Håkon’s pocket was empty.
Between them Maiyn and Åsker remember seeing the shapes moving across the valley from the saddle on the mountain, and Håkon remembers them from his attempt to fly in the blizzard. The party sets out to follow Ludde.
Dawn comes, and the blizzard abates. Ludde reaches a place where snow-filled tracks cross the mountainside, from low to the right to high on the left. Ludde elects to turn left, which is a good choice as the tracks become less snow filled as he moves along. The party trails along well behind him.
Ludde goes over a ridge and disappears. The party hurries to the ridge crest. They see Ludde standing in the throat of a fairly steep gully looking up at the entrance to a cave. Two figures dressed in white emerge from the cave. Spotting Ludde, they begin to do a dance, sort of like a chicken dance done by a dancing bear.
Ludde is strangely drawn to the figures and the dance. He decides to move uphill and to the left, climbing the gully wall. His arms start to make the same motion as the dancing figures, who are encouraged.
Åsker recognizes the figures as yetis – they have the same type of fur as the skin Maiyn has acquired somewhere. Åsker plans to collect some yeti skins of his own. Undaunted by being out of bolts and so confined only to a dagger, Åsker plunges down Ludde’s tracks to the gully bottom and forges up behind him. Maiyn and Håkon follow at a more leisurely pace.
Ludde is attracted but cautious. He takes a position somewhat uphill from the dancing yetis at the cave mouth on the left side of the gully, dancing more enthusiastically every passing minute. It seems like something he already knows how to do. The party arrives at Ludde. Maiyn, seeing that the yetis are fixated on Ludde, quickly uses his elven snow running talent to circle above the cave and dash into the entrance behind the yetis.
Inside the cave Maiyn discovered a circle of 10 yetis sitting around a fire chanting. (Chanting by yeti sounding much like bears roaring in tune.) He also discovers two inside guards who are not distracted, spot him and start to charge at him. Maiyn promptly hides in the shadows. Pandemonium breaks out among the yetis, who leap to their feet and start to search the cave for the intruder. Maiyn bears it for as long as he can and then, as a smaller, somewhat elderly yeti dodders by, can take it no longer and plunges his dagger into the yeti’s back in a very satisfying way. The elder shrieks and Maiyn finds himself visible and in close proximity to a dozen enraged yetis. Well, eleven enraged yetis and one wounded one.
The fight in the cave is short, and for Maiyn not especially pleasant. His clever attempt to plunge the cave into darkness is nullified by his misfortune in interrupting a circle of powerful yeti shamans. One contemptuously snaps on the flood lights and when the crowd breaks up all that is left of Maiyn are his possessions and a red stain on the cave floor.
Outside the cave, the roaring over Maiyn’s discovery causes the dancing yetis to break off their dance, whirl and stare into the cave. Loyal to their mate, Åsker and Håkon rush down the slope and attack the guards. Åsker stabs one in the leg and Håkon clonks the same one over the head with an axe. Horrified, but slow to act, Ludde resolves to interpose his bulk between his old friends from the party and his new ones from the dance. However, he gets carried away on the approach, caroming into Åsker, knocking him off his feet and into Håkon. The three of them go tumbling down the gully leaving two enraged yetis above.
The people in the gully try to stop, only to find the yetis from the cave charging down on them. Ludde hip checks a yeti, who tumbles down the gully like a white furry bowling ball. Håkon evades the yetis, but the rolling one caroms into Åsker, who continues his uncontrolled descent of the gully. Suddenly Åsker discovers that the gully ends just below him. His desperate attempt to stop fails, and Åsker is swept over the edge. Aaaaaaaaaaaaa a a a a a a a a a! Fwump!
Åsker lands head-down in deep soft snow. As he tries to dig his way out, a yeti lands on top of him, thump! Then another yeti lands on top of the first yeti, thump-bump, crushing poor Åsker. Somewhat the worse for wear, the two yetis remain capable of setting about Åsker with tooth and claw.
Up above, two more yetis (the internal guards) emerge from the cave and rush down the gully to engage with Håkon. One goes so far as to interpose between Håkon and Ludde, while the other ends up sliding over the edge. Ludde does his best to break up the fight, but Håkon and the remaining yeti exchange blows until Ludde pushes everyone into another tumble down the gully. Håkon can’t stop and goes over, landing in the snow near Åsker’s ragged remnants. The three yetis already below amble over and dispatch their second helpless victim.
In the gully above, the last yeti digs in his claws and screeches to a stop at the lip of the gully, bracing himself to prevent Ludde from going over. Ludde, however, regains control and stops just above the yeti. After a tense moment, the yeti relaxes and Ludde turns uphill and starts the arm motions from the yeti dance.
Far above at the cave, the yeti shamans emerge one by one from the cave, dancing with joy, howling their greeting and forming a line on either side of the cave to welcome their long lost Crown Prince to a ceremonial tea.
Ludde is at first surprised by how quickly he learns the yeti tongue, and then not surprised as he learns his history over the next several days. It seems that there is a yeti King Muntok, who dwells in the House of the Golden Roof. Muntok’s evil vizier Shazbag long ago had Muntok’s only son Guntok kidnapped and sold abroad, so that Shazbag would be able to take over the kingdom when King Muntok died. The King is now at death’s door. Only if his son comes to him to perform the yeti ceremony of Opening the Door can King Muntok die and pass on the magic power of the yeti kingdom.
A circle of powerful Shamans, distrustful of what the evil Vizier Shazbag would do to the magical research budget if he assumed the throne, has spend the past year or so chanting a powerful summoning spell that has reached across the world and brought their Crown Prince Guntok (Ludde) back to them!
Ludde reflects that this explains his wanderlust, a feeling so strong it has caused him to change masters and influence Åsker to cross half the world to meet his doom at this spot. The yeti shamans see his concern, and reassure him. All the party can be reincarnated at the nearest stupa, simply by praying. Their possessions have been preserved intact, and the shamans even will refill quivers, as the evil Vizier Shazbag has surrounded the approach to the Hall of the Golden Roof with many and various ingenious protections. There is only one catch. Maiyn has stabbed a revered shaman in the back from hiding. This is considered a karmically negative act, at least by the yetis, and it is up to Crown Prince Guntok to exercise Royal Justice and impose a karmic penalty on his recall.
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