Session 15: Jadis on the Ice

Sen → Iced River → Queensport Gates

TONE: Escape and arrival. Puff saves the day;
Queensport shuts them out.

The Circus

Brother Ansel removes the curse. The crew celebrate — and then
announce they’re done with sailing. They’ve formed a traveling circus.
They leave. The ship is the party’s problem now.

Sable desperately wants to join the circus. She has already
identified three acts she could perform. She is thirteen and has very
good reasons and the party is absolutely not letting this happen. Let
this be a scene — her pitch is actually good.

The Iced River

The Lazy Current reaches the dock only to find the river completely
frozen ahead — not a natural freeze but a working of magic. Ice crystals
form in geometric patterns. It is beautiful and completely
impassable.

Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia, arrives on a sleigh pulled by two
winter wolves. She has been following them since she heard about
Ominis’s death. She is ancient, imperious, and angrier than she is
letting on.

She steps down from the sleigh with the kind of grace that
belongs to people who have never had to hurry. ‘You killed my
great-grandson,’ she says. ‘He was irritating and arrogant and
occasionally dangerous, but he was mine.’ She looks slowly around the
group. ‘I want you to understand that I remember every face I see. Every
one of them.’

COMBAT: Jadis (modified Ice Devil stats — CR 14: HP 180, AC 18, Ice
Spear +10 3d8+6 cold, Wall of Ice at will, Legendary Actions: Teleport
60ft, Frighten gaze DC 16). She is not at full power here — she is
testing the party, not trying to kill them. Pull punches. Let the party
fight well before Puff arrives.

Puff Arrives

Puff the Magic Dragon, who has been following the party at a distance
since they helped Toby in Session 5, picks this moment to make his
presence known. He lands between the party and Jadis, and simply looks
at her. He does not speak. He does not attack. He is very large and very
old and Jadis recognizes what she is looking at.

Puff says nothing. He doesn’t need to. Jadis looks at him for a
long moment. ‘This isn’t finished,’ she tells the party. Then she turns
and walks back to her sleigh, and the ice cracks and melts behind her in
her wake.

Puff carries the party to Queensport — the Germonian stronghold. He
sets them down outside the eastern gates and departs with a look that
says: we’re even.

Queensport

The gates are guarded. The party doesn’t have papers. They end up in
the shantytown outside the walls — a collection of inns, repair shops,
and informal markets that exist to serve people the city won’t let in.
In a tavern, they meet a dwarf who takes one look at Sable and says her
name. A bar fight immediately starts.

• Surviving Jadis: 600 XP

• Puff saving the party: 0 XP (gift, not earned), but note it for
  narrative weight

• Reaching Queensport: 200 XP