Chapter 5: A Land Both Desolate and Wonderous
When our heroes first awoke, they found themselves in the ruined husk of the great castle that they had been exploring just the previous day. Only now, to their surprise, this castle appeared to be in the middle of a frozen tundra, very different than the lush green forest they had been in the day before. Having passed the night in the structure's highest room at the precipice of its great singular tower, they could only assume that some magic had brought about this change. It would appear that the structure had transported them to another place entirely; that much was obvious, but they couldn't begin to discern for what purpose.
Furthermore, two of their group were no longer with them. Thia and Lyra were both absent, and though the others spent several hours scouring the area around their new camp, no trace of the elf or hamadryad could be found. "There is some perverse magic afoot," Carric said finally, overcoming the initial shock of their discovery. "But what could have caused such a thing?" The wizard would spend the rest of the meager daylight hours trying to use every means at his disposal to make sense of their new predicament, but would largely come up empty-handed. The one thing he was able to discern was that they were no longer on the prime material plane, as none of his spells for contacting others from a distance worked. For the time being, at least, they appeared to be stuck.
They would come to learn much in the following week, though, both from their desperate bid at survival on the frozen plane, and also from the young hunter Elxidor, a stranded native of the region they would rescue a few days after arriving. Morrah would be the one to spy the elf from atop the castle's central spire during one of the rare breaks in the near-constant blizzard conditions of the plane, and Rory and Nizèl would set out of the camp to retrieve him, passed out from exhaustion and half buried in the snow.
It was a miracle he was still alive, and once brought back from the edge of death by Nizèl's magic, Elxidor would tell them much. They would learn they were in the Fewilds and that this place was known as The Valley of Long Nights. He would also impart much more about the land they had come to in the days that followed, principally that it was a barren and desolate place year-round, with scarcely any life to speak of. Scarcely, except for the nomadic tribes of the snow elves that wandered its territory in reluctant servitude to a mysterious figure known only as The Prince of Frost. Seated in his imposing citadel of ice that could be clearly seen atop a mountain far in the distance, the prince was said to rule over all of the winter fey, and it was rumored that he was even striking out at the other dominions of the Feywild as well.
All of this would be told in time, but the party could hardly stay idle in the ruins. They had already burned through half the supplies they had set out with on their departure from Triboar, and even Elxidor was uncertain how long it would take them to make their way back to his tribe. It was possible they had already moved on, giving up the search for Elxidor and seeking out more sheltered refuges further afield. The storms in the valley had been particularly perilous of late. Apparently, something had the prince in a foul mood.
And so, with little other choice, they set off, determined not to let the storm overcome their spirits, at least not before it overcame the rest of their sensibilities.
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