Session 17 - Would you like to join me for stew?

After they takedown the Ice Giant Skeleton they search the rest of the caves, as they follow the trail of blood from the butcher room, they are lead to a cavern where an old lady stares lovingly into a pot of hot stew, a pile of body parts sits on the floor next to it. She sees them as they enter and greets them with, please come in and my pot awaits you. 

Kurash who is currently a direwolf, raises his hackles and growls at the woman, she responds to him with a smile saying "Oh little one, you will cook up nicely too" and cackles madly.

They attack and she responds by polymorphing into a T-rex and chomping Throt with her massive jaws. They continue to fight her down, Layton using his Scimitars, Nox Eldritch Blasting, Mochi with their crossbow, Etch with Dissonant Whispers, and eventually take the beast down.

The woman returns to her human form, and is unconscious, they tie her up and discuss what to do. Throt explores the cave some more and finds a frozen pool with more giant skeletons frozen deep in the ice. 

Throt takes a moment of personal time to clean up after his mid combat accident, and finds a small room with paintings depicting the frost giants coming here to die. He returns (cleaner) and relays this info to the rest of the party, they decide to rest and interrogate the woman to see what is really going on here.

She explains that the stew pot is actually magical and and water put inside would quickly turn to a hearty stew. But she grew tired of the same old stew and started searching for more seasoning. She used to live here with her two sisters but eventually they ended up in the stew pot. 

She offers them the pot for her freedom, and they say they can just take the pot anyway, so she sweetens the deal "Let me leave, I will head north and you can follow in 3 hours. You will find a large chest of gold (approx 600GP) on the shore about a mile north of here, and you will never see me again" The party mull this over, and try to get her to take them to the gold, to which she explains that then they will not free her, and that she will not do that. Eventually as they realize their threats are hopeless they decide to return her to the militia captain for justice. 

They head out to the boats and her, Layton and Throt go in one boat, with Throt rowing, and the others are in the towed boat behind. The woman stretches her legs a couple of times, and eventually stands up. To which Throt and Layton order her to stay sitting. She argues that she is old and her legs are cramping, and eventually she stands again and jumps into the freezing waters, taking a glancing blow from Laytons scimitar, and dodging a spear from Throt. 

She swims straight down into the depths of the lake, and Kurash summons a Narwhal elemental to follow her, he polymorphs into a Narwhal also and they chase her down, they attempt to use their horns to chopstick her into custody, and fail a couple of times as she slips out and swims deeper. Eventually they manage to catch her and get a horn under her binding ropes to return her to the boat. Throt out of frustration punches her squarely in the face, and for a fleeting moment sees the horror that is her true appearance. Shaking off the effects of this her ties her to the seat and they continue on to town.