Session 19 - Good Mead in this place.

 The party head to the East Haven ferry to check out what is going on there, and find it abandoned. There are tracks in the snow leading away from the ferry and into town but are quickly lost in the plethora of other tracks from the townsfolk. 

Snowball picks the lock on the ferry door and inside they find four bedrolls, some rations and some maps. 

The first map is one of Icewind Dale, which has several locations written in Dwarvish, the party are able to determine that these are the town names, and one location deep in the mountains, which they are able to work out is the Duergar fortress, and also the stronghold at Kelvins Cairn.

The second map is one of the town hall, and on it is marked in red is an X showing the back room. 

The party decide to hide out in the frozen hull of the ship and wait but get bored quickly and instead decide to go and check out the town hall, They scope out the building and work out the quickest path to the X is via the side entrance, they barge in and find a giant statue of what Throt determines was Errtu the Demon that was defeated in the time of Akar Kessel by Drizzt Do'Urden, but it is missing 4 large chunks. Kurash is able to identify that the statue is made of Chardalyn, the chunks were stolen by the Duergar, and that they must be on the way to the stronghold. 

As they are discussing next steps they hear from down the stairs to the lower level, "Hello is someone there, please let us out" They head down and find Speaker Waylan in a cell with his 4 Militia guards. He explains that they were jumped at about 3am while guarding the pot, by four grey skinned dwarves, and they locked them in here, the party then free him and he rushes to confirm that the pot is still there, which it is. 

The party decide to try to catch up with the Duergar, and head out of town in the direction of the mountain fortress, however after seeing couple of glimpses of tracks they lose all sight of them eventually and are left without a definitive direction, they decide to instead head overland to Good Mead.

Arriving in Good Mead the party decide to light the lantern which indeed lights up green indicating the presence of elementals. Kurash, Throt and Mochi search around the outskirts of town while Etch and Nox head to the Mead Hall. 

Mochi sees someone standing outside their house bundled up in furs yelling a warning that the wind is playing tricks on her house and for all to be wary. 

Ignoring her Mochi sees some movement in the bushes not far from her house, and sneaks up. He sees three small figures one holding a knife, one a fork and one sitting pretending to eat, they are darting around a plate holding grasses and a pinecone. As Mochi approaches they invite them to join in the meal. Mochi sits and pretends to eat with them, which brings great delight to the Chwinga. The one that was also pretending to eat approaches Mochi and starts to look at their weapons, and armor, eventually sitting on their shoulder. Any gestures Mochi makes to the little sprite are imitated back to them. Accepting their new friend Mochi lets the others who are out searching know that he has found what they were seeking. 

Nogok instead had gone to the Temple he saw in town, inside of which he found a body laid out and covered in a sheet. The cause of death was immediately obvious in the form of three savage chest wounds. Nogok pays his respects at the temple and heads into the Mead hall. 

They head out of the cold to get some Mead, to find Nox and Etch on their third round. Throt asks the barkeep if she has seen any signs of Torgs caravan and apologizes as he is sure Etch and Nox had already asked this....they hadn't. The Barkeep said that Torgs came through a couple of days ago headed for Dougans Hole. When they asked how it got is name, she told a story of an inbred half wit name Dougan who fished there, before deciding to populate the town with children born of his sister. 

Throt tells the others that Dougan's Hole people are a little different, and tend to have weird ears and teeth.  Etch and Nox ask for another round, and the Barkeep explains that they are on a three round ration per patron due to the theft of their mead. She explains that the town speaker was killed when he tried to fight off a Verbeeg that was stealing some mead being loaded onto a sled for their delivery. Nogok confirms that this was the man in the temple.

Anyway Eslbeth the Barkeep explains that the missing casks had to be replaced from the towns store of Mead and as they were low they are going to be rationing it. She asks the party if they would be willing to hunt down the Verbeeg that stole the casks.