Justin IronOak and Neara BloodOak led our intrepid party through snowy mountain passes, through the worst of the MindSpire Mountains, before coming upon the Village of the BloodOaks.  A vital village, the party immediately saw the battle damage done to the town’s wooden palisade, where the Frost Giants and the Black dragon broke through on their raid.  Talking with the captain of the Guard, Taliera Barkskin, the party learned that the giants had been aided in the Chevauchee by Harren Fire Oak and the White Wizard.  The giants apparently broke through the palisade, and quickly made for the Blood Oak’s Arbrearum.  the party quickly suspected betrayal, and further learned that the Bloody Acorn had dropped just moments before the raid, and had been handled in the Arbrearum and delivered to the giants.  Only a member of the blood of the Blood Oak Clan could have entered the Arbrearum and handled the Bloody Acorn.

The party immediately visited the lord and his lady, who protested that no family member would have betrayed the family.  Soon the party left the court, and visited Neara’s sister Cantara in Cantara’s hut (emanating blue flickering eldritch light).  Immediately suspicious, Maldrin IronOak prepared a spell, and muttered that Cantara must be the traitor.  Alas, Cantara was merely a precocious 14 year old hanging out with her friends.

The party next visited Neara’s brother Fin.  Fin’s hut was deserted, with only a white robe and a suspiciously convenient note confessing to being the traitor on his end table.  The party wasn’t buying it.  The party crossed back to the lord and lady BloodOak, and while grilling them, the sound of artillery shook the Blood Oak palace.  The party rushed outside, to see a floating Ice Fort on a mound of earth high in the air.  Frost Giants were rolling huge snowballs off a landing, and destroying parts of Blood Oak village. The party quickly determined they must somehow get to the floating Ice Fort.  Conveniently, the Frost Giants, a year past, had tried to engage in trade with the Blood Oaks, and had left a small Air Boat that was fueled by human blood.  Neara quickly summoned four towns people, opened up wounds, and had them fuel the Air Boat.

The Airboat ascended to a landing, where the party confronted three Frost Giants.  The battle was touch and go, but soon the party had prevailed.  Leaving the exsanguinated townsfolk to recover in the docked boat, the party rushed into the Ice Fort.  They soon discovered a gruesome workshop, where a Storm giant was being “fitted” for an artificial heart, the size of the bloody acorn.  After another tough battle, with almost all of their healing spells used, the party left the strange laboratory to scale the fort and seek further danger.

Onwards and upwards, for there is no choice!