Brrrr. It's Cold in Here.
(Must be some ice toads in the atmosphere.)
After a night of being killed by monsters in their dreams (except for Zombres, who bested his, and Marcella, who slept outside the Chambre aux Dormans and made friends with a family of field mice), it's back on the road to Meaux for the Danger Gang! En route they have a weird encounter with some representatives of the Holy Roman Empire, who try to persuade Zombres to come back and tour the Reims planetarium (ever paranoid, Zombres claims to be his brother Ehud), then quickly demur upon none of the party's having the Mark of the Beast on their palms. Real stealthy, guys.
The DG pauses in Meaux's tavern only long enough to sample the local cheese and wine (this is France, after all) and get the scuttlebutt on the nearby ruined abbey--they're told that 150 or so years ago the monks made some kind of Faustian bargain (the second-best kind of bargain, after Buy One Get One Free!), which shockingly led to death, disappearance, and dilapidation. Maybe they left some good stuff behind? Sure enough, a search of the site leads to some underground passageways, and a chest guarded by a golden Francophone kittycat, who turns out to be fire-breathing and evil despite its TOTES ADORBS-NESS. Oh well. Mr. Fuzzypants dispatched, the DG discover the chest only conceals a downward passageway, leading to a room with some little undead dudes (handily turned by Gershom) and Italic textanotherItalic text downward passageway, and so forth...and it just keeps getting colder on the way down. Second nature to Kolya, but unpleasant for the rest.
They find themselves in an ice cave populated by gargantuan ice toads--no threat unless their blood gets angried up by viewing violence. Hence backing into the next room to fight a frost salamander. Then an attempt to rest before the continuing hack ahead...and welp, everyone who got trounced in the C of D? Insomnia City, to the point of inability to memorize spells or gain HP for resting. So the next two days are spent retracing their steps (on foot! It's just the Italic textbestItalic text), so that the cursed can try to kill the monsters in their dreams. Kolya thrashes a rust monster, hooray! but Gershom falls to a will o' the wisp. But he's Italic textgot a planItalic text.
