All along the watch tower.

(Jimi reference or Dylan reference? You decide...)

Inside are a middle aged man and a boy of about twelve. Between them is a small bag with lumps inside (allegedly vegetables). The man ushers them inside, welcomes them to his fire. They explain that they are returning from the harvest festival. He complains that they held it too late in the season this year, counting moons is a poor method of determining festivals.

They sit by the fire, warming up, perhaps drying a bit. They start to hear some noises from outside. A pounding at the ground, a rustle of movement. A howling call sounds from somewhere distant. They see shadows darting between trees. The pounding and galloping sounds start to come more often and from different places.

Aust looks hard using his ranger eyes to get a rough estimate of how many are out there and what the hell they are. He counts more than 20, mentions that it sounds like there are more. A moment of 'oh shit' sweeps over the group.

Large ape-like creatures with thick white hair covering their bodies. They are Yeti and they are pissed off about something. They start throwing large rocks and branches, the rocks hit the fire and spread embers on everyone. Dex checks. Aust's cloak somehow darted around to stop the embers from hitting him. Ooooo. Magic.

Aust, Tobin, Yorik, and Jynxie step outside to deal with the yeti menace while the boy and the man stayed inside. Kon stayed inside with them, throwing bottles/vials of his shit at them. The alchemist works kind of like a mage, but with elixirs, powders, and bombs. Plus it's pseudo-science rather than pure magic.

Anyway, the battle rages on. They defeat one yeti just for another to take its place. My yeti aren't rolling very well to be honest, but the sheer number of them makes them a threat. A very boring threat, in my opinion. Sometimes long combat can be dull. Most times, actually. So I made the yeti  start to surround the people who stepped outside of the watchtower. The yeti couldn't get behind them, but there were three on each of the players outside.

Then the boy from inside the tower yells. "I found a door!"

Yorik politely excuses himself, "I'll go check that out." The rest fight on. Yorik soon calls back his discovery. "It's locked! Anyone know how to pick a lock?!"

Yep. Tobin. So Tobin keeps a couple yeti at bay and then ducks into the tower ruins behind the fire, oblivious to the fact that the yeti did not follow him inside. Actually no one picked up on that. I even pointed it out and they didn't get it. Fucking stoners.

Anyway, Tobin attempts to unlock the doors but fails while the yeti continue to attack the group. After each unsuccessful attempt on the lock, the others battled their yeti. They were starting to take a beating. At last Tobin succeeds and announces it to the group, who waste no time following them inside. They close the door behind them. It is dark inside.

Tobin says he wants to hide in shadows. He rolls for it. I don't know why, no one has lit a torch; it is impossible at this point to not hide in the shadows. But he rolled successful so... I don't know what that means.

Anyway, despite me mentioning that it was DARK, none of them thought to light a torch until they started to get curious as to why I'm not describing the place. Shhiiiiiittttttt.

They light a torch and find themselves in a cylindrical tower, a set of steps curls around the side of the room, one set goes up, the other goes down. They go up and find themselves in a small room with a shallow trench cuts the room in half. A large shallow bowl shape is dug into the floor at the very center of the room, taking up most of the floor. There remains some ancient dry kindling at the center.

Kon splashes a little pure alcohol onto the kindling and lights it up. The fire spreads, staying within the confines of the trenches but following them out of the room to light a series of fires at the other watch towers. The apes below scream in fright and then go very quiet.

They figure out, finally; that the yeti were afraid to approach the camp because of the fire. That the fire was what kept them at bay. Fire. I should be less vague next time.

But they still wanted to go down stairs.

So I let them. I had something kind of nasty planned for them and was hoping they'd bite at it.