Ysabella's turn...
Ysabella nearly falls back as the creature attacks her. She grips the sword gifted her by Lars in two hands and the cold rage of her arcane heritage and the deplorable experiments performed upon her overtakes her. More surprisingly her hands and the blade holding it burst into flames as she swings at the creature!
Creature two falls to the icy creek unconscious.
Bedwyr hops off Tawny and pulls out his spear.
Tawny moves through the snow to creature one and and does
Creature two and bleeds out.
Baxter's turn...
Baxter will look over to Nissi, and jerk his snout towards the remaining creature. He draws his rapier as he approaches.
Lars hits creature one and does some damage to it.
Vernonia's turn...
Seeing Lars get ambushed by the ice creature Vernonia moves into action. She moves to where she thinks the healing will help most of the group and then calls healing powers to flow through her friends.
"Hang in there Lars!
Creature 1 will attack Lars and misses.
Round 2
- Nissi
- Ysabella (staggered)
- Bedwyr
- Creature 2
- Baxter
- Lars (staggered)
- Vernonia
- Creature 1
Nissi's turn...
Nissi struggles mightily against the snow "Come Baxter, I will distract it while you strike" before muttering under her breath "Nasty nasty snow. No, do not like it at all."
Ysabella is no longer staggered and it's her turn...
Ysabella steps out onto the ice to face their remaining foe head on. She attempts to cleave into it with her blade.
Ysabella misses.
Bedwyr's turn...
The Lion attacks and hits for .
Then tries to grab and fails.
Then a and misses.
Then another claw attack and hits for .
The creature falls to the ground and bleeds out.
Nissi turns to the group "Who is this woman you seek, Hmmm? That our quarry can pull a blizzard from the depths of winter and have both talking animals and living ice as well as exploding snow statues to thwart our attempts to follow them, they must be powerful indeed and the woman exceptionally valuable to warrant such effort. Yes, such power to expend on capturing one person, hmmmm."
Vernonia looks over the creatures.
"How many more obstacles have they put in our path?"
"I have some healing power if anyone needs it."
"I don't know what these are, but..." Baxter says curiously, putting the tip of his rapier through one of the dying creatures.
Lars breathes a sigh of relief as things go quiet again. He considers kicking the creature now that it's down, but that doesn't seem to be a particularly chivalrous thing to do and he ultimately decides against it.
"We seek to rescue a noblewoman, Lady Argentea Malassene," Lars explains to their newest arrival. "Her caravan was attacked and she was kidnapped, presumably the only other survivor besides the one guard that escaped to seek help. That they would go to such great lengths to prevent a rescue suggests to me that the rescue must be really desperately needed." He tries once more to test the sturdiness of the ice covering the river before them, hoping that no more creatures come out of it.
"I'm still a bit wounded," he admits to Vernonia. "I don't know how anyone else is doing, but I would gladly accept some more healing. I don't know how much you have available, though, and would suggest you ration it for now unless we plan to camp here for the night. I hate the thought of adding all those extra hours of captivity for our target, but I am aware that you spell-casty types only have so many resources at your disposal each day and these last encounters have proven to me that my martial prowess is not so great as to eliminate any need for it."
Nissi scans the trees again. "We shouldn't stay here too long, I am worried that the noise may attract more visitors. No, do not want talking stag to return."
The Icy river does indeed look rather slippery. Perhaps thick enough to walk across but it's hard to tell. So far, nothing pops out as Lars pokes at the ice.
"Let's get across the river, move up the trail some,and then make camp for the night. We have been going all day and it is getting late. I would rather not walk into any ambushes after dark."
"Agreed. They're already hard enough to spot as it is." Baxter adds. "Camping the night would be the best option."
Nissi cautiously moves up beside Lars and begins to tentatively probe the ice with the haft of her spear in an attempt to help him determine if the ice is safe.
"I suggest we cross the river now, before camping, while we still know it to be crossable," Lars says while gingerly moving all his weight onto the ice at the edge and then slowly shimmying over deeper and deeper water. "If it's our adversaries that are controlling this cold weather, they may decide to thaw it overnight just enough to thwart us."
If nobody objects he'll try to cross first, awkwardly sliding along and holding his sword out almost like a balance pole.
Baxter will drop to all fours and crawl along the ice to the other side.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Vernonia pulls a rope from her pack and hands one end to Lars before he ventures out onto the ice.
"Tie this around you in case we need to pull you out. When you get to the other side tie it off on a tree so we can hold on as we cross"
Baxter begins crawling across the ice and makes it to the other side slowly.
Lars crosses and mid way across he can feel the pressure under his feet give way as he falls into the icy water underneath with the rope (hopefully) tied around your waste.
The water is extremely cold but it doesn't seem to phase you. You also notice the creek is only 6 feet deep.
"Augh!" Lars cries out as he plunges through the ice into the cold water below. He founders for a moment before realizing that if he stops flailing he can stand in this depth. He has to crane his neck to keep his nose just barely above water when doing so, but the knowledge helps to calm him down greatly.
"I'm okay," he calls back. "It's quite brisk, but it's not as bad as I feared." Gathering up the rope he looks to see if the ice is thick enough to climb out onto to continue across. If it doesn't look like it'll hold him then he'll instead use his sword to break himself a path through the ice and wade the rest of the way over. Then he'll untie the rope from himself and tie it to a tree as per the plan.
"The one time it probably would have helped to be small," he says to Baxter, chuckling, as he works with the rope. "Now I definitely want to camp and build a fire to get out of these close and dry them."
Seeing that Lars is ok and Baxter made it across, Nissi will carefully make her way across the frozen stream.
Nissi makes it across with the slight sounds of ice cracking but nothing gave way.
Vernonia crosses the river holding onto the rope that hopefully is still tied around Lars.
Lars had tied the rope off to a sturdy tree once he reached the other side, but he returns to the banks to be ready to help should the worst befall someone else. He offers encouragement to Vernonia as she attempts the crossing, with intended-to-be comforting reminders that the water isn't as cold as it looks, and is shallow enough to stand in, although he doesn't fully consider that neither might be the case for someone of lesser stature and whose lineage doesn't descend from the far north.
Once Vernonia has crossed, Bedwyr uses the rope to help him cross the ice.
Vernonia begins crossing and the ice starts to crack under her feet and she beings to struggle as she grasps to the rope and pulls herself forward and cross the creek.
Bedwyr sees the danger to Vernonia and instead follows in Nissa/Tawny's footsteps, If it bears Tawny's weight...