"Didn't know you were into swordplay neither, Doc," Droviz says, eyeing the bastard sword with professional interest. He shrugs. "I'd get a buckler to go with it; keeps your hands free so you can swing that blade to full effect, but adds a little battlefield security."
"Oh yes, almost every Tengu is trained in the use of blades as soon as they are strong enough to hold one.
This is a "Bastard" sword, named so for being the bastard offspring of a longsword and a greatsword.
It CAN be used in one hand, as long as you receive the proper training, which I have had."
"The buckler may be a good idea, I would still have enough room in my hand to throw alchemical solutions at people..."
"Yeah," Droviz says, shrugging. "You get more wallop if you swing with both hands, though. Get that buckler, throw your solutions, and if things get too close for hurling stuff, switch to two-handed. Leastwise, that's my advice. I'll be chopping at things regardless."
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Krystae looks around a moment to see if any of the fighters planned on taking up Elen's offer of the weapon; however, when none of them make a move to select a second weapon, she moves to take a spear off the wall. Like Ragnar, she simply removes the steel head from her own spear and after a few moments she replaces it with the cold iron head. While Ragnar's spear haft was a bleached white, Krystae's was a shiny, lacquered black.
She looks at his spear, back at hers and smiles at the giant of a man...
You make your way back path the Sentinels' lodge and over the bridge beyond, and continue on for some time.
The forest stands deathly quiet here. Even the wind has grown still as snow softly falls through the stark branches overhead. Tracks, human in size but oddly misshapen, mar an otherwise unblemished trail through the trees.
You hear something scraping, but you're not sure where it is coming from.
Something is moving under the snow, to the east of the party.
There is something moving under the snow on the west side of the path as well.
As soon as he spots the tracks, Droviz pauses. After a moment of hesitation, he unslings his heavy shield and his steel greatsword. "No idea what's out here yet," he explains, shrugging. "I'm going for standby and best defence. I can swap to another sword easy if I have to."
Elen nods at Droviz, "Sensible precaution." She unslings her bow from her back and gets it ready as well.
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Krystae stops to examine the tracks in the snow for a few moments, taking her time in an attempt to identify who, or what, left the tracks. She frowns at the strange shape and just before she prepares to kneel down in the snow she hears something. She stops and stands back up, listening intently as she draws an arrow from her quiver...
"There is something moving out there, to either side of us, but... It sounds like it's moving beneath the snow. Make yourselves ready..." She quickly puts the arrow to string and draws back, ready to fire the moment a target presents itself.
"Good ears...I might have missed that myself."
Havelock moves to stand back to back with Brynjar, drawing his new cold iron sword at the same time.
Ragnar was used to strange sounds and disturbances of the snow, so he thought little of it, but when Krystae began looking for signs of danger Ragnar stepped up in front of her, taking a knee for stability and to let her fire over his head, lowering his spear to the ready.
A skeletal hand emerges from the snow, and then soon thereafter four skeletons emerge, with strange burning blue eyes. They seem even colder than the snow they came from.
"Doc? Krystae? What am I looking at?" Droviz asks. "Steel, cold iron, silver -- or should I crack out the oil?"
"Best guess, use something blunt, perhaps your wit will suffice if you lack a club."
"Harsh, doctor crow, harsh," Droviz says, sadly shaking his head -- but he does swap his greatsword out for his warhammer.
The undead bandit with the ghostly child possessing it had been skipping and occasionally spinning as the group wandered down the snow glutted path.
When the skeletons revealed themselves, it launched itself forward at the closest one, it's throat making a stuttering rasp that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
"Well, no harsher than continuously and most likely intentionally getting my profession wrong master Droviz." The tengu chuckles a little.
Ragnar stood his ground, dropping his spear when he saw the skeletons, instead drawing a club.
Elen steps away from the nearest skeleton and targets it with a bad luck curse.
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"Mhm...no hammer in my arsenal, but even without flesh, creatures do burn..."
Havelock withdraws one of his large clay phials, tosses it rather carelessly into the air, catches it neatly and hurls it at one of the currently unengaged skeletons.
Like a raging bull, Brynjar charged at the skeleton targeted by the Krystae. His teeth clenched and his brow furrowed as he jumped, brought his sword back and swung in a diagonal arc as the claws of gravity began pulling him to the ground once more.
"Well, time to see whether the hammer is blunter than my wit," Droviz sighs. The masked warrior attacks the skeleton that was just targeted by Elen's curse.
Ragnar’s minion easily strikes one of the frost skeletons, but as his hand strikes it in the skull incredible cold flashes through its body.
Ragnar’s swing goes wide, missing the skeleton entirely. Just getting close enough to swing, however, put him close enough to feel incredible cold right into his bones.
Havelock’s vial strikes one of the skeletons, which burns rapidly and then explodes, releasing an incredible blast of cold energy and sending shards of bone everywhere. One of them scratches Havelock’s face.
Krystae’s shot of energy strikes a skeleton, which explodes much as Havelock’s skeleton had done.
Brynjar begins to charge Krystae’s target just as it explodes, and is caught in the blast of unspeakable cold.
His follow through easily catches the skeleton next to it, shattering its skull into dozens of pieces, only to see its remains explode as well.
Droviz misses with his swing, and is caught in the cold aura of the skeleton.
One damaged skeleton remains locked in melee with Ragnar’s minion, and strikes out savagely with both hands. The others have all been destroyed.
"Curses!" Droviz spits, shaking off the sting of unearthly cold. He moves up to the last remaining skeleton, flanking with Ragnar's zombie minion, and swings again.
Elen focuses her will on the remaining foe.
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Droviz's blow shatters a femur on the remaining skeleton, which then explodes in a blast of cold. For now at least, the forest seems quiet again...
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"Well, I think it is safe to say that our continued journey will be...opposed.
Undeads I might write off as a coincidence, but undeads infused with cold magic? No, most definitively not a coincidence."
Elen draws out the wand they have purchased together and says, "Alright, line up for healing!"
Droviz rolls his shoulder and nods appreciatively at Elen. Then his eyes sparkle with mischief and he leans over, whispering a few words in her pointed ear before darting back, eyes still twinkling.
"Well, moving on, then?" he asks. He glances at Ragnar and gestures at the downed skeletons. "Or do you want to try and add a few more to your coterie?"
Ragnar seemed a little disappointed that the undead had been destroyed. He smiled at Elen.
Elven:"Much obliged, gorgeous girl, with whom I'd like to dance under the full moon in the clean, white snow."
Elen blushes at Droviz's words and finds herself giggling shyly, not having been the recipient of such flirting for a while.
While Havelock is a very curious (and somewhat paranoid) creature, the way Elen reacts to the whispers makes it clear it is not the sort of conversation he really wishes to overheard.
Instead he merely clears his throat somewhat noisily and taps his foot on the ground with his arms crossed over his chest and his head tilted slightly at an angel.
Droviz chuckles -- and makes a dance-like turn in place, arms raised to the wintry sky. He winks at Elen.
Still in the same position, the Tengu professor smirks a little since this time he couldn't help but overhear.
"That's what the fur-lined boots are for, Old Doc Crow," the warrior says, amused. "Can't dance without feet, can you? Nor walk to get to our destination, so shall we all get going again...?"
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Krystae kicks some of the bone shards from the exploding skeletons. "Very odd undead, they could be used to terrible effect against infantry." She looks around to make sure there are no more surprises lurking in the area.
She ignores the strange behavior of Droviz, shaking her head at the exchange between the two elves. "We had best keep moving after we're all healed up."
If he INSIST on giving me the wrong title...I shall just have to teach him a lesson.
If I thicken a vial of ipecac syrup and add a little bit of bitter-root...
Hope you don't expect to sleep well for a few weeks once we are back in civilization again herr Droviz...
The Tengu gets a particularly evil look in his eye as he studies Droviz for a while longer.
You continue down the snowy trail for a few minutes. The rocks and snow along this part of the ridge are stained a reddish brown, and many tracks, both animal and human, cross the area.
A man's leg juts out from the snow nearby, half buried in the snow.
The animal tracks in the area belong to a giant weasel.
You find a bloodied backpack buried in the snow. It contains: It holds 3 days’ worth of trail rations, a half-full hip flask of strong applejack, and a journal detailing Dryden’s efforts in tracking the giant weasel. The journal mentions the bear traps he set at the head of Somir Valley, as well as his discovery of the strange hut nearby and the even stranger doll inside it.
"Well, look at that..."
Havelock kneels down and withdraws a backpack from its hiding place in the snow.
"Well now," Droviz says, squatting next to the Tengu Professor as they riffle through its contents. "Looks like we need to look out for giant weasels and traps now," he says as he leafs through the journal. "And... a hut with a dollie inside? Weird."
"You were not with us when we discovered a tree with many doll fetishes hanging from the branches.
It is clear that the people we fight are quite into primitive but powerful magic.
Spirit binding perhaps...
Either way, dolls can be used as a focus for many different kinds of spells, so it may be dangerous...you know, unlike fighting bandits and evil fey and all..."
"Spirit binding is primitive?" Droviz seems nonplussed. "I'd figure it was dangerous and tricky all the way through. Spirits can be nasty."
"Ah, perhaps I should clarify.
Spirit binding, like primal magic, is based around robust and simplified by very powerful techniques, of the sort that many modern mages are either not capable of enduring or understanding.
As such, it is mostly practiced by people relying on oral and hereditary traditions. It is simply not possible to convey the full focus needed through literature.
As such, these things are beyond most acadamae and by their way of thinking, if they cannot understand or make us of a technique, it would be considered "primitive" by their standards."
"Ah. Snobbery, then?" Droviz asks, shrugging. "I'm not a spell-slinger myself, but... See, when you're learning the sword, there's a lot you can write down, but not all of it. You need to actually pick up a sword and try against someone with more skill. You need to get taught. Seems to me, the acadenic spell-slingers should get over themselves and talk to a shaman or something, listen and learn by doing under guidance."
"I've often said so, but it is not a view that is overly popular with many acadamae professors.
After all, it is much easier to claim that something you cannot understand has no value compared to admitting that it may simply be too hard for you to understand."
"And then there's the sneaky bastards who go 'round the others' backs, get taught, put it all together and try to take over the whole shebang, ain't there?" Droviz says, shaking his head.
"That was basically Tuesday night back home," he adds, musing, "'cause no one can really get worked up for a good treachery on Mondays, right after the weekend."
"Well, that happens more rarely than you might think. The greatest Acadamae of Avista AND Garund is in Absalom, and that place is so guarded about it's independence that overtaking something that is so much a symbol of that very independence would see the offender drawn and quartered for sure."
"And besides, the disrespect cuts both ways, many shamans are more than unwilling to teach "weak civilized" people the ways of the world. Finding a teacher is hard enough, convincing that teacher that what you are learning is for the right reasons is so difficult that most would be unable to do it, and of the remaining, most would be unwilling to try so hard at deception."
"Well, if it hasn't happened yet, then it's probably just a matter of time," Droviz says. "Where there's power, there's someone looking to get more of it than is her due -- or his, of course. C'mon, young fella, let's have a closer look at yer mug!"
Without further ado, Droviz rises, grabs the body by the ankles and starts to pull it out of the snow.