"Oh, poor man!" exclaims Yrja as the corpse's identity is established. "I didn't know him, of course, but I had heard of him, and I could glimpse him in the woods, now and then."
She takes the arrows from Chiquq, turning them in her hands and sniffing at them.
"Mmmm, no, I don't know. Maybe they're arrows of giant weasel slaying...?" she asks hopefully.
Regrettably, Yrja cannot determine what the arrows are.
Chiquq's hunch is correct--that is certainly some sort of Irriseni hut, probably magical, that Dryden's journal is describing. It is well known among the peoples of the North that the Irriseni are ruled by the Jadwiga, seemingly-human scions of the Witch Queen Baba Yaga, who has her own chicken-legged hut. However, Chiquq doesn't recall any tiny dolls or ghosts in the stories and whispers about Baba Yaga...
that doll sounds like a construct. Baba Yaga's hut dances, though, so it probably isn't HER hut...
...kidding, no one knows anything more about that construct.
Ghosts tied to a place usually means a haunt.
After Chiquq moves the cones to a barren spot, Dez wanders over and crushes them under his cloven hoof. "Not taking any chances with these."
Seeing Yrja examining the arrows, Dez wanders over to see if he can help identify them:
His interest is really piqued by the journal entry about Somir Valley and he struggles to recall any useful information from his readings:
"That doll sounds like some sort of construct, but who knows what abilities its creator has given it. Also, as I recall the legends Baba Yaga's hut dances around, so thankfully it probably isn't HER hut. But I think we know our next destination -- Somir Valley."
He also takes the journal when Braegan is done and reviews it again, not really expecting to find anything out but out of curiosity...
Braegan takes the backpack and snowshoes from the body, then looks around at the surrounding snows.
”We should bury him before we move on,” he shrugs, ”even if it’s only to keep the scavengers off him. It just doesn’t seem right, leaving him exposed like this.”
He helps with the burial, saying a few nice words after the man is in the ground. Then he looks around at the group, and his eyes are alight with a growing fire. ”Irriseni, huh? If my aunt is to be believed, I have a bit of a score to settle with those witches.”
Dez thinks he can understand the arrows....and then it eludes him.
He does not find anything else in the journal, but it's clear that the large weasel tracks must lead from the bear traps.
The softest ground is, ironically, under the frost firs' former nest, and Dryden's body is placed there. Afterward you all feel the chill slightly more as the warmth of exertion begins to fade.
Yrja sure is glad that she has added the furs to her wardrobe. Bundled up in multiple layers until only her glinting eyes are showing, she feels quite insulated from the cold.
[ooc]What the hell, dice? What the hell?
Chiquq wordlessly helps with the burial, but says no words over the man, leaving that to the other southerners. She does not know their gods. Instead, she stands and ruffles Ila's fur, thinking of all the horror stories she has heard of the white witches-- some more true than others, no doubt, and some possible complete lies. Sezra would say it was all foolishness and that Chiquq should not believe the tales of children... but Chiquq does not always believe everything Sezra says, either. Trade with your right hand, keep the other near a weapon.
The Hallit woman nods at the words of where they go next. She doesn't know these southern lands very well. "If you have a location, I defer to you."
The cold is getting keener. Chiquq takes some deep breaths of the chilly air, feeling at home .
When they start to walk again, she falls into step by Braegan, one hand resting on Ila's fur on her other side.
"You have history with the white witches, fire singer?"
Although the witch hut seems ominous, Dezső seems fascinated at the prospect of seeing it, even beyond his usual overactive curiosity. He mutters to himself, "A hut like that, it seems somehow familiar. But I have never been to Irrisen. It must have been something I saw in a book or, come to think of it, perhaps in a dream. But why would that be?"
Dezső stands to the rear of the group during the burial, a bit uncomfortable and unsure of what emotion he is supposed to be feeling. He then returns to examine the trap and the tracks. "I looks to me like this trap didn't hold the weasel for long."
Only poor Braegan is affected by the wintry winds.
The trail does indeed lead toward Somir Valley...technically the tracks lead from near Somir Valley. The bloody tracks lead up from the ridge, which must be the final saddle before the Valley. Wind curls over a small cornice, bearing freezing spray of snow.
"Up and onward. Looks to be a bit chilly.", says Caelum says with a chuckle. He places his hand on Braegan's shoulder.
Imendri does as much of the digging or rearranging of body parts as is desired and dictated by the group, somewhat stonefaced but distracted. When all is said and done, he wipes his hands on his trousers and says "Well, one more body back in the earth. Eet's where we all go. Not so bad. Better den getting stuck in another dimension!" He seems proud of himself for his eulogy.
Looking up the hill, following everyone else's eyes, he begins walking upwards, nodding to Caelum.
Imendri finds a bear trap that his leg and snowshoe are about to descend upon.
Yrja and Braegan also spot another carefully hidden in the snow.
"You have history with the white witches, fire singer?”
Braegan gives a cold, mirthless laugh through frozen lips. ”That’s my understanding.” He holds up his hand, pulling back his sleeve fora moment to reveal his horribly-scarred forearm. ”I owe them for these. Aunt Mahb tells me my mother … my birth mother, anyway … was killed by them when I was a babe.” He shrugs, his eyes dangerous as he watches the ice and snow around them, ”I don’t know why, but she was running away from the north. Only me and Mahb made it south. I plan to understand more.” He looks into Chiquq’s eyes, ”This seems a good time to start.”
After once again having to be healed from his apparent weakness to the cold, he takes a scroll out and uses it on himself, suddenly feeling much better about the weather.
”Thanks, Caelum,” he says to the dwarf. Then looks down at the bear traps, ”Anyone know how to work these things? Could be useful to have on-hand if we have to make camp somewhere.” He looks around at their frozen environment, as if his own words are just now registering, ”Dear gods, please don’t make us make camp out here.”
Regardless, he seems ready to press on.
Dezső listens in on Braegan's comments to Chiquq, making little effort to hide his interest but makes no comment.
As the party moves forward in earnest, he keeps a close eye out for more bear traps, or any other traps, recalling the log trap from a few days ago with a wince.
Yrja makes a large detour around the half-hidden trap, pointing. "Watch out for that one. it would do very bad things to your leg."
She watches the snow carefully, prodding it here and there with a branch.
Walking along, Imendri laughs loudly when he almost stumbles into a trap, pointing, breathlessly, at his near foible. When his awkwardness subsides, he picks up a frigid tree branch from the floor and slams the middle of the trap. Smiling as he picks it up, he says "Well, dere's only one way to find out if we can use it!"
Imendri walks over to where Yrja is, noting her carefulness. "Anodder over here?"
The party fails to find (or walks right past?) any other bear traps.
You place the bear traps on your uncomplaining pack animals and summit the rise. From here, there is a slow descent into the Somir Valley. It is a steeply ridged valley with peaks surrounding it that should be full of summer foliage...but they are caked with snow now.
More than a dozen boulder-sized chunks of ice litter the clearing ahead where a strange hut sits perched on tree trunks atop a raised mound of snow-covered earth.
Chiquq offers no flowery words of sympathy to Braegan at his words of the white witches-- she only nods slowly, acknowledging the need for vengeance that must burn in him, and then her attention is taken by the bear traps and the need to make sure Ila doesn't step into one.
They carry on hiking, and then-- well-- there's the hut.
Chiquq spits three times into the snow to ward off the evil spirits that surely must cling to such a thing-- if it is indeed the walking hut their rumors tell of.
"...do we try and surround it and move towards it?" she asks the others uncertainly. "If any bolt from it we could then stop them. Or," she adds grimly, "if the hut itself moves."
Dezső stares at the hut and surroundings, trying to take in every detail, at the same time responding in a low voice: "That sounds fine to me. We can use the boulders for cover."
Staring at the hut in wonder, Yrja stammers out: "Ah, how... how would we stop the hut if... if it moves? Do we set it on fire? Does it even burn?" She racks her brains about the thing, while her eyes dart about the valley.
Having never seen a hut move on it's own, Caelum's interest is piqued.
"Cover sounds like a good idea." Caelum says quietly to the group. "I'll move along the northern row of boulders", he finishes.
Caelum moves behind the first boulder.
Dez and Caelum notice a flicker of movement and an ill wind near the southern part of the maze. Something unseen lurks there.
You recognize the flickering to indicate a haunt, some sort of place of psychic sorrow that can harm or frighten the living. It is not safe to pass through that space.
As Caelum enters the maze, a shivering young Ulfen girl suddenly appears among the boulders. "I'm sorry! Don't hurt me! I never meant to call you names!" she screams to some unknown person, and then stands there cowering.
As the girl appears not to be a threat and because he doesn't want to frighten her, Dezső stays behind Chiquq. He isn't the best with words anyways. But he keeps his loaded crossbow in hand, remembering the stag, and he says quietly: "Careful, this may be a trick."
Dezső adds quietly: "And I see some movement behind the girl to the left, so this is either a trap or she is in danger." Dezső keeps focused on the movement, ready to fire his crossbow at it if it emerges as a threat.
Caelum's eyes widen at the site of the haunt. He quietly slinks back to the group. "It's a trap. The little girl is a haunt. That area is unsafe. I do not know what is beyond her though."
Imendri looks frustrated, and walks away from the little girl and around a boulder until he's got a clear view of the hut. He pulls out his sling while doing so, putting a bullet into it and preparing it if necessary.
"Hey you, house! Why are you walking!? What are you, a bad fing?! Or a good fing??" he yells, looking around in the event of an ambush.
Imendri notes that the girl doesn't seem to be entirely corporeal, so she's certain not all here. He also notes that she's not talking to anyone actually here.
”And how do we handle a ‘haunt’?” Braegan whispers as he takes a few steps forward, trying to draw the girl’s attention.
Then he raises his voice, ”Hello, there! Girl! We don’t mean any harm.” He casts his eyes around, hoping to get some clue a to whom she speaks, then he takes another single step forward, his hands up and welcoming. ”But who do you talk to? What names? Maybe we can help.”
"The Lady Nazhena!" wails the girl, and disappears.
Braegan feels suddenly sweaty and numb, despite, or because of the cold. He's heard that name before. Something Mahb has said...
The girl reappears in the ice maze, her countenance full of fear.
"Please don't keep me here," she exhorts to the air. "It's so cold. I miss my mother."
Braegan frowns as the girl disappears and reappears. "Haunt, indeed," he mutters to his friends, "Does Lady Nazhena mean anything to any of you?"
Then, trying to think of what else to say, he speaks up once more, trying to keep his voice reassuring. "We want to help you, little girl. But what was done to you?"
"In the doll--" says the girl, but chokes off her words with tears and disappears again.
She reappears, her appearance resetting like some odd Numerian machine. "I don't want your stupid doll! I want to go home! Uhuhuhuhhhhh..." The girl screams at some unseen person, then begins to back away in fear, blubbering at an invisible horror in front of her.
"What doll? What does the doll do? Maybe we can protect you from it."
Chiquq stares blankly throughout the fire-singer's attempts to calm the child.
"Is her mind broken from the spirits?" she mutters at the others. Ila snorts uncertainly.
Imendri stops yelling at the house long enough to see Braegan trying to calm a teleporting half corporeal child. He takes an interest and watches.
Braegan sees no doll, although the hut is a ways away and the inside is dark.
"It watches...it sees! She put me..." The girl looks at the hut, then suddenly fixes Braegan with blazing eyes filled with tears. She actually can see him! She speaks with the dread of a doomed child, her eyes huge and dark.
"I have. To get. Away. And you should too, before they see you. Run!"
She dashes away from the maze, running pell-mell...but disappears in a swirl of mist before she reaches the edge of the ice boulders.
----
The hut rocks slightly on its tree stump legs, the roots of which do indeed look like the splayed talons of a giant hen or rooster.
A tiny figure brings out a wooden chair from the darkness of the hut, and sits in it mechanically, looking out at you. It is difficult to see, but it appears to have shining eyes.
"The hut watches?", Caelum asks quietly to himself.
Caelum moves over to Imendri's position for a closer look at the hut and the figure in the tiny chair.
"What 'They'?" Chiquq growls in some frustration, bow half-raised as she scans the land and the hut for any sign of trouble.
Seeing nothing beyond the tiny, strange, disturbing doll, Chiquq swallows. "I dislike that little thing. Do we strike?"
"Poor child." Yrja shivers briefly as the girl disappears. Her eye drawn to the motion, she shades her eyes against the icy brilliance and squints at the hut.
Wind and cold appear to have dulled our heroes eyes and minds...nothing further can be gleaned as you peer at the hut and ponder.
"I don't know," Braegan mutters, his gray eyes locked onto the creepy, tiny doll-thing. "And I think it may be too late to hide."
He looks over at Chiquq, then shrugs, "I say we strike."
"I think we have little choice but to engage. Based on this child's remarks, the hut is clearly evil. And some clue to the recent happenings may lie within."
Dezső moves forward, loaded crossbow in hand, trying to hide behind boulders as he approaches.
Chiquq grunts. "So be it then. A prayer to Skode..."
Chiquq tries to move forward using the trees for some cover-- the doll-thing certainly knows they are all here, but she wants to try and get close enough for a clean shot at the thing with her bow. She gestures Ila to stay put, at least for now.
Dez recognizes the figurine as a guardian doll, created by binding the soul of a humanoid within a doll like construct. It is most likely attuned to cold and is vulnerable to fire, and because it has a soul bound into it, it is susceptible to mind-affecting effects. They are used by the Irrisen witches to guard places, and while the doll will stay in the hut, it will not hesitate to pursue intruders tirelessly.