Drogan grips his axe in both hands, scanning the trees behind the snowman for any reaction from Aavelixia's arrows.
Aavelixia's arrows easily strike and sink into the soft unmoving target of stacked snow. Even her misaimed second shot still manages to land at least in the bigger portion of snow making up the base of the snowman. It seems unaffected by the shots.
Neither her nor Drogan see any signs of other activity in the area, and he is not familiar enough with the people in this part of the world to suss out whether the snowy construct is placed by either the bandits or some other group.
"Seems the snowman is just a snowman then. Let's move on, but carefully..."
Braham keeps his axe ready, and slowly follows the path, keeping a look out for danger...
Drogan grumbles and trudges forward, slicing his axe down through the center of the larger portion of it.
Reaching down, he grabs the sign, looking at it for a moment, then tosses it aside, looking back at the group.
Aavelixia gives a look to Sturla “We have a young impressionable flower here” She glances at Suzy as she talks to Sturla.
“It is my responsibility to raise her right” She breathes deeply and looks back at Sturla with a stern look “We have a baby out here, I would really appreciate it if you keep your tiny frozen bits covered.”
"Oof," Sturla replied in mock injury, but never losing his smile. He was starting to like Aavelixia. She was easy to get a rise out of and there was nothing a bard hated more than a unresponsive audience.
"Hold on now, seiðrálvur," he continued, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Now, I don't want to question your parenting, but are you sure you're not coddling the girl? They grow up fast, you know, and you don't want to be smothering the poor thing. Mother hens have been known to destroy many a child. Especially when that child is a plant!"
"No, no, I think it best if dear Suzy learned about the uh... very literal in her case, Birds & the Bees as soon as possible. In fact..."
At this point Sturla straightened himself up to his full height, which admittedly didn't amount to much in a group that included Braham Giantblood.
"If Suzy is to be raised within this little family," and here the bard indicated the party, "then I think that what she needs, purely in order to eh... facilitate a healthy and wholesome upbringing, of course..."
Sturla now looked at the walking bramble patch with warm, fatherly eyes.
"... is a father figure."
As much fun as the Northerner found in badgering the elf, he didn't understand her and Drogan's insistence on taking the atomie with them. You recall that the bugger tried to kill us, yeah? But he did not protest. Not as long as he just got the lace for his glove back.
Having reached the river with its foreboding snowman, Sturla was naturally a bit mystified by the whole thing.
'Trespassers', he mulled, scratching his shaggy head. So either some miserly bastard lives here, probably not of the sentient ungulate variety given the literacy... or our aristocratic abductors know that we're following them?
"Eh," he concluded. "Doesn't matter either way. The only way for us is forward. Besides, if this is a trap, it's the dumbest one I've ever seen. What kind of trap warns its prey?"
With this in mind the bard strode forward along with Braham and Drogan, nevertheless keeping his eyes peeled for trouble.
Thanion couldn't help but smirk privately to himself at the antics of Sturla. "If nothing else, we will never lack for entertainment," he thinks to himself as they continue their search for the lady. When they reach the snowman, Thanion goes on alert, searching for any hidden threats.
As the snowman appears to be nothing, Thanion continues with the group with his estoc at the ready.
Sia shakes her head slightly as Sturla speaks, "Father figures are not always a good thing..."
Upon seeing the snowman, she studies her surroundings. "Well, we obviously aren't going to listen to that sign. For all we know it could have been some kids playing around in the snow. We should proceed with caution though," she makes sure to keep her voice low.
No sign of any real threat presents itself to any of the group as they move up to the snowman. As Drogan gets too close, about fifteen feet away, in his decision to destroy the snowman, a loud voice issues forth.
Aavelixia ignores tha father figure comment. She looks at Sturla and says, "Suzy is just fine. She's just a little seedling. "
She starts moving away from Sturla, but she almost stumbles, Suzy has a vine up her pocket to try to reach the flying little creature. "Not now Suzy, I'll let you play with it later. We have to keep moving"
Aavelixia looks to the trees or rock formations? there seems to be a tree or column of rock on each side of the road just before the snowman. "I'm not going across those things," as she points to the white columns "remember the spiky logs?"
"And the snowman talks too!"
"It can't be the snowman talking, you hit it with arrows." Sia grips her spear and prepares for a confrontation.
Drogan grumbles, adjusting his grip on the great axe, his pale grey eyes scanning the surrounding rocks.
"We just mean to pass through. We don't intend any harm."His thick fingers flex around the shaft of the axe, prepared to do harm anyway if it comes to it.
"First a talking elk, and now a talking snowman... Aavelixia, can you ask our guest in your pocket if this is one of his friends talking?
Meanwhile, he scans around for any sign of hidden creatures.
"First a talking elk, and now a talking snowman...
"Right?! It's great! Ha ha hah! Well, except the elk couldn't actually talk... and somehow I doubt this snowman can either. Heh."
Sturla had noted that despite the commanding voice, the supposed snow creature hadn't actually made any obvious movement and wondered if this wasn't simply more fey trickery.
He waited to see if the snowman responded to Drogan's plea. If not, the bard was most inclined to charge at it. The only thing more fun than building a snowman, was destroying one!
Aavelixia takes out the atomie from her pocket. She holds and asks the atomie if it knows the voice coming from the snowman.
Aavelixia looks around to see if there's anything close to the snowman. Something might have seen that she holds an atomie in her hand.
"If there is something out there, they might have spotted this thing on my hand. They might want to rescue it. Be ready"
Aavelixia is ready to put the little creature back in her pocket if something seems dangerous.
Everybody stops and looks around, wondering about another trick of thrown voices after the same thing was pulled with the elk. The group sees nothing around, as Aavelixia draws and wields the atomie as some sort of ward against injury. The atomie says nothing.
"Aw, hang on, I recognize this. This is just one o' them spells, 'Glamour Gob' or whatever it's called. Old Man Winter here just says his piece an' that's that. He's no ice golem or some such. Boy, that'd be grand, huh?"
The realization coupled with its sudden muteness when faced with Drogan's question, had the bard convinced that the snowman was just that: a snowman.
"Imma kill it."
Sturla was wearing a dumb grin as he trudged up to the sculpture.
"No no, Imma do it," he said to whoever party member might protest. "Imma improve it. You'll see. I'm great at makin' snowmen. Snowwomen too. Made a snowtroll once with my cousins when were all small, you should've seen it! Made it over night. Bleeding thing scared half the town that morning, ha ha hah!"
Thanion, unsure of the accuracy of their boisterous companion, holds his estoc at the ready. His muscles ready to react to any unseen foes.
Drogan glances back at Sturla. "Just a simple spell?"
His axe raised, he takes another step toward the snowman, eyes still scanning the surrounding rocks.
Aavelixia is still not moving forward. She stands waiting for Drogar, Sturla, or anyone else to go towards the snowman. "I'm glad it's not a golem."
She looks at Drogar and Sturla who seem to be eager to get close to the snowman. She puts the atomie away in her pocket and prepares to move towards the group, after Sturla does whatever it is that he's planning on doing with the snowman. Hopefull, he doesn't start playing with the snow.
No one trusts the uncommon innocence of a snowmen along the trail where they've already had to deal with fey trickery twice before. Sturla, recognizing it as a glamer from a fairly simple spell, decides to pervert the innocence of the particularly basic snowman into something more entertaining. Drogan, less convinced of its innocence, but trusting his friend to know spells better than he does, approaches close behind.
As Sturla gets within modification distance of the bulbous form, the thing lets out a loud burst of noise in the form of a scream of frustration. The sound is strong and sharp, setting a ringing in both Drogan and Sturla's ears.
As the noise rings out through the expanse of the Border Wood, two shapes begin to rise up out of the icy sheet across the stream. They are composed of the same material as the stream itself, not breaking up through the ice as much as looking as if they were being formed from the very element of it.
Without hesitation, Aavelixia moves quickly and as far as she can to defend Drogan, and Sturla. She unsheathes her sword, and looks at Suzy "Suzy, attack" and points towards one of the ice creatures.
Suzy moves towards the creature Aavelixia pointed, unable to go in a straight line, she moves between Sia and Drogan.
The sonic shock-wave hit Sturla hard. The bard was left holding his ears and staring bleary eyed as his brain, the poor overworked organ, went utterly and entirely out of commission.
Aavelixia's feeling of impending danger pays off, as she bolts into action, drawing her weapon while moving to try and adopt a defensive posture over Drogan and Sturla. With a command to her plant-child, Suzy shuffles eagerly closer to do what she's told.
Drogan gives out a roar as he sees the shapes rising out of the frozen river. His roar is quickly drowned out by the sonic screech and he drops to one knee, his thick fingers covering his ears.
Seeing only the two stunned men, and Suzy standing at the front, Thanion moves up, and draws his estoc. With a focus of arcane energy, he attunes it into his weapon.
The burst of sound leaves Drogan and Sturla unable to get their head straight as they tries to shake off the disorienting effect. As they finally try to clear away the senastion, getting their wits abotu them, one of the icy creatures adjusts its stance, but makes no move.
Braham plows through the snow as fast as he can, in order to close the distance with the ice monsters...
Advancing on the monters as best he can through the bothersome terrain, Braham closes the distance to the enemy.
Using her natural grace and stride, Sia moves up toward the enemy, but stops parallel to Braham. She doesn't want to be the first and only among them, as she fights better when she can catch her enemy off its guard. Instead, she stops short and readies herself for the chance that one of them comes fro her instead.
Even with Sia and Braham's advance, neither of the creatures moves, and the other one even adjust his stance much like the previous one did.
Aavelixia sees the two towering ice figures, seeing how Braham and Sia are not moving forward, she calls to Suzy "Suzy Stay"
Aavelixia is not sure how thick the ice is and if it can hold the weight of both creatures plus the weight of the party. With sword in hand, she moves a little closer towards the frozen river and readies an attack against the enemy.
Are they even hostile? They haven't made an aggressive move at us.
Uncertain of what to do, Thanion looks to his comrades to follow their lead.
Drogan shakes his head, rubbing his ears as he looks around. Noticing that neither his companions nor the ice creatures have moved, he grumbles.
"Fine, we can do this the slow way. Better for me anyway."
Quickly, he removes his snowshoes, exposing his cleats so he can maneuver across the ice easier. His eyes scan the rocks behind the ice creatures, looking for anyone that might have summoned these things.
As Aavelixia and Thanion wait to see what the enemy will do, either out of caution or curiosity, Drogan goes through the time-intensive process of removing his snowshoes.
With the waiting game underway, and none of the group really making a move, one of the creatures decides to be the first to move. It Glides effortlessly across the ice it appeared to rise from, to step over to Sia. She was prepared, though, and drove forward at it with her spear. Unfortunately the thing was more graceful on the ice than she was, and her thrust went wide.
Instead of swinging its heavy icy limbs at her, instead, it tries to reach out with a sweeping grab intended to shift her to a different spot on the ice. This act allows Sia to try and get her weapon up in a defensive strike. This time she makes contact, but it just glances off the solid icy exterior of the thing. It makes no difference, as she is too agile to get shifted about on the ice by the thing.
"Harrumph! Hark hark! *SPIT* Ahem. Mii mii MII! Do re mi fa sol la tiiiih, ah bloody hell... This ringing in mah ears in throwing me off..."
It was. The bard still hadn't quite recovered from the sonic blast earlier. At least, not as much as he'd like. The high-pitched trap was still echoing in his head and it was interfering with his song. On a more corporeal level, Sturla also realized that he was far from fine as he eyed the two humanoid icicles. Much as he would like to draw his sword and pay them back for their trickery, he suspected that that was a fight he was too wounded for at present.
Instead, he pulled out his homemade sling and continued his solmization, trying to find his pitch and tone. Strangely enough, even the random notes the bard bellowed into the crisp air carried his magic.
Seeing that the creatures have finally made their move, Braham closes the final distance to one of them and swings his mighty greataxe. Hopefully they shatter as real icicles would...
As Sturla draws his sling, prepared to use it at least until he gets his true weapon in full working order. Regardless of its quality, the exuberance in his voice is enough to motivate the others.
Braham able to close the distance, finally did exactly what the icy little bastard was waiting for. As the big man stepped right in front of the thing, the sounds of cracking ice splinters across the surface under him and breaks open into the deep stream below. Luckily for him, his large frame gives him a wide enough stance that he straddles the large hole in the ice beneath him.
That imbalance was just enough to throw off the man's swing of his mighty greataxe, just glancing off the slick and solid form of the icy creature.
Seeing the ice break below Braham, Thanion lets out a sigh of relief as the large man is able to keep himself above the cold. Taking a large breath to steel himself, Thanion then makes his way to help defend Sia against one of the creatures.
Thanion finds that, even with his advantage of not having a hole open up beneath him, his strike is not any more successful than Braham's. Cracking the solid exterior of these creatures seems to be the hardest part of fighting them.
Interestingly enough, Braham's big break comes not from the cracked ice, but from an attempted attack by the creature itself. The icy half-snake, swings one of its arms low to try and push one of Braham's legs into the previously opened holes. This left it open for Braham to bring his axe around, and he proceeded to hack into it with force. By the time the thing reached his leg, the push was weak, and then it dropped to the frozen surface unconscious.
Seeing how this ice creature has hostile intentions, she moves forward to help Sia. She swings her sword hoping that the cold iron can penetrate the thick ice and cause some damage.
Suzy was told to stay. As she waits, the noises from Drogan distract her. She looks at him with curiosity as he takes off his shoes. She looks at his hands and the shoes. She glances at the ice monster and the shoes. It seems that Suzy is unsure of what is more important, the ice monster or the shoes.
Aavelixia, seeing that the ice can indeed hold more than a couple of them, moves to join the other two elf-blooded in facing off against the remaining enemy. Her natural elven aptitude with a blade shows itself in her solid blow against the creature, hacking a decent sized chunk out of the thing. Both her and Braham's blows show that the things are not just surrounded in ice, but made of the stuff clear through.
"Oy, you icy bastards!!"
Drogan trudges up, his cleats helping him get in position as the fiery rage rises in him. Bringing his great axe up, he swings it down in a wide arc, slashing at the remaining ice thing.
Drogan finally steps out of his snowshoes and makes a hasty path to stand in the last available space next to the thing. The newly wounded creature is too slow in recovering from Aavelixia's strike to effectively hit the passing dwarf.
Or, maybe it didn't much worry about it, as Drogan steps right where it was trying to drag Sia. Much like Braham, the ice beneath Drogan groans only briefly before the crack sounds out. The surface beneath the dwarf breaking open to the icy waters underneath. Though Drogan doesn't have the stride Braham does, he does have the traditional dwarven width and stability, allowing him to also avoid falling in.
Sia moves diagonally towards the snowman. She tightens her grip on her spear and thrusts forward with precision and force.
Sia, still not convinced that the snowman is nothing more that rolled snow, steps back and stabs into it with her spear the way Ulfen blacksmiths use the snow to quench worked steel. Her weapon easily jabs in, and through, out the other side. There is no reaction from the snowman to indicate whether this had a meaningful effect.
The enemy just felled by Drogan lays inert, showing no signs of life or death beyond not moving.