Hilde steels herself, walks forward, and enters the hut. She circles the doll, examining the rest of the hut before moving back to the doll and chair.
Upon returning to the doll, she kneels down on one knee and examines the chair and doll carefully without meeting its gaze.
Not seeing any traps, she then picks up the doll and examines it more closely.
If still nothing happens, she's going to back out and toss in a torch.
Cearb perches on the window sill and readies a Fire Vial once the Princess enters the hut. He. Waits for the Doll to give him a reason to toss it. "Give it the boot I will, say the word and I kick it into Spring, or burm it, I think it would like to burn, then fly from my boot."
Spell Penetration:
The shard of ice flung by Bastagar hits the doll, but melts to nothingness as it touches it's dress. The aged face of the doll snaps up and cold angry eyes bore into the gnome's...
Hilde:
Caerb:
Bastagar:
Kelgar:
Halfhand:
Olaf:
The hands of the doll are brought up and with a whispered phrase the doll's form grows weightless and floats out the hut's door and into the air.
Action Tracker (Round 1): Doll, Caerb, Bastagar, Olaf, Halfhand, Hilde, Kelgar
Bastagar will let another shard of ice fly, fumbling on his bandolier for a vial of alchemist's fire. "B... burn it! Yes!"
Olaf gives the floating doll a calculating look.
"Definitely Witch magic."
He then draws his bow, and fires at the construct.
The Halfhand quickly backs away from the doll, cursing under his breath as it rises into the air. He stumbles over a root as he backpedals, accidentally squeezing the trigger and sending a bolt whizzing through the air into the forest.
Round 1, Init 2
Seeing the doll take flight, Kelgar grumbles and readies his longbow, while taking several steps back.
"Best we spread out lads, no tellin' what this doll ken do."
The old dwarf, well accustomed to stories about magic, witches and worse, readies his shot for when the doll attempts a spell.
for
Hilde slings her shield and sheathes her sword before drawing her bow. These are all of her actions for the round.
Cearb prepares to let fly his fire vial, but stops as it takes flight, now floating between him and the Princess. "Ice no, burn no, but let us see what your stuffing is made of.
He throws his knife and draws a replacement. He still hold his vial awaiting a better chance.
Caerb's knife sails through the air, missing the doll - while Bastagar has better luck with his second thrown icicle. It strikes the doll upon the leg, shearing through the fabric of it's dress and marking the wood beneath.
Olaf and Halfhand's shots are also wide of the mark as Kelgar holds his aim while Hilde readies her own bow.
The doll narrows it's eyes upon Olaf and begins to raise a hand towards him, triggering Kelgar to loose his bow. The arrow strikes the doll in the shoulder, though is robbed of much of it's force by a surprising resistance of the doll's form sending the arrow skipping off to one side...
Concentration check:
...but luckily for the sidhe, the slight disturbance is enough to make the doll lose it's concentration and it's art dies upon it's lips without issuing forth. It's painted wooden face shows no emotion as it drifts atop the hut, settling down upon the roof.
Action Tracker (Round 2): Doll, Caerb, Bastagar, Olaf, Halfhand, Hilde, Kelgar
Bastagar skirts to the side of the hut, at F5, lobbing his vial of alchemists fire.
"A tough one..." the wizard mutters under his breath. "Ice. Steel... Fire, then."
The Halfhand pulls a vial of Alchemist's Fire from his jacket, fixing the creature in his sights.
Olaf continues to fire arrows at the doll!
Hilde will loose and arrow, continuing to save both her prayer and her smite.
Once loosing, she immediately draws another arrow, not waiting to see if the strike penetrated the monsters damage resistance.
Round 2, Init 20+ (by readying)
Kelgar grunts to himself as he watches his arrow hit its mark and disrupt whatever spell the doll had intended to weave.
Round 3, Init 20+
Repeating his same strategy, Kelgar nocks another arrow and waits to fire it at the doll.
for
for
With the doll well afire, Cearb holds his vial ready to throw if the doll manages to put itself out. Instead he throws another knife into the small conflagration on the hut's peak.
Glass breaks and the doll is doused in liquid flame, the dress and hair quickly burning away and paint blistering and blackening under the searing heat. The bowshot of Hilde and Cearb skip harmlessly off the smoking wooden frame of the doll as Olaf's is wide of the target. Kelgar holds his fire, but is not given any reason to loose his own arrow.
The doll screams with the primal and raw emotion of a small child suffering immense pain, before it dives from the sky and attempts to smother Bastagar with some of the remaining flame upon it's form...
Grapple:
...though it's furtive lunge is easily sidestepped and the doll crumbles and falls to the snow, wooden body still aflame and the aged face looking out at you emotionlessly...
"Well struck, I say
and now must we decide.
Burn the hut and we reveal
our place to those that hide."
Upon Hilde's words, Cearb slowly lowers his vial with a look of disappointment. But it doesn't last as he instead moves over to watch the last of the doll burn away. He gives the ashes a good kicking to scatter them and the charred button eyes.
Casting an eye back to the ice boulders, Caerb sees them unchanged. Kicking at the burning doll, he dislodges the eyes. One is a warped coin of tin, while the second eye is a valuable gemstone... but also something more. It bears no magical aura, but as you look at it... it sometimes seems as though you see a momentary flash of a human girl within it... with flaxen hair... The doll bears no other items except for a tiny dagger.
Kelgar gives the scorched remnants of the doll a good kick, and grunts in satisfaction as it doesn't spring back to life and leap at his throat.
He winces a little as Cearb plucks the eyes from its lifeless form.
"Careful lad. Ye don't know what's on the other side lookin' out from those. Could be a witch watchin' from a big scryin' pool somewhere."
There is no hint of the dwarf teasing.
"Best ye bury them, and say a prayer t' whatever gods ye pray 'ta."
Bastagar eyes the gem covetously, the inklings of several bad ideas twinkling in his eyes. He only looks momentarilly disheartened as Kelgar speaks his warning.
Bastagar will join Kelgar in his search, having a good rummage through the hut.
The hut has no other contents than the rough wooden chair that the doll sat upon.
Cearb flicks the jewel up in the air and catches it again. He repeats the act and then stares into the gem. "No Witch, but the little girl be in here, I want to see if she gets dizzy when she looks out, Hey little girl, you dizzy in there yet? He rattles the gem about in his hand, and gives it another look.
The gemstone catches the wizard's eye as it glints in the sunlight, revealing to him the young figure reflected in its facets.
"Quit your foolishness, gnome." The Halfhand says, striding over to Caerb. "You know not what magic you deal with. A false move and it could be you trapped in that gemstone!"
He peers at the gemstone with appraising eyes as the gnome holds it, trying to figure out its nature.
Now that the gem is free from the doll's head and he has a chance to handle it, Halfhand easily kens that it is a soul gem. Used by the witch queens of Irrisen to bind souls unwilling to serve as life-force for their constructs. In this case to fuel the guardian doll. From observation it's also clear that the manifestation within the ice boulders is an echo of some kind of the soul that is bound here... perhaps an o'er hasty job gone awry?
Foci such as this are generally disconnected through destruction. You'd wager that smashing the gem would both liberate the spirit as well as destroy any potential for it to be enslaved again.
Cearb holds up the gem trying to get it close to the Halfhand's face. "What is she going to do, just another trick, the girl was an illusion out there, now she is in here, good for a bar bet, 'I bet my gem can wink at you', should be good for a drink, if Bastagar don't lift it from me first." and here Cearb turns to see Bastagar giving him covetous looks.
"A pretty prize, yes..." the gnome murmurs, grinning at his kinsman. "But finders keepers. Finders keepers, yes."
From the edge of the snowy clearing, Kelgar sighs and leans against a tall, snow-covered pine.
He squints out at the two gnomes dancing about the wizard and sighs.
Ah'll give 'em a few moments, get t' rest while they play their silly games...
Feeling his bones start to get comfortable, he realizes delaying any longer will make it that much harder to continue.
"Ahl-right! Time t' pack it up and quit yer antics!"
Bastagar, standing at attention, leaps over the doll and falls in step behind the dwarf.
"Don't tell me you intend to keep it- " the Halfhand says. "That gemstone is a product of necromancy, holding that girl's spirit captive. It should be destroyed."
The Halfhand's face sours at the mention of necromancy, as if he'd tasted something bitter.
"Such a perversion of magic..." he scowls. "It's disgusting."
Hilde turns to Caerb and the Halfhand.
"A spirit trapped
in that very jewel?
why is it unbroken?
can we be so cruel?
Is a ritual needed,
to free yon captive soul?
Dost we simply smash it?
What magic plays a role?"
"Any ordinary mean should do. A hammer; an axe." the Halfhand says. "Though knowing the foul art for what it is, I cannot say there may not be reprocussions. Either way, we should erase the wretched thing."
"Little girl tries to kill us, so now you need to kill her, she seems safe in here, what harm can she do, but the axe will destroy her, is that not the wretched thing....or is this a little witch, is this where witches come from, hatched from icy gems, if that is the case, hatch it and be ready for little witch.." Cearb will hold out his hand with the gem on his palm toward the Halfhand if he wished to take it.
Olaf frowns.
"If her soul is being held in torment, prevented from going to its rightful rest, the stone must be destroyed, in order to grant her peace."
He then limbers-up his axe, and prepares to destroy the stone...
The talk of trapped souls and dark magics doesn't seem to dissuade Bastagar. Instead, he "A witch inside, it says? Such a pretty-prize could win us many friends in Grungir-deep." he snatches it from Caerb's outstretched hand, clutching it to his chest as Olaf advances. "We wants it." he protests, weakly.
Olaf frowns.
"It is the soul of a child, not a witch! I do not doubt, though, that a Witch created it."
Hilde looks to Halfhand then to Caerb, Bastagar and then back to the Halfhand.
"Tis it a witch
or innocent true?
Answer me that
so I know what to do.
Tell me for certain
if thou dost know.
If not, keep it with us
and we learn as we go."
"The Witches use dolls like these to 'protect' their borders. They are usually made by binding the soul of a child into a gem inside the body of a construct, using the innocent's soul as a motive force. Smashing the gem releases the soul.
Whilst it is possible that a witch could bind the soul of another witch into such a construct, it would only be used as a terrible form of punishment, so I think it more likely it is 'merely' the soul of a child."