Tassidar walks towards the other travelers and calls out in Sylvan, "Pardon me, but might I ask you a few questions?"
Knute gapes at the now half-sized Stirgen. He peers at the place where Stirgen shrunk, hoping to see something that could have caused the shrinkage; a figure besides the two up ahead, or perhaps a fey barrier that Stirgen passed? Will we all shrink if we run to catch up with him?
Knute hesitantly moves towards Stirgen, senses on high alert. He doesn't draw his weapons yet, in the hopes this was just a prank or punishment for not offering something at the shrine.
When Stirgen shrinks, Kló scowls suspiciously and lets out what can only be called a growl.
He seems to follow Rikka’s directive, lumbering along with the group, his longspear held at the ready. He eyes Stirgen and the two retreating figures in the distance. ”They know something,” he mutters to the team.
Rikka, Tassidar, and Klo all close part of the distance, Knute trailing a few feet behind. Everyone's senses are on high alert, but no foe is immediately visible to the searchers.
Klo-- well, Halla's words of it being some sort of roadside shrine seem to ring true enough to you. While the gods themselves have little sway in Alfheimr, there are spirits of nature, of wood and water, that claim little fiefdoms of territory. It seems logical that travelers here might leave tokens to such spirits. The 'bridge' literally just looks like some planks that travelers have thrown down to avoid getting their feet wet-- you see some muddy footprints around, no particularly distinct tracks, but enough to suggest there's a fair bit of travel in the area.
You also know that there are tiny little winged spirits that, in the stories, sometimes punish or taunt people by shrinking them down to the size of children. The little spirits are known for similar pranks, but also are supposed to be able to turn unseen at the drop of a hat, if they wish.
Far ahead on the road, the two figures stop moving at Tassidar's shout . They make no response, nor do they turn around and come back, but they are, at least for the moment, stationary on the road-- you think they have stopped and are looking back your direction.
Never one to be quick on the uptake, Halla looks on in surprised fascination to see what might happen next.
And something does happen: back in the grasses to the north of the main road, a figure coalesces, made of shimmering white lights, like a hundred tiny stars swarming out of the grass to pile into a brightly glowing humanoid shape, as tall as Klo. The figure hangs a moment, then strides across the grass in a beeline towards Halla.
Rikka watches the figure manifest and...
Tassidar takes note of the being of light and hopes it is merely fey playing pranks. Making sure to keep his posture non-threatening and empty hands in plain view, the elf continues to walk towards the two travelers on the roadway.
Rikka chuckles at the 'figure', deliberately making light of the situation. "That's a fine glamer to be sure! I think I can even make a similar one if you'll give me a moment. Shall we make them dance together?"
Knute freezes at the appearance of the strange figure. What in the world is going on?!
And what have I gotten myself into, travelling here with all these seiðr-workers? Knute wonders at the path that has led him here as Rikka and Tassidar calmly attempt to communicate with whatever is out there. Skaði preserve me... The ranger makes no sudden moves, hoping whatever's going on can be resolved without combat or more "pranks".
Halla is somewhat reassured by Rikka's jocularity; she waits fearfully to see what the glowing figure will do.
Stirgen backs up, his temporarily-tiny hands raised in a placating gesture that doesn't belie his nervousness at his transformation.
Even while Stirgen is moving back, Tassidar is moving forward, not sparing a second glance for the glowing figure. He continues to call in Sylvan to the figures that are far ahead on the road.
One of the two figures moves off the road, into the trees on the other side and out of sight. The other starts walking slowly back towards you. The creature stops moving, standing, watching.
At this distance, you can see more details of the figure: it's as tall as an ork, and has as similar build-- a narrow, rangy body tapering up into powerful, muscular shoulders. But the skin is not the blue-green of an ork; it's a dark, tree-bark brown, here and there flecked with little bits of green. The arms are long, reaching down nearly to its knees; a scrap of green serves as a loincloth, and a large club is slung over its back, but beyond that it doesn't seem to be carrying or wearing anything. It might be male? Judging only by the presence of the loincloth.
Kló nods at Rikka’s explanation. ”Don’t be a threat,” he says, holding up his finger and thumb of one hand to show a size of about eight inches tall, ”Not big, not evil. But they have tricks and won’t back down if threatened.” He looks down the road as he tries to keep pace with Tassidar, watching the now-returning figure, ”These creatures, though.”
Kló - the far-off figure could be an eik-karl, or tree-man-- a sort of catch-all term used in Ulfen stories for any roughly man-sized and man-shaped tree-spirit. The old sagas of Hofn say that the woods around the village boasted many such back in the days of the coming of Rolf; but the creatures did not fight, the way the trulls and ice-wights and other fell beasts did; they merely moved back further into the woods, avoiding any contact with man. You've never seen one yourself; your father once told you a tale of his own youth, where he saw a "forest man" far off in the woods, and tried to approach it, only for the plants themselves to seem to impede his progress-- every root and branch slowed his way, and when he extricated himself from the tangle, the creature was gone. It could be something like that, anyway. It looks sort of distinctly twiggy, at your current distance.
”Eik-karl,” mutters Kló to Tassidar in a voice that carries as much curiosity as it does wariness, but loud enough to carry back to the group. ”A tree man. Be careful,” he mutters, eyeing the surrounding trees and plants, ”they have powers among their trees.”
Rikka calls upon an innate ability and conjures forth a figure made of glowing blue tendrils of smoke, similar in shape - if not composition - to the one approaching Halla. She works her seiðr, giving her figure comically large ears and attempts to make it caper towards the other figure.
When Tasidar sees the traveler for what it is he racks his brain for anything he might have read about the creatures if anything.
Is this some kind of Ent or treant? How fascinating! Now if I can only communicate with it without creating another row, that would be splendid.
There are now two figures of light on the grassy lawn. The first one twists in place, the crude imitations of body language that it mimics suggesting that it's sizing up the newcomer.
The original glowing figure points one "hand" toward Rikka's glowing lights, and seems to bend over.
Knute turns around in confusion at the laughing figure, and the faint laughter coming from the other side of the stream. Unsure if he should call out the creature directly, he moves towards Rikka and Stirgen and whispers, "There's laughter on the other side of the stream, there, happening while the figure is laughing.". Then he nervously smiles at the figure, and waits for someone else to decide whether to talk directly to the fey.
Perception DC 17 for Stirgen or Halla, DC 19 for Knute, Tassidar, or Klo; and DC 21 for Halla:
Stirgen peers towards where Knute has indicated. "I hear nothing," he whispers back. More loudly, he says, "I don't wish to be this size. Can you return me to myself?"
There is no verbal response from the unseen creature.
Down the road, the figure of the tree-man remains where it, or he, is. His weapon remains undrawn, but he comes no closer.
Still nervous, Halla gives a stiff smile to the man of light, dividing her attention between it and the place across the stream where the laughter was coming from. "What does it want?" she queries Rikka in a loud whisper. "Will it let us pass? Will it fix the stranger?"
Stirgen nods at Halla's questions. "I'd like to know the same things," he stage whispers.
There is a... well it's best described as a 'rude noise' from the bushes on the other side of the stream, like a child discovering the full range of sounds he can make with his tongue. The figure of light (the first one) leaves off pointing-and-laughing at Rikka's figure, and drifts over the grass towards the rock pile, one 'hand' pointing emphatically at it.
The figure further down the path has made no other moves, and is still observing.
"I think...," she guesses, glancing at the shrunken Stirgen, "it wants you to leave a token."
Stirgen looks up at Halla, rubs at his reduced face, and fishes out a small chunk of worn amber to put it on the rock.
The figure of light turns and points at Halla as well.
The creature down the road begins to.... sing, apparently. At least, he's making noises-- in a deep baritone that you can almost feel in your bones, but oddly melodious, the sounds bleeding into one another. Tassidar can recognize it as words... just.
Tassidar bows to the treeman.
The tree-man stands still in the wake of Tassidar's statement for a handful of seconds.
After a pause, more deep-voiced singing rings from the figure.
Putting the light-figure momentarily out-of-mind, Kló watches the exchange between Tassidar and the tree-man curiously. And warily.
She glares at the light-man, despite knowing the intelligence behind it is on the other side of the stream, and begins reluctantly to pick through her meager items.
The furs are Signy's, and as pleasant as it is here, she'll need them again anyway if she ever gets out of here; all her weapons are borrowed, as well, and will likewise be needed, like the bedroll and blanket. She hesitates over her Jól gifts and the ring she accepted as payment from the dwarven woman. The Harrow deck is too precious to Maeve to give away without hearing about it at length for days or weeks to come, and she doesn't want to part with the heatstone, coming as it did from Five Solomon, the foreigner.
At last, she opens the healer's kit she received from Hrolf, takes out a pinch of dried herbs and ties it decoratively in a length of clean bandage, laying down the makeshift sachet with a pointed glare at the figure of light.
Knute was so focused on the figure of light and its controller that he hadn't really noticed the tree-man exchanging... songs? with Tassidar. He frowns, trying to figure out what's passing between the characters.
"Something Tassidar said has confused or shocked it..." He murmurs to the others. "Though it still doesn't look hostile." Or at least, I hope it isn't. My arrows wouldn't even pierce its bark, I think.
After Halla places her grudging offering, there's a dozen seconds' pause, and then the figure-of-light dissolves into a cascade of sparks that fall to the grass, seeming to melt into it.
Stirgen remains half-sized, though, at least for the moment. He stares at the far side of the stream, more concerned with that than with the creature singing at Tassidar. "Oh... come on...! I left you something nice and shiny!"
Servants of Varg, the patron orc god of siege and strategic warfare broke the order of these humans settlement and brought the stolen young to your world. We followed them here through a temple dedicated to the Elder Fey on our world. I know a little of the Twins, beings of immense power, but I do not know much more of them than that. I do fear what the servants of Varg seek to do here will cause harm to those of your world and mine."
"In my world I revere one known as Yuelral, goddess of magic and woodlands. She teaches us to treasure nature over artificial things and to accept others not by their heritage, but rather what lies within."
"They have wolves and greenskined warriors amongst them. Have you seen any matching that description? I seek to help return the young, which we call children, to their parents whom they sprouted from so they might mature and sprout children of their own."
"If you wouldn't mind. I would like to tell my companions what we are saying to one another? They do not speak the tongue of the woods as I do."
Again the tree-man pauses after Tassidar's stream-of-Sylvan, standing rooted in place for several long seconds.
Have not.... seen. Do not.... know. Sorrow-sap, for ... youurrloss. Speeaakasyouuuwilltotheem, youuu are not....roooted to me.
Having received permission to translate what is said back to the others, Tassidar presumably goes ahead and does so.
Tassidar indicates the direction of the place he believes to be some kind of market. He deliberately slows his motions and voice a bit.
The tree-man's body language seems a little more relaxed at Tassidar's shorter, slower statements. He sings out a slow, rolling answer.
"Yeees. That is the road to the... Freeee Markeeet. Maayybe your sprouts.... are theere. I... am goooing.... to market. But... now it is... the time-of-closed-leaves." He points westward, where the sun has just dropped below the horizon; the light is still filling the sky, but it no doubt won't last long.
Stirgen divides his attention between Tassidar's translations and peering hopefully towards the southern side of the stream. "Look, I only have so much on me," he mutters.
Rikka is vaguely saddened that the play of light and glamer is over. Given the ever-present dangers of her snow-bound home, it was nice to run across creatures of mischief in a meeting that didn't end in spilt blood. She manipulates the energy of her own creation to make the figure bow then trip and fall. When it hits the ground, the motes of light disperse.
The sorceress makes a friendly wave in the direction of the laughter indicated by Knute. Much as she'd like to walk over and meet the fey in person, she respects their choice of distance.
She looks at the distressed Stirgen, amused by his predicament. "The dweomer will wear off soon enough. I suspect the spirit in which the gift is given is more important to them than the value of it."
Kló watches the small sorcereress’s light-creature fall merrily down, giving the woman a sideways glance. Respect, curiosity, and a slight smile fight to overtake his fatigued features.
She looks at the distressed Stirgen, amused by his predicament. "The dweomer will wear off soon enough."
”Or it won’t, but a lesson learned, either way.”
He shifts his attention back to the mysterious, sing-song conversation between the eik-karl and Tassidar. This is a tongue Kló would like to learn. An idle thought for another time.
”Light is failing. Camp or continue, we need to choose now.” He sighs, a heavy sound from his big frame, and laden with fatigue. ”I’ll admit my bones want to rest. But I hate to lose time,” he looks at their surroundings, ”and I am wary of sleeping in the open here. Tassidar, can the eik-karl tell us how far to the market?”
Knute nods at Klo's words. "Aye, if it's too far to travel in the remaining light, we should set up camp." He looks in the direction of the unseen fey. "Though maybe not so close to the fey's claimed area..."