Daegan stands somewhat apart from the group, both grumpy about the fey's escape and embarrassed by his lack of shrewdness. His face softens when he hears the doubts of some of the group, and speaks up after Cervin. "And mine. Not all of us are meant to bear the toll of battle. If you believe your place to be elsewhere, then you must heed that. Have pride in the knowledge of your own limitations; one who does not usually meets a vain and unexpected end."
Yagello also looks over the two women, almost a relieved expression coming over his face. "Yes, be our voice in Heldren, and let the council know what we're facing. Get the townspeople ready for what may come next."
Speaking to Sarya specifically, he adds,"I will carry on your devotion towards nature and try to be a good custodian in your stead."
Aishe hugs Caelia while saying, "Be careful on the way back. There may be more wandering fey like that last one. And if you get a chance, let my family know I'm alright..." To Sarya she simply gives an indifferent nod by raising her chin before turning away.
"May your path be safe back to Heldren. You acted valiantly, do not think otherwise.
Igmar falls silent except for a low hum, trying to keep the mood somber but not sad.
Sarya briefly touches Yagello's arm for a moment. "Thank you," she says, before turning to the whole group, "Thank you all. I hope our paths cross again under warmer weather." Sarya seems more relaxes after having made the decision to leave.
Caelia promises to Aishe that she will speak with her family, and the two women follow the trail back towards the road. On the last rise before they fall out of site, Caelia turns to give a brief wave to the group.
The party regroups and continues along the path.
Seeing the two women disappear over the rise, Yagello turns back towards those still present. This is a strong group now. We proved it by making those fey retreat rather quickly in the last battle. I'll miss the company of Caelia and Sarya, but at least I won't have to worry about keeping them safe anymore. I just hope they make it back to town without any further attacks..."
He now approaches Aishe with a smile curling at the edges of his lips. "Aishe, do you feel alright? I know you and Caelia were friends, and with her gone, you're left solely in the company of strangers. I bet part of you will even miss that wild-child, and suddenly you're the only woman in a group of men!"
The sorceress raises an eyebrow at Yagello's attempted levity, but gives a half-smile anyway. "Indeed I find myself surrounded by fit young men. Whatever is a poor, naive village girl to do?" Reaching down and ruffling Growler's mane Aishe speaks to the she-wolf. "Well my friend, looks like I'm going to have to rely on you to protect me from all of these brutes, eh?"
Her expression turns serious again. "Well, I suspect that we'll be facing more trouble from the fey now, since that last one fled. Doubtless it will alert it's comrades, and they'll set further ambushes for us. It may be best if we move ahead as quickly as possible for now, to deny them time to organise and hunt us."
Cervin waves to the two departing women and then looks over the area for a moment.
"Well those arrows are gone. Ugh. Good thing I brought plenty. Let's get moving."
He gathers up his gear and takes up his position in the line at the back, favouring Aishe with a weary smile.
"Let us not be strangers then. I feel that you are good people but would know you better. Where do you all hail from? Er, if that question is not improper. My home is the Verduran Forest, but I have been away for over a year now. I travel Taldor and preach the word of Erastil, aiding townsfolk where I can."
Arkady turns to Cervin as the two women round a bend and go out of sight.
"As you can probably tell, I am originally from northern Varisia. My clan travels between the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and Riddleport, trading and living off the land. When I showed a talent for magic that went beyond the simple cantrips many of my family can do, I was apprenticed to a wizard. I travelled with him for several years, until just about a month ago he chose to retire and settle in a small home near Heldren. He gave me his blessing to call myself a full wizard and bade me return home. I was just beginning that journey when we got the word about the lost noblewoman, and I volunteered to assist in the hunt."
"If you hadn't already guessed, I'm the only local left with this group now." says Aishe in response to Cervin's question. "My father retired here almost forty years ago, bought a small farm to the north of Heldren, and married my mother ten years after that." Reaching up and brushing her hair back from her elongated, pointed ears, she adds "Obviously Pa was from a lot farther away than the next village. He originally came from somewhere to the north, but he's never been willing to talk about whatever it was that caused him to move here."
The sorceress shrugs, almost to herself. "I do know that he was a swordsman and an adventurer, with about as much magic himself as your average doorknob. So even he's mystified as to why my blood quickened with magic, while my brothers are both as mundane as you please. Ma's from a local farming family with no magic either. That's why I'm apprenticed to Old Mother Theodora in the village, as she and I are the only two arcane spellcasters in Heldren." Aishe glances over at Arkady and Igmar, and gives a little grin. "Well, at least, we were."
"Ahh, Aishe, I wouldn't exactly call myself a spellcaster. But I suppose I do have some arcane talents," Igmar says, his usual grin returning.
"I am from Highhelm in the Five Kings Mountains, though I am not as...welcome there as I once was. I have been traveling the Inner Sea for a few years now, and happened to stumble upon Heldren at just the right—or perhaps wrong—time."
The half-orc looks slightly uncomfortable about this turn of events. "I am... hm, I am from Kaer Maga. I was previously involved in the priesthood of Cayden Cailean, though that is obviously no longer the case. I left several years ago, due to certain circumstances. After that, it was a lot of travel and mercenary work. It was in those difficult, early times that I found Gorum. I believe he spoke to me earlier, but I could not hear it." He frowns here, as if having said too much. He continues after a slight pause. "I was in Heldren simply by happenstance, as well - my destination was to be Kelesh to the east."
Daegan fiddles slightly with the various straps and ties about his person as he talks. They all seem well adjusted, but it occupies his vision and so he continues to fiddle.
After an short break in the conversation, a few of the party begin onwards along the trail, and eventually they all head out together.
The trail beings to wind in a westerly direction again, before a set of obstacles block the path. About 50 feet ahead, a human-sized snowman stands in the middle of the trail before a frozen stream. A crude wooden sign leans against it and bears the words "Trespassers Turn Back" in Taldane. The path continues past the snowman, and ends at the stream, just 10 feet behind the snowman. The stream is about 30 feet across, and might be difficult to cross under seasonal weather, but appears to be frozen solid. The trail continues onwards on the other side. The snow begins to fall again.
Arkady takes up his position in the center of the group, letting his more melee-oriented companions guard. As they approach the snowman, he slows. Holding up hand with finger and thumb together, he peers through the hole, speaking the magic words that are beginning to become familiar to the others.
Although sanguine and cheerful whenever spoken to, Cervin keeps his head down, hood up, and trudges miserably through the snow. He is obviously out of his element and not having a good time.
Spying the sign and snowman, Cervin stops in his tracks and knocks an arrow, looking annoyed.
"I don't feel particularly popular in these woods for some reason."
As the group spot the snowman, Aishe too will pause just within sixty feet of it, casting detect magic and studying the snow sculpture and the area to either side of the trail. Aishe also gives a little whistle to Growler, encouraging the she-wolf to sniff the air...
Moving back and forth across the trail a little as she sniffs the air, Growler tries to scent any of the annoying little blue creatures hiding nearby, or anything else that may threaten her two-legged pack.
Unfortunately as both Growler and Aishe try to concentrate on the snowman ahead, a random gust of wind dislodges some snow from the branches overhead, dumping it on the sorceress and the wolf, startling them and covering them both with wet, slushy snow.
Daegan stands at the front, to give himself best access to whatever they may encounter, or to simply take the brunt of an attack. He keeps the cold-iron dagger at the ready, though his hand itches to go to his greatsword. He smiles slightly at Cervin's comment, but keeps his eyes front and from side to side, keeping watch as best he can. "It does seem rather ominous. I can't imagine children frolic much out here, can you?" He takes a glance back when the snow hits Aishe and Growler, but decides not to comment on it.
Cervin has no such dignity and bursts out laughing when the snow falls on Aishe and Growler. He quickly tries to compose himself and make a pretense of scanning the area.
Igmar chuckles as well, trying to keep the mood light throughout such a serious trek. He stands in a position in the middle, just to the left of Arkady, his hand often moving to the pick at his belt, and an old dwarven tune often on his lips.
Leading the group in the front as before, Yagello cocks an eyebrow when Daegan mentions mercenary work in his past. "Aye Daegan, I've done my far share of mercenary/bounty work myself. Mostly for House Hostilia out of Oppara, I quit when I realized the nobles couldn't care less about the common folk or whoever else got in the way of their petty squabbles. Like Igmar, I've been wondering throughout Taldor looking for a new direction in my life. I was actually down to just about my last copper when news of this abduction hit our table at the tavern. What kind of mercenary work did you do?"
He stops in mid-sentence upon seeing the peculiar snowman and quickly scans the trail ahead and adjoining woods.
Yageloo and Daegan scan the surroundings. Neither of them see anything else, although the trail quickly winds out-of-sight after crossing the river.
Aishe and Arkady are able to confirm a pair of faint auras coming from the snowman. The auras both appear unfamiliar to Aishe, but Arkady is able to confirm one of the auras is illusory in nature. The second aura stumps Arkady as well. Perhaps it has been too long since the spell was cast, Arkady thinks.
Cursing to herself and trying to shake the snow out of her clothing before it melts, Aishe is too distracted to focus on identifying the auras emanating from the sculpture. "There's magic at work here boys - the little snowman there is ensorcelled, but I can't tell you how or with what."
Finally giving up her attempt to dislodge the slush without removing her jacket, she braves the icy temperatures and removes it, brushing out the offending material with her fingers. "Since magic sort of came naturally to me, I'm not actually very good at identifying all of it's nuances, unlike a true wizard. What auras do you see on the thing, Arkady?"
Just as she gets the last of the snow out of her jacket, Growler decides on a more expedient method of removing the slush from her own fur...
Being of a less finicky nature than Aishe, Growler simply shakes the fallen snow from her fur like a wet-dog, spraying everyone nearby with drops of slushy water. Despite any protests from the two-legs, the she-wolf merely walks off the trail and starts sniffing around for anything of interest - preferably something small, furry and crunchy for lunch...
Cervin scowls at the snowman.
"Can we just avoid it? This is just the sort of thing I'd overcomplicate. My ma always said don't trust magical snowmen"
Scowling anew at her animal companion, who blithely ignores the freshly snow-splattered sorceress, Aishe sighs and puts her now hopelessly soiled jacket back on. "Cervin is right. Let's just go around it, find another spot to cross over the creek, and rejoin the trail on the far bank. Whatever the magic here is, it has to be another trap designed to slow us down some more, so let's decline the invitation."
"I did whatever work was available to me. Typically I didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing, though later on I attempted to find work more suitable for a holy man and less a walking sack of meat with which to attract the pointy bits. The quality of work and life never went up by much, though. I suppose I simply started to question what I felt the right battles to be fought were, and which were the ones best left to said walking sacks."
Here he chuckles slightly. "But if you're asking about the actual content of the jobs, a good amount of the time it was escort work or intimidation work, mostly of the rival political group variety. Other times it was simply your standard fare - slaying what perceived horrors threaten the countryside. Occasionally I would receive what I felt were my most important works, lending what comfort in divinity I could to soldiers on the front. You'd be surprised at the increase in morale the thought of such backing brings to a regiment. I like to believe my sword was also an appreciated asset."
He looks back towards the rest of the group, and nods. "Around it is, then. Unless you have any deeper insight, Arkady? Or anyone else, for that matter?"
Oblivious to the spray of snow from Growler, Arkady studies the snowman a while longer, then finally shakes his head.
"Sorry, it has been too long since it was cast to tell what it is. There is definitely some sort of illusion over the snowman, though I can't tell what sort. I hate to leave a puzzle unsolved, but given our luck thus far, I also hate to press it studying something that has such an sense of 'trap' about it."
He ponders a moment, then add, "Unless we want to try to melt the snowman to see if anything is underneath it. A few blobs of magical acid might do the trick, or some time spent warming it, as I did with the frozen soldiers we round. What do all of you think?"
"I'm not sure that I want to melt it and find another corpse underneath that snowman. No, let's just ignore the thing and find somewhere else to cross the ice. Aishe seems very reluctant to muck around with the bespelled snow sculpture. But then she cocks her head to one side and adds; "Unless that's exactly what the fey or the bandits want us to do... Argh! I hate those little blue bastards!"
"As much as I'd like to avoid any trouble in front of us, it might be better to make sure there's no trouble behind us. Maybe we should investigate, if only to know what we're dealing with."
"Also, magical blobs of acid sound fun. Let's melt the thing. Uh, from a distance."
Yagello sighs deeply, "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but Arkady, your idea seems reasonable. I can't see the harm in melting the sculpture from a distance using your magic."
Nonetheless, he draws his elven curve blade as he says this, gripping the hilt particularly tightly.
Aishe shrugs and looks over at Arkady. "Alright then, we pepper it with acid splash... together on three? One... two... three!"
Arkady nods, and moves back to about 20 feet away, motioning for Aishe to join him at the range of the spell. Once everyone is in place, he listens to Aishe's countdown. On three, he flicks his fingers toward the snowman, and speaks a quiet word.
Arkady and Aishe each conjure an orb of acid and flick it towards the snowman. Arkady's orb hits the the head square on, and Aishe's orb hits the torso, just above the sign.
The snowman begins to sag in the areas hit by acid. One stone eye rolls down his side, and a hole forms where Arkady's orb hit, forming a temporary mouth. Parts of the head fall off on the ground, leading just a small pile representing the head. One stone eye still remains.
Aishe's orb in the torso leaves a hole as well, but the wider body means the tunnel remains open. It is fairly easy from Aishe's viewpoint to see right into the middle of the snowman. The hole gets about part way in before the snow stopped the orb, and the remaining acid appears to have burned downwards somewhat. From what Aishe can see, it appears to be made of ordinary snow.
Cervin sighs from beneath his heavy hood.
"That's disappointing. Let's take a couple more seconds to melt the thing and we can move on. I've never thought of a harmless snowman as a cruel mind game before."
Arkady grins at Cervin's response. "Patience, my friend. Something could jump out to attack us yet."
With that, he nods to Aishe, and sends more acid out, trying to eat away the snow without unduly damaging anything it might be concealing.
Orb by orb, the snowman is slowly eaten away. A few stray orbs go wide, landing on the ice beyond the snowman, or in the snow to the side. Part way through the process, the upper half collapses into the bottom half, forming a misshapen pile of snow on the ground. The sign is hit by a few stray orbs as well, and is also dissolved by each successive hit. Eventually the entire snowman and his sign are reduced to nothing, with a few acid burn marks in the earth the only indication that there was anything out of the ordinary here. Surprisingly, the snowman is not hiding anything.
Arkady peers through his fingers once again, and finds that the lingering auras he had previously noticed are no longer there. Whatever he had seen before has vanished.
"Well, now it's disappointing. I hope it wasn't important, because we appear to have destroyed it."
"Well, apart from destroying whatever was anchoring the magic aura, we seem to have vanquished one denizen of winter, at least." quips Aishe, tongue in cheek. Turning around to Yagello, Cervin and Daegan, she asks with a smile; "Would one of you big, strong boys like to approach and make sure it's dead?"
"Nothing!!! Are these fey making us so jumpy we're attacking a child's snowman with an arsenal of magic? Enough of this nonsense! Let's show them our true meddle and ram this snowman down their little throats!"
Clearly exasperated, Yagello abandons his usual caution and strides down the path past the acid crater. Catching himself at the last moment, he stops at the edge of the frozen stream, inspecting it for stability.
Cervin chuckles quietly to himself as Yagello shouts at the snowman and moves for the stream. He pads along behind, stopping to inspect the sign and the carter.
"There's a gnomish word that I think applies here. It's when you are disappointed that something does not go as badly as you'd hoped it would."
"Sounds most fitting. I'm concerned it might become a mantra for this journey, if paranoia is to be such a stern mistress." Daegan passes by Cervin at the crater, standing near Yagello at the stream. He keeps a watch along the far side while Yagello examines the ice.
"Some say paranoia, others say caution. Either way, we're safe for now. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to this snowman than meets the eye, however—even now. We should remain cautious."
A solid sheet of ice extends across this frozen stream, while snow-covered rocks line its banks. The trail starts on the other bank about twenty feet away. Yagello and Daegan carefully scan both banks, and do not see any motion in any direction. A brisk wind blows snow along the ice. With no trees to dampen the effects of the wind, it feels much colder here.
Cervin stands at the back of the group, stomping his feet to keep warm.
"Alright, so no traps. Just a sign, a snowman and some illusion spell someone cast a long time ago. I'm loathe to trespass, but for all I know the bandits put up that sign. Is the stream safe? Can we keep moving? Any longer and you'll have another snowman in my stead."
Disappointed in the snowman, Arkady follows Cervin over to the stream and checks for any signs, magical or otherwise.
Although still irritated, Yagello cracks a slight smile at Cervin's quips. Satisfied the stream looks solid, he bends down on one knee to do a final inspection before heading forward. He reaches his hand out and runs his fingers along the ice.
The ice is smooth and cold to the touch. The wind has kept the surface mostly clear, and while there are occasional rough patches of ice that appear cloudy, in some areas the ice is clear enough to see through to the murky water beneath.
Yagello sees a few bubbles trapped beneath the surface of the ice, but the dark water makes it impossible to see anything far beyond the surface. Daegan peers into the darkness beneath the ice as well, and the waters below appear mostly calm but flowing, the unexpectedly icy water no doubt causing the majority of life in the river to flee or perish.
Satisfied with the ice's stability, Yagello gives the all clear signal. He stands up, gathers himself, and briskly walks across the sheet of ice to reach the path on the other side.