His own weapon being of limited use against the fleshless creatures, Arkady concentrates on helping his friends as much as he can. With a whisper to Rom to run around and see if there are any other creatures approaching, Arkady follows behind Yagello, offering his luck.
Daegan begins to move towards Igmar, but pauses in this endeavor to curse heartily at the snow. It would take him mere moments to reach the skeletons, but any longer could be too long. He slogs on, grinding his teeth in frustration.
"Igmar! Move back, move back!"
The cold seeps into Igmar's skin, even as the fire cascades down one of the skeletons, bringing it to the ground in a heap of blackened bones. The remaining skeleton lunges towards Igmar, scratching its bony claws.
Igmar collapses to the ground in a heap, overwhelmed by the second skeleton.
Seeing his comrade fall, Yagello becomes frantic and surges towards the remaining skeleton. He throws his bow into the snow with extreme prejudice and draws his elven curve blade. Gritting his teeth for the cold to come, he swings at the undead with all of his strength.
Cervin keeps calm as Igmar falls. Damnit! I hate those things I hate things... I can't fire through this snow either.
Trudging through the miserable snow, Cervin gets a little closer to the skeleton and fires off a shot.
Arkady curses as Igmar falls, and moves in to try to help. Trudging through the snow, he flicks his fingers toward the skeleton, flinging acid.
Cervin's arrow goes wide, but Arkady's acid hits the torso of the skeleton, burning a wide hole through the rib cage. The skeleton manages to avoid Yagello's swipe.
Daegan's frustration only grows greater as he carries on. He was not there to defend Igmar, and now his companion had fallen. While the battle was going poorly, and probably would have regardless... maybe if he had been there, he could've taken the hit instead.
He finally manages to arrive next to Yagello, huffing and puffing.
The remaining skeleton attacks Yagello as he approaches.
Yagello deftly sidesteps the clumsy assault, and prepares to retaliate.
Shivering from the skeleton's unnatural cold, Yagello locks his right leg in place and delivers a swift uppercut to the skeleton's upper body. "BACK TO THE NINE HELLS WITH YOU!"
Yagello hits the creature hard, but his blade glances off the hard bones, deflecting harmlessly to one side.
Daegan takes his last trudging, agonizingly slow steps towards the skeleton, before raising his axe above his head and letting out a tremendous, bestial roar. There's a slight pause; then the axe comes down, carried with all the weight of frustration and impotency.
Daegan's blade cuts through the undead creature, and it collapses to the ground. As it falls, the blue aura glows brightly one last time, pulsing icy cold into Yagello and Daegan nearby.
Arkady and Cervin shield their eyes from the brief flash, and they are relieved to see Yagello and Daegan still standing, although with streaks of frost across their clothing. Igmar remains on the ground, unconscious.
Far above in the trees, a single crow sitting on a branch without leaves caws once, spreads its wings and takes to the sky, flying away.
"That is a bad sign. That crow is a spy, if not an actual foe in disguise. We must be very careful."
Arkady calls to Rom to return as he steps up to check on Igmar.
Cervin raises his arm at the bright burst of frosty light as Daegan slams his axe into the skeleton. He lowers his arm to survey the carnage and then stalks forward through the snow, red-faced and obviously upset.
"Miserable things! Unholy blight on the land and this snow means I can't shoot straight and now Igmar is hurt..." Cervin trails off into muttering as he kneels by Igmar. "I hope that's the last of them. With that crow flying off the moment the fight ended I'm pretty sure we will have a welcome party."
He kneels beside Igmar, frowning.
"Not good, do you have any prayers for him Daegan? I can bind his wounds but your manner is a little more direct."
Daegan groans. His rage has departed, leaving his body aching with cold and his spirits lowered. He nods tiredly at Cervin, before performing his now familiar ritual, and then applying some more directed healing magic on Igmar.
Most of the dwarf's wounds close, and color begins to return to his face. While Igmar awakens, Daegan kneels next to him and brings him into a sitting position, keeping as much of his companion out of the snow as possible.
"There, that should do it. Though I do not know that it prepares us for another attack... this place is not what I would class as defensible. We should move, and quickly."
Yagello wipes some of the frost off his breastplate, grateful once again for Daegan's timely healing. He still feels an ache in his bones from the skeleton's attacks and has lost a good deal of his bluster and confidence from this morning. "That's twice now we've been woefully unprepared for these skeletons! I lay a lot of the blame on myself. I should've found a bludgeoning weapon while in town or maybe even acquired that liquid fire Igmar used. At least he was on the right track before everything went to hell!"
Shaking his head, he retrieves the shortbow and puts it away. "Friends, you are right though. This is not the time and place for complaining or moping around. I don't know anything about crows acting as spies, but Arkady if you say so, I believe it. Let's get back on the trail before we run into more of our enemies."
Cervin smiles and helps Igmar up before he looks over to Yagello. "Right, there will be time to mope after we are victorious. Let's move."
I need to learn to stay out of the way a bit. Letting myself be attacked all the time certainly isn't working.
Looking around, still a bit dazed, he speaks with the group.
"Thank you all for you help. I will be more careful in the future."
He looks down at his still prominent wounds and, humming to himself, runs his hands over them.
The party gathers themselves and continue to follow the trail along the high ridge. The wind once again grows wild, whipping at any exposed flesh, and each of the men take steps to stay warm.
The snow slows travel, though, as Yagello and Daegan seem particularly ill-tempered by the increasing cold, and the shadows grow long behind the heroes as they walk towards the fleeting sun. Arkady and Igmar occasionally notice what must be the same solitary crow, flying far overhead, and the party quickens their pace when possible.
As the party reaches what seems like the far side of the ridge, it begins a long, gradual descent into the valley below. The rocks and snow along this part of the ridge are stained a reddish brown, and many tracks, both animal and human, cross the area.
Igmar studies the tracks as the party moves, trying to identify any that seem out of the ordinary.
Igmar sees one set of prints that are definitely human moving quickly, with the animal prints seemingly chasing the human. The animal prints are clawed and have a long tail. Igmar guesses that the beast must be the size of a horse, but remains low to the ground, perhaps hunting the human.
Igmar follow the tracks a short distance, and just around the bend he sees a badly mutilated corpse, torn to shreds from some kind of huge claws. The victim is dressed for the cold weather, and also wears some strange large shoes with a mesh. A bow lies next to him, snapped in half, and a quiver is still strapped to his torso, containing two arrows.
The human tracks stop here, but the animal tracks continue back down into the valley ahead.
Yagello looks closely at the tracks as Igmar moves ahead, and they remind him of stories he had heard of giant weasels. Massive cousins of the far more common variety, they are known for being voracious eaters with a clever mind.
Cervin moves over to the downed body, looking at him sadly.
"Old Deadeye be with you in the afterlife. A good hunter was never met to meet such unnatural creatures. I'm afraid it would be ill advised to build a proper grave for him. Allow me to pray and we shall move on."
Cervin takes a moment to rifle in his pack, and pulls out his battered book of the Parables of Erastil. He leafs through the old book with trembling fingers before he reads a short passage from the Book of Hunting. He recites a short tale of a family beset by hardship due to the death of the provider, and the community that rose up in support to ensure the survival of the family.
He closes the book, closes his eyes, and then turns to Yagello.
"So what's this about a giant weasel?"
As Cervin and Yagello examine the tracks and the corpse, Arkady follows his usual routine and scans the area for magic. He also sets Rom down to look around in the snow.
Arkady notes a magical aura coming from the arrows in the man's quiver. He takes a closer look at the seemingly ordinary arrows.
The arrows are magically enchanted to strike true against animals. Arkady keeps Rom close as he realizes their power. After explaining their utility to the group, Arkady explores the area. Near the corpse, but easily missed, the man's bloodstained back is half-covered by a fresh dusting of snow.
Inside the pack are a few days' worth of rations, a hip flask containing strong spirits that smell of apples, and a journal. Arkady opens the journal and skims through the notes.
The journal details the last days of one Dryden Kepp, based out of Heldren. He was laughed out of town when he claimed to have spotted a giant weasel in the Border Wood. The notes chronicle his attempts to capture the weasel and prove the people of Heldren wrong through some sense of bravado. Arkady notes that the hip flask is half-empty.
The journal is mostly dry descriptions of hunting details, but two incidents stand out to Arkady. The end of the journal describes how Dryden nearly caught the weasel in a set of bear traps he had lain at the head of the Somir valley. Unfortunately, the beast broke free and nearly killed Dryden before the hunter managed to retreat up the ridge. The journal entry ends with Dryden about to give up, hopelessly injured and fearing a vengeful attack from the giant weasel. Arkady assumes that Dryden's fears were valid, as this was his last entry.
A second, stranger passage is dated just a day before the last entry. While on the move in the valley, Dryden encountered a strange hut on a hill in the middle of a clearing. The small hut sat perched above the snow on wooden legs carved to look like chicken feet. Stranger still, the only thing inside the was a single wooden chair, where a disturbing doll sat staring blankly through the open doorway into the clearing, as if it was a sentry. Clearing unnerved by the doll, Dryden moved on, and his notes quickly turn back to details of his hunt.
Reading Kepp's journal, Arkady is first saddened at the man's fate, then concerned as his penultimate entry triggers a memory of stories told by his family...
Arkady recalls a time from his childhood. His mother was telling one of her stories around the campfire, with his entire family listening on that cold winter night long ago...
"In the snowy lands of Irrisen, the witch queen Baba Yaga likes to keep her eyes on all her children, and she does so through her chicken-legged huts and their resident guardian dolls. Made in the image of her famous Dancing Hut, these strange huts watch the borders of this frozen land, keeping foreigners out while keeping the Irriseni in. According to the legends, If a hut dances around and refuses to let you in through its tiny door, you must stand in front of it and loudly call out, Hut, O hut, turn your back to the woods and your front to me."
Arkady's clan never traveled far enough into Irrisen to give him a first-hand glimpse of one of these fabled huts, and he doubted their existence as a child, as many of his mother's stories were simple fables designed to scare the little children. He never expected to see one in his travels, especially as far south as Taldor.
Cervin clears out some snow to settle down against a tree and listen to Arkady's story.
"Giant weasels, evil fey, and now a magical witch's hut? Did we wander into Irrisen by accident? Well, it's late in the day. We have a couple of options. We can make camp or continue on. I think before we find the source of all this we're going to camp regardless so the question is where. Also, watch out for bear traps."
Daegan retrieves the hip flask, unstoppering it in the process and breathing in deep the smell wafting from it. He takes a moment to raise the flask above the corpse, a wordless prayer for the man's soul, and then takes a swig. He smacks his lips appreciatively. It's warm, and brings some respite to Daegan's chilled bones.
"And here I thought our journey had already reached the apex of oddity. I say we carry on, further into the valley. Maybe we can find shelter and a place to lay this poor fellow to rest. He was brave and of good taste... it would be remiss of us to leave his body out here for the carrion birds."
Yagello scratches his head in confusion, "Irrisen, isn't that halfway around the world?"
He may not have a perfect understanding of the country's exact location on a map, but he knows of the winter witches of Irrisen. A furious scowl comes over his face for a moment, a look the others have seen only when he learned the High Sentinel rangers were slaughtered by the bandits. He quickly shields his face and when he looks up, the fury is gone.
He slaps Daegan on the shoulder, "You're right, Daegan, we should continue further down into the valley. The day is short, but there's no shelter here. We're likely to freeze to death in these conditions."
Concern washes over Daegan's face as he watches Yagello grow angry, and he sighs quietly. He doesn't know much of Irrisen either, but to judge by Yagello's expression, it does not seem like a place he would want either of them to ever visit. He holds the flask out to his friend.
"Have some. It'll warm you up, and he's getting no more use out of it."
Daegan's expression is good-natured, but slightly frustrated. Still, he does manages to get one end of his mouth upwards into a smile. "I'm nearly frozen to death now."
The half-orc pauses, glancing upwards and scratching at the back of his head. "It's hard to spare much of a concern for faraway Irrisen, especially with other, closer troubles making themselves readily apparent and only folk tales to lend some credence to this man's strange story. But witches... well, I only hope that there is some other explanation. Even the unlikeliest connection to one is unsettling."
Yagello hesitates and looks at the flask haltingly as if it were some form of forbidden fruit. "I don't usually partake of the spirits especially when out on a mission, but I sure am awfully cold..."
Finally making up his mind, he accepts Daegan's offer and takes a long sip from Kepp's flask. Some color immediately returns to his face, and he closes the cap with a satisfied whistle. "That sure hit the spot!"
Becoming more serious, he continues his conversation with Daegan. "I'm not a quitter like some of the others, but I seem to be very ill-suited for this mission. This neverending cold seems to be sapping the very life out of me, making me a shadow of myself in combat. Now we need to be on guard for that giant weasel, lest we end up like poor Kepp here."
"The trouble seems to be that Irrisen is not as far away as it ought to be. The harsh cold, and that man's journal ... it is as if that evil place has somehow reached its fingers out and caught hold of this land. Something seriously sinister is at work here."
Cervin has not traveled far beyond Taldor, but he has heard through his travels of the land of Irrisen, lost in a perpetual winter that is uncharacteristic even among the other lands near the Crown of the World. Cervin recalls hearing about the evil capital city of Whitethrone, on the shores of the frigid Glacier Lake. There, wolves and fey live along side the white witches and native Ulfen, or at least that is what some Varisian traders told him years ago.
Regardless, it seems unlikely to Cervin that Irriseni invaders have defeated the Orcs of Belkzen, the Elves of Kyonin, and the Dwarves of the Five King Mountains without anyone hearing of it, as all of those lands lie between Irrisen and Taldor.
After a short walk down the hill, a small copse of a couple dozen healthy evergreen trees stands out among the barren trees ill-suited for the cold more prevalent in the Border Wood. A cold wind blows through the forest atop the ridge, but it remains mercifully quiet among the evergreens. Heavy snow burdens the boughs of the trees, but someone has apparently cleared the snow from a large patch of ground to dig in the pine-needle-carpeted soil. Yagello notes that the sturdy evergreen leaves shielding the site from the elements and the snow-cleared ground would make this an ideal site to stop and rest.
Cervin lets out a groan and drops his pack, rolling his shoulders repeatedly to soothe them.
"Considering the constant snowfall someone stayed here recently enough, but that could have been our unfortunate friend back up the trail. I doubt these miserable fey need to dig shelters. And we all need some rest. Same watches as before?"
Still shivering from the inclement weather, Yagello wearily nods in Cervin's direction. He unrolls his bedroll and takes out his flint and steel to start making a fire. As he collects tinder for the fire, he does a precursory scan of their surroundings, looking in particular for any clues as to the clearing's previous inhabitants.
Yagello notices something odd about one of the trees, and stands back up in preparation when one of the trees actually begins to move towards him, dropping the flint. The faint scent of pine sap accompanies this vaguely tree-shaped creature, which stands on two towering trunklike legs. Its arms resemble the branches of a snow-laden conifer. It moves up to confront Yagello, and before he knows it another one has moved behind him to prevent his escape.
Arkady
Trees
Yagello
Igmar
Cervin
Yagello immediately realizes his mistake, figuring that these smaller evergreen cousins of treants are obviously threatened by the fire Yagello nearly started. These creatures were likely the ones that had cleared the ground, to get to the soil beneath.
As they get near, Yagello realizes the sticky sap covering their branches will likely make it important to keep his distance, a task that appears to have become nearly impossible as the pair surrounds him. Yagello figures fire will likely harm the trees, like most plants.
For once in his life, Cervin isn't distracted and he is on his feet in an instant as the treants move in.
"What the hell are those things?!"
In his panic Cervin barely manages to get the arrow in the bow before he stumbles, firing the arrow off into the sky to go on its own adventures.
Suddenly finding himself surrounded, Yagello draws his elven curve blade and stares down the creature directly facing him.
I hate to attack any creature of the forest, but if my memory is correct, there beings are much more aggressive and malevolent than their cousins, the treants! A battle may be our only way out of here!
Sensing something amiss, Arkady moves up between Daegun and Cervix before he even notices the trees attacking. Once he realizes where the danger is coming from, he calls upon the magic he has just learned to enchant Daegun's blade. He then reaches into his pack for one of the scrolls he created.
"They're certainly not friendly, whatever they are!"
Damnation... now even the forest is setting itself upon us!
Daegan rushes in to assist Yagello, swinging his axe at the nearest tree thing. Unfortunately, it seems his aim is not much better than either of his friends, even with Arkady's spell. The half-orc breathes out heavily through his nose, hoping to Gorum that this would not end in any of them lying unconscious on the ground.