Nevinia wakes up to the sound of yelling and the clanging of steel on steel. Her head is pounding. She can remember is leaving Heldren to follow Arkady, and getting lost in the unseasonal snow in the woods. Then a cold sensation, and then nothing.
She realized her hands are bound, so she opens her eyes. She is inside a dome made of snow and ice, with a door cut in one side showing blowing snow outside, and a smaller hole cut in the roof, presumably to allow smoke from a fire to ventilate outside. She can see her gear stacked neatly along the far wall, along with other assorted vials, tools and supplies.
A roaring comes form outside, and Nevinia tries to sit up, but she finds her ankles bound as well, which makes the exercise much more trying that it normally would be. Her mouth is not gagged, though, and she briefly considers whether the noises outside are coming from friends or foes.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" shrieks Cervin. Ignoring the tiny thing flinging stones at him, he turns northwards.
"Daegan, get Igmar back up if you can. Friends, we will win this day! Erastil is with us, and he guides my arrows!"
Nevinia groans as she tries to maneuver herself around the igloo. She notices her items by the wall... but that could only be a portion of everything, there's her wagon, her oxen... Tzerny!
"Tzerny? Are you there? What happened?"
Nevinia crawls toward her gear, wondering where her iron knife is. If she could just get herself free...
Outside, Cervin hits the creature cleanly, and it roars in anger. The monster eyes Cervin, but with Yagello in the way, the troll takes a massive spear in one hand, thrusting it towards the ranger in his way.
Frustrated as the spear is deflected by Yagello's armor, the beast lunges and tries to bite him.
Not for the first time, Yagello silently thanks his breastplate for saving him from harm once again.
To the south, the elemental flies in again, this time attacking Daegan before he can heal Igmar.
Daegan avoids the creature, and takes a retaliatory swing before thing hides in the snow again.
At the sound of it's name, Tzerny wakes up. It appears to be tied up in some way, and cannot move even a beak to speak out.
Surrounded by various beasts and lacking any significant ability to hit the enemy in the blinding snow, Arkady mutters a prayer to Desna and touches Yagello on the shoulder. "Luck of the Lady be with you, my friend."
The normally courageous Yagello breaks into a cold sweat at the sight of the moss-colored giant. He feels the perspiration dripping down his back before snapping out of his doldrums as the creature's spear clangs off his breastplate.
Focus! Your friends need you now more than ever!
Swallowing hard, he cautiously approaches the giant humanoid trying to support Cervin's ranged attacks.
"Oh no! Tzerny!"
Nevinia scoots over to the cage and tries to open it.
The giant creature is surprisingly nimble and sidesteps Yagello's swing. Yagello sees that, unlike his boots that are deep in the snow, the creature is somehow able to walk on top of the snow, leaving no footprints behind.
Above, the fey takes what appears to be his last stone and slings it at Cervin.
The stone connects again, and Cervin feels the unnatural cold growing from the point of impact in his side.
The sling stone catches Cervin between the eyes, nearly flooring him. He shakes his head rapidly and shouts back at the fey slinging stones at him.
"The only reason I haven't killed you yet is that your friends are better at everything! Now you've irritated me - your mother is going to cry when she sees what I've done to you, you little bastard!"
Arkady sees the small fey hit Cervin with his sling bullet, and replies with a blob of acid. He starts to say something taunting like Cervin, but suddenly begin shuddering with cold again, causing the magical attack to miss completely.
Daegan looks once over his shoulder and then grits hit teeth, chanting a prayer while he reaches out to touch Igmar, hoping that the blue-skinned creature will not hit him.
The creature tries to reach out to Daegan, scratching with the claws at the ends of her wings.
Waking up with a start, Igmar realizes his poor defensive position, and begins to sing again, holding his weapon ready.
The giant takes a step backwards into the mist, and stabs at Yagello again.
Yagello is not as lucky with this thrust, and the spear catches him in the shoulder. He yells as the creature yanks the spear out.
To the south, the blue-skinned creature attempts to hover, and the elemental flies in to stay along side the creature to attack Daegan.
Daegan winces as somewhere above, the incessant laughing of the fey in the air echoes throughout the area despite the blowing snow.
Nevinia manages to shimmy across the floor to get next to her familiar's cage, but with her hands bound, she find herself helpless.
Outside, she hears another roar, and a high-pitched laughing. Outside the door is only blackness, with the blowing snow only lit by the everburning torch from Nevinia's supplies, which is half-covered by other gear in the corner.
Smarting from his wound, Yagello nevertheless refuses to give up on his quarry. He strides forward, hoping to trap the giant against the clearing's north wall.
Yagello misses the creature, but does force the creature backwards. the rocky wall to the north appears to be forcing the creature to the west.
As he is fighting the creature, Yagello notices the lichens have partially grown over Cervin's arrows, somehow incorporating them into the creature's exterior.
Trying to make good on his word, Cervin fires off arrows at the fey in the sky, the blinding snow causing problems for his attack.
The fey swoops just out of sight, dodging Cervin's arrows and shouting something at the giant.
Arkady shivers again, nearly blind in the snow and more miserable than he has ever been. Unable to even see any of the enemies at the moment, he touches Daegan on the shoulder.
"Anyone speak that weird language?!"
"They're guarding the portal and worried about us *cough* getting closer. If we can make it past them, *shiver* we may be able to stop this!"
Daegan swings at the elemental before him, trying to finish it off before it flies away again.
"Get back, foul creatures!" Daegan moves a bit away from Igmar, trying to distract the creatures.
Igmar tries to seize the momentary distraction to standup, but it draws the attention of the creatures before him, who attempt to strike him back down.
Igmar stands, taking a hard blow from the elemental. Pick in hand, heswings at the elemental in retaliation.
Igmar misses, throwing himself off balance.
The blue creature attempts to flap her leathery wings to hover in place, and swipes again at Igmar.
Daegan curses as he sees the blue creature down Igmar again, however he is distracted by the elemental which turns to attack him.
"Igmar is down again!" Daegan shouts out as he dodges the elemental. "Be careful!"
To the north, the giant growls and is driven another step back from Yagello. Cervin's arrows are nearly entirely covered by the fast-moving lichen. The giant takes another stab at Yagello.
The flash of the steel tip is the last thing Yagello sees. With the giant out of sight, Cervin just barely sees Yagello slump to the ground out of the corner of his eye. Fearing the worst, Cervin thinks about his next steps.
Nevinia works at her bindings for a moment and they luckily come off fairly quickly. Nevinia scrambles to open the cage and free her familiar, as she hears another loud roar and the sound of shouting men outside.
Cervin looks wildly around at the enemies closing in and his companions falling about him.
"Daegan, do you have any more healing? I can handle myself if you can attend to the others!"
Nevinia quickly grabs her dagger, torch, potion pouch and spell component pouch and looks outside. The raven alights on her shoulder and they survey the scene. Cursing the horrendous visibility, she trudges out into the blizzard, towards the noise.
Can't stop and heal people, I can keep myself up for now. We may die here. Old Deadeye be with me for when the sun rises Heldren will be safe, or I will be with my grandparents again.
Cervin roars out a prayer, raising his bow to the sky.
"Erastil's light shine down upon us! YOU WILL FALL ON THIS DAY!"
Cervin's bow becomes rimmed with white light. He lets out an incoherent scream and begins firing arrows at the giant.
Daegan shouts back to Cervin. "I can heal everyone, but it will help our enemies as well. I'll try and Igmar back on his feet first!"
Nevinia makes her way towards the noise, and the first thing she sees is a ferocious looking half-orc, fighting with a being that appears to be made of clouds.
Cervin shoots his arrows in the direction of the creature, preying that they find their mark.
Cervin squints after his arrows, but does not see where they end up. Cursing at the weather again, he decides whether to get closer.
As if on cue, another eagle materializes out of thin air, and the fey above stops chanting to cackle manically. Cervin doesn't have time to think as he tries to avoid the talons.
Barely standing from the cold, Arkady watches Igmar go down again. As more enemies appear, he relies on the only thing that he can trust in this miserable weather - his luck.
Touching Cervin on the shoulder, he tries to guide his friend to the best future he can see.
Daegan sees Nevinia approach through the snow. "Look out, we've got another one to deal with!" Seeing Yagello go down, Daegan swings at the bird, trying to move past it. "I'll help Yagello, we need him now!"
Cursing at the bird, Daegan tries to make his way towards Yagello, one arm raised to prevent any attacks.
The bird grabs Yagello, but his armor prevents the half-orc from feeling anything as he moves towards the ranger lying in the snow ahead.
The remaining party members standing wince to anticipate what will happen next and are surprised to see the blue-skinned fey and elemental fly back into the snow to the south. To the north, the giant does not emerge from the mist to assault Daegan. Only the summoned eagle and the tiny fey remain within sight, and the new woman approaching the party from one side.
"Another one? Where?" Nevinia says as she looks around.
The raven on her shoulder mutters back, "No, foolish girl, he means you."
Exasperated, she replies, "But I haven't done anything! And if they kidnapped they'd know--they didn't kidnap us." Something seems to light up behind her eyes and her voice grows more sing-songy in that elfin way, "Oh, you didn't kidnap us, my fair rescuers, did you?"
Her eyes dart to the little fey and glaze over frostily. "Hush, my pretty, My rescuers need me," she replies. Pulling out her dagger, the black surface of its cold iron makeup clear in the torchlight, she adds, "Or run. Either way."
Almost weeping with frustration as Yagello and Igmar falls, Cervin turns angrily on the eagle, loosing two arrows at it at point blank.
The fey turns to face Nevinia, his giddy laughing stopping for a moment. "Look who has woken up! And free already!" He switches to the glottal language he was using earlier.
The eagle sees Cervin draw his bow, and tries to scratch at him before he can fire.
The eagle scratches Cervin's face, causing one of his arrows to go wide, but the other arrow catches the eagle's wing. The creature screeches in pain, but manages to stay aloft.
The fey fishes for another stone from his sack, and fires one at Nevinia in retaliation. "Have your fun now, the true witches will make short work of you!"
Daegan trudges the rest of the way towards Yagello and makes a brief prayer to Gorum as he touches the ranger lying on the ground, expecting the huge beast to come back out of the snow any moment. "Forgive my brevity, my lord, but help us today!"
Nevinia's raven glowers at the fey as she staggers back.
He caws, "So it is you!" He takes flight off Nevinia's shoulder and rushes the little blue creature.
Cervin looks over at Nevinia incredulously as she emerges from the snow. He is a young man with shaggy hair and a thin beard with a clear, tenor voice. Currently his face is covered in scratches and he looks haggard and weary.
"We're from Heldren! Friend or foe?!"
With that he quickly touches his holy symbol.
Yagello awakens with a painful grunt and looks over to see Daegan standing over him once again. Grateful for the half-orc's help, he nonetheless remains focused on battle and quickly scans the current situation.
He doesn't see the giant, so he takes the opportunity to stand back up and ready his defenses.
As Yagello braces himself, the giant emerges once more from the snow. Yagello watches as the creature walks on the snow as if it was solid stone, with Cervin's two arrows now completely covered in lichen. The monster ignores Yagello, instead thrusting his spear and Daegan behind him.
Daegan barks at the pain, looking to Yagello to at least retaliate while he distracts the creature.
From the south, the elemental flies in again, this time attacks Cervin as the nearest standing threat. The blue skinned creature is a bit slower, just emerging from the mist before the others can act.
Cervin dodges the creature made of smoke, and decides what to do next.
Shaking off the effects of the stone, she looks around and adds, "Keeping the distance, that's your advantage?" Almost pleadingly, she adds, "Friend! I'm sorry, rescuers," as she reaches down and punches into the snow at her feet.
The snow explodes and billows out, making the cover in the area even worse than before. The newcomer fades from view, as do a number of the attackers.
Arkady hears the voice in the distance, and those close to him see a surprised look on his face. "Nevinia? Is that you? How did you get out here?"
As the elemental slams into Cervin, Arkady summons a burst of energy, moving around Igmar and swinging his staff.
Yagello senses the time for desperation has come as his friends take damage left and right. Picturing his late mother in his head, he yells at the top of his lungs as he attacks the giant with all of his remaining might!
Arkady draws the attention of the elemental, even as he misses the being with his staff.
Arkady takes a viscous blow from what feels like a blast of air, but holds his ground to help Cervin.
Meanwhile, the giant pushes aside Yagello's first blow, but the second one cuts into the thick skin, and the giant howls in pain as a thicker mist envelops the area behind Yagello.
Inside the dense fog, Cervin notices the eagle disappear as the fey stops laughing somewhere above, shouting something out incoherent.
A gruffer voice speaking the same language comes from the giant.
Hearing the exchange in the giant tongue, Arkady decides to make use of the sudden fog. After a quick swing at the elemental, he shouts out, "Now, while they can't see! I'll gate in the reinforcements!"
Stepping to one side, he begins chanting loudly.