"I don't know" Lars turned his head to the right and left in a slow manner "The only time I believed we were dealing with bandits is when we had an encounter with that log, if this is an ambush I don't think a bandit would have done it this way. A warning sign on the other hand, yes, some outlaws would do things like that" His fingers ran against the chain shirt under his coat, as he looked at the peculiar sight before them.
"If it was up to me I'd walk around whoever was unlucky enough to die in such a way" His boots began crushing snow once more as he shifted his position to the right slightly to look at the area from another angle "But if you want whoever owns these legs out, I suggest we start looking for any signs of bandits, logs, fey, stags, elementals or whatever else gets thrown at us" The tone of his voice was somewhere between jest and annoyance.
"I think it might be worth the effort, particularly if the body has on cold weather clothing. I think we're all going to need it before long, even me. If I knew I'd run into these temperatures again I would have kept mine, sadly I sold them a few months ago when I didn't think I'd need them again." She looked around as well, "I agree though, checking for traps or watchers would be a good idea."
As Mirri and Lars look over the area they find no sign that there is anyone hiding and no sign of a trap... It sadly looks as if the body was simply discarded here, all too much like an apple core that was finished while on the road.
"I don't see anything that could be dangerous. You can pull him out if you want to" Lars placed his hands into his pockets as he looked past the legs that sprouted out of the ground.
It was strange how they never seemed to be close to their quarry. How fast could those bandits be? Could the fey be protecting them from the cold? It was mystery to Lars and while he had to admit that not everything they encountered could be related to those they hunted, it still appeared like they were taking the most difficult route to get there.
"We have been trailing these bandits for a while now, and even if they had help from the fey they still have to stop somewhere so they can hide the lady and send their demands" Lars' eyes kept looking towards the road that awaited them "What I am wondering about is besides caves and makeshift shelters, is there a place here they could use to hide in?"
"Or maybe they just came prepared," Zisel offered, looking around at the folks who were getting quite cold. "It's possible they're better equipped to cover the terrain. You lot do move quite slowly across it."
Of course, Zisel says that as she stands on top of the snow without falling through, not a footprint to be found from her. Hardly a fair judgement.
"Do the tracks suggest any sort of horses, dogs, or sleds? I'm afraid my ability to read tracks is... well, nonexistent."
"Mostly humanoids and some horses, probably the ones they stole when the nabbed her highness" Lars knelt as he looked at the tracks they were following more closely "I guess what horses they have aren't enough for the lot of them, they are probably using them to carry their loot and the lady, doubt she walked all the way here...I don't think there are a lot of nobles that are used to long journeys on foot" The former pirate stood up once more and waited on his companions to either pull the corpse out of the snow or continue on their way.
Jamarcus eyes the corpse and nods a bit to himself.
It's gettin' cold out here, lets check the dead guy for some threads and see if he got any gold
Zisel purses her lips but holds her tongue. She didn't like the idea of looting unknown and mysterious corpses, but on the other hand there was no sense in leaving usable goods on a dead body either.
Mirri turned her attention to Lars, "How far ahead of us do you think they are Lars, have we gained on them? Can you tell how far behind them we are?"
"Well, we can't leave him lying half-in half-out like that," Theora sighs, propping her staff against a nearby tree. Sootfeather alights instead on Zisel's shoulder, locking eyes with the woman before turning them back to the scene before them. "If he's a bandit, we can see if he had anything useful; if he was an unfortunate casualty, we should be able to tell his family. Jamarcus, dear, would you give me a hand?"
It takes a moment and a little digging to help free the body, but you are able to remove it from the snow. He is dressed in simple clothing but it has been kept in good repair, along with his body you find a composite longbow with a quiver containing 12 arrows, a dagger, and a masterwork handaxe. His coin purse is still with him and it jingles softly with the movement.
"At least two days" Answered Lars before exhaling a plain to see stream of air that quickly dissolved into the chill atmosphere.
As he brushes snow off the body, Jamarcus looks carefully for signs of struggle, wounds, or other causes of death.
There is signs of bruising and possible broken bones. If you had to guess, the ice elementals you just fought probably gave him the same rough treatment they were about to give Zisel and Mirri.
The sound of metal falling on metal could be heard as Lars dropped all the equipment and gear he had picked up along the journey in front of him "This chase has gone on for far longer than I thought, good luck to those to you all and send my regards to the lady" Said the former pirate before he started walking back to Heldren and from there hopefully to a much warmer place.
"Where I come from, there are three kinds of people who weave magic, druids, clerics, and witches. Up until now, you seem like a witch, not a Jadigwa, but still a witch.[b] hearing Theora's reaction, his attitude slightly changes, as if trying listening to the woman. As for keeping an eye on you, there are many ways that could be interpreted."[/b] Grimkell says, trying to sound ambiguous, but not succeeding so well.
For remainder of the walk, he unsuccessufully tries to keep up with Zisel, utterly failing, and starting to look more and more frustrated. However, as he is about to yell to the woman in anger, they come upon the body buried in the snow. Like shifting winds, his attitude changes from one extreme to the next.
Wide eyed with curiosity, Grimkell approaches the body. Too focused on the new event, he does not react to Jamarcus' comment. He helps the others to uncover it. Once done, he kneels in the snow, and inspects the body. That is, until he ears Lars drop all his gear and bid them farewell (well close enough).
Grimkell gets mad again. Standing up, he turns toward the blond man who is now leaving them. He yells out to him, calling him a coward and saying that he won't get to help him with the ladies has he had promised. Seeing as though the ex pirate does not turn around, he shakes his head and turns back toward the group.
Disabused, he stands there, not interested in the body anymore. He waits for the others to be done.
With the revelation of the Longbow Mirri seems to pay more attention to what was found. Though one look at it and she was sure the draw weight was more than she could handle. Still she picked it up to see if it was something she could use more effectively than the crossbow.
Zisel turned from watching the body's extraction to look at Lars. She raised both brows in skeptical judgement and shook her head as he man walked away, even with Grimkell shouting at him. She gives a shrug, she hadn't had time to get attached anyways, and returned her focus to the body. Mirri appeared to by trying out a bow and Zisel stepped to the side to ensure she was not in the line of fire.
"Odd," she commented aloud, but at exactly what (as there were a few odd things going on at once) was a mystery.
"Well, no warm clothes," Theora sighs, standing once more and brushing her hands off on her thighs, patting away the fine powder-dusting of snow. Before she can say anything more, Lars is throwing down his gear and walking off, with Grimkell hurling a litany of rage after him. Sighing, she glances down to Jamarcus. "Take the gold if you must, dear. Shame he wasn't appropriately-dressed; we could have used warmth more."
As Grimkell finally calms himself, she places a hand on the man's shoulder. "Calm yourself, dear. He grew disinterested; it is his right. We will press on, and your tales will simply have one less subject. As for the ladies, perhaps there will be others to help you, mmm?" she adds with a small chuckle.
Sootfeather tilts his head, and taps Zisel lightly on the cheek with the side of his beak, as if testing her boundaries.
"We should build a pyre for him, if we do then we can take the clothes and, once they are warmed up, wear them over existing clothes. It won't be as good as true cold weather clothing, but it will help to wear layers."
Pym huffs a sign of exasperation when the crow lands on Zisel's other shoulder. She seems to momentarily forget Sootfeather's presence, though, when Lars storms off; she seems greatly amused. "The Sharp Tongued Man is leaving?"
When Sootfeather taps Zisel, Pym fumes. "No! The filthy beast is attacking sister! Sister, do not let it attack you! Kill it!" and then with a more plaintive whine, "Friend of Crowwwww! Friend of Crowww! It is attacking the Sister Who Wanders!"
"I'm afraid the draw weight is too much for me to manage. If someone else would like it then by all means the bow is yours." Mirri moves over to Pym and tries to soothe her, "Sister, while I realize crows are a fearsome threat to one of your stature, and that you are a valiant warrior for having dealt with so many, but to those of our size a single crow is little threat. If anything I think the bird is trying to play, maybe Sootfeather is bored?"
Zisel leans her head away from Sootfeather's beak with a bit of a cringe. "Hey now, beaks to ourselves," she said, though she made no move to send the bird away. "Ah, Pym, it's alright. With you watching out for me, I shall never be left unguarded or unaware. I agree that crows are not... my favorite bird... but I will give the benefit of the doubt."
Zisel moves closer to the body to give it a quick examination, thought she continues to leave the looting to others. She tries to gauge how long the body has been here. Was it a bandit, or just an unfortunate traveler? A local maybe? Why would the bandits leave a corpse without looting it?
Grimkell half listens to Theora's words, the angry storm in his mind drawing his focus away. Half-heartedly, he answers to the woman:
"You are right. Still, I was looking forward to finding a girl for him, drink with him, and tell how changed he would have been. bah. fool." he says, still looking angry, and even slightly hurt.
Too thick to understand that Theora was giving him some support, he moves away, trying to regain some control over himself. However, he dioes not realize what truly made it so hard on him. That is, unbeknownst to him, he had grown fond of Lars, the camaraderie they had been building was just like the one he had had with his father's man decades ago... and had been missing.
Walking by, he kicks snow around. So focuses on his anger, he even kicks the corpse. Annoyed, he looks down on the body.
"Oh.... I know him, I sold him furs last year. I think he was a farmer living close by. Dalsby or Darnsby his name was."
"Calm down, Little One. Sootfeather wouldn't hurt anything much larger than a particularly well-fed tick," Theora chuckles, amused by the sprite's protests. "However, if he bothers you both-" She clicks her tongue and the bird takes wing, alighting on her own shoulder and preening himself industriously. "As Mirri says, the affairs of people are of little interest to him, and he misses his black-winged brothers."
"Dansby?" Theora asks sharply, looking down at the body in horror. "Why, I shared a pot of tea with him not a week ago! What was he doing this far from home?" Her face crestfallen, she crouches by the body, dismayed. "We should give him a pyre, and a proper farewell. It's the least he deserves, poor thing."
Jamarcus picks up the chain shirt out of the pile and proceeds to change his armour.
He takes one last look at the blonde-haired ruffian and turns back to the group, expressionless.
P-p-pyre? Dat's a big-ass f-fire right? Yeah, sounds like a g-g-good idea to me
Pym takes flight and agitatedly flies around Mirri and Zisel's heads until Sootfeather returns to Theora. "Of course he can't really hurt the sisters. Of course..." It sounds like she's saying this more to reassure herself than to state something she already knew. "But still... he should not peck the sisters!! Why isn't he with his brothers? Are they dead, too?"
The group spends quite some time finding enough dry wood to get a fire going and after removing what they can use from Dansby's corpse, they place him on the pyre before lighting it on fire.
Zisel has no issue helping prepare a pyre, though she immediately offers to locate the tinder rather than anything so heavy as a real log to burn. It isn't out of selfishness so much as an effort to avoid being seen as weak should she be unable to lift such a thing.
She keeps half an eye on Jamarcus who seems to be shivering more than she'd like. "Hopefully the fire will warm you up as a helpful side effect," she commented while they prepared.
She left the finer points of it all to Theora and Grimkell who seemed to know the poor fellow.
While the fire is being prepared Mirri realizes that Jamarcus isn't handling this cold well. Since there is little to do but wait she gets her bedroll out and finds a place to lay it out, she gets into the bedroll and says to Jamarcus, "Come here and lay with me while they build the fire up. It will be tight but it will help warm you up while the fire is prepared, then you can use it to warm yourself a bit before we move on."
Grimkell shakes his head... it looked to him like the man had come to hunt... food, or bandits. Just in case, he would need to play a dirge for the man. Not sending off a warrior to the afterlife without a song would be much worse than sending a simple peasant with one.
"yeah, poor man. Did you know him well? What would one sing at his funeral? That he was courageous? You know, Lars was right, what could bring all these creatures around here? There is clearly something darker than bandits... something that must be related to the snow." answers Grimkell to Theora, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Turning around, Grimkell searches for an axe among the items they recovered from the stash. Finding none, he starts cutting branches from the closest pine tree with one of the swords (not his own).
Upon hearing Mirri invite Jamarcus, Grimkell chuckles to himself before calling out to them:
"Well, at least I don't have to work hard to match Jamarcus, seems like he already found someone interested in laying next to him... if only to warm him up."
"His brothers are not dead, Little One, but he has chosen to stay with me rather than them. He and I have a common friend, don't we?" She asks this last directed at the crow, who caws loudly in agreement. He withdraws his head from his wing, holding a black plume in his mouth, and drops it in the woman's hand, spreading his wings and looking rather proud of himself.
"Why, that's a wonderful idea. Thank you." Theora begins working the new feather into her mantle, her face grim as she turns back to Grimkell. "Dansby used to be a soldier in the Taldan army, and while I didn't know him during that time, I hear he fought with pride and honour. He deserves a soldier's farewell if anyone does."
At the skald's comments on Jamarcus and Mirri, she clicks her tongue sharply at him, scowling down at him with mock reproach. "No more talk of that, you hear? There are small ones present!" she teases, indicating the sprite and the crow. She gratefully accepts the tinder from Zisel, offering the woman a smile as she sets to work on the pyre, broad shoulders and strong arms easily hefting the wood into place.
Jamarcus cocks his head to the side at Mirri's words, like an animal listening to an unfamiliar sound.
He shakes his head, a somewhat wistful smile on his face.
Self control ain't one o' my strengths, I'll keep warm luggin' in some o' dat' firewood
Making sure he's in Grimkells direct line of sight, he stomps through the snow, kicks down a mid-sized tree and hoists the entire thing on his back.
The group is able to collect enough fallen branches and the like to create a pyre.
Jamarcus kicks down a small, dead tree.
"Then so be it Jamarcus, don't complain to me when you're cold later." With that Mirri stays huddled up in the bedroll a brief bit until they are ready for the pyre to light at which point she rolls up her bedroll and stows it away once more to stand beside the soon to be lit fire.
Grimkell watches Jamarcus tries and succeeds to break down a tree. Impressed, mostly at the uprooting of the tree from the grasp of the frozen ground, the ulfen whistles in appreciation before returning to the task at end.
Grimkell waits for the pyre to be lit by Theora. Then, he takes out his lyre and starts playing. At first, the rhythm is slow, sad, and mostly composed of high notes. But it picks up strength, becomes deeper, seemingly unstoppable. It stirs memories of battle in those around. With a booming voice, the ulfen starts reciting verses in skald, about battles, courage, exaltation, and at last death into battle. The recitation stops, the notes suddenly become high again, more spaced, until the music dies down.
The fire burns high and the smoke can likely be seen miles away. You only hope that there isn't anyone around that you wouldn't want to see it watching. Grimkell's song and words are moving and of a great honor to a fallen soldier. As the fire consumes Dansby's corpse and warms your bones, you find yourselves wondering who is missing Dansby right now.
"We should push on," Zisel says once the body has burnt up as well as it can. "They day has hardly begun and the bandits are likely pushing forward."
As much as she enjoyed the songs and the warmth of the fire, there was still a woman out there who needed saving and an unruly bunch of bandits. And what was with this unnatural snow anyways?
"I agree, we need to finish this quickly so those less comfortable with the cold can return to a warmer place. Besides, keeping moving will help everyone stay warm."
"That was lovely, dear," Theora murmurs, patting Grimkell's shoulder as he finishes. "But time is of the essence. Let's press on."
While the warmth of the fire was a welcome relief, Jamarcus finds the smell of cooking flesh to be a bit offputting and is stuck between staying closer to keep warm and backing off to avoid the smell.
Grimkell nods to Theora and takes the lead.
"Right, we must push on." he says, giving a look at Jamarcus to make that the man was okay.
Putting away his lyre and strapping his shield to his arm, Grimkell signals the others to follow him by waving at them. The ulfen then follows the tracks left by the bandits.
Gathering together once more, one man less, the party continues on through the snowy forest following the trail of the old prints left by the bandits. Although the snow continues to fall, the trial is still easy to follow. The trail begins to climb a ridgeline to the south beneath snow laden trees.
Mirri kneels to look at the tracks in the snow curiously, something was different about them, "These prints are much more recent than the others, could they have stopped for a long rest allowing us to catch up or are these from someone else?"
"No idea, Mirri," Zisel mumbles as she inspects the tracks herself. She glances over her shoulder to the other three. "Any of you have the skill to tell what these might be a sign of, or how long they've been here? We should probably use caution if we are catching up. I'd hate to blunder into the lot of them."
Grimkell welcomes a change of page, he had grown bored with following the tracks. He barely gives a look to the surroundings, trying to spot foes, before bending on one knee to observe the prints with Mirri and Zisel.
"Well done Mirri. I can't tell for sure when's the last time they passed by. Maybe they came back to build the snowman... or patrol this part of the path. Yeah, maybe they keep watch around here. We need to be extra careful." he says, remaining stern. He thinks for a moment before turning toward Zisel, stil stern.
"Time to shine newcomer. Walking so easily on snow will definitely help you approach unseen. What do you say? You take the front?" he says, half encouragingly, half as a challenge.