"Good point, anyone got something to gag them with?"
"I have rope, would that work? If not, I also have thread and a needle so if nothing else their lips could be sewn shut, but I would advise against that." Lies says, holding her rope in one hand and a needle in the other.
"Or we could rip their shirts for it," Raseri offers before taking the rope and trying to gag them.
Kaveri sniffs once at Mabs before laying his head on his paws, apparently content to wait for now. Tobias watches the skeleton warily, as if sizing it up for the kill. "Never saw anything like that," he mutters. "Someone bringing necromancy into my woods? No place for that nonsense here." He shakes his head bitterly.
Without looking back at the others, he adds, "Should have some leather in my pack, if y'wanna use that. Smaller hides, rabbits 'n such. Good hobby stops a man goin' mad."
Storhrid softly whines and curls up beside Raseri.
"Not the first ones we ran into," Raseri mutters back, [smaller][b]"someone made some dead man walk where these bandits attacked a noblewoman."
At Storhrid's whine, Kaveri huffs softly and wriggles over to rest his large head on her back. Tobias snorts in disgust, glancing at Raseri, his face twisted into a grimace. "Well, we'll have to see to that. It ain't natural. Something dies, you bury it, or leave it for the scavengers. Don't go commandin' it to keep walkin'." His eyes go back to watching outside, waiting for safety.
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Agreed," Raseri growls as she reaches down and rubs Storhrid's ears.
You successfully gag your prisoners and wait for the bandits and undead to leave. After a while though you can still hear the muted, distorted sounds of twigs snapping, crunching snow, and disturbing wailing outside the cave. It doesn't seem they want to relent in their search for your little hiding spot, but it doesn't seem that they are able to find it.
Tobias hisses a curse through his teeth, and Kaveri shots him a glare as if to reprimand his two-legged friend. "Looks like they're still looking for us. In fairness, I would too. Looks like we can either spring 'em, or wait it out." He drums his fingers on the pommel of his sword impatiently. "Ras. What do you think?" he asks, glancing at the Ulfen woman.
Raseri keeps her eyes on the entrance as she rubs Storhrid's ear.
"Let's wait, and pray they don't find us," she whispers, "They'll have to move on soon if they don't want to lose whatever trail may be there."
"Then we wait," Tobias sighs, sitting back on his heels and absent-mindedly scratching Kaveri under the chin. "Here's hoping they move on soon."
Grandma pulls our some cookies to encourage everyone to wait patiently.
"Cookies always help the time pass faster." she says with a smile.
Tobias offers Mable a grim smile, but takes the cookie, idly munching as he continues watching, keeping a hand in front of his mouth as if to muffle the sound. Kaveri sniffs cautiously at the offered treat before deciding to try it.
Raseri grins and also takes a cookie with a nod of thanks. She eats it slowly, taking small nibbles from the edge. Seeing Kaveri trying Tobias' cookie, the young ulfen quietly breaks a small piece and offers it to Storhrid. The white wolf sniffs at the piece of confectionery before taking it from Raseri's fingers.
Slowly, the day becomes night and the sounds of your pursuers fades away. It also starts to become very, very cold...
"Alright, sounds like they're giving up at last." Tobias finally turns away from the cave mouth, stretching his arms and nearly collapsing against a wall. "May's well hunker down for the night. Only one way for anyone to come in, 'nuff room for us all to sleep. I propose a watch order, so someone can keep an eye out for trouble - and to knock out these ones if they wake up." He jerks a thumb at the bandits.
Grandma tries to recall all of the details she remembers of the strange skeletons.
"Those strange skeletons, I seem to remember hearing about something like that. Now what was it?'
Grandma seems to notice to shivers of the others.
"A fire might be helpful tonight. I would hate for you to come down with a cold. Would one of you quiet dears go out and make sure the area is clear of visiters and then maybe we can start a fire to warm you all up"
Strangly Grandma does not seem to be effected by the cold.
Mable recalls hearing about similar forms of undead called burning skeletons, horrible creatures of unlife made with necromantic magic to the specifications of their masters. They usually burn with a horribly bright flame, searing anything near them... Problem is, Mable is very sure that even though they are similar, these skeletons aren't the same, tainted by winter as they were.
"We will have to be careful with a fire, we want to make sure that we don't attract their attention again, after all we just lost them." Lies comments, offering up her opinion on the matter at hand.
"Careful yes but I am afraid what will happen to you if you get too cold tonight."
"If we pack snow around the entrance, it should block the light. Tobias, can you help do that real quick?"
With a nod, Tobias sets to work, piling up snow to cover the entrance. Still stiff from his watch, he grunts from the exertion, but otherwise doesn't complain. "Should have plenty of furs in my pack," he mentions. "Was planning to sell 'em when I got back to town."
Storhrid snuggles up next to Mable as Raseri works with Tobias to cover up the mouth of the cave.
After they finish up, she gives Tobias a hearty clap on the back as they get a fire going.
"Nice to see that Taldor hasn't made all of her men soft," she chuckles before turning back to the prisoners.
"Well, well, well. What to do with you," she says with a sinister smile, her normally bright eyes going flat and cold, "I could cut you up and use your corpses to feed our wolves, but if you could be so kind as to be useful in some other way, I might be convinced that using you to keep our friends here from going hungry isn't the best use of you. Now, if I take your gags off, are you going to start hollering? It's been a long day, and I am not a very patient girl."
"Only the strong survive out here, lass," Tobias answers with a grim smile, warming himself by the fire as Raseri addresses the prisoners again. Don't particularly want to kill them, but we can't just let them go, he thinks regretfully, shaking his head. "Reckon there'll be no yelling here. Let's try talking like proper folk."
Grandma Mable looks gently at he prisoners.
"Here dearies have a cookie it will make you feel better." she says as she hands them each a nice cookie.
All of the prisoners seem quite "impressed" by Raseri's sinister threats and one of them looks particularly scared. However, none of them speak, though one of them still has an almost blank look on their face with a creepy smile.
When Tobias speaks up, they seem to calm down and all except the creepy one take one of Mable's cookies gratefully. You all notice something about them... but you can't quite put your finger on it.
"Oh I could strip you all naked and let you freeze outside if you'd like," she says coldly, her face a mask of ice and her eyes like the deepest coldest waters of the sea.
"So, you can either talk now, or I can save us both some time and just take the lot of you out with naught but the rope around your wrists and ankles, starting with you," she says nodding to the smile on his face.
She'll give them a minute to start talking, then she'll give them a thin smile before she drags the bandit with a creepy smile outside.
Grandma Mable watches each bandits reaction as she hands them a cookie.
@ Mable: They all seem to be occupied mentally with something. They are indeed scared but not by you or what is around them. When you get to the smiling fellow you get the feeling that he doesn't even know where he is until his eyes snap to you and his smile gets even wider.
@ Raseri: It seems that your threats against them were unheeded and ignored as they seem to be mentally occupied with something else... though for some reason the guy with the smile is getting creepier as he looks at Mable...
"Don't particularly want to be killing any of 'em," Tobias sighs, getting up to follow Raseri with a grunt. He hadn't liked the smile on that fellow. "Kaveri, vernda hana." He nods at Mable before heading into the snow after Raseri and the bandit, trying to figure out just what's with this guy.
"If they don't give us much information, that may not be our decision." Lies states calmly.
Lies has no desire to see these men die, but she doesn't want them to know that.
@ Raseri:You lead the bandit out into the night among the snow.
Once she has the man a little ways from the group's shelter, she stops and turns the man to face her. Their breath and Storhrid's steams in the cold, night air.
"Let's start with something simple. Why do you keep looking at Mable with that creepy grin on your face?"
"How many of you are there?"
"What was with those walking skeletons?"
"Where is the lady being held?"
"Are you friends of the cold fey."
The man looks slightly panicked but keeps himself together although a little angry and distracted. Storhrid sniffs the air in his direction and looks a little happy and relieved.
Halfway out after Raseri, Tobias chances a glance over his shoulder at the other captives - and freezes. Realizing that they're just as scared of the other fellow as he is, he turns to face them. "Let's shed a little light on this. What's gotten into your friend out there?" He crouches in front of them, elbows on his knees, eyes intent.
"Yes, I did," she says with growl, "that is the least I will do if you don't calm down and answer my questions, all of them, with as much truth as you can. My temper grows short when I am among liars and cheats. How many of you curs are there?"
@ Tobias... and whoever is listening:One of the prisoners looks to the side, "The witch-", the other prisoner gives him a nudge, "Shut your trap! You want him to hear you? If we say anything and it gets back to him.... Just keep quiet! They could do less to us than he ever could..."
He spits in the snow for emphasis.
"A witch?" Tobias raises one eyebrow, brushing an errant snowflake out of his beard. "Nothing down here that can hear you but us and the soil. Why don't you tell us a bit more about this witch? Might help us reach some kind of arrangement."
Upon hearing about a witch Granda looks up in surprise.
"Witch what kind of witch. Where is she from?"
The man that had been taken outside didn't look like a witch to Elizabeth, but then, she had very little understanding of what a witch did look like.
"Who are you afraid of?" She couldn't help but ask.
@ The Group in the Cave: The prisoner that spoke up first before turns to the group, "He's right... I'm not saying anything else until the mirror that Jeb has is gone or smas-" The other bandit headbutts him hard in the face and kicks him awkwardly from the ground, "You idiot! Stop talking or we are all going to-"
Silence consumes everything all of a sudden and is then broken just as suddenly by the familiar sound of the winter corrupted undead... and it sounds very close by.
Grandma pokes her head out of the cave.
"Find a mirror and break it now! it should be on that guy!"She whispers.
The captured ones were talking, but his friend doesn't seem to like what they're saying. He watches the lines around his friend's eyes work in frustration and impatience. He yawns once to relieve the tension in his own body, showing his fangs. The two-legged ones didn't like seeing them.
He pauses, sniffing the air once. That smell. That unfamiliar, unnatural scent. It smelled like old bones and snow, but old bones didn't move. That was wrong. A deep growl escapes his throat, his fangs bared again, and this time his friend notices.
"It's back!" Tobias hisses, body tensing like a bowstring as he whips his head towards the cave mouth. "Kaveri, komdu. Núna!" With that, he darts out of the cave, into the snow and the cold.
"Raseri! Við höfum fyrirtæki!" he calls, despite knowing that she's probably heard it already.
"Perhaps you can see if that wagging tongue of yours can tell me anything useful before I do you the favor of cutting it out," she snarls before pinching the bridge of her nose.
"All you Taldane are useless, you know th--"
Then she hears the creak of a skeleton and Tobias' warning.
Blue light briefly flares in Raseri's eyes as she looks around, her sword in her hands.
"Þú sendir dauðum til að berjast fyrir þig. Veit að ég er ekki hrifinn," she taunts, as she looks around for the dead thing.
Storhrid stays by Raseri's side, her hackles raised and teeth bared as she growls.
A burning blue light appears in the tree line ahead and the air is filled with the crackling of frost as it starts to coat everything in the area with layers of white ice. More blue light shows in a few more directions as it gets closer.
It seems you may be surrounded.... but they are not yet in sight.
"Well, does your blood yet run hot with the lust of battle? Or shall I send you to cower behind the skirts of the elder woman of our company," She asks both Tobais and the bandit, a manic grin beginning to spread across her face, "I long for a good fight, but all they seem to send me are cowards and dead men."
Storhrid, meanwhile begins to pace back and forth excitedly, her paws kicking up the snow with each prowling stride.
"Tell me you feel it," Raseri whispers, almost prayerfully, "let the Starsong bear witness to this night, for tonight my blood runs hot!"
"Do you see me backing down, lass?" Tobias asks grimly, drawing his father's old sword. "Living out here, you learn a few things. Even if you're a damned fool, all too eager to spill their blood and your own in your battle-lust, you'll not face them alone." His eyes dart left and right, sizing up the terrain and the directions of the lights, trying to get a handle on potential numbers.
The bandit Looks at Raseri like she's mad, "F**k that!"
He pats himself down and reveals a very tiny mirror somehow hidden on his person and speaks at it,"Why the heck are "they" here?... Never mind, just get me out of here!
A voice emanates from the mirror in cold, genderless candor, "How dare you speak to me in such a manner... "They" are here because your master sent them after I forwarded your location. It seems your usefulness to both of us is at an end." A slow laughter sounds from the mirror before cutting off abruptly.
The bandit stares at it for a minute and chucks it into the snow angrily and looks to Raseri and Tobias, "Kill me or let me go, but either way I'm not staying here." He then Runs off toward an area between the lights.
Reaseri, surprisingly, laughs at Tobias' answer.
"Better a damned fool than a dead coward," she says as the bandit's scream fades, "We are surrounded, my friend, but we have them right where we want them," she grins as she picks up the mirror the bandit had dropped, "Pray to what ever devils or demons you serve. Make peace with this life, for when I am done here, I shall be there to spill the ice from your veins, Babasdottir. Then you will know why you do not send the dead to fight a Whitescale!"
Then with a howl, she flings the mirror to shatter it against a fallen tree.
"Folly it may be, Wild walker, but I am a daughter of winter's fury. I cannot deny the feeling flowing through me when I know that I will be laying the wicked low," She turns to Tobias, her smile wide and her teeth, were her teeth always that fang-like, glittering in the light of the moon and stars.
"Will you join me on this hunt? Will you, please," she asks, almost begs the huntsman, while Storhrid, a mirror of her mistress' excitement, begins nudging Kaveri and playfully nipping at his ears.