"I talked your dogs. To see if they knew anything. They didn't. About anything going on in town, at least. They probably know lots of stuff about other things. They said there were other dogs in town. Hunting dogs, at a stable--do you know who owns them? If they're the witch's dogs I probably shouldn't talk to them. Witches could probably talk to their animals. I'm not a witch, though," muses Eirikr, not noticing how Inire and Nathara seem to be looking around for something.
Nathara is indeed looking around for something and her eyes suddenly widen a little. She does take a few steps further into the room, winding by Nadya with surprising litheness given her seeming absent-mindedness.
"Hmmm..." makes Nathara as she stares with a strange intensity into empty spots of the room. "I certainly would like to be able to talk to Ashen right now as well." And that even though I am really more of a cat-person. She looks straight to Ashen for a moment. She breathes in heavily through her nose.
Then she suddenly turns to Nadya. "Whatever we do, we must make sure not endanger... your sons... I am sorry, what are their names again? I was a bit surprised that they were here all alone; I was rather expecting to find your mate or your sister or your parents here as well after I saw your boys."
To Evelyn she remarks: "Intelligence is indeed important, even though I am inclined to think that Lady Nazhena already knows that we are here and there are indicators that she is playing her game with us. She certainly knows what we're after. There is something strange about this... symmetry we found in the village. Solas mímhacánta*." Then she glances to Tiferet and touches the palm of her right with her left. Technically she rather seems to be looking at Tiferet's hand.
Nadya looks over at Eirikr. "They probably meant the communal barn over near the Weasel. Most people wouldn't be able to afford their own, so we share one. If I remember correctly, there are maybe two cows and Tjorvar's hunting dogs. Well, they used to be Tjorvar's..."
She gives Nathara a strange look. "Orm and Mjoli," she repeats. "Not very good at names?" She tries to smile, but it falls a little flat. A small sigh escapes her lips. "The boys are the only family I have left. My husband died two years ago. He was out hunting and came across a hungry troll..." She looks down, clearly not wanting to relive the memory. "The... housekeeper was watching them while I was gone. My trips are often rather long and he's used to caring for them when I cannot. I'm afraid that if you want to meet him, you'll have to wait until he's ready to show himself. He's a bit... different, and rather shy around guests."
"As for the symmetry..." She shrugs. "I really can't say."
Nathara sighs in relief as she identifies the spells. "Then I hope Sarenrae will watch over your boys and they will see her first summer by the time they will have grown up to kiss their first maidens. And I shall do anything within my power to make that possible."
She lowers her head in a bit of shame. Her story made perfect sense if her housekeeper was a sprite or a pixie. "I dishonor my kind by being a horrible guest, I can only ask your forgiveness." She turns to the others which share the mantle of the dark rider with her. "Mending, prestidigitation, lullaby, invisibility. That is all." She unhooks the sheathe in which her sword is from her belt and puts it next to her backpack.
"I meant what I said earlier: We stand out pretty much and Ezhana will learn of our arrival in the village pretty soon if she hasn't already. She knows what we look like, and if she learns that we have been sharing your company she must the witch must be aware of the extend of our knowledge. A knowledge that we must indeed extend." she nods to Evelyn. "So what do we know so far? And how might we get to an insider in her tower?"
Inire returns to the main room with a shrug, having not spotted anything worth noting, just in time to hear the story and for Nathara to explain what was going on.
"We met a troll on the other side, before coming here named Teb... we burned the body." she says, before changing tack. "How large and how far is her home? When she last visited the town, how large was her entourage?"
Nathara's touch seems to abruptly wake Tiferet from her torpor. A subtle nod indicates the dusky blademistress' carefully worded innuendo is not lost on her, yet even as her warrior instincts kick in, she can't help but feel a sense of gloom at the notion of the young mother possibly having led them into a trap.
It is with a sense of relief, then, that she listens to Nathara's findings. A housekeeping fey. That would also explain Vosi's warning, as some fey are known to sense each other's presence.
Nadya nods. "The Pale Tower is a few hours from the village on a good day. It's four stories high and surrounded by an ice wall." She frowns. "The witch usually has at least eight guards when she comes to inspect the town and prefers to have a dozen. Her last visit was two weeks ago and that's when..." She trails off. "Thora made her angry."
"Is it possible to know when she'll next leave her home? If we can enter while she's out, taking her guard with her, we'll be at an advantage... then when she comes back, things should be simpler. We'd need to avoid any mirrors though."
A Domovoi, which explains the spells Nathara mentioned, thinks Morgraine, who still has not said a word since arriving.
"Used to own them? Who owns them now?" says Eirikr after Nadya mentions the hunting dogs at the barn.
"Domovoi! Little fairy spirits that do housework. There's one here, isn't there?" says Eirikr, looking around the room. He reaches for his pack--and then remember he doesn't have one, and that they probably left their rations tied to Lily. "We should offer it food--does anyone have any?"
Nadya chuckles. "Yes, Hutch. He's shy around strangers, so you'll have to let him come out when he's ready. And don't worry about the offering. I leave some milk and bread out for him every night so he can eat while he's working."
She looks at Inire and shakes her head. "Unfortunately, no one has heard a word from her since her visit. There have been rumors that she's gone off to report in Whitethrone and left the tower to her followers. I can't say how true that is though..."
Nathara follows the conversation, but once awoken, the spirit in her that reeks deception and betrayal is not easily silenced. And she would probably not have put down her sword if it wasn't for claws which she could still use; which the demon in her actually preferred to use.
But she did not want to become more impolite; Nadya had shown them hospitality after all that she had lost in a land of eternal winter (well, long lasting - it wouldn't remain eternal if their little gang could do anything at all about it).
She tries to keep her voice down to avoid waking the kids up, but speaks a few words in the language of the forest.*
"That is a situation we might be able to take advantage of. What do you know about these guards? Are they trolls? People recruited from the village? How are they armed?"
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* Sylvan: Then we shall cherish the beauty and peace you worked so hard to bring into this house, noble spirit.
"Do you know anything about the Fey she controls? We've heard rumor that she controls them with a spell that has a focus in her tower, if thats true we might be able to turn them against her."
"The guards are human warriors, mostly my own people. A number of Ulfen people work for the witches willingly. It's the only way for them to feed their families. They carry a variety of weapons, mostly swords and shields I believe." She pauses and thinks for a moment. "She has at least one or two other spell casters working for her and a few fey creatures. Mostly sprites and the like. I don't know exactly."
"Is there anyone you are aware of who is close to her, but who might also bear her a grudge?"
"I don't really know." Inire offers, "How to do any of this. I'm good at spotting things and not being spotted, but beyond that.." she shakes her head.
After the short pause, Inire continued, "We also need to move quickly... before she realizes what has happened on the other side. If we don't, things might get harder, faster."
"Well humans I can handle fairly easy, do the guards use much in the way of magic?"
Nadya nods. "There might be one more thing I can do to help. Well, sort of. Hutch used to be one of the cleaning sprites in the tower. He might be able to tell you more about the interior. If you can get him to talk to you. As for magic users, I believe one or two of her lieutenants is a spell caster of some sort, but we rarely see anyone save the guard sergeant and the ordinary soldiers in town, so I can't say for certain." She scowls. "A witch's servants are too good to mingle with the commoners."
"Hutch sounds like exactly what we need, one of you want to talk him into helping us out of should I?"
"He's more likely to be friendly with you. Do you speak Sylvan?" Inire asks Evelyn, then looks to Nadya, "Or does Hutch speak our language?"
"You might as well... as for trying to get him to talk us... Fey do like music, don't they. So is there anything we can do that is quiet enough so we won't wake the kids?" Nathara glances over to Tiferet.
"I can try" says Tiferet as she subtly hums, then intones a faint lullaby, a soft, sporadic banging providing the accompanying tempo.
Though her distress makes her pounding nervous and unsteady at first, her song quickly picks up rhythm. It speaks of a girl lost in the woods, of an evil witch, and it ends with a plea for help.
Tiferet's song quickly fills the room. As she finishes, nothing seems to happen. Nadya shakes her head. "I don't know what to say. He's like a member of the family, but he's still a fey and a bit... capricious. He may leave you a message to see while he's cleaning tonight."
Nathara closes her eyes for a moment as she listens to the melody Tiferet plays. "That was nice, sweet and soft."
Nathara considers the details they've been given for a moment. "A wall of ice, an absent mistress... that all should be doable. Whoever is in there must come out on occasion. That all should be doable... If Hutch won't show himself then maybe we should indeed rest."
"I wish we had some honey. The more southern fey are supposed to like it..." Inire says, though given that it was a fiction trope, it may not have been entirely true.
"All we really have to do is wait." she adds, looking towards the fireplace. "We could try to go hunting and foraging some more?" she asks, looking towards Eirikr, and tilting her head.
"Just messages? Would it be possible for us to talk in person instead?"
Nadya shrugs. "You can just talk to the room. He's around the house somewhere, usually. He never appears in person when anyone other than the family is around though. He's... nervous around outsiders."
If no one else attempts to Evelyn will try her best to coax the fey out. "Worth a shot we need all the help we can get. Hutch, if you can hear us we need to speak in person." She took a moment to see if he responded and to get over the feeling of talking to air."The witch has hurt this family and we need your help to make it right, I know she has power over you and all fey but if you stand together you can retake that power."
"Please, Hutch" says Tiferet in an uncharacteristically feeble voice. "Talk to us. For the laughter that used to brighten this house and is now no more, for every small child in Irrisen whose life hinges on the cruel whims of some Witch. Help us take down the accursed Nazhena."
A long moment drags on, and it seems like the house spirit may not respond. Then there's a rustle of something being shifted around on the far side of the room and a cabinet door swings open. A tiny man cautiously peaks out. There are noticeable tear stains running down his face.
Inire chews on her lip as she watches the little fey come out. She didn't really have any idea what it was... but it seemed harmless enough. It took care of her kids for her while she was away, after all. She slowly took a seat on the floor, to hopefully not spook it, and pulled out her diary.
Evelyn gives a warm smile trying to lure the fey further out. "We know the witch is powerful but she only grows in power the more you and the other fey support her, if we can get them to rise against her we can take her down."
The small man steps out carefully, eyeing the party suspiciously. "There's little that can be done there," he says. "Most of my kind revel in the chaos that the witches let them create. And most that don't want nothing to do with humans. You'll not find much help from them."
"But what about you?" asks Scribe Mouse from her seated position. "Can you help us?"
Hutch strokes his beard. "I... might. Cleaning the tower made sure I knew all of the little corners rooms. The lower floors at least. I was never allowed to the higher floors. But... I can describe the lower floors and how to move through the tower."
"Anything you can provide would help us, if you can make a map from memory it'd give us an advantage we didn't have before."
Nathara beams radiantly as Hutch appears. She curtseys, even though she is too tall to make the gesture work for him.
She speaks a few words in the language of the fey. It is apparent from the way she gestures towards her comrades and uses their names that she is introducing everyone. She also expresses her gratitude for the privilege of getting to see him, which she considers by no means natural in case of the fey (Vosi is, of course, still hiding, but she most certainly won't expose him. That is his choice, even though Nathara assumes that Hutch realises that there is Sprite hiding.)
To Evelyn's comment she adds: "Indeed. We can make one together. Of outstanding importance would be ways in and out unsees, ways for creatures of our size to overcome the ice wall without being seen, where we may find prisoners and people who might need saving, whether there is anyone inside who is not there voluntarily and might be willing to assist us, where we can most likely expect to be resistance while the mistress is not at home... and access to the..." She pauses briefly and wonders whether she should say that, but continues otherwise: "Well, the soul shards of the fey. We intend to give them back. A soul is categorically inalienable in my opinion, any transaction with a soul is void and evil in its core, in my opinion."
Hutch nods his head slowly. "I'll try." He digs a slightly old looking piece of parchment and a well used pen and begins to sketch out a rough map of the tower's first floor. "That's the best I can do. I wasn't allowed to see all of the tower. There were others to do that kind of work."
"Any ideas how we might be able to sneak in?" adds Eirikr.
"Thank you, anything that will give us an advantage we'll need." Evelyn was disappointed she couldn't talk they fey into helping more but by her look you'd never be able to tell as she genuinely thanked the fairy for the map.
Inire looks over the map, eyes darting from room to room, taking in subtle details as best she could from what she had. "Any other windows or doors in? Only one entrance also means only one exit. Any subtle dangers that you'd seen... activated accidentally?"
Nathara looks at the map, but it does not really appear as though there was a way in on that level. The door that connected the entry hall to the larger tower was somehow drawn strange, but it appeared as though it was not necessarily required to pass through it. "Yes, thank you" Nathara mumbles absent mindedly as she studies it.
An amazing drawing, indeed.
"Those are servant quarters, I suppose? Or do the guards have quarters there?" She taps with her claw top at the three rooms with beds in the east most part of the drawing.
Hutch taps his chin. "Getting into the tower is easy. There are plenty of doors and windows on the ground floor. The issue is the guards. And the way up to each floor is... difficult. There are ice teleporters that go from one floor to the next, but if you don't have a password or a key, they don't work." He looks at Nathara and nods in response to her question.
Nadya looks thoughtful. "I might have a way to get you past the outer walls, but I'm not sure it would work."
"We might be able to bluff our way past the guard but if you've got something else please do share."
"That's part of my plan, but if you had something to make your bluff solid..." She smirks. "I do need someone to deliver my produce after all."
"Whatever spares us the trouble of storming the battlements, is good in my book" Tiferet says after looking lost in thought for quite a while. "But once we're inside, it's going to be bloody. We might be able to talk our way in, but we'll have to fight our way out."
"How do these exchanges normally go, exactly..?" Inire asks quietly, still scribbling bits and pieces into her book.
"Normally the guards pick up supplies and tribute in town, but this is a special circumstance. It wouldn't be strange for me to deliver the supplies directly to the tower. At the very least, they'd open the gates to come out and pick everything up. They might also let us into the courtyard to unload everything. Plus, if you're trying to be stealthier, you can hide weapons and armor in the sleds."
"Sounds reasonable to hopefully get us inside. Once there though, we'll have to be ready to fight. There will be trouble the moment they discover we intend more than to deliver and leave."