"So noted."
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"I have never been this far east before," Ecaterina says to Nadya. "Are there any particular customs I should be made aware of, so as not to make offence?"
Coming up from the rearguard position, Alikai stops by Ecaterina and regards the village. "Any orders, mistress?" she says loudly, with a slight wink at the witch. Ecaterina looks down her nose at Alikai, and nods at Nadya. "We shall join Nadya at her residence. Her hospitality so far has been exemplary, I do hope that the rest of the villagers will be as helpful to me." She makes sure to speak so that the villagers can hear her, but without resorting to raising her voice.
Ecaterina looks at Nadya and nods. "Yes, this is an acceptable plan. She gives a flicker of a grin, before her icy demeanour returns. "It will be interesting to be as well regarded as my mother for a change, and not just deferred to due to my association with her."
Ecaterina's eyes narrow as she realises, what the creature standing before them is. "Oh I get that a lot," she says, trying to sound a little more like Nadya, but not really succeeding too well. "I think that maybe somewhere in the distant past perhaps, as I don't seem to feel the cold like most of my friends do."She continues to watch Mierul out of the corner of her eye as she talks to the others, eats and leaves. She hopes that her mission isn't going to be threatened by the bard's presence. Once Mierul is gone, Ecaterina tells the others what she is and that the party needs to be on their guard, as their enemies may now know that they are in the area, as she doesn't think the bard was fooled by Nadya's tale about them being her family.
With a faint shiver, Gaelin looks relieved to have Ecaterina’s healing magic. ”Thank you,” he says sincerely. Ecaterina nods at him, accepting his thanks. When Mierul arrives at the camp, her eyes narrow as she tries to discern anything she can about the fey creature.
Her eyes narrow at the mention of Nazenha.
Wary now that they are back in her home country, Ecaterina says nothing and follows along with the others, silently watching for any signs of the trouble she'd been sent to investigate.
Ecaterina notices the fuss made over Gaelin's wounds and walks forward, laying her hand over his wounds without asking permission. An icy chill spreads out from where her hand touches and his wounds start to close, icy frost seeming to knit them together.
Ecaterina holds out her hand and a ball of hard packed snow begins to form in it. She moves forward and throws the snowball at the Giant Mantis.
Ecaterina waits for Malden to head past the trap, then follows if he hasn't been fried to ash...
Ecaterina ponders for a moment before answering.
"The dolls are not common magics, but I have heard of them. Fell creations that utilise the trapped souls of children to power them." She sneers in disgust. Such magics are cheap ways to power. True power must be earned, not powered by others... "I would take it to mean that The Winter Queen is Queen Elvanna. But surely she cannot be the architect of this, at least not directly. If it is indeed her that is doing this, and not her minions like my mother suspected, then we are in far more danger than I at first thought." She seems to ponder for a moment. "No, if it were in fact Queen Elvanna, then there would be much more powerful guardians here. She may ultimately be aware of what is happening, but I suspect that this is some plan of one of her pawns." "Burn it if you wish," she says to Malden. " There is nothing here for us, and it will be one less outpost our enemies have in this place. we must be swift though, as now that our enemies know of us, we shall more than likely see some trouble ahead."
Ecaterina moves forward with Sahsara and attempts to examine the doll.
When it speaks and flies off, a worried look comes over her face.
Ecaterina follows Sahsara up the ladder, keen to see what secrets the hut will hold.
Ecaterina looks as though she wants to get to the hut quickly, but also seems almost afraid of it at the same time.
Ecaterina looks around at the Menhirs and scowls. "Stand firm. It is merely a trick, do not be fooled. The Druid is right, we have already proven that we are much stronger together."
Tristan turns to Ecaterina. "Does that name mean anything to you?" Ecaterina scowls at the mention of that name. "Yes, that name means something to me. She is an agent of Queen Elvanna, and a rival of my family. If she is involved in this, then I fear we may need help in our endeavours to find an answer to our problems. While I know very little about her, I know that she does hold a measure of power, I believe she rules some village or other, but I am not sure which one. We must be cautious."
"Wait," Ecaterina and Malden both exclaim at the same time, as they both start off towards where the girl ran to.
Ecaterina steps toward the little girl and kneels. wary for a trap, but not wanting to appear so, she reaches out a hand towards the young girl and tries to comfort her.
"No," Ecaterina says in response to Sahsara's question, "this is a very specific choice of decoration for this hut to have. I can't say that it's significance bodes well. Hopefully it will just be a coincidence."
Gazing into the clearing, Ecaterina is at first worried about the hut's appearance, but then relaxes a little upon seeing that the legs are simple carvings. "Thankfully, this is not the hut of my great, great, great, well you get the idea, grandmother. As Malden has pointed out though, we should not let our guard down. Just the appearance of this hut, is cause for concern. It is clearly from my homeland, and the carved legs can be no mere coincidence."
Ecaterina looks around at Alikai and Malden's warning. "Should we be spreading out to search for the beast, or pushing forward and wait for it to come to us?"
Cursing loudly as her snowball flies wide, she rejects closing on the remaining tree, and instead points at it, once more speaking softly to herself. A small icicle flies forth from her outstretched finger, aimed towards the trunk.
Realising that putting them to sleep would probably be a wasted course of action, Ecaterina calls forth a hard packed ball of snow from thin air and hurls it at one of the trees.
Ecaterina's face also hardens at Jeydavu's words, but she refrains from saying anything and instead moves to follow the others along the path.
[ooc]Ecaterina sees... Snow! lol
Ecaterina looks hesitant, almost scared, but composes herself and answers malden's question. "It's... probably nothing, I'm just being silly over nothing, but that hut the hunter described, the one with the bird legs, it sounds eerily similar to the hut of my Great Great Great, well a lot of greats, Grandmother, Baba Yaga. It was she who founded Irrisen and installed her daughters as rulers of my country. My Great Grandmother was one such ruler." She pauses. "I see no reason why Baba Yaga would be here, and the hut does not quite match the description of her hut, but it is unsettling all the same. We should be cautious."
Spoiler: I figured that kinda info would be stuff that Ecaterina would know as part of her heritage, if it's not, just retcon it as if she didn't say anything, sorry.
Ecaterina's skin goes pale at the mention of the hut with bird legs, quite a feat given her already pallid complexion. She shakes her head and whispers to herself, "no, it couldn't be, surely not in this part of the world. Why would she be here of all places..."
Ecaterina shares her findings with the others and tells them to be on their guard. She double checks her new silver dagger is easy at hand just in case, and waits to see what the others wish to do regarding the beast.
Ecaterina moves closer to where Alikai and Jeydavu are examining the tracks. "Perhaps I may be of some assistance," she says to the pair. "I may not have much knowledge of the undead, but I have an interest in the natural world and so might be able to identify what made these tracks." She peers intently at the tracks, looking around at the surrounding landscape for any other clues as she does.
Not knowing much about the undead, Ecaterina holds back from attacking, to see what tactics her companions use. After a brief pause, she ses that their skills were more than ample to complete the task without her assistance.
Ecaterina finishes her examination of the corpse and reports her findings to the others.
"Yes yes, of course," she says as she pulls the long length of fine rope from the large satchel she carries slung over her shoulder and hands it to Alikai. While the others are busy pulling Gaelin up, something that she wouldn't be too helpful with, even if she were inclined towards the manual effort, she makes her way across the bridge carefully to examine the body of the fallen creature.
Torn between wanting to get across first before anything happens to the bridge, and hurrying across to join battle before anyone but Alikai is engaged, she hesitates just long enough for a line to form ahead of her. Deciding quickly that hurling a Snowball at the icy creature would be next to useless, she instead whispers a plea to the forces of Winter for aid. Pointing across the gorge at the creature, she closes her hand in a tight fist and calls "Sleep"
Turning to Ecaterina, she explains, "He gets grumpy when I bleed on stuff. Besides, sometimes he's more right than my father. Thanks for the offer. Hope it's an open one; I may still need it." "Of course. You are all that stands between myself and the hoards of nature. I want you as healthy as possible!" You're not quite sure whether shes joking or not.
Starting off towards the bridge, Ecaterina announces, "I'll go, I fear for the stability of the bridge and I'd hate to be the last one across and have it give way."
Ecaterina eyes the scene being played out with a calm demeanour. Once Alikai is up, she steps forward.
Ecaterina eyes the bridge with a look of worry. "One at a time is definitely the way to go, the last thing I want is to fall to my death out here because an old bridge collapsed under me. And the moose should definitely be going last." She eyes Chtonthoth with even more worry than the bridge.
"Yes, as much as I would like to stay in the relative comfort of the Lodge, I too think it would be best to press on. The faster we can get to the bottom of this, the faster we can all spend more time in the comfort of a soft bed."
Ecaterina points out the wildlife of her homeland as they make their through the forest towards the lodge. Her gaze lingers on the building, probably the last chance to see anything resembling civilisation for some time to come, as the townsfolk escort the bandits back to town. Sighing, she prepares to move out with the rest of the party, bowing to the superior tracking skills of the others.
After dinner, Ecaterina excuses herself so that she can retire to her room, and a restful night in a real bed. After waking up as late as possible, she manages to get herself a bath. She then spends some time teaching the new spell they found to Lepi. She then goes into town to find some equipment for travel; a small tent and some blankets. She's not keen on carrying them around, but is loathe to spend more time sleeping uncovered in the outdoors, even if it means some work getting the tent set up.
She turns to Ecatarina, a bit abashed. "Your pardon if I seemed to blame you. You said a family enemy might be causing this, and my mind jumped to... witches. Can you tell us more of those you suspect, lady?" Ecaterina seems to take no offense at Alikai's words and shrugs at the woman. "I see no reason that jumping to the conclusion of this being the work of Witches is a bad thing. It is exactly the kind of thing that others of my blood would do. Of course, my family is not of the Jadwiga Elvanna we are Jadwiga Yelizaveta, and so we are more concerned about the stability, safety and longevity of Irrisen, rather than the day to day power struggles that the current rulers are so fond of." She takes a sip of her red wine, makes a face and puts the glass back down with a sigh. "But my mother suspects that one of her rivals, a White Witch of the Jadwiga Elvanna, is behind this. So she has sent me here to this too warm place to bring back proof. And so I must traipse about the countryside like a commoner, poking my nose into every hole in every tree like some woodsman because my mother thinks it will 'build character' in me." She sighs again and takes a longer pull of her wine, stifling her grimace.
Making it to the tavern while listening to the banter, Ecaterina finds a table large enough to seat everyone and orders some roast meat and strong red wine. Now that she has what she wants and is in a better mood, she turns to the newcomers and introduces herself.
Ecaterina looks impatiently at the assembled group.
*sigh* "While I'd prefer not to be sleeping while there are mischievous Fey about, I agree that trying to find somewhere else now out in the cold at night is a bad idea too. And despite my resistance to the cold, I for one want to sleep in a nice warm place rather than in a snow drift under a tree." With that, Ecaterina prepares to move her gear to somewhere out of the way to get some more sleep.
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