Fire and Ice 17

General Summary

4 Rova 4713

We didn't make it much farther into the Howlings before we spotted a strange robed figure up ahead. Although the robe was covering much of it, there were little hints of light glinting off its hands and from something under the hood. Ringeirr Malenkov said it was a "mirror man", a spy for the white witches. He said we needed to convince it we belonged there or destroy it quickly before it could send a report. The name, mirror man, was a pretty good description. Its face was just a single convex mirror, and its arms and legs were metal polished to a reflective shine. Ten-Penny approached and tried to bluff our way past like she had at the gate. Unfortunately, the mirror man quickly declared her a liar before she'd barely had a chance to say anything. So we followed Ringeirr's second option and destroyed it quickly. Although we certainly dispatched it before it could send a report, Ringeirr expressed concern that the sound of the guns would attract attention. Just past where we encountered the mirror man, we reached the place we were delivering Ringeirr's food supplies to. Some people came out and helped us unload the cart and carried the food into the house. There was no time for introductions. They said a quick thank you, and then we were on our way again. We had to retrace our route partway and then turn another way. On the way, we noticed four men with white hair (presumably winter wolves) arguing outside a tavern. They were very obviously drunk. When they saw us, they gave up on their argument and tried to bully us instead. They said they wanted to eat Billy. Ten-Penny responded by turning into winter wolf form and intimidating them to back off and then told a story about how she was late arranging a reception for a Jadwiga witch named "Nazhena" and that they'd better back off before they brought the witch's wrath down on us all. A couple of them tried to respond with a bit of bravado, but they soon took off when Ten-Penny threatened to tear them apart. Not long after that, we bumped into a human man running and out of breath. He said his master was angry at him and begged for help. Two winter wolves came sprinting around the corner just after that. The man, Jorhan, was the slave of one of the winter wolves. He had made some error that had angered his master, and his master had told him to run. The two winter wolves were enjoying the chase, planning to eat Jorhan once they caught him. They invited Ten-Penny to join them in the chase. Ten-Penny went into bluff mode again, saying she'd love to, but she couldn't. To explain, she wove a tale similar to the one she'd used on that last batch of winter wolves. She added that she was short a worker and offered to buy Jorhan. The winter wolf was reluctant at first. Eventually, Ten-Penny sweetened the deal by bringing out "Fuck You", saying he was a delicacy she'd been planning to eat later, but she was willing to offer him as part of the payment. Not surprisingly, Fuck You didn't like the idea and tried to give the lie away by telling the winter wolf that Ten-Penny was not a winter wolf. Luckily, the winter wolf didn't believe him, and agreed to sell Jorhan for 75 gp plus Fuck You. I have to admit, I feel a little bad for Fuck You. He was odious and annoying, but I wouldn't really wish being eaten on anyone. Cassy apparently felt similarly as she tried to intercede just before the deal was finalised, but Ten-Penny slapped her for speaking out of line. Ten-Penny apologised afterwards, saying she had to keep up the act. We took Jorhan with us and continued towards our destination. Around the next corner, in the opposite direction to where we were going, we spotted several ice trolls interrogating a pair of winter wolves in human form. Ringeirr explained that the trolls and winter wolves were often at odds. We should keep going and pretend we hadn't noticed them, even if they expressed interest in us. A couple of the trolls noticed us and seemed about to come after us, but we kept moving. Our destination was just ahead at the end of the street. Ten-Penny made it there first, but the door was locked. Ringeirr said to get it open and not bother knocking. We had to get inside right away. Ten-Penny began picking the lock. To buy us time, Cassy cast a spell at the ice trolls. It was a spell of blinding light--one of her favourites that she uses all the time. However, this time she did it stealthily and made it look like the winter wolves had cast it. This started a fight between the trolls and wolves, giving us the time we needed to get inside the house. Inside, we met Mortin, the forger we had come to see. He was a bit suspicious of us at first, but Ringeirr vouched for us. He also seemed to want to placate Ringeirr, who was angry the door had been locked. Mortin told us we had a couple different options for papers he could make us. He could makes us stilyagi papers as we had discussed previously with Ringeirr, but he warned that they would be easier to discover. The stilyagi and noble papers used special "arcane marks" to protect against forgeries. He said he had means to fake those, but they weren't as good. As an alternative, he could make us slave papers. They would be much harder for others to realise they were fake; however, slaves are not allowed to wear armour or carry weapons larger than a dagger, so we would have issues there. Most of us were fine with stilyagi papers, though Grinner said that he didn't really want to be that. I was also concerned. While the stilyagi might like pretending to be foreigners and other races, I was very clearly not human. Same with Grinner. Mortin said that was fine. There are non-humans who live with stilyagi as guests and have very similar papers to them. He could make those kinds of papers for me and Grinner. Grinner, however, still preferred to just have slave papers. In the end, we decided that all of us except me and Grinner would have stilyagi papers. I would have noble guest papers, and Grinner would have slave papers. It was a surprisingly quick job. Mortin was done in under an hour and part of that time was just him gathering his supplies. He clearly wanted us out of his place, so I hope he didn't rush the job. The papers have worked for us so far, though, so all seems good. I'm not writing this from a prison cell. As I said, Mortin didn't want us sticking around, so as soon as we had the papers we headed out again. We reached the edge of the Howlings without incident. There, two mirror-men stopped us and demanded to see our papers. We showed them. The mirror men took our papers from us one at a time. With each of us, they just held the papers for a few minutes. It was impossible to tell it they were studying the papers, or just holding them while trying to look intimidating. If the latter, they were successful. Eventually, however, they handed back the last of the papers, told us, "Public dancing is strictly prohibited," and let us into the rest of the city. Whitethrone is visually pretty impressive, much more so than the Howlings. Many of the buildings are done up to look like they're made out of gingerbread. We walked along an icy road that, after a while, we realised was paved with skulls. That was kind of disturbing. There was a huge wall of evergreen trees that Ringeirr said was blocking the way into the Merchant's Quarter. He said that was new. To the south, we could see the royal palace--made entirely of ice--rising out of the lake. The city was busy too. All around us were creatures of all kinds. To be fair, most were human, but there were also trolls, winter wolves, ogres, goblins, and more. Ringeirr took us south towards an area of the city called the Floes. This district was on a group of islands in the lake just north of the palace. He took us to a bathhouse called the Water Palace. The receptionist there seemed to know him and let us all past into the back rooms. He took us into the basement and then into underground tunnels he said connected all the local bathhouses. Finally, he revealed a secret entrance in one of the tunnel walls. We went through and arrived at the headquarters of the Heralds of Summer's Return. And I'm out of time for writing again. I'll write again soon.

Love,
Izzy (and Frono)