Fire and Ice 16

General Summary

It's been a few days (okay, a week or so) since I last updated you, and I don't really have an excuse for that because I've had lots of time. Sorry about that.

24 Arodus 4713

After dealing with the thugs, we had no time to take stock of the situation before ogres burst out of the nearest buildings and attacked us. Ten-Penny was still down and dying, though Valeria managed to stabilise her even though she couldn't get over to heal her. I was able to make it to Ten-Penny to try to give her a healing potion, but I had to keep blasting at the ogres. A man with a rapier also came out of one of the buildings and joined in with the ogres. We later learned he was Marcian Enarxian, the leader of the "Watch" in the Fishcamps. Eventually we took down the ogres and Marcian. We were then able to heal Ten-Penny and the rest of us injured in the battle. A small crowd had gathered at a distance all around us, watching the battle. With the battle over, they began moving in a little closer. Very slowly. They were obviously concerned about us, but it was also clear they were out for blood--not ours, but that of the thugs who had been terrorising them for so long. The man they had been accosting when we came to his rescue confirmed this. Ten-Penny headed into the building where she had been told Ringeirr Malenkov was being held, while Bronwyn, Grinner, and Siona searched the other building the ogres had been in. That one had a sign on the door saying, "Guardhouse". Ten-Penny found Ringeirr and called out to the rest of us. Valeria and Nadja joined her and the three of them talked for a while. I confess I kind of just stood outside, not sure what to do. Cassy was fussing over Marcian and got Siona to wake him so she could question him. She gave him only one question: What could he say to convince her not to give him to the mob and instead give him a quick death? The man tried to bargain for his life. He offered to give us anything we wanted. Cassy asked if he could give us papers for Whitethrone and he said he could. He admitted they would be forged papers. Around this time, Ringeirr came out and declared the man a liar (this was also when we learned his name). Ringeirr said Marcian could not get us papers--not ones that would pass casual inspection, at any rate. Bronwyn then shot Marcian dead. Cassy was annoyed by this as she had intended to give him over to the mob for lying to us. Which was precisely the reason why Bronwyn shot him. There were two surviving thugs. Cassy was going to let them "swim to safety". In freezing cold water that had chunks of ice floating in it. Yeah, Cassy can be...vindictive at times. However, she relented and let them take a boat to get away. They did agree to repent first. We then took what Grinner had found in the buildings and Ringeirr led us to his hut. As we left, I looked back to see the crowd moving in on the bodies of the thugs and ogres. I then turned away again. I didn't want to watch what they were about to do. At Ringeirr's, he asked what we were doing in Irrisen. While he was very glad to see Nadja again and he trusted her judgement, if he was going to help us get into Whitethrone, he wanted to know more about us. So we told him about Sofia and that we needed to get into Whitethrone to find the witch who'd killed her so we could avenge her. Ringeirr wasn't fully convinced. It wasn't that he didn't believe us; he just (correctly) felt that wasn't the whole story, and he demanded to know the full story or he wouldn't help us. So we told him about the wintry summer in Taldor and the portal. We even told him about the Black Rider and the quest we had accepted to find and rescue Baba Yaga. Ringeirr then told us what he could do for us, including filling us in on a secret he said even Nadja did not yet know. He told us he worked for a group called the Heralds of Summer's Return, a resistance movement opposing the Jadwiga who control the country. He smuggled supplies into Whitethrone and sometimes even smuggled people out. He told us that Whitethrone was under martial law. Queen Elvanna had made known her intention to continue ruling. She had "disbanded" (in other words, forcibly removed) the Iron Guard (a military group loyal to Baba Yaga) and replaced it with her own Winter Guard. It was even harder to get in and out of Whitethrone than normal. However, he knew someone he felt could get us in, a man named Mortin who lived in the Howlings district of the city. The Howlings is where most of Whitethrone's winter wolves live (though Mortin is not a winter wolf). There is a "gate" there (really just a hole in the wall) that the winter wolves use to go out hunting and then return. It was guarded like any other gate, but by the winter wolves themselves and they were more susceptible to bribery. We could get in that way and then get papers from Mortin. We told him about the magic rimepelt we had and he agreed it would be invaluable in getting us through the Howlings gate. He confirmed that, while in Whitethrone (and a short distance outside the wall), winter wolves could take human form and the person using the rimepelt would be able to do the same thing. Ringeirr suggested our papers could claim we are part of a group called "stilyagi". They're a bunch of entitled, rich Jadwiga who like to pretend to be foreigners and adventurers. Ringeirr was certain Mortin could provide us with the fake papers. He only asked one thing in return: that we help him with a delivery at the same time. After we had the papers, he would introduce us to the leader of Whitethrone's group of the Heralds of Summer's Return: Solveig Ayrdahl. We agreed. First though, we needed to rest, and stock up on supplies. Ringeirr told us to take whatever time we needed. There was no immediate rush.

25 Arodus 4713

The most remarkable thing happened this morning. It happened while Cassy was jabbering on about some discovery she'd made about her gun jamming (she seemed to think it was something big, but really, what I'm about to say is much bigger). Frono started talking to me! Seriously, it became more than just an empathic feeling between us. It was actual words. The others only heard his usual chittering and squeaking, but I heard words. His words were not particularly polite, though. He told me Grinner was not a real familiar. Cassy tried to tell him he was wrong, and I tried to tell him Cassy knew what she was talking about. After all, Cassy's a wizard. She knows these things. There are many different kinds of familiars and Grinner is one. Frono would not be convinced. He's doing it again now as I write this. He's insisting Grinner isn't a real familiar. I just don't get what he has against Grinner. Anyway, we said goodbye to Nadja today. She said she wished she could come with us, but she needed to get back to her boys in Ellsprin. Cassy gave her the magical mirror we'd gotten awhile back so she could contact us if she needed to. We then resolved to spend the next several days making preparations. This mainly meant Cassy, Bronwyn, and Siona would be crafting stuff, and the rest of us...well, we could do whatever we wanted.

26 Arodus - 3 Rova 4713

This was the period where I really could have written all this stuff down already, and I'm not entirely sure why I didn't. I didn't have a whole lot else to do. But it just didn't cross my mind. I kind of went stir-crazy. Grinner and Valeria helped Ringeirr with his duties in town. I tried on the first day, but the other townsfolk were so scared of me, I had to go back to his hut. Ten-Penny spent most nights "socialising" and the days sleeping. She would head out in the evening every night and come back in the morning. I'm not sure where she was socializing. The Fishcamps doesn't even have a tavern. And I had nothing to do. After the first couple days, Cassy suggested I assist her. I could hold and carry things for her, fetch things. It was something to do so I agreed. In reality, while I did a little of that, I mostly just watched her do a bunch of fiddly things while she talked about the magical intricacies of what she was doing. I tried to look interested, though I didn't understand most of what she said. Grinner accused us of flirting with each other, and seemed quite annoyed by it. I'm not sure I'd call it flirting. It was light flirting at most. And it's not like anything could come of it anyway. I could never really have an intimate relationship--at least, not one that became physical. My burning hot skin would kind of get in the way.

4 Rova 4713

We were finally ready to enter Whitethrone. We gave the rimepelt to Ten-Penny, as she's the best at...well...mincing words of us (I don't want to call her a liar, but she'd be a good one). Ringeirr led us to the Howlings gate and Ten-Penny used the rimepelt to turn into a winter wolf just before we got there. She then took a human form which looked very different from her actual form: taller, white hair, more voluptuous. We were approached by a winter wolf in human form. Ten-Penny went up to talk to her, claiming we'd been attacked by bandits who had stolen our papers. They talked a bit and before long, it was pretty clear, they were flirting with each other. The winter wolf, whose name was Greta, agreed to let us through the gate if we paid 30 gold per person, except for Ten-Penny. Ten-Penny got to go in free if she agreed to meet Greta later that night. Ten-Penny agreed. After we were through the gate, Ten-Penny admitted she wasn't sure what she was going to do that evening, given the rimepelt only lasted a couple hours and couldn't be reused, but she said she'd deal with that later. We had not gone far into the Howlings when we were ambushed by a group of snow goblins. Ringeirr had warned us to avoid fights at all cost--except for goblins. Even in Whitethrone, no one liked goblins, so no one would care if killed any. We actually only killed one of them. The others ran away as soon as their leader went down. And after finally sitting down and writing this out, I have to cut off in the middle of things again. Oh well. Talk soon.

Love,
Izzy (and Frono)