Fire and Ice 8

General Summary

9 Arodus 4713

While some of us who could still see started preparing to pack up camp, Bronwyn began examining Valeria's eyes and several of us tried assisting by gathering supplies and water and stuff. To be honest, I have no idea what exactly Bronwyn was doing. It wasn't magical; that's all I know. I was pretty useless in assisting. At any rate, after about an hour, Bronwyn successfully restored Valeria's sight. That still left Cassy, Nadja, and two of Nadja's people (is it bad that I don't know their names? It's not like I can speak their language), but we needed to get to Waldsby. Of course, with only two of Nadja's people able to drive the sleds, our group had to handle the other three. That fell to Bronwyn--who's good with animals--and me and Ten-Penny because we're...uh...not particularly good with animals, but better than Grinner and Valeria? Grinner, yeah, I can see that I guess. Don't tell him, but I don't think Billy likes him all that much. Ten-Penny seemed okay with the dogs, but I would have thought Valeria would be a better choice than me, but the job went to me. I'd never driven a dog sled before and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Thankfully, the dogs seemed to know what they were doing. When the other sleds started moving, they followed. I didn't really have to do much of anything at all. After a couple hours, we made it to Waldsby. Waldsby is similar to Heldren. It's smaller, but has a similar layout. The central square even has a statue of a woman, very similar to the one is Heldren. It's called "The Cold Lady" here and just "The Lady" in Heldren. According to Nadja, the people here don't really know anything about the statue; just that it's been here for a very long time. It's not identical to the one in Heldren but could easily have been made by the same artist, which is kind of weird, given how far we now are from Heldren. It's not like the two villages are neighbours. Nadja took us to her home on the eastern outskirts of the village. There she was reunited with her sons--two five-year-old twin boys named Orm and Mjoli. The boys took a liking to Grinner, who seemed to take a liking to them as well. Valeria spent some time with Nadja's eyes and was able to restore her sight as well. After that, Nadja went into town to deliver the supplies she'd brought. Ten-Penny also went to look around town. The rest of us waited at Nadja's. I had no interest in going into town alone, not with everything Nadja had told us about how much people here don't like outsiders. My blue skin makes me look too much like fey, and I can't speak to the local language. It wouldn't go well. Valeria took the time to look at Cassy's eyes and eventually restored Cassy's sight as well. Nadja was back by then, and Valeria went with her to the homes of Nadja's two blind helpers to deal with their sight as well. Ten-Penny eventually returned and confirmed the insular nature of the people here. Considering she can't speak the local language either, I was pretty impressed that she learned anything at all. She's definitely a lot better at that sort of thing than I am. As night approached--well, Nadja said it was approaching. Apparently, we're so far north here, the days are ridiculously long. It's the same sort of thing to how days are longer in the summer and shorter in the winter, just much more extreme. And even though this land has eternal winter, it is still technically summer here, and so the sun doesn't set until after midnight. I don't really understand why, but it's what happens. At any rate, as the time to sleep approached, Nadja offered to let us use her sons' room and she took them into her own room. It was a bit of a tight squeeze. There were only three beds and six of us. Grinner chose to sleep in the front room, which cleared up a bit of space. Cassy cast a spell on Bronwyn allowing her to stay awake all night on watch, so she didn't need a bed.I took the floor as the beds were only child-sized and my few would have hung off the edge, and the other three took beds. We did note that it was a bit strange that there were three beds in the room when Nadja only had two children.

10 Arodus

Bronwyn woke us up in the early hours of the morning. The sun was just starting to come up, which meant it was something like 4 a.m. in this part of the world. Our belongings had been moved around. It was like somebody had been organising them. For example, potions and alchemist's fire had all been stacked together regardless of whose they were. There were also a few things missing. Ten-Penny's rope was gone, and more importantly, so was the clump of white hair the Black Rider had given us as a key for Baba Yaga's hut. There wasn't anything we could do at the moment without waking Nadja and her sons, so we went back to sleep. We would talk to Nadja in the morning. Once Nadja was up a couple hours later, Bronwyn went to talk to her her. Nadja told her that there was a "house spirit" named Hatch living in her place as well. She had rescued him from freezing a few years ago and he now kept her home clean. He was also a bit mischievous, so sometimes hid things. Our missing items would be somewhere in the house or kennels. While Bronwyn was talking to Nadja, Cassy remembered that the ghost of the young girl Sofia had said she came from Waldsby. We put two and two together--Nadja's extreme hatred for Nazhena Vasilliovna and her sadness when takling about the witch, as well as the extra bed in her children's bedroom--and realised Sofia had to be her daughter. Once Bronwyn was done talking to Nadja, Cassy went to deliver the news to Nadja. Cassy took Nadja outside to avoid disturbing the twins, but they later came back in so we all could join the conversation, which was in Taldane to avoid the twins understanding. Even so, Grinner distracted the boys so they wouldn't notice their mother's tears. It turned out Nadja believed Sofia was still alive, but a prisoner of Nazhena. Sofia had insulted the witch to her face--repeating some words Hatch, who apparently despises the witch, had said--so Nazhena, in a rage, had taken her prisoner. However, she had told Nadja that she would be held at the Pale Tower as a guarantee of good behaviour from Nadja and other townsfolk. Nadja now promised us every aid she could give to help us kill the witch. Her exact word was actually bitch, not witch. She did ask that we tell her everything about our mission though, which we agreed to. Once Cassy and Bronwyn had told Nadja about our quest from the Black Rider, Nadja gave us a pair of magic snowshoes. We decided Ten-Penny should take them, as they would be most useful for her abilities. While this was going on, Grinner sought and found our missing items. The clump of hair was in the kennel, mixed amongst clumps of dog hair. Nadja suggested we call out Hatch by telling him of Sofia's death. However, she said that Hatch only spoke Skald and Sylvan, the language of the fey, and again, she didn't want her boys to overhear. Being the only one of us who could speak Sylvan, Cassy called for Hatch to come out. He didn't believe Cassy at first. He even leapt at her in the shape of a cat and scratched her. But then he assumed his real form and he agreed to help us infiltrate the Pale Tower. He used to live there until Nazhena threw him out for being a "pest". He could guide us through the tower and tell us the passcodes for the teleporters the witch uses to move from level to level. Hatch then said to tell Nadja he was taking a leave of absense to grieve, and she would have to clean her own house for a while. We needed to prepare for a journey to the Pale Tower, though. Cassy requested to use Nadja's kitchen table and began work on constructing some magical goggles. Meanwhile, Bronwyn and Ten-Penny went into town to do some shopping. Oh, it came out around this time that Bronwyn could now mirculously speak the local language, Skald, despite not being able to speak a word yesterday. She said Sarenrae had given her the ability. While in the town, Bronwyn and Ten-Penny met a woman, Katrina Goltiaeva from the local tavern. Katrina invited our group to the tavern for drinks. Bronwyn delivered the message, but Nadja warned that the tavern has large mirrors that Nazhena and her apprentice can use to spy through. We decided not to take up Katrina's offer.

11 Arodus 4713

In the morning, Grinner dragged Cassy into town. Apparently, yesterday, he asked Bronwyn to find a scroll of a particular spell for Cassy to learn. It was a spell to find secret doors. He wanted Cassy to use it on the statue in the town square. I don't know why he thought it would contain secret panels, but he did. It didn't. The two of them, however, had an encounter with Katrina Goltiaeva. I don't know exactly what was said, but Katrina apparently got very angry. This would come back to haunt us later. Back at Nadja's, Cassy started work on another magical item while the rest of us just waited around. I wish I had skills to make use of while the others sit around crafting bullets or magical items all day. It gets a bit boring. Cassy didn't get far into her work though. A little while after she started, there were bangs at the door and a demand that Nadja open up. Outside were guards from the Pale Tower. Cassy led us into a closet where she used a new spell she'd learned. It opened up a kind of portal in the air, with a rope we could use to climb into it. Inside was a sort of...room? Cassy used some technical jargon to explain it. At any rate, we could hide in there. Once we were inside, Nadja went to answer the door. We could only hear bits and pieces at first, but then there was some yelling. We recognised Hatch's voice amongst the yells. He was assaulting the guards. There was little else we could do, but come out and intervene. The guards were trying to arrest Nadja, so we put a stop to that. I mean, holy shit! We were good! I think we're starting to finally fall into synch as a team. We know what we're all capable of and we're not getting into each other's way as much. We're also getting better at what we do. A couple blasts from Bronwyn's gun and a couple of guards went straight down. And me... I discovered some new abilities in this battle. I can burn people now! Let me clarify, because obviously, I burned them before. However, before, my fire just scorched and scalded. It did deadly damage, but it wasn't intense enough and long-lasting enough to easily set things on fire. Now, I can make it do that. The first guard I hit caught fire. He collapsed and burned to death! I don't mean to make light of a person's death, but well, we were fighting for our lives. And these bastards worked for a child murderer. They deserved everything coming to them. Something else happened with me, though. When I toss fire, I can do things to modify it. I can stretch the range or, now, set people on fire. I can even do both. But to do them, I either have to take a little extra time to gather the power, or I can just sort of...I don't really know how to explain...I just sort of expend some extra energy from within me. It leaves me feeling a little off for the rest of the day, so I don't do it much. I'm also not sure how often I can do it. However, I had to do it early in this battle, and it happened differently. It still felt off like usual, but I also caught fire. Sort of. I didn't burn--or rather, I didn't feel it. But small flames crackled over my entire body, and somehow I had better aim for the battle. The flames stuck around even after the battle. It was kind of exhilerating during the battle, but afterwards... This could cause me problems. At any rate, the guards started running, but reinforcements, including their commander arrived. However, that didn't help them much. They soon all went down. After the battle, townsfolk started emerging from their homes. Katrina Goltiaeva goaded most of them into booing us and calling for us to be driven out. Cassy tried to talk to them, but most weren't willing to listen. Although I couldn't understand the words being used at the time, the basic meaning was clear. The townsfolk felt that our actions would bring Nazhena's wrath. And they were probably almost certainly right. We needed to get to the Pale Tower as soon as possible. We dragged the guards' bodies back to Nadja's so we could prepare. I'm still burning as I write this, but it's not burning the book, thankfully. With concentration, I can stop the flames briefly, but they come back as soon as I stop concentrating. I really need to figure this out. Anyway, that's all for now.

All my love,
Izzy (and Frono)