Fire and Ice 13

General Summary

15 Arodus 4713

Dealing with the blindness was simpler this time. We had experience with it now. Valeria spent an hour carefully tending to Nadja. She was our guide, so it was best to deal with her first so we could set out on our way. Valeria worked on Siona and Tianma while we travelled. It was slower work this way, but it meant we kept moving.

16 Arodus 4713

This evening, Nadja told us about her late husband's uncle, Ringeirr, who lives in a place called the Fishcamps just outside Whitethrone. She suggested we should contact him for help. He might know how to smuggle us into the city. Getting into Whitethrone apparently requires all kinds of official documents because they don't like foreigners and only let a select few in. Nadja also let us know a little about Whitethrone, in particular that winter wolves are the local enforcers. The winter wolves can even take a human form inside Whitethrone. Cassy was particularly interested in how they could do this just in the city, but Nadja didn't know any further information.

17 Arodus 4713

We can across a lone hut today. It was just standing by itself in the wilderness. We saw no reason to stop, but a woman with radiant red hair came running out, begging us to stop and help her. She said her name was Sylgja and that her husband had been taken by a moss troll. She begged us to find and rescue her husband, promising us rewards if we did so. Grinner was convinced this was a trap. To be fair, most of us thought it was a trap, but Grinner was adamant that we should ignore her and keep going. But we couldn't ignore the possibility Sylgja was sincere. If we ignored her plight, we'd be letting an innocent person die. So, despite Grinner's protestations, we let Sylgja guide us to the cave where she'd seen the moss troll. Nadja stayed back with Mjoli and Orm. When we found the cave, a creature covered in mould and moss ran out to attack us. It was smaller than what we expected a moss troll to be like, but it was aggressive and so we retaliated. During the fight, Cassy and Siona realised this wasn't a moss troll. It was a human infected with something called mindslaver mould. We realised this had to be Sylgja's husband Finngarth. She had seen him in his infected state and must have mistaken him for a moss troll. When he didn't come home, she assumed the troll had taken him. Grinner apparently thought it was still a trap. We redirected our attacks as best we could to affect only the mould, and Valeria did what she could to heal Finngarth. Eventually we were able to destroy the mould and burn it. Finngarth was save. We returned him to Sylgja at their hut, where the two of them offered us food and a place to stay for the night. While Sylgja prepared the feast, we talked with both her and Finngarth. (Sylgja frequently interrupted her cooking to hug and kiss Finngarth. She seemed to have a hard time keeping her hands off him.) We asked them why they lived alone in the middle of the very dangerous Irriseni wilderness. They were a bit cagey in their answers, claiming at first that it was "safer" here. Bronwyn asked if it was something to do with Sylgja having a tail. This was something none of the rest of us had noticed. The tail was hidden under her voluminous robe, but Bronwyn is the most perceptive of us, and not a lot gets past her. Finngarth and Sylgja admitted that she was something called a huldra, a type of fey. She showed us her tail, a luscious red fox tail. She also has a hole in her back, and her body is hollow, with bark on the inside like the hollow of a tree. We understood then why they chose to live in the wilderness. In a town, if anyone discovered Sylgja's true nature, they would become targets, driven out or killed. So the wilderness really was safer. When the meal came to an end, before we went to sleep, Sylgja and Finngarth gave us a magical bear trap as a reward. There wasn't actually enough room in their hut for all of us, so only Nadja and the twins slept inside. The rest of us camped outside.

18 Arodus 4713

We said goodbye to Sylgja and Finngarth this morning and headed out again. That evening, as we were setting up camp, Nadja called out in alarm. Orm was missing. He had been gathering firewood and must have wandered off. Working together, we quickly found his trail and found him not far away. Unfortunately, he was surrounded by wolves. We had gotten there just in time. The wolves weren't ordinary wolves. They were something called boreal wolves, magical wolves similar to winter wolves, but smaller and less powerful. We distracted them from Orm, who was able to slip into the trees for safety. Then we kill the wolves.

19 Arodus 4713

We took a couple of boreal wolf pelts when we left this morning. Later in the day, we reached summer. Okay, that's a weird statement, I agree, but it's literally true. We encountered an area where it was suddenly summer. It was warm and the snow stopped. You could look at a literal line of where the snow stopped. Trees and plants were in full bloom, and there were all kinds of animals. Nadja told us she'd heard of this sort of thing, but had never seen it. Local druids frequently tried to overcome Irrisen's curse of eternal winter. Sometimes, they were successful with small pockets of land. They were able to return the land to summer. It never lasted more than a few months before winter reclaimed the land, but in that time, they could become beautiful places, as this one was. We spotted a giant elk grazing majestically. Unfortunately, we also spotted a group of wolf-like creatures called worgs stalking the giant elk. Once again, we went to the rescue. We distracted and killed the worgs while the elk got away. That's all the time I have for now. Talk to you soon.

Love,
Izzy (and Frono)