Interlude: Woods of the Winter Court

General Summary

If it weren't for the bitter cold that didn't hesitate to sink its fangs into the marrow of your bones, draining the warmth from your flesh, you would swear the lands of the Winter Court could be the most beautiful you've ever laid eyes on. The otherwise flat landscape is filled with gently sloped drifts of snow that cling near tree trunks and mount around boulders, giving the impression of great giants slumbering beneath a winter quilt.
Boughs of evergreens brush low to the ground around them, burdened by the weight of the powdered snow. Strings of icicles decorate the naked limbs of elm trees, catching and scattering the light, making it dance in wave-like patterns across the drifts as the branches sway in the breeze. The forest seems to stretch onward to a serene white-blue infinity.
The entire world looks as if it was sculpted from the finest fragments of blue stained glass, a moment of time held crystalized in ice. Wind brushes through the icicles, playing them like chimes, guiding your gaze up to the horizon above the trees where you can see a great spire rising. A crystalline palace reaching its towers towards the sunlit sky, spreading a pale prismatic aurora like a fountain over the land. It is the only landmark that breaks the horizon, and you feel as if you could see it from anywhere within the lands of the Winter Court.

Amara

You return your gaze below the treeline and breathe in the sharp smell of cold earth, of frozen damp air, and clear sun. You center yourself and the forest comes alive with movement; ethereal streamers of light fill the space with a spectrum of color beyond shades of crisp white and blue that dance before your eladrin eyes. Sprites flit between tree hollows, harvesting droplets of water from the tips of icicles that have grown dewy beneath the midday sun. Hawk-like mephits glide above the canopy and snowmites scurry into burrows as they pass. A snowdrift to your left truly is an icy elemental, curled catlike beneath a pine. An empty forest overflowing with the life of a hidden world.
Home.
Nearby, you can hear the soft stirrings of a brook as water gurgles across river rock and through fractals of ice. It seems to wind its way through the trees, stretching towards the spire in one direction and away from it in the other. As you drink in the peace, a voice like cracking ice shatters it as quickly as it had come.
"What a pity," it sneers, echoing from the woods all around you. "I had so much hoped you would not heed our warning as you had in the past. I was so looking forward to pursuing you across the Mortal Plane."
A second voice joins it, as smooth and cold as the wind whispering over an empty plane by moonlight; "Yes, sister, we could have had such fun in our hunt, but our little snowmite has returned to the nest." The voice pauses, as if pondering its next words before continuing. "Ah, but are you lost, little thing? Do you yet need us to remind you of the way home?"
Your vision narrows, focusing, every instinct pushing you to act. The forest around you darkens, deep blue light barely filtering in through now sinister arching branches. Where sprites once danced, trees yawn and stretch, looming before you as if to snare you in their ice-clawed limbs. In the distance, a rime of ice spreads across the ground, swiftly covering the snow in sharp whorls of hoarfrost, drawing in around you. This is the Feywild that Mortals fear.
What do you do?

Amara would swivel around to try and find the source of the voices. She doesn't find them but she knows exactly who they are. She calls out "I'm sorry. I know you have a job to do, but I'm not going back with you."
She waits for a second still scanning the trees for any sign of movement. For a few moments everything is still. The silence is then broken by a chuckle and a flash of blue-grey as Amara jumps away from a pair of chardalyn bolas that had been thrown at her. She lands in a snow pile and scurries to take cover behind the closest tree. She waits for a moment, thinking about her options. She's not sure if her friends are nearby, or if they're even in the Feywild at all. But on the off chance they are, running off in a random direction would be a sure fire way to never see them, or anyone else ever again. There's only one thing that's recognizable across all of the Winter Court.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, she heard a chant in Sylvan, and the snow beneath Amara started to whip and whirl in a cloud around her. Ice formed around her ankles locking her in place. She removed her hand axes and hacked the ice away, allowing her to stumble forward out of the blizzard.
Through the wind she heard the voices taunt "Nowhere to run young Venturas. However, It'll certainly be more fun if you do."
And run she would.
Taking a deep breath, she rushes towards the river that flows to the Palace of Air and Darkness and leaps in. The water is freezing, even to the winter eladrin that call this place home. Taking all her strength she fights to stay underwater and hold her breath for as long as she can. With her perception of time thrown off, she doesn't know if it's been long enough. So she waits. She can feel her heartbeat slowing as the moments pass. She waits until she can barely feel her skin and then reamerges. She uses the last of her strength to pull herself out of the river and onto shore.

Your limbs ache with effort, your lungs scream in protest as you gasp, welcoming Cauldron-blessed air into your lungs. Within moments of breaking the surface, you feel frost crystallize on the surface of your skin, spirals of it decorating your cheeks, stiffening your hair, and encrusting your clothes. You pull yourself free of the rushing waters, rolling onto your back, panting with exertion, and stare at the empty sky. A single sprite flits over on translucent wings, landing on the tip of your nose and looking into your eye. It reaches down, mischief in its opal eyes, and snatches away one of your eyelashes, taking flight and giggling with glee before you can swat it.
Rubbing at your smarting eyelid, you painstakingly get to your feet, muscles groaning at the motion. The air around you has returned to normal, no longer weighed down by the oppressive darkness of your hunters. Gripping your side, you take in your surroundings: you find yourself now in an open region, a little less than a mile from the treeline. Tall hills broken by striations of slate gray rock line the horizon, rising to mountains in the distance. A little ways ahead, the river terminates in a waterfall that cascades down one of these rocky cliff faces, crashing into more forest below. From this vantage point, you can see the Palace of Air and Darkness rising where the river meets the sea, manipulating the river into a wide moat before allowing it to flow onwards. It's many spires send dancing lights into the sky, but the fountain that flows from the topmost tower releases such prismatic rays into the sky.
Had you a happier childhood, or even had you been raised to serve in the Courts rather than the battlefield, maybe you would have stories to tell of feasts held beneath that light. The romance of Solstice festivals, the intrigue of Court affairs, dalliances with the other Courts during Equinox celebrations. But no such stories come to mind, only the scraps of memory that fell to you when Vynn and Istis talked about their time at the Palace, talking conspiratorially together, but loud enough to make sure you could hear what you were missing in your years spent training. Spent in bloodied battleware rather than the elegant raiments of Court.
You step to the precipice, looking down at what awaits you. Leagues of forest stretch between you and the Palace, but it is a ubiquitous marker on the horizon, one you hope will similarly draw your companions' eye. Your stomach growls as you step back, your elegant garments crunching with every movement. Food. Shelter. Friends. Needs that must be met in this unforgiving winterscape.
The lazy caw of a crow rises from the forest beneath you. The hollow cracking of shifting stone rumbles from the hills behind you.
Where will you go next?

Amara looks down the icy cliffs and lets out a sigh of exhaustion. She's had a long journey, and she's got an even longer journey ahead of her. Traveling in the Winter Court can be strange, so hopefully the winds are kind to her. She sets out to find a way down the rock face. After a slow and meticulous climb down, and many close calls, her energy is almost completely gone. "I just need to rest for a second," she lies to herself. She sits down gently and leans up against the stone walls and lets her eyelids close. Thinking about the twisted humor of a winter eladrin freezing to death. Would the Grey Lady come for her this time?
No, this felt different. She didn't see all the memories she'd accumulated over her life the last time. Memories of her mothers icy glares of discontent at family dinners, and her fathers ceaseless training that left her scared and bloody. But mixed in with the bad, were the good. The times she could sneak away with the servants and dress up in fancy gowns, and the first time she found the pieris glades that dotted the outskirts of her family's manor.
She draws in a sharp breath and her eyes shoot open, her mind now focused. Almost robotically she hacks at one of the smaller pine trees with her hand axes and once it's fallen, she drags it with her as she searches along the icy cliff. She eventually finds a large enough depression in the rock face to find shelter. She chops the tree into smaller logs and splinters a few to make kindling. She didn't have a matchbox because she unfortunately left it in her bag, so she had to improvise. She stuck the blade of her axe against the rock to generate the sparks she needed. She tried again and again until the blade dulled but eventually the sparks lit the kindling. She had a fire going shortly after that. She waited until the frost on her skin had melted and her clothes dried off. But after an hour or so she was ready to go. She set back out towards the Palace of Air and Darkness, and hopefully toward her friends.

Sitting at your fire, you don't know how long you drifted off for. Eladrin aren't supposed to sleep, but the depths of your meditation brushed you up against slumber's sweet kiss. From the annals of your memory, sleep brings you to the moment you left home, truly left home, for the first time. The pride in your father's eyes that masked a great weariness. The smile on your mother's lips that didn't reach her eyes. Missions on the Mortal Plane, hunting for something you never found. Missions you came back from scarred and bloodstained. Missions as a weapon of the Winter Queen.
Your memory of when you set out four years ago comes to you, relived in perfect clarity. The cold trim of the new suit your father wore, the glittering sapphire gemstones sewn into your mother's gown. The shock of the betrothal. The curling smiles as they stood there and expected you to be happy they'd sworn your future to another house. The grim resolution in your chest you held as you stalked away, vowing you would not return to your estate until they had severed the tie of betrothal or until you had become strong enough to sever it yourself. You had been their weapon long enough. You would not be made to become their instrument of Court climbing as well.
The memories from there become murky. Escaping your cohort. Staggering out of the Wasting Swamps days later, your equipment stolen in the night. Taking adventuring contracts to get a roof over your head. Finding your new friends. Your head swims as you battle exhaustion, Aoife's face flickering in the fire in front of you. A log pops, snapping you out of your deep meditation. Something is moving at the treeline. A winter wolf bounds over the snow, towards your fire. In your delirious state, you feel a thought push through the fog of your mind, remembering the winter wolf as a symbol of one of the houses. You smile, thinking of the times in your childhood when visitors came to your family's estate and allowed you to play with their wolves while they entreated with your parents. You reach one hand back to your crystal longsword, preparing to draw if the beast means to attack.
Another form breaks the treeline, a lumbering figure moving ungracefully through the snow. And that is where we will begin.

Andromeda

The stillness of the frozen world is broken as the Robe of Eyes catches up to the sudden shift of planar alignment and the forest comes alive with movement. Ethereal streamers of light fill the space with a spectrum of color beyond the crisp whites and blues you saw before. Sprites flit between tree hollows, harvesting droplets of water from the tips of icicles that have grown dewy beneath the midday sun. Hawk-like mephits glide above the canopy and snowmites scurry into burrows as they pass. A snowdrift to your left truly is an icy elemental, curled catlike beneath a pine. The empty forest is teaming with life within a hidden world few get the opportunity to truly experience.
Ahead, you can see a break in the sea of trees, where a small brook burbles through frozen fractals of ice. Set into its curve, central to the clearing, is a small cottage, white smoke drifting up from the chimney.
Where do you go?

I totally marvel at the beauty of the winter court first. Sounds fantastic. I will also go towards the cottage. Carefully, as I don't want to wake the elemental. As far as the cottage, I will try to look around it to see if I see anything inside (stealthily).

You take a moment, breathing in the awe of the world around you; the sharp smell of cold earth, of frozen damp air, and clear sun fill your senses as you creep past the slumbering elemental, approaching the cottage. The winter snow crunches beneath your boots, and though you had purchased cold weather gear on the Mortal Plane, the winters of Aurelia can hardly compare to the permafrost of the Winter Court. The waist-high powdery snow finds its way into your boots, lacing down to your ankles, as you wade through the drifts of the clearing.
As you cross the open, keeping close to the ground barely a head above the snow, a gentle pang hits your gut and slowly creeps upwards; a reminder of your needs. Food. Shelter. Friends. Without those, you will not last long in the winter wonderland of the fair folk. Nearby, a sprite skates along the surface of the snowdrifts, casting up waves of snow as it turns, silvery wings a blur behind it. Its bright eyes connect with yours as it passes, narrow face on level as you creep up to the cottage window. You could swear a mischievous smile stretches across that little face, but it's too hard to tell as it turns in a flash of ice-like hair and spindly limbs, covering you with powdery snow.
A fire from within bathes your face in a warm glow as you peer in the window of the cottage. Inside, you see the makings of a single room home. Drying herbs hang above a crackling stone fireplace, a dark oaken mantle decorated by baubles of memory, centered around a portrait of a young bearded nobleman. The walls are made of dark stucco with exposed rock in some places, covered by sketches, paintings, and a sword hanging vertically next to the hearth. A central island holds the makings of hot cocoa, kettle still steaming nearby, a cutting board covered with the leavings of chopped chocolate. Next to the door, a conacle grey-blue classic wizards hat and robe hang from an otherwise empty coat rack. In the corner opposite, a bed laiden with a mountain of warm winter quilts sits quietly, steaming mug of cocoa on a nightstand of gnarled oak nearby. You assume you are looking in from above the washbasin, and would have trouble seeing what is on the wall closest to you without exposing your position.
You had just begun to assume the room was empty when a humanoid hand reaches from the mound of blankets to the cocoa, slowly turning back towards the kettle and your vantagepoint. You duck your head quickly, but are unsure if the creature saw you.
What do you do next?

This is almost surely a bad idea but I’ll knock on the door.

You make your way around the cabin until you find a stack of wood sheltered from the snow and a well-trod path leading to the oaken door. The same warm glow shines from the doorlight as did in the window that first drew you to this cabin. You raise your hand to knock but pause slightly, hand hovering over a swirling design of each Harmonic Sphere swirling within the Astral Sea. As you knock, three short raps, each impact causes a violet blue light to course softly within the design before fading.
In the doorlight above your head, the glow shifts; guttering down for a moment before changing from the flickering firelight to a warm verdant green before turning back again. Behind the door, you hear the rustling shuffle of quilts sliding off a bed and across the floor. Taking a step back as the sound grows closer and stops, only for a moment, when the mountain of blankets rises to its apex, allowing a single luminous violet eye to peer out from beneath the mound, other eye hidden in the shadows of the quilted depths.
You harbor a moment of trepidation as you consider what that eye may belong to, a starlit mote of magic beginning to play at your fingertips, but your fears pass a touch as you begin to hear several locks unlatch on the other side of the door. No one that you couldn't handle needs that many locks. The door swings open revealing a man covered from head to toe in quilts, a long grey beard laced with strings of colorful gems that seem to shine with an inner light spilling out from the small opening occupied by his face. His eyes, one luminously violet, the other a soft blue, look you up and down once before opening the door to its full width. From within the cabin, the scent of cocoa and drying jasmine as well as the smell of a warm baked good near the end of its time in the oven reaches your nose.
Taking a moment to step back in the door frame so you don't have to crane your neck to look up to him, he begins to speak.
"Good morning, traveler," he croaks in an elderly voice laced with a mischievous lilt. "You're just in time, this morning's scones are near done. Would you care to come in, out of this wicked cold?"
What happens next?

I’ll go inside! What a nice cozy man.
"Thank you so much! What kind of scones did you make? They smell delicious."
I'll also follow his lead to either go to the kitchen or sit down in the living room or whatever.

He closes the door behind you, locking a half dozen locks that seal out the winds of Winter. He moves to the fireplaces, using a mage hand to gingerly remove a dutch oven from the flames and set it on the central kitchen island. He opens the top, a plume of gray-white steam rising in a swirl past his face.
"White chocolate lavender," he says as the room is filled with the homey aroma of baked goods, the earthy floral scent of lavender mixing with almost too sweet undertones of white chocolate. You recoil for a moment, remembering the overpowering lavender smell of the Pathways, but are relieved to notice that inhaling this smell you are instead transported to happier memories. Seeds sown in spring flower beds along rocky windowsills. Fresh lavender flowers on a coffee table. Tea shared with your partner beneath Felicitus' light. You can't help but smile as the elderly gentleman places a pad of butter atop the fluffy scone, sliding the tea plate towards you and placing a warm hot cocoa in your other palm.
He grabs a scone of his own before placing the lid back on the dutch oven, gesturing to the two high backed armchairs sitting in front of the fire. You can't help but note that these armchairs had not been there a moment before, nor did you see them when you looked in through the window. But, they complete the atmosphere of the home, and their cushions creak softly as you sit down, folding your legs beneath you; the old man takes the chair opposite yours, savoring a sip of his cocoa before setting it on the coffee table before him.
"I used to make them for my daughter when she was little. Then, as she grew older and moved away, I could always count on a regular letter to check in and request I send her another batch," he sighs contentedly, biting into his scone and chuffing it down as the warm pastry heats his lips. "Hmm, I used to chastise her for never making her own scones, always offering to send her the recipe. But the letters kept coming, and she never requested the recipe. I don't think it was ever really about the scones."
For a moment, he seems to lose himself in the memory, gazing into the fire, before turning back to you. "Oh, but what a horrid host am I? Filling this room with hot air. You needn't listen to me prattle on without a reposte of your own. Please, tell me your story." He leans in, violet eye glimmering in the firelight. "How did a young deep gnome find themself at my door in the midst of the Winter Court?"

I’ll tell him about the Pathways:

How we were exploring and heard knocking on a door. There was an Angry that we had to fight. We realized pretty soon afterwards that by opening the door we were already in the Pathways as it had leaked out into the world.

I’ll tell him about the king in yellow and his acolytes. How we died but got to try again. How we met Peter Montauk and something exploded and now I’m here

I’ll ask him what his name is and how he came to be here

He listens to your tale with interest, oohing and aahing occasionally. He chuckles with a knowing twinkle in his eye as you describe your meeting with the Gray Lady and the Muse. His expression darkens as you describe Peter, mumbling something under his breath about "That upstart who never knew when to leave well enough alone." When you finish your story, he sips at his cocoa before telling you his own.
"You may call me Memory," he begins. "I, like yourself, am something of a far traveller, becoming accustomed to being a stranger in a strange land for most of my life. Now, I've settled down a bit while things are quiet, enjoying the peaceful moments where I can.
"I travel from place to place, and help those such as yourself who find their way to my doorstep. I imagine you are the reason I found myself here," he pauses, finishing his scone. "It seems you have quite the task ahead of you, young Andromeda. Let us find your friends, shall we?"
And that is where we will begin.

Augustana

This entire landscape hums with an energy unlike anything else you've felt before. A powerful resonance all at once so familiar yet alien, you feel at home in a strange place you've never been before. Colors seem more vibrant, feelings sharply defined, and while the forest around you is visibly empty, the air feels alive in a way you can't describe. While the Call is as omnipresent as always, it has a vivacious quality here, an effervescent aliveness that it lacks on the Mortal Plane.
In the distance, a road cuts a path through the trees, bridging a brook that drags fractals of ice across the river rocks that dot its surface. Further along, the road runs abreast of a frost encrusted wall, its rimed gates blocking a path deeper into a regal estate.
Where do you go?

Augustana is drawn to that palace and wants to find out how to get there. Is the regal estate the palace or just a different place?

As you draw closer, you see the regal estate is different from the palace. While investigating the estate brings you closer to the palace, it still looms in the far distance; though you feel following this road may lead you there.
You pass the gates of the estate, looking in at an immaculate garden of cultivated winter beauty. Oak trees decorated with hoarfrost arch over the road, vines of wysteria decorate their boughs, frozen purple flowers crystalized in eternal bloom. Beyond, icy sculptures of horses, knights, and mages fill the walled landscape. Beyond it all rises the manor of the estate, broad and perfect, elegant spires reaching to the sky, but not so high as to crest the towering trees that gather thickly behind. Blue light dances across the landscape, refracted in the many facets of pure crystalline ice between the walls. You could swear that among the statues, you see a figure, tall and slender, gracefully walking deeper in, but you only catch glimpses. Like a blushed shadow dancing at the edge of your vision.
A tug plays at your senses, turning your attention down the road; a soft breeze across your face, a guiding ripple of light that flows across the dappled light that filters through the foliage, a soft ringing in the Call that reverberates off of the road itself, encrusted at the edges with remnant crystals of long-frozen snowdrifts. All drawing your focus away from the estate and to the stretch of road before you.
Eyeing the gate, the path to the estate appears unlocked, but the road yet hums welcomingly to you. As you weigh your options, frost begins to crust at the end of your flowing hair, reminding you of a thought you had yet to consider. Shelter. Food. Companions. Elements vital to your survival in the Feywild.
What do you do?

Augustana really wants to follow the Call but figures that someone in the estate will help her find her friends. She goes to the estate to ask for help.

Apprehensively, you walk towards the door of the manor, sunlight dancing in the frozen oaks above you as your feet crunch across the icy gravel beneath your feet, sending cold vibrations up through the soles of your boots. The manor itself is made from a smooth crystalline blue stone, with no visible seals or cracks, giving the gothic building the appearance of being sculpted wholecloth from a single piece of ice. The door stands at easily twice your height, patterns of art nouveau ice filigree filling the supporting struts around the windows, frosted with ice. You reach up to clasp one of the door knockers, heavy silver rings held in the mouth of a winter wolf, but it swings out of your reach as the door opens, seemingly of its own accord, welcoming you into the estate.
Inside, light filters in through veiled windows, curtained by midnight blue tapestries stitched with scenes of Winter Eladrin hunting, fighting, and feasting with white wolves. It illuminates a grand hall, split by one massive table of hickory timber. Massive crystal chandeliers above you catch the light and disperse it throughout the space, lighting the hall with twinkling motes of bobbing light that ring with the energy of the Call. Similarly to the path outside, while this manor appears empty, the air feels alive, with a certain lived-in quality a seemingly abandoned estate should not have; and curiously, you also find that you don't feel as cold. The air here, while still carrying a chill, is much more pleasant than outside, despite the lack of an obvious heat source.
Ice sculptures decorate the table in front of you, so finely polished you can see your reflection on their glassy surfaces. Knights astride great steeds galavant across the battlefield of silverware, flanked by lithe wolves as they stalk icy dragons across the table. As you admire them, you start when you see a figure reflected behind you in one of them; the fey from the gardens.
You spin, swift fingers already gathering the energy of the Call at your fingertips to cast him back with a thunderwave, but he raises his hands in motion of apology, retreating two steps. You relax, taking in the new arrival; he's a tall, slender Winter Eladrin with white-blue skin and platinum white hair, much like Amara's, though his is cut short and swept back. His icy blue coat is made from the beguiling fabrics favored by the fair folk, seeming to catch the light and cause it to dance across frostlike designs of midnight blue threads laced with silver. While it is cut in for military use, open in the front and vented in the back for mobility, the lazy air with which he holds himself places the jacket as much more a fashion choice of a noble rather than serving the function a soldier may have for it.
He tries to speak to you, but while you see his lips move, dancing with the lilting language of the fey, his words are just muffled reverberations passed across the Call. You wearily perform your regular ritual of motions, articulating that you cannot hear him, and he nods in understanding, though not before glancing at the lute and bardic attire and raising an eyebrow. Slowly, he touches his hand to his temple before gingerly reaching towards yours. As his cold skin makes contact, you feel a gentle knocking at the walls of your mind, almost as if asking permission to enter. Do you allow the connection?

I allow it!

Another presence blossoms in your mind like morning frost across a field, carrying with it a flashing sequence of memory. You see yourself fall from the sky, seen from the ground through this eladrin's eyes, six seven other small plumes of icy smoke trailing away from you, an eighth fiery trail falling nearby. You feel this eladrin's trepidation at your approach, questioning and unsure of your intent, accompanied by the memory of watching you from the ice gardens as you walked through the main road and into his manor. The memory is much as you remember it, though from his perspective, sprites and elemental snowmites scurry around you, flitting close, dancing in the lights that catch in the frosty icicles, each causing a ripple in the Call, filling the air with the aliveness you felt.
Finally, you hear his voice echo in your mind, like a cool breeze drifting through the sculptures of his garden: "Hello, traveler. I am Caspian, lord of this estate. Who might you be?"
And that is where we will begin.

Ilya

In this moment, you feel peacefully, mercifully, alone. No threat of the Sun and Moon assassins. No otherworldly beings beyond your comprehension waiting around the bend. No lingering responsibilities. Free.
A moment of burning anguish lights up your mind as your hand brushes across the Aspen Tongue, a feeling of trapped anguish, a thirst for violence pressing against the infernal metal and seeping into your thoughts. It hungers, and breaks your moment of respite to remind you of its desire.
Nearby, you can hear the soft stirrings of a brook as water gurgles across river rock and through fractals of ice. It seems to wind its way through the trees, stretching towards the spire in one direction and away from it in the other.
Where do you go?

towards le spire I goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

You walk along the creekbed, hopping from rock to rock at times to keep out of the waist-high snow, using the warm metalflesh of the Aspen Tongue to keep your hands warm, pushing its violent urges down. The rest of you is not so lucky, bitten by the cutting air of the Winter Court. You tug your Cloak of Protection tightly around you, but while it offers many protections, defense against the cold doesn't seem to be one of them. The cold dances across the lichtenberg scars at the nape of your neck, recalling the memory of the chaotic storm that granted you its mark with a shivering touch. But the scar, seemingly of its own accord, sparks, sending a spasm through your body, sending you flailing into a nearby drift. Its usual electric glow gradually shifts across a spectrum of light to emanate a low amber hue. As it does, you feel the oppressive cold lessen. Still present, still waiting, but bearable.
You stand, brushing the snow from your cloak, and resume your trek at an ambulatory pace until you see two figures ahead of you. Near where a road comes close to the creek, two giants covered in armor designed from the hides and skulls of creatures they'd slain, refill gargantuan waterskins in the flowing waters downstream from you. Nearby, a huge, slimy, dark blue creature with six legs rolls in the snow, the lighter blue of its underbelly wriggling with glee, soft tufts of white frosty breath jetting out the corners of its mouth and nostrils. The two giants grumble back and forth to each other, the lumbering tongue of the giants rumbling from them like the cracking of colossal stones in an avalanche.
The larger stands and stretches, placing a hand on the smaller's shoulder. They seem to deliberate for a moment before the larger points down the road and the smaller nods. The larger snaps a command to the creature, which begrudgingly stops its play and falls in step with them. The giant begins to walk in the direction opposite to the one it pointed, leaving the second to finish filling its waterskin.
What do you do?

I will be stealthy and hide from the giant filling its waterskin, and wait to see its actions. If it follows the path the larger one pointed in, I shall follow. If not, I shall sneak around (or wait for him to pass) and continue the direction the larger pointed in.

Moving at a stone's pace, the giant stands and slowly ambles down the road, following the direction the other had pointed. Lingering back, you are able to creep behind, following it on the road to the palace.
And that is where we will pick up.

Lorelai

In this moment, you feel peacefully, mercifully, alone. No threat of assassins. No looming imperial war. No otherworldly beings beyond your comprehension waiting around the bend. No lingering responsibilities. Free.
Voices break the peace of your moment of serenity. Heated voices, arguing in the twisting tongue of the Fey. It seems to be coming from the near distance, where a road cuts a path through the trees, running along a brook that burbles through fractals of ice and across the river rocks that dot its surface.
Where do you go?

I'd like to move quietly to the treeline nearest the arguing voices, attempting to not be noticed. I'd like to get a better look at who is talking, how many there are, etc.

You drop to the ground, gathering your cloak around you. Lifting the hood of the Cloak of Elvenkind, its fabric smoothly flows around your new horns, magical cloth pulled low over your brow without issue. Its natural dappled green colors shift, rippling with soft blues and whites to account for the new environment.
Striding low to the ground, you swiftly close the distance between yourself and the voices. You drop into the riverbed cut by the brook, deftly crossing the frozen fragments of ice and bracing yourself against the far side of the depression. Catlike, you prowl along the lip until you reach a bridge where the road and brook meet and you are able to comfortably stand while still remaining assured you are still hidden.
You smile to yourself, remembering your months spent in the wilderness. Abruptly ripped from the upper echelons of Illemnian society, those months came on the heels of one of your greatest losses, yet there was a primal satisfaction that came with them. Hunting for food, finding shelter in trees and caves, anywhere you could, all the while evading capture at the hands of your many hunters; a piece of you misses that life. And with Athena returned to you, that part of you thinks about what the two of you could have if you turned away from Anastasia Carthelian. The crisp crackle of a word laced with magic draws you back from your daydream, and you peer out from the duct.
In a nearby grove, a troupe of Winter Court soldiers stand in a circle within a glade. At their center, one, noticeably taller and dressed in fine plate and cloak of a guard captain, looms over another, dressed in the simple armor of a soldier and kneeling before the first. Between them, steam rising from a ring of freshly melted snow, is the coiled form of the Morningstar. You notice scorch marks on the hand of the kneeling soldier. The captain barks out an order, holding her hand out to the side, and one of the soldiers quickly steps from the ring to place a spear in her open palm. In one fluid motion, the captain reels back and slams the spear through her subordinate's ribs, pinning them to the ground despite their last-ditch protestations. They spasm once, then lay still.
The captain reaches down, gathering the Morningstar and tucking it onto her belt. She shouts another order and the ring of soldiers forms into a tight marching formation, leaving their fallen comrade and returning to the road. You slink back, pressing yourself into the wall of the ditch to avoid detection as they grow ever closer.
Thirty feet.
Twenty feet.
Ten.
The march is called to a halt atop your bridge. The steps of the captain, light though bedecked in full plate armor, cross the bridge, scraping the cobblestones above your head. You bury your mouth in the cowl of your cloak, hoping to obscure your very breath as she crouches, leaning out over the bridge. She sniffs heavily once, twice, and whispers a word you recognize: "Inferi." Devil.
She drops down, heavy boots cracking the ice as she lands, whirling to face you. You draw your blade, ready to parry her first strike, but pause as you do so, unable to see your blade. She, similarly, does not move to attack, but stalks closer. Her rimed blue eyes scour the wall you've pressed yourself into, mouth a hard line as she continues to breath deeply through her nose. She steps close enough you can feel the cold radiating from her armor, fine plate decorated with a sharp crystalline frost pattern. As quickly as she came, she departs, cloak and feathered panache swirling. You slowly release your held breath as the patrol marches towards the spire in the distance, your invisibility fading.
Aspen's sly chuckle dances in the back of your mind, growing softer as if getting farther away.
Where do you go next?

I would probably follow the guards at a distance, hoping to use them as a way to find/get into the nearest village/castle. If possible, I would follow them into wherever they go if they do head somewhere like that.

You follow the guards for a time, maintaining a safe following distance, your cloak trailing across the snow and obscuring your tracks as they fall. You stop only when they come up to a guard tower, an outpost on the road to the distant palace. Frost giants linger outside, aloofly leaning up against the tower as if it were a column in the market. The guard patrol enters through the main door and shortly after there is a multicolored flare jets into the sky, bursting shortly after and dissipating.
The frost giant guards nearby don't notice you, and you are able to settle down in to the nearby drifts surrounding the brook that diligently drifts down the in the creekbed.
And that is where we begin.

Notes

Report Date

27 Jul 2024