Frostbite Keep Seen

The group has passed around the guard post a while back. Tonight they are going to camp before arriving at Frostbite keep tomorrow. The group is a couple hours from their camp for the night. Alexis addresses the group.

“Before we go in, Red and myself will get the blessings of greater insights of the college of Raiden. This will boost the two of us for half the day. And to keep more in reserve, I figure we won’t pass tracelessly or detect who might be scrying on us.”

“I’ve been thinking about what we’re going to do in the keep. As the holder of the Tear, I’m going to be the target for cunning opponent. For this reason we should shift who gets more protection. My bare thoughts: Gus shields myself and Red. And I stand right next to Gus so I can heal him if he gets too low.”

“I’m a little torn about who gets your Bothers in Arms, Carm. But as the holder of the Tear, I think I should have this extra protection.”

“Gus, I might call on you for talking to any animals in the keep to get more information.”

“Red, you’ve been keeping a ether-form spell for yourself. You might need to make a quick getaway with as many Tears as you can carry.”

Alexis keeps discussing with the group about who they might find in the keep. The possibility of Sheyeeni, Thraan, or anyone else they’ve encountered along the way. Alexis reminds the group of the other tools they have, including Old Sava stones and Gustav’s arrow with the lightning bolt.

Alexis asks what else they might have missed in the conversation up to this point.

Always Watching Over

Gustav and Alexis have been standing outside Ca’armine’s working while Ca’armine cleanses the crystal ball. When the working shatters and the ball goes clean, a shudder runs through Alexis and his body slumps. Gustav turns to look at him. Alexis straightens slowly, and Gustav thinks he sees a shadow leaving Alexis’s eyes, but it’s dim out here and hard to be sure.

Alexis looks at Gustav and smiles.

“Utiog did not enjoy that. I felt it in the Tear.”

He picks up his hat, knocks the dust off it against his leg, and puts it back on.

“Thanks for standing out here with me, Gus. Watching my back when I didn’t ask you to.”

He tips his head toward Ca’armine, a signal that it’s time to go, and starts back toward the group.

Planning in the Mountains: 200 Miles to Go

The group settles down to camp in the rib cage of the giant, Alexis looks at Gustav. He adjusts the whip at his hip.

“Gus. I want twenty arrows on you before we go into the pass. And we still need to refill myself and Rask who’ve donated you arrows.”

He shrugs slightly. “Shafts and fletching we can make anywhere. Good heads we can’t. Stone won’t punch through armor. Red and I talked about shaving down coins for arrowheads. Not ideal, but better than stone against chainmail.”

He looks north, then back at the group.

“Sixty-five miles behind us. Call it a hundred and eighty-five ahead, fifteen days if the weather lets us, and it won’t. We lost a day to one storm and there’ll be more.”

He looks at Gustav, then at Ca’armine.

“The two of you made us a powerful grove of Raiden outside Nodden-Torr. I’d like that again coming up. Twice if we can manage it. Food is already scarce and it’s only going to get worse up here. The extra time buys us arrows, keeps us safe from the storms, Red might get his shield finished, we make progress on cleaning the Tear and the crystal ball, and we learn a little more about what’s ahead before we walk into it.”

He looks expectantly between the two of them.

Goals and Strategy

During a short break while walking north after the first storm, and burning the dead Nal’cir, but before the frozen waterfall and Savvah, Rask addresses the group. He asks several questions that have clearly been on his mind while walking. His words tumble out, his pauses are brief as he looks at his companions, mostly to Alexis and Ca’armine for their thoughts, but Ethelred and Gustav too.

”We’re headed to Frostbite Pass, and it seems Bandy hasn’t fully gotten Sassy to return, right?

“What is our number one priority? To kill Bandy? Stop Sassy from returning? Eliminate the Dark Hand? Break its power?”

“Do we let Bandy get away if it means we can destroy what is left of Sassy and capture another Tear?”

“Do I protect Ca’armine at all costs? Including letting Sassy return? How do we protect our Tear?” He looks mostly at Alexis for these questions.

“If we get jumped and Bandy is there, who do I focus on? Deadly intent or subdual?”

Charging It To Gus’s Account

The night the group makes camp on the platform at the top of the eroded hill, while Gustav has the first watch. Alexis pulls his hat off, sets it beside him, and sits down.

“Those blessings you’ve been losing every morning, Gus. It turns out that was me. Or a new skill out of the Inner Watch, which probably amounts to the same thing.” Alexis turns the Collegium ring once around his finger.

“The trouble with the Inner Watch is that most of it has been lost a very long while, and as far as I can find, nobody left a guide.” He gives a small shrug. “So I learn what a working does by doing it.”

“Before you ‘prayed’ at the grove that morning, I’d already invoked the old working and pointed it at keeping us protected for the day. I held the protective side of… your… our god in my head, and the road ahead of us. In hindsight, the warren of Raiden took my intention and your power, put the two together, and stretched our passing from a quarter of a day to half of one. I’m still not certain how it settled on you to pay for it.”

“That first working ran four days. Your grove may have had a hand in that.”

“Before I tap into that part of the weave I wanted to let you know. It was new to me then. It’s turned out well worth having, but maybe you disagree.” He looks over at Gustav. “I’m sorry for being a part of your crisis of faith.”

Alexis waits to see if Gustav has anything to say.

Taking on Raiden’s Mission

Shortly after the group gets to the island, while Rask is on watch. Alexis comes and sits near Rask, looking out over the water.

“Red had Gus’s shield other when he dove into that water, like we had planned. Good for some things, but probably wouldn’t have saved him from being swallowed.”

“In hindsight, one of us should have been closer. I feel awful that I was helpless while gaseous.”

Alexis nods at the mantle across Rask’s shoulders.

“Raiden calls us to protect those in our care. The mantle is a symbol of that.”

“Carm probably needs to be protected first. Red second.”

“Can I count on you for that?”

Alexis waits for an answer from his companion.

Sights set on familiar distances

(During the leveling up 2 weeks)

The recent loss everyone has felt has effected Ethelred quite profoundly. The loss of the spyglass the object itself is noticeable. The spot he kept it in his pack, now empty. The replacement lens must find a new purpose.

But the sense that the true loss is that of gaining knowledge. The joy of going aloft into the treetops and peering deeply beyond ones eyesight. Forever that exact feeling is nothing but a memory.

But there are many paths to the same result. The path of the spyglass is closed. The path to have such knowledge is not.

Part of each day is spent in a tree, peering with his own eyes into the beyond. Up here there is little but endless shades of green, the occasional rocky outcropping, of course the mountain and birds. Many birds.

During the second week Red takes to feeding the local birds, meat, seeds, bugs. Whatever he can find. It is amusing to see them flutter around, weary but eager for the meal.

Ethelred takes a new interest in Gustav and Sally Crow. Watching the kinship. The sense Red gets is that Gustav and Sally can work together in a way non of us can.

“Gustav, what can you tell me about your relationship with Crow? I have taken less interest in her than others. But I see now, maybe for the first time really, that you and her have a… sense of each other?”

“What does that feel like?”

“What can you sense?”

Pre-Departure Checklist

The last morning at the camp, before anything comes down. Alexis has his notebook open on one knee and waits until the four of them are close enough that he doesn’t have to raise his voice.

“I’ve made a list. Two halves. The first half is things I need from you.”

He turns the notebook around long enough for them to see there’s a full page of it, then turns it back.

“The three of you. I’ve watched Rask these last weeks and I know what I’m getting. Gus, Carm, Red, I want the same from each of you before we walk. What advancements in your specialties?”

“The shield. We start at the knight’s cairn. Rask’s old shield is the other way to solve this, although it went with the horses, which is its own problem and further down the page.”

“Red’s armor. Rebuilt, replace, or we just move on with a more free-moving Red?.” Alexis moves on, but with a clear expectation that Ethelred will let him know.

“Food. Gus. Going north. How many days around for us to get from here to a place where we can easily get more food? How long do you need to get us the food we need?”

“The nature of Frostpass is an unknown in this when. I’ll put the ring to it after this to assess this.”

Alexis turns the page over.

“That’s what I need. The rest is what I want to know, and it’s in the order we’ll walk past it.”

“The tree that put me to sleep. I want to know if it’s still there, and whether it still has the same nature it had in our other time.”

“The undead knight and his horse. This relates to Red’s need for a shield, but I’m also curious to know the reality of this knight in our new when.”

“The Monastery site. An hour on the ‘old’ site. Notes, not digging.”

“When we are. The garden is less than a day past it, and further from Frostpass. We can look at Red’s bomba tree and see how tall it’s got. Carm, if a prayer gets us the same answer faster, I’m open to that.”

“The horses. Everything we didn’t carry in was on them, and we left them in the ‘old’ place. Rask’s shield. The glaive. So: are they here at all? If they are, then the road we took to Nodden-Torr got walked in this world too, and most of what happened to us happened. If there were never any horses, we’re standing somewhere I understand a lot less than I thought this morning.”

“Felsby. We’ve never been, but there’s a lot there.” He counts it off on his fingers. “Ingvar founded it. Bandesingh raided the town to end Torr’s line, because the sword had been Torr’s grandfather’s. Torr-van mended Dauntless there after the place had already fallen. There were gnolls under it digging for that sword, and when Bandesingh learned it was out of his reach he spent them on his working.” Alexis gives a shrug and a nod off to the side. “That’s a great deal of Bandesingh in one town.”

Alexis closes the notebook on his finger and looks between them.

“Anything to add?”

Pelts against the cold and more

(taking place as we get settled into our level up spot)

Red approaches Gustav

“Gustav, we both are without any protection from both enemies and the cold. Can we work together to fix this issue?

I would like to talk you about what you want from new armor? You seemed to always try and make yourself dirty, to dull the finish on your armor. Since I will be making the armor for you, let me know what I could do to make it work best for you.

For myself I need some very very fine armor. I doubt I will have the time right now to craft such armor. Time is always an issue.”

Red sighs and let’s his mind reflect on chronomancy.