Act II, Chapter One: Between Stone and Snow

Varin darts in, knuckles like iron. His fist slams beneath the dire wolf’s jaw line; the giant head snaps sideways, but brute endurance blunts the deeper shock and the monster shakes off the stunning strike before it can take hold. Still dazed by Jasir’s magic, the beast can only wheeze, muscles locked in tremor.

Ulfr bellows a Norther curse, hefts another jagged stone, and hurls it point-blank. The rock cracks against the wolf’s weather-blackened muzzle, blood spatters white snow. Never losing eye contact, through its stupor the dire wolf’s ears flatten, hackles rippling under the force of his will.

Off to the side, Azote murmurs an elder lullaby. A ripple of quiet drifts across the gully; two wolves quiver, then lower their heads, tension bleeding from their frames as the spell soothes predatory fury.

Yet instinct to escape remains. Though calmed, the snared wolf, tugs at the rawhide loop, snare stakes hold fast.

The dire wolf, jaws flecked crimson, can only glare, still stunned, trembling where it stands.

Seelah strides five feet east and strikes at the dire wolf!

Petra flinches with a healer's sympathy when the rock crashes into the dire wolf.

Azote's way of soothing the wolves is startlingly effective. "Good thinking, Azote," Petra compliments, her heart lurching with wonder at further proof of elvenkind's mysterious resonance with the natural world.


Rather than attack the now calmed wolf in front of her, Petra lowers her knife and drops it into her offhand.

The dwarrow backs away from the ensnared wolf and turns in time to see Seelah lunge toward their biggest threat. If that dire wolf had been lulled too--hard to tell, because its stance is oddly still but not tensed?--that calm won't last under renewed attacks.


Petra grips the riverstone in her pocket and asks Aryth's help again in the primal language of dwarves. Saliva in her mouth becomes bitter bile, and she spits an acidic gob at the...

dire wolf only wolf still attacking, before her own cheeks blister. It's just as disgusting as the first time she ever managed it.

Azote calmed Wolf 1 & Wolf 2. Wolf 3 is caught in Entrapment. And by looks the dire wolf is dead. I believe that is the status. Both Entanglement last & calming last 40 rounds each. She can end the entangle area & the calming has no area effect.

And Azote did not cast any channeler spells. Appears the effects are caused by her connection to nature as there is no visible casting either. She did call upon nature. (Rather druidic like)

Suggestion is to kill the entrapped one then deal with the two calmed ones, one at a time. Azote is not interested in having a wolf for a companion/pet. (Wolf steaks)

Azote likes the thought to just track the wolves back to the den, but leaving these three to our rear means they will probably come again at us and Azote ability to entrap & charm are both used up for the day. Otherwise, the best time to end the wolves is now. She can however if needed rebute or command the wolves but that lasts only 10 minutes.

Azote can affect things but she cannot charm or communicate with the wolves. Next level it will take a saving throw for them to even attack her. And next level she may get new spells so who knows what she will receive.

Seelah approaches the fallen dire wolf, and gives a final stab with Dawn-Ward. Simply to ensure proper death. A canine most corrupted, Seelah remarks in warrior-minded disdain!

If the thought is not to kill the wolvies then Azote voluntaries to try to make them more friendly to us. It is up the party if they want her try this. But this is per animal and not all three at once. She has no limit on the number of tries short of GM intervention. But the DC is probably a 20 and a failed attempt could/should make the situation worse.Edit: Grrr Wolf 3 is trying to break free of the entanglement!

Seelah steps through drifting mist, covenant blade gleaming frost-blue. With measured breath she pivots, then drives Dawn-Ward in a two-handed arc. The edge bites deep beneath the dire wolf’s ruff; ice and blood burst skyward. A hollow crack of spine, and the pack-lord topples, breathing shallow upon trampled snow.

Across the gully Petra sights along her fingertips; a bead of green acid hisses away. It splatters Wolf #3’s flank, smoking through winter coat and drawing a sharp yelp.

The remaining wolves stare at their fallen alpha. The one beside the Dire Wolf's flank whines, backs away and bolts up the bank, tail tucked. The two still tangled, one calmed by Azote’s magic but still snare bound, the other entangled in both snare and vine, strain and snap at the cords, but the bindings hold tight.

For a heartbeat, the gully is quiet save for ragged breathing and the distant, receding patter of fleeing paws.

"What do you want to do Azote? If we turn them loose, do you have a way to keep them from chasing us down when they think we are tired? I know the urine of their leader could ward them for a night or so... it'll also keep the bears away most likely."

"I fear that they will indeed cause us problems, so it unfortunately best to end them. " (wolf steaks) "The corruption from the dire wolf is no doubt too strong for me to counter. It has made them into very hostile creatures. "

Varin’s teeth chatter as stands next to the dire wolf his breath rising in thick, angry clouds. His skin is pale and raw from the bitter wind, fingertips nearly numb around his weapon. With a low growl, he mutters, "Kill them already and be done with it. We're freezing our gods damned bones out here." He glances toward the horizon, jaw clenched. "We need to move—soon."

Úlfr throws a big rock at one of the wolves with a grunt.

Azote too will work with wolves to make them good for travel.

FROZEN BARRENS | GIANT'S TEETH, SCOUT'S SECRETS | BLIZZARD
The wind steals the horizon.
Snow knifes sideways across the Barrens, swallowing all but the nearest shapes, a line of weary figures, half-bent beneath the weight of ice-stiff wolf carcasses. Each step crunches through a fresh crust only to sink into powder beneath; the drag-marks they leave behind vanish almost as soon as they form, devoured by swirling white. Somewhere above, limestone tors loom like shattered fangs, but the gale shows them only in flickers before the curtain snaps shut again.

Breath fogs thick and clings to lashes. Armor creaks under a new skin of rime. Frost-bright blood pearls on fur and leather alike, proof of the gully skirmish already fading into memory. No song of victory follows, only the muted clink of gear and a low, relentless moan of wind through stone.

An hour bleeds into the next; time becomes measured in shivers and the slow bite of cold that no cloak can turn aside. The blizzard grows bold, pelting sleet hard enough to sting the eyes, rattling the snares lashed to packs. Voices are lost unless shouted; even then, words die a pace away, leaving each traveler alone with their doubts.

At last the ground pitches upward. Through the storm the first "tooth" materializes: a pale monolith crusted in hoarfrost, twice a man’s height, its eroded surface gouged by ages of wind-thrown grit. More stand beyond it in a broken crescent, but where the scout Kaelith should wait, there is only swirling snow.

Dismay settles in like fresh ice. Had he been delayed? Driven off? Worse?

For now, the ridge offers no answers, only sheltering eddies between stones and the promise of colder darkness to come.

RIGHT AFTER WOLF FIGHT:

Petra pockets her knife and shoulders her quarterstaff-and-bundle again.

She defers to Ulfr's expertise in finishing off the wolves, disappointed they must die but accepting Azote's logic for why---corruption, again, like that ice elemental they would have killed had they possessed the right tools for it. Like they'd killed the ambushers at the tavern.

What Azote has been trying to tell her about the war against Izrador with only two sides, and what is brutally necessary when those sides meet, to make oneself a weapon...it's all starting to sink in. Biting deeper than any icy wind.


"There is peace in a life on the river, among my people," Petra says wistfully, "but I think I begin to understand, Azote....that everywhere else is a battlefield."

She adds privately to herself, testing out some new thoughts, We are a warband. What my friends need most from me are the skills a warband needs.


They deal with the wolf carcasses efficiently without her. Small chance they can move unobtrusively now through the wintry lands, with bloodied bodies as cargo, but at least there's more warmth to go around.


* * * * * * *

AFTER TREK THROUGH SNOW, MISSING SCOUT:


Petra is dismayed not to find the scout Kaelith waiting at the rendezvous point. She begins scouring the ground for tracks or signs of disturbance or that someone was recently here.

And cocks her ears for any unusual sounds other than the bitter winds.