"As long as I 'ave my magicks, we shall not feel ze cold too much," Avarice smirks as she uses a wave of a hand to snuff a candle and relight it.

Ines puts on the boots, and feels the warmth, much more comprehensive than she expected, radiate up from the boots and fully envelope her in protection from the frigid conditions.  

1 19 1 17

The five of you gather, and hit the road to Good Mead.  What is your marching order?

     Disordered and sloppy?

     Are there roads to follow from one town to another? Are they in relative good shape?  I'm thinking if we are traversing large scathes of nothing but snow we likely would be on the meandering side of things.  But the closer we have to well traveled paths or roads, the more we'd likely more or less stay in some kind of loose formation.  Rock is likely forging the path and leading us.  Avarice and Finn are likely middle-ish and Ines and Shayne bringing up the rear?  ((Feel free to correct me all, I'm just guessing.)). Though unless we have reason to suspect danger I would think we'd wander up and down, further and closer while we chatted, swapped stories, etc...

Rock would be in the front.

Ines bows her head to Shayne. "Thank you. If someone should have need of them, I will gladly give them." After she puts them on her eyes widen. "Oh, wow. I didn't realize how cold it was until now. These are nice," she says with a grin. 

(I'm fine with the rear.) 

Avarice mills around in the middle of the party making small talk with the party members.

The roads are sloppy, snowy, and cold, but largely clear of other travelers.  You follow the banks of Redwaters, formerly at least a seasonal fishing lake, now frozen over to such an extent that anything resembling industry is now dead.  Occasionally, you see dark-clad figures.  Fishers, silent and still, huddled in the warmest clothing they have, trying to catch knucklehead trout to feed their families.  You continue down the road to Good Mead.  The wind comes and goes, sometimes just slightly more than a breeze, sometimes in gusts that threaten to knock over the more slight among you.  Same with the snow, which never stops falling but sometimes thins out to a sprinkle.  And while you are all alert to the possibility of danger, about two hours have now passed.  It is mid-morning, and all seems quiet.  

What kind of conversations are taking place along the road to Good Mead?

    On the travels Shayne will often tell stories he has picked up along the way, sing the occasional song or just fill silence with the playing of his flute.  And while he's naturally a bit of a raconteur and entertainer by nature, he's also diplomatic enough to know the room and not need to be the center of attention.  Thus he'll shut up when people want quiet, or let others set the narrative and tell their own stories.  Shayne MacGee is always as happy to listen to stories as to tell them...  All the better to steal them and make them his own later.

     Shayne will reveal his true history, more or less.  He will tell the others who care to hear how he grew up in a town bustling with activity and trade and that he was always drawn to the mix of people and stories and drama that came with hanging out at the more raucous of the taverns.  That this is where he learned the skills of entertaining crowds, influencing the masses through music and story...  And used his skills for his own personal gain, from time to time.

     Of course in any and all stories he tells of his history, Shayne is always the hero and the only ones scammed or mocked or taken advantage of either had it coming or were willing participants.  

     Outside of talking about our own histories and their scant history of adventure together, Shayne would do much grumbling about the weather and wonder how decent people live like this!

Rock listens to Shayne's stories, more than willing to let the other speak.  He does not speak much of his own history, but would always have a fairly open and easy-going manner with regard to whatever the others had to speak of. he would not be secretive, so would answer questions honestly and without hesitation.

When he does speak of his homelands he would show that he truly feels the Peaks are the best place to live.  "The air is too thick down ehre, you lowlanders get air-sick from breathing too much of this thick air..." Would be something he would say in a variety of ways.

Avarice pipes up about her field research into long-dead civilizations, forgotten kingdoms and disappearing empires. She explains that she finds better answers from tombs and skeletons rather than history books as they tend to leave out the 'juicy bits' and that her travels have brought her North to find truth in a rumour about a curse-breaking artifact.

     "Curse breaking artifact?" Shayne asks, his curiosity piqued. "What kind of curses?  What kind of artifact?  Which empire was this from?"  Generally he probes for any and all details he can get, all the better to twist, exaggerate or embellish them to suit a story at a later time...

"Rock like know this thing as well." Rock says at the mention of a curse and artifact. "What these rumors you speak of?"

Having lived all her life in a temple. Ines feels she has no stories to compare, but she listens raptly, especially about Avarice's tales of artifacts. "But what kind of answers can a skeleton give you?"

"All kinds of answers, how zey lived, what zey ate, illnesses. It is very complicated," she says as she moves a piece of dislodged snow-ice out of her path with her stave. "Most times, information is incorrect or a lie. This artefact, I do not think it exists but if it does, I shall be rich and famous! With all these questions, a girl needs her secrets," she winks at Shayne.

Elderan stays fairly quiet as he listens to the companions tell stories about their work and travels. And then asks Avarice- "Have you ever dug up a skeleton that didn't want to be found?"

     “Secrets make for the best stories.” Shane answers with a wry grin.

     “But my yes, that would be interesting!  Excavating an ancient grave to find a restless set of bones!  Has such ever happened?”

"No however a college in ze field claims to have it happened to 'im!"

     And so it seems at this point none of the travelers are really looking to expound in depth about their personal histories and backgrounds.  As such, the discussions from one town to the next are light and mainly surface probing and prodding to start to get clues about one another but never really peeling back the onion to get to the fleshy parts. 

     "So, what about this adventure?" Shayne will ask the group as a whole.  "Talking animals. Mammoths. Dead Giants. Eternal Winter.  Oh my!  And now we're off to investigate a wizard.  Likely these things are all connected, no?  Surely there must be some nexus tying this all together?"

"Shayne, now you are speaking my language. One of my great joys in life is finding the root cause of a mystery such as this. All the things you mentioned are just symptoms of caused by the 'nexus' as you term it. So yes, let us dig through these oddities and find out what is really going on."