Chilling Adventures in the North

Qinfaren turns around in circles a couple of times, the cold and snow messing with his ability to find anything other than the trapper's footprints. He looks over at Bjorn and nods agreement.

"He was running from something," Qinfaren agrees and begins plodding through the snow, following the trapper's footprints.

     Bán signs as Owl reports the canopy of trees was blocking their view.  "And did it occur to you to fly beneath the canopy?" he asks with some agitation.  "I should have summoned a rock..."

     "Yes, the tracks.  Of course we follow...  Was just hoping to have some clue as to what we were blundering into first," Bán says with a sideways look to Owl, who was busy pruning their feathers and paying no attention to anything whatsoever.  With whip in hand and shield on his other arm, Bán is ready to strike forward... or rather forward back trailing the tracks?

Bjorn leads the way in following Fef Moryn's trail. Before too long, you find a grisly sight before you. Amid the snow-covered pines, you discover the remains of the five militia members, who look like they were clubbed to death. New-fallen snow has already begun to settle on their corpses.

"This must have been the work of the verbeeg, right?" Bjorn questions.

Qinfaren cringes a little at the sight of the dead militia.

"Well, someone with a club anyway," Qinfaren ventures. 

He then looks around the area for any sign of which direction the attacker may have gone.

Survival: 22   

Ricky tries to identify the people, sorta hoping he finds his competitor for Speaker

     Bán Searches for tracks besides the trappers or our own.  Tracks going away from this area, perhaps on the large size…  

     “Bodies still warm at all?” He asks nobody in particular, just whoever is near the corpses.  “If so then they couldn’t be long dead, eh?”

There's not much left of militia members for Ricky to identify any of them.

Qinafren notices more tracks in the snow leading away from the gruesome scene. These footprints in the snow are bigger than those created by the militiamen, the trapper or any of the group. Qinfaren determines that they must have been left by a large giant.

Qinfaren points out the large prints to the others in case they miss them. He places his big foot next to the prints trying to gauge how much bigger than he or Bjorn are.

"Looks like we're going this way," Qinfaren says, pointing in the direction of the prints.

Before moving to follow the trail, Qinfaren reaches into the gray bag of tricks, plucking out a furry ball and tosses it out on to the snow.

Qinfaren's new friend: 6  

An enormous dire wolf springs up from the furry ball, which elicits a smile from Qinfaren who quickly pats the beast on its head and then sets it out on the trail just ahead of Qinfaren. 

     Owl takes off with a screech of panic and Bán almost falls ass over head twisting around to see what the problem is and suddenly seeing a dire wolf.  Bán“S hand is drawn back and ready to crack his whip before he realizes the beast is a pet of some sort and not a threat 

     “Ice my balls, man!  You could warn a fella!” Bán Spits out with some annoyance.  “You could have at least summoned us riding horses or something…”

Qinfaren looks from Bán to the dire wolf then back to Bán.

"Oh sorry," Qinfaren says sheepishly. "I haven't figured out what comes out of this bag yet."

He pats the gray bag of tricks hanging at his waist.

"So far I've discovered a weasel and a badger and now this dire wolf," Qinfaren says. "But they all listen really well."

"It is a rather interesting item, that bag," Bjorn remarks. He then turns to Ricky. "Are these footprints in the direction of the verbeeg's lair? I had hoped that we would be able to reach the lair before midday, but this trail seems to go on for miles."

Ricky shrugs. "Can't say I'm an expert on giant folk. Could be the Verbeeg is headed for home, or maybe has its blood up looking for more mead. Only thing to do is keep tracking."

Qinfaren, the dire wolf a little ahead of him, continues following the trail. 

"Did you find the lair before?" Qinfaren asks. "What happened there?"

"We found the stolen casks in its lair, but no verbeeg. I haven't actually seen the thing yet, only followed after it." 

Bjorn looks down at Ricky over his shoulder, "Okay, but don't you remember where the lair was?"

You continue on your way, following the trail, when suddenly, a snowball strikes Qinfaren in the face. The rest of the group sees a tiny creature popping out of the snow. It has an ink-black body with a snow-white face that resembles a mask.

Then a bolt of reddish-brown fur springs out of the trees. It stops just in front of the tiny creature, and you realise that it is the fox you saved hours earlier from the trapper. The tiny creature bows before the fox and offers a frozen berry. The fox carefully takes the berry from the creature and gobbles it up. The tiny creature then climbs up onto the fox's back.

The creature then approaches Qinfaren on the fox's back. When the fox is just in front of Qinfaren, the tiny creature holds up a hand in front of it in Qinfaren's direction. Qinfaren feels a momentary warmth glow over his body. Before the creature and fox return into the woods, disappearing.

(Qinfaren received a Charm of Animal Conjuring. He can cast conjure animals 3rd level 3 times before the charm wears off.)

     Bán, his whip at the ready, barely manages not to crack it out towards the mischievous critters.  "Well, that was odd," he notes in a deadpan voice mentally scolds himself for being caught unawares.  It won't always be cute animals, he tells himself.  Best to defend yourself first, find out if a furry non-combatant later...

Qinfaren laughs once he realizes where the snowball came from, and settles the dire wolf down. After being approached by the pair and accepting the gift, he waves goodbye to the two magical creatures.

"Safe travels," he calls after them.

He holds up his hand, absorbing the meaning of the energy.

"At least not everyone out here is out to kill us," Qinfaren says. "If we do end up needing mounts, this gift might come in handy though I've never tried riding a horse without a saddle before. Do you think a giant goat would make a better steed?"

As he muses about this, he pats the dire wold on the head and sends it 20'-30' ahead along the trail and keeps going.

It's been a bit t-Ricky for me to "know" things that I don't entirely know out of character. I will assume Ricky is leading the party to the lair, I guess. 

"Hmm, I think neither of them are a great option for travelling in the snow. An axe beak is a much better option. An axe beak’s splayed toes allow it to run across the snow. Much better for quick travel between Ten-Towns. They're not cheap, though," Bjorn replies.

After the distraction, you continue on your way through the woods following the trail.