RP:An Investigation with Jonn
Part of the The Ice Plague Cometh Arc
Frozen Hunting Grounds
Hildegarde’s investigation led her beyond the unmarked grave of the Wraith, kneeling in the snow and dragging some of it up to her nose for a quick whiff. Indeed, the knight was attempting to discern any kind of scent that may stand out to her: something that would indicate exile giant or anyone, really. The snow, however, often fell in Frostmaw so the fresh snow covered the old snow and made determining any kind of scent difficult. With a grumble, she allowed the snow to fall from her hand, rising to her feet as she looked around. Fingertip rose to scratch at the flesh near her eyepatch, “They said they heard laughing on the wind,” she repeated to the couatl wrapped around her halberd, “which could be anything. It could be a person, it could be a malign spirit, it could be…” she sighed, “anything.” Kenway looked at her from his perch, forked tongue flickering forth as if in thought, ~Storms don’t just appear and go, though. We need to think of the normal details, Hilde. Don’t look for the extraordinary, look at the ordinary and see what’s amiss.~
Jonn trudges his way along the snow-covered path. The last villager with whom he spoke had pointed him this way, and he looks up at intervals in hopes of catching a glimpse of what he seeks. He is, as before, bundled against the cold, with only his face left bare to the frigid winds. That face lights up with a smile when he catches sight of what he seeks: Hildegarde. He makes his way over toward her, calling out a greeting as he approaches.
Hildegarde turned at the greeting, offering a smile and respectful bow of the waist in response, “My lord,” she said, “how nice to see you again.” The knight gestured to Kenway, “Kenway, this is Lord Jonn, Duke of Larket.” The couatl dipped his head in greeting, fluttering those iridescent wings along with it. “This is Kenway, my squire and companion,” she explained. ~How do you do?~ the couatl offered, glancing to Hilde to see if he had done well. “What brings you out to Frostmaw, my lord?”
Jonn gives a bow to Hildegarde, and one to the coatl. "Well met, Kenway," he replies, before turning to Hildegarde once more. "Well, I happened through the tavern in Kelay, and I saw your listing upon the board there. I have, as you know, been up here recently, and I thought that I might be of service to you in whatever it is that you seek."
Hildegarde looked pleasantly surprised at the remark, smiling and nodding once, “I didn’t expect people to reply so quickly, if I am honest.” But the knight continued, by gesturing eastward, “You will have passed it – and surely have seen the giants guarding the ice – but something was taken from the land. A storm was summoned, I believe, disappearing just as quickly as it appeared. Frostmaw is used to snow storms, but not ones that appear and disappear so quickly: that implies it was summoned. So the question is… who or what summoned it, why did they and why would they take what they did? A powerfully dark piece. It requires power just to take it. So, it cannot be some haphazard adventurer or novice taking it. Someone did it purposefully.”
Jonn tugs his cloak more tightly around himself, and casts a wry glance up at the swirling clouds overhead. "That does not bode well," he says when Hildegarde has finished. "And regrettably, I have not heard or seen anything that might be of help to you. But if, as you say, it is an object of dark power, then it must be found and destroyed before it can be used for evil. I would help you, if you'll have me, in finding it."
Hildegarde sighed with a hint of despondency, “Indeed, there are few people who have seen or heard anything, but I imagine something will turn up eventually.” The knight nodded, though, in agreement: “That would be the appropriate course of action, but it has been here for a while and the Queen has not done anything about it before. So I assume she had it here for some reason, but what that reason is I don’t know. The shamans are looking over the snow from the area, but I’m not sure they’ll find anything. The Queen looked worried about me even touching it, which does not bode well.” Throughout her miniature ramble, the knight’s expression had begun to change: from relatively calm to frowning with confusion, as she dug herself a deeper and deeper hole. “It is necessary that we find it, but my gut tells me we will have no luck. Laughter on the wind… That’s what bothers me.”
Jonn frowns as well, squinting into the wind that cuts in from the west, his ears straining to hear. "Laughter on the wind," he says, after failing to hear anything but the rustle of the wind in the trees. "That does sound rather...dark, I must say. Although, the wind can play tricks on the ears, and perhaps the laughter carried from some other place?"
Hildegarde shook her head, “Not in Frostmaw.” She gestured westward, gaining a hard and cold look in her remaining eye, “The ruins are often ringing with laughter; plagued by spirits and ice devils alike. But they never come this far east, which is why it would be a little bit untoward to suspect them. Besides, a spirit could not exactly take the ice from the ground, I don’t think.” The woman shifted her weight between her feet as she went through all the possibilities in her mind. “I… I think it was exiles, but I hold a grudge against them. I am saying it, most likely, due to my dislike of them.”
Jonn grimaces, glancing back to where the giants guard the site of the theft. "They took ice? Seems as though this place has ice in abundance. It will not be easy to find the particular piece they took, I am sure." He looks westward again, and shakes his head. "Well, unless Frostmaw has another enemy on this side of it, or else an enemy from the east somehow managed to sneak their way over here without being noticed, then I would imagine that your hunch is right. I do not know all there is about Frostmaw's enemies, but the exiles seem to be the only ones actively trying to harm your city."
Hildegarde laughed a little, “Oh yes, ice is in abundance!” but she looked to him with an almost worried expression, “But ice as black as night and seething with… with a chill that is pure evil? That is not something you find in Frostmaw easily.” The woman’s fingers flexed around her halberd; Kenway’s tail mimicking the movement, “Exiles are the only enemies and many have been killed lately. I suspect them and only them, my lord, but I have a grudge. They took my eye, they took my friend, they stole other aspects of me. They do not fight honourably.”
Jonn reaches out to give the other knight's shoulder a brief, friendly squeeze, his arm quickly retreating back to the warmth of his cloak. His mouth twists into a sort of a smile, and he says, I have found that exile, in all its forms, can often turn a person into something less, something lacking in honor or common decency. I think it is living outside the laws and communities of man, alone in the feral wild. It will change them, no matter what they were before." He shrugs. "Regardless, if it is the exiles, then they must be stopped. Such evil should not fall into the hands of lawless men."
Hildegarde smiled in appreciation at the friendly squeeze, turning to face the man, “The exiles are dishonourable, which means they are not beyond using any and all tactics to get what they want. I must send word to the Queen, though. I am now a member of the Queensguard and even so, I cannot act without her permission. I can inquire, but I cannot raise my blade. I shall not bring down a war without a just cause.”