Frost Bites - Part Four

[rubyrubyruby]

The aftermath of the battle is still fresh. Things are still twitching. Bodies of warriors and hounds alike are either still, or frothing pink at the mouth or wounds. Such is their supernatural endurance before, they could take an enormous amount of punishment. Some of them has diminished, along with the biting wind that seemed to be on their side.
The great half-uncovered whale is capable of moving more of itself, with more of the ice cracking from it. The scent of living things and the whale in particular, fill the nostrils with a buffet of things. The thrashing that it does, makes the shelf of ice underfoot quake every so often. Closer to it, there is more evidence of how tangled its fate was with the Norse ship. Harpoons protrude from it, grappling lines and parts of the ship itself, now looking much the worse for wear.

Chase looks over the carnage, a flick of his wrist sends crimson droplets across the ice from the razor keen edge of his sword. He sheaths the weapon. The whip of ice and snow coils about him as he walks toward the others, his eye on the thrashing whale, "is he the good guy?" Chase asks over the wind.

Ruby laughs, a bit of blood bubbling on her bottom lip. She raises a foot and rests it on the chest of a fallen Kitezhian. It's chest expels trapped air in its lungs, tongue lolling. She starts wiping the head of her hammer along the fallen warrior's thigh. "It be done. It be stopped. Drown yer shades...Yer ink walks. Way more dangerous than mine, aye? We both gots tools. Mine will always protect, nevah project." She rumbles wetly.



Wynter holds off the last warrior's blows and then steps away, disengaging as the snakes of flame returns to coil tightly about the creature. Even it's cries are muffled as loops of flame burn into it's skull. The pathi custos doesn't look back. Once the snakes have done their work she summons them home to the blade lined with flame and moves at a sedate pace to rejoin the others.
once there she inspects the whale while giving Cat and her magics a wide birth and a narrowed eye. "He has his own magics. Strange ones. Someone or thing linked him here into a part of a.. this cluster of a enchantment. Trapping him and the ship-full of ...men.. here."

In the blue shadow of the icelocked ship, Merrisol is clubbing people like landed salmon until they stop twitching. A couple he has to pry helms away to do the job, though the gaunt hunger still present on those wasted faces gives him the creeps. He turns, flexing his gloved hands restlessly into fists, while watching Ruby intently but quizzically. Whether that bit of poetry was meant as response to Catriona or an epitaph for the deceased whaler, he isn't quite sure, but soon after he casts a sharp look over and up at the winnowing Narwhal - some new rhythm in its groaning struggles catching his eye perhaps.
"It was a hunt," he nods over Wynter's remarks when she provides some insight to Chase. "A great pursuit over countless seas, I gather. Their obsession became their curse. Their madness. Eat a god, go mad; so the story goes." That seems to double as a response to Chase's original ask too. "I doubt they engineered this place themselves, where they've been trapped. But something here wants to keep them. That wind, you stopped it rebuilding the ring? The magic is still bound in it, apparently."

Catriona's silver-pale head snaps up at Merrisol's words. "Eat a God..." she repeats this, a half-mad mantra, surrounded by shadows of Chaos. "I am already mad. What happens then?" The compulsion seems nigh overwhelming, and her footsteps turn towards the captive beast.

Ailith blinks. "...I suppose it depends on which part of the god you eat," she says. "And what manner of god it is. I have heard it said that to take a god's power for yourself, you must devour its heart. What I know is that one need not interpret that quite so literally."

Ruby hangs her shield upon her back and secures it, eyeing the Chaos minions that stand out so strongly upon the now much more colourful canvas. She doesn't want to turn her back on them, or their Mistress and so reluctantly stops using the corpse underneath her as a pose-step. She moves on over to the shadow of the narwhal, her lips peeling back as she assesses the half-wrecked ship and the creature. She eyes the immense bulk and then takes a panoramic view of the basin. "We wreck this place, erase tha mess. Don't wanna give any 'o tha locals strange ideas. Anyone gots any useful ways tah sweep this place? I know what tah doo with tha whale 'ere."

Chase looks at the struggling beast, "it is in pain...and regenerating" he walks in the direction of the huge animal, "We should set it free...maybe it will right itself?" Chase frowns, "I can make the ice swallow it all...but it's a big medicine..." he mutters, setting his hand upon the ice, "really big medicine..."

Wynter takes another unconcious step away from the magics of the mad woman. "If you mean destroy it all by sweep. A combination of fire and Chase's ice. Burn the wreackage away. Open the ice. The whale will take care of the rest I would think." She turns her eyes over to Ruby, studying the woman. "Unless you're thinking about killing the whale. That's an entirely different mater."

Merrisol eyes Catriona and her candle, expression decidedly wary in its mask of streaky oil and gore. Clearly there's a lot going on with this gal that he has not caught up on, intel-wise. Nodding to Ailith, he steps over broken oars and bodies to barr the Chaosian's approach of the colossal cetacean. "Pretty sure a random mouthful of blubber doesn't count, Lady Catriona. As I understand it, some special sort of blasphemous prepwork is involved," he explains drolly, before his tone goes flat and final: "Any rate, nobody'll be dining on divinity tonight. I have promised this Critter liberation. Doc, can you see whether these warriors will rise again?" he asks Chase as an aside. "They are a part of the ritual binding the whale and this place together."

"Ain't gonna kill it." Ruby drawls. Licking at her blood lip and making a bit of a face, she rubs at her mouth with the back of a hand to wipe it clean of the coppery taste. She pauses as a Trump connection takes hold of part of her awareness, making her flag in her calisthetics. "Soon...Soon..." She murmers to the contact and then resumes her movements. After finishing her contorting, alternating, and relaxing of certain muscle groups. The braces and armature along her left side gets shook out of position and then dropped to the ground with a clatter. "Cap'n Merrisol, oooo you findin more things tah save...but in this case, I agree." She grins. "Gonna drag this floppin fish ootah 'ere. At least part 'o tha way. If this bloody caricature 'o divinity act loike tha rest, it'll be thankful an rejuvenated when it just beyond tha area. An then scorch or wipe this place clean loike it nevah was."

Chase looks over the fallen Kites, "They are dead." he says plainly, "but if they are Kites we gotta be sure the sun never again touches their faces...we entomb them in the ice, good and deep." he frowns "We got a plan for moving that?" he points to the whale, "We burn the ship and swallow whatever is left in ice...clean sweep." he looks to Wynter, "solid plan." he looks again to the ice they all stand on, "Are we over the sea?" he asks looking to the others.

Ailith looks at the great big creature, at Chase, and at the various frozenish warriors remaining. "If you wish my aid in healing the beast, ser Mandrake, you have only to say," she says simply. And then goes about...well, if those warriors were meant to rise, it appears she means to see to it they find that a difficult prospect. Entomb in ice? Not a problem.

Catriona bristles again at Merrisol and shows her teeth. They're shiny, and not so intimidating, but the irritation is rabidly clear in the motion. A retort is stifled with a supreme act of will, as Ruby speaks, deciding the course. It takes Cat a minute to blow out the candle, but blow it out she does, sending the shadows of Chaos screaming and gibbering into the ether, but leaving behind a marked taint of Chaos upon the land surrounding the woman.

Wynter remains silent as plans are made. Again her eyes scan of Cat before watching the shadowy demons vanish away. Another step away is taken and a sour face is made as the taint remains. "Or burn them to ash unless that still allows them to rise yet again." She moves the flaming blade from right hand to left to warm that side of her body. "You want to tow the whale to water? I could perhaps make a line for that. Or is there another way you desire to do this?"

Wait, as irritated as she was when he had the Wandering Duchess decorated for a Bon Voyage party a few years back? That was some irritation right there, he would recall. Merrisol shifts his focus from Catriona, lingering studiously on the effects of the snuffed candle on her dark servants. Little flares of notions go sparking off in his mind as wandering braincells of significance collide, then go bumbling off in other directions. For now. He looks at Ruby as well, murmuring thoughtfully, "I can't very well offer It sanctuary in Rebma... what that whole One True Religion thing we've got going on. Give me a moment to commune - perhaps once freed from those barbs and tethers, the Critter'll enact Its own means of egress."

Ruby walks a few steps, her eyes attaining that distracted glaze again. She makes to shake an invisible friend and instead is fed something from elsewhere. The connection servicing the handing over of bundled strands via the connection. Like some silly magic act of pulling multi-coloured tied hankerchiefs, she collects loops of golden netting. "Hhhold yer seashorses." Her hands fumble occasionally as if fingers are numb. "...Aye, well, you just tell't tha we get't oot. Cause leavin it 'ere be no good."

looks at Ruby and her net thing but remains silent for now, certain a plan is to follow.

Ailith just focuses on removing the dead warriors from further consideration. Each one gets coccooned in twisting layers of ice, so that the crystals polarize and keep the center - where the body is - shut away from light. Ice mummies.

Merrisol stops in the act of clambering over the wreckage to affix a Stare of Incredulous Buh upon the heap of sturdy gold filament. A few different remarks tangle together on their way out of his mouth, concluding with a snap of his jaw to shut position. He resumes his climb and sets to work shredding ropes and figuring the best method of excising the harpoons from the beast's hide. At first, it sounds as if he is speaking plainly to the Narwhal, but the words resonate, diffuse, and shed all patterns of civilized language.

Wynter is intensely distracted as teh golden net appears. A brow rises and a look is cast to Ruby as well as a soft 'huh' that escapes her. Yet seeing Ailith startign to entomb the fallen she moves off to collect the bodies of both mand and dog to drag back towards the entomber.