Location: Forests outside Dawnhaven
Interacting with: Valthyr @Fetzen
Mentions: Sya
The walk into the forest had taken longer than expected, for while the giant’s supernatural strength made his quarry light enough to carry, the direwolf was still large enough as to be cumbersome. The walk was made even longer as the beast squirmed under his grip, but eventually he calmed enough to allow Ivor to change stance from a side straddle. Once he felt they were both far enough away he released the wolf. Though he didn’t bite the giant, the fierce eyes, brimming fangs and harsh growl were enough to convey the druid’s disapproval of Ivor's actions.
The verbal tsunami that followed may as well have been garbled gibberish as Ivor stared blankly as the beast turned back into a man. Most folks Ivor conversed with either spoke the same language as him, spoke slowly and deliberately, or at least knew not to use too many big words at once around him. The man was clearly upset and cold, neither making him any easier to understand as he shivered, body beginning to blue as he set about to work in the snow.
Whatever words made it to the blightborn at least left the intended message. Clearly the man was upset at Ivor for interfering in whatever action or prank he was attempting to get Marcus to leave everyone alone. On top of that, Ivor’s interference could cause the situation to escalate, with the consequences being severe. Given Marcus’ reaction to dead animal fur, Ivor could only imagine what would have happened if live animal fur had touched him. Still a wolf suddenly appearing out of nowhere, given Ivor’s personal experience with his own creature, he wasn’t sure what to make of this unknown. Had he misjudged, who was to say that the consequences wouldn’t have been just as severe for all involved?
Still, all being said and done, he felt bad for the man before him and in an effort to help placate some of his anger, Ivor doffed his clothes, draping the boar furs around the druid.
“You seem like man who would be liking this more than Mr. Marcus did,” Ivor then dropped his trousers, leaving only a loincloth to remain,
“pants maybe little too big on you, but will be better than bare skin out here.” The giant crouched low, cheeks hovering inches above the pristine snow as he watched the magic unfold before him,
“It is good you have the spellings like this, Ivor forgot to bring axe from hot spring too.”Ivor stared at the tree a little longer before turning to the man,
“Ivor has not seen you before, what is your name, friend?”Valthyr reached for the pants with a rather obvious amount of eagerness. The cold was beyond biting and what there was in terms of Ivor's clothes being too large could be turned into a second layer on top of the first one by some folding.
"Thanks, Ivor. My name's Valthyr." the druid stuttered.
"Valthyr Naffron if you'd like to know the whole thing. Didn't know that Ayel's family name is Marcus." The idea of just tagging all of them as idiots was tempting enough that Valthyr had to remind himself of how inappropriate that potentially was as well.
“It is good to be meeting you Mr. Valthyr, but did you not hear him yelling his name?” Ivor puffed his chest up a little, his voice pitching up as he mimicked,
“Marcus Ale Rainfort!” The blightborn’s laughter echoed through the tree tops,
“Ivor understand that you are worried, but I be thinking that Mr. Marcus is little more than chittering squirrel who cannot find nuts.”The tree started to emit some suspicious sounds. A faint noise of splintering wood at first, the tearing of bark soon joined in until the whole trunk delivered an opera of imminent structural failure. The part above the line of runic carvings began to slide on the part below it, shearing off those bits of wood still holding on. Once the center point was over the edge, there was no return for the giant plant. The tree toppled over away from where the druid and Ivor were and fell down onto the bushes on the other side.
"It's a little on the slow side compared to an axe, especially with you swinging it I imagine, but it works." Valthyr tried to explain.
"A very thin layer inside the tree trunk has basically rotten away at an accelerated speed. It is a more common woodcutting technique among my people, at least when the tree is particularly large."The man tried to huddle inside Ivor's giant pants as much as possible, still freezing but at least no more of the biting cold was coming in.
"Sadly though there's not much I can do about the common cold I am going to get. Just arrived here yesterday and..." How should he put it ?
"There's already been plenty of death and decay."The giant watched in amazement as the tree fell away without any obvious interaction beyond the druid’s words. His explanation of the spells’ mechanics were a little wordy again, but Ivor got the gist of it, though it was hard not to understand ‘magic makes tree fall down’. Admittedly the man’s modesty of his magic vs Ivor’s might made him feel a little sheepish. Given how often the giant went out of his way to cut trees slowly and methodically, just to feel a little normal. He could admit that to Kira, on that cold hunting eve, but not to this stranger, not yet anyway.
“Sometimes my friend, is not how fast you take the road, just so long as you get to where you go in the end.”Ivor walked alongside the trunk and inspected it,
“How are you proposing to make the chair for Syraea? Do you have some magic that turns wood into chairs?” The giant sized up the tree,
“I could also carry this back to town, bring it to woodcutters,” he turned to look at Valthyr,
“It would be easier to drag, but Ivor got in lot of trouble last time he made ditch in road.” He shrugged,
“Funny enough, was also when Ivor was making a new door for Syraea…”Ivor’s hands ran alongside the wood when something clicked in his head, something the druid had been saying during their conversation.
“Wait…did you say somebody die?”Valthyr had been about to start answering the giant’s first question when the second one came in. It was a surprise, had really nobody in town told Ivor about what had happened yet ?
”Yes. I don’t know the man’s name, but there was a murder. If one decides to call it that, because to me it looked more like somebody tried to… feed on the victim ? I think I’ve heard the name ‘Abel’ at some point, but I’m not entirely sure.” He considered briefly not to mention anything going further than that, but then convinced himself that Ivor would, at some point, probably find out anyway.
”A wolf is not the only shape I can take. I watched it as a cat, which also is the reason why I couldn’t do much about it as it happened far too quickly.”The druid’s tone was somewhat saddened now. ‘Tumultous’ was not enough of a word to describe his first day in Dawnhaven, but the scene with the two women, Sir Abel and the blightborn had really topped it off in the worst possible way.
”There was a manhunt afterwards with me, the prince and some others, but all we found was a blightborn squirrel I got this from.” Valthyr presented his elbow which still bore clear marks of injury from the day before.
”The attacker was clearly walking on two legs and had two hands however. Couldn’t pick up the scent in the woods anymore.”As the battle wound was presented to Ivor, he turned his eyes towards it, but his gaze reached far beyond it. His mind processed this new information quickly, the words ‘murder’ and ‘feed’ repeating themselves over and over in his mind. Did one of his own kind do this? Was it someone from the village? Was it someone from the outside? Suddenly the murderous gaze from the champion made much more sense; her charge had been spelunking with him and Zeph while a killer was on the loose.
The giant wondered if there was more he could do in this moment, but with how much time had passed tracking would be useless at this point given the snow. His eyes fixated themselves back on the druid, bearer of the news, witness to some of the events that unfolded. It seemed the situation was under control for now and that, perhaps, it was for the best that he had taken the priestess far away in the meantime.
He turned his head slightly to look at the fallen tree, letting his right arm rest on it.
”That thing ? I can cut away coarsely what’s not needed using the magic I’ve already shown, for all the finer details I will resort to traditional woodcutting tools. Which I still have to find somewhere, that is…”Ivor blinked and smiled,
“If you can cut away big pieces,” Ivor let go of the tree, the wood falling again with a crash, shuddering the earth around them,
“Then perhaps you will do that here, yes? Ivor may be strong, but carrying all the tree all the way…oof,” the blightborn demonstrated by stretching and flexing his shoulder,
“Even we have our limits, yes?” Ivor laughed,
“When we are done, we can bring to the wood cutters, they may have the tools you need to be using.”Once Valthyr got to work cutting the tree down to size Ivor stood next to him watching him work,
“Thank you, my friend, for telling Ivor of what happened. Since coming back everyone seemed a little down, a little…strange, yes? Now Ivor understand why.” The blightborn folded his arms and lowered his head as if deep in thought,
“What the people need is hope, but how do we give them something there is so little of, when there is no light in the dark…” Ivor stared at the tree, the rotting bark cutting another perfect line down the trunk. He mused that he’d have to come back later for the rest of the tree, he did promise Sya firewood after all.
Still staring at the remaining tree an epiphany began to take shape,
“What if…we light a torch…one the whole of Dawnhaven can see? Your magic can go up the tree yes? Not just through the tree?”Valthyr wasn’t entirely sure whether he should be delighted about even giant Ivor having his limits because that had the potential of making blightborn at least a tad less scary, or be disappointed by having to separate the tree into smaller bits right on the spot due to these limits. Anyway, the quicker he got to work, the earlier he’d be able to return to a more comfortable place even though the fur slowly started to warm him up again.
”The magic is tied to the runes I am carving, so while it has some range, I can’t carve down here and expect something to happen at the very top of a huge tree. I am pretty good at climbing though!” the druid laughed.
”A torch large enough to illuminate the town ? We could certainly use the wood I don’t need for the chair for that and pile it up.” Burning so much wood for the sake of a symbol had the touch of waste to it, yet at the same time the druid could understand. Also he could regrow trees if needed, he just… didn’t want to mention that yet. Otherwise maybe more people would come. They might figure it out once his tree-house was finished anyway.
Valthyr picked up another stone from where the tree’s fall had blown the snow away and continued carving. Soon, the first large bits of tree broke off, each one sending a jolt through the remaining trunk upon separation as the balance shifted. If they weren’t careful, some of it might end up slapping their faces.
“Hmm, you may be right. Ivor had been thinking that maybe it would be like, a really big torch, but bonfire may be more…prac..er easier.” As he mused a chunk of wood splintered off towards them, the giant effortlessly swatting it away as it closed the distance,
“We will need to keep some wood for Sya and the eye though, keep the hearth hot.”Ivor continued to watch as Valthyr worked, eyes scanning, ever vigilant for any errant pieces of wood that strayed too close to them.
“Do you remember what the sun felt like, Mr. Val?” The blightborn asked,
“Ivor does not remember so much, but he remembers how warm it felt, like a warm hug. I think the people need that hug right now, even if it is a fake hug.” He laughed,
“It must be sounding silly to be hearing a big man like me talking about the hugs and the fuzzes with feelings.”The question came a bit unexpected and it made the druid take a brief, but visible break from the task of breaking down the tree. He exhaled deeply with a plume of white mist exiting his mouth, then drew in the air to respond:
”Yes, I do. The memory is… fading however. I can’t even guarantee that I wouldn’t feel uncomfortably hot if the deeply red rays of an early morning’s sunrise were to touch me by now. As a Lunarian, it probably doesn’t hit me as hard as it does the Aurelians, but still… We have to go to greater and greater lengths to maintain our forests and still there is so much silent suffering.”Valthyr turned around, leaning slightly against the fallen trunk now behind him.
”Let’s prepare that hug!” The piece intended for Sya’s chair was already almost separated from the rest and something told the druid that the giant in front of him would not have that much of an issue to get a literal crack at the rest.
Ivor clenched his fists, his body unable to contain the unparalleled excitement within, exploded with a victorious cheer that echoed through the treeline,
“JABOOL!” The giant rushed forward and embraced his new druid companion with back-breaking strength. Valthyr’s feet briefly left the ground before unceremoniously landing back down to the earth. Ivor then rifled through the furs’ inner linings for lengths of rope before rushing to the remaining logs to tie them down.
“There is much to work to be done, friend! Ivor is so excited! Last one back to the town is a jerked beef!” With that Ivor bolted forward, a rope in each hand, towing huge stacks of logs behind him. In his excitement, Ivor had completely forgotten that he was going to carry the wood home, opting instead to create twice as many trenches as before.
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