Snow Man's Treasure

[FennWenn]

((A solo to kick off an epic QUEST!))


If an old friend hadn't taught him how to understand the ins and outs of city underbellies, Fenn would be lost in this chaotic maze of craggy alleyways and foul, biting winds. He plodded on over the rough streets of the Knife Edge’s broken Rubble Town, trampling trash underfoot and taking in the illicit activity around him.
In any ordinary crowded marketplace, Fenn felt like a king of thieves, taking whatever he wanted. Here, he realized he was just one of many people milking the world for all it was worth.

This was one of the most smothered, black market-y-est, heathenous places in Salvar. And Fenn loved that. Many crude “shops” stocked with contraband wares were set up from rickety tables, pieces of stone, and tattered tarps. They displayed wares such as luminous crystals smuggled in from Dheathain, rundown whirligigs stolen from Alerar, and exotic animals that curled up in their cages and shivered against the ever-present chill. You could even find magical or enchanted items here, the sorts of things that normally were clamped down upon in the ever-religious Salvar. A set of dried rattlesnake tails caught Fenn's eye, and he brazenly rattled one of them. The sound it made was distressingly like a giggling child. Ew, creepy. The boy shuddered and moved on.

He had come here with a few silver bracelets he had snitched earlier in the morning, during his stay in this wonderfully snowy place. Experience had taught him that the black marketplace was always an easier place to sell stuff than ordinary stores. For one, no questions were asked about the origin of your merchandise. Sure, the merchants here paid less coin in exchange, but that was better than getting arrested.

But while he had time - and he always had time - Fenn had the leisure to browse. He stopped at a rickety stall with makeshift shelves fashioned from thick grey bricks and broken planks of wood, each of them filled to the brim with bits of paper and yellowed books. Fenn picked up a creaking tome and sniffed the paper, enjoying the familiar scent of ink and leather. It sent him back to his days in little Forstford, reading with his long-gone father figure. If books weren’t so heavy, I’d probably carry a few on me. I should get Daugi a saddlebag. Maybe she’ll be okay with carrying some. As he flipped through the faded pages and mused to himself, he couldn't help but overhear some nearby chatter.

“Why should I pay that much for such a scrap of paper?”

“For the sorta treasure you’d get out of the adventure, I think a five hundred gold ones is a pretty fair price.”

Without fail, Fenn’s pointed ears suddenly swiveled in the direction of the conversation. They twitched in excitement.

Treasure?

As it was, two people wrapped in thick layers of clothes were chatting rather loudly on the other end of the stall. One of them was a wide, balding man with a sleazy grin clutching a rather large fold of paper. The other was a beefcake who so far seemed pretty unconvinced by the seller’s slick words. “Yeah, right,” he laughed. “I wouldn’t pay ten gold pieces for it. How’m I to know it leads anywhere good?”

“Trust me,” the bald man said, opening his map and showing it to the beefy dude. “This little goldmine leads to cavern some miles away from here; rumor has it that it used to be some sort of ice drake’s hoard. Legend goes that she was a cruel and greedy mistress with caverns upon caverns of jewels. I warn ya, you’d have to face whatever beasties roam in the forest on the way there - wolves, bears, maybe yeti - and who knows what’s in the cave once you get there. But a manly guy like you should be fine out there, eh? I'd think the trove awaiting you'd be a fine reimbursement for the trouble. Now, are you gonna buy it bub, or are you just wasting my time?”

Uncertainty spread across the potential customer's face. “I don’t think I’ll chance it today, thanks,” the beefy guy muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets and starting off. The merchant’s expression soured. What a shame, Fenn thought with a little grin. That map sounded pretty promising to him.

[FennWenn]

Imagine the possibilities of a treasure map. You have a vague idea of what you’ll face, but it's mostly a mystery. At the end of it all, a pile of goodies to sort through. What might be in that old dragon’s hoard? Gems and glassy baubles? Shining swords waiting for a new wielder? Stacks of gold, jewelry, valuable tomes of lost knowledge… The possibilities intrigued Fenn. Discovery and greed were what made his fingers itch and his world continue spinning. He fell into a dull-eyed daydream, imagining what he would find and what he could do with it, only to snap out of his reverie to watch the merchant grumpily pocket the slip of paper.

Fenn wanted that map. He wanted it bad.

The boy sidled up to the bald merchant, pretending to skim the titles of the books he passed by. His fingers slid innocently over the leather covers, leaving flecks of frost in their wake. There was a crude plaque on one of the shelves that read “RUCKFORD”. It was probably the name of the merchant, Fenn figured. One eye was kept on Ruckford at all times.

As he loitered, the Fae mulled over the best ways to get the map out of the merchant’s hands. He couldn't afford to pay five hundred gold for such a thing; Fenn barely had a hundred squirreled away in his bag. Maybe he could spend some time picking pocket after pocket to scrounge up the money. But, that would take too long and be too risky; the people here were poor and wary. No, he decided, I need to steal it directly from this cheap ass of a man.

Speaking of that cheap ass of a man, he had take note of Fenn's presence by now. Beady blue eyes squinted down at the Fae, sizing him up. “You, kid,” the merchant said gruffly. “If you aren't going to buy, you shouldn't be browsing. D’ya have any money?”

Fenn flashed him a pearly grin and shrugged, prying a slim atlas off of the makeshift shelves. “Is that a yeah or a nah?” asked Ruckford a bit too loudly as he shivered and picked at a fingernail. "A straight answer'd be real nice."

Uhhhhhh, Fenn thought as he froze in place. He hadn’t really planned far enough ahead to feel confident dealing with the merchant yet. Too late to back out now that he was actually (sort of) talking to the guy. Here went nothing. The boy bounced over to the shopkeeper stood behind as he mentally mulled over the possible distractions he could make. All he needed was one really good one, and that map would be as good as his. Suspicious, squinty eyes bored into the little Fae as he bounced up to the counter, that stupid grin still stuck on his cherub face.

By my own damn divinity, I’d better think of something quick.

[FennWenn]

I’m good at improvising.

Probably, Fenn reassured himself. Usually.

A piercing wind rattled the makeshift stall. Fenn posed himself demurely in front of the merchant, holding out the atlas for him to see. “You wanna buy that one, huh?” The boy nodded up at him, all smiles and snowy sweetness. Ruckford’s sour expression twitched. “Costs about twenty gold. A good atlas, if a few decades outdated. You sure you got the money for it?”

Gotta buy time. Fenn bit his lip, feigning an uncertain expression. He held up a finger for patience - which the merchant granted with a glower - and stuck a hand into his satchel. As he rummaged in the bag pretending to look for his wallet, his gaze lifted back to the gnarled wood of the counter top, an unlikely place where he had found his distraction. There was a jar of coins right there, sitting foolishly close to the edge. A peek inside revealed that there were only a few in there; it looked like it had been a slow day for ol’ Ruckford there. His hands closed around an empty coin pouch that he had nicked a few weeks back.

“How long is this going to be taking ya?” the merchant muttered as he drummed his gloved fingers on the counter. Fenn returned his impatience with a perky bounce as he “found” his wallet. With an overly enthusiastic sweep of his pale hand he pulled it out of the satchel, bumping into the coin jar as he did so. The frosty jar tipped over easily and tumbled from its perch.

Astonishment caused Ruckford’s jaw to drop with the piece of pottery as he watched it touch ground and shatter into thick, disjointed pieces. The few coins inside clattered after it.

“You klutzy elfling bast-” Ruckford swore, his features scrunching up. He just barely caught himself before he insulted his potential customer. A deep breath was taken, and then let out. “Give me a moment to clean this up.”

As the man kneeled down to pick up the splayed fragments, Fenn allowed himself a Cheshire grin. Just the tiniest tip of stained paper poked out of the man’s coat pocket, tantalizing, almost begging to be taken. Now!

Fenn reached under the plank that comprised the counter-top. While Ruckford was bent over grumbling, picking up his coins and the shattered pieces of the jar, Fenn's hands reached over and plucked the map straight from his pocket. Rule number one of pickpocketry; a distracted target is an oblivious one. The paper slid out of the fold of fabric and into his hands smoothly, without a hitch. Score! The bubbly Fae resisted the urge to dance in victory. He folded it into the open pages of the atlas, pocketed the book and shoved it into his bag, positively smirking at how clever he felt about the whole deal.

Yep, I'd say I’m good at improvising.

As the merchant straightened up and set the shatterings of his money jar on the plank on the table, Fenn had already taken off down the broken street, gathering stares as he made his way through the ragged crowd of blackmarket goers. Angry shouting arose behind him. “Come back here! You didn’t pay for that book, you thief!” It seemed that Ruckford had checked his pockets too just in case, for the initial burst was followed by incomprehensible blubbering and hollering, where the only words Fenn caught were “map” and “dead”.

Uh oh. The Fae glanced over his shoulders. A terrifying sight greeted him; there was purple-faced Ruckford charging after him with a sneer of contempt and an surprising speed, his coat flapping out behind him like the cape of a vigilante hero on the heels of a robber. Giggles might have wracked Fenn at the sight if that hot mess wasn't barreling straight for him.

All of the nopenopenope.

[FennWenn]

Whoops. Sorry. ‘Scuse me, Fenn sang in his head as he pushed his way through the thin crowds of black-market buyers and stolen-good shopkeepers. Passerby watched him dash through with unsympathetic stares. No-one made a move to stop him, but neither did anyone offer help. He couldn’t blame them for staying out of this craziness. Judging by the continued clamour, Ruckford wasn’t too far behind him. Fenn's heart quickened with every step he took until it was almost a low buzz in his ears. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go! For such a stout fellow, the merchant sure was quick on his feet.

He has good reason to be. A Cheshire smile still played on Fenn's lips. This map was probably the most valuable thing in his inventory.

To the startled protests of a vendor, Fenn kicked out the rickety leg of a table he passed by. Sharp Dheathain crystals tumbled to the cobblestones and shattered into colorful shards that skittered away over the stone and rubble. Boy, was he ever being destructive today! Ignoring his newly stubbed toe, Fenn leapt his way around the shatterings, hoping that this would be enough to slow to merchant down.

Judging by how the yelling had stopped, he figured it had.

It was only after he had been running along for ten more streets that he felt secure enough in his victory to allow his burning lungs a rest. Nipping into a crevice of an alley between two roughshod houses, Fenn leaned against a grimy wall and sucked in deep breaths. Leftover adrenaline and anxiety made his ears twitch like a rabbit. Sweet relief. If he had the energy left he would be dancing. Now that he was out of danger, the map that he had taken was calling to him from within his satchel. As he caught his breath, he flipped open his satchel, eager to see what awaited him on the map.

Snow-muffled footsteps behind the Fae told him too late that it was too early to celebrate.

A rough hand grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. His head crashed into the brick wall in front of him, sending a spike of pain through his head and sparks of color swimming across his field of vision. Fenn dazedly slapped a hand to his spinning forehead, feeling blood trickle through his fingertips and into his eyes, tinting his vision grey. When he was spun around to face his aggressor, he was unsurprised to see Ruckford leering down at him, his face absolutely red and purple with rage. Then again, that might have just been Fenn's distorted vision.

You are damn persistent, Fenn conceded groggily, holding his possibly-concussed head in his hands.

“Gotcha!” the man crowed at him. His hands gripped Fenn much too tightly by the shoulders, digging painfully into him as the man tried to drag him away. “You little shit-faced rat. Didn't think I knew the shortcuts of my own town? You’re going to give me back what you took, and then I’m going to march you over to the Church of the Ethereal Sway. They’ll find something to use with a trickster like you. Teach you about taking from me, won’t it?”

The words swam together in the Fae’s head as he was forcibly dragged through the alley.

The Sway. He knew that the Church had no love for magic-users. Even if he looked the part of a child, he doubted they’d show mercy on one with his abilities. If he ended up in their hands and they discovered his abilities - an inevitability - he was good as dead. The thought was a chilling one that grabbed his heart and gave it a hard squeeze. There would be no-one to take care of Daugi if he was gone, and there would be none but the lonely direwolf to mourn his absence. His eyes lit up with a frigid glow, something distant and alien that made even Ruckford hesitate in his dragging.

Thirty years old was too young to die. Fenn struck back without even realizing he was moving.

[FennWenn]

There was an icicle in Fenn's hand and he wasn't really sure how it got there. The tip was melting away, dripping with a deep, warm red, a color that was splattered over the front of his shirt as well. At his feet was Ruckford, his face twisted with anger even in death. A gaping wound in the merchant’s chest oozed the same shade of red as the icicle in Fenn's hand. He dropped the slender lance of ice with quiet horror, watching it slip from his grasp and fall to the ground to shatter and scatter into a million different pieces.

The last time he had seen a corpse laid out on the ground with a hole between their ribs, it had been his closest friend.

Run, his instincts screamed at him as warm blood began pooling in the cracks of the cobblestones like some sort of sticky, sickly spilled wine. You can't be seen like this. With this corpse. With this blood.

Shuffling back turned into a canter, and that turned into a desperate all-out gallop away from the scene of his crime. He ducked through the twists and turns of the streets, smacking unapologetically into people and buildings as he careened along. There was no destination in his guilty mind but away.

[FennWenn]

Fenn caught his breath again underneath the eaves of a crumbling church.

The blood frozen to his shirt unnerved him. There was a squeezy, queasy feeling in Fenn's chest. Maybe, he thought as he covered up the browning stain by folding his cloak over it, Baldie had it coming, you know, for being a cheapskate… Ugh. I didn't mean to do it. How? How had he done that? How did he make that icicle? Chunks of ice were all he could manage, or so he had thought.

His hands shook as he tried to answer his own dazed questions with repeated attempts to make an icicle happen again.
He pressed his palms together. A surge of magic flowed out to tingle the very tips of his fingers, and he could feel the ice forming under his hands. When he peeled his fingers back a formless lump of ice greeted him. Disgust forced Fenn's ears back and his mouth into a surly grimace. Yes, he could make it start, but he had little idea how to actually shape magic - that was beyond his control. It was a scary fluke then.

Fenn angrily flung the unwanted shard of ice into the vacant street, where it bounced off of the stones and came to rest at the base of an empty house.

A squeak of a groan escaped him as he leaned against the cold-crusted church, staring despondently at the sky. What was he doing wrong? Maybe he was concentrating too much? Hell if he knew how his own abilities really worked. It was times like these where Fenn had to admit that he didn't know as much about himself as he thought he did. His own potential powers were beyond his knowing; if the scrawny Frost Fae had been raised by his own rather than a bundle of thieves, maybe he'd better understand his nature.

Without him even meaning to, it had killed someone dead. Self defense, he justified weakly to himself. His head was in his hands.

At least he had gotten something out of this; but he suddenly wasn't sure if the scrap of paper was worth what he had just done. It felt as if it was searing a hole in his satchel. Well, I have it now, so I guess I might as well figure out where it leads.

With pale hands and a pained expression, Fenn steadied himself and brought himself back to his feet, dragging himself towards the edge of town.

[FennWenn]

At the threshold of the continuously crumbling cityscape, where the rubble and ruins thinned out, the Fae paused and beheld the icy white expanse that blanketed the world north of this city. His hand clutched the strap of his satchel with newfound tension. He had been planning to return to Corone after he’d had a little time to relax in the northern chill here. But with that damn map burning a hole in his bag, his stay would have to be extended until he had worked things out. At least, that means it’ll be longer until I have to go on a damn boat again, he mused with a slight smile. Seasickness was an annoying occupational hazard of his wandering ways.

It would be better if he left this particular town sooner than later. Lest, he realized with an uncomfortable shudder, someone found that body and started investigating. Rubbletown had lots of crime, but it might be better to be safe than sorry.

He rubbed his eyes, as if that would erase the memory of the death from his mind. Fenn pulled a brass whistle out of his bag and blew into it as hard as he could. A shrill screech echoed across the snowy plains.

“Wuff!” An unmistakable bark came in reply but a few minutes later.

On the heels of the sound bounded a charcoal-furred direwolf, her tongue lolling out of her mouth and her maw matted with fresh blood. She skidded to a stop just in front of the lone boy, huffing hot clouds of meaty breath in his face. Someone had been out hunting.

Oof! A gasp was wrenched out of Fenn as the excited pup barreled straight into him, her tail wagging as she slurped and slobbered her tongue all over his face. Silent giggles wracked the Fae as her blood-reddened tongue tickled him. She only stopped when it froze to his cheek and he had to peel it off. Good Daugi.

[FennWenn]

Blithely ignoring the newfound numbness in her tongue, Daugi sniffed the stains on his shirt curiously, tasting them with the tip of her tongue. It must have perplexed her, as she gave Fenn an almost inquiring look. He wondered if she thought he had been out hunting too. Fenn gave her an unsteady smile back and scratched her behind the ears. Before he knew it, he had buried his face in her scruff, trying to steady his breathing in spite of the quiet panic that had seeped into him since he had pulled out that icicle. Tears stung the corner of his eyes. The wolf gave him a grunt of a growl and a patient sidelong glance, waiting until this fit of emotion had subsided.

A few moments passed and Fenn caught his breath. Under the close watch of the direwolf, he hoisted himself onto her back and settled into the hollow between her shoulders that worked as a saddle.

Fenn carefully opened his satchel to find the atlas resting in the top of the rest of his hoard. The map was just where it had last been, stuck hastily between the peeling pages. Funnily enough, this was the first opportunity that Fenn had to closely study the map since he had first nicked it. Its soft brown paper crinkled under his hands. The writing was smudged and written in a thick accent that struck him as Salvarian, but not quite. Perhaps it was an older dialect. While the words were too difficult for him to make out, the map itself was no hassle to decipher. Symbols dotted the landscape, markings of wild beasts and who knew what else.

The only thing Fenn really cared about was a silvery marking in the shape of a dragon. Bestial, graceful, timeless. The ice drake’s hoard, I bet. It rested between the peaks of two mountains in the very north of the countryside.

That’s pretty far. If I was walking, that’d take forever to get to, he thought, mentally charting his course across the land. With Daugi, it might take a few weeks, but we can manage that.

With a tug on her scruff, the direwolf made a happy bark and started forward through the snowy fields. Adventure ho.

[Storm Veritas]

Fennwenn recieves 650 EXP, 63 GP and the map.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

All rewards added!