{"id":1885,"date":"2014-08-21T10:12:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T00:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/?p=1885"},"modified":"2014-08-21T10:30:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-21T00:30:02","slug":"against-the-chill-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/?p=1885","title":{"rendered":"Against the Chill of Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"freeze00\"<\/a>The witch snarled.\u00a0 Falling.\u00a0 Down.\u00a0 Down.\u00a0 Impact.<\/em><\/p>\n

He felt himself go.\u00a0 It felt like falling, and as though he’d stopped long ago.\u00a0 No sound.\u00a0 I’m cold,<\/em> he thought.\u00a0 The heat leaves the limbs first, the heart and head last.\u00a0 It’s cold.<\/em><\/p>\n

No, there was sound.\u00a0 Crunch, crunch, crunch.<\/em>\u00a0 A wind.\u00a0 Were his eyes open?\u00a0 Louder: crunch, crunch–<\/em><\/p>\n

“Ow!”\u00a0 A boot came down on his head.\u00a0 “Mind your step, if you please!”\u00a0 The sound of the boots halted, and he looked up.<\/p>\n

“Oh, it’s you, fool,” said Radskyrta.\u00a0 “Reckon you’d best get up.”\u00a0 The soldier offered an icy gauntleted hand.<\/p>\n

Magnifico let himself be drawn in a direction that might have been up.\u00a0 “You.\u00a0 You’re here.\u00a0 We’re here.\u00a0 Where?\u00a0 My head aches.\u00a0 What happened?”<\/p>\n

“You fell down.\u00a0 I did, too, but I’m not gonna just lie there.\u00a0 Always got to be moving, right?” said Radskyrta.\u00a0 “You stop moving, you…don’t get up again, maybe.\u00a0 You freeze.”\u00a0 He shrugged, and drew a cloak around him.<\/p>\n

“Where are the others?”\u00a0 Magnifico shivered, becoming aware of a frigid twilight, and of snow.<\/p>\n

Radskyrta shrugged again.\u00a0 “Back there,” he muttered, barely inclining his head in a familiar gesture.\u00a0 “Think I’m done.\u00a0 You coming, or what?”<\/p>\n

“No,” said Magnifico quickly.\u00a0 “You go ahead, friend.\u00a0 I will see what is keeping the rest.\u00a0 Don’t go too far.”<\/p>\n

“Got to keep moving,” said Radskyrta, trudging on through the snowy wood.\u00a0 “Miles to go.”<\/p>\n

“Don’t go too far,” Magnifico heard himself repeat, and turned–back?–in the direction from which the plodding Radskyrta had come.\u00a0 The forest was darkening, and still but for the scuffle of his own feet, or the echoes of Radskyrta’s.<\/p>\n

No, there was a light that flickered.\u00a0 That would be Mendel, or Gestlin, or a fire built by the others, and it would be warm.\u00a0 He would find out what had happened.\u00a0 Fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a blue light, and the light was armor, and the armor encased a man, tall as Rainald, and the man moved gracefully from tree to tree, seeking something or other.<\/p>\n

“You there, sir knight!\u00a0 Hail and well met!” cried Magnifico cheerily.\u00a0 “I am a performer who has lost his way, and would welcome your company.”<\/p>\n

Shaking his head, the glowing man in blue turned on the clown.\u00a0 “Who…ahhhh<\/em>…you?” his voice rasped.\"freeze01\"<\/a>\u00a0 Glittering eyes pierced, and a chill stabbed at Magnifico’s heart.<\/p>\n

“I, sir, am Magnifico, fool and songster.\u00a0 What is your pleasure?”<\/p>\n

The stranger looked long, pointed, and said in his oddly accented Anglish, “Your clothes.”<\/p>\n

“These are but the trappings of my trade, sir knight, and in my charming gear I seek with my friends to rid the land of evil.\u00a0 I was just looking for them–”<\/p>\n

“You put on…dot<\/em>…and fight crime?”\u00a0 The thick vowels made him hard to understand, and he began to chuckle.\u00a0 “With your friends?”<\/p>\n

“Eccentrically put, kind sir, but essentially correct.\u00a0 My friends are around here somewhere, and would no doubt make a place for you at their fire.”<\/p>\n

The blue knight laughed, pointing again at Magnifico.\u00a0 “You…AHHH…super!\u00a0 You need to”–he drew from his back a kind of rod that made a whining sound–“chill out.”<\/p>\n

Magnifico fled, numb feet leading him away into the gloom.\u00a0 Behind him, the knight’s voice mocked him.\u00a0 “You’ll be back!”<\/p>\n

And then it was warm. and there was dear Merasiel, arguing with Sir Dane over the disposition of the corpses, and Mendel was there, watching him wake.\u00a0 “Radskyrta,” said the monk sadly, shaking his head.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” replied Magnifico, remembering snow and the fresh track of familiar boots.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The witch snarled.\u00a0 Falling.\u00a0 Down.\u00a0 Down.\u00a0 Impact. He felt himself go.\u00a0 It felt like falling, and as though he’d stopped long ago.\u00a0 No sound.\u00a0 I’m cold, he thought.\u00a0 The heat leaves the limbs first, the heart and head last.\u00a0 It’s cold. No, there was sound.\u00a0 Crunch, crunch, crunch.\u00a0 A wind.\u00a0 Were his eyes open?\u00a0 Louder: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banestorm","category-bs_pcs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1885"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1894,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions\/1894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}