[Chr24] Prompt Frozen Lake

As the group had prepared to leave the docks a kind stranger had approached Amor giving her a fair warning as the rest of her “crew” loaded up the needed tools and materials to extract the Rohaara stones.

“Excuse me Miss?”

An older fisherman with a salt and pepper beard wearing a red cap came walking up to the lone member of the crew not moving or tying down tools to the boat. Amor looked up from her check list of materials she had to ensure the small excursion would go smoothly, compared to the last “mountain challenge” they embarked on, and so she could finally get back home. She looks the man up and down before glancing back at Sylvie, occupied with telling Ing-eo how to properly load things onto the ship before facing the man and putting her clipboard down.

“Can I help you?” She says sweetly with a hint of annoyance in her voice for being interrupted by this random stranger.The man stares at her for a moment before letting out a small chuckle and itches his beard before clearing his voice.

“I can’t help but see that you and yer crew are loading up quite a bit of supplies onto yer ship there. These waters may be calm now because of the ice setting but don't let that fool yee. That ice will be free floating fer a second only to freeze solid once again in a blink of yee eye.”

He hesitates looking around the docks to see who may be looking at the two of them before digging into his pockets and pulling out a dark leather bag with multiple heavy objects inside. He holds out the bag for Amor to take, which she does, and quickly puts his hands back into his pockets, straightening up as if nothing happened.

“Those beauties will help yee crew out in a pinch incase that happens dearier. Just if anyone asks where yee gottem say it was from the island yee far out over there aye?”

The man points out towards the ice caps of Clria that loomed ominously in the distance at the clear winter skies. As he puts his hand down he winks at Amor and starts to wander down the docks towards the attached tavern filled with people.

“Wait! Why did you give me these?” Amor shouts at the man as he walks, simply waving at her question before disappearing into the lively tavern. Amor’s shoulders drop as she looks down at the bag she was given, examining it and seeing nothing special besides being warm to the touch. 

‘Maybe it's an old fisherman's tool used for these waters and this time of year, still confused as to why he didn't want to tell me where he got them from?’ Amor thinks turning the bag around feeling the objects inside move about as she tipped the bag. As she goes to open the drawstring that holds the black leather bag closed Sylvie calls out to her letter that she knows they were ready to go. With a small shrug Amor shoves the bag into her pocket of her pants and walks onto the ship to help with the final send off for their journey.

Time skip out at sea

“So where exactly did you find this thing Ekko?” Amor says watching a creature with a bat-like nose, fluffy body, and large ear flaps that run down to its back and two little tail pieces that seem to help it in some way with flight, cling possessively to Ekko while Ing-eo tries and fails at offering it a small piece of dried meat to eat.

“Well, remember when we woke up after the mountain challenge? As we were going back down this guy just ran straight into me from another group of em. It looked like it was being bullied so I helped it out. I guess he’s been following us since and decided now to literally latch on to me”

Ekko says with increasing difficulty as the creature maneuvers itself essentially in front of Amor’s view of Ekko glaring at her letting out a big huff. Ing-eo slumps at the lack of the creature's attention and not taking his snack in defeat, and looks over sadly at Amor watching the whole scene while Ekko keeps trying to get the creature off his face.

“It's a bavee Amor and more precisely a Polar Bavee. My grandma had one that looked just like this little guy here. They make the best pets! Ekko, you should give it a name! Maybe something regal or distinguishing like Richard or William! Or maybe–”

“Chadvas.”

Ekko says cutting off Ing-eo mid sentence, finally holding the bavee under its arms as it keeps reaching out towards Ekko.

“What?”

The entire crew says at the same time with varying levels of confusion and distaste.

“Chadvas! He kinda looks like a chad a bit but like needs some pizzazz to the name yah know? So adding a ‘vas’ to the end really spruses it up! So Chadvas!”

Ekko holds his now newly named Bavee up, seemingly proud of his decision. Ing-eo looks in shock and wears a face of astonishment at the name while getting up to approach Ekko in an attempt to swoon him to a different name. Amor grimaces, paying attention to what's in front of her knowing that an argument was just getting ready to ensue between the two.Along with their navigator, Sylvie, holding her head in her free hand in frustration for what's to become of the squabbling in front of her for the rest of the trip. 

“Now Ekko maybe consider a different name Chadvas sounds a bit–well it sounds crass to be honest. Maybe you should name it harold or–”

“Did you just call Chadvas crass!! What the hell Ing-eo how dare you insult me sone look at him–”

“I didn’t insult him I insulted the name you chose–”

“HOW DARE YOU–”

As the two break into an almost yelling match Chadvas lets out a large screech before going and attacking Ing-eo outright as he was close to his owner. Ing-eo lets out a high pitch scream to match the screeching polar bavee as the two collide. At the beginning of the attack Amor rushes into the braw reaching for Ing-eo only for herself to be swept up in the brawl as now Ekko was attacking her for trying to hit his bavee. Soon individuals turned into blurs of color as even Sylvive joined the tussle trying to get Amor out and as unscathed as possible. As it seemed the fight was actually going to cause permanent damage the entire group was broken apart at a harsh jolt of their boat stopping suddenly throwing the members physically from the brawl ball.

Amor flew back and slammed upside down into the side of the boat on top of Sylvie who had hit her head during the sudden stop. While right next to them Ing-eo was also in an upside down position with scratches littering his face as Chadvas had landed on his stomach now looking very dizzy. Ekko himself was nowhere to be seen which meant that the group had a man overboard.

Sylvie got up first in a hurry pushing Amor back down as she tried to sit up right and looked over the edge of the boat in hopes of seeing where Ekko had fallen over. Only to stop at the sight of his butt sticking up in the air with his head buried in residual snow on top of the ice that the group had run into.

“Wh-what happened?” Ing-eo says standing up and pushing Chadvas off to the side still too dizzy to tell who was who and where everything was. He made his way to the standing Sylvie who now had Amor standing next to her chuckling, which he followed soon in turn to see Ekko shaking snow out of his head from his fall.

“What just happened? Did we crash?” Ekko says looking around and seeing their boat stuck on a frozen section of the sea that wasn’t there before. As he looks over at the group laughing at him on the boat he gets tackled by Chadvas finding him again after he recovered and getting pushed back into the snow. 

“Oof–Chadvas! haha –stap it!” he says while trying to avoid all the little kisses that Chadvas was trying to give him.

“Okay cut it out Ekko, get back on the boat. We’ve got to figure out a way out of this whole mess” Sylvie calls down towards him as she jumps off the boat to examine any damage.

“...there doesn’t seem to be any actual damage to the boat, so that's a positive at least. The ice looks to have almost frozen around the boat completely so were frozen solid for right now. Ing-eo can you hand me one of the icebreakers we packed?” she holds her hand out expectantly for the tool.

“Oh right! One second.” Ing-eo shouts and begins to look through their cargo before pulling a 6ft pole out with a sharpened end and handing it to Sylvie’s outstretched hand. 

“Here you go!”

Sylvie nods in thanks and takes the pole and jabs it into the ice in hopes of chipping or cracking with the jab. The ice cracks but doesn’t fracture around the boat and doesn’t meet the actual water below it much to her disappointment. Sylvie sits back up and looks at her damage to the ice before looking up to Amor.

“We’re stuck in the ice Love, it’ll be a few hours at least before we can get the boat free enough to just turn around and try a different route.” She looks to the looming glaciers that were much closer to the group's location before.”I’d recommend walking but the ice is still not fully frozen, up ahead it's broken up still so walking would be a no go. What do you want to do?”

Amor stops and looks at the broken ice up ahead and the large frozen piece that sat in between them and their reward. She looks down at the map they had that tracked their progress during their journey, and still sees that they’re on the fastest route to the island. As she drops the map down to her sides her hand brushes against her pocket with the bag in it and is reminded by the warmth coming from her pocket. She grabs the bag she opens it up to bright red hot coal-like orbs in the bag radiating heat. 

“Ing-eo how many of those spears do we have?”

“We packed up at least four total for the trip per Sylvie’s recommendation. So one for each of us!” Ing-eo says running back to pick up the other three spears and bringing them over to Amor.

“I think I may have an idea,” Amor says with a smile as she takes one of the poles and takes a piece of cloth while eyeballing the bag of coal like stones. 

Timeskip of Innovation

The group slowly made their way to the lone island that sat nestled inside the glaciers of Clria. The island itself was one of the few pieces of land that had a touch of green and was steaming amongst the semi-frozen sea it sat in. With Sylvie as the captain of the boat bringing them near the small land piece, the rest of the group was focused on hitting any ice near their boat with their modified tools. The tools in question were icespears that had hot coal-like stones wrapped around the base of the spear near the tip with spare canvas that was left on the boat, effectively both breaking the ice and melting it with each strike as the metal heated up. 

“The islands up ahead!” Sylvie calls out and begins to turn the boat to prepare for docking.

The rest of the group looks up in excitement and begin to scramble to get the needed materials for both collecting of the stones and docking of the boat. Eventually the group makes it to the island and is met with a wave of warmth from the presence of the stones ingrained in the earth underneath and on top of the ground.

As the group docks they all jump onto the solid land and get to work. Ekko begins to dig in the earth with his tail where the stones are suspected to be, while Chadvas does his best to help his owner in his task by digging a small hole next to him. Ing-eo begins to scour the shoreline for any exposed ones hidden in the water with a bag on his hip in excitement. As Sylvie ties the last rope to a nearby tree and walks towards Amor who's crouched at the ground holding up a very familiar coal-like stone up to her face.

“Ready to get this mission out of the way?” Sylvie says, putting a hand on Amor’s shoulder as they watch the other two collect the stones as they come across them. Amor stands up and pockets the stone into a gifted leather pouch from a cheeky fisherman with a smile.

“Let's get started.”