Solo A Secret Job [Prompt]

[Lullaby]

1st of Winter, 513 AV

A day that was supposed to mark the leaving of Morwen, complete with tears and a bittersweet good-bye, had ended horrendously. The music was punctuated with the screeches and cries of animals throwing themselves against the walls of Avanthal. The pounds fell in a sickening rhythm, adding a tense underlying air to the departure of their Queen. It was the end of Fall everyone dreaded, the spike in hostilities with everyone anxious and worn. This season, it would be up to the Holds to make amends and keep the peace.

As night fell, whispers ran through Frostfawn Hold, spoken in small circles and spreading like fire. The Icewatch were closing the Gates, and they would not help the Frostfawn move the animals. They wanted to leave them outside of the Gates! Frostfawn veterinarians felt their curiosity burning, and need for answers of the behaviour of the animals. What caused their suicidal rampage at the Gates? Disease? Curse? The answers lay within those that lay dead before the icy walls, and it was left on Frostfawn's shoulders to move the animals for inspection.

Kavak, having returned from a tiring day, was relaxing in the communal area of Frostfawn Hold. Surrounded by his adoptive Hold, it was easy to unwind and just relish the few quiet moments he could get. It wasn't until a group of young men conversing across from him, did Kavak actually notice what everyone was worked up about. "They are saying they won't help us move them, since they don't want to poison their guards if it's some sort of disease that affects the animals. If we don't move the animals and find out though, how will we find out? It might be infecting the Vantha, if it's air-borne! It's absolutely unreasonable, to not consider the possibilities of what just leaving these animals could bring." It wasn't hard for Kavak to imagine what could happen if they decided to ignore the situation, and he looked over at the Frostfawn who was speaking to listen to the rest of what he had to say. Seeing he had an audience, the man nodded towards Kavak before continuing. "They're recruiting Frostfawn to help move a few of the animals, but they don't want to risk actually spreading anything, so it would have to be at night. Tonight. Meet at the Gates if you're willing to help." He looked at Kavak directly as he noted where the Frostfawn were to gather if they were willing to assist, and smiled, seemingly convinced the young man would decide to join them.

The night deepened and it soon approached the time to leave if he were to make it to the Gates on time. By the voices out in the hall, it would appear there were others who were leaving late as well. Joining them, they walked as a group towards the Gates, quiet in the streets, and wary of the night. Outside of the Gates, a group of almost fifteen Frostfawn had gathered, most young men with strength to boast. A few older Frostfawns milled about to direct the youth and lead each group to the facility in Frostfawn Hold where the animals would be inspected. "Evening, everyone. Thank you for coming," an elderly woman said, her voice quiet, but carried well in the silence. We need to do this quickly, and quietly, so please keep that in mind. Wear the gloves we hand out now, and we will burn them later. Do not touch your face, eyes, or mouth while wearing these, we do not know what has caused these animals to act this way, and if humans can contract it. We have already selected the specimen we wish to move, and we'll divide into groups to carry them back. This shouldn't take more than three trips, let's work quickly."

Kavak was hustled into a group of three men of similar stature - each smiled brightly at Kavak, and introduced themselves as Henrik, Jason, and Kevin - and directed towards a fallen Talderan Woolly, whose pelt seemed lightly misted in white and iced together near the roots close to the skin. Eyes open, they were wide and its long eyelashes were stuck together in one large lump of ice. "We need to get this Woolly, that Waste Walrus, and the couple Frosthawk over there to the Frostfawn Hold. Let's do this quickly, men."

[Kavak Frostfawn]

The Talderan Wooly must have been eight hundred pounds. If it were alive it would have stood at four feet high and five feet long. It had huge horns, two in all, on the top of it's head. It was one of the meat producing animals in Taldera. It was a source of food to the Vantha in particular. It was hairy, fur covering almost every inch of it's body. It was dusted with snow and ice covered very large parts of it's body. Kavak thought the ice looked odd in a way but quickly dismissed the thought as insignificant. Seeing a woolly as one of the participants of the aggressiveness shown recently with the animals throwing themselves against the Ice wall. The reason this was is because the woolies, as a breed of animal, were incredibly easy going animals. Kavak had never heard of a person dying in a wooly attack...probably because the woolies didn't attack people. They were some of the most docile creatures in all of Taldera. Another disturbing fact of this whole ordeal was that this woolly was alone. Woollies traveled in large groups and you could almost never find one out alone. Kavak and the three other men donned their gloves as to not contract whatever it was that made a docile woolly charge the walls of Avanthal. Each of the four men stood around the one woolly with sadness in their eyes at such a desolate sight as a fallen animal for no apparent reason. It was born of some unknown and more than likely senseless cause. Henrik, Jason and Kevin sighed together. Each of them were identical except for one thing, Henrick had green streaks in his hair, Jason had dark blue, Kevin had purple streaks in his. Kavak assumed they were related at the least. They were athletically built and had very kind eyes. Each had dark almond skin and was at least a head taller than Kavak. The three of them were all of the Frostfawn hold as well. Henrik spoke in a deep sorrowful tone, "The poor creature. What would cause such a gentle giant to do this?" He said, a honest tone of grief palpable in his voice. Jason shook his head, "Caiyha weeps this night for her fallen children." Jason, Henrik and Kevin all nodded their agreement. Kavak didn't no what in the name of Morwen they were talking about of course. Kevin sighed and spoke, "We will pray for this animal before we move it to our hold." The four of them nodded this time in agreement. Kavak didn't know who they were praying to, probably this Caiyha person, but he agreed that these poor animals needed it. It was most decidedly not their fault they hurled themselves into the Icewall. The four Frostfawns lowered their heads in respect for the fallen animal before them and Henrik spoke, "Caiyha, we feel sorrow for this woolly who has fallen in our great city. We, as humble Frostfawns, ask that you bless this animal and our people in this grave time of need. We also call upon Lhex, to give this Woolly's spirit a fitting reward for our woollies are always special to us and allow us to live in our frozen paradise. We ask that you take special care of this poor creature." The four of them raised their heads. Kavak decided not to ask who these people were...it wasn't the time or the place for such things. Jason spoke, " We need to move an eight hundred pound wooly. I say we tie ropes around it's body and drag it to Frostfawn hold. We drag the fallen woolly to Frostfawn hold and do the same for the waste walrus because they are so heavy." Henrik shook his head, "it is at least a mile and a half to Frostfawn hold, you propose we drag the woolly and the walrus through the town and hope no one sees the drag marks or worse sees us dragging the animals through the city?" Kavak spoke, "I think it's a bad idea personally. With the animals gone from the Icewall the guards will put two and two together and follow the tracks to Frostfawn hold without question." Jason nodded his head, "You're right of course...but they are too large to do anything else with!!! We can't possibly pick them up and if we could pick the wooly up there is no possibility with the walrus...wait...what if we cover the tracks though?" Kavak nodded i turn, "That could work, alright we drag them to Frostfawn hold and find a way to cover the drag marks." The four of them nodded and Kavak spoke, "but how will we cover the tracks?" The three other Frostfawns each smirked with a sudden idea shared between them without a word. THey each had long hair that fell to their shoulders and each of them moved it to display the snowflake mark on their neck. Jason spoke, "Morwen will allow us that ability." Kavak didn't understand fully. He knew what the mark was, it was the Ice Reaving gnosis that most Vantha held. It wasn't an uncommon sight to see first marked Vantha like these three. Kavak held no such marks but he knew it kept people from feeling the harsh cold of Avanthal that seemed to rip through to his bones every Winter. Other than that...he had no clue how it would help, but he supposed he would find out shortly.

[Kavak Frostfawn]

They tied four ropes over the woolly and secured them with simple knots. The ropes trailed out about six feet from the woolly to the four men standing a little away from it. The four men each gripped one of the four ropes and pulled. The muscles on each man straining as the eight hundred pound woolly barely moved. The four of them sweated and grunted as each of their arms bulged from the strain put on their bodies by the, quite literal, dead weight. The woolly budged one inch...then another...and yet another...within fifteen chimes they reached three inches. Jason threw down the rope in frustration, "this is hopeless...four men couldn't move a woolly like this even if they were built warriors!!!." He said...though kavak was pretty sure four Icewatch guards could lift the woolly by themselves let alone drag it through the paths of Avanthal. Henrik spoke up, "Well Jason, we're all up to better ideas when you get one." Jason waved his arm at Henrik in a dismissive gesture. Kavak spoke up with what he supposed was a ridiculous idea, "uhm...is there any way we could make some sort of, I don't know carrying system out of ice?" Jason made another dismissive gesture but stopped mid-gesture, "wait...not a system but a sled wouldn't be too much. We wouldn't have to be master carvers to make a simple sled and we could transport the woolly then the walrus all in the span of two bells tops. It wouldn't take too much time to carve out a sled right? We could simply have a slab of inch thick ice and carve out some skids it'd be perfect!" He said enthusiastically. It was no problem getting a small about an inch thick square of ice. It was about twenty inches wide and thirty inches long. Not nearly enough to hold all of the two animals bulk but enough to drape the hulking beasts over it and slide them to Frostfawn hold. Kavak sat down on a bench and took a long thirty inch rectangular block of ice. Jason told Kavak that a mage, an old magic-user, that was a friend of his was responsible for getting them the perfectly shaped ice. Of course it would be their misfortune that the old man had no artistic side and not enough experience to craft an entire sled, just long blocks of ice. Kavak had one block, Jason was in charge of shaping the flat top of the sled, and Henrik was in charge of shaping the other skid along with Kavak. Right at that moment Kavak could have cursed the old magic wielder for his inabilities to make a complete sled but praise him for probably being the only one who could produce these blocks in such a short time. Kevin had handed him a chisel and a saw. Kavak took the saw first. He knew enough about carving to know that the saw was to cut large chunks of the ice away. He used the saw to carve the block of ice into a curved block of ice that looked like a huge elongated "U" with a roof on it. It was basically the ice block with a hole in it. Kavak carefully used the chisel to flatten out the bottom of the skid and the top. He chipped away at the ice with a chisel and a wooden mallet carving out an extremely crude, but functional ice skid. He then shaved the ice from the skid carefully with a file, making the skid smooth. There wasn't a lot of room for mistakes like he usually made with his carving. There were some nicks in the skid but he was but a novice in his craft. The ice also had pressure cracks from pushing on the ice with the tool so it looked like a spider web was formed within the ice. He kept smoothing out the ice. The hole was a jagged mass and looked like a beast's mouth. The skid was more smooth but he took more time with that. It didn't need to be pretty...it needed to be functional. After Kavak and Henrik were done with the skids, Kevin used his ice reaving to melt a layer of ice off the top of each skid. One was a ragged skid that was flat on the top and bottom...Kavak's in other words and the other was an ornately carved and etched skid that looked absolutely perfect, Henrik's. Kavak and Henrik then placed the skid, watery side glued to the flat piece of the sled. Kevin then freezed the remaining water between the skids and the flat piece of the sled. The four of them then mustered all of their strength and lifted the massive animal onto the sled, just lifting it two inches off the ground was a horrible strain on each of them. They untied the creature and swung the ropes under the makeshift and ragged sled, through the holes of the skids and tied it over the Talderan Woolly to secure it to the thread, although its limbs were still dragging in the snow as they moved the sled. It was much easier to move the sled, the ice skids moving easily on the surface of the snow to the Frostfawn hold only a mile away. It took them but three bells to carve the sled and transport the woolly to the Frostfawn hold for autopsy. The four Vantha made their way back to the other animals awaiting their return at the gates. The next beast they would need to remove would be the waste walrus, which would be handled like the Woolly before it though it was quite a bit heavier.

[Kavak Frostfawn]

As he stared at the walrus he knew it was at the least a couple hundred pounds heavier than the woolly. "Hey guys...we made a makeshift sled out of very thin...maybe an inch thick of ice that remarkably held the woolly for fifteen minutes. This thing won't hold the Waste Walrus for a minute if it does that." The other three men nodded quietly to themselves. Jason spoke up, "We can only try, see what happens from there." He said, not much faith reflected in his voice. Each man took their position around the walrus and hefted it up onto the sled with much wobbling of knees and ankles. Eventually after much muscle strain they succeeded and the weight of the walrus draped over the sled. Henrik breathed a sigh of relief, "well hard part's over now back to the hold with this mo-..." He said a loud crack cutting him off. The sled skids buckled and cracked under the pressure of the walrus and the whole thing came crashing down in splintered ice. The four Vantha men collectively sighed in desperation. Kavak rubbed his hands together, "Well guys...we have to move a one thousand pound beast with no system in place to actually move him and there is no way we can do it with the four of us...open for suggestions is what I'm saying." They sat around the walrus, in the snow thinking, the triplets looking agitated, walking around and pacing with all the non constructive work. Kavak sighed and nodded his head as if agreeing with an idea he just had, "alright...they didn't say we had to deliver the animals in one piece right? And they can still study the walrus if it's not entirely in tact..." He said more muttering to himself ludly than talking to the triplets. Jason looked puzzled, "what are you saying Kavak?" Kavak shrugged and looked resigned, "I'm saying we slice the walrus up and deliver it in manageable sizes. I mean I think they would cut it up anyway to find out if there was something internal making these creatures do what they did, why not cut out the middle-man here?" Jason paused and looked as if he was thinking, a few wrinkles carved into his forehead, probably from concentration. Henrik stood up and sighed, "We should do it, there is no other way I see of moving this thing." Jason nodded as well as Kevin. The four came to a decision, they would use the saws they used to carve out the sled to cut up the walrus into four sections, each weighing just enough for the men to drag along themselves. The first section was cut by Kevin, it was the head portion. They took the saw and cut the portion beneath the shoulder blades of the walrus and decapitated the great beast. As they removed the enormous head they found a peculiar phenomenon. The creatures head was full of shimmering clear blue crystals. It was interesting enough, Kavak thought. Kavak quickly pulled one of the crystals out of the innards of the walrus, hoping against hope it wouldn't kill him, and stowed it in his pack for later examination. Perhaps he could solve this mysterious problem...or it would look cool in his house. The rest of the walrus was divided equally and the four of them easily took the severed beast to where it could be examined properly.