Finders Keepers

Varan eyed the giant brute as it sat watching over the camp, over those it imprisoned while it probably waited for its giant kinfolk to come and finish everyone off. Not today, leviathan. Today she’d take down the mountain. Varan closed her eyes and concentrated, letting a sheath of ice and snow camouflage her body as she slithered on her belly over the frozen ground. She had but one goal in mind as daggers of ice spawned from her hands, picturing the glacial claws ripping into the flesh of the hairy beast easily as tearing open sacks full of grain. Her body tensed, ready to attack.

As she coiled, ready to close the distance between her and the titan, the reflection in one of the sharpened talons caught her eye. There was a man, an angry-looking man, conscious, but half encased in ice. That had to be the work of the ice giants! “Fire and Ashes!” she swore under her breath. She weighed her options. The Jotunn was small for a giant, but would likely put up a flaming storm of a fight. And if it won? The poor sonuv-a-banshee had no chance at all. Killing the Jotunn would have to wait.

She backtracked away from the giant and made her way over to the human half entombed. Placing a clawed finger to her lips to keep the man quiet Varan went to work. Kneeling behind the hailstone, she closed her eyes and again concentrated. Melting was definitely out of her wheelhouse, thawing was far too advanced a magic skill, but as she placed one hand on the ice tomb, it barely shifted in shape. The permafrost was like diamonds, whatever created it was stronger than the magic she could channel. Frustrated, she drew back a claw to swipe at the ice when she saw the staff, she could near sense the nearby magic. An unattended magick staff. Trickery, perhaps? Spelled? Only one way to find out! The daggers from her left hand grew longer, long enough to snake their way to the staff, which she flicked upwards and caught with her right. It felt warm, almost hot in her hand, but as she touched it to the ice tomb, cracks and fissures traveled throughout it, making it more and more brittle until the whole thing shattered into tiny shards on the ground. “Daggers!” She said under her breath, before leaping to her feet. “Run!" She yelled to the defrosted man, not realizing that he might have been too numb to do so. "I'll take the giant!" She turned back towards the monster.

“Face me Jotunn scum, devourer of elves and humans!!” She raged and swung her new magic staff in a circle, ready to take on the Goliath. “If it bleeds it dies no matter the size”