Chapter 82

Milo glanced at Hannah, who was shivering in a somewhat concerning manner. He really wasn't sure if she'd make it that far. Milo figured his best bet was to rig up some form of shelter, then return to the castle to get help.

Fortunately, being an experienced adventurer, he was absolutely loaded with gear to help in the first part of that plan.

"So," Milo said in a conversational tone. "I'm going to make a tent, keep the snow off of you, alright?" A thought struck him. "But first, here." He reached a hand into one of the pockets of his belt and fished out a heavy, thick fur Winter Blanket and placed it over her shivering body. Milo, like any decent Wizard, tried to be prepared for anything.

"Th-thanks," she murmured. As an afterthought, he passed her his Bedroll as well.

Pulling fine silk rope (made by Elves, of course) and thick canvas sheets out of his magic belt, he immediately got down to work. He tied the rope between a four nearby trees in an X shape and used the canvas sheets (of which he had five) to create walls, and a ceiling. Looking critically at the result (which was most certainly not up to any code you could name), Milo realized the whole thing would fall apart if a decent-sized twig fell on it from one of the overhanging trees. To remedy this, he strung up a large fishing net about four feet over the 'tent' to catch falling objects. Lastly, Milo cut a small hole in the centre of the roof to allow smoke out, and started hunting for decent-sized sticks to use as firewood. He had his obligatory Wizard staff, of course, and his 11-foot pole, but the idea of burning either of those things was too horrible to contemplate. After finding a few moderately dry twigs, Milo gave up and decided to use a bucket as kindling (yes, he carried a wooden bucket in his extradimensional belt. You never know when a bucket might come in handy; just because it never has doesn't mean it never will).

The whole process took about ten minutes. Milo was just stepping back to briefly admire his (crude) handiwork when he realized he should have been keeping better track of time: Protection from Evil only lasted seven minutes. Hannah could have been repossessed for quite some time while he was wasting time breaking a bucket into pieces.

"Uh," Milo asked nervously, sticking his head into the covered area. "I don't mean to be, you know, insensitive or anything..."

"Hmmm?" Hannah asked.

"You don't feel, you know, Evil or anything?"

"Nope," she said.

"Good, good..." Milo said dubiously. Well, what would she do if she were, anyways? Spit at me? "Well, if you start feeling an overwhelming urge to murder me, let me know, would you?"

Hannah simply nodded weakly.

Milo briefly considered Manacling her, but quickly decided against it. If anything, that would give her possessing spirit/ghost/demon/whatever (assuming it was still in her) a heavy metal improvised bludgeon.

Milo glanced at the pile of firewood he'd created out of his bucket (one of his ever-dwindling physical ties to his old world) and sighed. He could light it with Prestidigitation, of course, but he was already running precariously low on magic and didn't think wasting it on something so frivolous would be a good idea.

Grumbling to himself, Milo employed the decidedly mundane method of Flint and Steel.

"You carry all this stuff around with you?" Hannah asked. It was the longest sentence he'd yet heard her say since her... accident.

"Yeah," Milo said, clicking away ineffectually at the flint. A few pathetic sparks appeared, but nothing ignited. "Saved me from the Troll... well, sort of. I mean, I got thrown through the window anyways. But it helped. A bit. Maybe."

"If you give me my wand," Hannah said, "I can light that for you."

Milo, grateful, had his hand halfway to the appropriate belt pocket when his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"No thanks," he said. "I love doing this by hand. Very zen." He also had Tindertwigs, of course, but he preferred to save those for a situation in which he really needed fire as a Standard Action.

It took awhile, but eventually, Milo got his pitifully small fire going.

"Okay," Milo said. "Now, look. I'm going to go and get help," he said gently. "You just stay here, all right?"

"You're leaving me alone?" Hannah asked him.

"Uh... no. You'll have Mordy to protect you." With a flash of COLD, UNHAPPY, SLEEP, Milo pulled his protesting familiar from his warm home in the belt. "Now, I know he doesn't look like much, but trust me. He's a badass."

Hannah gave him a peculiar look when, over the crackling of the flames, they heard a loud crunch from the snow outside.

"Stay here," Milo commanded unnecessarily. He hesitated for a moment, then dived out of the tent as fast as he could, hoping to take whatever was out there by surprise.

Standing outside, looking somewhat surprised, was the most horrible little creature that Milo had seen in a long, long time. It looked a little like a Goblin, with thick, leathery green skin, red eyes, and long, sharp nails. It was wearing crudely-tanned leather breeches, but was naked from the waist up (Milo shuddered to think how cold that would be). As the creature recovered from its surprise, it grinned at him. Its teeth, of which it had several rows, had at some point been filed to needle-sharp points. In one hand was a short, crude, wickedly curved, needlessly hooked, serrated sword. Its most distinctive feature, by far, was its bright, unevenly-dyed blood red hat.

"HolycrapRedcap!" Milo gasped in surprise. He'd hoped that the psychotic, mass-murdering evil little Fey didn't have an alternate-universe version in this world. Milo wasn't sure whether the thing had been attracted by the smoke from the fire, commanded here by whatever had possessed Hannah, or was simply attracted by the girl's blood.

Unfortunately for Milo, who had already burned his one Nerveskitter for the day, the Redcap had a +5 Initiative bonus. The weird little creature (which are easily repelled by a variety of simple Charms and Hexes, none of which Milo knew or was, in any case, able to cast) charged at him and let out a screeching, high-pitched, ululating wail.

The Redcap brought its blade down in a high overhead chop which Milo caught, frantically, on the arm of his enchanted robe as he raised his hands in panic.

"Acid Splash!" Milo cast desperately. A thick green glob of acid hit the Redcap full in the face, causing it to take a step backwards, clutching at its head. Milo knew that proper Redcaps had upwards of 22 hit points, depending on how many sentient creatures they've slain, although he had no idea what it would take to faze this world's equivalent.

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