It's hard to call the cracks and judders the door makes stealthy, but with patience and care Jim can get it open without the noise rising too much over the wind outside. It's warmer within: not much, but there's no wind to strip the heat from him, and a smell of ash that hints at a fire...
There's no fire now, unless one counts the candles arranged around the floor, flames guttering in the sudden draft Jim's introduced. Besides ash the air is scented with the aroma of dried herbs, salts, the heavy ozone-laced smell of warped air that accompanies Felix's conjurings. The candles illuminate a ritual circle bigger than those Jim has seen before, gleaming threads of light outlining the eight-pointed star within the circle, a glimmer of overlaid wards... but only at the outer edges. The entire center of the circle is frosted too thickly to see what lies beneath. Inside it sits Felix, cross-legged, hooded and draped in furs, facing away from Jim. Opposite him...
It looks like a pile of ice, a few smooth, irregular chunks of glacier stacked in a strange unwieldy fashion. It looks like the weight of them should make it topple down upon itself... until one notices the icy aura flowing slowly over its surface, settling in crystalline frost that emanates across the floor. Unless you realize that the way those misshapen pillars of ice are arranged, they look like limbs... arms like stalactites, elephantine legs around a massive crouching body.
Felix himself is covered in a layer of frost, when Jim sneaks closer. It's turned his furs white and covers his cheeks, his closed eyelids. The effect would be more unsettling were it not for the steady, thin puff of cloud from between his lips when he breathes.
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There's no fire now, unless one counts the candles arranged around the floor, flames guttering in the sudden draft Jim's introduced. Besides ash the air is scented with the aroma of dried herbs, salts, the heavy ozone-laced smell of warped air that accompanies Felix's conjurings. The candles illuminate a ritual circle bigger than those Jim has seen before, gleaming threads of light outlining the eight-pointed star within the circle, a glimmer of overlaid wards... but only at the outer edges. The entire center of the circle is frosted too thickly to see what lies beneath. Inside it sits Felix, cross-legged, hooded and draped in furs, facing away from Jim. Opposite him...
It looks like a pile of ice, a few smooth, irregular chunks of glacier stacked in a strange unwieldy fashion. It looks like the weight of them should make it topple down upon itself... until one notices the icy aura flowing slowly over its surface, settling in crystalline frost that emanates across the floor. Unless you realize that the way those misshapen pillars of ice are arranged, they look like limbs... arms like stalactites, elephantine legs around a massive crouching body.
Felix himself is covered in a layer of frost, when Jim sneaks closer. It's turned his furs white and covers his cheeks, his closed eyelids. The effect would be more unsettling were it not for the steady, thin puff of cloud from between his lips when he breathes.