Gardaitis smiles."Pleasure to meet you, sodalis." To the question about the refugees, he responds "No, no one was hurt. They speak... mm. To tell you the truth, I'm not certain what that language is called. Langue d'Oc, I think. I can translate if you run into difficulties."
He waves for the women to come closer, calling out that they should leave the mule tethered where it is -- the beast would probably react badly to this many magi in one place, not to mention a Gods-be-damned dragon.
Esteban says to Gardaitis, "I may need an interpreter, yes. I'll try Catalan. Please, come with me as I speak to your companions."
Esteban approaches the refugees. He makes sure to smile -- more warmly if the women are good-looking -- and speaks slowly in Catalan, using small words. He hopes this is close enough to Langue d'Oc to be intelligible. "I am Esteban de Barbastro, magus of Andorra. You are safe. Andorra is near. These people are magi. They are also from Andorra. The dragon is Maurice, our friend. Do not be afraid. The monster is gone. Some men will come soon to bring you safely to Andorra. Do not be afraid."
Assuming they understand and calm down enough, Esteban wants to ask two questions: "Do you need anything?" and "What happened?"
Vocis sticks around for this conversation, but keeps a discreet distance away to let Estaban's Gentle Gift do its thing.
As it turns out, baby talk is unnecessary, because Johanna (the younger and prettier of the two women)does speak Catalan. Poor Esteban is buried under a torrent of words as she describes their recent travails: the rain of boulders, the retreat through the woods, the ogres coming after them, and the Monster of God appearing and smiting the ogres hip and thigh. The Monster of God is surely proof that though man looks at outward appearance, the LORD looks on the heart -- they learned this already when encountering Gardaitis (says Johanna as Gardaitis chokes), and this is further evidence.
Esteban says to Johanna, "I believe that the Lord sent that creature to save you from the ogres, but that doesn't make it an angel. But I must ask, what brings travelers such as yourselves through such dangerous country?"
"We are from Vareilles, kind sir," gushes Johanna, "and when it was destroyed by the Crusaders..."
She trails off, belatedly noticing Beatriu making frantic 'shut up' faces at her. Gardaitis takes over the thread of the narrative in flawless Catalan. "I met them near the city, and offered to escort them to safety. Arans, where I was going, was the nearest destination that fit the bill. Not the best idea, traveling in winter -- merely the best of a bad lot of options."
He calls Constanza -- the preteen -- over, and drops his voice. "Do me a.favor, kiddo. Gather up an armload of dry brush, please. Stay close, though."
(( Hate double-posting -- just doing it to move the story along ))
Seeing that his services as translator won't be required, Gardaitis turns his attention to the tree at his feet, pulling out his axe and marking small notches every few feet along the trunk. He concentrates, and the tree splits along the notches with a series of muffled cracks. He sticks his finger in his mouth, then holds it up to determine the wind direction, and casts another spell. The logs split and grind together, arranging themselves into a low curved wall, to serve as a wind-break; a few split further, forming themselves into crude benches and tree-stump chairs. There's even a few piles of fir branches -- for Maurice, Celeste and Astrid, presumably.
Gardaitis scrapes an area free of snow with his boot, and sets a pair of thin logs down on it, parallel to each other. A much thicker log, with a wedge split out of it, goes across them with the wedge pointing down. He piles the deadwood Constanza gathered in a neat 'teepee' shape under the entire construction, and straightens out, dusting off his hands. "All right. Would someone better at Ignem than myself like to do the honors?"
(( PeHe, base 3, +1 touch, +1 part, +2 for trying to affect "a group of parts": 15. Pe 13, He 12, Sta 2, Aura 3, roll of 6 -- spell cast. ))
(( "The Mystical Carpenter": CT +23, +3 for Aura, -3 for Fatigue, roll of 7 -- spell cast.))
(( The fire under the green log will dry it out before it catches, so the wood won't smoke so much. If you've ever tried to burn green wood, you'd know what I mean. 
You could also do PeAq to dry the wood out beforehand -- Gardaitis just didn't think of it. ))
Awesome! Carmen asked you guys to make camp, and so far no one from the covenant has bothered even one bit. But Gardiatius, the stranger amongst us, has built a fire.
Remember that you took the initiative here when we determine confidence awards later 
So, Maurice can light it up, or perhaps Vibria or Guillme?
Guillaume certain can if asked. Right now he's sort of in limbo in the conversation with Maurice.
Once Vibria realizes what Gardaitis is doing (i.e. getting the wood together for a campfire), she waves him off. [color=red]"That won't be necessary, sodalis," she says with a smile.
Once the wood is removed, or she's successfully gotten him to not put the wood down, she takes a deep breath and blows fire onto the ground.
((Spell target is Base 4 (create a fire doing +5 damage), R: Touch +1, D: Sun +2, T: Individual, for a final level of 15. CT is Sta 2 + Cr 10 + Cr (focus) 10 + Ig 11 + die roll of 5 = 38, halved is 19.))
Once the fire's going, she smiles. [color=red]"That's much better," she says with a sigh of contentment and removes her fur wrappings. Wearing her "normal" gear, she scooches up close enough to lean into the fire if she so choose and basks in the welcome warmth.
Um, without wood, the fire will not burn long. Snow melts, grass dries out and burns quick, then all gone. You need wood 
Her spell was D: Sun, so the fire will last until sunset. 
I glanced over that part (D'Oh!).
I thought she was using her flame breath to ignite a fire. But really she was showing off with a Spontaneous spell. A reckless risk, but impressive
"Thank you, sodalis."Gardaitis puts the unused wood down, stacking it off to one side, and takes a seat himself, blowing out a tired breath. He does feed a couple of handfuls of the dry wood to the magical fire. (If you ask an 11-year-old girl to do something for you, you'd damn well better use the fruits of her labor, and act appreciative while you're doing it. 
)
And it also does +5 damage, so it's putting out hella heat. Comfortable for her...but maybe not so much for anyone else
Nah, +5 is about standard for a wood fire. Just don't lean too close. You might be immune to fire, but your clothes aren't...
...
...
Actually, nevermind, I take that back. Go ahead, lean all you want.
Esteban doesn't feel anything, on account of the fire's Penetration of 4. 
So he feeds a couple of branches into it. He waves the other refugees over to gather around. "Do you all speak Catalan?" he asks Johanna, "or only you?
Presumably Esteban brought a wine skin for the journey, and he passes it around to the refugees.
There's only two adult refugees -- Johanna and Beatriu -- and Johanna is the only one that speaks Catalan, so she replies in the negative. She does thank Esteban for the wine, and the two of them pass the skin around. Gardaitis takes a swig from it as well, and his eyebrows climb -- he's used to a much lower quality of tipple. "Thank you, sodalis. He passes the skin back. "If anyone's hungry, we've got food we can share."
The kids gather next to the campfire, staying very much on the OTHER side of the fire from Maurice and watching him with huge eyes across the flames.
I thought all refugess headed for Arans with Estaban. How many refuges are there anyways?
Five. 3 kids, two adults.
And I'm pretty sure Carmen explicitly told Esteban to stay put, and she'll bring back some almogavars to escort the refugees back.
peers
Yep. Found it.