Wannashowa was desperate, the drought was getting worse and worse by the day, and his attempts to help were to say the least a little bit hampered by the limited divinity. To say the most he could squeeze every drop of divinity out and use it and he’d still be hardly touching the sides.

He needed a plan, but rain was not forthcoming in large amounts. (Though with every shrine he had available that was improving.) The soil needed water, and he couldn’t provide enough. It really felt like he was letting everybody down. (Adrian’s daily pie charts did not help on that front, nor did the graphs)

He considered the other gods, but quickly realised that they would need payment drought or not, and the only goddess even coming close to it was throwing a tantrum in the ocean. What was the point in that? It was big, and wet, and did not need more rain. Though from the Gossip Wannashowa had heard from Cassie maybe he’d dodged a bolt not asking her, given the whole swallowing up cities in the sea deal.

So if gods were out he needed another option, that only left one choice, and to use that option he needed a frozen window.

Of course finding a frozen window was easy enough, it took twenty minutes, that wasn’t the tricky bit. Carefully he gathered the needed items needed for the invocation, chestnuts weren’t so hard, and though he was no great singer (unless you appreciate croak, but that is a very distinct musical culture, and given that you aren’t frogs you probably wouldn’t really appreciate the full beauty of the style, or the stories behind it. After all the tragedy of poor Groak left with noplace to spawn while their rival managed to claim five ponds is a real tearjerker to frogs but to humans sounds like groakup graar croaka groak, it just doesn’t have the same impact after translation.) But the hardest thing of all to find was the nose pliers, in the end Cassie showed up with them having *ahem* borrowed them from a torturer, (who would brag about it from then on, but for some reason no bugger would believe him, and the bosses made him pay to replace them, despite a completely honest expense report.)

Next came a single match, burned out of course, one does not summon a frost elemental with a lit or lightable match, they get really huffy about it, and a set of brass monkeys (nobody wanted to ask Cassie where they got those, but once they were acquired they were carefully balanced on the edge of a table that was serving as a makeshift altar.) Once all that was sorted the invocation began (it took a little while to get Adrian to teach hm the invocation.)

“Jack Frost, paints in ice, freezes all, both bad and nice,

freeze us all, to the bone, leave the world as cold as stone.

feel the chill, never thaw, you paint in ice forever more.”

With a poof a blue haired figure appeared, he was as tall as a giant, but twiggy as an elf, and if you had to choose two words to describe him they would be blue and cold. Yet for some reason he was clad in a toga, and holding what at one time would have been a symbolic cornucopia, now it was full of wine. As soon as he appeared the brass monkeys froze and fell, as expected.

“Do you mind? I was at a party.” They snapped.

“Sorry about that” Wannashowa replied, “I’ll stand you a round to make up for it.”

“Fair, and you’d better, now waddya want?” He snapped coldly.

“I’d like to make a little wager Jack, and one that’ll be beneficial to both of us as underappreciated souls.”

“Underappreciated is right, Jack growled. They all remember the bloody rabbit and his mates, no credit for old Jack, honestly after all I do for them. Without me who would freeze their pipes, or ice up their windows? I provide vital services me, and all they do is whine about the cold. I’m an artist and they complain about my medium, it’s infuriating.”

“The other gods are always poking fun at elementals, like they’re any better. They asked me to place a bet, and personally I hope you win it.”

“What’s the bet.”

“That you can’t overnight pull off a blizzard, and cold snap across the kingdom, as for the prize it’s a barrel of Leglus’s finest brew, fresh from the divine mount.”

“Bloody hell that’s a good drink, but that’s a lot to do.”

“If you can’t do it.....”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Jack asked coldly, “just wanna make the bet two kegs.”

“Well it isn’t what the others suggested but dammit you pull this off and I’ll give you the extra barrel myself as congratulations for pulling one over on them. So we got a deal?”

“Alright,” Jack replied “it’s a bet, you just make sure you get the booze ready I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Consider it done.”

With that Jack was off to talk to his cousins, so long as there was a kegger in it for them he was sure they would help out.

************************************************************************

Once he was sure Jack was gone he called on Adrian.

“Go to the divine mount please Adrian, get three barrels of Leglus’s best, and bring them back here, they’ll cost a bit but they’ll be worth it if Jack pulls this off.

It took a few hours for the blizzard to hit, as a god he couldn’t make it rain or snow on the scale he needed, but Jack had helped a lot, and of course once the booze started to flow frost giants knew how to party. Wannashowa figured it would take a few days at least before things really started to calm down. Though after a kegger with multiple barrels of divine booze he had no doubt the poor sods would quickly find faith in Hairodog.