"You learn tricks like that when you fight a war. They might threaten you with ice, we're kinda on edge. Good luck!"

To the icy wasteland! It's very waste-y. And cold. Flat snow and ice to the north, patchier ground to the south. Varrin said they're camping 'near the dead tree', and there's only one of those visible.

He heads for the tree, looking around for any sign of people.

...Does that pile of snow have eyes? He might not have noticed if he wasn't as alert as he habitually is. But it does.

How about he goes wide around it and tries to figure out what it is from a distance. Just in case it wants to eat him.

The snow pile turns into a man with a spear doing some kind of dance! And now he's thrown off the snowmobile where it hit a chunk of ice that suddenly appeared! And there are five of them, approaching him with stern faces!

Well that seems like it's probably the people he's here to meet. He holds out the letter and belatedly remembers he doesn't know the local language.

They chatter at him for a minute before realizing the same. They hold ready poses.

Someone takes the letter and reads it and suddenly they're a lot more friendly and a lot more confused.

They motion for him to follow and the leader starts - skiing? - away. Someone puts the snowmobile right side up again. It doesn't seem obviously damaged.

He follows.

The take him to a nice little camp! It's obviously a temporary sort of place, though. The structures are tents, lean-tos, and holes in the ice instead of proper buildings. There are piles of frozen meat on sleds.

The leader has accepted that talking to Valanda won't do much good. He draws in the snow with a stick. Fire, and someone shivering, and then crossing through both of those, and then nodding vigorously and pointing at people. Some of these guys seem more dubious than others, but the leader keeps pointing to the letter and arguing right back.

"Two sealbear-circles per person" is a pretty straightforward thing to communicate without words. At least, Valanda thinks his meaning is clear.

They don't quite have enough, would he like this nice fur coat or maybe the meat or pelts they hunted up instead? Or maybe pearls? Pearls are valuable, right? How about this elaborate tapestry and helmets and stuff they stole from Firebenders?

The tapestry obviously has a lot of effort put into it. The top is dominated by a prominent stylized fire symbol. Just below that is an elaborate and rather detailed (given the tricky medium of cloth) depiction of a tall building on a rock at sunset. On the edges are figures - somewhat more crudely done, standing around looking regal or doing fire tricks in martial arts poses - red fire, blue fire, and lightning. Some fantastical creatures occupy open spaces - dragons, flaming birds, and the like. There a fair bit of what is probably writing here and there, too.

Ooooh, he really likes that tapestry. How many wards is that worth to them?

How about 'the rest of us after the seal-circles are used up', that being 'six'?

Works for him!

Great! They roll it up again for him while he does the invulnerability thing to everyone. The first man to be warded tests it by plunging his hand into icy water and then grinning.

He wards the tapestry, too, just in case the return trip through the icy waste doesn't agree with it.

"Hope you get good use out of the wards," he says. They've been around humans a lot, he figures they'll understand without knowing the words.

It seems to be a productive and mutually beneficial transaction!

...What's that noise? It's a low rumbling, a cracking.

The waterbenders don't like it. They go for weapons.

Valanda looks around for the source of the noise. It's probably time to get out of here but he doesn't want to run right into it.

A large, metal ship spewing smoke from a smokestack, smashing straight through the ice and heading for the little camp!

It launches a flaming boulder at the general area! He'd better move now!

How about if the ice it's about to go through is suddenly unbreakable.

He runs but he's not really sure-footed on ice or used to moving fast.

The snowmobile is still sitting on the ice over there. There are sounds of fighting from behind him. Ice crackling, rushes of water, the fwoosh of flames, a scream-

Why didn't he learn to protect living things from getting hit. It's the single most in-demand ward in the multiverse!

Is the ship shooting its boulders with something like magic or is there a convenient mechanism to freeze?

It's a catapult! But they've abandoned it, now, thanks to the close range - there are dozens of Fire Nation soldiers streaming out of the ship to overwhelm the waterbenders. The defenders seem to be holding their own, but their camp is very much on fire.

Someone with a more elaborate helmet points towards Valanda and shouts a command. A few soldiers start after him.

"Back away! I'm a neutral outsider! Back away!" he says very clearly in a language no one else here speaks.

He could probably outrun them on the snowmobile if he gets there fast enough! The firebenders seem to have at least a little trouble with the snow and ice. The waterbenders probably can't help him - too busy fighting.