|
Still somewhat mangled by the awful bite he received, Heng frowns as the others appear to want to hang around the giant spider infested forest. "I do not believe these monsters have interest in anything they cannot devour. I certainly do not know what vermin would want with a hoard. Let us move on as our guide has advised."
Maeve just sighs. "More likely they just left the bodies where they fell. We could track their paths for weeks and not find anything."
"Ok then."
Harlan will channel healing energy over the caravan.
It takes a few hours to right the wagons and reorganize the caravan, but thankfully none of the drivers or horses were seriously wounded. Koya and Harlan's healing makes for a fast recovery. Descending out of the pass, Sandru keeps up a steady pace until you are well clear of the forest.
*
Date: 14 Abadius 4712
Through the remainder of the week, the overcast gloom remains, building into a robust snowstorm. Though nothing as severe as the High Ice conditions, the wind is still strong enough to knock the wagons around, and near white-out with the blowing snow. Echoes of Katiyana's laughter seem to float on the wind, but are fleeting enough to make you doubt your senses. Worse is the the deep roar of the wind, sounding at times like a hungry beast. Besides putting you on guard, nothing else occurs.
On the 14th of Abadius, the stormclouds break up, and for the first time in over a month, you catch glimpse of actual sunlight along the southern horizon, rays colliding colorfully with the broken clouds. It fills you with hope.
"Oh thank god! I was about to go stir crazy, or take up moonbathing. Although I could still try to go for a tan, maybe." She pauses for a looong moment. "Nah, bit cold for that even with the boots."
|
|
Heng smiles at the light ahead, the first time in days as the dour monk has trudged along the caravan in silent introspection. Haunted by the ghostly mocking laughter, Heng has pondered the afterlife and the nature of evil and undeath and prayed as his fingers rub the silver dragon medallion upon his chest.
Harlan smiles at the sunlight.
"Hello old friend."
He happily rides around, marveling at the warm feeling on his skin.
"Parity, did you want to borrow my eyes and see this?"
Sensing the change in the mood, Parity catches the bug, "Sure, Harlan. That'd be nice.". He whips out Suishen and after a couple swings touches Harlans arm. He smiles as the light matches the warmth.
Malnival stands in the sunlight, watching Valwen as she flies. The elf smiles as the hawk cries out, enjoying the sun.
Date: 14 Abadius 4712
The sunlight is minuscule, still partially obscured by the broken clouds, but it lends a twilit aura to the world around you. The sunlight is short-lived, and it retreats below the horizon a couple hours later... just about the time you find the first body.
He was an Erutaki hunter, dressed in their decorated leathers. The means of his death are difficult to determine, but it appears as though he fell from a great height, and his skin is bruised and broken like he was stoned. His demise was recent, within the last day.
The mystery grows as you approach the town of Jaagiin, finding several more simlarly ravaged corpses scattered along the fields before you. When you reach the town's outskirts, you see barely a single building remains intact. Debris and bodies are strewn about in a ruinous array. Nothing in view lives, and none were spared... women, elderly, children, all lie dead around you.
Ulf's face is dark, a cloud of buried rage. "Morozkos," he whispers, the word a curse.
Maeve looks around, frowning and confused. "Wait, I thought Erutaki villages were built in places where the landscape would break up a natural storm. Not enough to avoid every problem, but this is almost crazy. More like a goblin attack than a natural phenomena...okay, bad example."
Ameiko frowns, shaking her head in disbelief of the wreckage. "More lives sacrificed because of me..."
"Ame, don't jump to conclusions just yet." Maeve reaches up to put her hand on her shoulder. "There's another culprit here, and I don't see where there's any way our actions can be blamed for that one, even if we do have to stop her."
Ulf spits. "That b@+@~ is toying with us. You heard the laughter..." He kicks at a piece of rubble, picking up a broken clay pot. "I had friends in this town."
"Did we miss something back at the tower that let her pass into undeath? Assuming of course that she is the cause of this, which is our going in position, yes?"
"...I'm sorry. I wish I knew why...what..." The girl finally gives up, just sinking down into the fresh snow and hugging her knees.
"Did we miss something back at the tower that let her pass into undeath? Assuming of course that she is the cause of this, which is our going in position, yes?"
"Honestly, the forces she was playing with?" Maeve shrugs. "In hindsight, we should probably count ourselves lucky it didn't snow in the Mwangi Expanse for a week before everything settled down."
Or blow right up in our faces and wipe the arctic landscape cleaner than the Starfall did to Azlant, she doesn't say out loud.
"I think more is at work here than we think. If she did this to a village what has kept her from doing this to our caravan?"
"I think more is at work here than we think. If she did this to a village what has kept her from doing this to our caravan?"
"Nothing... like I said, she's playing with us."
Harlan checks every body, noting the cause of death and the suffering they no doubt suffered.
"The undead are an affront, we must stop this woman. Ulf, what is a 'Morozkos'?"
"We stopped her before, we will stop her again."
|
|
Sonavut tries to answer Harlan's barrage of questions. "I do not understand the morozkos. They are like powerful storms, dangerous for their furious winds, ice and sleet, and unnatural cold. But they have an ill will, as if possessed of a malignant spirit, and they track their prey across the tunrda. I know not where they come from or what sustains them."
"I think more is at work here than we think. If she did this to a village what has kept her from doing this to our caravan?""Nothing... like I said, she's playing with us."
"Not...just that." Maeve's voice is sounding more and more dead, like she's just on autopilot now. "Most of the living dead need something outside themselves as a sustaining and empowering force. It's likely that this storm was all she had the strength for, and she didn't want to waste it on a desperate effort to kill us when this would be a more...efficient return. And before you speculate, no, I have no idea how much power she could get by doing this, how much more it would take for her to try to repeat what happened at the Dome, or even if she's still after us at all - undeath can quickly twist perceptions and priorities. The only thing I feel safe speculating on is that her range is likely limited to the natural range of the morozko. If we can make it entirely past the Wall of Heaven without a direct confrontation we can elude her. Maybe." The last word is said so flatly it's hard to believe it's actually Maeve speaking at all.
"Let us go then, and quickly. By my reckoning, the Gates of Desna are five to six days from here, less if we force it. Are you ready for the push?"
Maeve just sits in the snow for another few moments before answering. "....oh, uh...yeah." She sighs. "I think we should at least check the village over for any perishables. And...do something about the bodies. No valuables."
Malnival looks around and shakes his head at the carnage. "Put the bodies in the largest hut and burn them?"
Maeve sighs. "Better than leaving them out. There's only the one, though....guess that'll have to do."
Koya adds, "I will start a consecration ritual, to protect them from Katiyana's defiling."
"That sounds good. And I think we should push it. We've taken it easy these last few miles but it's obvious we need to get out of this place as fast as we can."
Maeve takes another few moments of sitting to herself, then silently starts gathering up the bodies.
Dates: 15 Kuthona 4711 - 21 Abadius 4712
Route: Jaagiin -> The Wall of Heaven (The Gates of Desna)
Distance: 380+ miles (Total: ~3600 miles)
Weather: Intermittent Storms
Special Events: None
You spend the rest of the afternoon gathering up whatever remains you can find among the wreckage of Jaagiin. The somber work goes undisturbed, but storm clouds and lightning flashes along the southern horizon seem to mock your efforts. Finally, after hours of hard work, Kelda finishes the consecration and sets the pyre alight. The light and heat push back the cold night. It is still smoking in the morning when you set out.
The next few days pass in a blur. Ulf sets a hard pace, and the eye-full of storms to the south remain a constant inspiration when you get tired. On the second day, you begin to make out the great peaks of the Wall of Heaven as the sun breaks the horizon for a couple hours at a time. Still, the massive scale of the mountain range eludes you until it continues climbing and climbing higher before you throughout the day.
Storms of snow and sleet pelt you constantly, paired with chaotic winds that kick up the snow and threaten your sense of direction. The ghostly laughter continues, but still you press on. On the third day, Ulf points out the Last Pass, a section of the range measurably lower than the surrounding peaks, much like a missing tooth. The pass is wracked by a continuously raging storm, filled with cyclones, lightning and thunder.
After a short rest, Ulf leads you west off the Path and parallel the range, urging everyone to speed. You feel a great peal of thunder rumble across the peaks. Looking back, you see the storm in the Pass dispersing, but heading your way. Winds buffet your back, but grow in intensity as the storm nears. Hail pellets, growing to egg and fist-sized, begin to land around you.
Ulf leads the caravan up a narrow canyon between the arms of a rugged peak. Curious monoliths stand at the ends of these arms, but up close you see they are statues of a primitively carved woman, with butterfly wings and a roughly carved eight-pointed star graven in the forehead.
A quarter mile ahead, you find a yawning cave mouth with a carved stone lintel and doorposts etched with fading stars... The Gates of Desna.
It seems that giant ice chunks sent whizzing by your head at high speeds does wonders for moodiness. Maeve is off like a flash, balancing on top of the snow easily and trying to keep the path clear. "Don't stop now! Need to make camp inside the Gates if we're going to rest at all!"
Heng takes a moment to point out the roughly carved monuments of Desna to Koya before assisting the caravan to get out of the hail.
Wrapped in winter furs, Koya comes to Heng's beckon and pokes her head out of her wagon window. Her eyes widen and a wide smile crosses her face. "After so many years, across so many miles, Desna smiles still."
Crossing through the gates and past the statues, Parity shivers although he's unaware of the butterfly-winged goddess's effigies.
He whisers a quiet prayer to Pharasma and pulls the steel had cloak around him tightly.
The storm thunders as you move the caravan into the underground. When the last wagon moves through, there is a clamor of many thunderclaps, sounding like nothing so much as a roar of rage. The ground shakes, and wind buffets you from the entrance, but you are safe.
Inside, you have to use lanterns and torches to see the way forward. The worked stone at the entrance quickly gives way to natural cavern. The route is clear and wide enough for the wagons to drive through single-file, but the winding path and close quarters limits your speed.
Most notably, an hour or so into the mountain, it grows noticeably warmer. It is still close to freezing, but significantly warmer than the frigid air of the tundra outside. Acclimated to so many weeks in the cold, it feels positively balmy.
You make it a couple hours in before the excitement of the chase wears off and exhaustion finally catches up. Strung out along the tunnel, you can only stop in place to set up camp... most are too tired to care.
Before long, however, one of your sentries calls an alarm at the lead wagon. There, you see several motes of light in the darkness ahead. They grow in intensity as they near, when you can see they are actually humans... ghostly, luminescent, walking the tunnel towards you.
Malnival weaves a spell on himself.
Maeve frowns. "Gimmie a second, gonna go see what we're up against."
After using the scroll, Maeve sneaks up and throws a rock their way. The apparitions take no notice. As they near, they also make no reaction to the caravan's presence, continuing to walk forward at their steady pace.
"Step aside and let them pass ... ". Parity directs with a faint air of derision.