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<\/a>The symbol of Sithhud was everywhere. Tunuak had drawn Katiyana\u00a0grasping the three fingered claw in her hand. The floor of the cavern was littered with bones, and the ones large enough to hold it had been etched with his rune.\u00a0The nascent demon lord of the frozen dead, ice and storms.<\/p>\nThe storms. The Erutaki here call them morozokus and speak of them as though they are\u00a0living things. “The old gods of the wind oversee them,” Sonavut said. Maybe, maybe not, but they may not be far off the mark, here. I found a reference to them in one of the books we picked up back in Kalsgard. They were named after the druid who first saw and described them, and he wrote that they seemed to be guided by some malevolent intelligence. So, gods of old? Maybe, but Sithhud feels closer to the mark, and he was all around us down there.<\/p>\n
How did this happen? How did Tunuak go from village shaman to all of this<\/em>, whatever the gods this<\/em> is? The answer, apparently, is a vision quest.<\/p>\nI’m not an expert on these things—it’s times like these that I really miss Etayne’s counsel—but I understand the broad strokes. I lived\u00a0most of my life in Varisia, and you can’t spend that many years\u00a0there without learning a thing or two about the Shoanti. Some of their tribes have rites of passage that sound like much the same thing: you\u00a0spend several days\u00a0in the wilderness, alone, fasting, waiting for the spirits to send enlightenment and revelation. Among the Erutaki that live here, according to the hearthmistress, those seeking vision quests seek out none other than the Nameless Spires because “that is where the wind spirits live”. The same Nameless Spires that appeared in the paintings in Tunuak’s cavern. The same Nameless Spires where Tunuak went on his<\/em> vision quest.<\/p>\nHe went out there seeking guidance from the old gods, heard voices on the wind, and came back towing hoarfrost spirits, smashing dragon eggs, bargaining with quasits, and spreading the sign of Sithhud like seeds. What in the name of the gods happened out there?<\/p>\n
The chief has agreed to let us speak with his spirit, like we did with Kimandatsu. Obviously they want answers, too.<\/p>\n
Lamashan 18, 4712 (morning, Iqaliat)<\/h4>\n
K<\/span>imandatsu wanted to gloat. She wanted to talk. She wanted to tell us everything, even in death. But Tunuak? His essence was evasive. He admitted to\u00a0his crimes, he just wasn’t forthcoming\u00a0with the details. But he told us enough: Sithhud wants to reclaim his place among the demon lords, and Tunuak intended to help him. We just don’t know how the pieces fit together.<\/p>\n“Why did you smash the dragon’s eggs?” Qatana asked.<\/p>\n
“I did what must be done.”<\/p>\n
See what I mean?<\/p>\n
I am distinctly uneasy with\u00a0the situation we’re now in. As the chief was quick to point out, “Regardless of what Tunuak has done here, the dragon is still attacking our\u00a0village.”\u00a0Yeah, sure. And how would you<\/em> respond\u00a0if someone killed your<\/em> children?<\/p>\nGods.<\/p>\n
We’re going to try and bargain with her. We don’t exactly have proof, but we have enough of the story, and Tunuak’s remains\u00a0to show her, so\u00a0she might be willing to listen. I admit that it’s probably not going to work, but if there’s even a chance<\/em> we can put a stop to all of this then we have to try. But we also have to prepare for the worst.<\/p>\nIt’s going to be a four-day hike to her lair. That’s one way<\/em>. I wanted to use the caravan to get us most or even part of the way there, but Sandru would not budge. Which, I suppose, is understandable: the caravan might prove too attractive a target should she pass overhead. And, this way, if she gets away from us\u00a0and tries to seek revenge on\u00a0the village, Ana and Shalelu will be there to help. But regardless of how much sense it makes? I just don’t want to walk.<\/p>\nIt’s Lamashan, and that means the days are quickly growing\u00a0shorter as the nights get longer. The sun rises (if you can call it rising) late in the morning and\u00a0hangs low in the sky just above the horizon for only a couple of hours. Most of our waking time is spent in dawn and dusk\u00a0light, and when the weather is sour it’s as good as dark. There is something isolating about walking across the frozen landscape in a fading sky, no matter how many people you are with.<\/p>\n
Lamashan 22 (evening, dragon’s lair)<\/h4>\n
S<\/span>he’s dead. I don’t think it’s what any of us wanted, but that’s how it ended. We tried to parley. We brought her\u00a0the proof that Tunuak had paid for his crime with his life. Whether or not she believed us didn’t matter, however. What he had done to her was unforgivable, and she was going to punish “all two-legs”, everywhere, in retribution.\u00a0Iqaliat was almost certainly just the beginning. She would have been hunting and killing humankind\u00a0for as long as she was alive and able to do it. Even when we had her bested, and she\u00a0knew<\/em> it, she refused to give, so deep\u00a0was her anger. This. This<\/em> is what he had done.<\/p>\nI actually stood face-to-face with her. It is a position I never want to be in ever again, but I did it. Was it foolish of me to walk into that cavern alone and call out to her? Probably. But if we were going to try to talk to her,\u00a0it had to look<\/em> that way, too. By appearances, I was\u00a0the least threatening so I volunteered as spokesperson. I never\u00a0even heard her coming, and I bore the brunt of the ice and sleet from her breath, protected from harm solely by the spells we had prepared. Fortunately, Radella was beside me in an instant. The bitter cold I could handle. Her teeth and claws would have been another matter.<\/p>\nMere seconds later, most of the rest of us were on her. For a terrible moment I thought she was going to get away. We made the mistake of not holding someone back in reserve. I had images in my head of her bearing down on Iqaliat, only this time not stopping at just a few Erutaki\u00a0and their goats. After what we had done to her, she would not have stopped until the village was\u00a0buried in blood and ice.<\/p>\n
I took a cue from the harriers of my youth. I went after her pride, taunting her the best I could, hoping it would be enough to turn her back at us. It was to no avail. Fortunately, Qatana was just fast enough following her up the chute and she did\u00a0something<\/em>—I am still not sure what—and\u00a0the dragon fell, lifeless, just as\u00a0she was clearing\u00a0the top of the rift.<\/p>\nTestament\u00a0to Tunuak’s sins was found in a small cavern: shattered eggs, a stone hammer, and a tribal talisman. It was, in all honesty, a clumsily staged scene, but\u00a0how sophisticated did it really need to be to enrage a white dragon? That is a rhetorical question.<\/p>\n
We’ll be taking her body back with us. In the morning, I can prepare the spell to shrink it down. I also suggested to Sparna that he make armor from her hide. This whole thing has been such a waste of life. Why compound it further by letting her body rot to no purpose?<\/p>\n
Or maybe\u00a0I am just fooling myself. Pretending to still have the ideals that I left in Avistan. I know I’ve changed since this journey began. The question is, how much?<\/p>\n
I’ll have four days walking in the gods-be-damned snow to think about the answer.<\/p>\n
Lamashan 23 (morning, dragon’s lair)<\/h4>\n
S<\/span>kygni was actually impressed. I get the feeling\u00a0that\u00a0this doesn’t happen often. He kind of looked at us for a moment, then said, “You may make it across the ice after all.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lamashan 17, 4712 (evening, Iqaliat) Our suspicions about Tunuak are all but confirmed, and though we still don’t understand exactly why we have at least been given\u00a0a glimpse at\u00a0the larger picture.\u00a0The altar he had made for himself at the base of the chimney\u00a0was decorated with a number of paintings that he, himself, had created.\u00a0Not all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-2592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-kali"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2592"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2786,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592\/revisions\/2786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>The symbol of Sithhud was everywhere. Tunuak had drawn Katiyana\u00a0grasping the three fingered claw in her hand. The floor of the cavern was littered with bones, and the ones large enough to hold it had been etched with his rune.\u00a0The nascent demon lord of the frozen dead, ice and storms.<\/p>\n