How Nevrek and Juspera Came to the Top of the World
It was a bit of a pipe dream. I thought it would be a bad idea for someone my age to go to Pinefar, but of course there was that little part of me that kept egging me on.
I couldn't get anyone to take me. I was frightened but, remembering that I first traveled to Icemule with no companion other than a map, I decided it wasn't out of the question for me to do the same here.
Mummified in a cocoon of spells that a friend had given me, I set off. The trip to Icemule was routine. Upon passing the silverback orcs then cold guardians outside the east gate, I entered new territory and felt the tension of excitement begin to build up.
It was snowing and the ice giants frightened me like any unfamiliar creature frightens me, though by the information on my map they were not much older than I. Then caribou, wolverines, grizzly bears, coyotes... the creatures my older friends hunted and died from. I moved with speed. I didn't want the creatures to have an opportunity to use some horrid and unforseen type of attack on me.
I pressed on, climbing and climbing with my weapon and shield away and my gloveless hands numb. Each critter I passed sent another shot of fear into my heart. Snow leopards, how old are they? Are they dangerous? Upon reaching a dead end I studied my map again and found that I was far off course. Climb back down, and be quick!
Finally I neared Pinefar. Ahead of me on my map were Nightmare Gorge and glacei. I have heard stories of these things, heard adventurers moan about untimely deaths at their hands. The major glacei, terrifying and strong enough to be more than just a thorn in the side of those who hunt the minor. Though I had no idea what they looked like, I had even had a bizarre nightmare about them a few days before.
But I climbed into the gorge. I raced past the glacei with the hail swirling about their heads, scarcely noting where I was. A huge blast of wind knocked me over and pinned my arms to my sides, but my spells protected me. When I reached Pinefar I was exhausted.
There it was, Hortinger's wagon! I looked over the goods; nothing I wanted to buy, but I didn't care. The goal was getting there. But oh, a raffle ticket! I set about to look for a bank, breaking a pick on some door I found and generally stumbling about like a fool. The bank was closed when I found it.
I was determined to hunt for the 10k in coins I would need. I bought some Pinefar liquor for Rastavan's collection and set back down the slopes. I found crones, giants and trolls to prey on and was surviving nicely until an uninvited and rather unexpected avalanche caved my skull in.
The good thing about those deaths is, of course, that they're so quick you never feel a thing. Now that I think of it, I remember hearing rumbling before the avalanche came down, but I was too busy to take note of it. All my wits were concentrated on the battle with these strange things I'd never fought before, on a strange snowy slope. At any rate, the mass exodus of spells from my corpse was a sight to behold.
The good Dgry Kasv made the trip up to rescue me. I enjoyed it as much as is possible to enjoy being a frozen corpse in the middle of nowhere. Once raised I puttered around Icemule for a bit, did some picking and eventually decided that I would never make it past the glacei again without at least mass spells. So I traveled back to the Landing.
While I was there I ran into my buddy Nevrek, who was interested in heading up to Pinefar as well. I loaded up a disk with what I hoped was 10k in boxes and gems and we set off.
Nevrek is a good friend, pure Faendryl and pure thief. We joked on the way up, snickered over having to scale the rugged butte and somehow managed not to get lost. When we approached Nightmare Gorge I told him what we were up against... then I took a step into the chasm, was immediately flattened by the wind and torn to shreds by the horde of glacei in the room.
Nevrek escaped and, I found out later, made it safely to the trading post. I, however, was alone, and the glacei had buried my body, hiding me from whoever might walk by.
Someone did walk by. Right past me, in fact, then back to search for me. I am thankful now that I had had a full disk as the boxes and gems scattered on the ground must have been a good clue that I was buried there beneath the snow. My rescuer was a cleric and soon I was on my feet in Mule again.
I felt disheartened; I was clearly out of my league. I decided to give up my quest for a raffle ticket and return to the Landing. However, as the night wore on, a certain Mr. Dwu Axetoe's persistence wore on me. He was to lead an expedition to Pinefar, if I would like to come.
I eventually gave in. Nevrek, who was back from the post and (despite meeting with death on his way) no worse for wear, also wanted to go. We found a friend to give us spells and spent our time waiting for the expedition leader by hunting warfarers and stone giants for boxes. After more than an hour, our disks were full and the fearless Dwu was still not ready to leave. We grew tired of waiting.
And so we left by ourselves. After a hazardous and injurious climb through darkness we reached Pinefar, exhausted. It was in the early hours before dawn and we were the only folk stirring for miles about. Triumphantly we sold our gems and emptied our boxes, rushed to the wagon and bought raffle tickets!
It is a good feeling to believe you have won. We wandered around the homey trading post for a bit, trying to thaw out. We purchased many samples of the local drinks. As we lounged in front of the fire I mused, "You know, we are not far from Koar's shrine."
Why not pay a visit?
Why not? Well, we can barely survive the glacei on the way from here to Mule... and you want to go the other way, further north? Nevrek seemed serious, but I was not about to risk my life doing something so ridiculous. But I looked at my map. Koar's shrine... would that be an experience to remember, seeing the newly discovered shrine to the last drake? It was not so very far away considering the distance we had already come.
And so I made the insane decision that would change my life. "All right, let's go." I was the one with the map; he could not go alone. I told him to set his ring and I did likewise. Marveling at how crazy I was, I fastened up my cloak, drew my weapon and stepped out of the trading post lest I give myself any more time to think.
Northeast of the trading post is the tundra, populated by more glacei, wooly mammoths, ice wraiths and sabretooth tigers. Polar bears, too. We raced through the icy darkness like we were mad, skipping over mounds of snow and not even stopping to look at the beasts surrounding us.
Ahead of us were worse. Seekers, ice golems and ice elementals. Creatures whose names I'd never seen except on my map. The seekers have 35 more trains than Nevrek and I. The age of ice elementals is 95; of ice golems, unknown.
The fear of being the only people in an icy nowhere, in complete darkness, where the local inhabitants have more power than you could hope to master in half a century... I shall say it is impossible to comprehend, and that is a good thing. I simply did not think about it. My pulse was pounding so hard and my mind working so fast that I did not notice anything around me. My eyes leaped between the map and the barely discernable path as we ran on.
The tundra ended and we came to an arch, then steps. We reached the last and stopped. A faint light began to grey the horizon and I knew where we were; Aenatumgana, the top of the world. We were at the Top of the World.
There is a word, numinous... it is used to describe those things that are beyond normal life, above it, wondrous. The Arkati are numinous. Aenatumgana is numinous. It's the type of thing that gives you a tight feeling in your chest as you keep trying to get your mind to grasp the fact that you're really here, that such a place exists. All around us was ice and a cold so fierce it was almost tangible. It was like being on another plane. I thought about the Landing, about River's Rest... they might as well not have existed. Even Icemule was impossibly far away. But we were here, at the top of the world, and it was real.
But this had to be taken in in moments as the danger here was very real as well. It was like another wind around me, invisible but assaulting me. We met ice elementals. Nevrek was mauled by one but survived; we ran on. We came to an icy slope and I scrambled up; I waited there, trying to dodge the elemental that followed me from room to room... I felt Nevrek die. The thought of Koar's shrine up ahead left me and I climbed down.
He had broken his neck. I felt totally alone and hopeless for a moment, but let common sense slip into my fear and shield me a bit. Lifekeep and drag; what else is there to be done? Being all alone in the most hostile place I'd ever seen did not change that. I dragged my friend to the steps we had climbed and stopped. I could not drag him over.
And so we were out of options. We talked for a bit, planning, but knowing that the ten minutes of lifekeep I could give him would wear off before I could get a rescuer from Icemule. But... the ring! I removed my ring and wore it; nothing happened. The sun began to come up. So there I was at the top of the world, dead friend at my feet, and the grey light slipping over all the snow and ice like the rest of Elanthia had never existed.
My spells began to wear off.
All of a sudden the wind slammed into me like a wall. I staggered and noticed that I was actually injured. My bare hands and knees were numb and bruised. Every few minutes the wind would blast again, until all my exposed skin was cracked and bleeding. I looked like I had been in an hour-long battle. I was eating herbs by the handful; Nevrek pleaded with me not to die.
As we waited there, hopeless, an older noble tramped down from above... and kept going without a word. The fear rang in my heart again. Was this place so dangerous that even legends could not stop to help a dead adventurer?
We waited and my friend was decaying. My flask had been full, but flasks are finite; I toyed with attempting a run to Mule. Telling Nevrek I'd "be right back," I raced down the steps and through the arch... and bumped into a hunter of some age.
"Dead fellow up there!" I gasped.
The look on the man's face was not promising. "Good gods."
"Is there a way to drag him out?"
"No, you need a fogger." Still with that horrified look, the man turned back to his hunting. I felt like crying. I climbed back up to Nevrek and told him what I'd heard.
The moan of a corpse tends to echo in a place like that. I pondered sitting down. I was freezing and exhausted; but I still had hope that I might survive, and I did not want an ice elemental to walk in while I was sitting. In a pathetic attempt to make things better I poured a little of the peppermint schnapps I had been saving for Rastavan's liquor collection into Nevrek's mouth. Unfortunately, in his state he was unable to appreciate it.
And we were waiting in silence when--almost inexplicably--we felt ourselves being watched. A locate. And then another. Forgetting avalanches in my relief, I threw back my head and howled! I rejoiced with tears. One of the folk we had seen must have sent for help!
...and we waited. And no one came. Remembering past trials with Illoke shamans, I asked Nevrek if he thought ice elementals could locate. "Not funny," said he.
Just when we were beginning to get nervous for real, a shifty looking fellow climbed up to us. He held our hands and with scarcely a goodbye to the unimaginable wasteland before us, we were back in the trading post by a warm fire.
As I watched on like an accidental voyeur, the stranger prepared his magic and, to my awed ears, claimed Nevrek's soul as his own before raising him. Our rescuer was Lord Zebbry, a cleric of dark demeanor but a man to whom I shall be eternally grateful. And I wasn't all that worried about Nevrek's soul as there were prior doubts about its purity and where it was headed anyway. I was simply happy to see him alive.
We tarried about the post for a bit, eating and drinking and trying to heal ourselves. Folks began to show up, the sun grew a little warmer. Nevrek was itching to be on his way. I wanted to stay and I wanted to let the feel of the place sink in in the hope that I would remember the wonders better; but Nevrek wanted to go, and I had the map. Bidding farewell to Pinefar and high adventure, we skidded past the glacei and allowed a wizard to gate us back to Mule. We stepped out onto Tavern Burrow Street.
Nevrek wanted to be off, and he accompanied the wizard on a journey back to Wehnimer's Landing. I wasn't ready to leave. I was close to training and I thought it would be appropriate to train up this way after all I'd been through. I wandered through town a bit and ran into a very late Dwu. We talked for a bit, shared stories and then he left me to myself. I picked boxes at the well for another hour, and as the sun rose as high as it does that far north I wandered to the inn. I had been up for nearly a full day.
I did a strange thing before checking in... I got down on my knees and prayed for a bit. I make it common knowledge that I don't really believe in the Arkati--but occasionally I pray anyway, just in case. This was one of those times. I have been thinking for a while about my life and about leaving the dark institution to which I had bound myself; this change would require a change in training on my part. And a change in training would be a commitment.
But I have been to the Top of the World, and I have nearly seen Koar's shrine. I still have visions in my head of what it might be like; the numinous has an effect on you. I was ready to make that commitment I had been toying with.
After training I stumbled back to the Landing. It was noon and warm and I was exhausted. I dumped my hard-won liquor into the Aspis raffle prize case for Rastavan and collapsed into a chair in the lounge, falling asleep immediately.
I don't know if I dreamed. But the whole adventure itself seems like a dream--I can scarcely remember the scenery of the far northern places, in such a hurry was I when I was there... the force of fear, the cold, the sense of wonder are about all I remember.
I shall have to go back.
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