Lady, have mercy . . . (solo)

[Sian The]

Spring 1, 512 AV to Spring 32, AV “No!” Sian’s voice was terse. The strain of too many days spent on constant high alert and nights passed with eyes open and little to no sleep was taking its toll on him. They say that adversity brings out the best, or the worst, in a man. For Sian, his instinct for survival was foremost in his every thought and action – for on his survival depended any chance for another’s – one more precious to him than his own life. At this point in the nightmare that had become his waking life, Sian could have cared less whose toes he was stepping on. Falla was leading them, but he seemed disoriented since he had been bitten by that plant several days back. The guard’s confusion seemed to be growing with each passing hour, and Sian knew – they could not go down. Hadn’t that been clear from the first few days after they left the shelter of the cave? How many more men need die in that . . . horrible . . . Sian pushed the thought away – he couldn’t stomach seeing that mental image of the ones who had stumbled into some sort of misty murk that clung to the ground, and . . . Zintilla, my lady . . . he prayed fervently, his mouth moving silently. You have preserved us for so long now – we have come so far, we must be close, we MUST be . . . . His prayer ended in a almost silent sob, half formed and amorphous, floating up through the darkening skies to the lady of the stars, far away now in the town that seemed to exist only in his memory – on a different planet, in a different world . . . A vastly different world from the one that now surrounded the little party of survivors. ***** They had been fifty-five setting out – fifty-six if you counted the boy who tended the caravan master’s dogs. They were four now – Falla, Gordon, Sian and Liet. Ffity-five and a long string of small mules – animals that could just negotiate the mountain passes they must cross in order to reach the city of the widows. The merchant who had pulled together two of his own kind and then all the men they’d need to make the rigorous journey had been careful, weighing each man’s worth against the pay he’d have to shell out for his services. There were the mule handlers, two cooks, guards, and then the extra men who would be needed to pack the trade goods on their own backs, along with every other available back, when they reached the places where the mules would have to be unloaded for a distance in order to negotiate some particularly high, twisting, narrow track. These men also had to be skilled hunters, to provide meat on the trail, for they could never hope to carry all their food with them. Sian had signed on as a guard, waiting with inheld breath after he had talked to the main man who would direct and lead the men who would provide security on the trek. He had argued with his superiors in the Shinya, but to no avail. So he was pursuing the only other option he could come up with, to get to Kalinor. He had lied, all the time praying to his lady to forgive his dishonorable deceit. He gave false references that would never check out. He made no allusion to the past nine years of training he’d been through. He wore old clothes that he had traded in his acolyte’s garb for. He held his breath until the grizzled older man – Falla – had nodded curtly and grunted, accepting Sain onto the roster. They had set out the next morning, as Sina graced the sky with her beauty and what warmth there would be on a late winter day in the early hours of frost. Sian hadn’t smiled, but he at least felt like he was making progress. He had delayed too long, already. If Jael had been touched . . . No! He could not think of that possibility. With a grim face, he had set off with the trade caravan, iron staff in hand, with no exact plan but a very specific goal – to rescue his sister from the widows. For three weeks they walked, and climbed and slid – up a mountain and down the other side, up another mountain and then around and down and up and around again. Fording rivers, pushing their way through dense forested valleys, and always, more mountains. The Unforgiving did not get its name as a joke. There was nothing at all humorous about this vast expanse of dangerous and rugged terrain. If they made twenty miles in a day they were doing exceptionally well. Some days saw them only progressing ten or so. But this was to be expected, and they were, for the most part, on track for what the head merchant was aiming for. Six hundred miles give or take – it would be a journey of forty-five days or so. What Sian would not have given for a pair of wings? Not that he begrudged the arduous nature of the travel – he only writhed with impatience to get to their destination, for with each passing day, he knew the chances that – even if he was able somehow to find and retrieve Jael – it might be too late. If she had already been impregnated with that poisonous seed . . . Each time Sian began to think along those lines, he tried as best he could to refocus on whatever task he was doing. It would serve no purpose to worry. He could not move any faster than the steady pace of the caravan. And alone, he would not have lasted two days in this wilderness. Sian had training, of course, as an initiate and then as an acolyte, in mountaineering and survival in many different environments that one would encounter in the mountains and valleys of the area around Lhavit. But no man could make it out here on his own, unless the gods walked at his shoulder. Each day, Sian was picking up more and more of the skills that he had missed out on or that were weak. He took his turn with the cooks, helping to prepare the game that the hunters brought in, and becoming quite adept at starting a fire within just a few minutes, even when the trees were dripping with rain. He took his turn hunting, though he was not great with a bow. But several of the men took the time to give him tips and correct his mistakes so that he did manage to bring down his own buck. The every day travel was full of many instances of learning better techniques for climbing – up or down – the use of ropes and knots for getting packs and people across ice covered streams just beginning to thaw – avoiding dangers such as potential rock slides, or even the possibility of avalanches in a few of the snow packed passes, and just generally finding the best path to travel, though the merchant was the one who kept them on course. The man had travelled this route at least once a year for several decades, and had a homing instinct of a migratory bird. There were others in the party who had travelled with him, year after year, which in the end would turn out to be the salvation of the one and only member that was fated to make it to Kalinor. But in these first weeks, any thought of the terror, horror and mass catastrophe that was to see the rest of them die – sooner, or later – could not have entered their minds, and the rigors of the journey seemed acceptable. **** Falla shot Sian an owlish look, beads of sweat dotting his damp brow. “I said yes,” he growled, his words slurred slightly. “It’s the way to the river, and the river takes us to Kal-kalinor.” His eyelids fluttered as if they would close, but they stayed open, and he turned, his feet stumbling a bit, as he walked to the edge of the ridge upon which they had stopped. Gordon looked at Sian, and Liet looked at Falla’s retreating back. Liet took one step towards the ridge too. “No!” Sian hissed. “Don’t follow him! You know what might be down there!” Liet had stopped, and looked after Falla. Then he looked back at the other two. He hesitated, then resumed his path. Sian felt like screaming, cursing – he wanted to run after Liet and grab him and pull him back. But he didn’t. He was too tired, too scared, too unsure. He knew that down would lead them to more of the swirling, glowing evil pools of death – horrible death. Even if they avoided such pools, there were more of . . . them . . . in the valleys – the monsters. That seemed a melodramatic term, but there was no other, for the things they had seen, and encountered since the storm. On the ridge, heading for the high pass, they stood a better chance. It was harder, to go over the mountain. But it was safer. He hoped. Sian drew in a deep breath, watching Falla and Liet disappear. He looked at Gordon, who shrugged. “Let’s go,” the older man said. He was one of the hunters – another reason they had survived so long. Biting down on his lip, Sian nodded. The two turned their steps to the game trail they had been following and began the long, slow haul up to the pass. **** Sian had been one of the lucky ones, obviously. And luck had more to do with survival then any innate skill in the days, and then weeks, after the storm. Of course, knowing how to use a weapon, and knowing how to hunt, had been imperative. But skill alone wasn’t enough to ward off the beasts that came out, after they had made the difficult decision to leave the cave. There had been no other option, of course. They couldn’t very well stay holed up in there forever, even if there had been water. They had to move – to either go back, or forward, and it had not been their decision to make in the end. Within only a few hours march of the cave that had proven their initial salvation, they had seen the damage the storm had wreaked reached the pass that led back over the last series of mountains they had crossed – and had tumbled castle sized chunks of mountain down onto it. It was no longer a pass. Scouts had been sent out, in parties of two, to see if there was any other way that looked likely. They never returned. After a day and a night, the merchant who was in charge, had decided not to wait longer. And so, they began what remained of their journey to Kalinor. An estimated three weeks, before the storm – but there was no way to know what lay ahead, or how long it would take. They traveled much quicker, actually, for every one of the mules had been lost to the storm. When the weather had first turned, the caravan members hadn’t thought too much about it, though if a regular storm was getting ready to blow in, they would need to make camp, preferably in a sheltered place. It hit them so quickly, though, and with such ferocious hostility, that they basically broke and ran. Mules were of no consideration whatsoever. The supplies they carried, and the wares for trade, were forgotten, in a mad scramble for survival. Was it luck, fate, or just coincident that no more than halfway down the slope they slid and scrambled down was an orifice into the mountain? The mules would never have been able to clamber down the almost vertical descent, into the first passage of the cave. There were a few men who didn’t make it. No-one went back out to call after them. Fifty-three of them there were, when Falla took a head count. Some carried packs that held some small amounts of food. Most of them had a water container of some sort, for personal use. As the storm broke in full over them, they wound down and down, deeper into the belly of the cave. And there they sat, for three days. For a day they listened, straining their ears for signs of what was going on in the outside world. For a day they watched, or tried too. One of the muleteers had been packing a load of kindling, something to have handy in case of rain drenching the woods when they came to a halt each night. Sparingly, they burned a bit here and a bit there, though there was never anything to see – just a very small circle of light that lasted only a few minutes – and beyond the circle, who knew? If there were creatures who shared their sanctuary, they went undetected. After a few hours of waiting, Falla would send a man up, or go himself, as far as they dared, to check on what was going on. But the lights bouncing off the walls of the cave, even deep down in the passage – reflections of what was going on above – kept them from going all the way to the mouth, or even close to it. But after an untold number of chimes, there came a time when Falla returned with the news that the lights and the noise had stopped. He and the man who had accompanied him had gone all the way, to the opening, and looked out, on a world gone still. It was morning already he said. They had been down in the belly for most of a day and the night. Cautiously, the rest of them made their way to the mouth of the cave. The forest was silent, in a very unnatural way. The slope had changed configuration dramatically. The lip of the cave now gave onto a sheer drop of at least five hundred feet. The face above them was little better. But looking down, they saw a new and ominous sight – a thick glowing, mist tangled all about the trees and boulders now crumpled below them. After almost an entire day, the best mountaineers amongst them had made it to the top of the cliff face, and secured ropes for the other to follow. But as each man waited his turn to climb up, there came a moment when the screams of the others who had gone before them were heard echoing and reverberating across the newly enlarged valley. About eight men or so had gone up. The others waited, a few minutes, a half hour, an hour. No more screams, and no-one coming back down. No response to the calls of those left waiting below, either. The party withdrew, back into the cave, and passed the night in anxious, muttered conversations. Some were for going down, others for trying their luck going up – but armed and prepared for . . . whatever it was that awaited them. Still others advocated waiting – but their water was running precariously low. The night blended into the new dawn, and still no firm decision had been reached. The merchant in charge was one that had pushed for trying the downward route. Falla argued against it. In the end, several men volunteered to try the upward route again. Sian The was one of them. Hand over careful hand – toes clinging to the rocks, agonizingly slowly, and with no way to be ‘armed’ when they reached the top, up they went. He was third of the party of five. Seeing the first, some thirty feet above him, reaching the edge and pulling himself over, Sian held his breath. He heard nothing. The man above him clambered on, and so did Sian. They reached the top to join the first and they saw – nothing. No sign of their companions. Nothing untoward. Slowly, taking the better part of that day, the rest of the party climbed up. Late in the afternoon they set out. Within the hour they had discovered that their way back, to Lhavit, was not an option. The scouts were sent out. Another night passed, anxious but in the end uneventful. The scouts did not return. The decision was made. South they went. **** That had been four weeks earlier. In ones and twos, sometimes as many as ten at a time, Sian’s comrades fell. It had begun that first night, a guard picked off by something unseen, his grisly remains found hanging in a tree under which he had been posted. Anytime they descended into a valley, the mist was there, and though they had a natural abhorrence for it and avoided it when they could, sometimes it seemed to have some malicious life all its own, following them and curling about, to cut off their escape backwards, and pushing them forward, until they met a cul de sac, with tendrils reaching out to strike in the most horrible of ways. They learned to stick to the high ground. But the monsters that they began to see more and more frequently had taken to the ridges and passes too, and slowly, despite attempts to stick together, any individual or small group that straggled behind – or forged ahead – was lost. At one point, a flock of mutant flying rat like creatures attacked them and left several maimed and wounded. Within a day, the wounds were a hideous, seething, mess of rotting flesh and those bitten or scratched died slowly at first, the last two were dispatched as an act of mercy, at their own request. It was mind numbing and appalling and there was nothing to be done but keep moving forward. The merchant had been one of the ones to fall prey to the flying demons, but Falla knew where they needed to head. And so they slogged onwards, their numbers dwindling with each passing day. Four weeks of pushing themselves as hard as they dared. Four weeks of too little rest – for who would dare sleep soundly when the night held such terrors. Four weeks of scant food, as the hunters often found themselves the hunted, and had to give up the chase in order to save their own skins. Four weeks of pure hell, with Kalinor looming as the hoped for locus of their salvation. The thought that the city might itself had been damaged or destroyed somehow by the storm – the origins of which the beleaguered travelers had no about – was one they dared not even consider. Reaching Kalinor, this had become their mantra. If they could only reach it, if the Symenestra would let them in, if they could regroup and recuperate . . . if, if, if. Even the plants and the water became their enemy, and when a man took a drink from a stream, he took his life in his hands. But what choice did they have? Four weeks, and on this day, only the four remained, and now it was just the two, as Sian and Gordon kept putting one foot in front of the other, heading up the mountain.

[Sian The]

A mist that settled like a malignant miasma a foot or two over the ground wrapped about their ankles and shins as they wearily threw down their packs. The day before had taken them up and up and up. But what goes up must always come down. And to reach the gates of Kalinor, they were forced to descend into one final rift, where the shoulders of the mountains pushed in, forming a narrow gorge. The slopes above were near vertical, and no man could hope to cling to their hostile façade. Gordon had made a guess that they had perhaps another six or seven hours of tramping to reach their destination. At last, their goal – their hoped for sanctuary – was so close. But the shadows were already deep in the rift and night was coming. The two men who had survived everything had learned – you do not travel at night. So before full dark descended, they had to find a perch – something high up and defensible. Trees were a second best – there were still too many things that could come at them from the air, or who dwelled in the higher branches. The best would be some shelf of rock, and they had spotted one such and determined they had best stop now, while their was still dim light to climb by. Gordon went first, and Sian The followed, scrambling up like the Okomo of home. He had become quite adept at climbing even what might seem completely smooth rack faces – it had been a necessity. The ledge was quite narrow – but for two who had spent many a night wedged into a tree branch, it was more than acceptable. They pulled their packs up and secured them – another lesson learned. To lose one’s pack was to lose the means to survive out here. The Unforgiving had become a palpable evil to them, with a seeming will of its own to reach out and pluck them up and cast them down to the pit of hell. Every moment had to be one of intense concentration. Every thought had to be focused. Every movement had to have purpose – had to count, towards reaching their goal alive. So many had fallen. So many lessons had been learned by these two survivors. Sian The shivered as he settled down into a cramped curl – not from cold but from fear. Sheer, raw anxiety about what the night might bring. Gordon would take the first watch. Sian slept with his hands around his staff and the handle of a loaded crossbow. They were both of them armed now with as many weapons as they had been able to rescue from dying comrades. But all the blades and cudgels and bows in the world could not prevent death. They knew this. So it was with exhaustion and uneasiness that Sian fell into a light slumber. He woke with a start. Eyes flashing open, he knew immediately that something was wrong, and that Gordon was not on the ledge with him. He sat up and peered down, waiting to call out lest he alert any denizen of this hell hole to their presence. He heard the rustling down below, but no sound of alarm or confrontation. “Gordon!” He hissed in as low a voice possible. “What the fuck are you doing down there?” Before his companion answered, Sian had already guessed. His eyes, searching in the dark, had noted the missing pack – the one with most of their food in it. “Gordon – leave it! We are close to the city. We don’t need it now. Get your ass back up here!” There was no sound below now. Even the rustling had stopped. Sian peered into the thick blackness that was night in this moonless, starless gully. And then he saw a hand, and a head. Gordon’s pale face looked up at him, from about five feet below. “It’s alright, I have . . . “ Those were the last words Gordon would ever give voice to. A scream rent the air and it took a half second for Sian to register that it was Gordon’s voice – so high pitched and bestial, it sounded more like some jungle animal. Where his face and hand had been, there was now nothing, and the sounds that flew through the black to Sian’s ears were horrible, numbing – at least for that other half a second. Unable to fire downwards, for fear of striking his friend, Sian had only one option. It was too dark for climbing back down, and there was no time – no time! Swinging himself over the edge, praying to his lady that he would not land right on top of them, he let go and dropped the near vertical fifteen feet to the ground. At the bottom it was pitch black, and Sian crouched, listening. The sound of the attack was just bone chilling, but he could tell Gordon was slicing away with the axe he typically carried. There were several chunking thunks as the blade hit . . . something. But for each of those there was an even more vicious sound of tearing, and Gordon’s screams. Sian despaired of finding a way to strike without being able to see where each of the combatants were, when suddenly, two pairs of orange orbs floated in the darkness, at about eye level or slightly higher, and approximately ten feet away. Without hesitation, Sian fired, and he heard the whining skurr of the bolt, and a satisfying thump as it hit home. As soon as the bolt fired, Sian was moving in with his iron staff, twirling it about his head for momentum, aiming it at those orbs. But the shot triggered a reaction in the target, and it shifted quickly, so that Sian’s staff found only air. The sound of Gordon’s screaming changed to one more of pain than absolute terror, and Sian tried to gage where its locus was, moving over towards it, staff held warily. His feet found his companion first, and he lowered his hand to touch a mashed up pulp of warmth – blood and gods knew what else, he realized without having to see. The smell was more than enough to tell him, if the screams and now the keening moans of agony were not. With frantic eyes still trying to adjust to a darkness almost complete, he crouched down and tried to find a hand, or an arm, or a shoulder, all the while listening with strained ears. “Gordon . . . “ he whispered, but got no farther. It hit him like a freight train, and Sian flew upwards, in complete shock at the stabbing pain in his thigh and the trajectory of his body. It seemed like some fantastical magic trick – he was floating in mid-air. But no – not floating – pinned somehow, by his leg. He couldn’t think to analyze, though. He brought his staff down hard and this time felt as well as heard the contact of iron against flesh. There was a blinding flash of searing pain, as something – the whatever it was that had thrust into his thigh, ripped outward again, through his muscles, and he found himself tossed back to the earth, landing on his back. For one long moment, he lay there, unable to breathe, the air knocked clean out of his lungs. He wanted to roll, to regain his feet, but all he could do was lay prone, trying to suck the life giving substance back into his chest. He knew he had to move, to get up, but he was helpless. He smelled the hot, foetid breath before he felt the second jolt, and at the last moment, Sian shifted to the side, saving his life, for the time being. The thing moved silently, terrifyingly, like a phantom beast. A protrusion gored into his lower chest, catching him under the ribs, flipping him upwards once more, like a rag doll. This time he flew sideways and landed with a bone crunching thud, his staff flying out of his hand. This time, some last ditch source of adrenalin made his feet move of their own accord. Without thought or plan, Sian scrambled to rise, at the same time yanking the sword at his belt from its scabbard. This was not his weapon of choice, but it was all he had to hand. Twirling about in a tight circle, he held it out wildly, blindly, feeling for his foe. Once again he smelled its rush, and he swung as best he could. They were face to face, toe to toe in a heartbeat and he felt its great furry weight pushing him backwards. The stomp on his foot went totally unnoted, as jaws closed on his free hand, gnawing as if it would be taken off at the wrist. The pain was there, remotely, but as death descended upon him, his brain blocked it as all effort and sensation focused on his sword arm. One desperate thrust upwards, as a razor sharp claw raked at his skull, and he felt the blade go in. Harder and harder, with all the strength left to him, he pushed and pushed and pushed, stopping only when his hand touched the long shaggy fur. As the thing pressed against him, he felt his feet slipping from under him, and he twisted, to avoid it knocking him over. And just as his hand yanked to try to pull the sword from the vile, stinking body, he heard the hiss. His head turned, and he saw the head, moving towards him at incredible speed. But it moved in slow motion in his mind, coming straight at his face. He threw up his mangled arm, and the thing deflected of its own accord, and struck his neck. Sharp, piercing pain, followed by a burn as if a fire had been set in his flesh, and then – it was over. He didn’t know it, yet. In the dark, Sian heard the thwump as the body hit the ground. The sword had been wrenched out of his hand, being so deeply embedded in the thing’s chest. But there was no more immediate need for it – not against this thing. The blade had found its heart, and it was dead. Sian realized that he was hurt, but the adrenalin flow was still pumping his cells full of a natural numbing agent. The beast had succumbed in as complete a silence as it had attacked. But Gordon’s agonized moans stimulated Sian to action. He followed those heart wrenching groans to stumble upon Gordon once again. There seemed no use in even thinking about somehow hoisting him to the rock ledge again. Sian retraced his few steps to his vanquished foe and with an effort recovered the sword, and then he fished about for the spent cross bow quarrel. A short hunt led to the retrieval of his staff, the bow, and the pack Gordon had been intent upon rescuing. Hunkering down beside Gordon, Sian risked striking a spark to light a scrap of kindling. Holding it up to survey what was left of his friend, he shivered. If he had had a mirror, he would have cried in despair. For an hour or more, Sian worked over first Gordon and then his own wounds. He lit a small fire to have the light to work by – if some other monster of the storm were to happen upon them, so be it. Without some type of first aid, they’d be dead anyway. He had no water to do any cleaning with, so he bandaged as best he could with torn clothing. His knowledge of the tending of wounds had increased a hundred fold since the storm. Gordon was a mess, and he knew that he wasn’t in much better shape. But he focused on the task and prayed for Syna’s grace. When he had done what little he could, he hunkered beside Gordon and willed himself to stay awake, loaded bow, staff and blood begrimed sword right to hand. He did doze, despite his intentions, but after the horror of the beast, nothing else materialized to harass them. He woke with the first rays of light that reached into the valley, and his survey of his friend left him completely devastated. At one point, out of morbid curiosity, he went to inspect the thing that had attacked them, and he quickly wished that he had not. His mind reeled at the malevolence of the storm that had created such a monstrous abberation of nature. Sian could not know its genesis – the freakish series of events on the day of the storm that led a stag to drink at a stream where a viper lay coiled - the misplaced muzzle that descended to the water, catalyzing the snake to strike in perceived self-defense - the bellowing of the buck that attracted the lone wolf that came to investigate and bring down an easy meal - the storm that churned the poisoned flesh of the deer in the maw of the canid and transformed all three essences into one. No, all he could see was the grotesque thing that had gored and chewed and poisoned him, and he almost vomited at its horrific appearance. Sickened and already feeling quite weak from his injuries, Sian had returned to Gordon’s side, a fearful decision awaiting him. His friend, the man who had been a critical part of Sian’s own survival, lay out of his senses, a fever already awash in his mangled body. But the repair work that Sian had performed in the night had shown Gordon’s wounds to be mostly involving his extremities. The wounds were primarily defensive, as if Gordon had used hands and feet to try to ward off the beast. Only a few seconds had lapsed from the time Gordon had first screamed and slid down the rock face until Sian had distracted the thing with the bolt to its side. It would seem the creature had not had time to truly go after Gordon, beyond trying to chew his hands and legs off. If Sian could get him to Kalinor, perhaps a healer could patch Gordon up. None of the wounds seemed fatal, at this point. And they were so close. But Sian realized the extent of his own injuries. He was having trouble walking and the wound to his chest kept seeping blood. There were two clear choices. Leave Gordon and proceed as fast as he could to Kalinor – and if it still existed, and if the hated widows would help, he could send someone back for his friend. Hopefully, Gordon would survive until then. The other option was to try to get Gordon moving and together they would make this last small bit of their tremendous journey. Whether either of them would ever make it seemed highly questionable. Even if Sian traveled by himself, he might succumb to his injuries long before reaching the city, if he could even find it on his own. Gordon had been adamant the evening before. Six or seven hours march down the rift, and they would be there. Sian looked at his friend for many minutes. In the end, he made his decision based on compassion and nothing else. He would do his best to get both of them there, or they would die together. He would not sacrifice Gordon for Jael or for himself. He could not, after all they had been through. It hadn’t been too difficult, to get Gordon to his feet. He seemed in an odd state – woozy, unbalanced and disoriented, like a very, very sick person who can still rise and ambulate, but is otherwise helpless. His injuries were bad, but this fever seemed to be the worst part of it. Sian had noted the strike marks all over his friend – the snake aspect of it must have bitten him multiple times, on his arms and face. Gathering up their things, taking only the most necessary items, Sian loaded up one pack and slung it on his back. With a steadying arm under Gordon’s shoulder, Sian set out to finish this last agonizing piece of their trek. It had been tortuous. Gordon grew weaker by the hour. And they moved so slowly that six or seven hours became ten and then twelve and then, exhausted, Sian had slumped down to the ground, unable to go any further. Another night passed with the two simply stretched out where they fell. But some god or goddess, or pure dumb luck, saw them through til morning unmolested by any creatures of the night. Barely able to walk, Sian had brought every cell in his body to bear on getting Gordon up. The pack was abandoned, Sian had no strength to carry the extra weight. The sword and bow were left too, and he took only his staff, to lean upon, as Gordon slumped against him. In no more than half an hour, they had arrived, just as Syna was cresting the surrounding slopes. Sian dragged Gordon to the basket of powder, as the men he had traveled with had described, and he threw it on the flames, before he dropped to the ground, unconscious, Gordon slumped beside him, drawing his very last breath.

[Poison]

THREAD AWARD!

Skills: Wilderness Survival 5, Land Navigation 5, Cooking 1, Hunting 1, Climbing 3, Mountaineering 3, Observation 3, Crossbow 1, Staff 1, Sword 2, Medicine 2, Longbow 1

Lores: Geography of the Unforgiving, Starting a Fire, Using Ropes to get across Ice covered Streams, Avoiding Rock Slides, Avoiding Avalanches, Finding the best Path to travel, How the Djed Storm changed the Unforgiving and its Creatures, Dangers of the Unforgiving, Finding Shelter, Setting up a Camp, Killing as an Act of Mercy, You don’t travel at Night, Finding and Preparing a Resting Place for the Night, Keeping Watch, Fighting at Night

Notes: This was an extremely well written thread!

There were so many potential skills and lores that I hope I didn’t miss one!

Send me a PM if you have questions or if you think you deserve more or different XP!