Cearbhail:

So, we're through Elder Gleam Forest. Time to climb a mountain.

Anyway, enjoy =^.^=

[Kara Kulenov]

"And here is the path leading out of Elder Gleam Forest." Our kitsune guide came to a sudden stop.

For hours we'd been traveling along this one route, a thick mist obscuring most of the woods from our view. It was walking through a dream, and for hours, it seemed like we were walking in a haze. But… here we were, I guess. We had started going up hills an hour ago, hills that started out sloping lightly, but quickly got steeper and steeper. And I guess we were finally at the edge of the forest, which meant…

I tried to look up, hoping to see the dwarven pass overhead of us, on the large mountain that I could barely begin to see ahead of us. The sun was beginning to flash overhead, which meant we were somewhere near noon. Right on track.

I pulled out our map, checking our position. "If we're at the base of the dwarven pass… we should be here." I showed my map to Sebastian.

Sebastian checked my map, nodding his head. "More or less. We're right where your dwarven pass is." He nudged at me. "Follow me, I'll take you there."

Our kitsune continued moving forward; I looked back at the rest of my team. "Well, gang… let's keep going."

"I have questions." Erwin blurted out.

I shrugged. "Okay? What question?"

Erwin shook his head. "Not directed to you. Our foxy friend."

Sebastian glanced back at Erwin. "Oh? Go ahead."

"What exactly are you?" Erwin asked. "I've heard rumors that kitsune aren't mortal. They aren't fae either."

"We're celestial." Sebastian replied, shrugging. "According to legend. We're living celestial beings, able to travel between the astral realm and the mortal realm. We don't really die either… we just shed our mortal form and embrace our astral form… become a ghost as your people would say. Sometimes we reincarnate, but the memories of these reincarnations are rare. No one from my generation has memories of their last reincarnation, and only one person in our whole nation has any memories at all." Sebastian looked back at us. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

Erwin nodded. "Thank you for sharing."

Sebastian began leading the group again. I could see the beginnings of the dwarven pass, the thick blocks carved into the mountain, the large staircase leading up the mountainside. Well, here we begin. 7,000 steps… to get to the top of the mountain.

"Here's your dwarven pass." Sebastian turned to look at me. "I'm coming with you."

He was? "Why?" I never saw a kitsune leave their forest before. They didn't like leaving their holy sites, which were all located within Elder Gleam Forest. You never see a kitsune anywhere but in their forest. It's kind of weird, to be honest, and I guess Shou might have some wandering around… but not in Illuska or Damara.

Sebastian waved his hand around, gesturing to us. "Think about it… I'm the son of a chief. I will one day lead my people into the future." Sebastian gestured to Erwin. "He's the son of a councilor… he will one day lead the future to his people." He pointed to Kurohana. "She's… like me. A beast-folk. I've never met one that looks like a cat… I'm intrigued." And then he pointed to me. "And then there's you… starting a revolution… saving innocent lives. Building an army. I've never known anything other than my forest. I don't know what's beyond our trees. And here I have an opportunity… to truly see the world as it is."

"You're only going to see the bad stuff." I replied. "The world isn't always just wars and uprisings. It can be a beautiful place… and if we get the time, I'll be glad to show you that."

Sebastian smirked. "I'll take you up on that offer." With that, Sebastian started to wave me forward. "I got us this far… now it's your turn. You know where we're going from here on out, correct?"

I nodded, stepping in front of Sebastian. The steps leading up the mountain were old, weathered. The old dwarven designs held up though. You could see the rich geometric designs still embedded in their stonework, their love of badgers still captured as guardian statues. The steps looked a little rounded on the edges, but as long as we step carefully, we'd make it to the top just fine. The steps were larger than what I would normally experience, as in… you had more area to plant your foot down, but it had a trade-off… the steps were also shorter, as in… if my staircase had 10 steps in it, a dwarven staircase would likely have 16 steps in it. They do have shorter legs then humans, so their steps were usually shorter and deeper than ours. It was going to be a long walk… and it would take a toll on us.

I readied my scarf. We were already feeling the Damaran winter. The Elder Gleam Forest had turned into pine trees a mile ago, and the snow was already a foot deep where we were. "Hold onto the banister, don't lick anything, and get ready to be cold."

"I'm already cold." Kurohana replied.

I sighed. "Well… it's about to get worse. Take it from me though… I wouldn't last long in a desert. But then again… I can't take off any layers in the desert. At least here… you can add as many as you need. And a good Damaran winter coat will keep you warm, no matter what."

…

It took us hours to climb. Between the rows and rows of the climbing mountainside road, which you could look up and down and see the progress that had been made and the progress yet to be made was exhausting. As we came up to the last few rows of the mountainside road, we started getting really cold. The full blast of Damaran winds were slamming into us, where the height of the mountain helped divert some of the winds and freezing cold before. Luckily for us, this road was built for the reason of helping dwarves from various points get outside in case of cave-ins. You could call this an evacuation road if you wanted to think of it as such. It was also a convenient way to get up a mountain if you didn't feel like climbing by hand.

I mention this because as it turned colder, and the cold resistance of our party was reaching its limit, we decided to duck into one of the dwarven tunnels, and enter the old dwarven city. We began setting up a camp, and turned on one of the old dwarven furnaces, which needed fire to spark it. Luckily… we have three spell-casters. One of which creates his own fire just by existing. Our kitsune has a thing called a 'fox fire', a primal source of energy that all kitsune are born with. Now, they don't unlock it until they're about 13 years old, where they go through a trial called the Trial of Fire to unlock their kitsune abilities. It's a coming of age thing, I guess. Kuzu told me about hers. I'm guessing one day Sebastian will tell us about his.

Sebastian lit the furnace for us, giving us a nice fire to sit around. And as we sat there, I turned my attention to an old book of mine. It belonged to Liz. She used to read it to me when I was young. It was a story about a girl who was the daughter of the tsar. When the family was outed, the country overthrown by a neighboring faction, the girl went into hiding, and became a warlord. The story of Anna Staravia. It was of course a fiction, but it was written by a historian who professed that this kind of story could come to pass if we ignored the political parties beginning to sprout up around the tsar of the time. It would seem that his predictions had come to pass after all. His book told of how the people became oppressed, many silenced for their connections to the former tsar. And minority groups were round up and executed just for existing. It was eerily on point for what was going on in Ostingrav. And in this case… I guess I'm Anna. I hope I can help take back our country. And it begins with saving this one tower.

I looked away from my book, seeing Kurohana and Erwin beginning to snuggle up to each other, whispering sweet nothings to each other. Sebastian was watching them it curiosity, as if he was studying them. Okay… I'm not sticking around for that.

I closed my book, stood up, and grabbed my winter coat. "I'm going scouting." I replied as I exited the cave.

I looked up at what remained of the road. It would only take me an hour. Might as well get a nice walk in. This cold doesn't bother me.

…

[Sebastian]

What a fascinating development. Our human friend didn't seem impressed by what was happening in front of her, but I never saw relationships that extended beyond my village back home. Even Treants just release their spore into the air and whichever Treant catches their seed… well… helps grow a new Treant. I can't really explain it further than that. That being said, the only courtship rituals I've seen are kitsune, and we're not exactly subtle about our relationships, but we're also very private about public displays of affection. You wouldn't see me kissing my boyfriend out in public, but holding hands… yeah, that's about as much as we show in public.

And seeing these two snuggling up to each other… it's cute… and different. Something for me to share with my friends back home. An elf… a fae hybrid and a cat-folk snuggling up with each other. Everyone will think I made this up.

I pulled out my drawing sketchbook and started drawing the two of them. This will prove that I saw this happen in front of me. I started by filling out a small sketch of the two sitting next to each other, adding the smaller features like fur, eye shape, pointy ears, as I went along. It took me a while to get it copied down, but the two hadn't really moved beyond the cat-folk rubbing her head against the elf's chest, her tail curling around his leg. Man, I wonder how long these two have known each other to be this comfortable with expressing this kind of emotional connection like this. This would only happen after months of two of my people dating each other. They must have known each other for at least as long. I hope it's not impolite for me to ask.

"So… how long have you two been dating?" I asked, brazenly opening my mouth without having someone around to stop me.

The elf and cat-folk both jumped away from each other, the cat-folk's fur puffed out: an expression even my people know as embarrassment. The elf was glancing away from us as he folded his arms.

"Are we dating?" The cat-folk glanced over to the elf.

The elf shrugged. "I mean… if you want to."

"Sure…" The cat-folk glanced away. "Should we continue snuggling?"

"Sure…" The elf responded. And they resumed their cuddling.

Man… I just watched a very different kind of courtship dance. Ours involves fans and fox fire. I had to write down what I just experienced. My village will learn a lot about tsundere relationships and how to show your interest to these outsiders if you start having romantic feelings for them. I'm guessing non-kitsune don't care for active interest and instead of showing interest turn to showing disinterest until it's time to wrap up for consensual cuddling. I wonder when the sex will begin.

"So… when are you two going to commence with the…"

"I'm back!" Kara screamed from the cave entrance.

…

[Kara Kulenov]

Jeez, I leave the three of them alone for a single hour… and I happen to make it back to the cave just seconds away from Sebastian making things any weirder than I wanted them to be.

I look around the cave, seeing three people. We're missing one. "Where's Lil-Gem?"

"Over here!" Lil-Gem screamed from outside the cave. She was riding on top of her dire wolf. "We went hunting for rabbits."

"We're on top of a snowy mountain…" I turned to look at the small gnome child. "There aren't…"

"I caught six snow rabbits!" Lil-Gem screamed at the top of her lungs. "Snowflake ate a lot of rabbits."

How? There aren't any rabbits living… you know what… I don't have time for this. I obviously don't live up in these mountains. Snow rabbits are a thing in Damara… I just didn't think they lived up in the mountains. Especially with frost trolls living up here. Speaking of which, I didn't find any frost trolls while traveling up the mountain. I didn't see any tracks either. So… I was right. Nothing to be afraid of.

I looked back at Erwin and Kurohana. They looked cozy. Gods, they're fast. "I went scouting. You can see the tower from the top of this mountain peak. It looks like it's about an hour away. One mountain peak away. We'll have to scale down a bit on the other side, but it's along the same ridge just like I thought. I could see where the dragon's roosting too."

"You could?" Erwin sat up. "How?"

I shrugged. "You kind of can't miss it. The mountain around his roost is covered with blood, bones, and the snow's been dragged around. He's about three peaks away."

Erwin scratched his chin. "I could call the dragon."

I crossed my arms. "We got lucky the first time, and it only came and helped us because it was part of your bloodline. I don't think we'll have that privilege this time." I brushed the snow off my winter coat. "If you want, we can leave at any time. Or… we can continue sitting here. The sun's probably close to setting. If we leave now, we can probably make it to the tower before sunset. If we wait, we'll be here overnight. And our provisions are already pretty low."

Erwin started getting up. "Let's not waste any time. Let's get going."

…

[Kurohana]

I wasn't looking forward to leaving. I was nice and warm, and it's cold outside. I wanted to spend the night here and hit the tower first thing in the early afternoon, while the sun is at its strongest. "We should probably just…"

My ears perked as I heard scratching in the distance. Deep inside the dwarven city, I could hear deep guttural chittering. My instincts were screaming at me, and I stood up as quickly as I could. "We should probably get going as quickly as possible." How did my nose miss it? I must have been focusing on relaxing this entire time, because I was now picking up the very thick scent of troll musk. And rotting flesh. We're literally resting inside where the trolls are living. The dwarven city is where the trolls are nesting. "I can smell trolls."

Kara glanced at me. "That's weird… I didn't see any tracks."

I grabbed my winter coat, throwing it on as quickly as I could. "Yeah, but I can smell them. And hear them. We need to go… now. I can hear hundreds of them."

…

[Kara]

Wow… that's a bad thing to hear. Hundreds of trolls.

I nodded to everyone. "Don't bother with the furnace. The smoke will only attract them faster. Get dressed and outside. We're moving on."

Everyone was quick to throw on their winter gear, and I watched from the exit as everyone rushed to get outside. Sebastian was perhaps the slowest one to leave the dwarven city. It would seem he was curious to see what a frost troll looked like.

"Shouldn't we stay? Slay the trolls?" The kitsune asked. "They might be a threat later. And we're in close quarters. We can probably handle them better in these conditions."

I shook my head. "I know you're new to this… but one troll is a challenge. And our cat-folk is picking up hundreds. I'd rather take on a single dragon than hundreds of trolls." I don't know if Kurohana is accurate, it's probably closer to exactly 12 trolls… but I don't want to find out. Trolls are large… standing at around 9 feet tall… and if there are hundreds of them… I don't care how much fire we have on our side, we can't burn hundreds of apes all at once.

I rushed our kitsune outside, and as I did so, I saw the ears on the dire wolf fold back. He started to snarl, and I looked to the entrance to the dwarven city. I could see hundreds of glowing eyes looking at us. I slammed the door shut behind us, locking it. I heard massive howls coming from the trolls on the other side. The door keeping the trolls locked inside the town bashed. The trolls were trying to bash their way through the door. Too bad these were dwarven doors, designed to keep things like trolls out of their city. It can easily keep them inside too.

I looked to my team. "We're heading up. And we need to make certain the other doors leading up are sealed too. This is now a speed trial, people! We can't let the trolls get ahead of us."

Erwin was ahead of me. He was already running across the road. Kurohana was one step ahead of us, jumping up the wall and climbing it using her claws. I looked back at the kitsune. "Feel like following her?"

He shrugged. "I climb trees… not mountains."

I sighed, chasing after Erwin. Lil-Gem was pounding away with her dire wolf leading the charge up the road. Kurohana was ahead of us all by climbing up to the next level. She'd probably get there before the rest of us.

…

[Kurohana]

Why am I the only one that can climb like this? I guess it can't be helped. My claws aren't doing that great on this frozen mountainside, and the snow is getting in my way, but even still, I'm a mile ahead of everyone else. I grit my teeth and pushed off my holding, clawing my way up to the next level, almost chipping a talon in the process. I could see the next door right before us. Each level of the mountain had a single entrance. The door was open on this level too. I could already hear the howling coming from deep inside the entrance. That could just be the echoes from the level underneath us too. The trolls had to be smart enough to go up or down to get to us. And if they chose to go down, they'd have a hard time getting to us if we kept moving quickly.

I pushed myself onto the road, using my darkvision to look inside the entrance. I could see several massive forms making their way towards the exit. Great… that would have been an ambush if I stuck with the group.

I stuck out my hand, pushing my Mage Hand out. I threw it out hard enough that I managed to slam the troll in the front into the other trolls behind him. It knocked them all back, giving me the time I needed to run up to the door. I'm not very strong, but I managed to push the door closed, hearing it lock behind me. Well, one down… only one more door to go.

I groaned as I used my claws to climb up the door's frame, using it as a standing point as I jumped up to get a nice grip on the frozen rock above us. My friends weren't even close to clearing the end of the road leading to this level. If I did this… I would be alone. Well, might as well do what I can.

I screamed as I dug deep into the frozen rock. My talons were able to push through the icy covering, and I found enough strength to power climb through the snowy rock face. I screamed through the pain in my arms as I struggled to find a foothold for me to relieve the growing strain in my arms. I pushed through the pain, using only my claws and arms to pull me up the mountain. My left claw slipped, my talons scratching against the ice, and I felt something in my right arm pop, but my claws stayed firm. I dangled for a second, allowing myself to catch my breath before I threw my left arm up, catching a new hold. With a deep breath, and gathering all the strength I had in me, I threw myself up as high as possible. I managed to make it to the next level without slipping or falling back down the road. My right arm was throbbing, mostly in the wrist, but it seemed to be just fine. I'll just pop a health potion later, and then get some rest. That usually works for me.

I caught my breath as I walked up to the last door. The road ended here. I stood at the top of the mountain, overlooking the whole frozen ridgeline. And in front of me… was the last door we needed to worry about. I heard the howls of frost trolls, but they sounded farther away.

I smirked as I walked up to the door, putting my hand on top of it. I pushed as hard as I could, but… the door didn't budge. I looked down, seeing that the door was frozen to the ground. I felt crushing defeat as I heard the howls getting closer. My darkvision revealed the edges of what looked like massive trolls coming straight for me. I could see the reflections of hundreds of eyes all glaring at me as they charged for me. I had to do something fast.

Think, Kurohana… you should have exactly what you need to shut this door. That's when I remembered that I had Acid Splash. If I just hit the bottom of the door, that should be enough to melt the ice and let me close it.

I aimed my hand at the bottom of the door, carefully backing away from the door so that I avoided any backsplash. I launched my bubble of acid at the door, getting my acid all over the icy buildup underneath the door. Managed to melt enough of the ice that I was able to slap the door shut with a Mage Hand, using my magical strength instead of my physical strength. I managed to shut the door right as a troll shoulder-rammed into it. The door almost buckled but locked in place. And with that, the trolls were locked inside. I fell onto my butt, exhaling as I caught my breath and my racing heartbeat. I was almost attacked by a frost troll. Any longer… and I'd probably be in a lot of trouble. Honestly, I'd probably just jumped down the mountain and rolled back down to the other road and race towards my friends and ambush the trolls. Or escape together.

I waited for a few minutes, hearing everyone call out my name. I just let myself fall into the snow to catch my breath. I can't believe I just managed to survive that.

It felt like an hour before I saw Lil-Gem with Snowflake race up the end of the road. It took her a full minute to reach me, even racing on top of her trusty dire wolf.

"Are you okay?" Lil-Gem asked me as she looked down at me resting in the snow.

"I'm just tired." I muttered as I sat up. "I managed to lock the door. The trolls are locked inside the town."

Lil-Gem shook her head. "Kara said there's a second side. And the trolls are probably on their way to kill us. We should hurry since we're ahead of everyone."

There's a second side to the mountain pass? Why… why didn't we just plan to go through the mountain if that was the case? Oh, I'm having words with Kara when she catches up to us.

I sat there, waiting until Kara and Erwin came up the road. As soon as she was near enough to hear me with her flat human ears, I screamed. "We could have just… cut through the mountain? Why did we even bother climbing it?"

Kara screamed back. "The Tower is on top of a mountain range… not exactly on the other side. We'd still have to climb. We could have gone through the side we were on though… and I was planning on it, if the mountain was impassible. The staircases, while warm, would have counted more in the millions and would have taken us forever to climb up. Plus… I feared that there'd be something living in this abandoned town. Like ghosts. Or something just as bad. Frost trolls… yeah… I was hoping for a few, not hundreds."

Kara caught up with me, stretching out her hand. "We should hurry, in case the trolls are on their way to fuck us up."

I took her hand, rolling my eyes as I did so. "The other side isn't far away, right?"

Kara nodded. "Yup. And I'm hoping the other side is just frozen over… another reason I wanted to avoid going that route. This town's been abandoned for a few years, maybe longer. The constant snow storms from Damara would have frozen over the other side's exit without constant heaters warming it up, and without patrols keeping the other dwarven road cleared. You climbed up the harder way, but if you ran with us, you would have noticed the ice buildup we had to struggle not slipping on as we got up here. It was pretty bad."

Erwin nodded. "Yeah, I totally slipped on the way up. I almost rolled down the mountain."

Sebastian was now catching up with us. "Okay, I'm here. Shall we continue on?"

Kara nodded. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you to the tower. It's just an hour away, probably. Especially if no trolls attack us."

Cearbhail:

So, now we're seeing our little group figure out their characters and whatnot. And yeah, this was our second session, and the couple were already getting snuggly with each other. So, I thought I'd just pull Kara away in case they wanted to get more intimate. Our fourth player at the time didn't see a problem with keeping their character behind to observe their relationship. They thought it was cute. My character, Kara, is ace and doesn't really care for public displays of affection. Plus she doesn't really care for the two characters at this point. Up until this point, she was only acting as a guide and a way to keep the mission moving forward. Plus, we needed a full team and Lil-Gem, while being a full character, likes to go off and do her own thing. Her whole thing is just being on her wolf and hunting food. You'll see that a lot in this series. She gets bored pretty easily when she's forced to actually sit and listen to what's going on in the game. And so, I usually just let her run off and do her own stuff. She rolled a 20 for hunting, and I asked her what she wanted to find, and she said rabbits so... there you go. Snow rabbits in a troll infested area on the side of a mountain.

Anyway, next chapter we meet two new characters. One was supposed to be a player character who never joined us, a healer, and one's one of my NPCs I created to help drive the plot. Also another character for me to play if I got stuck. Unlike Kara... she's not a stick in the mud.