Upon passing the waypoint that identified the boundary between Makna Forest and Valak Mountain, Arsene was immediately greeted by the sight of another Nopon camp. Their expedition was small but well equipped for cold weather survival. Arsene assumed they were some sort of explorers rather than merchants as there were few people to trade with on the Mountain, although he spotted one or two crates of trade goods, brightly coloured woven cloth, wooden carvings and jars full of pollen, among their equipment, just in case they did happen upon a deal. Spotting them did not cause him any painful flashes of insight so he dove into the snow in an attempt to hide from them but otherwise ignored them.
The main path led down into a canyon where the snow soon became thick enough to swallow up a small Bunnit but not tightly packed enough to walk on top of unless you were a Nopon and could hover, although a few Homs had tried trudging through it recently as well. He slowly scaled the rock face instead, smacking a couple of strange flying creatures, with aquatic-looking bodies and beetle-like pincers, who swooped down to try and eat him. By the time he reached Befelgar pedestal, a ledge that connected to a series of natural walkways high above the canyon, Arsene decided that all flying creatures on the Bionis were conspiring to kill him and he should pre-emptively destroy them on sight, probably including Nopon, and he shouldn't trust flying Mechon either until they proved they were innocent.
From his vantage point, Arsene could just make out the spire of Three Sage Peak on the other side of the Mountain, with the ancient stone building carved into the mountain by what could only be the hands of giants. Below it were a series of geysers superheated by a volcanic cave on the lower levels, which were also connected by the giant tube of an extinct volcano that had now frozen into a slippery deathrap. For a Homs who could not climb or jump properly, the route to the Peak would be impossible. At some point when the weather had been particularly cruel, a thick chunk of ice had completely frozen over the only entrance by foot. If he negotiated some of the narrower walkways and made a leap onto the far platform, he would be able to follow the winding tunnels on the other side of the canyon until he reached the spiral path up to the Peak. It would be the most dangerous route possible, though. The walkways were at some points so narrow that even a Bunnia would barely fit his feet on them, with lethal drops on either side. Missing the jump would also mean certain death and it was a formidable distance even for the species on the Bionis most adapted to jumping. There were more of those damned flying things and worst of all, he could see a blizzard rapidly approaching.
He had never expected his quest to be easy. Baring his teeth in defiance, he began loping along the walkway towards Agul Mountain range. A blue-feathered Ansel asleep on its nest wondered why it had been smacked across the head with a stick by a type of creature it had never seen before in its life.
Mercifully, the blizzard hit after he had made the jump. Had he been caught mid-jump in the ferocious whipping winds and the blade-like walls of ice that cut into his flesh, he would have been blown completely off course. As it was, he landed in an indignant pile on the other side of the canyon, soaking wet and bruised but alive. His heart was racing and he felt like he was about to lose his last meal of a Pagul he had hunted through the snow earlier. Leaping through the air, nothing but death below him, had felt a little like he was already dead, his body was so unfettered by dimensions, especially as he had involuntarily held his breath as if it would somehow enable him to stop time at will. At times he came so close to death on those tiny platforms, he forgot he wasn't already dead, as he couldn't see whether he had succeeded or not, there was such a tiny margin between one and the other. Sometimes he forgot which direction he was going, even whether he was heading up or down. The platforms were the bony spines of the Bionis, living, chaotic things, and he thought he heard the world-Titan breathe through the wind. Mirages glimmered in the endless snow below in the brightly gleaming sun that reflected off giant ether crystals to paint golden lights on the white canvas. Arsene's exhausted mind kept mistaking them for visions, then started wondering what was the difference between his visions and these solitary dreams of the Bionis made manifest. The fact that his mind was wandering scared the Bunnia, who knew he would plummet to his death if he moved his feet a fraction of an inch in the wrong direction. Moving slowly, waiting for an opportunity, studying everything closely was even more exhausting than racing, jumping and fighting, though. He was almost relieved to reach the other side, if it wasn't for the blizzard.
The journey across Agul and up the Spire was indistinguishable from his vision, especially as the blizzard raging around him, pain, exhaustion and the strength-sapping cold were reducing his field of vision to vague shifting images in what was otherwise an abyss of white noise. His thoughts had been reduced to a dream-like fugue in which the phantoms whirled among flashes of incoherent memories, primal instincts of hunger and pain, desperate warning signs from his body. That pain, combined with a sensation of movement, told him he was alive. If he was lucky, he was going in the right direction. He didn't think his visions would let him wander from his intended path, his destiny, his duty to the Bionis. He was fully aware that he had already surrendered himself to it, to leave him here to die, to throw him into the void all around him, or to do whatever else it willed. His Bunnit-nature rankled at such an unspeakable thing as surrender but he consoled himself that it had been his choice every step of the way until now. This situation was his own fault. Maybe his destiny, and you couldn't go against destiny.
A familiar sight, the end of the spire, swam into view, and though he no longer believed he would be able to see anything, even a giant, in this blizzard, there it was, looming above him.
Waiting for him.
