Skill 1/5: Ranger
It was supposed to be spring. Yet here he was, shoulders coated in snow thick enough to bury the sun, climbing toward a mountainious summit like a frostbitten fool.
The wind howled as if angry to find company, slamming against him with every step. Isúlfr bore it with gritted teeth, jaw tight, breath shallow—not from exertion, but something ... else.
He paused midway up the slope and sucked in a breath that never quite reached his lungs. The air was wrong. Thin, yes, but laced with something acrid, something that scratched at the back of his throat. He coughed once, then again harder, a scowl deepening across his features as if the mountain itself had insulted him.
Hadn’t he come here to get away from strange things?
The trees with their rosy blossoms and warped smells hadn’t followed him up the cliffs, but whatever this snow was, it wasn’t natural. It dusted the world in quiet purple, faint enough to question his own senses. He blinked at it, eyes narrowed. A trick of the light, maybe. Or something worse.
He remembered the dream, though he’d tried to shrug it off—the thin figure in the fog, the broken words stitched together by guilt and urgency, the strange flashes of places both known and unknown. It had felt like nothing more than a fevered story, some half-forgotten fable clawing at the back of his mind, until he’d woken with the weight of it still pressing between his eyes. Northwind Summit. The name had lingered long after the rest had frayed.
He had told himself it was nothing, just a frivolous dream.
But he had come. And now he stood near the top, legs stiff from cold and lungs burning, only to find himself staring at a gap in the stone.
A crevice. Unnatural in shape, wide enough to crawl through, dark as a swallowed secret. A wind whistled from its depths—colder than the rest, if that was even possible. It curled around his ankles like a beckoning hand.
Isúlfr stared.
For once, he didn’t curse. Didn’t scoff. His body still ached, his breathing still rasped. But some of the sharpness in his mood had dulled. This was no ordinary mountain, no mere storm. Something was here. Watching. Waiting.
And that meant he’d find out what.
The wind howled as if angry to find company, slamming against him with every step. Isúlfr bore it with gritted teeth, jaw tight, breath shallow—not from exertion, but something ... else.
He paused midway up the slope and sucked in a breath that never quite reached his lungs. The air was wrong. Thin, yes, but laced with something acrid, something that scratched at the back of his throat. He coughed once, then again harder, a scowl deepening across his features as if the mountain itself had insulted him.
Hadn’t he come here to get away from strange things?
The trees with their rosy blossoms and warped smells hadn’t followed him up the cliffs, but whatever this snow was, it wasn’t natural. It dusted the world in quiet purple, faint enough to question his own senses. He blinked at it, eyes narrowed. A trick of the light, maybe. Or something worse.
He remembered the dream, though he’d tried to shrug it off—the thin figure in the fog, the broken words stitched together by guilt and urgency, the strange flashes of places both known and unknown. It had felt like nothing more than a fevered story, some half-forgotten fable clawing at the back of his mind, until he’d woken with the weight of it still pressing between his eyes. Northwind Summit. The name had lingered long after the rest had frayed.
He had told himself it was nothing, just a frivolous dream.
But he had come. And now he stood near the top, legs stiff from cold and lungs burning, only to find himself staring at a gap in the stone.
A crevice. Unnatural in shape, wide enough to crawl through, dark as a swallowed secret. A wind whistled from its depths—colder than the rest, if that was even possible. It curled around his ankles like a beckoning hand.
Isúlfr stared.
For once, he didn’t curse. Didn’t scoff. His body still ached, his breathing still rasped. But some of the sharpness in his mood had dulled. This was no ordinary mountain, no mere storm. Something was here. Watching. Waiting.
And that meant he’d find out what.
