Abadius 31, 4713 (evening, Uqtaal necropolis)

The Hidden Truth symbolizes the ability to see past the obvious and the banal to a greater truth within. Sometimes this discovery is an esoteric one, sometimes it is a literal find, such as an item revealed within a room. Regardless, it is a card with the power to reveal secrets.

Misaligned, it can mean a secret being revealed to the subject’s detriment.

Seven months. Seven months, we’ve been traveling together. We’ve watched over one each other, cared for one other, broken bread together, and when it was called for, fought together to protect ourselves and our charges. For seven months, across some sixty-nine hundred miles, we’ve done all of that, sometimes in the face of seemingly unbeatable odds, and not one of us had fallen. And then, today.

Not Olmas (in spite of his best efforts to do otherwise) or Qatana (who we can’t seem to keep from wandering off) or even Ameiko, but Bevelek. Bevelek.

This is not his fight. He and his brother have no quarrel with anyone. They are just here to do a job: to help get us from where we were to where we’re going. They’re not involved. Nothing was supposed to happen to them. It’s not right.

And it’s pretty much our fault. We thought the passage behind us was safe. We had every reason to think it was safe. Obviously we were wrong. Did we miss a side passage? A secret entrance somewhere? Were we being followed without realizing it? I guess it doesn’t matter. Those are just excuses, and they don’t change the fact I am staring at a funeral shroud. We’re supposed to keep these things from happening.

I feel sick.

I’ve known him (and his brother) since I was, what, seventeen? They’ve worked as drivers for Sandru’s caravan since the beginning, and I met them in mom and dad’s warehouse that spring when Sandru finally returned to Sandpoint. I’ve always liked them, the little I saw of them. They were friendly, kind of talkative—Bevelek more so than his younger brother—and always made a point to say hello when I was around. Bevelek was especially good at working with the horses, and he’d invite me to come pet them or even help groom them as we were waiting for the wagons to load. This is how I repay that?

I didn’t get to know him or Vankor very well back then, but in the past several months a lot has come out. Their dad used to run a small courier service of some sort back in Magnimar, but he ran in to hard times and that was that. I’ve actually met their sister—I didn’t know who she was at the time—at the Old Fang. They’re still in Magnimar, all of them. Every now and then I see Bevelek writing to them.

What else is there to say? Bevelek in particular just seemed to like people, much like Sandru does. He loved being around them, talking to them, hearing their stories. He was so quintessentially Varisian that way. And he loved to travel. This trip was exciting! Dangerous, sure, but that’s why we’re here, right? And now we’re talking about him in the past tense.

Vankor was distraught, practically in shock. Honestly, I could barely face him. Sandru was unreadable. It’s just as well. I don’t know what to say to him.

At least we can do something about this. I am determined to, anyway. This journey has been a trial for everyone, in all senses of the word, but there’s also no denying that we have enriched ourselves in the process. We have taken the lion’s share of the spoils since this began. Yes, we have also taken most of the risks, too, but we are not the only ones here. We need everyone, and we can’t just turn our backs on those who are supporting us and making this trip possible. We can’t just put Bevelek to the earth like he doesn’t matter.

It would be wrong to assume, though, so I broached the subject with Vankor.

“I am sorry about what happened to your brother. We…we may be able to bring him back. But, we don’t want to do this against his wishes or yours. I need to know. Is that something you want us to try?”

This took him aback. He looked up at me hopefully.

“If you can bring him back…Yes. Yes! Please! This was…it’s too soon.”

I nodded, solemnly. “We can’t do it right away, but—we can do it. We do have to know, though…people get a choice when you try to call them back. It’s a difficult and costly spell. Before we commit to it, do you know…would he want to come back?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes! I am sure he would. He loved life.”

We don’t have the money. Or rather, we do, just not in the right form. According to Qatana, the spell consumes a single, valuable diamond and ours our too meager fill that role. There are no gem exchanges or diamond deposits here, obviously, which means we will have to wait until we reach Tian Xia. Koya has agreed to preserve his body using a spell. This will give us the time that we need.

The more pressing issue is, however, is preventing today’s disaster from playing out again. We can’t be in two places at once, nor can we fight a battle on three fronts. We need to be able to explore ahead and secure our passage through here without worrying about the safety of our camp.

The necropolis seems to be guarded by undead. The headless mummies we’ve encountered both along the Path of Spirits and here in the burial chambers seem to be the resident hall monitors, attacking any living thing that enters. What makes them especially dangerous is the aura of paralyzing fear that surrounds them. Get caught off guard, or worn down by the relentless assault on your psyche, and you are overwhelmed by terror and magically rooted to the spot. This is what happened to Olmas two nights ago, to me and several of the others today, and probably to Bevelek before he fell.

Our first priority is keeping more of them from coming up from behind us like they did today. Qatana and I have some ideas, but the best ones can’t be acted on until tomorrow so we’re in for another tense night.

Next on the list are the yeti. Obviously, they did not build this place, but they’re here now. The truth of it is that they are squatters as much as we are trespassers, but from their viewpoint we are invading their home and they’ve been rather aggressive about delivering that message. Not that they’ve actually said anything to us, but nothing communicates intent quite like an ambush.

Kali’s Necropolis sketch

The necropolis and the Path of Spirits were carved out of the mountain, and the latter occasionally intersected with naturally formed caverns to form those side passages I spoke of. A rather extensive network of caverns and fissures adjoins the catacombs, proper, and the former is where they’ve made their home. They seem to move back and forth between the two. The Uqtaal excavators apparently didn’t care if their necropolis simply opened up to the caverns in places—they may have used the voids in the rock to save time and labor, for all I know—probably because there weren’t yeti living there at the time, and the residents were not alive to complain about the decor.

I used one of my newest spells to project my sight and was able to explore much of it, albeit sloppily, until the magic expired. That is how I know all of this. Yes, it was an invasion of their privacy, and yet another trespass to add to our list of sins (one that is much worse than the first, if we are keeping track, since it was intentional). I am sure it won’t be the last, either.

This actually bothers me. There are wizards who specialize in these sorts of divinations and I am not comfortable around any of them. There is more to the school than what I am doing here, of course, but my problem with it is that there isn’t much more. It is a field that is ripe for abuse. All it takes is something you owned—even just a piece, really—and someone can spy on you from a distance with a reasonable expectation of success. Possess even the smallest piece of their person, such a bit of hair or even a nail clipping, and you can nearly do so with impunity. It’s distasteful.

And of course I am doing something much like it now. I can argue it, justify it, point out that we were attacked first, but I am still crossing that line. It’s a struggle at first, but each time it gets just a little easier. Mom, and probably dad, would say that the world isn’t so absolute; that it’s a messy place, and circumstances matter. That the stakes matter. Sometimes doing the right thing is not the same as doing the right thing. This…is probably true. But, sometimes I wonder. What if there really is an absolute right and wrong, and all this talk of nuance is just something people use to excuse their own moral failings? Or worse, to justify them. Maybe the world isn’t messy; maybe just people are.

But, we need more information about the yeti here, and we need to get it without risking our lives. I’d also like to not risk theirs. Where this falls on the axis of right and wrong, I don’t know, but it’s the best idea I have on a very short list of ideas. So, excuse or justification, I’ll probably be doing this again.

Before that, however, we need to stop them from raiding us as we explore the pool room. Much like the mummies we need to block them off, only whatever we put up we need to be able to pass through in the future. That limits our options. I have some ideas here, too, but none of them are particularly good.

The pool room is the real mystery here, and we need time to uncover it. The revenant…whoever it was in life was almost certainly slain here. A revenant is born out of hatred and a single-minded purpose: avenge their own death. It’s said they can’t be destroyed until their killer is slain, and we can thank Qatana for validating at least the first half of that theory. (I have to wonder what would happen if you were killed by a revenant and became one yourself. Would the two of you be trapped in an eternal battle, neither of you able to destroy the other?)

We don’t know how it (he? she?) died originally. We only know it wasn’t the spectres: the body is too far from the water, and the spectres don’t seem to be able to cross beyond the edge of the pool. So, whatever did this is obviously still alive (or given where we are, still undead), and able to move around. Which leaves three things we have to worry about tonight: mummies, yeti, and something else that we haven’t seen yet.

Because what we need after today is another challenge.

Abadius 15, 4713 (evening, Ovorikheer Pass)

The barren trees of the Domagalki Forest are coated in windswept ice. In the waning twilight it takes on a sinister appearance: frozen teeth glistening in our lights, claws reaching for us as we narrowly slip from their grasp. It’s said that it used to be a lush forest, tended to by a family of fey. A few years before I was born, they left for reasons known only to them—the fey are a fickle lot—and this was the result.

We left the frozen piling and the still-smoldering corpses of the spiders behind us and resumed our ascent to the summit of the Ovorikheer Pass.

Twenty, maybe thirty miles of ice lies ahead of us, and then we are done with it for the foreseeable future. Our days are mostly twilight now, a welcome change from the perpetual night. This part of the world is equal parts beautiful, deadly, and peculiar. I will miss the astonishing sights, but not so much so that I wish to return.

Abadius 19, 4713 (morning, Path of Aganhei, Osman Confederation)

We will reach Jaagiin tomorrow around midday. It sits on the shore of Lake Buriyiim and is the seat of the Osman Confederation. According to Ulf, the Erutaki settlements here are formed around clans, and each one sends a speaker to Jaagiin to serve in an assembly. Jaagiin itself is a large trading village, about a third again the size of Sandpoint. At this time of year there won’t be much trading, though, which means we will once again be attracting attention.

Does that matter? Probably not. After Ul-Angorn it’s not exactly difficult for the Five Whoevers—we now have both Winds and Storms in our retinue—to figure out where we’re headed, or when we’ll be there. There’s no hiding at this point, so all we can do is be prepared.

We did learn one other lesson from our last stop, however, and that’s to keep the caravan looking somewhere between good repair and well-traveled. Ivan has been using spells each day to fix the worst of the wear and make sure the small stuff doesn’t get out of hand. I do some cleanup as well using cantrips that help keep it looking neat but worn. Obviously, if it always shined like new that would be suspicious, but we don’t want it looking like it’s been through the Abyss, either. We won’t have to tell stories if it doesn’t look like there are stories to tell.

Abadius 20, 4713 (night, Jaagiin)

Astonishingly, we seem to have made it through the evening without someone or something trying to kill us. Of course, the night isn’t quite over yet so there’s still time to be disappointed.

We visited a few taverns tonight and Ameiko played a couple of sets in the first. We more or less knew this was coming so no one was surprised when she announced her intentions, but it still put us all on edge. After she was out of ear shot, I suggested that we “come up with a plan for defending the pub without burning it down along with the people inside.” This earned me a number of stares. No one appreciates my sense of humor.

We kept a close eye on Ameiko, the patrons, and pretty much anything that moved or looked like it might, especially while she was playing. I also listened in on as many conversations as I could—discreetly, of course—using one of my oldest spells to compensate for the fact that I don’t speak Erutaki.

This was more or less a waste of effort. Not listening to Ameiko’s music, that is, but being a party to the drama and intrigue of Erutaki life at the Crown of the World. Did you know that the caribou herds were thin last year, almost certainly due to the colder than usual weather which limited the meltwater in the river valleys? Also, the trappers from the clans to the south have been working farther up the lake in recent years—some would say “encroaching”—in order to boost their seasonal harvest, at the expense of those who have had an unofficial claim on this territory for generations. And Assembleyman Aninnuk’s son, Noahtak, disappeared two weeks ago and it was thought he had fallen prey to wolves, but really he had just eloped with Assemblayman Silaluk’s daughter, Salak, who was supposed to be back at home tending to the family’s herd of goats. Gripping stuff, no?

OK, I am being unfair here. We actually did hear two pieces of news that were of interest to us: The first was that there are unusually fierce and persistent storms this season that are making travel extremely difficult. The second was about a village named Iqaliat, whose people were recently freed from a relentless, months-long siege by a white dragon. They managed to slay it somehow, which only goes to show that the Erutaki people can’t be kept down for long. There was also some kind of kerfuffle—they actually used that word in Common—with their shaman, but the details there were a little sketchy.

You get the idea.

Qatana was genuinely curious how the bits about Iqaliat had traveled so fast, given that we had just gotten here ourselves. The answer?

“We have these things called ‘dog sleds’.”

Qatana looked confused. “We were told no one crossed the ice in the winter time.”

“Caravans don’t. But the Erutaki are hardy folk, and we know this area.”

I mean, it makes sense: one person with a team of dogs can easily outpace musk oxen pulling wagons, especially when the former has to rest for a month just to breathe. And they can probably do it much more discreetly. I have to remind myself, and the others I guess, that Tunuak walked to the Nameless Spires. By himself. And he was probably about the same age as Koya. We don’t give these people enough credit.

What we didn’t get was information about the pass, Atlan Zuud. Almost no one makes the crossing at this time of year, and no travelers means no news about the pass conditions. That’s concerning because the bad winter weather has apparently been everywhere, more than we can definitively attribute to Katiyana’s antics. On the other hand, all of those reports are pretty generic and none of them are exactly timely. So there’s no specific reason to worry, and no hard information to act on. Famous last words?

Earlier in the day, I hunted down a wizard, which, thankfully, Jaagiin does have. Imnek was nice enough, and our skills are about on par. We each had a few spells that the other could use and we swapped a pair of them today. We made arrangements to do it again tomorrow.

Sparna and Radella both vanished shortly after we arrived. That’s pretty typical for Radella, but we weren’t used to it from Sparna. By late evening people were getting worried, and Ivan went off to find him. Turns out he had found a swordsmith and lost track of time while talking shop well into the night. Good for him. Maybe this will make him less grumpy.

Abadius 21, 4713 (evening, Jaagiin)

Jaagiin doesn’t seem overly interested in who we are or what we’re doing, and that has helped put me at ease. They are happy to take our money without tacking on a surcharge paid in invasive questions.

Sandru and I topped off our provisions for the final leg into Tian Xia. This wasn’t strictly necessary, but we weren’t about to start the next leg of this trip without being fully provisioned, especially since it’s the dead of winter and we don’t really know what we are headed into. Glad we are on the same page, there.

Next up was seeing a jewelry maker about the talismans I’ve been carving. Each disk is about three inches in diameter, very slightly domed, with a leaf pattern adorning the inner rim. The leaves are polished smooth and the gaps between them are roughened. I’d completed the second of them just a couple of days ago, and though I still had more to make it was time to start thinking about settings.

I need a silver mounting of some sort for each, along with a silver chain, so they can be worn like an amulet. The bigger challenge, though, will be studding them with small stones made from the fragments of the gems that had powered the Storm Tower before they shattered. I don’t know how to set stones yet. I mean, I barely know what I’m doing in general when it comes to making jewelry. But I’m learning.

There was no avoiding it: I had to show her one because I needed her help. She slowly traced one of the leaves with her fingers. “Is this a remorhaz scale?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She paused, probably expecting me to elaborate. I didn’t.

“This is your work?”

“Yes, it is. It’s taken me a couple of weeks. I do the carvings from the smaller ones.”

She looked up at me sharply, clearly surprised by the implications of that response. It may sound like I was showing off, but I wasn’t, really. There was no hiding the fact that I’d need materials for making more than one setting. Though I suppose I could have been less coy about it. What’s the fun in that, though?

“It’s good. Especially for a kavdlunait. Yes, I can help you create settings for these.”

That took the rest of the morning, but now I have what I need.

The afternoon was spent trading spells with Imnek. There’s not much to say there. He’s still Imnek. He’s still a wizard. He’s still nice enough. We both have a new spell.

Tonight, Sandru, Bevelek, Vankor, and I will start prepping the caravan for our departure tomorrow. We leave in the morning, just an hour or two before twilight. Yeah, that’s right: there is still no sun. Thank the gods that will be changing very, very soon.

You don’t see many temples to Sarenrae up here.

Abadius 24, 4713 (evening, Path of Aganhei)

We passed a cabin today that had a few trappers staying in it. Or, at least, I assume they were trappers; I don’t really know these things. They opened the door to watch us as we went by and they looked like trappers to me, so executive decision: they were trappers.

What does a trapper look like? Like a surly Erutaki dressed in heavy furs standing in the doorway of a cabin in the middle of nowhere. And that’s “surly” by Ulf and Sparna standards, by the way, which—let’s face it—is awfully surly. I thought I saw Qatana wave to them as we passed but they just stared at us in still silence. Having already had our fill of “surly” we didn’t stop to visit.

Watching caravan migrations must be what passes for entertainment around here. They probably have some game that they play for each one that they see, maybe the reverse of travel games like the ones that mom and dad used to play with me when I was really young and easily bored. In one of them, they’d say, “I see something that starts with the letter G” and I’d have to guess what it was as they gave me clues. When I was six my first guess for “G” was always “grass”, even when we were in the middle of the ocean (give me a break: I was six), but eventually I branched out to naming things that were actually there.

These trappers probably looked at us and pulled out their game for Abadius, where you try to be the first one to, I don’t know, spot the half-frozen corpses of the dead traveling companions, or some equally hilarious variation of that.

Abadius 25, 4713 (afternoon, Path of Aganhei)

Nihali is happy to be able to spread her wings again. Even with the tag I enchanted for her, the weather on the ice pack was simply too extreme for her to fly safely, and there were even days when I had to keep her wrapped up in the wagon for warmth. And of course it was perpetually night. We got a reprieve from the former down in the basin, of course, but there were only a couple of hours of twilight each day back then so that only solved one of two problems.

I do wish the circumstances were better. One of our scouts, Shalelu I think, saw a heap of something a little bit off the path. She thought it looked like a pile of animal corpses, so I sent Nihali up to have a look. Short version: that’s what it was.

We saw something like this back before Iqaliat, only the bodies were human. And I’m not really up for telling the long version because it’s horrible, so I’m just going to leave it there.

Abadius 26, 4713 (night, Path of Aganhei)

Qatana cast a spell for Ivan so that he could exchange a short message with someone. First, the obvious: I had considered that as an option for mom and dad, but as I understand the spell you only get a couple dozen words, each. I had better options. Second, I had assumed it was so he could talk to his sister, Abby. But, I caught his body language and thought to myself, that was not his sister.¹ I have no idea what the story is there, and it would be rude to ask.

In the few hours of daylight today we could, for the first time, clearly see the mountains that form the Wall of Heaven in the distance under dark, grey clouds.

Abadius 27, 4713 (early afternoon, Path of Aganhei)

A huge winter storm has engulfed the pass and we are getting heavy snowfall and high winds even here in the foothills. I am going to go ahead and call this a blizzard just because I can.

This right here is pretty much what I was worried about. The only good news is, if we hadn’t stopped for a couple of days we’d have been up there when it hit. So, small victories, I guess.

We’re either going to have to wait it out or push through.

(evening, Wall of Heaven)

We decided to push through. I don’t know who “we” is and I can’t even begin to describe how much I am regretting that decision. This was a terrible, terrible idea.

The lightning is ferocious and relentless. There is so much of it that the thunder is a constant roll of crashes and echoes (the only silver lining is that it’s possible to tune it out, but that’s only because it just never stops). And then there’s the snow and the wind. I don’t even know where to begin with that.

A while ago, we thought we might have heard an avalanche, but it’s hard to tell because, come on. Though it sure sounded different than constant, rolling thunder, which is a thing we’ve recently become experts on. We need to see to be sure, though, and that means having a closer look. Even if it were light out, though, all we could see from here would probably be blowing snow.

At one point I thought I heard voices on the wind. Qatana must have heard them too because she looked startled at the exact same moment that I did. Normally, I wouldn’t use Qatana as a litmus test for whether or not I am hearing things, but this was different. We both agreed it was reminiscent of what we heard at Dead Man’s Dome when the last of the undead fell. This can’t be a coincidence, and it can’t be good news.

Abadius 28, 4713 (morning, Wall of Heaven)

We’re getting out. This time, it wasn’t just Qatana and I that heard it, but everyone else, too. And it was more than once: laughter on the wind. We’d had suspicions that this storm wasn’t natural, and now those aren’t just suspicions.

The weather didn’t let up at all over night. If anything, it got worse. We decided to trek up the pass, on hoof and foot, leaving the caravan somewhat sheltered against a cliff face. Ivan graced us all with spells so we wouldn’t slip on the snow and ice, and I summoned a phantasmal horse to ride so I wouldn’t have to walk in this crap. It didn’t even take us an hour to figure out that the pass was closed. It wasn’t just avalanches of snow, but rocks as well. No one would be coming through here for a while. And it intensified as we got closer. It felt like it was a personal vendetta.

We delivered the bad news to Ulf.

(evening, Path of Aganhei)

This day just keeps getting better. Sandru and I had a little chat with Ulf. Storms do not rage in one place for days. This was all wrong.

“What are our options here?” I asked.

“There aren’t any.”

Ulf wasn’t being facetious. We could, maybe, go around the Wall of Heaven instead of through it but Ketskerlet is hundreds of miles to the east and the storm has expanded in the last few hours.

Sandru said, “There’s no way we could even make it that far. The caravan literally wouldn’t survive it.” Ulf agreed with that assessment, and added that even if we did, we’d still have to cross the Gulf of Khorkii somehow, which is thick with icebergs and floes this time of year.

Going west to the Ivory Sea might be better, but that trip is over a thousand miles, and every single one of them is in the wrong direction. Most of them through barren, frozen tundra. To quote Ulf, “No one goes that way for a reason”. The only realistic route to the coast is a couple of weeks behind us.

There pretty much left turning back for Jaagiin, but given our run-in with the oni in Ul-Angorn that is not a particularly attractive choice. Whether or not it’s attractive, though, is irrelevant if it’s our only choice. Which means it’s not really a choice.

And then I had a brilliant idea because I am an idiot.

“Let’s try a Harrowing. This is why Varisian caravans have fortune-tellers, right?” I was met with everything from silence to eye rolls, but I pressed on because I am a glutton for punishment. “What do we have to lose?”

There was general agreement, but while I think most of that qualified as humoring me Koya did seem genuinely excited about the suggestion. She disappeared into her wagon and emerged a couple of minutes later with her cards. I found out why she was so enthusiastic when she handed them to me.

“You go ahead,” she said, smiling, “Just like I taught you.”

Well, I walked right into that, didn’t I?

This was not the easiest way to start my budding career. Harrowings typically focus on individuals, and what we needed was a direction for our group as a whole. So I was already feeling in over my head. But Koya was there to help and she had never let me down before, so I dove in.

I laid out a bridge. I could clearly see Ameiko’s story revealing itself here, both the past and what she would face in the future. The problem was, I couldn’t make sense of the present.² Or, perhaps more accurately, I didn’t understand what it was telling me. There was something about the mountains or the storm that we were missing. Some key information, and it was crucial to our survival. Even worse, the Hidden Truth card was misaligned. But the larger problem was, the reading didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. What we needed was guidance, not our failings laid bare.

To quote Sparna, “But what does it mean?”

Even Koya couldn’t make sense of it, and that’s when I got worried, and when everyone else got frustrated. This isn’t how this is supposed to go.

I don’t know what to do.

Abadius 29, 4713 (small hours, Path of Aganhei)

Koya emerged from her wagon around 1:00 this morning, all aflutter. She found me working on one of the talismans in the center of our camp, and was practically manic. At first I couldn’t makes sense of what she was trying to say because she was just short of babbling, but eventually she got a coherent sentence out.

“I had a dream and…there’s something I can’t shake. I had an epiphany, or Desna’s speaking to me, or something…” The excitement in her voice was climbing again “The reading you did…where are the cards?!”

I still had them and set them out in order.

“There’s something with the Empty Throne and The Hidden Truth, something we’re not seeing. But, what really strikes me, is at the end of the bridge with The Big Sky and The Queen Mother.”

She explained, or tried to explain, that there may be some meaning to these cards, or to the way that they were brought out, that is not usual. That these cards appeared here as a message to us. I just nodded my head because I had no idea what she was talking about, but she’s the one who follows Desna. This was her thing.

“I’ve studied the peoples that worshiped Desna for years, and there is a story of a traveler that came through this land quite some time ago…that he insisted that what he saw was real.” Her thoughts were bouncing all over the place. “The Uqtaal people that used to live here, they worshiped Desna. They called her the Queen of the North Star. That’s what struck me about this.” She pointed to The Big Sky in the bridge.

She had my full attention now, as well as that of several of the others.

“What I remember is that they followed the north star. Even in death, they tried to follow the north star to be taken back to Desna and spend eternity with her. This traveler…wrote this story that the people here delved a nercopolis and a passage through the Wall of Heaven. It’s called The Path of Spirits. It was so their dead could find their way here. There’s an entrance we can look for…That’s got to be it.”

It was crazy. Even Koya thought it a fantastic story. But it’s not just a story, is it?

We got Ulf and Sandru and talked this over. Ulf had never heard of anything like this, but he was not exactly skeptical either. “No one goes to the west. At all. Because there is nothing there. Something like this, though…it could easily be that no one has heard of it because…no one is around to look.”

We let that sink in. It wasn’t proof, but he wasn’t ruling it out, either.

Lightning continued to flash in the distance. The storm was clearly expanding, getting closer. This would be a huge risk, taken solely—and literally—on faith.

I asked, “How would we even find it? One cave in an entire mountain range…”

According to Koya, the traveler’s story spoke of two statues, facing due north, that marked the start of the path into the mountains, and that path would lead to the passageway. It was…something. Better than something. It was enough to make a plan.

There will be enough light for Nihali to see by in a few hours. We’ll send her ahead of the caravan to search by air while we move west and search on the ground. All we’d need after that would be Desna’s blessing.

(noon, Wall of Heaven)

Nihali found it! Or we’re pretty sure she did.

We’d gone about twenty miles when I felt her coming back. There was a sense of urgency and excitement about her. A couple of minutes minute later, she landed in the covered wagon.

“There is a statue of a human, carved in rock. Not far from here.” One, not two. But it’s been hundreds of years…

“Can you lead us there?”

“Yes.”

And off she went.

The storm seems to be following us.

(evening, Path of Spirits)

There were two statues, but one had broken off at its pedestal. The one that was intact was clearly of Desna. They both faced due north and marked the start of a path that led about a quarter mile to a cave entrance in at the base of a towering cliff.

It’s a tight fit, but the caravan can manage with the wagons single-file.

This place… It may have been built by people who worshipped Desna, but something changed. The tunnel is lined with pillars decorated with star carvings, and the walls themselves bear stars and butterflies applied in faded paint. But on top of each pillar sits a skull, bleached then painted red, bolted into place. The skulls face north. Always north.

This is not Desna. Not any more. The symbology, assuming the Uqtaal clans were influenced by their Tian neighbors, is reminiscent of Fumeiyoshi, god of dishonor, envy, graves, and the undead. It’s said he murdered his brother, the moon god Tsukiyo, in a jealous rage and was punished by Yaezhing for his crime.

On a whim, I asked Suishen what he knew of Fumeiyoshi. He said, “His religion was banned in Minkai. Fumeiyoshi’s followers enjoy death and desecrating the graves of the dead.”

I don’t know what we’ll find here, but I suspect there’s a sinister explanation as to why so few have heard of this place.

Abadius 30, 4713 (morning, Path of Spirits)

We were rudely awakened in the early hours of the morning when four, headless mummies approached the caravan from the southern end of the passageway. Fortunately, I was already prepared for undead, and Ivan and I literally burned them nearly to ash, the others picking them off as they tried to escape the layers of flame.

This is just the beginning.

Abadius 2nd, 4713 (night, The Path of Aganhei, The High Ice)

The Path of Aganhei lies ahead of us; the frozen remains of the undead, behind.

I spent most of the night finishing a headband for Qatana. She approached me with the request the night that we left the Storm Tower.

“Hey, do you have a minute?” she asked sheepishly.

“Of course. What’s on your mind?”

“I picked this up way back in Kalsgard, but forgot about it until I found it while rummaging through my pack this morning.” She held up a simple bronze headband studded with half a dozen gems of swirling green malachite. “I was wondering, uh, if you weren’t too busy…if you might be able to fashion this for me into a headband that can strengthen my will.”

I took it from her and studied it under the caravan lights, turning over and around. Qatana’s tastes tended toward minimalist. “It’s lovely,” I said, and I meant it. “I like the malachites.” The simplicity of its design had a certain elegance.

She made a small squeak, shifting on her feet is if someone had prodded her. I looked up expecting an explanation, but none came. Instead she added, “I have enough diamond dust to complete the work…at least when supplemented with some of the crystal shards we took from the tower.”

We had piles and piles and piles of purple shards. The unidentified gemstones had powered the storms above the Tower, and we destroyed them by literally bashing them to pieces. They shattered into clouds of tiny fragments as the magic infused in them was released. They almost certainly have no trade trade value, but that does not make them useless.

“Of course!” I said. “It will take me several days, but I can do it.”

The magical cubes we’d found made this process both faster and easier. Spells and furs might keep me warm, but my tools and equipment have no such protection. With the cubes it was like working in a heated cabin, only without walls or a roof. No matter how cold it was outside, once you crossed the threshold the chill was just gone. Which was weird until you got used to it.

Qatana looked excited when I presented it to her this morning. “You used the tourmalines!” she said. “And you’ve made it beautiful!”

I smiled at this. I didn’t strictly need them, but the headband itself came from Kalsgard, the ornamental wire from Unaimo, the gem fragments from the Storm Tower…I could go on. “I wanted this to tell a story,” I replied. Almost everywhere that we’d been was represented in some fashion.

I was actually worried that I had overdone it. The design was a little more ornate than pretty much anything she wore and I was more than a little relieved that she liked what she saw. One very refreshing quality about Qatana was that you always knew where things stood with her. If she said it was beautiful, then she thought it was beautiful.

After making camp tonight, Ivan conjured some fire for the sole purpose of melting the ice and snow around us. “We’ll have a snow party!” he said, clearly excited.

It was actually pretty fun, much more than you would think. For weeks the landscape has been a trial at best, and this was a chance to see it not as an obstacle to overcome but instead something to play in and enjoy. It felt good to just be silly for a while.

I spent a couple of hours creating an ice sculpture of the Dead Man. It won’t win any awards, but that’s not really the point.

Abadius 3rd, 4713 (noon, Path of Aganhei, The Crown of the World)

We’ve dropped down into a basin on the Tian Xia side of the plateau. It is enormous: according to the map, it’s roughly 100 miles wide here, at its narrowest point, and four times as long. At the wide end, the town of Ul-Angorn sits on the shore of the Ruun Uvas, a huge saltwater lake which is fed by melt water coming off the ice sheet. It will take us nearly a week to reach it.

Vankor is still not doing well. Qatana, Ivan and I talked this over and we’re going to use the restoration spell on him again. We have plenty of diamond dust, Ul-Angorn isn’t that far away, and we really need him back. This second casting will take care of it. Qatana will prepare it in the morning.

Abadius 6th, 4713 (evening, The Path of Aganhei, The Crown of the World)

Qatana cannot always be relied on to help us maintain a low profile. That’s just something we’re going to have to accept, I guess. Part of the frustration is that you never really know which Qatana you’re going to get when we meet someone new. Will she be cordial? Suspicious? Friendly? Hostile? I’ve given up trying to predict how she’ll react to strangers. Honestly, at times it just seems to be completely random.¹

She wasn’t always like this. I still remember, very vividly, the first time I saw her after she and her family had vanished and were presumed dead. It was in Korvosa of all places: she was the only one who had survived, and it was Shalelu that had found her. I have no idea how or why they were so far east; I never asked. I was eleven then and Qatana and I spent a couple of days exploring, me showing her the best parts of the city from a child’s perspective. She was distant, hesitant, guarded, and grieving, but also curious and excited. And more importantly, what she did also made sense, even to an eleven-year-old. At least, once I fully grasped what was happening. Even a decade later when we would see each other in Magnimar, she was still the Qatana I had grown up with. Yes, she may have come across as rude to people who didn’t know her—OK, and sometimes to those who did—but she was never erratic.

This…what I see now is something new.

Sometimes I feel like there was more I could have done, or something I could have done differently, once she was back in Sandpoint. Those first years were hard—how could they not be?—and they were the years that would have made the difference. Without a family of her own she needed support wherever it could be found, but the thing is, neither of us were particularly rich in friends before. Logically, I know this doesn’t make sense, that this isn’t about me, that there’s more to it than that. But logic has nothing to do with it. It’s how it feels.

I bring this up now because we’re only a couple of days out of Ul-Angorn and we’re starting to see signs of human and humanoid settlement. The most significant of them came about mid-day today, when we passed a cabin fairly close to the Path of Aganhei. Even in the faded twilight we could see the smoke coming from its chimney so we decided to stop. I mean, why not? Not counting Katiyana (why would you?), this was the first sign of civilization…gods, in nearly two months.

The owner was a halfling gentleman named Kobi, and for reasons known only to Qatana she decided she liked him. After an awkward little greeting where he thought we were headed onto the High Ice—we were clearly headed south, but people see what they are expecting to see, I guess—and tried to talk us out of it, he invited us inside just to visit. There was no hiding that we had just crossed, of course, but Qatana just could not help herself. She gave him the highlights of our exploits across the Boreal Expanse: the storms, Katiyana, the Storm Tower, Iqaliat, the white dragon, and even the Dead Man. What do you do at that point?

It’s not the events so much as it is the attention. Realistically, one halfling living 100 miles from the nearest settlement does not seem like a huge problem, but eventually he will talk to someone, who will talk to someone else, and so on. Word spreads. We were supposed to come to the Crown and disappear, not develop a reputation that calls us out.

Abadius 9th, 4713 (night, Ul-Angorn)

I give up. Honestly, I do. It is impossible to keep a group of thirteen adults, including the ones who should know better, from drawing attention to themselves. So I am done trying. I can’t be everyone’s nanny, and I wouldn’t want the job even if I could. I don’t want to be my grandmother. I love my grandparents, but that is not the same as loving everything about them. That is no way to live my life.

People will either learn or they won’t. Ameiko obviously hasn’t—at this point, whenever she says, “No one here knows who I am,” it is reasonable to assume that we are in imminent danger—and even Suishen has stopped offering advice on what to do about it. The sword and I finally share a common bond.

We are a danger not just to ourselves, but also to those around us. If we’re going to continue to tempt fate like this, then I’ll just have to be prepared for when someone takes advantage, especially in environments that put others at risk, as happened tonight. I have to pick spells that I can use in close quarters, without harming people and structures, even incidentally.

Speaking of tonight, that ogre mage was foolish to try and take us all on like that, but hauteur seems to be a running theme there. I mean, he had to know we were not going to roll over and die given what had happened in Kalsgard, right? But I guess he thought he was different.

In all honesty, his gambit was a good one. While we were all wary, we weren’t really on guard for an oni disguised as a human (though I suppose we should have been, yes?), and even if we were could we reasonably have kept it up for hours on end? Which is how long he was willing to wait. That part was smart, as was the attempt to lure Ameiko away through an enchantment. He just didn’t have a contingency plan that was better than “hack-and-slash with sword”, which is what surprises me. But if our enemies want to make it easy on us, I guess I shouldn’t complain.

The worst part of that was having it all happen in the middle of The Frozen Spike. One second we have Mr. “Why Don’t You Come See My Music?” surrounded and magically held, and the next there’s an ogre mage standing in his place, chairs and tables pushed aside and bar staff and patrons scrambling to get the hell out of the way or cowering in terror.

Ten seconds later we had cut him down on the spot. Ameiko landed the killing blow. That may end up being important.

The owner or proprietor, I think her name was Gerta, was pretty distraught. I guess I would be too if something like this happened in my bar. Ivan and I used our spells to fix the chairs and tables, and of course expunge the blood. There was a lot of blood. In less than 15 minutes, though, there was not a trace of it left, and I think the bar was even cleaner than it was before we got there. A little music, a little dancing, and a round of drinks for everyone, and things were more or less on the road back to normal.

Maybe I am being hard on Ameiko and the others. Yes, a Tian woman playing a samisen is an obvious giveaway, but so is a five-wagon caravan rolling in at this time of year, looking battered and battle-scarred. There is a reality here that there’s just no way for us to hide or be discreet. Drawing attention to ourselves was just pouring water in the ocean.

You know who else is well known here? Ulf. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. I imagine every caravan stops in Ul-Angorn on the way to Tian Xia so they probably get to know all the Crown guides fairly well. Gerta’s professional assessment? He can hold his liquor. That, and he can be “surly”. That’s it. That’s what came to mind. Obviously, she bases this opinion on how he spends his time between jobs, or on overnight stops. Which is a little unfair. The drinking he’s done on the road with us has hardly been excessive, and you can be surly and gruff if you have the skills to back it up.

We more or less knew the “surly” bit already, anyway. It was pretty clear from talking with Uksahkka that Ulf had his way of doing things, and you either did them his way or he wouldn’t do business with you. But like I said, his reputation spoke volumes. Even Greta eventually, albeit grudgingly, admitted the same: “He obviously must be good at what he does because gets people across.”

We’ll be here another night.

Abadius 10th, 4713 (evening, Ul-Angorn)

Sparna has made arrangements to have some maintenance and repairs done on the wagons. Strictly speaking, this isn’t even remotely necessary, but given last night’s events a little added good will can’t hurt. I spent the morning getting us re-provisioned and learned the locals were divided on whether we were saving the day or the source of the trouble. Of course, we know the answer to that but we’ll be keeping it to ourselves.

Qatana interrogated our corpse because that’s just a thing we do now. Like that sort of thing is somehow normal. For once, we got direct answers.

“Who were you working for?” she asked.

“I am an agent of the Five Winds.”

The Five Winds? We have no idea who that is, though it’s certainly a good guess that they are related to the Five Storms and bad with names.

“How did you find out we were here?”

“I was waiting to see if you would come.”

“How did you get here?”

“Traveled by magic.”

Her last question was the one we most needed to know: “Did you communicate our presence to others?”

“Yes,” he said. And that was that.

Obviously, this is not good. They know we’re right here, right now, and will soon learn that we survived. If it was up to me we’d have left on the spot, but no one asked me for my opinion.

Ivan took care of the body. He conjured a ring of fire around it and just let it burn until there was nothing left but ash and blackened, brittle bones.

Sparna found a set of jeweler’s tools for me while I was running my errands. I’ll need them for our talismans, which I want to set with some semi-precious stones just to give them a little flair. We still have weeks of travel ahead of us, and this is a good way to use the time.

There are a handful of dwarves here and they and Sparna have more or less gravitated to one another. A couple of them were in the Frozen Spike last night and I overheard them talking to Sparna, but I played dumb. For one, I’ve learned not to tip my hand just to show off, and two, I didn’t want to butt in on their conversation. And, I suppose there’s a three, as well: people talk pretty candidly when they don’t think you can understand them. You never know what you might hear.

Ameiko, Qatana, and I spent the afternoon together and, predictably, it descended into mischief. I like a little mischief now and then, and the three of us were pretty good at it when we were kids. There was this one time, back before Qatana…well, back before, so I must have been 9 or 10 years old. The Flinch brothers had this horse and they were obviously not taking care of it and she was very upset. We came up with this crazy scheme to liberate it without it being obvious that it had been taken. Qatana spent days making an enormous, fake cocoon, and one night—anyway, it was so brazen and ridiculous that it made sense only to a kid, but amazingly, it worked. Well, it worked long enough for the horse to find a new home far away from Sandpoint, which was good enough.

Today, we visited a little shrine to Desna that was tended by a druid. I was a good girl, and did not burst out laughing when Qatana asked, “Would you mind if we erected a small tribute to Groetus behind the temple?” If you want to really catch someone off guard, that’s a pretty good opening line. From that moment on, I was on board with her idea.

Qatana’s formal religious education may have stopped a few years ago, but mine has not. Some random druid was not going to win a theological debate with me, and they relented in short order. “Just make sure it’s far behind. Maybe on the other side of that pond over there?” That was a little extreme, of course, but I didn’t want to upset Desna, either, so I chose a respectful distance for my task: making an ice sculpture of a grinning skull.

Side note: it’s really hard to do that when you’re fighting fits of hysterics.

Abadius 14th, 4713 (evening, Ovorikheer Pass)

We started the climb to the Ovorikheer pass today. This whole area is geothermally active and it just smells terrible. We had to navigate the fumarole fields of Baruun’s Breath carefully to avoid being overcome by the fumes.

Radella unpacked what looked like a portable alchemy lab and spent much of the evening extracting chemicals from the hot springs near our camp. It’s the sort of thing Etayne would have done.

When she was finished, she had four vials of what looked like three different substances.

“What did you end up with?”

“Sulfuric acid, arsenic, and cyanide.”

I am sorry I asked.

Abadius 15th, 4713 (midday, Domagalki Forest)

Everyone’s pretty shaken up, including me. Gods! Two enormous spiders, the biggest I’ve ever seen, hit our caravan. We didn’t even see them until they were practically on top of us. How do you miss something that big? How do you miss two of them?

I didn’t even think. One of them was bearing down on Ameiko’s wagon and I just started dumping everything I had on it. When it backed off, I turned to the other and didn’t stop until it was engulfed in flames.

The others had to intervene to keep me from incinerating the first one, too. Why? Because they wanted to harvest its venom. Again, sorry I asked.

Olmas went down during the skirmish, barely clinging to life. Sparna, too. We were mere seconds from disaster.

People are giving me that look. Especially Sparna. What do you want me to say? What did you expect me to do? They were gods-be-damned spiders the size of a whale. What part of this don’t you understand?