A King's Treasure, A Fool's Welcome

[Ebivoulya]

Closed to Shadowed.

Sleet and snow tore with ripping speed through a cavernous pass, the silver and gray clouds above darkening deeper into the craggy mountain range. In a violent onslaught of icy wind laden with an ageless malice, a large chunk of semi-frozen snow broke loose and hurtled earthward, shattering into chunks at least three or four feet wide as it met an outcropping. Several of the smaller projectiles nearly missed an almost imperceptible speck of black as it clung terrified to the rock, only reminded even stronger of its perilous height.

A sigh of relief was devoured by the roaring wind as a practically frozen brown glove moved from one crack to another. Makeshift sleeves of freshly skinned wolf fur covered his otherwise bare arms, with another layer of fur underneath his vest. Completely out of his element and covered in snow and rain, the shivering swordsman’s eyes briefly fluttered, his hand missing the next crack completely. A startled gasp became the prelude to a beautifully serene yet terrifying view as his torso twisted away from the rock face and towards a steep valley of jagged stone, and icy water.

He had no lover to think of, no family to fill his mind with comfortable thoughts, only his own mortality. His heavy cloak whipped up above him, digging at his neck like a noose, and he immediately pried his gloved fingers in between. Combined with his already exhausted state, he almost blacked out and fell to his dismemberment; however, he managed to rip the cloth apart, the heavy garment tearing out of his hands and off into the wind.

Finally freed of his strangling accessory, his fur-covered arms clamped together, each of his gloved fingers interlocking with eachother as he quieted his mind and felt out his quickly changing surroundings as thoroughly as he could. In between the stinging gusts of wind that nearly ripped his skin, he assessed there was a massive cavern in the mountain he just fell from. He couldn’t take another day out in this weather, and though it would take up most of his strength to get there, he’d use up even more trying to slow his descent enough to regain his footing and continue through the mountains.

He kept his eyes propped open as he began to focus on the nudging little feeling in his gut, and narrowly missed a jagged outcropping that slightly broke his concentration. The wall he fell from was growing closer as he descended, and attempting to spring off it in passing would surely break his legs. He managed to pull his awareness out through his chest, and placed it directly below him as he fell. Building more energy into it, he created a similar point of concentration within the massive cavern, and through the thousands of feet of solid rock between a certain icy death and his possible survival.

He felt the portals in the making already tugging at him, and had to close his eyes to finish, hoping he would connect them before he met another outcropping. Unclasping his hands, he spread both arms in front of him, and with a grunt of exertion, he disappeared into an impossibly thin disk of black that had appeared beneath him, and disappeared just as fast.

Opening his eyes again as his portals closed behind him, the Void mage gasped as massive towers of finely crafted stone rose up before him, scattered beneath the several shafts of light that pierced the dark. Without his cloak, the two large blade hilts behind either shoulder offset his broad shoulders and chest, and as his eyes readjusted to the mostly pitch-black cave, he spotted a moderately sized building close by which he could land on. This cavern was not nearly as cold as the outside, and the wind actually felt refreshing.

With hardly as much effort as he put forth earlier, a series of small disks, practically invisible in the darkness formed above him, and toward the building he wished to land on. Their combined suction grew powerful enough to slow his fall to a halt, and they shifted place to carry him over to the roof. These ruins were massive indeed, for he could not even see the ground beneath this canopy of stone. His boots landed lightly on the edge of a steel rail, and the vacuums disappeared, the adventurer by heart hopping down onto dry stone. Laying his back against the railing, he began pulling all the fur from underneath his vest and pants. Having not bathed in weeks, his grimy skin cried for fresh air.

Finally, he was free of the stifling, and still bloody fur, and stretched his arms and legs as he strolled around the roof. In the far distance, he could see a beautiful waterfall illuminated by a single, huge shaft of light. It cascaded down what seemed like the entire mountain itself, and like the building he stood on, disappeared into the darkness below, nothing but a dull, quiet roar. His breaths, which before drew deep, became shallow as he recovered from his earlier mishap, though he still felt slightly shaken and humbled. However, few people can fall off a mountain and just run out of breath.