We left the next morning. We rode on the back of these animals that weren't quite buffalo, but if you stripped them of all the shaggy, matted hair that covered their bodies, you might see something resembling one. They were hardy animals, strong and able to traverse the wastes and withstand the cold and howling winds of the Skavian Wilds.

My guide informed me that he knew the general area of where I was headed, and that it would take three days.

Three whole days, riding on the backs of smelly beasts, my clothes absorbing all the sweat that was pouring from my body from being buried under countless layers to begin with. Three days of the frigid blasts of air threatening to knock me off my mount. Three days of staring at nothing but endless miles of pine forests and stretches of blinding white nothingness.

The bearded man, who I came to know as Killian, filled the time with stories of all the grand hunts he had been on with the rest of the men in his village, sprinkling in a few tales of the treasures he acquired from merchants who were crazy enough to go north from Archen in search of the thick hides that he and his people could provide. He told me of his family, of his wife and daughter, the latter of who aspired to be a great hunter like him once she became of age, despite clan rules that only males could hunt.

It's not that I minded his constant droning, from sunup to sundown. I just would have preferred a bit of silence at various points throughout the otherwise uneventful trip. But it would be worth putting up with Killian's stories to see what Ulroke had stashed away in a cave somewhere up here.