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Character: Lithian
Stage: Adept
Level: 79
Exp: 34/79

Life Points: 545
Energy: 545

INT: 134
ATK: 60
DEF: 60
LUK: 73
LUK EXP: 0/3

After finally making it out of the cave — though Lithian couldn’t say he regretted a single moment spent in there — he and Casseth packed their things and moved out together. They took advantage of the warmest part of the day (warm being a very relative term, on Aisko) and hunted, though in the end, that amounted mostly to Lithian ‘fishing’ since animal life seemed scarce and frozen lakes were aplenty. Once the meat was spelled for preservation, they stored it, cooking what they needed for luncheon, and moved on once more.

Lithian thumbed over the map as they walked, squinting at the two options available as bykaldrta howled in the distance, their cries carried by the gathering wind. Obviously, despite not having spotted any in person yet, there was a fair share of wakeful predators out there, somewhere.

“Which direction do you want to head in?” Lithian asked after a pause. “I think we’re at a fork point between the two marked starters…a red skull, and a black snake. Do either of those, er…‘spark your adventurous side’?”

He glanced Cas’ way as he asked, curbing the urge to shiver. One couldn’t have asked for a more abrupt shift in climate than the burning deserts of Eowyn that Lith had begun to grow used to. Even bitterly cold, however, Lithian found he didn’t mind the climate half so much as he had in the days preceding. With the shift in the way things had gone between the two of them, he felt willing to endure just about anything. Sun or snow, desert or frozen tundra, at Casseth’s side was where he belonged, and if that meant blizzards and glacial peaks, beasts, dragons, or rockslides, so be it.

Lithian blinked, staring up in awe at the trapped ship, frozen as the world around it like a massive model frozen in time. Eerie, he thought, and a chill rippled beneath his skin due to something other than the cold as he thought of how such an anomaly might have occurred. What it must have meant for those aboard. Shutting his eyes, he sent a quick, silent prayer to Abronaxus for the souls of those likely long-lost, and then tugged his cloak in tighter to himself, nodding.

“It would appear so…and as for climbing…” He squinted up the face of the glacier. “There looks to be a tunnel, just beneath it.” Shifting his packs, Lithian dropped one to the snow at their feet and fingered through it, working until he found what he wanted and drawing it out. “Here,” he said, handing a hefty gathering of rope over to Casseth. “Your wings are larger, and stronger — I bet you could fly to the tunnel’s edge. When you get there, lower the rope to help me up? Mine are still all but useless, and…” Lithian hesitated, wincing as he eyed the icy slope, “…I’ve never been much of a climber…”

Casseth eyed him, and after a long moment, offered: “We can take the other route, if you like…”

Flushing, Lith swallowed and shook his head. “No, I…I can at least try, mm? If I can take on dragons…” His brow furrowed, voice softening as he scoured the sheer, ragged slope, “…what’s a little ice…?”

Casseth looked for a moment as though he might speak up again, but eventually, his desire to press on seemed to get the better of him. So, shrugging, he said, “Don’t worry…I’ll be right there, yeah?” and stooped, gathering the rope to him before spreading his wings and darting up with only a short number of quick, powerful bursts. Once settled, he lowered the rope, and Lithian buried and marked their excess supplies in the snow — not wanting to have to carry them and himself up the cliff face — before fastening a few essentials to the end of the rope and having Cas pull them up first.

When it was his turn, Lithian shivered. A familiar, childish voice inside him began an all-too-well-known mantra in his head: ‘I’m going to die. I’m going to die, this is going to be the last time I breathe, I’m going to fall, I’m going to stumble and I’m going to crack my head on ice, I’m so clumsy—’

But, drawing a full, stubborn breath, he shoved the fear down, drawing up the mantra Araceli — wittingly or no — had taught him. ‘You are not going to die, but if you let panic take over, you will. Don’t.’

He thumbed open the corked flasks at his hips and grounded himself as he drew out a stream of liquid, forcibly kept in liquid form thanks to spell runes on their containers and — once he began working with them himself — his own magic. As Casseth began lowering rope, Lithian whipped and flicked his wrists, cutting small, concentrated segments out of the ice and using the water to melt out notches one by one, up the face of the glacier. Foot and hand holds, carved by water, all the way to the top. Once satisfied, Lithian moved in and fastened the base of the rope around himself securely before looking up, and giving Cas a quick tug to let him know he was ready.

Slowly, carefully, Lithian began to climb. His pulse blocked his throat, his heart in his lungs and limbs threatening at every turn to shake, but he persisted, only freezing up once entirely, petrified with fear of falling, until Casseth managed to talk him up. Finally, his hand reached the top ledge, and Lithian breathed out, almost smiling — until the ice beneath his fingers fractured. In the span of a half second, he felt raw terror, his essentially useless wings beating the air as he slipped. Then, Casseth’s wings were out, billowing wide as he yanked at the rope, dug his boots in and gripped Lithian’s hand.

“Lithian—Lithian, come on, I got you—”

Lithian’s mind was awhirl, an empty blur of swirling panic and disbelief, his body rooted in a frozen cling to the tunnel’s lip. He heard Casseth continuing to speak to him, vaguely, though not all the words registered, and it felt like an eternity before Casseth was physically dragging him up — with Lithian’s stumbled aid — fully into the tunnel. Immediately after gaining solid bearings, Lithian scrambled back from the ledge, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping his head back to the icy wall as he schooled his breathing, all of him aquiver. He felt Cas’ hands on him, brushing over him.

‘You’re alive.’

‘You’re alive.’

‘You’re alive.’

When he could manage it, Lithian breathed out, and gave a brittle laugh, eyes still shut. “I really want to go swimming…”

Lithian’s shoulders sank, pulse hop-skipping back up his throat at the words. Crawl. They would have to—

Throat stoppering up, Lithian groaned and worked to quell the need to shake. “I—will we really…have to—?” Lith shut his eyes, but as soon as he did, the thought of small spaces invaded him. Tunnel walls crushing in. Smaller and smaller. Trapped. They’d be crushed. Suffocated. He couldn’t move—

He shook his head rapidly, forcing his eyes open again as his heart catapulted itself against his chest. Forcing himself to focus, Lithian murmured a spell word, tracing his fingers in a quick, intricate pattern in the air with the word to summon a small, hovering orb of light. After repeating the process three times, he gave a push of will and magic, sending them dancing down the tunnel to light the way ahead. Still, his tongue failed him.

“I-I-I—I’d…rather you…go first.”

Lithian shook, his breath petering out of him like a ghost slipping from a body. When he managed to force himself to move, his limbs felt stiff, unreal, and he constantly saw the walls closing in on them. Closer. Closer. His heart felt trapped, as though it were growing in his chest and finding itself stuck with less and less room to beat. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and he focussed on the lull of Cas’ voice. Over the pulse of his heart and surge of his panic, Lithian barely registered Casseth’s individual words, only that Cas was there and that that was what mattered. He watched Casseth move, and kept his eyes locked to his body, trying — as best as he could manage — to ignore the sinking, creeping, closing walls even as his throat stopped up, making every breath a battle.

When Casseth first darted away, Lithian cried out on instinct, his mind wailing, ‘Don’t leave me!’ But then Casseth was reaching for him and Lithian scrambled up, still quivering, until he made it safely into the room above. Schooling his breath and struggling to calm his trembling limbs, he plucked at the magic he’d left in the tunnel, guiding the three orbs of light up and through to follow them and light the current room.

Bones.

Lithian breathed out, pulling his cloak closer to himself again as he crouched, wincing at the wreckage. Pain, death, and decay. Clearly, something awful had transpired here, many decades ago, and the scent reminded him of a tomb. Cold. Battered. And long forgotten. Sending up another silent prayer to Abronaxus, Lithian picked his way through the room and performed a truncated version of ceremonial funeral rites over the bones and blood stains, mentally skipping to the words meant for their gods, ‘May their eternal essence rest in peace among those of their kin lost before them, and their descendants one day find them happy in the realms beyond…’

When he reached the end of the room, Lithian glanced back to Cas, touching his fingers lightly to the ladder and glancing up it. “Do you think it will hold our weight?”

Lithian blinked, flushing warmly at the unexpected kiss, and then watching Casseth climb the ladder as a smile curved onto his lips, some of his tension seeping out in spite of himself. It warmed him to be reminded that yes, there was something between himself and Casseth now, far beyond friendship, and it helped to distract him from the pain, loss, and cold of their surroundings. He followed in Casseth’s wake.

After calling his light to trail after him, Lithian eyed the room, wincing at the added collection of bones. How had these sailors managed to die so quickly that they were still in their beds…? Shaking his head, he moved around the room, murmuring a repeat of the funeral rites before making it to Casseth and glancing over his shoulder. He tilted his head, frowning.

“I wonder who she was…” Child of a sailor? One of the crew? A young wife? A lost sister? Lithian sighed, and let the thought go, his attention focussing on the dim light glimmering from beneath the only obvious door in the room. After touching a hand lightly to Cas’ shoulder, Lithian moved for it, testing the knob and finding it unlocked. The rotted door gave with a creek and a low groan as Lith pulled it open. Inside, it looked to be a kitchen.

Lithian’s eyes roamed the room as he stepped in, ever careful, one hand on his flasks, despite the fact that everything thus far had been long dead. The source of light — a dimly glowing orb still clutched in the hands of one of the dead — looked to be fading fast, the spell weak, and old. Lithian brought his light with him, the small glowing baubels casting long shadows as they danced around the various parts of the room.

More violence.

More death…

Lithian’s attention settled on a book, and he approached it, grazing his fingers as gently as he could over the cold, dust and ice-coated surface of the ancient pages. After determining that it looked — amazingly — as though it could withstand movement, Lith flipped to the opening entry, and winced. Three hundred and six years prior. The Great Engagement would have been in full tilt, then, Lith thought, squinting as his mind tried to place what exact point in history this would have fallen under. As he skimmed the entries, he flushed, biting his lip, and eventually closing the journal gently. Three centuries Draco had been fighting, and killing. Lithian’s shoulders sagged a fraction, well aware that the thought wasn’t precisely fair. All the races had done monstrous things in their own time, but…

Shutting his eyes, he let his hand slip from the weather beaten journal, and returned his focus to the rest of the room. His eyes settled on another door onward. “Casseth,” he called, voice quiet, as if for fear of waking the dead, “there’s another door here…”

When Casseth kicked at, and then raised his axe towards the only available chest, Lithian quickly stepped forward, opening his mouth to say that he had a lock pick amongst their travelling supplies. He moved too late, though. Before he could get a word in edgewise, Casseth’s axe came cracking down against the chest, ice fracturing and mental snapping under the force of the blow. Lithian flushed, and sighed, the corner of his lip edging up in spite of himself as he tossed Casseth a meaningful Look.

“I did bring a lock pick,” he said, but stepped up anyway as he eyed the fruits of their travels. “Centuries…” He stooped, drawing his hand gently over the golden nuggets, and then lifting out one of the pristine, glimmering blue peisio dragon’s tears. “Nearly three centuries, this has been here…frozen…it seems almost wrong to rob them, though…” He shrugged, “…I don’t suppose any of them have any use for it all now. Do you figure we can carry it all down safely? Perhaps better to bag and drop it - not as though anything but the carving could be hurt by a fall to the snow.”

After thumbing over the wooden animal carving and lifting it out, he hummed, tilting it to get a look at all the angles. It was spelled, clearly — he could feel the warm hum of live magic still in it, after all this time — but how, and for what purpose, he couldn’t discern. Deciding he would have to inspect the magic in it more thoroughly later, Lithian tucked the carved creature away and looked to Casseth as he started gathering the gold and other items into one of their carrying sacks.

“Do you want to explore the other path?” he asked. “Or head back for Eowyn? I doubt the next boat will be in port for another week at the earliest, so we have time, though…we might want to rest for the night first, and continue in the morning if that was your inclination…”

Whatever Casseth’s verdict, Lithian was eager to leave this ship as quickly as possible. The death and violence left him uneasy, and the quiet, lingering absence of anything but ice and old blood and bones felt eerie. Unfinished. Frozen in time with so many untold stories amidst every pile of bones. Lithian looked forward to Eowyn’s burning shore and crashing surf more than he could ever remember missing a place.

Lithian flushed, a warm smile edging onto his face at Casseth’s antics, and he squeezed back gently when Casseth caught his hand. Resisting the urge to tuck his chin against Cas’ shoulder, he compromised by kissing his cheek instead before moving to retrieve the heavier, excess supplies he’d hidden at the glacier’s base before following after Cas. After prepping food and eating, they tucked in for the night, an event which, before long, wound up being a mirror of sorts to the previous night — not that Lithian was complaining — where Casseth ‘reassured’ Lithian in a very physical manner and rewarded him for his efforts in the days trails.

They rose early. Or, rather, Lithian rose early, and Casseth followed groggily, allowing them to get a head start on the second portion of the map. Unfortunately, not long after starting towards the marked location, they found themselves ambushed by a pack of uninvited guests.