To compare the Green Mountain back home to the high rocky slopes of these ranges is laughable. Cuts of sheer rock hundreds of feet high constitute the walls of the mountain, the climb to the top requiring as much hauling my body up cliff faces as hiking through dangerous and pebbly areas. The rock turns to snow and ice a third of the way up, the slopes of the mountain apparently not getting the message that spring is closing in on us. My naked fingers dig into the frozen rock, my nails chipped and short from more than a day of pulling my body over the icy walls. How I wish that I could use my dragonfire to warm my handholds, but each attempt makes matters worse, turning the snow around my fingers to water that then freezes to the wall. For the first time since gaining these awesome powers, the cold air invades me, cuts into my lungs and makes my chest ache.
To my left, Jor’Mari waits, his knee wedged into a crevice to keep him still on the side of the cliff we climb. He ignores me for the most part, looking skyward toward the next landing. The man’s chest has swelled since we reached the ice yesterday, and the muscles in his arms stand out in a significant way. The skin of his hands do not burn a blistering red the same as mine; claws extend from his nails and allow him an easy time bouldering.
“Just a few more landings,” he says, his voice easy and unbothered. I return to my task, searching for the next hold, my mind focusing as sharply as it may to avoid the fear of falling. It is not that I am tired, the harsh climb does not exhaust me, but I can feel my body fighting the cold, fixing the damage the chill tries to drive into me with each armlength of progress. I glance Jor’Mari’s direction once again when he begins to pull himself up towards the next landing, sparing time to smirk down at me in his infuriating way.
Jor’Mari
Demon Conflux
His liberal use of one of his powers over the past few days has confirmed what I suspected. The man is able to give himself any attribute specialization for a short period of time.
A powerful hand grabs my own, pulling me up to a flat stretch of rock where I sprawl on my back, pouring fire into my complaining hands. After two days spent running and another three tackling this mountain, we have finally arrived.
Jor’Mari sits nearby, his transformation disappearing as he looks out at the world from our new height. So high above the trees, the forest below appears almost normal, a range of green that travels off toward the horizon. Movement among the trees draws my attention, and Galea takes the opportunity to point out monsters living in the uppermost reaches of the canopy. If I squint, still looking southward, I imagine that I can see Grim and the wall it is built upon. The cap of the mountain towers overhead, we have only made it two-thirds up the side, but that should be enough.
“Careful with the fire,” Jor’Mari comments. “We would do best to not be spotted.”
Reluctantly, I dismiss my dragonfire, making do with wrapping myself in a bearskin cloak and hugging it tight. I toss one to Jor’Mari as well, and actually receive genuine thanks for the small comfort. At his beckon, I follow him towards the end of the huge sloping rock we stand on.
To the immediate east of us, two hundred feet below, a structure is cut into the mountain. A tower that climbs so high as to ascend past our position and continue for another hundred feet has been hewn from the stone of the mountain, half of its edifice buried inside the snow and rock. Crenelations of weathered stone mark the high balconies that look out onto the squared courtyard in front of the tower. People, so far distant they are little more than specks on the snowy field of stone camp together in the corners of the courtyard, huddling from the wind. At the southernmost point of the courtyard a gate stands open, guarded by six or more people that sit around sheltered fire against one of the walls. Below, winding all the way up the side of the mountain, a steep road of ice and slush leads to the tower, and all along its length are small fires and tents at which shelter even more people. In front of the courtyard gate, ten or so others shelter against a lean-to to save themselves from the bite of the wind, their loud voices carried towards us on the rise of the wind, indistinct and angry.
“These are the two groups that you wanted to show me,” I ask. It is obvious at a glance that those within the courtyard and those outside are apart from one another. Near forty people linger inside the stone courtyard, mostly curled against the walls or platforms of wood, huddling around small fires. More than eighty linger outside the gate, their small tents and shelters dotting the switch backing road leading down the mountainside.
“Yes, exactly.” Jor’Mari says, looking down toward the tower along with me.
“Who are they?” I ask, mist puffing from between my lips. Inside the cover of the bearskin, I form a small ball of fire to keep myself warm.
“That, I can only guess at,” Jor’Mari says. “By the time that I arrived here, this standoff had already formed. That was eight days ago, and from the looks of it, more and more have come to join the waiting. I have my suspicions about what exactly is happening down there, but I would like to hear your thoughts on it first.”
I peek at the man, trying to estimate if he really wants to hear what I can figure out or if he is merely attempting to test me. I need to remember that he comes from a noble lineage; he likely doesn’t think that an ignorant farm girl can drive this cart.
My biggest issue comes in the fact that from so far up I cannot make out much. I concentrate, attempting to read the scene far below, but the people may as well be termites. I begin to regret not putting any points into the Perception attribute. Jor’Mari crouches on the landing at my side, his eyes having changed to solid black spheres. A look at the window in front of him confirms that he has given himself a perception specialization. This man’s ability to change his strengths at will is far too overbearing.
“Would you like assistance?” Galea asks, fluttering around Jor’Mari’s head.
“If you would,” I return to the spirit in my head.
More than a hundred windows open in front of me, each containing the names and the confluxes of the individuals far below. I scan the information, understanding that no doubt I am missing things as Galea tells me nothing about the people hidden from sight inside their shelters. A pattern begins to form almost immediately.
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“How strange,” I mention to Jor’Mari, pulling the man’s attention away from the field far below.
“Have you pondered anything out Ms. Devardem?”
“There is a clear separation between the two groups,” I say. “Those inside the courtyard are commoners, they have no high lineages. Outside of the gate sit groups of noble scions, just in that group nearest to the entrance are two daughters of a duke and three others whose parents are a count or countess. Almost all of the outside group have some kind of noble heritage attached to them.”
Jor’Mari scoffs. “I would not believe such a claim if you had not revealed when we first met that you were capable of determining a person’s heritage at a glance.” He thumbs his chin, the black orbs of his eyes turned towards the scene below. “With that, I believe the picture begins to come into focus. Tell me, what else can you determine about the makeup of these two groups?”
I hesitate a moment, unsure if I should trust this man with the full capability of what my eye shows to me. Even now, I do not trust him. This young lord no doubt harbors the same anger and desire to vindicate ourselves upon those who did us wrong that I do, but the man seems too ephemeral, too open-handed to be trusted. In the end, I hand over more information, but keep just a bit back for myself. The greatest power of the Eye of Volaash is its ability to determine a magician’s conflux; there’s no reason Jor’Mari needs to know that.
“I can see forty two individuals inside of the courtyard, and only one of them seems to have any noble blood. Six of those inside the courtyard are rank two magicians, the noble included. As for those outside, given how many tents they have set up along the road, I cannot be as certain. There are nearly eighty that I can see, most seem to be noble scions with a few others mixed in. There are four rank two magicians among them, three of them are standing in front of the gate.” I point out all of the rank twos to him.
“With so many having surpassed that rank threshold, my initial theory seems to be incorrect,” he says.
“And what was that, my lord?”
“Given that both of these groups reached this tower before I did, I had thought that maybe these two groups forwent the initial line of dungeons. That no longer seems to be the case. That, or at least ten people managed to smuggle soul cages into this contest, and I find that unlikely.” He continues to think for a long moment, and I give him silence. After a moment he asks, “Further down the road, are those people blue bloods as well?”
I attempt to make some kind of measure of the people spaced up down the narrow and winding road, but the obstruction of rock and snow makes it difficult. “No,” I say eventually. “For the most part, those further down the road aren’t.”
“So, there are three groups then. The scene finally begins to crystallize,” he says.
“I believe I am starting to understand it myself as well.”
Jor’Mari opens his mouth but hesitates. “Truly? Might you explain it to me then?”
“Is this a test, my lord?”
“Yes.” He smirks at me with his pointed teeth. The pitch black eyes make the look a good deal more disturbing.
“The situation appears fairly simple.” I gesture to the inner courtyard. “For some reason, a group of magicians formed in this contest that apparently aimed to exclude the sons and daughters of the nobility. That group reached the tower first, and they opted to hold the gate against the nobility.” I take a moment to study the gate itself, two huge doors of sturdy looking wood that were barred with a chain and thick timber. “Outside, either a single group or many smaller ones approached and were kept out. Those inside the courtyard must have some means of telling who is nobility and who is not.”
“Perhaps they have the same powers of observation that you do,” Jor’Mari says.
The thought unsettles me, but I put it aside. “Perhaps that group inside the courtyard managed to allow non-nobles inside the courtyard at first, but given how many of the nobles are now camped directly outside of the gate and the supporting walls, I doubt they are allowing anyone over, which then explains the amassing of non-nobles further down the road. The nobles aren’t allowing anyone else to come nearer the gate, and the commoners on the inside aren’t allowing any nobility inside.”
“Perhaps those further down the road do not even really know the situation,” Jor’Mari says.
“Maybe.” I nod to myself, that would make a good amount of sense. The longer this standoff at the gate goes on, the more dangerous it would become for the nobility caught in the middle of the two groups. Unless those further down the road did not understand exactly why the gate is being held closed. Not that I know why it is happening either. “At least one thing remains unclear. Why are they doing this?”
“That, I might be able to elucidate,” Jor’Mari says. He points a finger towards the base of the tower. A large slab of stone stretches out before a climb of stairs that lead to a closed stone doorway. Despite the blowing wind and the freezing bite of the cold, no snow sticks to the stone platform or the stairs. “Can you see those markings?”
“No,” I have to admit.
“There, on that stone platform before the stairs, are a hundred runes carved into the surface of the stone, twenty rows of five. I did a quick count, and would you believe me if I told you that forty two of those runes are currently glowing with a wan blue light?”
“The same number as the people in the courtyard,” I say.
“Exactly. From the map that I found in the dungeon, this mountain range appears to cut all the way through the Passage. Scaling the mountains is a possibility; I believe that we could do that ourselves if we had a need to, but I am also willing to bet that there is a passage to the other side of the mountains through the tower. If I am guessing correctly, the doors to the tower will only open when a hundred competitors have entered the courtyard.”
“There are more than a hundred people down there,” I say, looking down at the different camps of competitors. “If they cooperated, the doors would be open by now.”
“I do not know about you Ms. Devardem, but cooperation does not seem to be the theme of this competition. Likely, when the doors open, those that enter the tower will be put in direct competition with one another before making it through to the other side of the mountains. There are just over forty people currently within the courtyard, if they opened the gates to allow enough people inside, their group would be outnumbered.”
“That is assuming that all of the people outside will work together,” I say.
“Would you be willing to take the risk that they will not?” he asks me. “If you allowed an unknown force inside your encampment and knew that they would outnumber you to a significant degree, I would call you a fool. All they can hope to do is hold the gate closed and slowly recruit enough outsiders to their side until they can hold a majority.”
“But that won’t happen,” I say.
“No?”
“No.” I gesture down the sloping road. “Those that might join the courtyard group are piling up on the road. Likely, those nearest the gate are not giving them accurate information. As a result, nearly a hundred people stand barred by the gate, shivering in the cold, slowly eating through the small stores of food that they have accumulated.”
“We suspect the same thing to happen,” Jor’Mari says.
“I believe so. Soon, likely in the next few days, that outside group will hurl themselves against the gate. If they break through, chaos will ensue inside the courtyard.”
“Very likely,” Jor’Mari agrees. “Perhaps cooler heads shall prevail, but given the weather, I doubt it. I think that we should use that point of chaos to our advantage.”
“Yes,” I say, my eyes focusing on a window far down below me. An elven woman walks among a group of her fellow nobles, her onyx hair flecked with bits of white snow that only compliment her porcelain skin. Coriander traipses toward the group shouting at the gate, seemingly unbothered by the weather, wrapping her arm around one of the men standing there. “We wait for that moment.”