You walk along a mountain path. The air blows gently and cool, and the early afternoon sun is spreading pleasant warmth. Even though you are not used to long hikes and have a heavy pack on your shoulders, you make a decent pace.

The path you had chosen two nights ago and decided to embark on two weeks ago will take you to the City of Crescent Lake. A mountain ridge is between your home on the coast and your destination, and this path is supposed to be the best route to cross it.

You are on this journey because you want to learn. You want to bring home knowledge that will improve your life and everyone’s around you. You want to read about the alchemistic principles behind all those stories you heard as a young one. Magnificent stories about large steam-powered machines that could do what twenty workers did not have the strength to, improved tools from advanced metals that never dulled or weakened, and intricate clockwork instruments that could do repeated tasks with lightning speeds.

These stories left you with a fascination that did not cease even as you had grown into an adult. And your decision to seek out their origin had followed many sleepless nights which you had spent pondering your life goals.

Dropping these thoughts and looking up from the trail, you see a steep valley with sparse vegetation. There are none of the sugar trees from the wetlands or the beautiful leaf-crowned trees you saw on your way through the grassy hills. Up here are only these thin and hard sticks, with a trunk that was barely twice as thick as you are and groups of short green spikes on the end of their twigs instead of leaves. They apparently could grow quite high, but they always looked like the wind could break them at any moment.

High above and all around you are the mountain peaks, mightily impressive with their immense size and maybe even slightly threatening. You've only ever seen them from a distance. Being so close lets you imagine the searing coldness that must be up there, where the high winds carry glistening ice away in fine trails dancing through the skies. These high lands are so strange, but you could now somewhat imagine what the mountain ranges of the north-east would look like.

With each of your steps, your destination is coming closer. Piece by piece you conquer these unknown lands.

The sun has moved and you have as well, now climbing the last incline before the plateau. You did notice the winds are pushing more and more clouds around above you. They are getting caught in those peaks and turning from white to grey.

On the coast the weather is different. A storm is visible before it arrives and clouds don't just remain hanging in the skies. You also notice the temperature dropped, the formerly pleasant wind now urging you to put on an overcoat.

It did not take long to reach the point where the plateau was in full view, a gentle slope sprawling out in front of you. There are many bunches of those stick-trees but they are only dots in this sparse landscape. The only other outstanding feature are boulders of varying sizes resting here and there.

The cloud cover has now taken the whole sky and is growing stronger and darker, blotting out the sun and turning the afternoon into an evening. An eerie and threatening feeling grows in you. You have to make haste. Or is it too late? Do you have to look for cover to protect yourself? You pause to study the skies for a long moment.

"Hello my friend!", a voice booms from behind you.

You turn around towards the origin. Someone had come up onto the plateau on a different path than you had just taken. And it was - a human. How wondrous. You have never seen one before and only ever heard that they are a rare sight.

"Hello", you reply unsteadily.

The human is so tall, standing at least shoulders and head above you. Those long arms and legs make them look lanky and nearly unnatural, like those trees around here. The long grey hair on the very top of the head did not help - such a strange colour.

"We are seeking shelter from the coming storm. You should join us", the human outstretched his open palm as he came closer, "but be quick, it will turn bad very soon."

We, they had said. As you look behind them, you see others coming up. A decent group, twenty or more, were seemingly following the lone human already. There were different people amongst them, but you also recognize a group of coastlings.

As the human lowers their hand with an unwavering smile, they ask again: "What will it be, friend? You should not stay outside for long either way."

You nod. That seemed to have been all that was necessary, as the human waved the group that had meanwhile come to a stop and pointed onwards. They gave you quite the run to keep up, moving hastily along and leaving no time for words, only a quick exchange of glances.

But you can understand why, the change of the weather is palpable now. The air has markedly cooled, the darkness approaches that of night-time, and a heavy stillness hangs all around you that muffles the noises of hurried movement from the group.

"Here it is. Come, come."

There is nothing so see that looks like shelter, just a steep wall behind fallen boulders a few paces off the beaten path. To your amazement, the Human disappears in a crevice in the wall. You are quick to follow, but not the first one to step into the roomy cave that lies behind it.

Busily, the human hustles everyone in, their tall frame taking surprisingly little space in the entrance. Quietly, as if to not disturb the still air inside the rocks, they request: "Make light. And get torches outside, so the stragglers will find us."

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

You feel compelled to act, even if these requests have gone to nobody in particular. So you let your backpack down quickly and attempt to offer help. You can't even open your mouth before you are handed an armful of long sticks.

Moments later one of the wood-folk is showing you how to bind the sticks together to create lantern stands. And together you briskly work to make one after the other. They get taken away as quickly by other hands.

The travellers all around you are meanwhile procuring lighting bottles, wind-fires and iron torches from their bags and pouches, working in unison to hang them up around the cave with barely a word spoken.

You bind together the last of the lantern stands and then take it alongside five others to carry them outside and plant light near the boulders and at the crevice to make both visible from afar.

The darkness is total now, no moons or stars in sight to spread even the slightest bit of illumination. As the first heavy raindrops hit the ground, you can hear the thunder cracking right above. You hurry to finish up securing the lantern stands with piled-up rocks and step back into the dry cave.

It looks and feels markedly different in it by now. There is a strong feeling of relief in the voices and faces of all the travellers and warm orange light pleasantly illuminates the rock chamber. On the far end you see the human inspecting a fissure.

They speak out, again to no-one in particular, but receiving full attention: "Look at that, a natural wind tunnel. We would be wise to light a fire here so the cave will breathe. Does anyone have firestones?"

"We were planning on selling some in the hillside market on the crossroads behind the mountains" one of the other travellers spoke up. Another of his group added sheepishly: "Preferably in pristine condition."

"Don't you worry, my friends. A gently used bunch of firestones will still fetch a good market price. That will be on another day." The human stands up fully, drawing a warm smile that extends to their eyes. "But right now we are here, a group of fellow travellers caught in an unexpected rainstorm. And we are friends now, sharing this dry place and our company for this night. Do not worry, we will not freeze without yout fire and will emerge from here none the worse after the clouds have cleared.

"All of you already did what was needed to save us from cold and darkness. What I am asking for is beyond that - a favor, a gift, an act of thoughtful generosity, and everyone will understand it as such."

You see the group exchanging long glances before nodding to each other, seemingly persuaded to forgego profit with just a few words of the human. They begin unloading a few of their packs, others quickly offering help to carefully carry fist-sized white rocks to the fissure the human points out. They take them only one at a time, those rocks seem to be far heavier than they appear.

As the small pile is finished, someone scatters a fine powder over them. You wonder what is going on, but after a quick flash you can see orange flames dancing in the fireplace.

How interesting, that cold stone could procure light and heat like this. No wonder those firestones must be a good sale.

There is another noticeable change in atmosphere after this, the spreading warmth of the fire creating a cozyness in this place that would not be amiss in a well-kept tavern. It seems to influence everyone in the room.

The travellers start opening their packs to place all manner of foods and drinks down in the center of the cave, where someone had unrolled a woven grass blanket.

You find yourself opening your own backpack with a desire to contribute as well. Sheepishly you lay down leaf wrapped wads of dried fish and some bundles of salt grass onto the blanket that had already turned into a buffet offering the most varied assortment of foodstuffs you had ever seen. Travelling rations from seemingly every corner of the world were among rare regional specialties and laying besides items you couldn't even recognize.

The human pulls your attention with their booming voice: "Grand! A feast we have here today. How fortunate that we found us to be among friends with such varied tastes that we do not have to resign to another meal of the same old food from our bags, but can enjoy something new.

"Thank you! Thank you all for kindly sharing your rations." With a quick motion the human had procured some sort of musical instrument that definitely looked too big to have been hidden away on their person. "I have not brought anything to sink your teeth into, but I will instead feed your ears."

As the human begins plucking the strings on his instrument in a pleasant harmony, you sit down at the buffet. Curiously, nearly everyone had taken the same cue and you find yourself squeezed in the firestone merchant group from before, grabbing food together to break it into small pieces and share it among you, not sure who instigated that process.

Something is peculiar though, they do not feel like strangers even though they are tribesmen and you have never had any dealings with those before. Easily you fall into conversation with them and while you are talking about your reason to travel and future plans, they are sharing freely from their lives.

While the time seems to both fly and stand still, you keep noticing the arrival of several groups of latecomers. Though you feel compelled to lend them a hand, wet and shaking from the cold as they were, you were not once quick enough to get to them before they were already enveloped by others.

By now you have had a conversation about your life goals with tribesmen, were taught a fast-paced hand game by an enthusiastic and friendly women from the highlands, had gotten invited to visit to a village down south by fellow coastlings, had been pushed into learning proper wood-folk dining table behaviour amongst a most chaotic and diverse group of other travellers and heard more stories from around the world than you had heard in all your life before.

And accompanying it all is some of the best food you had ever tasted and the lively music of the human bard that had not once stopped playing.

Your head is heavy. There is no telling the time, you can only guess by the growing number of travellers that had made their beds around the edges of the cave, that it must be very late. Seeing that you still have a long journey ahead of you, you say good night to the group you had been chatting with.

As you lie down on your pack and cover yourself in your thin blanket, your mind is filled with the experiences of this day and because of your wild running thoughts you think you will never be able to fall asleep.

You are gone the moment you close your eyes.

The rustling and hushed voices draw your mind out of the thicket of sleep. For a moment you are not sure where you are, but it quickly comes streaming back as you look around. You immediately catch the eyes of one of the tribesmen merchants - he looks as if he had been about to shake you awake, holding his outstretched arm towards you.

He invites you to join his group to travel together to the hillside market. He promises that it will be easy for you to find your way to your destination from there. Happily you agree and you get up to quickly pack your belongings.

Looking around, you do not see the human bard anywhere. It’s a pity, you wanted to thank them as you have the strong feeling that this cordial get-together you had experienced would not have happened without them.

As you leave the cave, you take a deep breath of the fresh mountain air. You feel alive and enchanted with a fiery energy. And you have no doubt in your mind that the path you had chosen would not lead you towards an exciting and wonderful future.