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The Stonekin, or ‘Khollh’ in their native language, were one of the first of the races of Kin to truly align with the human race. For age since, the civilizations of humankind have held the Stonekin as stalwart allies, but they did not always show such kindness to others. They were once even considered monsters, attacking anything they considered alien due to their distrustful and paranoid natures. After all, one of the Stonekin will only ever feel truly comfortable with another if he can live close together with that other individual, sharing in every aspect of life.
The mentality of the Stonekin is that in order to understand how another thinks and feels, you must first understand how they live. Before that step, they will only ever consider others as distant acquaintances at best. Because of this alien mindset, before the Uluhrhut Empire, the Stonekin solely existed in isolated city-states, dotted across the various lands they resided within, mainly the central mountain ranges of Bayar.
With their hunched frames and the strange whiskers dotted across their misshapen faces, any human would consider them hideous, pitiful creatures. However, their affinity with the earth, and potential to fashion any kind of gem or metal into a beautiful item of magic and precision has made them into valuable allies of the various human civilizations around the world. Within Edelgrand and the more prosperous lands of the mortal world, they live fruitfully in high ranges of society, respected for their skills in craftsmanship and Shifting.
Now, their fortresses can be found in any land, acting as bastions of trade and trust, welcoming travelers through their high halls within the earth. Their people are friendly, their soldiers and walls guard against any creature of the night. The Khollh are trusted in all lands for their bright demeanors, and the fact that wealth always seems to follow in their wake.
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The wind was silent.
It was not so much of a quiet wind, not one that still stalked in the shadows. Instead, it was as if the wind, the very flow of the air, had been killed. While once, it had howled through the black pines, whistling across the sharp branches and fluttering the cloaks of the two travelers, now, everything was still.
They moved slowly through the forest, lacking the urgent pace that had once fueled them. The man limped with an almost frustratingly slow gait, and based on the bitter expression on his face, his lips pressed tightly together, the boy could guess the man was unhappy with their progress.
But although their speed was less than any of the previous days, neither showed any signs of worry. The silent pressure that had once filled the forest had been murdered just as surely as the monster itself. The feeling of observation, of being underneath a thousand eyes, all staring with such malicious focus, had disappeared.
Something else had also been left behind, though.
There was emotion in the old man’s gaze, mainly a frustration present in his sunken eyes, shadowed and cold, a dark cloud boiling underneath his skin. That storm roiling beneath the surface, filled with all sorts of conflicting signs, culminating into an overpowering sensation. The man felt as if he was standing just before an enormous hole in the ground.
The boy watched the man worriedly at several points throughout the day, but said nothing.
Although the air was still inside the forest, free of the lurking wind that had plagued the shadows, a chill still sat against the trees. Cold enough to still send shivers wracking the two traveler’s bodies.
“...Do you feel that, kid?”
“The cold? Is it another Presence? It’s only been a few hours, though?”
“No… I doubt this forest will be claimed again until tonight.”
“Then what is it? Cold season?”
“-It means we’re almost to the coast.”
“...Ah.”
The boy nodded slowly, keeping his composure for a few moments before becoming unable to hold back the small smile growing across his face.
“Seriously? So like the south’s all hot and smoky, is this coast really cold?”
“Something like that.”
“Then why’d we only feel the air now? Aren’t we just a day out or something?”
“The monster was a wind spirit.”
“...Oh."
The two trudged along the muddy ground, now beginning to frost over and harden. Their breaths were visible, small puffy clouds hanging in the still air for moments before dissipating. Although the cold began to redden their cheeks and noses, they quickly threw the hoods of their gray cloaks over their ears and heads, thick gloves over their hands.
As the day continued, growing light filtered through the dull sky, the temperatures only continued to fall. The blackened trees, while once seemingly surrounding the pair of travelers from all sides, were quickly replaced by barren rocky ground, no signs of moss or grass poking up from between the cracks.
They climbed upwards against the rocky slope, leaving the last of the dead forest behind them while walking between the mountains, along the various clear footholds they could find, a light snow quietly beginning to fall from the sky.
The two shivered in the muffled quiet of the mountains.
Eventually, after the light through the clouds reached its peak and slowly began to dim, the afternoon arriving, the boy turned to his companion, a question in his eyes.
“...I still haven’t read anything about this part of the northern coast. -Why’s it so cold? I’ve seen the old maps in the book, and this weather doesn’t make any sense.”
The man’s dark eyes peered back at the boy, before he sighed quietly and responded.
“-Used to be a dragon living at the top of these peaks.”
The small boy raised his eyebrows at the statement, but kept his mouth shut.
“...This was probably back before… y’know. So the local kingdoms and lords killed it. -Probably all rode out, you know, with their horses and other animals. The mages and the priests and the shamans would all ride with the knights... each one riding for the glory. Those were different times.”
“...”
“...”
“...And then?”
The man shook his head, eyes clearly full of thoughts from elsewhere, and coughed slightly before continuing to speak.
“They left the body on the mountain. I’m guessing it was too far from anywhere to retrieve. But after it started to rot…”
The man gestured with his hand to the muted snow, falling from the colorless sky above.
The boy nodded, quietly staring up the mountain slopes and beyond, way up into the cloud cover. His eyes were discerning, unreadable as they remained locked onto the heavens above.
“...Good to know.”
“Yeah.”
The mountain trail wound far alongside the base of the towering cliffs, and the two hiked alongside the rocky slopes before walking long, seemingly unending distances into valleys and between peaks.
Snow continued to fall, the chill of the air almost biting into their skin, cutting though any warmth provided by thick clothing and several layers.
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Their strength steadily fell. That cold, even without the wind, was enough to bite straight through their thick cloaks. Along with the man’s exhaustion, easily noticeable after only the meager hours of travel, their progress slowed further until the final light of the sky slowly darkened to dusk.
They stood on the rocky ground, steep from the side of the mountain. Further land extended before them, steadily moving to lower areas, the wide range of mountains spread out before them in the waning light of day.
“We’ll need to camp here, looks like.”
“Seems like it.”
“-Sorry, Rush.”
They unpacked quickly, setting up the torches before anything else and pitching the tent over the unstable rocks.
The cold air continued to blow, eventually picking up speed into a solid wind once again, one that the two travelers hadn’t experienced for the entire day. It heightened the chill they felt, buffeting their bodies and sending loose cloth and hair fluttering wildly.
It was a strange, almost unsettling experience. The wind that had lain stagnant for the entire day suddenly picked up, rising in ferocity at record pace. That wind had come from nowhere, and almost made the boy freeze in his tracks, suddenly violent images popping into his mind of the terrible, screaming winds of the previous night.
But the man remained calm, even while facing that biting wind while so injured and exhausted, his body nearly dropping to the ground as he blankly set up the campsite.
“Kid! Get moving, and help me plant these torches right!”
“Ah- okay!”
They needed to raise their voices to hear each other over the winds, the visibility dropping beneath the wild airs. Already, the cold was wrapping around them into a whited-out storm on the mountain.
While pelted with tiny droplets of ice and snow, they continued working, the man’s breathing labored and the boy nearly knocked down the mountain slope. Battered from the elements, they eventually planted the torches and lit them, a process even more difficult than that nightmarish previous night due to the unstable and steep ground- the only places to stick the torches were the cracks between rock.
They quickly crawled into the tent, having been heavily secured to the surrounding crags in order to not topple within in the wind.
Rolled up tightly in their bedrolls, this time with extra layers of cloth and covers to separate the travelers from the icy chill of the air, they laid quietly. The boy huddled deeper into the covers, and the man shifted onto his side, attempting to alleviate the deep bruising pain in his body.
“...Hey Alvo, tonight, can we…”
“Yeah, kid. Don’t worry. -Dragon territory, remember?”
Even while sheltered from the wind and snow outside the tent, threatening to send them careening down the rocky slope of the mountain, the boy managed to smile slightly as he heard the old man’s confirmation.
And so, on that night, for the first time in what must have been months, the boy let himself close his eyes, the violent winds beyond the campsite singing him to an almost peaceful sleep.
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There was no sun to be seen from beneath the dull, colorless sky, but the light of the day was more than enough to make the snowy ground sparkle an almost blinding sheen, reflected off of the elevated ground.
An endless snowscape had replaced what was once a dull, rocky vista from the side of the mountains. There was still an overhanging kind of smog, but the view of the surrounding fresh snow was wondrous.
The boy couldn’t help but stare as they packed up the camp, fully rested and up in the early morning in a new and unique way, compared to the previous days of sleepless camps, filled with fear of the darkness.
“Kid.”
His head snapped to where the man stood, pack ready and tent wrapped up in its carrier-bag, strung to his back with metal lining its frame.
Although his face was still dark, lines and shadows crossing it in a spiderweb of scars, his scowl simply pulling his expression deeper into its weary appearance, there was some kind of spark in his eyes he lacked the day before.
“I want to get out of these mountains quick. If we get a good pace going, we should make it to the coast by midday.”
“...Right!”
The man nodded to himself, lips twitched up into a reluctant half-smile at his companion’s instant enthusiasm, and began walking immediately without another look back.
They moved forward, carefully stepping down the snow covered mountainside, searching for any kind of unstable ground as they made their way across the slope. Although the endless clouds drifted above their heads, and the quiet chill seeped into their bodies, they moved at a quicker pace than the day before. The old man was already taking the lead again, though he breathed heavily in the thinner, frigid air of those mountains, his eyes peering unerringly into the distance.
Fog drifted across the ground, skating thinly above frosted snow banks and swirling around the two travelers, obscuring their vision of the impressive sights. Their lips cracked in the cold air, skin turning red and raw, even while they pulled cloth coverings over their faces.
They stumbled many times in that layered snow. Above the deep crags and valleys in the mountains, on that steep trail they walked, it was a game of focus and fear more than anything else.
Through all of the difficulties, however, neither of them looked truly pained, or worried, or stressed as they had in the forest. There wasn't that overhanging pressure that surrounded them like deep smoke, hanging over their necks.
But there was something else that hadn’t left either of the travelers; another emotion they had kept in their eyes since the very first day in the forest.
It was a deep-set weariness, filling their postures and gazes, that even the boy seemed to be full of. A cautionary emotion that whispered to each of them, keeping them observant of their surroundings at all times, quietly pointing out and and all the difficulties they might soon encounter.
The weariness had never left them. It was a constant companion, deep in the center of their bones that tore and screamed in their minds. They couldn’t ignore it, though they tried as best they could.
Neither of the travelers could remember a time where they were without it- if they had ever experienced any day where they could honestly forget caution, it had been long lost to memory.
Through the biting fog that drifted around them, the deep clouds swirling above, and the chill seeping into their bones, their path that day felt much longer than the mere few hours it took in reality.
But eventually, after walking farther downhill from the mountaintops, leaving behind the deep snow banks they had traveled above, and descending through various valleys at a pace that, even though slower than their previous speeds, was more than enough to match the most thorough efforts of normal men, they left the mountain-side snowscapes behind.
It was, again, an unnatural feeling, to walk a simple couple-hundred feet before the snow faded away completely and was replaced with barren rock, as if they had left behind some kind of other world, separated from its surrounding environment within those isolated mountains.
The rocky ground was a dull, rust-like red shade. Covering the land were boulders, deep cracks in the never-ending stone wastes, clouds of dust rolling across the ground. Through the almost desert-like scene, the chill hung in the air just as before, though not at the same level as the snowy mountains.
That strange snow was completely gone, out of sight and many miles above their current location, even the bases of the peaks impossible to see through these new clouds of dust.
The ground sloped steadily downwards, interrupted by occasional rises of rock and steep red stone. Fog slipped between them, making the two travelers lose each other unless they walked while nearly touching, the rocks underneath their steps crumbling dangerously.
Though it was easier to walk compared to the snow of the higher mountain slopes, the stone felt hard beneath their feet, layers of dull spikes stabbing through hard leather soles worn down over endless use.
Even with the cold air cutting his exposed face, the boy felt sweat dripping down the other, covered parts of his body. He stripped off his outer cloak, tying it to the outside of his pack while continuing to move, his breaths feeling slightly steadier. The man, however, made no kind of adjustment, focusing only on putting each foot in front of the other, firmly ignoring the exhaustive pain that only continued to grow within his pained chest.
Chills raced up and down the man’s spine, tingling beneath his skin, at the thought of the rough pressure in his legs and ribs. Something felt crushed- but he had no time for worrying about it. Worrying about what the damage might lead to in the future.
He kept a blank face, eyes squinted as he peered through the dust and fog hanging heavily in the air before him, attempting to look forward. Into the distance, or beyond, he wasn’t sure.
They walked through it all, shielding their faces from the elements when needed, the dust and wind cutting into their skin. Worn boots padded against the ground, puffs of breath filling the silence along with the methodical clanking of the pieces of metal tied to their packs.
It was a journey that felt long, almost too long compared to what the boy had been expecting. The stone only felt like it continued endlessly forward, and though his visibility had been cut off only dozens of feet away thanks to the fog and dust, he could feel the presence of many more miles of the rough stone before him. It was a never-ending waste, one that they had entered willingly.
The boy was calm, though, even at those dreary thoughts. After all, while they might not have been welcome, those more outlandish, pessimistic thoughts were common. Throughout all the challenges in his life, this was just another to endure.
After they reached the coast, they would get to Cliffside. The small settlement of survivors that they had only continued to see signs of throughout the past months.
Their lives would turn around. They would be able to rest. Sleep endless nights with nothing but peaceful dreams, talking all day long while sitting around in peace.
He told himself that, the thoughts repeating throughout his nearly blank mind, empty from the constant, repetitive exertion. Fantasizing endlessly about what would come within only a handful of hours, within that very day. They would reach the place they had been searching for- the place where everything would be okay. The only motivation in his limbs came from that thought, and the knowledge their final destination was within reach.
The man looked back for a small moment, watching the hazy smile forming on his companion’s face, blank with nothing but a hopeful dream.
A dark emotion overcame him, a twisting, oily tar that bubbled inside of his stomach and rushed up his throat.
The man turned away, his eyes blankly staring forward, forgetting anything else, even the enormous weight of the countless thoughts, compounding across his head into an aching pain eclipsing anything he could feel within his injured body.
He could not bring himself to smash that dream, even if he knew deep in his blood that once they finally arrived at the coast, and reached the goal that both had been so desperately searching for, it would still be far before they could finally reach their rest.
So they continued walking through the waste, until after what felt like many hours of travel, the two walked alongside a sudden rise in the earth, the dust and mist fading as they reached the top, eyes widening as they faced the horizon.
It seemed to reach out in all directions, a boundless and terrifying infinity held within its grasp, and the boy was unable to stop himself from letting out a gasp, his eyes swimming in the earth-damning view.
They had arrived at the northern coast of the land of Baiar.
The edge of the Abyss.
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