Chapter 41: Chapter 41: The Northern Wind

The Caraxe Strait looked like a shattered plain of frozen ice.

But Nay could see the sea between the shifting plates of ice. From the cliff, they could hear the screech and whine of ice sliding and shifting against each other, the rolling sea beneath pushing the puzzle pieces in different directions and causing haphazard differences in elevation.

“We’re close now,” Quincy said. “About half a day’s travel.”

“You’re not telling me we’re traveling out into that?” Nay said.

“She’s out there, somewhere.”

“What do you mean ‘somewhere?’” Nay said. “Do you not know?”

“Caer Ilyawraith’s the type of woman who likes to avoid straight answers. Do you know the type?”

“Unfortunately I do.”

That’s what they call crazy bitches, Nay thought. But she kept it to herself.

She consulted her mini-map but it gave her no clues. She wondered if there would ever be a way to upgrade the mini-map so it would have more useful features. Because right now it seemed pretty basic and mostly useless.

As they descended down the trail leading to the strait, Nay hoped that if she increased in rank that her abilities would become more powerful. Or if she would learn or have access to more recipes. What she really fantasized about what was food that could imbue a Warmth Buff.

While Nay and Juniper followed Quincy and Al across the beach made out of snow instead of sand, she wondered if the cold affected Quincy as much since he was Bronze Rank.

She was interested in discovering the changes Iron Rank would bring compared to Base Rank. If she got there of course.

At the moment she wasn’t sure if she was even going to make it to Caer Ilyawraith without freezing to death. Or if she did make it, Quincy hinted that the ranking process could be dangerous. There was the possibility of dying while attempting to rank so quickly.

By the time their fauglir were stepping off the beach and onto the thick layer of ice that covered the ocean at the edge of the world, Nay felt like she was going to pass out.

She was numb from the cold, and tired from being battered by the wind.

It was like traveling across a low level earthquake.

At one point, the plate of ice they were on rose and suddenly they were on a decline, sliding towards the frigid sea.

Quincy or Nay didn’t have to instruct Al and Juniper what to do. The fauglir jumped to the nearest plate of ice on their own, the cold spray nipping at them as they leapt across the gap.

Nay shouted into the wind, snow and sea spray. “Are you sure this is worth it?!”

Quincy’s response surprised her. “No! No, I don’t!”

Well, that’s a great vote of confidence in me, Nay thought. They continued across the shifting sea of ice.

Nay took out more of the Strength and Stamina biscuits she had in her cloak and started binge eating them. In her experiments with this, she was sure the Buffs did stack a little, but it wasn’t anything she could exploit.

There was the effect and law of diminishing returns the more biscuits she ate.

Time was skipping for her as she drifted out of alertness and daydreaming.

So that when the mass of the iceberg rose up out of the whiteout mist, she didn’t notice the skeleton of the great beast intertwined in the mountain of ice, half exposed and half embedded in the mass, until it was directly in front of them.

And even then, she thought it might be a figment of her imagination or an optical illusion.

Like a dragon or serpent that crashed into the frozen sea from the sky, becoming part of a glacier.

Its skull was like a cliff face in scope. Its cavernous eye sockets were above the sea, packed in the iceberg. But its maw was submerged below in the part of the berg they couldn’t sea. It was hard to tell how far down it went.

The bones of a god trapped in a glacial mass.

A haunting voice travelled to them with the wind. At first Nay thought it was the cry of a weeping woman, or someone trapped out here, doomed to sing a ghost song that would only be heard by travelers crazy enough to traverse this shattered landscape.

But then she could hear words forming out of the evocative banshee song.

“Turn around…and leave this place...” the singer sung.

Nay looked over at Quincy, a bit creeped out.

Quincy got off Al and stepped in front of the ice-encrusted god skull protruding out of the frozen sea.

He bellowed into the blizzard. His mustache was frozen on his face. “It’s Quincy! Quincy the Doomhearted! I’ve come with a prospective pupil!”

“A pupil?” Nay said. “Is that what I am?”

He shushed her.

From the peak of the god skull, an eddy of snow flurries swirled, descending towards them. There was the form of a person atop it.

As it got close enough for them to discern details, Nay saw that there was a person riding the flurry of snow as if it were a cloud.

And the weirdest thing of all is that they were sitting atop the snow cloud cross-legged, or in the lotus position. She wasn’t sure which.

“Quincy?” the snow flurry rider said. “With a prospect, you say?”

She hovered above, looking down her nose at them. Her white hair was braided with blue seaweed, and although there was something about her voice that reminded Nay of an old woman, she looked young, a gloss about her skin like she was preserved in time.

Her skin seemed to be encased in a thin layer of clear ice, and the armor she wore resembled silver fish scales. There were growths of pink coral on her shoulders that served as pauldrons.

Quincy gestured at Nay. “Aye, this is Renee Favreau. I thought you would be interested in meeting her. She has experienced vigor sickness while still at Base Rank.”

“I can see that, of course,” the woman said. “I’m not blind.”

“Nay, this is Caer Ilyawraith,” Quincy said.

Nay looked up at the floating woman of the snow and sea. Unsure, she waved at her awkwardly. “Hi.”

She frowned at Nay, her expression cold. “What makes you think I will take a pupil these days? I haven’t had a pupil in several generations.”

“Because of The Night of the Seven Slaughters.”

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Ilyawraith’s unsettling white eyes turned pink as she was reminded of the memory.

“Everyone would still think you were alive if it wasn’t for me,” Quincy said.

“How do you know no one followed you?”

“Because if they did, you would sense them.”

Ilyawraith grumbled. Flurries of snow from her cloud blew into them. She looked out across the landscape from which they came. “You can come in. But if you’ve brought trouble to my abode, you’ll come to regret it. Night of the Seven Slaughters or not.”

Her snow cloud circled around them and whisked her towards the frozen god skull. They followed her across the ice into her home.

/////////

The iceberg had been hollowed out into something of an ice palace inside.

Except palace wasn’t really the right word. For Nay, it had a Fortress of Solitude vibe.

Some type of plush, blue moss was growing on the floor inside this portion of the skull. There was also a pool of melted snow they could drink from. They stabled the fauglir here and Juniper immediately ran to the pool and started drinking.

There was a splash of water and Nay saw something wriggling between Juniper’s jaws. It was a green-scaled fish. The fauglir happily trotted to the bed of blue moss and began eating the fish.

Their host was weird and stand-offish, but don’t say she didn’t know how to take care of their creature companions.

As they descended a wide spiraling stair that led to the inside of the iceberg below the ocean, Nay couldn’t take her eyes off the bones of the behemoth that were frozen in the walls. It was like being inside the stomach of a serpent.

Nay caught up to Quincy, nudging him. She whispered. “Who is this person again?”

“I,” Ilyawraith said, “am the Northern Wind that brings the chill of the Caraxe into your heart when you think you’re safe in the South. I am the one who speaks to the sea and controls the amount of fish in your people’s nets. I am the one in the wind that brings the snow and the ice. I am also mostly the one who likes to be left alone.”

Nay was shocked that she had heard her talking to Quincy.

The Lodge owner chuckled and said, “What’s the matter? You’ve never been around a Silver Rank before?”

Nay almost fell down the rest of the stairs. She oogled at Ilya, who was far ahead of them, walking down the stairs. “Silver? I thought Bronze was rare.”

“Which is why you should use the floor mats up ahead and make sure you don’t track any muck into my dwelling. You wouldn't want to see a Silver Rank's wrath.”

/////////

She wasn’t kidding. They stood at the threshold of a chamber that contained a hearth where the fire was burning blue. And there was a mat of dried woven seaweed and kelp at their feet.

Quincy shook the mud and ice off his boots and made sure to stomp on the mat. Nay followed suit.

They entered the chamber, following Ilyawraith. Nay looked around in wonder. The way the light was reflecting off the ice and bones made it look like it was the heart of the iceberg, and even the heart chamber of the long dead serpent.

There were seats, couches and benches carved out of ice and covered with the soft pelts of bear or some other animal with fur. There was a cooking table next to the hearth with the blue fire.

Ilyawraith went behind it and started picking out things on the table to cook.

“You really ought to let Nay cook for us,” Quincy said.

Ilyawraith stopped and looked at him. “Why is that?”

“She runs the kitchen in my Lodge.” She didn’t look convinced. “Just trust me, alright?”

“The last time you told me just to trust you I almost died.”

“And look at us now! Still breathing and full of vigor for multiple lives!”

“Very well,” Ilyawraith said. She sat down in front of the hearth and started weaving dry seaweed together.

Nay went to the table and assessed the ingredients. There was a sack of flour. Butter. Vegetables.

She got to work.

She mixed together a pancake batter, then chopped scallions. She used her Chef’s Thermometer ability to heat up two pans.

When Quincy saw that he glared at her. She shrugged.

Ilyawraith observed her, expressionless.

In one pan she began the scallion pancakes, and in the next, she cracked what looked like quail eggs and started making crispy scallion omelet’s.

When they were finished cooking, she plated them and served Ilyawraith and Quincy.

Ilyawraith took a bite of the pancake. Her expressionless, stoic face, didn’t break as she chewed. But by the time she swallowed, she had started to tremble.

Finally she gave in and took another bite, chewing in pleasure. In mid-bite she said, “She’s using Epicurist abilities.”

Nay sat down at the hearth with her own plate of food. “Are you going to report me?”

“Oh, child. If you only knew. The DMA would want me dead if they still knew I was alive. You’re around fellow rebels here.”

Ilyaraith looked at Nay as if she was scanning her. Her eyes shined pink.

“Quincy, you haven’t been forthright with me,” she said. “I’ve never met an Elseworlder before.”

Quincy ate his quail egg and scallion omelet and shrugged. “What’s the point? You would have figured it out anyways.”

“Her vigor is almost halfway to Iron. Yes, the veins are strengthening and expanding. Fascinating.”

That must have been the specialty of her Marrow Abilities. She could scan and read other cultivators and analyze their vigor. She probably had a lot of experience in training cultivators. Which is why Quincy brought her here.

“So, you’ve been using Marrow abilities while at Base Rank. I have to say, that’s something else I’ve never seen before.” She looked at Quincy. “You must let me see if I can train her. Even if it’s just for knowledge’s sake.”

Quincy finished a pancake and waved his fork at her. “Why do you think I brought her here?”

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