The Trials of the Tundra; An Acolyte's Venture

[MunaZaldrizoti 5707]

Spoiler

 

 

THE TRIALS OF THE TUNDRA

The Dedicant Trial of Syndra Caerme'onn

- 1794 -

The northeastern tundra of Arcas.

 

[This is an rp-post that will be updated each day, with an account of Syndra's dedicant trial as it progresses. None of the information will be known by others irp unless it is relayed to them by my character. Please check back every day over this next week if you'd like to keep up with the ongoing story!]

 

 

Month 1

Spoiler

Syndra Caerme'onn awoke alone, groggy and freezing and half-buried in a snow drift. The last thing she remembered, she had been advised to select a particular stone by her mentor, Aviala, and felt a pain strike the back of her head. Now, she was in a desolate landscape, a light snowfall meeting her form as she moved to sit upright. She hadn't been there long, assuming she would've frozen to death otherwise, but the environment was unfamiliar to her. No tree or flower in sight, all around her grew nothing but ice and cold stone. Aside her, she found her items from an earlier trial: A small egg, a potted rose, and the elongated leg bone of a deceased animal alongside a single arrow from her quiver. She supposed these would have to make due.

 

After a few long hours of trudging through the snow, her fingers and toes were practically frozen. Each step made her ache more than the last. Perhaps the Old God had taken pity on her as she came upon a small morsel of salvation among the endless mounds of glacial desolation: A dead wolf. It was relatively thin, with brown fur and a gash in it's side that lead her to believe it had been in a fight for food of it's own. Not yet at her wit's end, she made haste in cutting some of the fur from the creature's body using the tip of her single arrow. It was messy and more clumsy than she would have liked, but she willed her usual arrogance away as she finished with the pelt and moved on to ground out what little meat she could derive from the stomach and thighs. She took shelter in a small alcove of rock that night, though her sleep was restless and without much comfort.

 

With a claw stabbed through the pelt to act as a clasp, Syndra now had a ragged cloak of wolf fur to keep her shoulders somewhat shielded from the ever-falling snow the following day.. She had thrown the rose to the wind following the discovery of the wolf's corpse, now making use of the flower's pot as a store for what slivers of meat she could collect. Pulling the mediocre fur about herself, the mali'ame came to what seemed to be an endless frozen ocean, flattened ice littered with holes and pockets of icy black water. For Syndra, the threat of falling through into the shadowy depths was the least of her worries, given her tendency for careful footing and light stepping. However, a blizzard seemed to be rolling in from the east, which blew at her back relentlessly. She stayed attached to the coastline, following the tall mountain range for hours and hours. She couldn't tell the time of day at this point, the sun shielded from view by thickened grey clouds.

 

She was weary, her eyes watering from the onslaught of falling ice, as she found refuge for the night she assumed had finally fallen. It seemed to be some form of man-made cavern, carved into the cliffside by some ancient people. There was nothing of interest to find within otherwise, but any safety from the harsh winter outside was enough for her. The dampened moss that grew in great clumps within provided a natural curtain at the cave's mouth, which allowed Syndra to settle down upon a collected mound of the natural cushioning and rest slightly better than she had the night previously.

 

Over the next two weeks, she maintained the small cavern as her base, collecting wood from a grove of nearby fir trees for a small and meager fire. She cooked her meats and rationed them, which only lasted her a handful of days. Once any apparent meals were gone, she realized that she would have to move on soon. What she was sent to seek out was well beyond her reach and she could not afford to give into laziness now.

With aching joints and fingers constantly flexing to avoid being entirely put out of use, Syndra ventured out and away from her cave at the start of the third week of her trial. The sun had risen, which did enough to light her way and place acute warmth on the back of her legs as she slipped across the frozen fjord once again. An hour into her journey, it was a groan that caused her to stop. Something seemed to watching her from a distance, the snowfall obscuring her vision as she gazed onward. As she pressed forward cautiously, the figure began padding forward, snorting and grunting. Syndra had only a dozen seconds to think, grabbing for the bone she had slipped into the waistband of the garments she had been left to survive in. Her reflexes were shot, and her limbs were stiff. She'd rear the bone back like a club as the figure, now an apparent polar bear, lunged at her. Her blow connected to it's head, sending it slightly stumbling off to the side. Though successful, the animal caught her arm with one of it's large claws, raking it's mark across her skin. The Caerme'onn yelped, inhaling and exhaling the pinching air of the tundra as she slid across the snow. Her sage-green gaze found the bear, shaking it's head as it tried to collect it's own wits. She realized how frail it was, how shaggy it's coat. The Old God was not so kind to the animals that resided in this region, she had come to realize.

 

 

The balance of nature was not in this creature's favor. She'd squinted, snowflakes gliding down to cling to her cheeks as she  used the momentum the ice gave her to rush forward. It was somewhat unsteady, but she kept on the balls of her feet to give her leverage on what patches of gathered frost she could catch underfoot. The bear groaned, thought it turned too slow as the leg bone swept sideways and into it's jaw once again, this time with an audible crack. Syndra went crashing into the polar bear's form, grasping for any clump of white fur she could get her hands on. She swung around like a rag doll, trying to maintain her grip as the wild animal shook back and forth in anger and defense. She managed finally to swing a  leg over it's back as it began to press backward onto it's haunches. Thinking she had made a successful move, she called out as she fell from the creature's back, the fur ripped from it's spine and now clumped in her hands.

 

The polar bear was in clear pain, more delirious even now than it had been before. It seemed to look about frantically before realizing where the elfess had fallen, turning and bellowing at her with  ichor leaking from it's maw. It trudged towards her as Syndra gasped  in a breath. The only other item she kept at her waist, the singular arrow, slipped into her hand. The bone was nowhere to be seen, discarded during her attempt to mount the ravenous bear. With all of her might, she kicked both legs outward and at the creature's snout, causing it to wail in a roar. With what  strength she could muster then, she used the thickness of the snowdrift to push herself forward, her arm sailing forth in an arc to stab the spade of the arrow into the beast's face. It connects just beside the eye as she pushed it inward with all of her strength, the shaft snapping from the force. The bear gave a final wail as it collapsed sideways, taking Syndra back down into the snow with it. She had, in her icy delirium, thought she had almost heard it whimper like a small child. It was, to her, a pointless death, but necessary for the task she had been given.

 

She crawled beneath the bear's body for a time, laying beneath the heavy warmth it's corpse provided. After, with only one arm in use, Syndra utilized the broken arrow's spade to cut away at the polar bear. By that evening, as her blood-stained form limped across the landscape, a larger bear's pelt was draped over her body, the bear's dead eyes staring out from atop her head. It was the first time she had felt the skin of an animal on her body, it truly bringing her some small sense of disgust. What remained was her continued mentality that all of this was for her future, acts done for the Father Circle and the  natural cycle she sought to protect. This was simply apart of that cycle, life bringing  inescapable death in the name of survival. As she found renewed shelter for the night, beneath the jutting form of a rocky hillside, she said a prayer for the poor creature and the suffering she had inevitably put an end to.

 

 

Month 2

Spoiler

The tundra had been relatively quiet for the first two weeks of the next month, Syndra being forced to return to her previous cavernous shelter due to a lack of superior options. Her meals consisted of small rabbits and white-bellied squirrels, which left her with very little once their furs had been cut away. More often than not, she was left with a few slivers of meat and the water she could melt from small handfuls of snow she'd bring over the campfire each night.  It had almost become a routine for her now, her own personal custom in a world that would be her home for months more.

Her arm had been badly wounded in her fight with the polar bear, requiring her to bind it in some of the skins she had garnered. She had learned that rinsing it regularly with the saltwater of the frozen sea nearby, despite it's stinging, seemed to keep it from aching terribly and leaving it without function. She kept a note in her mind to have it properly looked at upon her return to Siramenor and the Father Grove. Preparing for another excursion deeper into the region, she prepared her various pelts and pressed outside as the dawn broke the horizon.

 

The minutes turned into hours, the sun passing overhead and lowering  into the west. The glacial ocean spread out ahead of the mali'ame, small frozen islands dotting the landscape here and there and providing Syndra with various points of rest as the night began to fall. The moon rose to it's peak in the starry sky above as Syndra spied a dark shape looming ahead. It was long and bowed, with two points at either end. High above, tattered sails swayed back and forth in the chilly breeze, though it made no difference in moving the wooden mass. The ship she had come upon was frozen in the ice and slightly sunken, sad in it's otherwise triumphant form. The Caerme'onn crept closer as her curiosity overcame her, though her feet suddenly seemed to halt in place.

 

"Ssssyndraaaa..."
 

Syndra was startled, but her features were too cold and stiffened to give a proper reaction. Her gaze wandered about the nearby area, though no other individual made themselves apparent. "You're on the path, Ssssyndra...but still ssssooo far to go," The voice hissed as wind whistled through her ears.

She swallowed, continuing towards the abandoned ship and climbing it's hull to board the upper deck. She landed with a slight creaking of the boards below, though she knew there was no other soul to hear her. It was devoid of all life, of any warmth that so often the miracle of a living being provided. The voice she had heard earlier had bid her here, even if it wasn't her final destination. Perhaps this too, like the polar bear, was another symbol from the Old God and the cycle.

 

 

Even in all of their might and with all of their hubris, no descendant or mortal being can overcome the cycle of nature. All returns to the earth, from whence it came. And if necessary, nature could be more violent when it came to proving that point. This ship was nature's example, that even vain pride cannot outlast the natural cycle.

 

Month 3 - 4

Spoiler

The blizzards had picked up steadily as Syndra had departed the abandoned ship to continue her trial. The further east she ventured, the more furious the flurries and winds seemed to push against her. After a week of seeking shelter more often than not, the Caerme'onn began to believe that her quest was in vain.

It was the second week of her third month in the wilds when the voice came to her once more. "Ssssyndra.....thissss isss folly..."

A lithe form slithered towards her as she took caution, beady red eyes staring intently at her. "Turn back....wessst is where your journey will end. Easssst will only bring you ice and death." The serpent raised itself slightly, the silver-white scales of its body almost blending against the snow entirely. Was this her father, Taeral? The snake had been his own druidic totem. Perhaps the daughter of the Viper had gained a reptilian guide for his unwavering service to the cycle she now sought to take up for herself in upholding. The snake reared it's head, directing it's arrow-shaped head west as it had advised her. Syndra seemed to move without her own knowledge, gathering up the supplies she had managed to collect thus far into a leather bag salvaged from the valah ship. If this creature had attempted to advise her before, and now again, she knew better than to refuse. She took her first steps towards the western tundra of Arcas, following the lead of her serpentine companion.

 

The snake reminded her, later into their journey, of the arrows that she had grown so accustomed to using for hunt and combat. Sleek and thin, but with a deadly head that could bring death in a single shot. How strange it seemed, that yet another occurrence of coincidence had found a place in her path to the crystal she sought. It continued to bring her back to the image of her father, and how she so badly sought his approval in all she did. Even now, she pursued this quest not only for herself and for the Old God, but to relish in the pride of the man from which she claimed patrimony. As a child, before he sent her off into the world to learn survival, he had been her hero. Years away from him, with no word or care, had left the elfess bitter. But as the albino serpent slipped across the snow alongside her, she couldn't help but feel like this was the connection she shared with  her father, in a true and physical representation.

The snake, of any breed or form, held a symbolism of rebirth through the shedding of it's former skin. Perhaps, at the journey's end, Syndra Caerme'onn would shed her skin as well, to be reborn into the world as the worthy progeny of the Viper Druid.

 

Month 5 - 6

Spoiler

 

Syndra Caerme'onn discovered the great crater-lake during the middle of her fifth month in the wilderness, much to exhausted relief. She had followed her serpentine guide for the better of two weeks, hardly stopping for anything but sleep and what rations she had left. What fires she had made were small and extinguished quickly for the desire to not attract unwanted camp visitors. Her thirst was unquenched as well, which only made to make her muscles more burdensome and her mind weary. She felt the moderately-heated waters radiate towards her, like an invisible cloak being pulled around her. The slithering albino creature reared it's head, red eyes spying the elfess.

 

"Here is where the journey will end, but firsssst....replenisssh. Enjoy the free ssssplendor only nature can offer. You will need your ssstrength...."

 

The Acolyte made no refusal, finding a spot along the banks of the caldera's vast waterfront and set up her camp. It seemed that here, the snow fell rarely and the sun melted large mounds of it away. Her eyes flitted sidelong at the great mouth of an ancient cave that seemed to beckon and taunt her. Was this truly the end of her journey? The outer-formation seemed old, shaped by the weater and by the forces of the earth around them. She noticed rusted bronze tools abandoned and half-buried in the ice, a failed attempt to discover the secrets of the cavernous bounty within. She would find her crystal there, she had no doubt, but first she needed to restore herself.

Slipping from her various furs and attire, her unburdened form moved towards the sloshing waters, stepping one foot after another and pressing onward until she was submerged up to the shoulder. Taking in a deep breath of the thin air, she sank beneath the surface. The warmth made her otherwise-frozen limbs practically thaw and melt all at once. Her sage-green visage closed, embracing the wamrth she had been denied for so long since her quest began.
 

 ---

Perhaps it was her exhaustion, or the early onset of her dehydration, but another world seemed to open for her as her eyes shut to the one she had previously been paying witness to. Syndra saw a small mali'ame, with auburn waves of hair and the same eyes as herself, sitting atop a stump as an unfamilar woman braided her hair with beads and feathers. A time she both entirely forgot and likewise longed for, wishing for a true mother who had never been in her life otherwise.

The next image was when she was somewhat older, a young adolescent with much hope for her future. But this time, she was weeping. Her father, the Viper Druid Taeral, stood with her on the borders of a  great forest, bidding her to leave and begin her journey to adulthood on her own. But that young Caerme'onn was once again afraid to lose the only other person she had to admire and love, the only one who had seemed to care. The sting of the great ire she had felt in the years following that moment had haunted her for decades.

As she began to rise to the surface of the waters, her gaze slowly opened and spied a figure in the water, This time it wasn't the pale serpent, but an elf. It appeared only for a second, but Syndra might have sworn it was...
 

---

As her head broke the surface, whatever she had witnessed had vanished too. It was only the mali'ame, stroking her arms beneath the water as she caught her breath and returned to the shore. The snake was nowhere to be seen, though this gave Syndra no pause as she went to re-dress herself and tend to a small meal of what cuts of rabbit she had remaining. Once that was done, she made a venture up the snowy hill and into the great cavern, taking up one of the rusted tools in the chance a beast might be lurking.

 

Within, she found only more abandoned crates and tools as the tunnel began to narrow. However, at where a mouth might enter into some form of further cave, rubble had blocked the way. Judging by the look of what lay scattered about, this had been the abandoned business of a dwarven caravan, who likely gave up following the collapse of the tunnel. The albino reptile weaved its way alongside her, flicking it's red tongue at her.

"Sssseek what liesss beyond here, Caerme'onn....thisss is the lassst obssstacle...." The creature hissed at her, then boldly slipping up her arm and balancing it's body upon her shoulder. With her tool in hand, she began what would be two-weeks of work, hacking away the destruction of these false explorers to finally come to the end of her trial and discover what awaited her beyond these fallen rocks.

Month 7

Spoiler

 

Syndra Caerme'onn had spent a week now, hacking and pulling at the rubble that seemed to keep her from her quest's end. Over and over she worked at removing the fallen stones, though each day only made a small ***** in the barrier. This had become a determined mission for her, even if her eyes grew tired of staring at cold stone day in and day out.

On the first day of her second week, the final month of her task, Syndra reared the rusted pickaxe back and struck a large clump of rubble. Upon impact, it rolled and tumbled, the stability of that larger area falling away with it. In that instant, a gush of chilled air blew into her face, causing her breath to catch in her throat. Coughing and sputtering, she waved a pallid palm back and forth, bidding the dust away from her. As her vision focused on the darkness ahead, her leering visage made out a small illumination in what otherwise was a rather ominous tunnel. A small but gleaming white light seemed to beckon her forward. A hand braced against the wall beside her as she felt the presence of the albino serpent slither past her feet, hissing all the while. It paid no mind to her now, even after such a long time acting as her guide, seemingly entranced by the same discovery Syndra herself had now made. Taking a deepened breath to steady her weary body, she too pressed forward and through the opening.

The temperature had dropped significantly, the faint sound of dripping water acting as a quiet accompaniment to her movements. The marvelous lights grew and grew as Syndra and the snake neared, the mouth of the small tunnel opening into a vast cavern that almost left her in disbelief. Ice grew like budding flowers and grass in all corners of the cave, twinkling from the luminescent lights that shone down from overhead. Alongside these glowing crystalline forms sprouted long and sharp icicles, whose slowly melting forms provided the dripping water that pooled in puddles on the cold ground below. The snake seemed to inspect their surroundings for a few long moments before craning it's long neck to observe her, and then the ceiling above.

"Your journey'ssss end...." It simply said to the elfess, crimson eyes glinting in eerie satisfaction.

Syndra needed no further instruction or encouragement, eager to achieve what she had spent a year's worth of her life searching for. She rolled her shoulders, making her way towards what was a steep formations of elevated rocks, forming a plateau slightly higher than where she now stood. Within reach of that platform, a lithe Kuila crystal sat ejected from the roof of the cavern, glowing a pale white light. She resolved herself to climb, the gemstone almost calling to her with its very ethereal essence.

Her first attempt, she slipped halfway and her shin scraped against the rock. She hissed herself, glancing back to find the snake wasn't anywhere to be seen. Devoid of criticism, she made her second attempt. One small handhold after another, swinging her body up and up. It was this time that she reached the top, rising slowly to standing height. Her chest swelled and her eyes slightly brimmed, basking in the beauty of the Kuila crystal in it's untouched glory. She claimed nearby a sizeable stone, taking the crystal in one hand to mark the size she wished to claim. With the miniature boulder in hand, she struck the icicle-like gemstone three times, finally knocking it free as it briefly pulsed with the light it emitted.

This was it. The item she had been sent to claim. The  Glacial Kuila crystal was her own now, an object to cherish and keep forever. It still shone bright in the darkened cavernous atmosphere, but she cradled it in her arms as if it was the only light in the world. She stepped back as she noticed the serpent's form wiggled past her once more, seeming to raise itself upright and standing almost at an equal height to the Caerme'onn.

"Well done, Ssssyndra....have you found what you've been looking for?" The snake inquired. Syndra puzzled for a moment, "If it wasn't obvious...this has been the point of all of this..." She'd ponder a moment longer, "Isn't that...why you came all this way?"

The reptile almost seemed to smirk in amusement, if a serpent might smirk at all. "I came for a reason, but not one we shared. Atleast, not knowingly. I came to help you, Syndra, but to find something else." The creature had her father's  voice now, sending a chill down her spine. Had this been some kind of trick by the Old God and her father both? A test of her character and strength?

Syndra pursed her lips, "And what is it I was supposed to find?"

As she spoke her inquiry aloud. she inhaled sharply as the snake's form began to twist and shape before her eyes, morphing this way and that. It came to a stop...and she was gazing upon a mirror image of herself.

"Do you understand now, Syndra Caerme'onn? Do you understand why I am here...who you were speaking to all of this time?"

The elfess ran the questions through her head, though the answer seemed to become clear as quickly as she had begun her search for the right answer. "I've found the Kuila Crystal...but I've also found myself. I've found the person I must become...I've found an understanding of what my role in the world must be."

The figure nodded, a familial smile gracing the clone's features before Syndra blinked and it was gone. She was alone again, with her trial's bounty and the sound of the water falling to the cavern floor.
---

Now was the time for the former mali'ame  who had entered the cave to be left there forever. And from it's icy sanctuary, the renewed Syndra Caerme'onn would emerge.

 

[_Sug 2555]

A father smiles at the thought of his daughter returning home.

[excited 10833]

A proud grandfather makes note of this series of events on the family registrar.