Maruk’s
adventures were always challenging. You asked for another, so let me
tell you about the Five World Ice Walk. Like its name hints at, its
path spans five worlds, all connected by nexus, a shared artic clime
and a preponderance of shaking, quavering, moving, swaying and
trembling landscape. The worlds are Khaas (Arduin), Quine, Khortuus,
Vou and Glinterim. Looking back at my notes, Maruk actually finished
this quest (one of the Seven Sevens) before he took on the Imp Queens
of Hro or Thoughtshear, so I’m a little out of order but I hope you
will bear with me.
Maruk had dwellings all over Khaas but
he primarily dwelled in either Melkalund (Arduin) or Ilshadmere
(Ithalos). The reason I point this out is the events that transpired
to bring Maruk to take up the Five World Ice Walk. Maruk had
acquired over his life quite a substantial amount of things: from
magik to the mundane, he had an interesting and somewhat esoteric
collection. Anyway, while away seeking information on his quests,
one Huenhwyr the Haeft, a well renown and skilled “purveyor of fine
goods” (or thief, if you prefer), paid his home in Ilshadmere a
visit. Huenhwyr was rather discerning and selective of the items he
pilfered, outwitting and disabling dozens of complex traps, spells
and wards; he also only slew Maruk’s pet Wyvergon in sacking the
manse.
Needless to say, Maruk was riled and a
little judicious tracking brought him to Huenhwyr’s doorstep,
armed, pissed and backed by two handfuls of friends! Rather than
die, Huenhwyr chose to deal instead. He gave up the majority to
Maruk, pointed him to where the rest had went and handed over just
about everything else he had. Mollified but still pissed, Maruk cut
off both of his hands and then pronounced the greatest curse he could
to ensure they would never heal but instead bleed Huenhwyr’s life
blood every time he thought with avarice, dwelled on his exploits or
dreamed of illicit doings.
In the mess of things he took from
Huenhwyr was a journal of one Njouls of Siesierte (which lies on the
Talafarian border with Marmachand). In the journal, Njouls spent
some time penning his surprising shipwreck and subsequent exile to a
forsaken cold sheet of ice. Excited by the lead, Maruk tore into the
journal, correlating its information to other tidbits he had gathered
from before. Its pages held the key to the location of the Five
World Ice Walk on Khaas and his communions with the divine told him
where he must lay the mark. Somewhere on the path lay a point where
the five worlds all touched as one and the ice fall from the worlds
to dance dizzyingly out into an abyss of nothing. The ice makes
short lived mazes as it falls as the chill of the abyss is so cold if
freezes the air and ice solid for a short time before the weight of
the falling ice shatters it and sends it spiraling in to the deep.
Here Maruk had to go. Therein also, he had to take his mark and lay
it upon the special place where the ice from all five worlds has
frozen as one.
Which he did. With near a dozen
comrades, he crossed the chilling ocean about Khaora. Several died
on the way but found within them the will to carry on when called
back. The nexus they found on a small island in the far north looked
like a great white hook, curving to pinion the sky. The winds were
fierce, but with magik and will they crested its top and entered a
billowy gate to another world.
The world Quine resembled the vast
endless tundra, the sky constantly shrouded and the skin so cold it
flayed the skin away. The land seemed to sway and jiggle,
constantly, weeping a dark watery oozes from crevices in the frozen
ground. Jubaal was devoured by an inky mass of semi-sentient
bacteria (the ooze) and nothing was left of him but his boots (which
they kept as a tribute).
The nexus on Quine was a madcap dance
of quivering ice shards, perpetually grinding to so unheard beat.
The eleven of them made it through to Khortuus, though not without
each of them taking some sort of bruising from the nexus (broke both
of Maruk’s legs, though he was able to heal them once through).
Khortuus had weak air (bad atmosphere)
and at times lances of vacuum would spear down from the void (space)
and suck things away. It also consisted of small island of icy
stone, rocking and bobbing in an ocean of a liquid helium type
substance. A truly terrible place. Five of them permanently lost
limbs to the helium ocean and Deug (of the Teal Spear of Uulon) was
sucked into the great void of space (turned inside out and frozen).
They took the nexus (glimmering mirrors) and ended on Vou.
It was on Vou they found the abyss and
the fall of ice from five worlds. At this particular point, no one
wanted to brave the short lived ice paths and bickered for a while
about how to proceed. Naoun de Lia (and the player) got tired of it
all and caught Maruk by surprise and heaved him bodily onto the ice
path, crying “you might want to hurry!”
It was, you might say, quite a laugh!
(Right from my notes, quote and all.) He succeeded in running like
hell and used magik to dimension tunnel rapidly through the ice to
where he needed to go and then back out again.
All in all, one of his milder ones.