[img]http://i.imgur.com/1qnS4Ao.jpg[/img]

[color=gray]The Vanishing Stone glimmers brightly. It's ancient and rough, no bigger than the palm of your hand -- but the cosmos shine and spin deep within it. Galaxies, stardust, suns and planets stretch on infinitely through the lens of this single stone. Your hand stretches out. The moment the cool stone touches your fingertips, the galaxies rush toward you; your vision fills with spinning stars of impossible color. The ground is gone from under your feet. The breath is knocked out of your lungs, and a profound silence stifles your ears.

. . . Until a freezing wind chills you, and you find yourself standing among mountains in the billowing snow.[/color]


[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/ioK2c67.jpg[/img][/center]

[h3]The Outpost[/h3][hr]You are standing on a wide platform of snow-covered stone. Above, only a jagged streak of snowy sky is visible between the mountains that tower around you. Below, a deep howling chasm gapes wide. The only thing that stands between you and that deadly fall is a flimsy rope barrier.

The wind bites cold. Snow swirls all around and hisses on the ice.

A wooden house stands on an opposite platform, creaking with age and heavy with snow. Lights flicker behind its windows, and dark smoke curls up from its chimney. The only way to reach the house is to cross a rickety wooden bridge that swings gently above the chasm.

Behind you there is only the sheer rock face of the mountain, glistening with ice and pocked with snow. Carved into the rock is the serene face of a meditative tiger -- part of an ancient bas-relief that had long ago been smoothed down by the wind and snow. Embedded in the forehead of the rock tiger is a Vanishing Stone, placed there long ago by a culture centuries gone.