[hr][h1][center]Ancient Stirrings[/center][/h1]
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The aurora blazing over the mountains possessed a spectral beauty that offended the senses. If you stared for too long, the coiled tendrils of light dart away. If you squinted for better focus, the aurora almost disappeared. With just one look anyone could sense how unnatural it was. As Astrid travelled ever closer to it, her instincts cried out in alarm. Even if she wasn't afraid of it, it spoke to a very primal and very terrified part of her mind. The back of her neck bristled with cold apprehension. And she knew it wasn't the weather either.

She and Marik had left the ramshackle inn and set out for the mountain trails. They weren't far and were easy enough to find. The locals had been kind enough to mark the path with skull totems, monstrous heads skewered on pikes, and other grotesque, but appropriate warning signs. 

Marik didn't need to be literate to know they all meant [i]Turn back now. Monsters ahead.[/i] Even his own children knew not to go anywhere near the Devil's Spine. 

Astrid translated the inscriptions aloud, her voice strained awkwardly in parts as she struggled to interpret the symbols. [color=#f2eac9][b]"Scream and frozen howl... Fear to tread where death may die, beneath forlorn... skies?"[/b][/color]

[color=#c6d6c2][b]"Why must you read [i]everything[/i]?"[/b][/color] He grumbled irritably. 
He rolled his eyes and open his mouth to say more, but something else caught his attention. Four dimples in the snow. His eyes narrowed suspiciously and he raked his gaze across the ground. There were faint tracks half covered by a recent snow. Wolves by the look of it. At least two of them, but probably more. He walked a few paces and followed the trail. The tracks they lead into the mountains.
[color=#c6d6c2][b]"Stay alert."[/b][/color] There was an obvious note of urgency in his voice.

Astrid turned, saw his serious expression, and followed his eyes to the tracks on the ground. She could survive a fight against hungry wolves, but wolves in a pack became suspiciously intelligent. She disliked the idea of being ambushed. Then against her will, her dark imagination conjured the gruesome image of being eaten alive. The horrible reality was she would survive it. Her stomach turned at the thought.


[center][hr][h3]Chthonic Memories[/h3]
[@Rune_Alchemist][@Mag Lev][hr]
[img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/ed46ff68-95b2-42ec-a887-68cdc03e4ec4.jpg[/img][/center]

Several old timbers shuddered at the sound of grinding stone. A craggy boulder jutting out from a nearby hill sheared away from the ground. The boulder stood up. Patches of mottled leaves, vines, and rotted wood coalesced around its stony frame. The cracks across its chest formed the likeness of a moustached face centered atop a long, wooden nose. [i]A troll.[/i]
It made a strange noise--part yawn, part irritated growl, part earthquake. The cracks formed jagged slits which could be thought of as small, squinted eyes, although the sockets were empty, and the ledge of moss one might call a "brow" seemed furrowed.
The creature looked at the mountain, then stared at itself for awhile, and carefully picked a few strands of grass off of its arm. It turned with some effort, slow under its own ponderous weight, and stared blankly at Nara. With timeless inevitably, it shifted bodily towards Iva, then back to Nara again. And it continued like this for the next few minutes before its lichen-covered brow cracked apart and shifted upward, mimicking a vague expression of surprise. 
[b]"Only trolls allowed 'ere. Go back to your village, hu..."[/b] The troll suddenly seemed at a loss for words. It stared at Nara pensively. A nearby swallow took this opportunity to perch itself on the troll's brow, preened its feathers a bit, and then settled down for a long nap. The sound of rocks shifting and grinding together filled the silence.
[b]"Not human? What is you?"[/b] The troll rumbled at last. 
Its words bellowed as if echoing through a cavern. and its tone indicated the kind of displeasure one would expect from an intractable old man. Mildly annoyed by the disturbance, the birds collectively ruffled their feathers and puffed their chests, but ultimately didn't move.

[center][hr][h3]A Hungering Darkness[/h3]
[@Bkburke][hr]
[img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/ffbdc372-129d-4e75-b74d-811711f3128e.jpg[/img][/center]

Streaks of bright amber and hot orange gleamed along the walls of Masrith's icy hovel. Each facet was mirror that reflected a skewed version of his lithe, reptilian form. The cavern was long and sinuous, and it snaked further down, out of sight. Even while sitting completely still, staring into the throat of the cave gave the feeling of sliding downhill, like being swallowed by some colossal serpent.

Despite the distant sounds of shifting ice, the cavern was quiet and solemn. The Devil's Spine was forsaken place and every inch of the frozen terrain echoed this grim truth. 

As the firelight danced, time crawled. In the darkest depths of the earth, slick tendrils and a thousand hungry mouths skulked its way through narrow tubes and passageways. Every time the fire hissed, unnerving squelches and scratching noises responded. The sound was wrong. It didn't come from anywhere. It just pooled above or behind you like some dark cloud and crawled around the room. The silence that followed was worse. As if the air had died. It only ever lasted a moment, but Misrith's breathing, the crackle of the fire, and thumping of blood in his veins: all of it became suddenly silent.

[hr][center][h2]Into Nightmare[/h2]
[@Nerdy Reference][@Rune_Alchemist][@Mag Lev][@Shiyonichi][@Bkburke][/center][hr]


Like shadows moving behind a curtain, dark shapes darted around beneath the snow. They rapidly approached the two sisters ([@Shiyonichi]) cautiously making their way down the mountain slopes only to vanish into the crags of a rock face. Slowly, silently they worked a few stones loose. Their movements small and the sounds were drowned out by the wind. Then an ominous thunder ripped through the clear sky and signaled the coming disaster. The dull roar of crumbling stone and ice--at first distant, quickly rising into a violent crescendo and--echoed intensely throughout the valley. The ground shuddered as a snowy torrent began sliding down the mountainside. 

Just as the thundering cacophony of stampeding ice and snow became unbearable, a terrible wail tore through the mountains, drowning out the roar of the avalanche. The aurora above recoiled and dimmed, as if afraid. An impossible ripple spread across the mountains, warping the world as it went. It was primal and raw. It [i]felt[/i] ancient.

Obscured behind the clouds which hugged the tallest peaks, a titanic shadow began to move. The temperature across the gray mountain reaches plummeted as a foul wind whipped itself into a growing flurry. Hundreds of distant black wings arrowed into the sky and disappeared between the stars as the fell and terrible cry trailed off into a lonely whine. The excruciating sound of it burrowed into the hollow depths of the mind and scorched the senses with phantasmal agony: searing red hooks ripping every vein and artery from the body while glass shards raked along the inside of one's own skull.

[center]Gods long thought dead have begun to stir. 
Every soul in Norden heard the cry.
The sound and fury heralds the return of a blighted era.

[i]Extinction is approaching.[/i][/center]

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[hider=NOTE]
For clarity, the sections are put in what my best guess of chronological order would be (time frames are fuzzy and loosely contextualized here). This last part affects everybody. Enjoy the mental scars <3
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