[b][center]SUMMARY 
Warband Goliath's Rescue (2/15/21 )[/center][/b]







It is the beginning of our journey eastward when during a war meeting aboard the Karamzina the high command explain to us that there are three marooned Varyan arks situated ahead of us, further into the narrow corridor between the two glaciers. Inquisitors Galahad, Ziotea, Ragnar, Tatiana, Viveca and Oren volunteer to go on a scouting mission to find any survivors. Mother Yonah, a high-ranking member of the Divine Order, elects her bodyguard, Banou, to accompany them.

The inquisitors of Phoenix, Leviathan and Banou of the Secular Army commandeer the Sword of Dawn, a state of the art ether racer owned by Father Ilya, and journey toward the crashed arks.

Shortly before reaching their destination, a blast of ether comes from deeper in the corridor ahead and causes an explosion on the glacier wall, leading to a massive icefall that threatens to bury the Sword of Dawn. Banou hastily converts the ether racer into its underwater form and prepares to submerge in order to avoid the falling ice, but before the upper deck canopy can close shut a shard of ice collides with the racer and sends it tumbling underwater. Banou is thrown from the ark and into the unnatural cold depths, which begins to sap at her life energy. Viveca dives out of the racer after her and manages to reach Banou and bring her out of the water in time. Banou sustains some injuries, but surprisingly, the water didn't kill her like it would most non-inquisitors. The Sword of Dawn then emerges from the water and the group reconvenes and begins to plan their next move.

Elsewhere, three arks- the Kyselica, the Veles, and the Svarog have been marooned next to a glacier after they were caught within a cataclysmic ice fall that occurred during the First Armada's advance through the corridor. Rather than spend time and resources helping free them from the ice, the Armada proceeded eastward without them, and thus the crew of the three arks, which includes several members of Warband Goliath, were left to free themselves and rejoin the Armada when they were able.

This did not happen.

Not long after they were marooned, the survivors began to be terrorized by an unknown race of bestial humanoids, which they named the Icekin. The Icekin were intelligent warriors, nothing like the demons or creatures that prowl the frontiers of the continent, and attacked  wave after wave, slowly diminishing the number of survivors and their supplies as the months went on. Finally, in the third month of this brutal attrition campaign, the members of Warband Goliath and the men under their command are at a precipice. Their Protector, Mother Faina, has exhausted the last of their Omestrian ether stock, and her own ether pool is running dangerously low. She has been continuously keeping a low-powered aegis over the survivor's camp to keep them from freezing, but the warband has come to terms with the fact that sh can longer hold the protective veil after this day, and that once the aegis dies, they will too.

At that moment, they hear the strange song that fills the air just before an icekin attack, and sure enough, a legion of icekin arrive and garrison themselves atop the glacier, looking down on the survivors. They send a first wave of attackers, including a massive winged icehound. The tired, weakened survivors repel the attack, but not with some heavy losses. Father Taerlach, the Goliath warleader of Goliath, takes on the icehound himself, and with the help of Captain Fyodor, the leader of the few-remaining Secular Army survivors, he manages to take down the monstrous creature. However, he suffers mortal injuries and falls into the dark freezing water. He is about to die from exposure to the unnatural cold when Fyodor saves him by jumping in himself. 

Elsewhere, Mother Faina and Father Solim are trying to keep the aegis from disappearing when they find themselves facing off against a strange creature, a knight made of pure ice. The two exhausted inquisitors fight against the knight but the creature is too powerful and overpowers Father Solim after it slams him into the hard floor, shattering his bones. It begins to crush his throat, but just after Solim goes unconscious, he unwittingly summons his projection magic, which allows him to momentarily leave his body as an "ether ghost". Also having the ability to sense ether and the sources of where that ether is coming from, he discovers that the knight is being controlled by what appears to be a Lanostran peasant girl, who is, miraculously, also controlling all of the icekin. The girl is being accompanied by a mysterious Omestrian woman, who is somehow maintaining a small aegis around them. The ability to summon and maintain an aegis is top-level magic accessible only to the Red Seminary, and thus this comes as a shock to Father Solim, because this woman is no inquisitor.

Furthermore, the two mysterious figures are standing in front of a strange, foreign silver craft.

Suddenly, a loud explosion resonates from the survivor's camp, and in an instant the Lanostran girl falls to the ground screaming and writhing in pain. Her Omestrian companion then picks up the girl and retreats into the silver ship , turns on the engines, and speeds away. Before she does however, she orders the girl to command the icekin legion to attack.

Father Solim returns to his own body, and finds that the room they were in has been completely decimated. The steel walls and foundations have collapsed in on themselves, as though some impossible force pulled them inward, and along with the destruction he finds the ice knight shattered in pieces on the ground. It is then that he discovers Mother Faina lying motionless next to him, the color from her Varyan eyes gone, her hair turning white, and her cheeks beginning to sink into themselves. She used up all of her ether to cast her own deadly gravity-based magic to save his life, and if she doesn't get help soon, she will die.

At that moment, the rest of the warband arrives. The aegis is gone, and frost begins to slowly envelop the room. They must decide what to do next before the ice claims them once and for all.