> Rest here for a bit to catch your breath before continuing. <
[Spend 1 hour resting: Reduce harm to minor, "bruised legs"]
A short but strong breath escaped your lungs, as you returned the little vial to its slightly-less-little leather strap affixed to your armor. Your head tilted back, the stars between the cliffs coming to view as you slumped a bit further into the rock. Every part of you screamed to stay here, to stay still and rest. You were inclined to agree but, out in the open like this wasn't the best spot. There was always the threat that this wasn't the only troll nearby. Reluctantly, you pushed yourself to your feet, your legs wobbling as you slowly carried yourself further down the pass. You weren't looking to make it to the temple like this, instead scanning the corners again for somewhere dark and quiet. Luckily, one such place came into view around the next bend, and you carefully slipped between the large crack in the wall. A wave of relief washed over you as you lowered yourself once again onto the ground. Just an hour or so would be enough, you figured, eyeing the angle of the moonlight outside to mark the passing of time. Hopefully Aika had that much time to wait as well.
When you awoke from your short respite, the soreness coursing through you was certainly still present, but at least it wasn't nearly crippling. It only hurt quite a bit instead. The cold and rough stone around you didn't exactly make for a luxury nap though, something your neck and back scolded you for as you began to move but quickly wore off as you stretched in the open.
The remainder of your hike through the pass was- thankfully- less than eventful. Your footsteps were the only sound for several minutes as you made your way through, breaching the other side and finally bringing the temple's face into view. The only problem was, the final peak upon which the entrance sat put the rest of the mountain range to shame, tall and wide enough to once again shield you from the glare of the moon. A staircase before you granted you a delayed ingress to the temple, if you could conquer its many flights which wound around the peak several times on the way up. Nowhere to go but up, you redoubled your resolve, putting as many steps of the stairs behind you as you could- one at a time.
Along the snaking set of layered and leveled bricks, many small altars sat adorned with age-old decorations; offerings of visitors past in the forms of dried and dead wreaths, flowers, and meats, all too cold and stagnant to decay further, as well as miniscule sums of coin, pendants, and rings. Even an old and rusted sword laid propped artistically against one such pedestal, undisturbed likely for decades if not longer due to the wear of the now unusable blade. Worst of all, though, were the bodies of those who failed to make the pilgrimage in full, either from exhaustion or- by the look of most of them- done in by the cruelty of gravity. Your eyes rose to the flights above, noting that each lap around the mountain left the stairs more deteriorated than the last. As you might have expected, inspecting these corpses offered little, any possessions not plucked clean from them already were ruined by time. Nevertheless, you cautiously pressed on, determined not to let yourself or Aika end up like them.
If you had thought the view standing beside Umildraen was remarkable, looking back across your journey's path from the entrance to the temple was simply breathtaking. The edge of the platform faced south, meaning that the forests of Vatiir now sat on your left in the far distance. From this elevation, you were certain that in the day you might be able to see the rainbow flower fields beyond that marked the center of the Gelish Kingdom. Before you, the snow-covered tops of the cliffs you walked though once again were visible, eerily flat planes of white untouched by the prints of passage, and beyond them the smaller peak you had stood at when your guide left you. Further down the mountain was somewhat obscured by the mountain itself, but you could reasonably assume in which direction Umildraen's cottage sat nestled into the snow, much further south and down the roads that winded toward the world below.
As you turned to face the temple, you were met with several stone pillars in pairs that supported archways to walk under as you approached the entrance. Perhaps to your surprise- perhaps not- the doors to the temple itself were open, humanoid sized stone slats emblazoned with the depiction of a dragon on the right side, and several small humanoid figures on the left both bowed inward to allow you to slip through. This was it, the Temple of Zorkuth. You took a deep breath, checked your gear once over, and turned to sidle your way through the doors and into the temple.
Near darkness engulfed you immediately as you set foot into the temple. The shimmering, almost magical silver light outside only reached so far into this first room, but the difference was made up for by a dull and mundane orange that beat with a sporadic and waning flicker. To the right, on the far wall, a lone sconce sat with a lit torch, illuminating a table and bookshelf upon which several items laid across. Too far for you to inspect from here, but looking between the space revealed that the ground between was marked with small formations of ice, likely footprints of snow dragged in from outside, melted by body heat and refrozen by the frigid infrastructure of the temple itself. To the left, the faint glow of the torch barely scraped the walls. Shapes of some objects could barely be made out in varying sizes, but...
• Inspect the illuminated table on the right.
• Draw and light your own torch, and inspect the shapes to the left.
• You can see more clearly in the dark than humans, inspect the shapes to the left without need of a torch.
[Write in: Define your race as one with dark vision]
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