Cold is the Void

[Amaterasu]

Expedition, Day 19 – Day 7 of the Ascent – The Afternoon
The Summit

Void Quest Complete! Amaterasu and co are now progressing into the Void.

A gust of icy wind and a bright, clear light greeted them as they exited the tunnels. Amaterasu immediately felt dizzy and gasped for air, and she wasn’t the only one – up here the air they breathed was so thin that they thought they would suffocate. She wanted to close her eyes and lay down, but she knew that if she did that she wouldn’t get back up. Her hand gripped Oki’s tighter and it made their gloves rustle.
 
They stood in an enormous bowl, surrounded on all sides by insurmountable walls of ice. Above these walls spires rose towards the sky like the outstretched fingers of a hand that grasped for the stars. And from the top of these spires numerous sets of eyes looked down at them showing expressions from cold judgement to barely contained rage.
 
The Blue Dragonflight.
 
Their gaze seemed to strip away their clothes and skin, peering straight into their minds and uncovering their every secret. Amaterasu shuddered. She felt like wrapping her arms around herself and turning away from them. She felt like screaming for it to stop. She felt like running away.
 
She realized that each second they spent here alive was because these dragons had not decided to kill them yet. She realized that they stood no chance against even one of them. The very idea of strong-arming her way past them to their destination now appeared ludicrous to her. To fight them? What a joke. They would squish her like they would squish a fly.
 
Then a roar boomed through the bowl and the tension shattered like a thin sheet of ice. The dragons turned their eyes skywards then bowed their heads as a dragon larger and shining brighter than all others descended from the clear skies and landed before them. His look alone was as terrifying as those of the other dragons combined.
 
“So, you have made it.” His voice shook them down to their very bones, resonating through their bodies with more force than the largest Taiko drum’s beat.  Before this primal titan Amaterasu’s voice sounded meeker than a newborn child’s.
 
“Yes.”
 
“Why did you scale the mountain and brave the trials within? What is it that you seek?” the ancient dragon asked. “Have you come seeking treasure and riches… or perhaps fame and power?” His words carried with him a far from subtle threat. Should she answer wrong their lives would be instantly forfeited.
 
“We have come… to find the tear in the sky of the Frozen Fields”, said Amaterasu. Where she pulled the courage to speak from she could not tell. “We covet not the Dragonflight’s riches or homes. We’re just… passing through.”
 
“You’re just passing through”, Sapphiron repeated. “To pursue a Rock-Child’s wild tale you have endured the Storm that I summoned and passed the trials of the mountain.”
 
Amaterasu hung her head low. So Glod had been wrong all along… there was no tear here after all. They had come for naught.
 
A deep, rumbling sound coming from within the dragon made her look up again. It was strangely rhythmic, and it grew louder. Then he threw his head back and let out that sound through his toothed maw, and the other dragons on the spires joined in. They laughed. They were laughing.
 
For over a minute they laughed, and only after it had ebbed away did the gigantic beast speak again. “You may pass.”
 
Amaterasu was dumbfounded. She just stood there, unable to say a word.
 
“Go straight through the area and climb the summit that rises behind it. There you will find what you seek… but heed my warning, whelps: make one wrong move and you will find yourselves plummeting from the cliffs.” With that warning the dragon unfolded his wings and rose into the sky again. His take-off nearly blew them to the ground, and he roared once more, to which the Dragonflight took off from their spires.
 
“Tha’ musta been Sapphiron… the Elder ‘mong tha Blue Dragonflight”, said Urist after a short while of them simply observing the dragons. “Ta think tha’ ah got t’see ‘im this close an’ ah’m still alive…”
 
“The Elder?” asked Oki.
 
“Aye… one o’ the oldest Primes o’ the Omniverse, they say. Been to the Frozen Fields long ‘fore the dwarves an’ trolls, he has. Bu’, we should get goin ‘fore they change their mind. Ah don’ think tha’ their good mood from the laugh is gonna last ‘em forever.”
 
“You’re right. Let’s get moving, everyone. And don’t let each other’s hands go”, Amaterasu warned. With that they all broke into a moderate walk, as best as they could muster given the thin air.
 
 
The summit that Sapphiron had pointed them to was a mountain that looked almost laughably stereotypical: a snow-covered peak tipped with a speartip-shaped rock that pointed skywards. The sky seemed to get blurrier the closer they got, as if it was drawn onto a giant canvas to deceive those who looked at it from far away. How peculiar… however as they got closer, they saw something else. It was a purplish outline with irregular, zigzagged edges, forming a long rip above the spear-shaped rock – as if reality was a painting that someone had brutally torn a shred out of, leaving a hole. What was it with all the painting comparisons, anyway…? Then she remembered that she was Amaterasu, the master of the Celestial Brush. This lack of air was really getting to her head.
 
An ascent that should have taken no more than an hour took them almost three as a result of the increasingly hard-to-breathe air. Up here, even Amaterasu’s ability to summon Omnilium was ineffective as she could not maintain her mind focused, otherwise she would have summoned air bubbles or something to that effect. Towards the last thirty minutes none of them could stop staring at the phenomenon before them anymore: the rip had first just been an outline that one could see through, but the closer they got, the more distinct that outline became, and the darker the area in its center appeared. By the time they reached the summit it looked like a window into a night sky: pitch black with tiny white dots. It exerted a magical attraction towards them, yet they kept each other from walking towards it like a moth towards a flame.
 
“Bruenor’s beard”, Urist finally murmured. “Me da was right all along…”
 
“We don’t know yet”, said Amaterasu as she tried to measure the rip that extended before them. It was about horizontal and looked like it was right above the tip of the spear rock – as if by some titanic movement the entire mountain had been displaced and the rock had cut open the sky and left that opening. How would they even get up there?
 
“Wha d’ya mean?”
 
“We don’t know what this… thing really is. But I want to find out.”
 
“So we’re going to…” began Oki.
 
“… go in there. Yes. It’s probably the last chance for any of us to turn back… there may be yet a way to descend from here. I could attempt to transform you to have wings or some such.” She looked at Urist most of all. The dwarf had found out the truth now, and he was the one who she could not bring back if he were to meet his end here.
 
“… nah. Ah’m not chickenin’ out now. Ah’m goin’ in there with ye, Ama. An’ without ye too.”
 
Fiara held back a chuckle. “We have gone through far too much to quit now. Don’t try to make any of us turn back.”
 
“You’re right, Fiara…” She looked forward. “Okay. Urist… I think you’re needed here. How do we climb this rock?”
 
And finally, finally the climbing pickaxes, hooks and ropes that they had carried around all that time made themselves useful. Even with the dwarf’s skills, the ten-or-so meter ascent nearly had them faint several times as the effort threatened to tire them out coupled with the low supply of air. But then they each were at the very top. They stored away their equipment lest they rouse the Dragonflight’s rage, and Amaterasu raised her hand. It vanished into the darkness.
 
“I… I grabbed something”, she said. “Climb onto my shoulders and wait for me. Don’t let each other go… in fact, Urist. Tie a rope around our waists so we stay together. I have a feeling that we’ll need it.”
 
“You got it, Ama.” The dwarf made swift work, securing them to each other to make sure they would not lose each other in whatever was to come. Then they climbed. Oki first, he face-checked by inserting his head and shoulders into the black portal, then signalling to them by hand that it was safe to follow and climbing in all the way. Fiara followed him, then Urist, and finally the three of them dragged Amaterasu in by her arms.
 
And thus the group of four completed their ascent, disappearing into the unknown Void at the highest peak of the Frozen Fields to embark on the next leg of their journey. What awaited them ahead they had no idea.
 
They were about to find out.