Fields of Ice

[Amaterasu]

The quest done from here on is "Into the Hall", posted below (personal reminder).

[spoiler]Requirements: Not affiliated with Zul'Gurand
Difficulty: Moderate (5000-10,000 words dependent on writing quality)
Reward: 300 OM, Ceremonial Dwarven Weapon or armament (Flavor Item, may be fashioned as a Move), Permission to enter Mithral Hall inside Dwarveholm

Location: Frozen Fields (various)
The dwarves that reside in the mountain fortress-town of Dwarveholm are constantly harassed by the trolls. Despite King Bruenor’s efforts at a ceasefire, the racial hatred that Zul’jin and his trolls carry for humans, elves, and everything resembling them is far too deep. As such, the mountains of the Frozen Fields are often a site of perpetual guerilla war, with dwarves and trolls always raiding one another. Support from the Kingdom used to give the dwarves and edge, but with that material and manpower support dried up, the trolls have taken the advantage.

As a result, King Bruenor has an open-door policy with Dwarveholm. He accepts all travelers and all merchants, seeking to profit over the trolls’ deep-set hatreds. This is not to say anyone can become respected or buddies with the king and his inner circle. In fact, troll-aligned spies have caused Bruenor to be cautious with whom he accepts inside Mithral Hall. Those who seek an audience with the king and to become a part of his war against the trolls must gather materials precious to the dwarves—cobalt and wampa fur, which are used in many of their blacksmith and armorsmith projects.

The would-be ally of the dwarves must also defeat a troll in combat and return with their tusk. They must then prove their mettle by sparring with and besting a dwarven champion. Only such an individual will be honored with access to the inner sanctum of Dwarveholm and permission to sit at the mead hall with King Bruenor.

Quest Stipulations - Character must retrieve a chunk of cobalt. Character must bring back a wampa hide. Character must bring back the tusk of a slain troll. Character must defeat a dwarven champion in a sparring bout.[/spoiler]

Whumph. Wrshhhhh... Whumph. Wrshhhhh... Whumph.

The sound of the Fur-Selkie's fin-hands smacking into the snow, propelling it forward to slide for a dozen meters, rinse and repeat, was quite monotone. Calming, but also tiring. Amaterasu knew that she had probably dozed off a few times by now. To keep herself from falling asleep completely she summoned filling food like rice cakes and fruit that she could keep chewing for a while, even though she wasn't very hungry. I've to take care not to fall asleep... not when I don't know my surroundings and am traveling alone. As unfortunate as it was, the troll she had slain when meeting Urist was probably buried by snow and even if he wasn't she would be having a harder time finding him than a needle in a haystack, with the sheer size of the plains she was navigating and no landmark or other means of finding her way back. She would have to slay another troll. And hopefully find a wampa cave somewhere while she was at it.

In the snowstorms obscuring the sun she had lost track of time. She had slept when tired, cuddled up against the warming fur of her Fur-Selkie, and had advanced the rest of the time, only stopping for bodily needs or to lead the Fur-Selkie around a particularly dangerous spot like spiky rocks sticking out of the snow. Where she was even going, she had little idea. She trusted the dwarves' advice on getting towards the center of the verse as there were plenty of caverns. They'd told her that it was one of the places where wampas tended to hide out, but there were no specific spots. She would have to get lucky.

A gust of wind freed up the sky long enough that Amaterasu could catch a glimpse of the mountaintop, much closer than she had expected. It wasn't going to be much further then. In anticipation of a battle she loosened the Yasakani no Magatama around her neck, ready to send them off at the first notice of an attack. From the back of her Fur-Selkie she felt relatively safe, but one couldn't be careful enough. However she got up to the side of a rock cliff without any further issues. From there on things were a little harder... the cliff looked very high, she couldn't tell as the fog was blocking the view a few meters up, so she instead began walking along the side. There was a mild chance that there would be a cave somewhere into that cliff after all.

It did not take long for her to notice footprints on the ground. There was both small ones, clearly resulting from someone with shoes that had wandered around, and much larger footprints with claw marks. She was not a very good tracker but even with the snow slowly filling the prints back up she could see that these prints belonged to a predator. Bipedal, clearly... there were no matching prints nearby that would belong to fore-paws. They were older than the shoe-made prints so she presumed that whoever wore these was probably following the beast just like herself. Could it be...? No, she should not get ahead of herself, these prints could belong to anyone, though the hope existed that Oki was indeed here. She brushed her hand over the prints to see if she could dig out any details, but finding none decided to pursue them on foot. By guiding the Fur-Selkie by the reins behind herself she got it to cover up the tracks by sliding over them with its belly and fins, thereby preventing any potential followers from finding out anything more than that someone had passed through here - the number of individuals, for instance - and possibly capitalizing on it to prepare an ambush. After all she might run into trolls thirsty for a fight, other predators out for a morsel, or even dwarves that mistook her for an attacker. And even if she didn't it couldn't hurt to clean up behind herself when the extra effort was negligible. She could not mount the Fur-Selkie again regardless, the risk of losing track of the footprints in the snow from the elevated position of the beast's saddle was too great.
 
For the next two hours Amaterasu chased the two rows of footprints. Always sticking close to the cliff wall, looking behind herself (of course, past the Fur-Selkie, not at it), checking if there was anything unusual ahead or coming from the sides or above. Her Yasakani no Magatama were always held at the ready, prepared for an ambush. When the trail broke off, buried under a small avalanche that had fallen down from the cliffs above, Amaterasu gritted her teeth. She had to find a new lead, and fast, before the trail turned cold... the snow covered a wide area, making it hard to find anything under there. But what was that? Off in the distance she could see a dark spot on the cliff wall... a cavern entrance. She narrowed her eyes. Could it be...? As she stepped closer, leaving her Fur-Selkie behind, she noticed the bones scattered in front of the entrance, and the blood splatters on the walls. Some of the bones reminded her of mortal's... she had to take a big breather to calm her stomach. No time to feel sick. Drawing closer still she could see the claw marks on the stone walls, pointing out that this was indeed a predator's den. Could it be a wampa? She had never seen one, now that she thought of it. Only its laid-out hide.

She steeled herself, finding her inner center, and approached the cave from the side, then leant over to look at the inside. The stench of blood and of a big, unwashed animal almost made her spill her stomach's contents out after all, but she forced herself to not think about it. She could see it... a massive beast, larger even than the one whose hide was now adorning the floor of the inn she had stayed at. Its back was turned towards her, it was seemingly gnawing on something, probably its latest prey. Whew... only now did the Sun kami realize that she had not considered HOW to defeat such a beast. Her Yasakani no Magatama would probably do little more than distract the beast. And she could not afford to use her Power Slash too much, or else the hide would be ruined. The dwarves probably wanted it whole to fashion items with, slashing it to pieces would gore it and make it useless to them. She looked down at her waist, at the golden ink pots. It was then that a familiar voice spoke.

"Mother Amaterasu, don't say you have forgotten about me now", spoke Bakugami in an amused tone.

"Bakugami?" asked Amaterasu. The Celestial Brush God of the Cherry Bomb technique.

"This being does not seem like it's the smartest tool in the shed. Using your Yasakani no Magatama you can push my bomb around to get it close to the beast, and have it blow up in its face. Better yet, try to get it to bite into the bomb or devour it. If it explodes within we could kill it in one quick go."

"You're right... quick and painless. Hopefully it doesn't have a strong stomach." She murmured and grabbed her brush, then began drawing. Out of the circle with a line sticking out of it, like a Q in the western alphabet, a colorful ball appeared in midair and began rolling towards the beast. Amaterasu had ensured to give this one a long fuse. She muttered a few words as the beast spun around as it heard something invade its den, then eyed the weird colorful object curiously, reached its enormous clawed paw out and lifted it to its face, before throwing it between its jaws and devouring it whole. Then it looked around before picking up a bone and returning to gnawing. No explosion to be heard.

"Must've snuffed out the fuse when eating it..." mumbled Amaterasu, but the beast had visibly liked it. From that she sprung a strategy: she drew several more bombs, each with a progressively short fuse, and sent them rolling towards the monster which in turn ate one after another, with its saliva snuffing the fuse out before the bomb could go off. That is, until one of them had a fuse too short for the beast to close its jaws before it burned out, and the bomb exploded right inside its maw.

Amaterasu rapidly pressed her back against the wall of the cliff and covered herself. The force of the explosion blew outside of the cave with the rock tunneling the force, but it flew past her. She could not see what gruesome scene her attack had left behind, but she could imagine it. No sound came and when she briefly checked she saw the carcass. It was headless - and unless wampas somehow could live on despite that and this one was playing possum it was dead for certain. She sunk against the wall of the cliff and muttered a brief prayer to guide the beast's soul to the afterlife, then closed her eyes and covered her nose as she ran into the cave. With a pair of carefully-placed Power Slashes she was able to open the carcass sufficiently that she could skin it with the knife she had gotten from the troll. The whole process took nearly a full hour, but eventually she had removed the hide from the carcass, rolled it up and brought it back to her Fur-Selkie. She also took a few extra minutes to cut the horns and claws off and store them in a pouch on her saddle. They seemed to be durable and might just come in handy at a later date. The carcass would probably attract scavengers so she couldn't stay around for long... only a few minutes to get the horrible smell of the cavern's insides out of her system. Her head was spinning at this point. She sat on the Fur-Selkie's fin and took deep breaths, as bad as that might be to do in an icy region. Had Oki been around, he would have given her an extensive lecture on preserving warmth in such a climate.

Speaking of Oki... she had not remembered to check out the footprints. Did they lead back to the cavern as well? Or maybe some other way? She should have checked... no, she still would. AFTER her head stopped spinning like this.

1.772 words written.

Amaterasu has spent 2 SP (2x Celestial Brush: Power Slash, to skin the wampa). Should she get into any battle within the next few IC hours she will start out with 1-2 SP depending on the time given to regenerate them.

✓ Wampa killed and skinned for its hide.
✘ Troll slain and proof of its death obtained.
✘ Cobalt ore chunk mined.
✘ Dwarven champion defeated in spar.