Travels Through Telara


The Story
SoFar:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week1">Part
1
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week2">Part
2
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week3">Part
3
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week4">Part
4
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week5">Part
5
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week6">Part
6
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week7">Part
7
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week8">Part
8
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week9">Part
9
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week10">Part
10
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week11">Part
11
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week12">Part
12
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week13">Part
13
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week14">Part
14
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week15">Part
15
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week16">Part
16
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week17">Part
17

By Padraic




Greetings, dear reader. It is a glorious day in Potter’s Field. The sun
is shining. Bran is off picking strawberries with a pretty young girl
he has been admiring and Barik is in a supremely gregarious mood. So
much so that he wants to tell me a bit about his home, the Iron Pine
Peaks. A perfect fit for my journals, so I’m going to let him do the
talking and I will simply write down what he says verbatim.



“It’s cold,” he says over a mug of mead. “Ice, freezing frigid cold.
Colder than a witch’s t**s. The likes of you would freeze your skinny
bones off.  You’d be off, crying back to your mummy as soon as
the night comes. It gets into outsiders’ bones, see. Freezes them from
the inside out. But even with all that, it’s beautiful, unnerstand?
There’s a majesty  to those frozen peaks. A constant stream of
powdered snow that blows with the wind, like clouds scudding through
the sky. Giant pine trees grow wherever they can, eking out a living in
the crags and rocks. Tough. That’s what ye need to be to survive up
there. Hardy.






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“ ‘Course, it wasnae always like that. The valley used to be lush
forests. Grasslands surrounding the peaks, horse clans moving between
their camps.”



He paused, taking a sip from his mug.



“What happened?” I asked. “What changed?”



“Crucia happened, that’s what. This was way back, during the Age of
Dragons, right? She wanted a home close to the sky, and—“ he sat back
with a proud grin on his face – “Iron Pine Peaks is the highest range
in Telara. You know that?”



I admitted that I did know that. He looked a bit disappointed.



“Anyway, Crucia and her armies moved through the mountains, enslaving
the people. But not just normal slavery, you hear? She enslaved their
minds as well. There was nothing they could do to resist. Crucia
invaded their heads, corrupting their very souls. She forced them to
build a magnificent city that reached up to the clouds, and when it was
fianlly finished, she lived there with her slaves, forcing them to
dance for her amusement while the icy winds blew through the open
corridors, while snow built up beneath open windows, freezing doors on
their hinges.”


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“But we weren’t going to stand for it, aye?” Borik leaped to his feet,
spilling mead over his hand. He downed the drink, then threw the mug
against the wall. He brandished an imaginary sword. “We rose up and cut
her down, sliced her to pieces, because no one can keep down Iron
Pikers, yes? No one enslaves us. We’re the ice! We’re the rock. We’re
the freezing wind that tears through the air. We—“



I sighed and let him carry on. He finally finished up his rant and
collapsed back into his chair. I waited for him to continue. He opened
his mouth, raised a finger in the air, then closed his eyes and started
snoring.



Right. So I will continue.



It wasn’t, as Bork says, the common people who rose up. At least not at
first. It was the Warlord Börte who was responsible for that. With her
allies, the mage Phynnious Roth-mann and Ekkehard, Shaman of the
Valnir, they led the armies against Crucia’s Storm Legion. Börte is now
numbered as one of the greatest generals in the history of Telara. For
her deeds at Iron Pine Peaks. She and her allies marched a force of
Telarans into the mountains. They were outnumbered four-to-one by
Crucia’s armies. Börte’s army faltered at the sight of Crucia’s
fighters laid out before them on the snow-covered plain, line upon
line, column upon column.



But Börte didn’t let that stop her. She saw the doubt and she
immediately led her army into the fray. Alas, Crucia swept them aside
like leaves in a winter wind, and then she picked through any
survivors, and gave them a slow and very public death.



Börte saw the effect this had on her soldiers. Not only the defeat, but
the Storm Legion had Infiltrators in their camp, Infiltrators who
started to whisper of surrender, of giving in. When Börte saw what was
happening she lined up her troops and stood before them. Luckily for
us, her words were recorded so that future generation could hear of her
inspiration.




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“Children of Telara! I see the fear in your eyes, cold as these icy
peaks. Let your fury melt it away! Stand unbent before the forces of
the Storm Queen, and laugh at them for assuming you would break!



“Our despair is Crucia’s strength, so she wants to break us, to see us
submit. But in standing against her now, we have already won! We are
girded against her victory by our unbroken spirits. We stand next to
each other, emboldened by hope: hope that our children will fear no
planar whelp, and will only know of the Blood Storm as proof their
ancestors were strong!



“In a not-so-distant place, my father led the Shalastir to drive Crucia
back! Today, I bid you do the same! Hold fast to this world! Rip Telara
from Crucia’s claws and break her fingers so she cannot grasp at us
again! Ride, my brothers! Fight, my sisters! CRUSH THEM!”



Her army roared in triumph at her words. She turned and rode into
battle, her soldiers right behind her. They fought off and defeated the
Storm Legion, and in a feat of sorcery never since equaled, Phynnious
Rothmann and Ekkehard trapped Crucia inside her city, then shouted
incantations that banished every shred of heat from the air. The valley
filled with ice, pierced only by the topmost spires of the city.



Crucia was trapped inside a prison of her own making.



And since that day, Iron Pike Peaks has been cloaked in snow and ice,
an eternal winter gripping the land in its cruel talons.



“The cold’s in yer blood!” Borik suddenly shouted, jerking forward in
his chair. I squealed slightly in fright, but he had already fallen
back to sleep again.











The Story So
Far:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week1">Part
1
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week2">Part
2
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week3">Part
3
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week4">Part
4
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week5">Part
5
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week6">Part
6
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week7">Part
7
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week8">Part
8
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week9">Part
9
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week10">Part
10
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week11">Part
11
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week12">Part
12
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week13">Part
13
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week14">Part
14
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week15">Part
15
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week16">Part
16
| href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/features/travels/week17">Part
17


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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