The Powers that Beacon

## Synopsis

In Season 2, Chapter 20: The Powers That Beacon, the party took one final walk with Praxis vo-Malga to the edge of the first hill leading down into the Eastern Skybowl.  Despite a generous last-minute offer from Orba to retain his services, our Rapra Mountains guide wanted nothing to do with the forthcoming fight – so we parted ways and prepared to take the next steps on our own.

The ride down the slopes that followed was a little rockier than our first attempt, both literally and figuratively – and Safira in particular had trouble adjusting to the more difficult terrain.  We emerged in what our map had labeled as "Zone B3" with a few scrapes and bruises, but what was more notable were the cloven hoofprints we spotted on the way down… perhaps indicating the presence of more wildlife native to these higher elevations.

Putting that information in our back pocket for now, we unbuckled our slides and made for the nearest peak – one of the tallest in the whole Skybowl – hoping that we'd have a good vantage point from which to chart our course.

Hours passed and the relative emptiness of the region suited us just fine, allowing us to make fairly good time even though our hike was consistently uphill.  When we reached a clearing in the glade, however, there were more imprints in the snow that made us feel we were being followed, or at the very least observed – and the feeling was amplified when mischievous laughter was heard emanating from the tree line.

When we thought we'd located the source of the giggling, it turned out to be just a snowman… but such a manifestation of absurdity in an area so remote keyed Graven into the possibility that we were dealing with a Satyr: half man, half goat and fully unpredictable.

Presuming that a native might have insight about frightening creatures wandering through their neighborhood, we made an effort to play along with his hijinks – but an innocent snowball fight turned into a suddenly hazardous affair as the trickster brought Snow Golems to life to fight for his side.

Being pelted and slapped with ice and compacted snow didn't quite have the charm we'd anticipated, but a steady diet of magic to wear the Golems down gave Erland an opening to track the Satyr's footprints and disrupt the invisibility that he'd used to evade our detection.

Insisting that he never intended to cause serious harm, the man identified himself as "Marcus of the Mountain" – and the more we learned about him, the more his outward whimsy veered into the realm of the unsettling.  Marcus recognized Graven from the same long-ago hunting trip that Praxis had referenced when we first met – and though he told a tale of his friend's murder at Graven's hands, he did so in a strangely unaffected way that made us unsure of whether he could be relied upon.

He did have a little bit of insight regarding the possessed goliaths, but of more interest to us was his ability to turn not only himself but *others* invisible – an incredible scouting tool that we unfortunately learned wouldn't last long enough to be useful at this particular moment… and even if it was, you'd have to trust Marcus not to dispel it at an inopportune time.

When we eventually left his company, we had some lingering concerns that by letting Marcus know what we were searching for, we'd inadvertently given him a way to find us later – but trying to predict his erratic behavior was futile, so we left the clearing and started to move toward the D and E zones of the Skybowl.

A third attempt at using the slides was our most challenging yet; a litany of bumps, collisions and crashes that got us thinking about stopping to rest even before the sun had set.  Not wanting to miss our window of opportunity, however, we vowed to reach the top of the next hill before making such arrangements – and on our way up, got our first glimpse of some haggard-looking goliaths in the distance… a sign that we might be getting close to our quarry.

With the sky darkening and the wind howling, we failed to find a suitable shelter to fully restore our energy – but did our best under the circumstances to regain some small bit of strength and resolve.  When the sun finally dipped behind the Rapra peaks, we put our eyes to work – and it was Erland who detected the unnatural, sweeping flash of light to the north: the Coldlight Walker, we were certain of it.

While making our final arrangements, Graven asked for a bit of privacy and beseeched the pantheon of the Meddling Gods for help with a missing spell component and the rest of us waited to see who might heed his call.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: four natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 each by John and Riley, and 2 by Anthony.