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[Dan]

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The winter hills whistled loudly as the snowfall gusts flew over the peaks of Ice Island. No matter where you went in all of Sosaria, the peaks and shores of this island never really changed, in all its years of existence.

It was home.

As morning slowly crept up into the windows of the homes surrounding the base of the mountain, the sunlight glistened over the oceanside and sparkled across the sea until the eye could see no further. Some say that if you look long enough, you could even see brief glimpses of rainbows shooting off the razor peaks of such floating glaciers. Both beautiful, and deadly, it only helped the isolation of the isle altogether, really...

While he looked over his knees to the small hamlets branching about the shoreline, his distant watch caught a lone wizard emerging from a portal....a "moongate" if his memories served him correctly. Watching this, he slowly rose from his crouched, sitting position, into a stand. As he rose, his ever close companion, his warfork, found his grasp and came up to his side as well. Always at his side.

Has he descended from the edge of the mountain's plateau, his now middle-aged body began to recollect many memories that had faded from him during his time at the isle. Friends, comrades, politics, everything that had faded from him during his retreat slowly flowed back into his mind. His body remembered too, his old duelist days as the cliffside gave away! As what had seemed like ground crumbled beneath his feet, his quickly lashed his warfork out to catch something, ANYTHING, that would save his hide from plummeting into what would be a guaranteed retirement.

Unfortunately, his warfork only slashed nothing but snow and snow along, but what would have seemed like a sheer fall ended up being steep landslide, a landslide heading down, down, down into a very unwelcoming gorge ahead. Unwilling to submit, and his weapon unwilling to hit any latching surface, he quickly turned at the last moment and made a desperate, straightforward leap towards the other side.

...but he didn't make it...

...however, what fortune lingered among those frozen hilltops seemed to find him then, for his leap made it across the gorge, though not over it. His weapon not dug into the wall above as the rest of his body slammed into the frozen rock. Grunting with pain, he could only look up and prepare for the worst, as his other hand gripped his weapon handle as well.

The frozen wastes toppled into the gorge, with snow and rocks and ice pouring down atop of him.
_________________
AKA: Gryss ab'Arawn
AKA: Jode Bonewits

[Dan]

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The wizard from earlier, going by the alias of Beryl, made haste to reach the gorge of the mountain slope to catch wind of what had passed. Despite his haste though, he made mental note that caution should be exercised so that he would not fall into the gorge. Any normal, unenchanted man would be quick to fall down into the dark depths of the mountain, into the depths that no man on the isle had ever returned from.

After casting a few cantrips on himself, his careful approach brought him to the edge of the gorge. As he scanned the scene above, it seemed odd that a landslide would happen this early in the day. Usually landslides of this size did not happen until after a full noon's heat melted what ice it could. And even then, snowfall was ever-constant at night, quickly refreezing anything that could have melted.

Beryl looked down into the gorge to inspect the scene further, and as his eyes peered below, a red glint caught his eye on the wall directly under his feet.

"Could it be?" he dare asked himself as he kneeled in closer to the figure, then dropped his bearded jaw (though you couldn't tell) when he suddenly realized what it truly was that clung to the side of the gorge. At the end of the red warfork, a warfork with edged posed like an eagle's talons, with a secure hook on the rocky side, hung what would appear to be a battered man. This "man", so it seemed, took what final moments he could before being beaten from conciousness to secure his hold onto his weapon by wrapping his hand around the weapon's strapping hoop, which dangled from the handle of the weapon.

Beryl closed his eyes and gave a brief, but subtle grin at the realization. "Clumsy as always, but still resourceful nonetheless..." he muttered to himself. Coming to a stand now, the wizard begin to cast a spell, and in a flash of light, both of them were gone in an instant.

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What seemed like hours later, the duelist awoke to the sound of a burning fire and a soft, sinister chuckle next to him. Looking over, suspecting something unfortunate, he sighed a breath of relief but did not raise it brow. "Beryl, is it now? Perfect, another debt I do not need to bear for you, of all people..."

"Well aren't we grateful? You always were a fool when it came to getting yourself into trouble..."

Beryl then peered over to the wall above the fireplace, where there hanged a dark cloak, a full suit of umbran armor, and a sheath strapped to the belt, with the handle of a kryss. His bedridden friend followed suit, but only looked away again as soon as he set eyes on the accursed memoir.

"...why do you keep it?", said the friend, as he looked back to his friend, straight into his eyes with his own, still soft, hazel eyes.

"Would you prefer I had donned it on another nameless Umbran? You of all people should appreciate carrying reminders on themselves!", he said teasingly , poking the middle of his friend's forehead. His bare forehead. "I wonder friend, what other memories have you been trying to elude out here on the isle? What did you even try to come out from your hideaway in the first place? Its not as..."

"...not another word!!!" he said then, and as his exclamation was being digested by Beryl, he turned his legs on the bed and began pushing himself forward with his arms. However, one was much weaker than the other, both physically and in other ways...

Smirking then, Beryl simply pushed himself up with his old sheperd's crook and paced towards the fire. Making his way towards it, his slipped his hand out and motioned it to the side, issuing his favorite chair to drag itself forward towards him so that he may sit before the flames. After taking a moment to place his old body upon it, he rested back into it and motioned his hand once more to pull the red warfork out of the fires.

"It is warm to the touch, almost the same warmth as fresh blood, if I do say so myself", he said, then looked towards his friend sadly. "You are sure your ready to leave, brother?"

Taking the moment to consider the question, Beryl's brother then pushed himself off the bed and somewhat maintained a steady balance. Finding his footing, he strode to the far table on the other side of the room, and began putting on his warm coat and gloves. "..and you, of all people brother, should know to never look back. What would Velvet think?"

They both smiled to that, and briefly relived old memories, of a group of companions rushing into a dungeon with their sheen black cloaks flowing behind them.

"I may hold memoirs, brother Beryl, and my memories may haunt me from time to time, but at least I know my flaws, my limits. Unlike you, I do not let an old practice burden my shoulders with guilt.", he said as he made his way to the window. Looking outside now, both brothers looked up into the late morning sunrise as it, like before, poured the morning sunshine in each and every home's window on the isle. "And neither do I let my past flaws falter my road. After all, does sun not rise again?"

"Ever the optimist..." came Beryl's only response, and with that he tipped his wizard's cap down to conceal his eyes from the shine that was flooding his home's window. With that, Beryl's brother gripped his warfork back from Beryl's now loose, distant grip. Beryl seemed to be going back down a dark road he hadn't traversed in quite some time now, the brother reasoned. Rare was it that he would ever lose such squabbles to his older brother.

Thinking this, he made his way for the bookshelf, and crouched down to finger through the books. Of course, the dusty, overshadowed bottom shelf still held his old necromancy books, and the same envelope that still stuck out at the end. The same envelope with the same pink ribbon tied in a knot on the corner. Soon enough, the runebook was found from the bookshelf and as flipped through to the proper page, he looked up and turned to Beryl.

"Where will you go, Dan?"

"To get my bandana back, Baric."

*poof*
_________________
AKA: Gryss ab'Arawn
AKA: Jode Bonewits