Fate - First Reply From Whom the Mountains Toll

[Cuthwyrd]

Ancient and vast were the peaks and vales of the Spine where silence sat like a mist that dissipates only when the sun was at its peak. Few were the trails and paths that threaded their way through the highest ridges and fewer still those bold enough to trace the paths along where the land and sky mingled.

Yet there were those born to the stone and sky who rarely descended to the lower slopes and never to the foothills that stretched out to the flatlands of the world. They were the Fyiama, sons and daughters of forgotten kings whose realms and their names were long lost to the annals of time in the broader world.

Yet, one such man stood at the crest of a trail, not much more than a goat path, with a measuring scale at his feet, and a naked sword in hand, point resting lightly on his boot.

Dark as the stone that rose on either side were his eyes, and darker still his hair, shaggy and windswept, yet a light shone in his gaze and a simple circlet of gold rested upon his brow.

“Hail, traveler! A toll we take from those who tread these trails, for we are their keepers, and many a warrior lies now beneath their cairn to keep the clear, and many a widow and orphan they have left behind.”

He nudged the scales with a boot, where a rock just a little larger than his fist sat in one side. “Gold to equal this stone or trade goods of what I consider equal value. And in exchange, I shall guide you to the far side of the pass unharmed and through swifter paths than this.”

 

[Maeanna Moonbeam]

Maeanna trudged up the trail carrying few supplies. A day or two worth of food, a set of spare clothing, some bedding, and a small container holding some materials for easier fire-making, another large, leather bag, a dagger, and a pickaxe were all that she carried with her. When she went on trips into the mountains to mine her own ore for smithing, she always carried light. If she needed food, she could just hunt things down. If she needed water, she knew how to find it.

While she wasn't an expert in any field in any sense of the word, save for smithing, probably, she was observant and knew how to use her heightened senses to get around and find what she needed well enough.

She hadn't come this way before but her old vein of ore had run dry and she needed to find a new one if she was to make any coin. As she crests a small incline in the path, she sighs upon seeing a man standing there, sword in hand. He sounded civil enough but she knew better than to trust on such little information.

She listened to him speak as she approached him and then stops a few feet away, glancing down at the scale and rock before looking away and toward the horizon with a deep and heavy sigh. Of all the times to not have a few gold piece on her... "I have no coin," she informs him before carefully lowering her packs and pickaxe to the ground. She wore a simple, brown cloak that wrapped around her form, leaving much to the imagination when it came to her body type and shape. She kneels down and opens the fuller pack, staring down into its depths for a moment before she lifts her icy blue gaze to meet his and gesture him over. "Find what you want," she says as she stands and steps back, showing him that she wasn't going to try and stop him or get away with not paying.

"I'm not here to get to the other side, though," she tells him, speaking in the common tongue still. "I'm looking for ore."

 

[Cuthwyrd]

Cuthwyrd waited, watching carefully as the traveler set their pack down and stepped away from it. It was always difficult to guess who would respond how, and that was dangerous. At the statement of no coin, he merely shrugged and stepped forward, looking into the pack. His sword was slid back into its sheath at his side as he efficiently looked through the bag and stepped back, shaking his head.

His mastery of the common tongue was fluent, but accented in a strange, flowing lilt. "Nay, you have no goods that we cannot ourselves produce." He flipped it closed again and stepped away from towards his post again. He paused at her words and considered. "Ore, you say? What kind?"

Long had he walked the heights of the mountain, but never beneath its surface save in the direst need. And never had he seen ores this high, for what mine tunnels he had found crisscrossing the high vales were ancient Dwarven tunnels, long mined out.

"I cannot say that I have seen any at this height, for Dwarves delved here long ago, and the mineshafts we have found seemed to mined out."

A memory struck him and he paused. "Although there was one tunnel I discovered once that had been collapsed from the outside, and did not seem Dwarf-carved from what I could see. I cannot promise any ore in it, but it seems there might be some more fortune there than the others."

Maeanna Moonbeam

 

[Maeanna Moonbeam]

Mae sighs heavily when he refuses what she had to offer as payment. She wasn't surprised at all, just disappointed by the idea of having come all this way for nothing. She lightly gnaws on the inside of her cheek for a moment as she drops her gaze to her feet. In the back of her mind, some darker voice whispers of killing him and going on their way. "No," she says to silence the voice, a bit suddenly and an odd response to his question.

"No, I packed light to make the trip back easier for myself," she tells the man as she lifts her head to meet his gaze. "I wouldn't have anything of value.." She then gestures to the hilt of the dagger that peeked out of her cloak at about hip height. "Silver, iron.. Ore for making weapons and armor for the soldiers, and ore for making trinkets and baubles for the finer folk."

Upon hearing that he knew of no untouched mines, she clenched her teeth together and looks back out to the horizon. It was quite beautiful way up here, and she took a minute to appreciate it as she calmed herself down. "Could you lead me to it or point me in the right direction?" She exhales deeply and looks up at the sky for a moment before looking back to the man. "I am Maeanna Moonbeam. I have a home in Falwood with a small smithy. If you can lead me there, at the very least, when I get back to my home I can pay you double what you're asking. My word is good and true. I wouldn't dare tarnish my honor over something small like this."

Perhaps she was going overboard but she really hated doing things for nothing, and if her trip here was simply a waste... "I can make you custom weapons and armor, perhaps a special trinket for a friend or loved one?"

Cuthwyrd

 

[Cuthwyrd]

Maeanna Moonbeam

Cuthwyrd nodded solemnly at her words, “Wise to travel with only the essentials here. The mountains are cruel to those who are not humble before their majesty.”

At her question, he chewed his lip, eyes growing distant as he gazed down the path she had come, seeking something. After several moments, he stared up at the sky, tracking the distant movements of a single bird, before nodding.

“Aye, I can take you to it,” Cuthwyrd said finally, crossing an arm across his chest in a salute as she introduced herself. “I am called Sparrowhawk by those from the lowlands, but my true name is Cuthwyrd. I am chieftain of those who dwell high amongst the values, the Fyiama, we call ourselves, though we have no name amongst the lowlanders.”

He hefted a mottled gray and green pack from behind a boulder and hefted it upon his shoulders.

“This way. We must leave the trail to make our way to the shaft. It is a day’s hard March to the summit, and we may not make it by nightfall.”

 

[Maeanna Moonbeam]

She nods in agreement to his words, having almost lost a few toes and fingers over the years from having been weighed down with excess things and trapped in a snowstorm and such.

Glancing up at the sky, she waits patiently to see if he would accept her offer or not, gaze returning to her pack briefly before looking back up at him and nodding as he agrees.

"Thank you, Cuthwyrd of the Fyiama. I am indebted to you," she says, bowing to him slightly before she gathers up her things and prepares to leave.

"I appreciate you doing this for me," she adds after a moment as she begins to follow him off the trail. "I will keep my promise to you, you have my word." And she meant it! She sent a silent prayer up to the powers that be for good weather and fast travel and then focuses in on her footing and surroundings so as to avoid mistepping and breaking an ankle or something.

Cuthwyrd

 

[Cuthwyrd]

Maeanna Moonbeam

"It is of no worry," Cuthwyrd answered, with a slight wave of his hand. His eyes and mind sought instead the faint trail ahead of them that wove up and around the peak that towered over his shoulder. "And it is good to keep one's word. Without it, we have nothing else."

He walked in silence, slowly pacing along the side of the old trail, pausing to clear off small white stones that had been overgrown and scratching ancient, secret runes back into the stone where they had once faded. "There were once stone roads here," Cuthwyrd said after a long while, looking back over his shoulder. He knelt and scraped away the grass and moss, tapping a dagger blade against a small stone. "We used these roads to link our cities together, according to our legends."

He would push on again, before looking back later to call over his shoulder. "Have you had much good fortune finding the ores you seek at such high elevations?"