Session 1

The wind never eased in Bryn Shander that day. It clawed at the tavern windows, scraped its nails down the shutters, and herded travellers toward the nearest fire. Inside, wrapped in lantern smoke and the smell of stewed turnips, four strangers ended up shoulder to shoulder at one scarred table, listening to the same limping man make the same reckless offer.

Graston Wilshire-Bay slouched opposite them: limping, beard full of crumbs, and so obsessed with birds that half the tavern had heard about his upcoming griffon rendezvous before he finished his first ale. When he unfolded his cracked map and tapped a gloved finger against a lonely patch of tundra, he grinned as if revealing treasure.

“Escort me there. Two days’ travel. My kin will collect me. You get paid now, not later.”

The pouch he dropped onto the table thudded with the promise of coin heavy enough to thaw any doubts. In Ten-Towns, early payment killed arguments before they had a chance to breathe.

They left at dawn, each astride an axebeak whose long legs punched neat holes in the snow. The ungainly birds clucked and hissed at the cold, feathers ruffling with every gust, but they carried the party at a steady, ground‑eating pace across the tundra. Graston had insisted they were “mostly cooperative.” One of the axebeaks snapped at Raine’s reins and hissed until he cuffed it quiet.

Snow stung their faces. The cold gnawed at their patience. But as the miles stretched on, the riders began to thaw, not much, but enough to share names and fragments of themselves.

Miquitzil rode with a quiet Ice Hunter’s patience, chewing constantly as if it kept ghosts at bay. The wizard said little unless pressed. His eyes lingered on the snow too long, as if waiting for something that never came. When Raine asked why he had left his village, Miquitzil only shook his head.

“Two years ago,” he said. “Around when the seasons stopped turning. That is all.”

He carried the rest in silence.

Raine Durstin kept his jaw clenched and his eyes moving, never lingering on the same patch of snow for long. One night, as they huddled near a struggling fire, he finally spoke.

“I was a farmer once, outside Longsaddle, far to the south,” he said, voice low. “Had a family. Good land. Good years. All gone now.”

He spoke of flames devouring his home. About dragging his wife and eldest daughter out, only to find them already dead. Stabbed with small, vicious weapons, and about the empty space where his youngest daughter should have been.

“I found no body,” he said. “Which means someone took her.”

After burying the dead beneath stones pulled from the ruins, he unearthed a chest his father had once buried, chain mail, a greatsword, and a strange rust-coloured amulet set with a shard of black crystal. The armour he wore. The sword he wielded. The amulet he hid beneath his shirt on a chain against his skin. Miquitzil noticed, of course. His gaze lingered once on Raine’s chest, then slid away.

With those grim inheritances, Raine tracked the raiders through forest and creek until the trail twisted, crossed rock, and vanished.

“I searched until I dropped. Woke up alone. And the world never righted itself after that. I drank for a while—it didn’t fix anything but numbed the pain a bit…” He trailed off staring into the distance, hand drifting to his blade whenever the wind shifted. “Then, when the money ran out, I took work as a guard. Can’t say either left me sleeping easy.”

Felwar walked with the stillness of someone who had learned to listen before speaking. Watching. Waiting. His cold blue eyes missed nothing, but he offered only scraps in return.

“I grew up in Dougan’s Hole,” he said quietly. “My family had ties to the Children of Auril.”

He gave nothing more. The way he held himself made it clear that prying would break something best left unbroken.

Thelonius kept his hood low and his stories lower still. On the third day he finally muttered his name and admitted he had worked a farm outside Dougan’s Hole.

“Long time ago,” he said, and left it at that. Whatever lay beneath those words was sharp enough that even Raine did not push.

On the second day, a snow-buried mound dragged them off the trail. A dwarven cairn, half crushed under centuries of ice. Curiosity tugged at Felwar. He dug through frost and bone until he found a handaxe rimed with ancient cold. When he lifted it free, the others traded uneasy glances, and Felwar felt a pulse run up his arm like a warning.

Later they stumbled upon a shallow hollow filled with silvery, unnatural liquid. It shifted as if it breathed.

“Leave it,” Thelonius said. None argued.

Evening brought wings. Griffons dropped from the sky like falling boulders, snorting steam and tossing snow with every beat. Graston clambered aboard, shouting over the wind, “Return the axebeaks to Tali in Bremen. She might have coin for you lot!”

Then he was gone, whisked into the sky in a whirl of feathers and arrogance.

That night, they sheltered in a thin clutch of pines. Wind whispered through the needles, the fire cracked low—and somewhere beyond the trees, a howl answered.

Three shapes burst from the dark, fur matted with frost, eyes burning with starved desperation. The fight was fast and brutal: snapping jaws, flashing steel, breath steaming, snow turning red beneath frantic boots. When two wolves finally collapsed into the drifts, the last one limped away on a shredded hind leg, blood dribbling a thin trail through the trees.

Thelonius snorted, rolling his shoulder. “Pelt’s still worth something,” he muttered, already moving after it. The others followed, boots crunching through brittle undergrowth.

They found the wounded wolf crouched beside another, a skeletal creature with ribs sharp as branches under its ragged fur. The limping wolf pressed its head to the other’s, whining softly. Both trembled with cold and hunger.

Felwar eased a hand into his pack.

Thelonius frowned. “What are you doing? Let’s kill them.”

“I’ve seen mercy turn ugly,” Raine said. “Cold breaks things. Hunger too. If they follow us tomorrow, we’re the ones they’ll tear into.”

Felwar eyed the wolves’ jutting ribs. “They won’t last the night. This small kindness costs us nothing but a little food.”

“Food we might need,” Thelonius scoffed.

Felwar ignored him and tossed a small bundle of rations into the snow. The wolves jolted, then lunged at it with frantic desperation, devouring the food as if afraid the world might snatch even that away.

Miquitzil watched them quietly. “No seasons,” he murmured. “No growth. Everything is dying.”

Raine watched the wolves a moment longer, jaw tight, then looked away.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s move.”

The wolves did not follow. Their chewing faded into the trees, swallowed by wind. Ahead, through black trees and drifting snow, Bremen waited. Only hours away, if the night allowed it.

And so, the four strangers trudged on together, not yet friends, not yet heroes, but bound now by blood, ice, and the first hard lesson of the Dale:

Nothing here survives alone.