With Patrice out cold and badly beaten and Kazrod by her side you would be down a warrior and your only healer. The wind beat like a drum in your ears and communication was difficult. With muffled yelling, frantic hand signals and nods from the group you decided that you would leave Lukindar with Patrice and Kazrod must come with you. You remember back to your first quest when Richalt lead you up the Azalei Mountains, at the three pillars, Haden, Talik and Alster were all needed to work in unity and you have a premonition that you will soon face a challenge that requires the joint action of all the tribes. Kazrod was reluctant to leave the inanimate Patrice but you managed to move her to a furrow in the rock and shelter her limp body from the wind. Lukindar used a fire charm to warm the air around them both and with the crisis calming you were able to reach into your mage pouch and with a flurry of hand movements, the dropping of puff power and the incantation of "Spritato Kinesia" you were able to watch the storm dissipate  amidst the flash and flicker of a sprite that seemed at one with the wind and the snow that hurtled and flew about the rocks. "I have some questions about that for you at a better time," Lukindar said and with a lowered brow and concerned look, "but for now, I can fashion a shelter from rock and use fire to keep Patrice and I safe until you send help but you really must move on." Kazrod took some further convincing but as the wind was calm I was able to explain my premonition (sans reference to the first quest with Haden, Talik and Alster) and he seemed to think you might be right and left with you.  The mountain still held danger for us and Kinesia could only absorb the energy of a storm in an area where the caster stood for a brief time, once you moved elsewhere you would be walking into some mighty winds again.  You proceed shorthanded toward a treacherous canyon.

Zelnard, Dushino, Kazrod and yourself were now the only hope of retrieving the page and the longer this quest went on the more you could sense that it was connected to whatever had happened on Central Island.  Zelnard walked along the rocky peak hoping it would give him a better view of our objective and spied narrow columns of eternal ice just a short hike away at the end of the ridge and back down to the base of the mountain. The climb down was not easy but compared to the wind ridden battle up the ridge it was quickly accomplished. The fruit burrs helped with grip and we had made a series of rope ties that kept us as a group of four such that if one were to fall the others could support them. Once at the bottom of the ridge we could see the rocky outcrop in front of us was no longer snow covered and naked  granite was a welcome sight. "Are we on our way down?" asked Zelnard who seems like he had had quite enough of the whole experience. Actually, I felt that we has doing much better than I would have at his age. The cave with the blue ice door was now much closer and accessible from the bare stone ridge you were now on if you followed it up (not down as Zelnard had hoped) to the snow line. As you struggle along the rocky outcrop you discuss the cave and the door of blue ice, Kazrod explained that blue ice was the common name for eternal ice which is much harder and resistant to melting than the ice from the glaciers and packed snow around them. Zelnard who was training as a water mage mentioned a class he had with master Pyesh, where they had used blue ice to drill into stone to demonstrate its qualities. He also paused mid sentence to see if I would recognise the name Pyesh as he had been training young mages for generations. I explained I don't even remember my language tutors from first year let alone all of my Mage Trainers. He was definitely probing to try and understand me better, I knew they were all "on to me" but I barely knew what was happening myself to explain anything useful to them so I covered with, "was he the tall one?" 

Dushino was more focused on the eternal ice door than the history of our education and said that if we could combine our efforts and brake off some fragments from the blue ice in the rocks then maybe we could shatter pieces that we could use to break the door we had seen. You see Dushino take out his lava sword and energise it with a small crystal. It glowed hot and the air around it wavered and rose in a haze. He wedged the sword's tip under some blue ice that was securely frozen to the rocks and asked you and Zelnard to push upward on his signal to lever off some ice fragments. After several moments of grunting and almighty jerks four small pieces of the enteral ice cracked then flung up into the air like crystals dug from a mine. Dushino took four arrows from his quiver and replaced the metal with the blue ice shards. "At speed these will yield a powerful blow," he says confidently. You have doubts that any sort of blow will crack that giant eternal ice door but thought you could cross that bridge when you get to it. The bridge metaphor made you smile and you let out a little swallowed laugh. "What amuses you? Kazrod enquired, seeing little in the way of comedy in their situation. "I'll explain later",  you let him know and although he seemed disappointed, now really wasn't the time. Over Kazrod's shoulder you see a blur of white, the snow moving or...wait, ears and ....you squint and refocus and Kazord freezes noting something was awry. "What is it?" he demanded with a sense of boding. He could precive from your body language and your expression that something was not right. He slowly turned his head to his left shoulder and out of the corner of his eye he could see two large pointed black ears coming out of snow white fur, four wings were spread wide, one set up ready to launch the other covering the snow, red eyes were locked on Kazrod's back like a shadow fang about to pounce. The creature slowly lowers its head and extends its talons. You whisper to Kazrod, "Don't move, its a  giant snowbat." He slowly turns his head until their eyes meet. 

Why did the bridge metaphor make you laugh? Explain the irony in Thy Quests below to move forward. 

Next: E8Q3 It Flies