Rowan (Claire)

Reader, My name is Rowan Bluekeep, Winter’s Child, a Veteran- Messenger who was born in the Weyrwoods. You typically will not hear from me, as previously it was my close friend Brynnen who wrote to you on behalf of our party, now I write on behalf of her. I write to bring news of our party’s great success and our great loss recently. If you have read the recent chronicles, you will know that our party has been traveling a long way up the Halhar mountain range, to a volcano that has been spewing crystalline into the water sources, and into the sky in the form of dust, threatening catastrophe. A week ago, our party arrived at the volcano. Brynnen had previously devoted herself to studying under Odin, to learn knowledge from him and to connect herself further with the divine. Odin appeared to us, on the mountain, and offered a deal to us. He spoke of danger in the heart of the mountain, and of gods traveling to meet us and to help us succeed. To get to the source of the crystalline, in the mountain, and fight it , we had to attune to the gods who had come. Odin told us that if we were willing to sacrifice our lives-- and our souls -forever- we could attune to him, and others, and they, through us, could defeat the evil in the volcano. All of us were willing. Not all were able, however. The volcano had become more and more violent, each of us feeling our life forces fluctuate with each rumble of the ground. Only four of us were able to attune properly to the gods, before we had to go to the peak of the mountain. The process of attunement was a long and difficult one, where for each one of us who wanted to attune they had to enter some kind of dreamscape, where reality was warped. While some of us were completing odd and dangerous quests in this dreamscape, others protected their then- vulnerable physical bodies from attacks that came frequently. Once Odin told us to go, and we eventually arrived at the peak, we saw what was in the volcano. Instead of lava, there was pure boiling crystalline, shrouded in blinding lights. The four who had attuned stood alone at the cliff going into the volcano. The four included Brynnen and Calabrann, who you might have heard from earlier. Once Odin lifted his protective shroud from their shoulders, they jumped in, and never came out. The next few weeks were awkward. Our party did not know whether to celebrate, or to grieve. We did some of both, as we made our way down the mountain. There were no remnants of the four who sacrificed themselves, except for Calabrann. He left a bit of light in the air once he jumped in, which materialized in the form of a human child, a boy. This boy our party will jointly raise, making him the living memory of the ones we lost and the ones to come. We will all mourn for the loss of these four brave ones, who were not only willing to sacrifice their lives to save their families and strangers they will never know, but also competent enough to go through the trials to attune successfully. You will live on in our memories. ~ Rowan Bluekeep, Child of the Winter