[Great Hunt] The Pyre of the North

This was not the first time this very wither that Arianwyn found herself plodding through the distant fields of Ivras, far from her comfortable home in Namarast; far from her warm heath, her stockpile of cozy furs, and so far from the nearest steaming cup of mulled wine or hot tea. Though she had draped herself in her best cold-weather gear before setting out on this journey, she could still feel the biting wind chilling her to her bones, as though she was wearing nothing at all. She had half a mind to abandon her heavy equipment and save herself the aching back, but she didn't dare risk unbundling—if she was this cold with her heavy blanket and woolen leg-wraps, she could only assume she'd freeze to death within mere moments of shedding them For a mare with a blood disorder leading to poor circulation and even poorer body temperature regulation, this seemed like the worst possible time of year to go travelling. Never mind that she was headed north, and it wasn't technically that cold: she was still suffering under the chill and cursing the orders that had sent her on this journey.

For as headstrong as Arianwyn was, she rarely questioned the instructions given from on high: the leaders of the Order had intel beyond her knowledge, and goals beyond her immediate understanding. When she was told to leave Namarast and head north, she didn't ask for many details: she would be told all she needed to know, and anything past her instructions was doubtlessly extraneous information. Today's journey, on the other hand, was not based on gathered intelligence, political aim, or local need. No, this time, a young mage with oracular powers had received a vision that she would find herself amid the vast field of Sommerang. That was it. The mage could not tell her why she was there, or what she would do once she reached the farming village, just that she would be there on the night of the new moon. Though Arianwyn had argued that the new moon would certain occur again when it was warmer outside and that she was a poor choice for travel in the winter due to her condition, the vision of some young oracle had been enough for her Mage Protector mentor and some of the other Namarast leaders familiar with her to ship her off on some ill-defined adventure. Arianwyn couldn't help but feel annoyed at this particular task: she thrived on tasks and, more importantly, excelled at the tasks she was given. When her instructions consisted of venturing somewhere and hoping something interesting happened, she was fairly certain that this was a waste of her time, and thus purely annoyed with the task at hand. She found herself grumbling to herself as she walked, ignoring the questioning looks she got from locals she met on the road who were shocked to see an Order mage bundled up in the finest winter gear when most of them were fine with, at most, a light cloak. The fact that the Order mage was cursing under her breath certainly didn't help the situation (or the Order's reputation, for that matter), but at the moment even Arianwyn didn't care. She was miserable and cold, and just ready to reach her destination and be done with this trek.

At the very least, she was close to Sommerang. The signposts she had been following had stopped indicating distance to the town in number of kilometers but instead were describing places of interest: the town hall, the general store, the local inn, and the tavern. She would be at the center of the small town soon, and finally able to find a place to warm up and rest after this journey. By now, her circulation had dropped to the point where she could no longer feel her hooves, and what she could feel of her legs was the uncomfortable tingling of poor oxygenation. She could practically taste the steamy drink she'd order at the inn, and smell the familiar scent of a warm fireplace---

No. She paused a moment, suddenly alert, and nearly tripping over her own hooves as she tried to make sense of the situation. She could smell a fire; she wasn't imagining things. This was not mere hopeful thinking. Something was burning nearby. As she peered over the tops of nearby buildings for the clouds of smoke, she began to hear it too: the sound of panicked shouting. There, to her west: people were gathered outside of a farmstead, and even from this distance she could see their alarm as they gawked at an innocuous red-sided building. Arianwyn watched as the roof of the farmstead erupted into fiery inferno, and smoke began to billow as the structure.

Immediately, Arianwyn was in motion, sprinting towards the farmstead. Her discomfort was momentarily forgotten with a call to action: a building was on fire, and she needed to make sure everyone was safe and join in on controlling the flames. In the back of her mind she wondered why the oracle who sent her here hadn't warned her of the fire, but she didn't have the time to reflect on it; now was the time to act. Though she was exhausted, she worked on shaping silver as she ran, gathering what she could from the ground beneath her feet and summoning the ore from her own pack. Mentally, she bent the metal to shape, willing it to form buckets—not the most complicated of shapes, perhaps, but when it came to putting out fires, sometimes simple was better. Though the farmstead was likely too far gone to save, it would take water to prevent the flames from reaching the winter-dried fields, and she could aid the townspeople with tools. Pressing the silver thin and reinforcing it with her own magical will, she was able to make a dozen simple buckets; she only hoped they would be enough to aid the townspeople's fight to save their lands. It seemed silly to be sent all this way just to shape some buckets, but hey, if that was her calling to be here, so be it. At least she had a task to do.

She made it to the gathered crowd, panting from exertion of her sprint and her magic, but there all the same. "Grab a bucket—where's the nearest well?" she asked, asserting herself as the leader of this situation. Someone needed to organize the panic and, well, no one else was taking change. Besides, she was supplying the buckets. "We need to protect the fields. Work on making a barrier to protect the orchards—it's the best chance of saving them." Thankfully, people were listening, and the gathered crowd began to grab buckets from her and set to work filling them from the property's well.

That's when Arianwyn saw it: more smoke in the distance, and a new fire springing beyond the grove. From it, she saw a form, silhouette in the flames: a skeleton, charred black, with tusks that scraped the sky. Wings of billowing fire sprang from its back and licked at the sky. A mage had corrupted, and a new fiend was born. A fire monster, amid a town of farmlands. It had the potential not just to harm anyone who neared, but to destroy this area: the winter had been dry, and the fields would doubtless combust. If this mage started fires across the town, there was no hope that the community would have enough farmland left to survive here. Already, she could see the crowns of orchard trees ablaze, destroying years of cultivation and income.

Finally, it made sense why Arianwyn was sent here. She had a monster to hunt. Perhaps the oracle could not see her fate, but it had put her right where she needed to be.