[Great Hunt] The Pyre of the North

The Pyre of the North was not headed towards the town of Sommerang; that much was clear. As Arianwyn followed the path of destruction the beast left, she consulted her maps to better understand the local geography, knowing very little about this region of the country. Thankfully, she had thought to detailed maps when she travelled from Namarast, out of an abundance of caution that she may become lost in the unfamiliar lands. Though she wanted to chase after the beast immediately, she also saw that they were, for a moment, relatively out of danger. While there was still the risk of fire spreading every moment the Pyre walked the earth, for the moment, the risk of it burning down a village was greatly decreased, as it seemed to be on a path away from the nearest town. She wanted to get a lay of the land and know what might be ahead of it's path before she confronted it, lest she need to lead it away from another town in it's way.

 It was difficult to look at her maps as she walked—uneven ground of off-the-path travelling aside, the smoldering remains of fire and patches of burning brush dotted her path. More than once, she had to correct herself at the last moment, lest she step into a poor of acrid ichor without noticing it. When she finally oriented herself to the town of Sommerang and was able to guess her general location and direction (she hadn't bothered to pull out a compass and locate north when racing off to fight a fire in town, and so was mostly trying to retrace her steps mentally to determine where she had stepped off the path), she paused a moment to trace the path the beast was following. The line she marked collided with a larger village, and then another—and finally hit the borders of Ivras itself. The Pyre of the North was not just a threat to other populous villages, but to the very safety of the kingdom. Should it wander outside of the borders, should it threaten Nymene or Siregal, should the corrupted magics of Ivras leak into the surrounding nations—the consequences could be extreme. The Order was already blamed for much of the recent monster problem. Arianwyn was terrified to think of what could happen should the Order be made to take a fall for a giant flaming skeleton burning down half of Nymene. The monster had to be stopped before it made the border: whether it was felled or simply redirected, it simply could not cross. Furthermore, given she had not seen any other mages around yet, the responsibility fell to her.

 The time for planning was over. Arianwyn, normally a stickler for carefully packing away her maps ever-so-neatly, didn't even bother to completely fold it up this time, and stuffed it into her pack without much further care. Panic at the situation had set in. She had spent too much time thinking, considering how best to take on this beast. While she had learned valuable information about its powers, she had not yet made a single stride in actually stopping the flaming monster. Thankfully, by now, she had managed to gather a suitable collection of silver as she walked; mostly consisting of ore she wrenched from the earth with her magic, though small bits and pieces came from long-abandoned jewelry or one silver spoon. Through the use of her magic, it drew itself to her like a magnet drew metallic dust, requiring very little effort on her end to gather a sizable amount of it. It was a usable collection, though far from ideal: normally, she preferred her materials to be pure argentum, carefully curated and purified to be as perfect as possible. While her magic could tolerate some degree of contamination by other metals or materials, too much and she could no longer rely on her creations to be as strong: she simply could not calculate how the impurities would affect her materials the same way she could feel the strength of her gathered silver. Today, though, she simply didn't have the time to be picky. She had already given away her best stock to the town to aid them in extinguishing the fires; she had to make do with what she had. Instinctively, she warped the metal she had gathered, pulling it around her and hardening it into broad plates of interlocking silver: a light, durable armor that covered her shoulders and flank. A perfect way to both protect herself and store silver for later use, so when she finally caught up with the monster, she could forge her tools at will.

Now better prepared, she picked up the pace, focused once again on the burning path cut for her by the flaming beast. Leaping patches of burning brambles and skirting pools of foul ichor, she followed after the Pure of the North, anxious to catch up to the beast and let the battle truly begin.