Threads 418-Taming Winter 7
Their journey into the mountains began early the next day. It didn't take long to return to the base of the mountain where they had confronted the faeries of the snowstorm the previous day, but now, it was time to go beyond that, up toward the mountain peak where the most potent concentration of icy qi slept.
This was not going to be like the other confrontations. They were not going to overbear the spirit she could sense sleeping, cradled in a great gorge that cut into the mostly impassable mountains in this corner of the fief. Thankfully, the mountain was not its place of power and they had already tamed or contracted its component spirits, or even she would have turned back to do this when she had properly recovered, but the temporary site formed by the heavy winter clouds would be good enough to Communicate.
The icy mountain was barren, all gray stone and gravel, streaked with frost and snow. Here and there, stone gave way to thin soil, and hardy boreal trees clung to the mountainside.
Throughout the morning, they picked their way toward the peak, following narrow trails or scaling cliffs with Bao Qian's help. He shaped stairs and elevated pillars from the hard mountain rock, which grew more and more icy as they climbed. The rock was shot through with streaks of blue and white, frigid to the touch, even beyond the temperature.
"Strange stuff,” Bao Qian analyzed. “Light and porous rock, but not quite like anything I'd recognize. I wonder how much of it is material property, and how much is just the emanations of the site."
They had stopped for a rest just below the cloudline, a boulder strewn strip of barren clifftop. He crouched before one of those boulders, which looked like a single chunk of jagged, opaque blue ice.
Ling Qi leaned on her junior sister’s shoulder to look at the boulder. "It is not actual ice—I can feel the cold qi in it—but the pattern and arrangement is wrong. Is it actually stone then?"
"It is not certain it would retain its properties away from here though." Bao Qian dusted the snow off his knees as he stood up.
Hanyi rolled her eyes. "You can take a chunk down with you. C'mooooon, I wanna get to the top!"