2014-12-19 - Snow Warning!

Chapter 4 - A Matter of Scale
The Yulebuck is the first to break the scrying circle after reaching a silent accord, picking you out instantly in your place of ‘honor’ sitting atop one of the stone dragon’s toenails. One may begin to wonder if the old beast harbored any resentments over being turned into furniture, but fear not: she is quite comfortable and soundly asleep.

“Quickly, little one–climb on my back! We’re going to stop the Avatar of Change.”

You rush to gather your belongings, glancing around to see a few other adventurers clambering up onto the backs of the Snow Angel, Holly, and Solstice dragons.

“All right, friends,” Aurora says, her telepathic voice projected only to those gathered for the search party. “The storm is still too violent for us to fly, so we must seek out the Avatar on foot. Godsibb, Graciella, and Nikolaus will remain in the clearing to maintain the wards and continue gathering mana. Reed,” the Yulebuck stands to attention, “you and your rider make a path. Janus, follow behind and make sure none of us gets lost.”

The stately old Holly dragon growls his assent. As you and the rest of the party turn toward the howling storm, Reed the Yulebuck’s voice fills your mind once more. “I will protect you as well as I can from the cold, but I am no red dragon. Hold on tight!”

And with that, the four dragons and their passengers charge headlong into the freezing wind.
Epilogue
You imagine the fact that you can still feel your fingers–or still even have fingers–isn’t far from a miracle. While you and the rest of the search party are thankful that the relentless knives of wind grow calmer the nearer you draw to the Avatar’s mountain lair, that observation has also made you uneasy.

Has the Avatar of Change gone mad? The stony path up the mountainside feels almost balmy with an otherworldly springtime heat, and a low, rhythmical rumbling reverberates through the very stones all around you, and you cling just a bit more tightly to Reed’s mane at the thought that he might be plotting to age everyone instantly to dust the moment they set foot on his rise.

Ultimately, it is Janus who volunteers to investigate the Avatar’s lair. With a methodical air that seems like actual calm, a stark contrast to the discomfort of the human clinging to his back, the scarlet dragon dips first his long neck and then half of his body into the cave’s yawning darkness, then -.

“I think he’s...snoring.”

The dumbfounded expressions of you and the rest of the party are cut off by Joy’s bubbling, telepathic laughter.

“O great Avatar,” Janus posits with a shrug of his emerald wings, “we seek your wise counsel!”

The rhythmical rumbling ceases all at once, casting the precipice into eerie, soul-swallowing silence. The presence that fills your mind immediately after is awesome in both its headache-inducing power and its undeniable obliviousness. “...Just...five more weeks...mmm....”

“Well, I never!” Aurora huffs, deftly unseating her passenger and plunging headlong into the cavern, the glowing orb between her antlers barely more than a mote in that vast blackness. A moment later the ground shakes with the force of an indignant snarl and a massive dragon more or less spills out into the light, dazzling in his iridescence and all but filling the entire space. In his wake flaps a still-bristling Solstice dragon, who pauses in the air over the groggy Avatar’s head just long enough to bat him a few times with the down-strokes of her gilded wings.

“What is the meaning of this?” the Avatar whines, his voice a shockwave inside your skull. “The magics are balanced, the seasons are in order.”

“They certainly are not,” Reed interjects as Aurora weighs the satisfaction of heckling the Avatar further against the potential consequences when he regains enough of his senses to take offense. “Your blizzard has gone wild and trapped all of Galsreim in what may very well be an endless winter.”

“My blizzard?” The Avatar scoffs indignantly, nearly unseating Janus from his perch on the mountainside, drawing a startled yelp from his rider, as he spun around to regard each dragon and its mortal companion in turn.

“You mean you didn’t conjure it?” Aurora’s passenger shouts, emboldened.

He snorts disdainfully in reply, as though the answer were self-evident. “I’ve been resting since the equinox. What reason would I have to upset the balance of seasons?” Pausing, the Avatar flattens his crest with sudden discomfort. “I say, does anyone else feel a draft?”

The assembled dragons and their riders shoot mystified glances at one another as the colossus cranes his neck and lifts his wing in a vain attempt to study his haunch.

“Is something amiss?” Janus remarks, wary of venturing down from his new, higher seat.

Aurora, already aloft, flits around the massive dragon to get a better look. As she did so, she lets out a chortling gasp. “He’s missing a scale!”