Leave Mist'holme

"For there is no friend like a sister, in calm or stormy weather, to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands."

- Christina G. Rossetti

It was impossible not to feel as insignificantly small as a snowflake compared to a glacier every time you crossed the snowfields. But even the smallest snowflake can cause an avalanche with the proper motivation.

The snow and ice on the ground were packed so tightly they glowed with a blue sheen, the result of years of cumulative snowfall and being mercilessly battered by gale **** winds, they dominated the landscape for miles in every direction.

There would have been nothing to see this close to Mist'holme even without them. When picking the site for the original vault this place had once been, the engineers had deliberately chosen this location for its remoteness. It's one of the reasons why it had managed to survive while the rest of the word had crumpled around it.

Anything that dared to disturb the perfect blanket of snow was wiped clean, like marks on a whiteboard, within hours of being created. It made it hard for anyone to track you, but the pendulum swung both ways; tracks that were difficult to find after mere hours, became as hard to discover as a needle in a haystack, or blizzard as the case may be, after almost a week had passed since they were imprinted on the hard white crust.

But the words 'difficult', 'impossible', and 'last orders' didn't tend to feature very highly in the list of things Morginn paid much attention to. A chance, no matter how slim, was still a chance after all.

The enclosed canopy of the Ro•zir rattled violently as the winds assaulted the sides of it, and she felt it begin to lurch forward as the sails unfurled above her, catching the power of the storm to propel the vehicle along. The rhythmic 'ping, ping, ping' of the radar begin to reverberate into a steady echo around the walls inside as she switched it on to map her surroundings.

There was no point in having a windscreen when you can't see more than 3 feet in front of you at the best of times. Besides, she would have had to heat any viewport that was fitted to keep it clear from snow building up, and if she did that then she may as well paint the body work with neon pink paint. It would probably attract less attention.

They had learnt the hard way that any echolocation they wanted to use had to be in the ultra high frequency range. Originally, they had tried using the lower ones to map the terrain underneath as they travelled, but the pulse penetrated further through solid material that the high ones. Not ideal when you're trying to travel incognito as much as possible.

Rule Ten.”Don't announce your presence until you're ready to kick the front door off its hinges.’

Closely followed by Rule One. ’Stay warm, stay quiet. Stay alive.’ That one topped the list for what should be fairly obvious reasons. If they weren't, go back inside.

The interior of the Ro•zir was warm enough to feel toasty, thanks in part to her own body heat, but in a larger part due to using the friction generated by the motion of the wheels turning to power small heaters. The framework on the body was insulated to retain the heat, but also to stop it being detected by anything outside.

Usually it was fairly snug inside, having been designed to carry two occupants, but with just her and the gear stowed away inside, she was afforded enough leg room to stretch out a little. She had debated reclining the seat into it's sleeping position, but with had no copilot to get her to the destination safely, the responsibility fell to her, and that meant staying awake. Her eyelids felt like they weighed a tonne, and she really began to regret having her beauty sleep interrupted earlier.

Between the warmth inside the Ro•zir, and the almost hypnotic beat of the radar, it felt like a loosing battle to stay awake. Shaking her head to try and clear a few of the cobwebs away, she started running over what she knew of the situation to keep sleep for overpowering her.

One. Dagaz had been field testing the new versions of their weapons out at Vüthor •Ilaz, the ruins of the old city.

Vüthor •Ilaz should be deserted apart from him. There was nothing out there left to scavenge, there hadn't been for generations. That made it an idea location for the kind of test he'd been conducting. The husks of the old buildings still showing above the surface helped to muffle any sound he might have created.

Two. He'd missed his window to check in.

That wasn't a huge reason to go into panic mode by itself. Having missed checking in before, she knew there were plenty of valid reasons that could have caused him to miss his window. But that didn't explain why he hadn't tried again the next day. And the next.

Three. Nothing had been heard from him for over a week since he had missed that first check in.

Seven windows of opportunity to check in had come and gone since his original deadline, and he hadn't used a single one. No 'I'm fine.' No 'I want to stay out here for longer.' No call for rescue.

That meant one of three things had happened. He was either in trouble, he was dead, or he was an insensitive dick. So the plan slowly formulating in her mind was to rescue him, mourn him, or slap him. She was fairly certain one of those would work, and if they didn't, she was nothing if not adaptable.

The radar showed her that she had managed to clear the first few miles in reasonable time. With the winds as high as they were, you had to strike a precarious balance between pushing the Ro•zir's speed higher, and keeping it the right way up. She chose not having to venture outside to try and get the wheels back down into the floor on her own if it flipped it over.

The watch on her wrist showed that the sun, what you would have been able to see of it, should have been cresting over the horizon right about now. When it did, the temperature outside would raise a degree or two, the winds would die down a little, and the shadows would retreat until nightfall. Even she wasn't brave enough to search outside in the dark on her own if it could be avoided.

With nothing to do except keep an eye on the readouts, she let the words of the mantra flood into her mind. Whilst not actually needed to tap into the energy they stored, it was a good way of calming their thoughts, to remember that the tie between man and nature was more now than it had ever been.

'I am the Lotus,
My mind the petals.'

The connection between absorbing energy and directing it. To image the petals of a plant opening to the sun was to visualise taking the sunlight into herself.

'The roots, my hands,
The Sun, my strength.'

Technically, solar energy could be absorbed from any exposed part of skin, but it was far easier to release it through the palms that any other part of the body. The words helped direct the flow to where it was intended. There was no point not focusing, and melting your boots with stray heat .

'The earth, my body,
The water, my blood.'

Plants withered and died if left exposed to the wind and snow above, as did they, and both needed fresh water to nourish and sustain them.

'The breeze, my breath.'

The wind was a cruel mistress, a sword that could cut both ways. It could just as easily carry pollen on it's back, as it could rip the plant it had carried them from out of the ground. The survivors were no different. Creativity and destructiveness were but flip sides of the same coin.

Feeling a gentle calmness settle over her as the last words echoed in her mind, she lent over and reached down for her Välcri• and began to charge it. She didn't want it to run out of power if anything presented itself.

With a little over a mile to go before reaching her destination, the radar began having what she could only assume was the mechanical version of nervous breakdown. The steady beats sped faster, and faster, until they merged into a scream. Glancing over at the display, she assumed it was a simple glitch. Not a glitch. Both hands had assumed a **** grip on the edge of the seat of their own free will, and she felt her heart jump up into het throat.

"Shit, shit, shit."

According to the screen, she was fast approaching a two and a half kilometre deep cliff, at high speed. In what at that point may as well have been a tin can. That was reason enough to panic in itself.

But the main reason was that there shouldn't have been a cliff there to begin with.