Click here for a list of weather descriptions, seasonal festivals, and a real time:site time conversion.
Character of the Season
Frail in body but dangerously quick of mind, Nikandr is the sort of character who proves that curiosity can be just as perilous as any weapon. A necromancer, inventor, and problem-solver with more ambition than self-preservation, Niki approaches the world like a puzzle box begging to be opened, even when what’s inside has teeth. Blunt, dry-witted, fiercely independent, and carrying a history best left partially buried, he has a knack for making even failure feel fascinating. Whether he’s raising the dead, moving across Caido to King's End, or experiencing a hangover for the first time, Nikandr brings a wonderfully strange spark to Caido, and we can’t wait to see what trouble his brilliant mind wanders into next.
Congratulations, Niki!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
my fire is starved of oxygen
a flicker in the howling wind
The Climb looked alive.
Even from the ridge, heat rippled off the land in slow, trembling waves. The air clung to their lungs like wet cloth, thick with sulfur and smoke. Where Halo’s cold bit clean, this heat pressed down heavy—the kind that didn’t just make a man sweat, it smothered him.
Damien had stripped down to lighter layers before they’d left the Tundra: a linen shirt gone dark with sweat, a sleeveless leather jerkin to guard against stray sparks, and a ragged scarf tied over his nose and mouth. His axe hung at his back beside a coil of rope and a skin of water that was already warm to the touch.
The barrels were large, treated and sealed in wax, their weight too much to shoulder. He [probably with help] had built a travois back in Snowcloak—ash poles bound with rope and leather straps, the barrels slung between them for balance. Ugly, heavy, and loud on the stone, but it worked. The scrape of it echoed faintly through the fog as they descended, joined now and again by the dull drag of another load. Everyone carried something.
He wasn’t leading. Either Noah or Iskra walked ahead—one or both of them likely knew the Climb better than he did. Maps and stories were one thing; walking a land that breathed heat and ash was another. He was content to follow for now, keeping an eye on footing and the barrels.
“Least the air’s not trying to freeze us solid,” he said in a tone that sounded like cool relief, though his voice was a bit muffled by the scarf. After a breath, he added, “Just boil us alive instead.”
The path wound downward through steaming fissures and slick stone. The glow of magma bled up through the cracks beneath their boots. Condensation gathered on the rock, dripping in slow rhythms that echoed ahead like the ticking of a clock. The deeper they went, the more the air grew damp and humming, the heat replaced by a heavy, watchful silence.
When the tunnel widened, he stopped short.
Steam rolled across a vast chamber, blurring the edges of glowing pools. Water lay in tiered basins, black and gold under the light of the magma veins that laced the rock. It should’ve been suffocating, yet the air here carried a strange sweetness, faint and clean, as though the place exhaled instead of burned.
Damien pulled the scarf from his mouth, rolling his shoulders to drop the weight he'd been carrying. “Not what I expected,” he murmured, gaze tracing the rippling surface. “Looks like Frey’s influence runs deep.”
He crouched by the edge of the first pool, the echoes of light painting his face in flickers of gold. “This'll do,” he began, straightening up, “Let's get set up. I'll light some lamps.”
He’d been here more times than he could count. Each visit was branded into him by purpose. Yet, he let himself breathe it in--the mingled scents of mineral and moss, the thick, humid air--the memories layered over the present. Every time he’d come here, he’d come looking for something sacred—a reminder that life persisted, even when everything else broke. Now, they were here to gather the waters of Frey's Breath for much the same reason. Noah thought it was interesting that this is where Safrin had them come, and he wondered what depths the heralds knew about that they had yet to even scratch the surface of.
When Damien spoke, Noah pulled himself out of his own thoughts. “Here,” he said, stepping forward to help shift one of the barrels into place. The weight was awkward in the damp, but between them it rolled onto a patch of solid stone. “We’ll want them far enough from the edge so they don't shift. The heat will swell the wood.” Then Damien turned to start lighting lanterns, and Noah thought that was interesting. Noah, knowing where he would best be suited for this task at the moment, slipped into a different skin.
From where the attuned stood was now a larger, more imposing form. Dragon scales rippled down over taught muscle on an equine frame. Golden and blue and all shades between, Noah shook his head and neck, mane and dragon-like whiskers shaking. Leaning down and grabbing one of the hands of the buckets in his mouth, the longma stepped carefully out onto Frey's Breath.
Leaving Goose at home had been no easy matter, the dog insistent on keeping at his side, but having been to the Climb before, Iskra knows the husky won't enjoy the trip in the end. Not overly fond of unnecessary heat, which Iskra would definitely slot lava into (not being an Ancient), the dog will thank him later. The trip here is rather easy, devoid of troublesome canine antics, and Iskra trods through the cave system along with the other men. His hands and shoulders help bear the brunt of bars of wood that drag along the barrels and buckets between them. He savors the current time, when their containers are blessedly empty.
He can only grunt agreement at Damien's talk, a smile daring to rise from the otherwise steady focus on the path work through the caverns. "If it's not one, it's the other." Grass isn't always greener and all that too. He doesn't disagree though, the heat is stifling, far different from the last time he'd been here when it'd been crisp and dry. That had made every breath feel on the verge of a choking cough, like inhaling sparked fire in his chest. This though, it's as though he has to sieve the oxygen out of the heat and humidity wrapped together in one dense blanket of misery.
A groan of appreciation parts from his lips as they finally find a place to stop, and he stoops to wipe his wet forehead off on a sleeve, not that it'll remain dry for long. "Not sure we need more heat adding to this," Iskra sighs towards Damien, swiping beneath his eyes with his shirt fabric. This, too, coming from a fire user. "Plenty of light to get the job done. I say we just get to scooping. Maybe do a bucket brigade system," he offers, especially at Noah's direction to keep the main barrel further away from the edge.
His gaze travels after Noah, a surprised lift finding his expression as the man shifts into a creature Iskra can't claim to recognize. It moves gracefully over the water, seeming to make no distinction between it and land, and Iskra's lips twist back in an impressed smile. "Well how 'bout that, good thinking." He doesn't expect anything less from the Sentinel, who's experience here far exceeds the both of them. Stepping to the edge, Iskra reaches out to take the bucket from Noah, and twists back to hand it over to Damien in quiet expectation.
Iskra suggests they bucket brigade and stands to take Noah's bucket and pass it to Damien!
my fire is starved of oxygen
a flicker in the howling wind
Damien struck flint to steel, the spark catching fast. A small, steady flame bloomed in the lantern’s glass, pushing back the mist in soft gold. The others made their opinions known—snorts, muttered jokes, the usual Halo bravado.
He didn’t bother to argue. If they wanted to laugh, fine. He wasn’t about to stumble blind into a fissure because he’d been too proud to light a lantern. The glow caught in the fog, throwing soft gold across the stone. “Go ahead,” he muttered, tone wry. “Mock the man who likes to see where he’s stepping. We’ll see who laughs when one of you walks into a lava vent.”
He adjusted the wick, testing the light against the steam, then glanced toward Noah and Iskra through the haze. “Can’t all see in the dark, you know.”
He straightened, just in time to see Noah shift—bones stretching, wings curling, scales flashing dull bronze in the steam. The best way he knew how to describe what he was seeing was dragon-horse, though he'd be lying if he said he'd ever seen something like that before. Damien blinked once, slowly, then huffed something halfway between amusement and disbelief.
Iskra and Noah had already started filling a bucket, passing it carefully toward him across the rock. The steam turned everything soft and uncertain; even their movements looked slow, dreamlike. Damien caught the bucket’s rim, the metal hot beneath his palms, and tipped it toward the first barrel. The sound of water pouring echoed strange in the cavern—like the world sighing through its teeth.
“Good,” he said, passing the bucket back, “Let’s keep it steady. Don’t want to find out what happens when Frey’s bathwater spills on magma.”
beware the night is closing in
and if i fall asleep, the shadows win
Leaving Damien to his torches, Iskra's suggestion fell into place as they each staggered in enough of a line and reach to pass the bucket along without jostling it via strides and steps. He hands it off to Damien once the man is ready, a fresh and empty bucket already swinging from his now empty hands back towards Noah's waiting mouth. The sound is an odd array of metal on stone, water sloshing with the hiss of heat, and ragged breath of men getting to work. He's grateful then for his usual job being out in the fresh and open air of the crisp Halo woods, where the echo of an axe traveled far and faint through the bark and wind. Much more appealing than this wet heat.
A smile quirks up Iskra's lips as he reaches to take the newly emptied bucket back from Damien, dropping it at his feet as he turns and readies to received the freshly filled one from Noah. "Frey's sure to make it steamy one way or another," he quips, shoulder rolling with an unspoken laugh. "Though, pretty as this place is, I think I'm partial to our starlight one back home." Which, might be because it's in much closer walking distance, but he does admire Safrin's handiwork in it all the same. "Wonder what a Ludo spring might look like..."
Iskra passes Noah a second, empty bucket, and takes the first empty one from Damien, ready to receive a full one from Noah
Out on the water, Noah was no longer able to communicate verbally with the two men -- abandoned and accepted -- but as he lifted his eyes to Iskra, once, there were no words needed. A nod passed between them. Then he continued.
The steam curled around him as if greeting an old acquaintance and he lowered his head to fill the first bucket. He dipped it, slow and steady, so the heat wouldn’t slosh up and scald. He stepped back and swung his head toward Iskra, offering the bucket. Another bucket waited. Another bucket filled. The rhythm settled fast: dip, carry, pass; dip, carry, pass.
Glacier eyes found Iskra's again when he spoke, and Noah offered an equine like snort, showing the humor he found in the abandond's comment about Frey. But his ears flicked, too, flattening for a moment before lifting again, showing that he too, was interested in what a Ludo spring would look like. He didn't have much experince with the herald outsied of the lantern festival, having been chosen once years ago. He turned his eyes to Damien, wondering what the accepted thought.
