In which Arn strives to leave the Hinterlands behind in his search for mountains that hold the lair of his great nemesis, Thaugolos.
Arn Kalapunki comes across a series of holes in a cliff, but skirts past it, recognizing it for the danger it may conceal.
Traversing the series of escarpment leading North, he comees across an ancient stone dam some 50 meters high with a central greenhouse that the river flows through. It is blocking his path, leaving him to either go around or attempt to scale the monumental structure.
Not willing to suffer further delay, he decides to scale its walls. With no appropriate gear, he gets less than 15 meters high before he falls back, wounding his head in the fall. Reassessing the situation, he sees an iron portcullis at the bottom of the gatehouse, and it looks partly corroded with time. Reaching it requires traversing the river, however.
While doing so, he slips on the rocks under the swiftly flowing water. It sweeps him towards a waterfall. He manages to grasp into rocks and drag himself to the shore, wet and cold. On the bank he discovers a metal object in the silt: a grappling hook!
The hook allows him to scale the dam, though he only just manages to pull himself up and over the wall when the hook fails, causing the lots of his rope.
The journey continues, but as Arn Kalapunki does move forward, the blade Ulvetann widows to him recounting Vestlidi‘s war experiences to him, giving him new sources of knowledge and experience granting him the Battle-Scarred path.
As he continues, the trees grow sparse and change in species. Winter had, however, begun to set in and he finds himself lost in a blizzard., choosing him a day of progress. Wounded and caught in severe Winter weather, better sense prevails and seeks out shelter.
Funding shelter in a series of caves, he rests, tends his wounds and even takes time to hunt to replenish his supplies, which he is quite successful at doing.
Entering the tunnel, the ground around him begins to shake .. an avalanche! He leaps inside the tunnel as rocks crash behind him, sealing the tunnel. Racing through the colliding passage, he emerges in a cloud of rock dust into a narrow valley … in front is a craggy landscape … up, up, up above he can make out the snow-covered crags he has been seeking: the Veiled Mountains where he may begun his search for the lair of Thaugolos.
That which was hunting him is cut off behind him, on the other side of the tunnel collapse.
The mountains of the Hinterlands lay within sightnow, when he wanders into a grove of gargantuan Ironwood trees that are thousands of years old, reminding him of the permanence of nature and the impermanence of his kitten kind, something a few human skeletons in the underbrush remind him of.
As he emergencies from the forest, he chimes to the crumbling opening of a tunnel that he believes could lead to the hills he seeks to enter.