Silvertip Mountain I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin

I rolled for outcome in table top here but if you had something else in mind LMK <3

val had been informed it was time for his final test. his scrape in the ruinwood was but the first step -- now came the true hour to test the mettle of his soul.

he smiled an inward rueful smile. he thought of pandora, and how easily killing had come to her.

so val followed his friends for three days and two nights. conversations were kept vague, a remark here or there about scents and weather and the turn of winter to spring. val felt it all within him: a budding rawness he had never actualized.

the dawn of their third day they were back in silvertip. val knew the significance but did not yet understand. not until they came to a cave did he realize he would not be slaughtering a coyote or fox.

no, his test was far more ferocious.

val paused and looked at both in disbelief. then, a settling of discouragement and defeat sank its claws into him. he was meant to face the bear. not the dead one, but the one very much alive and exuding its reek from the cave within.

val rounded his shoulders in a shaky breath. aventus spoke, but to val the world was clamoring around him. sounds synthesized, colors took shape and pulled away: a buzzing roared to life within his ears and somewhere came the distant sound of clip clip clip of water.

the faces of his friends were forgotten as val descended into the darkness of the cave.