Silvertip Mountain cultist

the war reaper called out, and the mountain shook its coat and flung its fleas in offering at the feet of the shadow. the mountain did not bring to her merrick, the man, the priest, the father. instead, madness; a creature twisted by false worship and needless grief and hunger, so much hunger.

so much was different, yet so much was the same.

the shadow bore the ramblings of the madman they had once called a father with the proud, grim silence of the eternal. he spoke of an heir, of the dead, of abandonment and return, and the shadow knew then that his blindness ran bone-deep.

he would never see; his mortal mind was long since broken, stuck in endless loop of all the things that would never touch his greatest creation.

she is in otherworld now, the shadow said, at length, tasting the thinning wolf-scents on the air. spirits call out, say: return to ursus, return to father-betrayer, make him see. but you are lost. you follow bear, face of hunger, devourer of all. now bear swallow ursus, and still hunger for more.

the shadow turned away, for their meeting had already stretched too long; it was too late, and this was a waste. the prophet had waited too long to heed the call of the spirits. they would not make that mistake again.