Sett groaned and growled as he grasped at the rocks and pulled himself up.
He was climbing for hours. The sky had darkened now and the sun had long set.
He raised his hand and blindly searched for a place to position his hands. A small ledge or gap in the stone, anything.
The Beast-Man continued to climb bigher and higher. Eventually, he discovered something that he could hold onto.
A sword was stabbing the rock below a big ledge.
Sett used the hilt as a gripping point to lift himself up into said ledge.
The Beast-Man sat down onto the stone, with his back against the cold ice. There he let out a relieved breath...until he looked left.
A skeleton, perhaps the remains of someone who attempted to climb onto the mountain and failed. It's right femur was shattered. Perhaps the climber was injured as he tried to get down.
Sett gasped and froze in place. He decided that he'd remain there for an hour or two and then continue on.
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.
.
Lanius lifted himself up on the mountain, as he finally found air instead of rock above him.
The young man then looked forward and saw that he was no longer in the slopes of Targon, but back in Shon-Xan...and to be precise, back in Kulhua.
The strange voice spoke to him again. "Here you shall face your past..."
The young man looked around in confusion, then he soon understood, as a figure approached him.
"What makes you think you are one of us, Son of Zefarin?" the female voice asked, as the snow storm roared around the two.
The woman was short but fit. She wore a black gurred crop top and had her hair braided like Lanius.
"Warmother..." Lanius muttered. "I suppose it is a test?"
"The Warmother indeed." the woman seemed sad. "Sit down." she said and sat down herself.
Lanius did so.
"I shall ask you this again, Lanius. What makes you think that you are one of us, despite being a half vastaya?" the Warmother asked him.
"That my father was a Verhea, just like you, just like the rest of us." Lanius spoke.
"Are you like us though?" the Warmother then asked.
"No...I'm different." Lanius seemed to get gloomier.
"But what did your father do?" she continued. "Why are you different from us?"
"My father...married a vastaya. He did an act that went against a prophecy." Lanius muttered. "Is it my fault that love overtook Zefarin's beliefs? Is it my fault that his love for my mother was bigger than his belief for the prophecy?" he asked in an outburst of anger.
The Warmother looked straight in his eyes. "My boy, nobody is blaming you. It was neither Zefarin's fault, nor your birth that led to our eradication. It was the Noxians fault."
Lanius looked desparate. "But...I tried to not become the Winter...I left the tribe...and yet you still died."
"Yes, but we're with you in your memories. Now and for as long as the Wolf won't chase you." the Warmother didn't seem sad anymore. "And...why do you need the rune?"
Lanius looked confused. "To...to avenge you, to free Ionia...to punish the witch."
"But why do you really want it?" The Warmother raised an eyebrow.
Lanius thought...and then talked. "To get strong enough to be able to achieve those things."
The Warmother smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mhi tash, ezde treeha."
"My child, you are ready?" Lanius repeated.
"Zveh." she said and got up. The Warmother began to walk and dissappear into the snow.
"Warmother, wait! Is mother and father all right in the other life?!" Lanius panicked.
The Warmother stopped and turned around. Lanius was stunned. The Warmother had shifted to his mother's image. "My little wolf, we're all right. Don't worry about us, we're watching over you." she said and walked off.
The young man blinked, and reappeared on yet another icy slope. Lanius sat there for a few seconds in tears.
"Your past...unlocked. Two more to go." the voice spoke once more.
Lanius got up and shook his head. He had to continue, he had to keep going.
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Sett slammed his fist at the wolves.
They were in packs and furry, similar those they had in Ionia, yet they were twice the size of the Beast-Man.
"USHAAA!" Sett punched one of the beasts, sending it down with a terrible screech.
The two other wolves snarled and rushed towards him.
"Come at me!" He yelled as he channelled vastayan magic into his fist and charged at the furred hunters.
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"Aphelios, somebody has reached our shrine. He seems to not he from here, yet his appearance is similar to those of the snow lands." it was Alune again. "He'll be reaching you at any moment. It is up to you to find out what he is up to. Have faith, brother." Alune muttered.
Aphelios opened his eyes. He seemed to be in a meditating position, with the bowl of poison directly in front of him, untouched. Those words were uttered a few hours ago.
"Faith..." Aphelios repeated from within his thoughts.
At that exact moment, footsteps sounded.
Aphelios jumped up and retreated into the shadows.
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The young man stopped in front a cave.
He had climbed for hours on end, and decided to stop there to get some rest.
He took a step forward, and ventured inside.
As he stepped into the dark, he discovered that the path led to a big cave.
Its interior gave the feeling of a temple, with black and blue patterned marble and gigantic black marble pillars. A large circle with a crescent moon, also made out of marble was at the center of the cave.
The cave had a whole at its ceiling, and the moonlight bathed the crescent moon from it.
Lanius walked around. From what he understood, the place was either a Lunari temple or a shrine.
The Lunari were one of the two main religions of Mt.Targon. In contrast to the other religion, the Solari, that worshiped the sun, the Lunari worshiped the moon.
Lanius looked around the temple once more. It was delicate, despite its location.
Lanius wanted to know the origin of the temple, thus he grabbed the echo amber from his pocket and touched one of the pillars.
Suddenly, an image of a ritual popped in his vision.
Priests dressed in purple, black and grey prayed in their language.
Out of respect for them, Lanius removed from his neck a Solari locket that one of the Rakkor gave him as a charm before the climb.
"Solari intruder, you made a mistake when you came here." a female voice sounded from behind him.
Lanius turned around, not knowing whether it was from the vision or not.
He found nobody except a young man that stared straight at his soul...a young man with a crescent moon tattoo on his face and a grey and purple cloak.
Lanius returned to the human world. He was standing at the center of the crescent moon, with the moonlight bathing him.
"Here you will face the present..." the stranger from before sounded again, though the young man had other things in his mind.
What was this vision, did those memories belong to a Solari that had ventured into the temple to spy on them and was discovered by the young man? Then whose was the female voice?