Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Sleep came heavy and delayed to a Priory researcher, and Almbjörn Sigurdsson was no stranger to disturbing his circadian rhythm; yet the insomnia that had gripped him following his employment as Durmand Priory ambassador in Hoelbrak was different. It was anxious, the kind that slowly fried the inside of one's chest like a wurm steak. Gone were his days of discussing mechanics with asura engineers or synergetic bioarcanics with his peers in the Grove, that had left him arguing theory over small glasses of punch and brandy into the small hours of the night. Instead he had paperwork, meetings with the Vigil's boneheaded representative Thurkill, and negotiations with the Raven Lodge's council. Even when he left his post in the Great Lodge, missives and couriers followed him home to his hearth and bed.
It was on such a night, overlooking a troubling set of reports of dredge abductions that he'd gotten the first vision. Crusader Thurkill had been hounding Almbjörn over authorizing an offensive, as if angering the dredge would slow the aggression. Almbjörn was not one to judge someone based on their chosen spirit, but a Bear Lodge man will always be a Bear Lodge man. Almbjörn was several spoons deep into a thick beetroot and fowl stew when he'd finally tuckered out into sleep, only a couple of hours before night broke into dawn. As of late his sleep had been fitful, but this was a long awaited knockout; in his deep sleep came reverie, as his mind wandered closer to the spirit realm.
Almbjörn was knee-deep in a snowstorm, with a heavy pack and a dollar following him, the ground was shaking from wurms burrowing, and the howl of snow prevented him from feeling anything but the need to stride onward. He felt his extremities going painfully numb, throbbing before losing sensation completely. Far in front of him he could see a pair of piercing green eyes, ever-watching like an owl's, leading him to walk through the heavy snowfall. He couldn't quite make out the shape, but it was vaguely humanoid, or avian, or reptilian. It was easier to identify what it wasn't than what it could be, and it beckoned him, walking further and further north, until he heard the rush of water. The eyes flittered and flew until they sat upon the first landmark he was able to distinguish since the vision had started. Frostbite Falls, in full rush, with water cascading down from the higher Shiverpeaks like they hadn't ever done before. As the mass of water brought itself down onto the ice below, it made a bellowing thunder that overpowered everything else. The pair of green eyes led Almbjörn in that direction, behind the waterfall. But as he got closer, the ice cracked and broke, revealing a deep maw below that threatened to swallow him whole. Almbjörn looked up one final, pleading time, to the green eyes, and they asked him to continue; despite knowing better, despite knowing where he'd end up, Almbjörn took a final step over the brink.
Almbjörn started awake to a well-lit hearth and Crusader Thurkill shaking him, breaking him out of the vision.
"Scholar! Scholar wake up! By the Wolf, I'd thought I'd lost you." Thurkill was genuinely concerned, and by the presence of medics in the room, a toppled bowl on the floor and Almbjörns massive headache, it was clear the vision had seized him by both mind and body. Just like his father.
"I- whemi ernow" His voice failed him, Almbjörn's thoughts couldn't pass his lips, even.
"Get me water you fool! Run!" Thurkill barked at one of the medics, poor bastard. Much for nothing as well, as someone else already had brought water for him. With the gentlest touch, Crusader Thurkill supported Almbjörn's neck, while guiding the water down his throat. Almbjörn's eyes finally began to slowly flit open to Thurkill's frown, a steeled expression betrayed by the worry in his eyes.
"I had- the falls. Thrs smthing in th falls." Thurkill lowered the jug of water, now looking straight into Almbjörn's eyes.
"What falls, what's in the falls?" The large, red-hot headed norm's tone had shifted from concern to interrogation reflexively. Almbjörn put a hand on the floor to support himself, before leaning off Crusader Thurkill entirely. Almbjörn put one hand on the table to pull down a charm of Owl, a gift from his family. It pulled his focus back, the magic interspersing into his thoughts to stabilize the rattle in his skull.
"I had a vision of the falls. Frostbite Falls." He said, slowly and methodically to make sure his mouth made all the right noises. Crusader Thurkill slid on over, while on one knee.
"It's the dredge, you'd do best to read the report, we need to act now." Thurkill said, unaware, somehow, of the poor timing to be talking about reports and dredge activity. While Almbjörn gathered himself, Thurkill gave a sharp look at one of his mooks as an order.
"Molent Summit. They have a cave called Molent Summit there, close there." Almbjörn had managed to stand up and point, with his whole body weight shifting under him, to Lornar's Pass. Thurkill supported him by placing himself immediately behind Almbjörn, and looking over his shoulders. Thurkill then placed his arms on the table, putting them on either side of Almbjörn's hips.
"Exactly, they're taking grawl, the magical ones. If dredge can force them to use their elemental magic, who knows what sort of machine or bomb they could come up with." Thurkill stated, with his mind on weapons, as always. ALmbjörn, flustered from the very sudden invasion of his privacy, agreed by humming, spurring Thurkill on.
"We ought to go there, The Order has found us an informant." It was clear from Thurkill's tone that 'we' did not include anyone else. But it was what had to be done. Almbjörn needed to fulfill the vision, or else they would come back, and he wouldn't be the first to be subsumed by seizures in his family.
"We aren't going to the Summit, it's too heavily guarded, we need to see the falls first. I need to see the falls."