We start at the peak overlooking the areas below. The cold air fills our lungs. We all took a moment to appreciate the snow. It was the first time for a lot of us to see snow or really experience this kind of cold. I'll be honest, I didn't know what snow was, and just thought that frozen rain fell from the sky. Always seemed dangerous to me.
We investigate the sheer walls near the monolith a bit more and planned our next course of action. The night of we saw a crazy meteor shower.
We mapped the area (U25)
We traveled for two-thirds of a day to the base of the plateau.
We began ascending the sheer wall. About 500 feet from the top, a giant Roc began approaching us, using some magic we quickly made our way up and took a defensive position. Turns out the monolith area has great cover from the giant Roc, and made it extremely difficult for it to properly attack us. We left it almost dead, and it flew away.
As an aside, I don't know how I feel about that. I understand that the Roc kept a lot of things and people out, but it also killed prior explorer's guild members. Part of me really wanted to avenge their deaths and I still kind of feel that way.
After the Roc left us we found out that the tree in the center was alive, and it fucking talks. It's about 30,000 years old and hasn't seen anyone mortal in about 4,000 years. We chatted with it for a while, asking it questions about experiences with both the past mortals and the time before. Interesting information was that the peak we were on taking to the tree were rapidly created. I don't know if that means some force created them or some rapid shift in the plates, but after discovering that he was the only tree to not die, and resist a fireball spell, something of the magical nature is going on here.
We rested for the night and then traveled a day and a half to reach the next peak. From there, Jean saw some plant people/art.
My hope is that it is just some art, and not actually people turned into plants.
I don't know if its just the unknown, or if it's all of what has gone on, but from a bunch of symbols, to a tree that can't die and can talk, to now plant people/art, I am really out in the deep end here. I'm trying to keep my head straight and keep myself grounded but it seems like in every situation I am fearing the worst. What if the mountains and cliffs were created to keep something away from us. Some being from tens of thousands of years ago created this mountains to protect us, but now we are just charging in. I'm terrified of what we might find.
Siona has helped calm me a bit, I've been relaying our findings to her and I hope the group doesn't mind. Maybe there is someone within the lore colleges that knows even a grain of information that we can connect all of the things we have learned to. Maybe there is something we will discover that has some kind of connection. I wish I was smarter and could try to connect these things together myself, but I am at a loss. It makes me wish that I came from a background of a wizard or something just so I knew what studying was like. Normally this magic shit comes naturally to me, but none of this makes sense. I'm always able to visualize my abilities even if I can't explain them. But now? I'm a magic user outside his element. I feel like we are at times starring into a piece of the loom itself that no one else knows about, but I have no way of explaining it.
Makes my god damn head hurt thinking about it.
Siona was always good at explaining this stuff, gods do I miss her insight.
On a different note we have learned and seen a lot, but we are no where close to even starting or finishing this contract. I think we as a group need to refocus and get back towards the sections of mountain pass we are supposed to chart for the guild. Maybe working on that will clear my head and give me some semblance of meaning amongst all this crazy stuff going on that we can't explain.