Boneway
A Short
The sandstorm was brutal. Katla's boots ground into the smooth bone below her with every step as the sands shifted wildly in the gale. She could hardly see more than ten feet on account of the dark tint on her goggle's lenses and the thick wall of earth ahead. Movement pulled the ropes taught in her gloved hands, her sick father evidently stirring from his feverish sleep in the Dune Skimmer dragging behind.
“How far along the Boneway are we?!” he shouted, muffled by both the thick head scarf around his face and by the howling winds. The old man shifted again and Katla felt a few inches of the ropes slip from her aching fingers.
“Almost at Thekkir's skull, and keep still, damn it! Unless you want to go careening off Her spine!” she exclaimed, hazarding a look back down the weathered, ivory slope towards her father.
Some hour of trudging uphill in a sandstorm later, the Arishi Desert finally relented. As the grit fell to its home on the ground, Katla saw it maybe a mile ahead of them: Thekkir's jagged, open maw ready to spit them out into the dunes proper. Her heart raced at the sight, nearly a month's travel coming closer and closer to an end! Oh, how she planned to pamper herself once they got to Mirage... after she found a healer, of course.
Geography
The Boneway is located on the eastern cliffs of the Ishari Plateau, in the same place that the old Goddess of Knowledge, Thekkir, had fallen centuries prior. Before Her death, these cliffs were deemed impassable, and only the most daring chose to scale their faces. The surrounding cliffs are rife with sandfalls, veritable streams of sand that spill off the edges of the plateau. At the base of the Boneway, a rolling, dry prairie stretches on for miles around, long trodden by migratory peoples of the lands.
Climate
To say that the Boneway is dry would be an understatement. Some would go so far as to say it is... bone dry. What little rain does reach in the wetter months of the year is quickly evaporated by the heat of the desert, leaving little vegetation able to grow in the craggy ground that the great skeleton inhabits. At night, or what constitutes as night on Auredyne, temperatures drop slightly, but are still scorching to the average person. It is advised that all who travel through the Boneway come equipped with plenty of coverings, lest their skin burn merely from the reflection of light off of the sun bleached bones around them.
History
After her material body decayed and all that remained was Her skeleton, the people of eastern Auredyne found it convenient to use as a pass up the cliffs to the inner continent. This passage was used extensively by merchants, scholars, theologians, and at times, armies from the Imperium of Loh and the Eldskar Consortium before the completion of their tunnels beneath the Splintered Spine and Raakniv Peaks. Since the opening of these other, far more convenient passes' construction, the Boneway saw a steep decrease in use, though is still traversed by those with little other choice.
Work in Progress
Alternative Name(s)
Knower's Path; Trail of Scrolls
Type
Mountain Pass
Location under
Owning Organization
Contested By
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