Unione's Rest

Within the Black Mountains that border Stale are many countless peaks.

Those peaks, every one, tower above the plains and the valleys and into the sky.

At one point in time, no-one dared traverse them for fear their heights would take the lives that they had lived and would lock them away forever in the cold, desolate landscape far above the Earth.

But as is the way of history, a great tragedy swept the land.

A great war broke out in the country of Stale between an unknown band of powerful, unbeaten warriors and the darkness that was still being cleansed from the world to make way for peace, light and life that was to root itself on the world, and many soldiers and civilians perished in the war waged by the great beings against the powers of darkness that were trying to claim the world for their own. The war was fought in order for the warriors to pave the way for the expansion of light, peace and life that would continue to fill and claim the world after the end of this great war against the darkness that had come from the void far beyond, trying to allow the great beings from that darkness to return to the mortal plane and to bring it back under their power and eternal control.

It was during this war that many people - and members of other races - were forced to abandon their homes in search of safer ground and new land on which to dwell until the war came to an end.

But it was during one such migration that a small tribe was making their way across the towering Black Mountains in search of refuge from the throws of the war that was taking place within their home country. 

A group of travelers about twenty members strong was making their way across the highest and most difficult parts of the mountain range, trying to stay out of the bad weather zones and trying to follow the easiest pathways they could find across the mountains. They were heading for the mountain pass between the mountains that allowed passage from the country of Uthesh into the country of Stale, which they knew could lead them to the lower plains of the continent where they believed they could find refuge from the war and could rest until it was safe to return to their homes again. Unfortunately, after they had been ascending the range and crossing it for almost a week, the group had finally stumbled upon what would soon be recorded as the highest peak in the Black Mountain range.

Then known as Kurnwahrum-Mamdihr, it had first been named by the god Hosios-Dyn as one of his many lookout retreats in the mortal realm from which he could watch the expansion of the world and it's peoples as time went on. It was on this mountain where tragedy struck however, and as they began to climb upwards towards the peak, a great and deadly storm set in, quickly sweeping a great wall of snow and wind over the group and slowing their progress greatly. It proved too dangerous to continue on at the time, and they set up a temporary camp inside a large alcove near the first of many camps that would be set along the way up.

But one night, approximately one day before the group was going to traverse upwards to the site for a second camp, one of their group members went missing after venturing from the cave and out into the mountains which were still heavily swamped and hidden by the endless windstorm that had been pounding the range for at least two days. 

This group member, a young woman named Unione, had left the cave when she had assumed that the group had already left the camp without her in an attempt to reach the summit quicker with less to hold them back. In fear of being left behind, she gathered her resources and took off into the storm, not realizing that the group had simply ventured deeper into the cave for more warmth against the storm. She found her way further upwards until she had all but lost her way in the endless storm. She had trekked so far from the camp and up the treacherous slope that she had reached the final stretch of a great rise on the mountain slope, with only a few hundred feet or so between her and the very summit of the greatest peak in the Black Mountains.

But it was here that her journey would come to a cold, breathless, sad and lonely end.

Tired out and brought to the brink by her constant ascent up the mountain and confused by the lack of lower ground and the fact that she had failed to intercept her group, she found refuge in a cave that was located only a few hundred feet below the peak of the mountain. Alone, cold, tired and beaten by the ascent and the lack of air that she had been fighting through, she pushed herself into the cave and began to log the events of her travel, as well as the names of her group members and other details concerning their trip across the mountain range. She signed the letters with her name and the dates at which she had written the notes.

It was believed that she perished from the worsening conditions at least two days later after losing her pack during an attempt to reach the peak and failing. An unknown period of time later, when the first better-equipped adventurers had managed to ascend the peak , the unknown party stumbled upon a large group of skeletal remains at what also remained of a ruined and crumbling campsite which was located more than six-thousand feet or so below the summit. This camp was the resting ground of the group members who had been searching for Unione after realizing she had gone missing. The members were buried in stone graves, and when the adventure party had reached near the summit, they stumbled upon the same cave in which Unione had fallen asleep so long ago.

Her body was found in the same position in which she had fallen asleep. Curled underneath her fur blanket only inches away from the remains of a fire pit that had long since gone out. Her clothes had been well-preserved by the climate, and her skin had been bleached a ghostly white underneath her clothes after such a long period of time in the cold and without proper nutrients. This cave was marked as her resting place, and has become the location of a great pilgrimage of the people of the surrounding countries throughout history.

It is believed that her spirit rose to the heavenly realm soon after her death and was restored by Hosios-Dyn after he had witnessed her peril and death on the mountain's dangerous slopes. This theory is cemented by the fact that a deity of the Mountains, coincidentally known as Unione, Goddess of The Mountains is mentioned within the holy and religious texts read and protected by the churches and institutions across both Rethium and the world as a whole. 

It is believed that her body still remains in that position inside the cave to this day, forever asleep and at peace with the world around her.