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Description
July 4, 12985 BCE; Siberia

They walked for days.

Arktalaki and Iwakuk did nothing but move after that tragic event. They wandered aimlessly through the woods, hunting game when they could and finding the most makeshift of shelters when they were faced with the ever-growing power of the snowstorms.

The pain of the loss still stung Arktalaki’s soul. She felt a bitter emptiness deep within her like she had never felt before. Everything she knew, everyone she loved… gone. She had faced loss before, of course. Between disease and the animals and the weather, life is a short and fragile thing. No one was expected to live too long, and she tragically had to let many good people go. But this was different. This… this wasn't just a loss, this was a theft. A cruel, burning, hateful theft. The Mahanuq were not obeyed, so their response was to destroy. The Yi’alut had done nothing to deserve this, but that didn't matter to the Mahanuq. The Mahanuq only cared about dominance. And their chief…

Arktalaki remembered Tanaguq’s ugly, scarred face. She remembered the way his teeth were rotted and jagged. She remembered the cruel, unnatural grin that wrinkled his face as he pounded her family into a red heap. Arktalaki had made her decision. She was going to kill him. She was going to hunt him down and drive a blade into his heart. She'd show no mercy. No mercy was deserved. The next time they crossed paths, even if she died too, she'd make sure he'd fall.

But for now, the biggest threat she faced was the storm. The winter winds were seemingly turning against her too. Snow smacked into her face, making it sting from the cold. She had to shove her way through the deep fields of snow and the blurry flurry that blocked most of her vision. She was shivering terribly, and Iwakuk was struggling as much as she was. It was only going to get worse. At this time of year, the snows always just got worse. And the distant sounds of wolves and tigers and other predators lurking in the shadows of the forest weren't helping to calm her nerves. Normally she'd just curl up in her nice, warm tent, protected by a dozen loyal warriors armed to the teeth, but…

They had to find shelter, she knew they had to. There was no way they'd survive the night otherwise. The winds were howling, the predators were growling. They had to hurry.

Both of them kept their eyes peeled, trying desperately to see through the storm for a cave or something similar. For a while it seemed hopeless, but then Iwakuk started barking.

Arktalaki watched her and followed her gaze. Squinting her eyes, she was just barely able to make out the silhouette of a cave in a cliffside. She gasped, and she started plowing her way in that direction, Iwakuk at her side. It took a while, but soon enough they managed to toss themselves inside, away from the brutal maw of the storm at last.

Arktalaki shivered and rubbed her hands together as she sat down and curled up with Iwakuk for warmth. She pulled her bear skin around the both of them as much as she could, and only when her shivering had gone down to a reasonable steadiness did she begin to build. She took a few branches she had collected out of her bag, along with a chip of flint and a stone. She piled up the twigs in the middle of the room, and struck her minerals together to get the igniting sparks she needed to complete the progress. Soon, the bright orange glow came dancing out of the wood, and the crackling fire took form.

With a sigh of relief, Arktalaki sat down on a large stone, holding her palms out to the fire to warm them. Iwakuk trotted in circles for a second before laying down by the flame, just as happy as her master to be warm. The unrelenting winds outside were now nothing but ambiance, a whirling howl that was a bit muffled out by the walls of the cave.

Arktalaki took out a few things of meat for her and Iwakuk, cooked them over the fire, and the two of them dined in silence. For a while, Arktalaki just sat and looked around the cave. It was quite bigger than any of the other caves she had stumbled upon, much more homey. She noticed that several paintings were brushed onto the stone walls. Generic pictures of mammoth hunts and sabretooth attacks, as well as a few folklore tales. There were a few odd ones, though. Figures of people with large heads and odd weapons in their hands standing on top of what she could only assume were mountains. One of them held a sort of orb above the heads of other, smaller people. The orb had rays coming from it, like the sun. Arktalaki pondered over it. It almost reminded her of some of the legends of the spirits and gods that her mother used to tell her. She sat for a moment, taking in the details of the mural, when something else suddenly caught the corner of her eye. A faint orange glow.

She stood from her stone and looked down one of the tunnels that led deeper into the cave. There was definitely the tell tale glow of fire coming from deep within. She suddenly realized she wasn't alone in here…

She immediately went to her bow and readied it. She slowly began to move in to investigate. She didn't want to end up having her head bashed in in the middle of the night after all. She crept into the tunnel, stepping over all the rocks and ice sheets as she made her descent. The fire light became brighter and brighter. She eventually reached the end of the tunnel, and she pulled her bowstring tight. She swerved around in every direction, paranoid of any surprise attacks. But none came. The room was quiet save for the crackle of the fire pit. She lowered her bow, but kept it armed. She took a glance around the room, and was rather surprised by what she saw.

It was one of the most decorated caves she had ever seen. Paintings and symbols filled the walls, many blocked out by all the trinkets and skins that hung all over the place. Spears, bows, axes, and knives of all designs and shapes sat in piles along one of the walls, each with a unique style and level of complexity. Arktalaki could barely take it all in. There was so much. She saw more of those paintings of people with sun orbs and odd spears that seemed to have fire coming out of one end. At the center of it all was one massive symbol painted on the back wall. A series of streaks that looked like a stylized teardrop with an eagle painted behind it all. It was all so bizarre, surreal almost. But by far, the thing that struck Arktalaki the most was what she saw standing in the middle of the room.

It was what looked like a set of skins draped on a wooden post, an outfit sewn together from pelts and feathers of all sorts of creatures. The robes reached down to thigh length, bound at the waist with leather belts and a red sash. Furs and skins were lumped and tied around the forearms, with what seemed like a sort of sheathe tied to them. It was all topped off with a white, beaked hood, giving the whole thing the silhouette of some majestic eagle. Arktalaki found herself oddly drawn towards it. She approached it carefully, slowly, as if it would somehow lunge out and bite her if she acted in haste. She reached out a hand to touch it. She felt her fingers brush lightly against the soft furs. She found herself engrossed in inspecting this peculiar find.

“What are you doing in here?!”

Arktalaki jumped a good three feet and immediately went to her bow when her scramble made her drop it. But she suddenly found a foot place itself firmly onto the bow, and before she could look up to investigate the owner, she suddenly felt herself getting smacked in the face and knocked to the ground. She felt the texture of a wooden pole pressing on her neck and holding her to the ground. Her eyes widened in surprise. She looked up at her attacker.

“I asked you a question!” the assailant demanded. It was an old woman. She wore a hood, but it didn't do much to hide her silver hair and wrinkled face. She was hunched and a bit on the thin, frail side, and yet she managed to keep Arktalaki pinned firmly to the ground. Her golden eyes pierced Arktalaki’s soul from under her hood.

“Don't make me toss you to the tigers, girl!” the old woman threatened.

“My name is Arktalaki, you crazy hag!” Arktalaki spat back, not in the mood for abuse like this.

“Why are you in my cave? Did they send you?”

“Send me? No one sent me! What are you talking about!”

“I know they have eyes and ears looking out for me everywhere. But they won't find me or the Piece, you hear me!”

“What are you talking about? Who is ‘they’? I just came in here looking for a place to wait out the storm with my pet!”

The old woman simply replied with a “hrmph” as she continued to glare down at and inspect Arktalaki. After a few irritating moments, she finally took her cane off of Arktalaki’s neck and stepped away. Arktalaki coughed as she stood back up.

“You're insane! By the spirits!” Arktalaki said bitterly.

“Don't touch my robes!” the old woman droned. “Don't touch anything in this room! Just go away! Leave me be!”

“I can't! We need to wait until the storm clears enough. We've nowhere else to go.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

Arktalaki was speechless. How could someone be this rude and inconsiderate?

“Look,” Arktalaki said as the old woman dusted off the robes, “We'll just stay up by the entrance and leave in the morning. We won't mess with anything, not even those weird drawings up there.”

The old woman suddenly froze. She slowly looked over her shoulder at Arktalaki, eyes wide open. “What did you say?” she asked, he voice quiet now.

“I said we'll just stay up at the entrance and-”

“No no no no! The last thing! The thing about the drawings!”

“What? I…”

“You can see them!”

“Of course I ca- hey!”

She didn't even get a warning before she suddenly found herself being dragged by the ear back up to where she had made camp. Iwakuk sat up straight from her nap when she noticed the two of them come in. She started growling softly. She didn't appreciate the way her master was being treated. Arktalaki motioned for her to stay down though… for now.

The old woman thrust Arktalaki forwards, holding her towards the wall with her boney hands. “Do you see them?”

“What? The drawings? Of course I-”

But when she looked at the wall, the drawings were gone. There was nothing there but a blank stone wall reflecting the dim light of the fire.

“W… wait. What?” Arktalaki said, temporarily distracted from the old woman's delirious abuses. “But… there were drawings here…”

“Look closely, child. Gather your senses. Push them all towards the wall. See them again.”

“I…”

“Concentrate!”

Arktalaki didn't know what to do. What was this crazy old hag talking about? Focus her senses? She just stared at the wall, the blank wall. She thought about all the bizarre images of folklore stories that were there, all the inane scribblings of people standing on mountains with the sun in their hands. She remembered where they were, remembered every detail. But that was about all there was to it.

At least until her head started tingling.

Something odd started happening as she stared at the wall and thought about all those drawings. She felt different. She felt a bizarre sensation right behind her eyes, and suddenly, in a flash, the world burst into a deep blue hue that engulfed everything. Arktalaki gasped in surprise. The drawings had returned in full view, this time bathed in a bright shining glow. Arktalaki gawked at it, nearly stumbling backwards into the old woman.

“Can you see them?” the old woman asked her.

“I… I can! Wh… I… How?”

“By the spirits… I thought they had wiped us all out…”

Arktalaki spun around, pulling out of the old woman's grip. She saw that Iwakuk and the person in front of her were highlighted in a light blue glow. The old woman looked at her as if she had seen a ghost. Even as Arktalaki’s bizarre new vision gave way and faded out to normality, the woman still stared. She looked like she was about to cry.

“What was that?” Arktalaki wanted to know. She was actually starting to get scared. All this was not something she expected to encounter today.

And she certainly didn't expect the old woman to lunge forward and hug her.

“I knew I couldn't be the last one of us!” the old woman cheered. “I knew it! The Order could never wipe us all out!”

Arktalaki yanked away, beginning to panic and stress quite clearly. “What are you going on about? Who's ‘us’? What Order? Who even are you, and what did you just do to me? How did I see like that?”

The old woman looked at her, confused. “You are from the Brotherhood, are you not?” she asked.

“Brotherhood? No! I don't even know what you're talking about! I'm just a lost girl who tried to escape the storm! I had nowhere else to go after Tanaguq the Mahanuq slaughtered my tribe!”

The old woman looked stunned, but she also seemed to ponder something. She started mumbling to herself. “No no… she has the Sense. She must be!”

“Ahem!” Arktalaki said.

“My child, you must have some knowledge of who you are! You have the Sense! Tanaguq attacked you in his hunt for the Artifacts!”

“Artifacts? Tanaguq attacked my people because we refused him supplies! He attacked us because he's a power-hungry tyrant!”

“My child, he is something much much worse than that. I don't understand how you cannot know… the Prophecy said that one of us would come to resurrect our people! One who has the Sense!”

Arktalaki was the one to take a step back this time. “Our people? Are… are you Yi’alut?” she asked the old woman.

“I am, but I am something more as well. Something that you are too, even if you don't realize it.”

Arktalaki ignored the crazy ramblings for now. “Then how is it I never saw you before? You never travelled with the tribe?”

“I left the tribe long ago to pursue the goals of the Brotherhood, to try and take down Tanaquq and his dreadful Order. And when they slaughtered our kind… when I found I was the only one left who could guard it…”

She suddenly got a look like a big idea had come to her. She looked at a very conflicted and perplexed Arktalaki. “You may stay the night, my child, but then we both must move.”

She turned and walked back down to her lair below. Arktalaki was at a loss for words. “Hey wait!” she called. “You never even told me who you are!”

“My name isn't important, my child,” the old woman called. “My title is of much more value. I am the Mentor.” There was a pause. “But if you must know, my name is Wamuneq.”

And that was all Arktalaki got before the old woman disappeared into her casm. For a while, Arktalaki just stood in utter bafflement. She had so many questions running through her head. But she soon realized that she was just too tired at this point to try and find answers to them. She'd wait until tomorrow.

She went over to her fireplace and sat down with Iwakuk. After petting her animal and getting it back to sleep, She herself curled up with one of Wamuneq’s raggedy discarded sheets and listened to the crackle of the fire and the howling of the winds until the combination managed to lull her into sleep.

------------

She received quite a rude awakening.

Something crashed down right in front of her face, making a loud clatter on the stone floor that snapped her awake. She yelped and jumped right into a sitting position. She looked at the object, an old tattered sack, and then up at the person who dropped it. Of course it was Wamuneq.

Arktalaki rubbed the sleep from her eyes and gave “the Mentor” the dirtiest look her sleep-deprived brain could muster.

“Did you have to do that?” she snarled.

“If what I'm led to believe is true, then yes,” the Mentor replied coolly. And then she immediately began walking away again.

Arktalaki groaned in annoyance and looked back down at the sack. She picked it up. There was something solid and round inside. Did she imagine it, or did it feel like there was some sort of… energy radiating out of it? Not quite like heat from a fire, but… similar.

“What even is this?” Arktalaki called to Wamuneq.

The Mentor paused for just a brief moment. “The real reason Tanaguq slaughtered your tribe.”

And with that, she vanished to her chambers yet again, never once even looking back at the confused girl.

Arktalaki looked back at the sack. She cautiously reached her hand in. She felt the object inside. It was definitely a round disk, and aside from a few engravings and patterns, it felt completely, impossibly smooth. She slowly started taking it out. She gawked at what she saw when the bag was peeled away. It looked like a stone disk with a hole cut out of the middle. As she felt before, there were engravings in it, but… they seemed impossible. They were perfect. Perfect lines, perfect angles, perfect shapes. Nothing about the pattern was erroneous or out of place.

But by far the most bizarre thing about it was the glow.

It had this… shine to it, the same way that fire does, but much brighter and with a more gold tint to it. The glow seemed to pulse as she held the object. She could feel an unnatural tingling racing into her fingertips and up her arms. She stared at this object, jaw dropped. What was this thing? It looked and felt like something from the spirit realm. It started pulsing harder, glowing brighter. The tingling Arktalaki felt just kept increasing. She started getting scared. What was it doing? She wanted to let go, but she found that her body wouldn't listen to her. It was as though she was being held captive by this thing. No matter how she struggled, she couldn't get away. The glow grew bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter, until all Arktalaki saw was a blinding whiteness. She shielded her eyes. She felt something odd inside her head, like a spider wriggling around her brain. Suddenly, the winds disappeared. She stopped hearing the crackling of fire, or Iwakuk’s breathing. She started hearing the clashing of tools, the banging of metal, the hum of machinery. She began to hear her masters approach in the distance. She looked up from her post. When the masters came, it was time to return to work.

Description
July 4, 12985 BCE; Siberia

They walked for days.

Arktalaki and Iwakuk did nothing but move after that tragic event. They wandered aimlessly through the woods, hunting game when they could and finding the most makeshift of shelters when they were faced with the ever-growing power of the snowstorms.

The pain of the loss still stung Arktalaki’s soul. She felt a bitter emptiness deep within her like she had never felt before. Everything she knew, everyone she loved… gone. She had faced loss before, of course. Between disease and the animals and the weather, life is a short and fragile thing. No one was expected to live too long, and she tragically had to let many good people go. But this was different. This… this wasn't just a loss, this was a theft. A cruel, burning, hateful theft. The Mahanuq were not obeyed, so their response was to destroy. The Yi’alut had done nothing to deserve this, but that didn't matter to the Mahanuq. The Mahanuq only cared about dominance. And their chief…

Arktalaki remembered Tanaguq’s ugly, scarred face. She remembered the way his teeth were rotted and jagged. She remembered the cruel, unnatural grin that wrinkled his face as he pounded her family into a red heap. Arktalaki had made her decision. She was going to kill him. She was going to hunt him down and drive a blade into his heart. She'd show no mercy. No mercy was deserved. The next time they crossed paths, even if she died too, she'd make sure he'd fall.

But for now, the biggest threat she faced was the storm. The winter winds were seemingly turning against her too. Snow smacked into her face, making it sting from the cold. She had to shove her way through the deep fields of snow and the blurry flurry that blocked most of her vision. She was shivering terribly, and Iwakuk was struggling as much as she was. It was only going to get worse. At this time of year, the snows always just got worse. And the distant sounds of wolves and tigers and other predators lurking in the shadows of the forest weren't helping to calm her nerves. Normally she'd just curl up in her nice, warm tent, protected by a dozen loyal warriors armed to the teeth, but…

They had to find shelter, she knew they had to. There was no way they'd survive the night otherwise. The winds were howling, the predators were growling. They had to hurry.

Both of them kept their eyes peeled, trying desperately to see through the storm for a cave or something similar. For a while it seemed hopeless, but then Iwakuk started barking.

Arktalaki watched her and followed her gaze. Squinting her eyes, she was just barely able to make out the silhouette of a cave in a cliffside. She gasped, and she started plowing her way in that direction, Iwakuk at her side. It took a while, but soon enough they managed to toss themselves inside, away from the brutal maw of the storm at last.

Arktalaki shivered and rubbed her hands together as she sat down and curled up with Iwakuk for warmth. She pulled her bear skin around the both of them as much as she could, and only when her shivering had gone down to a reasonable steadiness did she begin to build. She took a few branches she had collected out of her bag, along with a chip of flint and a stone. She piled up the twigs in the middle of the room, and struck her minerals together to get the igniting sparks she needed to complete the progress. Soon, the bright orange glow came dancing out of the wood, and the crackling fire took form.

With a sigh of relief, Arktalaki sat down on a large stone, holding her palms out to the fire to warm them. Iwakuk trotted in circles for a second before laying down by the flame, just as happy as her master to be warm. The unrelenting winds outside were now nothing but ambiance, a whirling howl that was a bit muffled out by the walls of the cave.

Arktalaki took out a few things of meat for her and Iwakuk, cooked them over the fire, and the two of them dined in silence. For a while, Arktalaki just sat and looked around the cave. It was quite bigger than any of the other caves she had stumbled upon, much more homey. She noticed that several paintings were brushed onto the stone walls. Generic pictures of mammoth hunts and sabretooth attacks, as well as a few folklore tales. There were a few odd ones, though. Figures of people with large heads and odd weapons in their hands standing on top of what she could only assume were mountains. One of them held a sort of orb above the heads of other, smaller people. The orb had rays coming from it, like the sun. Arktalaki pondered over it. It almost reminded her of some of the legends of the spirits and gods that her mother used to tell her. She sat for a moment, taking in the details of the mural, when something else suddenly caught the corner of her eye. A faint orange glow.

She stood from her stone and looked down one of the tunnels that led deeper into the cave. There was definitely the tell tale glow of fire coming from deep within. She suddenly realized she wasn't alone in here…

She immediately went to her bow and readied it. She slowly began to move in to investigate. She didn't want to end up having her head bashed in in the middle of the night after all. She crept into the tunnel, stepping over all the rocks and ice sheets as she made her descent. The fire light became brighter and brighter. She eventually reached the end of the tunnel, and she pulled her bowstring tight. She swerved around in every direction, paranoid of any surprise attacks. But none came. The room was quiet save for the crackle of the fire pit. She lowered her bow, but kept it armed. She took a glance around the room, and was rather surprised by what she saw.

It was one of the most decorated caves she had ever seen. Paintings and symbols filled the walls, many blocked out by all the trinkets and skins that hung all over the place. Spears, bows, axes, and knives of all designs and shapes sat in piles along one of the walls, each with a unique style and level of complexity. Arktalaki could barely take it all in. There was so much. She saw more of those paintings of people with sun orbs and odd spears that seemed to have fire coming out of one end. At the center of it all was one massive symbol painted on the back wall. A series of streaks that looked like a stylized teardrop with an eagle painted behind it all. It was all so bizarre, surreal almost. But by far, the thing that struck Arktalaki the most was what she saw standing in the middle of the room.

It was what looked like a set of skins draped on a wooden post, an outfit sewn together from pelts and feathers of all sorts of creatures. The robes reached down to thigh length, bound at the waist with leather belts and a red sash. Furs and skins were lumped and tied around the forearms, with what seemed like a sort of sheathe tied to them. It was all topped off with a white, beaked hood, giving the whole thing the silhouette of some majestic eagle. Arktalaki found herself oddly drawn towards it. She approached it carefully, slowly, as if it would somehow lunge out and bite her if she acted in haste. She reached out a hand to touch it. She felt her fingers brush lightly against the soft furs. She found herself engrossed in inspecting this peculiar find.

“What are you doing in here?!”

Arktalaki jumped a good three feet and immediately went to her bow when her scramble made her drop it. But she suddenly found a foot place itself firmly onto the bow, and before she could look up to investigate the owner, she suddenly felt herself getting smacked in the face and knocked to the ground. She felt the texture of a wooden pole pressing on her neck and holding her to the ground. Her eyes widened in surprise. She looked up at her attacker.

“I asked you a question!” the assailant demanded. It was an old woman. She wore a hood, but it didn't do much to hide her silver hair and wrinkled face. She was hunched and a bit on the thin, frail side, and yet she managed to keep Arktalaki pinned firmly to the ground. Her golden eyes pierced Arktalaki’s soul from under her hood.

“Don't make me toss you to the tigers, girl!” the old woman threatened.

“My name is Arktalaki, you crazy hag!” Arktalaki spat back, not in the mood for abuse like this.

“Why are you in my cave? Did they send you?”

“Send me? No one sent me! What are you talking about!”

“I know they have eyes and ears looking out for me everywhere. But they won't find me or the Piece, you hear me!”

“What are you talking about? Who is ‘they’? I just came in here looking for a place to wait out the storm with my pet!”

The old woman simply replied with a “hrmph” as she continued to glare down at and inspect Arktalaki. After a few irritating moments, she finally took her cane off of Arktalaki’s neck and stepped away. Arktalaki coughed as she stood back up.

“You're insane! By the spirits!” Arktalaki said bitterly.

“Don't touch my robes!” the old woman droned. “Don't touch anything in this room! Just go away! Leave me be!”

“I can't! We need to wait until the storm clears enough. We've nowhere else to go.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

Arktalaki was speechless. How could someone be this rude and inconsiderate?

“Look,” Arktalaki said as the old woman dusted off the robes, “We'll just stay up by the entrance and leave in the morning. We won't mess with anything, not even those weird drawings up there.”

The old woman suddenly froze. She slowly looked over her shoulder at Arktalaki, eyes wide open. “What did you say?” she asked, he voice quiet now.

“I said we'll just stay up at the entrance and-”

“No no no no! The last thing! The thing about the drawings!”

“What? I…”

“You can see them!”

“Of course I ca- hey!”

She didn't even get a warning before she suddenly found herself being dragged by the ear back up to where she had made camp. Iwakuk sat up straight from her nap when she noticed the two of them come in. She started growling softly. She didn't appreciate the way her master was being treated. Arktalaki motioned for her to stay down though… for now.

The old woman thrust Arktalaki forwards, holding her towards the wall with her boney hands. “Do you see them?”

“What? The drawings? Of course I-”

But when she looked at the wall, the drawings were gone. There was nothing there but a blank stone wall reflecting the dim light of the fire.

“W… wait. What?” Arktalaki said, temporarily distracted from the old woman's delirious abuses. “But… there were drawings here…”

“Look closely, child. Gather your senses. Push them all towards the wall. See them again.”

“I…”

“Concentrate!”

Arktalaki didn't know what to do. What was this crazy old hag talking about? Focus her senses? She just stared at the wall, the blank wall. She thought about all the bizarre images of folklore stories that were there, all the inane scribblings of people standing on mountains with the sun in their hands. She remembered where they were, remembered every detail. But that was about all there was to it.

At least until her head started tingling.

Something odd started happening as she stared at the wall and thought about all those drawings. She felt different. She felt a bizarre sensation right behind her eyes, and suddenly, in a flash, the world burst into a deep blue hue that engulfed everything. Arktalaki gasped in surprise. The drawings had returned in full view, this time bathed in a bright shining glow. Arktalaki gawked at it, nearly stumbling backwards into the old woman.

“Can you see them?” the old woman asked her.

“I… I can! Wh… I… How?”

“By the spirits… I thought they had wiped us all out…”

Arktalaki spun around, pulling out of the old woman's grip. She saw that Iwakuk and the person in front of her were highlighted in a light blue glow. The old woman looked at her as if she had seen a ghost. Even as Arktalaki’s bizarre new vision gave way and faded out to normality, the woman still stared. She looked like she was about to cry.

“What was that?” Arktalaki wanted to know. She was actually starting to get scared. All this was not something she expected to encounter today.

And she certainly didn't expect the old woman to lunge forward and hug her.

“I knew I couldn't be the last one of us!” the old woman cheered. “I knew it! The Order could never wipe us all out!”

Arktalaki yanked away, beginning to panic and stress quite clearly. “What are you going on about? Who's ‘us’? What Order? Who even are you, and what did you just do to me? How did I see like that?”

The old woman looked at her, confused. “You are from the Brotherhood, are you not?” she asked.

“Brotherhood? No! I don't even know what you're talking about! I'm just a lost girl who tried to escape the storm! I had nowhere else to go after Tanaguq the Mahanuq slaughtered my tribe!”

The old woman looked stunned, but she also seemed to ponder something. She started mumbling to herself. “No no… she has the Sense. She must be!”

“Ahem!” Arktalaki said.

“My child, you must have some knowledge of who you are! You have the Sense! Tanaguq attacked you in his hunt for the Artifacts!”

“Artifacts? Tanaguq attacked my people because we refused him supplies! He attacked us because he's a power-hungry tyrant!”

“My child, he is something much much worse than that. I don't understand how you cannot know… the Prophecy said that one of us would come to resurrect our people! One who has the Sense!”

Arktalaki was the one to take a step back this time. “Our people? Are… are you Yi’alut?” she asked the old woman.

“I am, but I am something more as well. Something that you are too, even if you don't realize it.”

Arktalaki ignored the crazy ramblings for now. “Then how is it I never saw you before? You never travelled with the tribe?”

“I left the tribe long ago to pursue the goals of the Brotherhood, to try and take down Tanaquq and his dreadful Order. And when they slaughtered our kind… when I found I was the only one left who could guard it…”

She suddenly got a look like a big idea had come to her. She looked at a very conflicted and perplexed Arktalaki. “You may stay the night, my child, but then we both must move.”

She turned and walked back down to her lair below. Arktalaki was at a loss for words. “Hey wait!” she called. “You never even told me who you are!”

“My name isn't important, my child,” the old woman called. “My title is of much more value. I am the Mentor.” There was a pause. “But if you must know, my name is Wamuneq.”

And that was all Arktalaki got before the old woman disappeared into her casm. For a while, Arktalaki just stood in utter bafflement. She had so many questions running through her head. But she soon realized that she was just too tired at this point to try and find answers to them. She'd wait until tomorrow.

She went over to her fireplace and sat down with Iwakuk. After petting her animal and getting it back to sleep, She herself curled up with one of Wamuneq’s raggedy discarded sheets and listened to the crackle of the fire and the howling of the winds until the combination managed to lull her into sleep.

------------

She received quite a rude awakening.

Something crashed down right in front of her face, making a loud clatter on the stone floor that snapped her awake. She yelped and jumped right into a sitting position. She looked at the object, an old tattered sack, and then up at the person who dropped it. Of course it was Wamuneq.

Arktalaki rubbed the sleep from her eyes and gave “the Mentor” the dirtiest look her sleep-deprived brain could muster.

“Did you have to do that?” she snarled.

“If what I'm led to believe is true, then yes,” the Mentor replied coolly. And then she immediately began walking away again.

Arktalaki groaned in annoyance and looked back down at the sack. She picked it up. There was something solid and round inside. Did she imagine it, or did it feel like there was some sort of… energy radiating out of it? Not quite like heat from a fire, but… similar.

“What even is this?” Arktalaki called to Wamuneq.

The Mentor paused for just a brief moment. “The real reason Tanaguq slaughtered your tribe.”

And with that, she vanished to her chambers yet again, never once even looking back at the confused girl.

Arktalaki looked back at the sack. She cautiously reached her hand in. She felt the object inside. It was definitely a round disk, and aside from a few engravings and patterns, it felt completely, impossibly smooth. She slowly started taking it out. She gawked at what she saw when the bag was peeled away. It looked like a stone disk with a hole cut out of the middle. As she felt before, there were engravings in it, but… they seemed impossible. They were perfect. Perfect lines, perfect angles, perfect shapes. Nothing about the pattern was erroneous or out of place.

But by far the most bizarre thing about it was the glow.

It had this… shine to it, the same way that fire does, but much brighter and with a more gold tint to it. The glow seemed to pulse as she held the object. She could feel an unnatural tingling racing into her fingertips and up her arms. She stared at this object, jaw dropped. What was this thing? It looked and felt like something from the spirit realm. It started pulsing harder, glowing brighter. The tingling Arktalaki felt just kept increasing. She started getting scared. What was it doing? She wanted to let go, but she found that her body wouldn't listen to her. It was as though she was being held captive by this thing. No matter how she struggled, she couldn't get away. The glow grew bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter, until all Arktalaki saw was a blinding whiteness. She shielded her eyes. She felt something odd inside her head, like a spider wriggling around her brain. Suddenly, the winds disappeared. She stopped hearing the crackling of fire, or Iwakuk’s breathing. She started hearing the clashing of tools, the banging of metal, the hum of machinery. She began to hear her masters approach in the distance. She looked up from her post. When the masters came, it was time to return to work.