Run!

Run!

The group looked at Kaelen standing behind them and looking up at the mountain. Before he could escape the avalanche's path, he was swallowed up in the snow. The others watched as the wall of snow made him invisible and replaced their view with a cloud. The world became a whirl of white as he was tumbled and thrown, the roar of the avalanche deafening from within.

Kaelen thought that he was going to die. He had snow up his nose and felt nothing but cold. The sheer force was overwhelming, pushing and pulling him in every direction. It was disorienting, and for a moment, he thought he might be upside down and he couldn’t tell which way was up.

Snow filled his open yelling mouth, making it hard to breathe. Panic set in as he struggled to find something solid to grab onto. There was nothing.

“This can’t be it,” he thought. “I have so much more to do.”

Then silence.

The force of white pushed Kaelen and down the mountain, carrying the entire party out onto the frozen river below. Its hard surface allowed the snow to spread out and release its captives. Kaelen lay sprawled out, feeling the freezing cold beneath him, but pale sun on his face and air allowed him to breathe.

The shock of the impact had knocked the wind out of him, but now a deep spluttering breathe. He lay there for a moment, gasping each time, the cold seeping through his clothes and biting at his skin.

Then he thought, “The others?”

When the snow cloud finally dispersed, he wobbled to his feet, looking around for his companions. Tajan was up first.

“Can you see Alster?” he asked her and then repeated, “Alster, is he with you?”

Tajan sat up from her waist and looked around and saw him rising to his knees and brushing his tumbled body down. Blena, also seemingly okay, got up unsteadily, covered head to toe in sticky snow, but aside from a few scrapes, everyone seemed fine.

A wave of relief washed over Kaelen, momentarily distracting him from the biting cold.

Kaelen steadied himself, still catching his breath, and turned slowly toward the valley. The frozen river stretched out before them, its surface scarred and cracked from the force of the avalanche that had just carried them there. For a moment, no one spoke. The danger had passed, but only just.

Blena broke the tense moment.

“Well, that was unnecessarily dramatic.”

Kaelen didn’t respond right away. His eyes had already shifted past the river to where it curved away through the valley floor. He narrowed his gaze, stepping forward slightly, brushing snow from his sleeves as if that might help him think more clearly.

“Wait,” he said, almost to himself.

Tajan followed his line of sight.

“What is it now?”

Kaelen pointed.

“The river. Look at it. The way it bends.”

They all turned.

Up ahead, the frozen river split, branching in two directions before winding back through the valley, the paths cutting through the snow like lines drawn with intent rather than chance.

Alster squinted.

“…that looks familiar.”

“It should,” Kaelen replied. “The steles.”

There was a pause.

Blena frowned.

“You’re not saying...”

“I am,” Kaelen cut in, already thinking it through as he spoke. “The angles, the lines… they weren’t marking the mountains. They were marking this. A path. Not across the peaks, but along the river.”

Tajan shook her head slightly.

“That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it? We don’t even know why that would matter.”

“Exactly,” Alster added. “We don’t know where it leads, we don’t know who made it, and we definitely don’t know why now. That’s three solid reasons to not just blindly follow it.”

“And four reasons to go back to the tower,” Blena said, crossing her arms. “At least something is actually happening there.”

Kaelen let them talk. He listened, properly, for once. Their concerns weren’t wrong. None of this made sense. The carvings appearing, the tower pulsing, the avalanche dropping them here of all places.

It was all connected.

It had to be.

He looked back at the river, at the branching lines cutting forward into the valley.

“If it is a map,” he said slowly, “then this is the first time we’ve actually been on it.”

Tajan hesitated.

“That doesn’t mean it’s the right path.”

“No,” Kaelen agreed. “But going back doesn’t solve anything either. The tower is unstable, we’ve already seen that and we can't do anything about it. And the climb back up...” He glanced toward the slope they had just come down. It was now nothing but a collapsed wall of snow. “...isn’t exactly an option.”

Blena exhaled through her nose.

“So your brilliant plan is to follow a river because some rocks suggested it?”

Kaelen almost smiled at that.

“My plan,” he said, “is that we follow the only thing that resembles a direction right now.”

Alster tilted his head slightly.

“That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“It’s not supposed to be,” Kaelen replied. “But it’s better than standing here pretending we have a better idea.”

There was a quiet moment.

Wind moved across the valley, lifting loose snow into soft drifting lines that traced the river’s path even further.

Blena looked from the river to Kaelen, then back again.

“…fine,” she said. “But if this leads us in a circle, I’m blaming you.”

“That seems statistically fair,” Kaelen muttered.

Tajan gave a small sigh, adjusting her gloves.

“We follow the river then.”

Alster shrugged, already stepping forward.

“Well, if nothing else, at least it’s downhill.”

Kaelen nodded once, more to himself than anyone else.

He didn’t know why the path seemed clear. He didn’t know who had made appear but it was there.

For the first time since the tower, it felt like they were not just reacting.They were following something.

“Stay close,” he said, stepping out onto the frozen surface.

And with that, they began to follow the branching river into whatever it was trying to show them.

Kaelen stepped forward, but a sharp crack made him hesitate. The river's surface seemed stable enough, but the sound echoed ominously in the frigid air. Did he imagine that, or was that a side effect of having his ears filled with snow?

His heart pounded as he strained to listen for any more signs of danger. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he looked toward the shore. It felt far away, a daunting expanse of ice and snow stretching between him and the river’s edge.

In hushed tones he said to everyone, “New plan. Everyone get off the river!”

The silence was eerie, broken only by the occasional groan of the ice beneath their feet. Each step forward felt like a gamble, the memory of that crackling sound up on the mountain haunting their every step.

They all exchanged worried glances with each other. Alster's face mirrored Tajan’s, both annoyed that this wasn’t over yet. Together, they stepped gingerly to the side of the river and began the slow, cautious trek along the river's edge.

Thy Quests
The avalanche made Kaelen evacuate down to the river from 457 m elevation. It added 12 m of snow to the precipice of the mountain where he had been standing, burying the platform with the Three Steles. At what elevation would you expect to find the steles? Show your thinking in Thy Quests.