Journey to the snow beasts lair

Jurney across the ice

The ambient light of the aurora borealis lit the rain-slick deck In front of me as I climbed the steps to the forward observation deck to stand beside captain O, Sullivan.

I paused for a moment to fight the thin air for the breath it had stolen from my lungs during my accent.

"lost our rebreather have we Dexly?"

The captain asked softly causing me to start.

I had thought my quiet struggle had gone unnoticed but captain Lucian Highfort O, Sullivan did not rise through the ranks of the Albion navy by being deaf to his environment.

It was rumored through the crew that he slept with one eye open.

"I'm thought the fresh *weeze* air might do me some good sir"

I gasped into the night.

I had been stationed on the Mongalla star for just over one month and I still hadn't gotten used to how the frigid air burned my lungs.

"Understandable," the captain said as he turned to smile at me. I saw his own mask ornately fashioned with brass hawks on either side hung on his left hip. A man can only breathe his own recycled air so many times before it starts to affect the mind.

He patted a friendly hand on my back as I came to stand beside him on the fore-deck observation post.

"Especially when the cook uses so much garlic," he said lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone."

After sharing a smile we stood in comfortable silence and surveyed the white icescape that stretched out before us. Miles of unbroken uniformity as far as the eyes could see ending only at the mountains to the east and the great ocean to our south.

But every direction is south when you are at the top of the world I mused thinking back to when first arrived and was alarmed and bewildered by my madly spinning compass needle.

The senior officer James Bridgeford (Jake to his friends) who I had been assigned to had worn an amused and knowing smile as he explained the strange naturally occurring effects of the northern plains that rendered magnetic compasses completely useless.

"the natives," he told me

"use a combination of stars and a migratory beast they called Uhmfalla"

"During mating season the beast which resembles an eel and is no bigger than a man's little finger when young will always make its way under this giant ice sheet through underground rivers to its breeding ground and during hunting season it makes a straight line to the far edges of the island out into the Arctic ocean."

"The key!" he said stroking his long brown beard

"is knowing what season it is".

I reached into my long coats inside pocket and pulled out a small glass container. It was about the same circumference and thickness as my compass but I side of it instead of a cold iron needle it was filled with water and held a living breathing creature. Not for the first time I marveled at it.

It was indeed no smaller than my little finger with a coloration that was so white it was nearly translucent. It had a spiny dorsal fin starting at the tip of its nose and ending almost at the tip of its narrow tail. It had beady black eyes and a mouth full of sharp needle-like teeth.

There had been reports of them growing to the size of a dredmor cruiser. But that seemed hard to imagine as I looked down at the wee beasty in my palm.

"Be careful lad"

Ltd. Bridgeford had warned me.

"Those little buggers have a nasty bite. One good chomp and you're deader than dracon in a snowstorm."