Dear friends, I send this message from my hospital bed in the name of the Athasian Survey Project.

While the Nexus deliberates my petition, I convalesce under the ministrations of the aarakocra healers of Winter Nest. I have discovered the hospitality which saved my life came from a common friend shared by Boanhma and I – the Silvaarak and their Air priests.

I owe both the clerics and Boanhma a great debt…

———

“I leave you alone for one hour, and this is what you get up to? You’re a bigger idiot than I thought!”

Even after six months of working together under our shared handler, Boanhma’s social skills still left much to be desired. Though she was certainly a talented druid and expert on animal and plant life of the Tablelands.

Upon my graduation from the Nexus, I discovered my career options were thinner than I had imagined. Working as a trainer of the Way for spoiled noblemen’s children and power-hungry templar acolytes seemed unbearably tedious. So when the opportunity came through an old Nexus contact to continue my work with an…affiliated organisation, I jumped at the chance.

I really had no idea what I was getting myself into…

“I said HOLD STILL!”

Boanhma pulled out another embedded spine. My attempt to psionically link with the cha’thrang had gone catastrophically wrong. It seems my talent for charming my way out of confrontation didn’t work on all forms of life…

———

Winter Nest is truly a village lifted from another world. The air is terribly cold and wet, and a freezing white powder I’ve heard called “snow” falls from the sky like silt from a storm and hangs on everything. And throughout the day, the sky is constantly filled with the acrobatics and voices of resident aarakocra: sometimes musical, sometimes cacophonous, always spectacular.

The Silvaarak - the people of the silver wing- aarakocra call this place their home, and it is where I now convalesce. Having seen them in their home, I can feel nothing but sheer envy for the freedom of movement my gracious hosts possess in that frigid sky.

My modest shelter here at the surgery is only an alcove in the sheer rock wall of the cliff, protected from the elements by enchantment. While it does not lack for warmth thanks to careful magical control, there is little here inside but comforts suitable for resting. Their outdoor culture does not seem much affected by the elements. They live, feast, and sleep out in the snow, only keeping a few semi-sheltered spots as concessions to visitors of other species.

The aarakocra are a proud and stubborn people, not saying any more in the Trade Language than they absolutely have to, so my conversations with most of my hosts have been cordial but brief. But there is one young psionic student here who has been patient enough to indulge an elderly invalid. He is due to journey to the Nexus very soon, and I have learned the young male has a passion for clairsentience (my own speciality) and we have delighted in sharing stories and visions during this waiting time.

———

Boanhma was sitting beside me nursing a cup of tea while I convalesced on my bedroll. The emergency surgery to remove the spines was successful but I needed time to recover. She had nothing else to do that day except heal me on request of the Consortium and patrol her forest, and in her particular section of the Forest Ridge things became rather quiet at this time in the afternoon. She knew as well as I did we had to find ways to work together because our masters required it. So we were grasping around in conversation for common ground:

“Ooookay, baldy. Favorite sport. Go.”

“Chariot racing. And you?”

“Pah! Inix dung! You watch slaves beat animals to get them to run around a track?”

“You wanted honest answers. You even cast a Zone of Truth just because you claimed you didn’t trust me.”

“Of course I don’t trust you. You’re a merchant’s brat. You were born more slippery than a sand shark.”

True to form for her, really. Her abrasive conversation style was a persistent test of my forbearance.

“…are you going to give me your answer?”

“Rock pitching. So why are you working for the Consortium, baldy? Skills like yours should have bagged a cushy job with daddy’s merchant house or maybe babysitting a nobleman’s baazrags.”

“I wanted adventure, and a chance to have a real effect on the world. Now why, dear Boahnma, did you leave your corner of the wilderness and join our movement?”

She surely knew that would have been the follow-up question, and yet her mood shifted when I asked that. When she spoke again, the sass in her tone was gone, replaced with a deadpan sobriety: “I saw a bad omen. Something is coming. Something bad. And it’s better I go to meet it head on rather than wait for it to find me here. And the more allies we have, the better…”

———-

Until next time, may the moons guide you.

Sources:
* Lost Cities of the Trembling Plains
* The Wanderer’s Journal

(To the clever soul able to identify the source of this image, I offer you a ceremonial head-dress of the Silver Wings. I’ve been told it makes Earth humans look something like what they would call “The Village People”…)