The blizzard eventually receded as they trudged on. Ghyreian stopped suddenly, seeing something to her left, engraved in the ravine wall. She peered closer, rubbing away the snow to reveal a rune.

"The compass," she prompted Edwin.

_________________

Edwin tookout out the compass and showed it to Ghyreian, it was pointing at the rune ahead apparently or something beyond it.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Ghyreian gave the solid ravine wall an experimental push. True to form, nothing happened. She switched tactics and examined the engraved rune. She'd never seen anything like it before...

She took the compass from Edwin and looked closely at its surface. The arrow stubbornly pointed at the impregnable wall. Frowning, she flipped it over. There, on the back of the compass, was the same rune but with one difference: Instead of it being engraved, the rune was jutting outwards. Struck by sudden inspiration, she pressed the compass to the rune on the wall. It fit perfectly.

Two enormous doors in the ravine wall ground open. Darkness beckoned from within.

_________________

"Well no one ever mentioned that the compass was also a key..."

Edwin muttered quietly before walking into the darkness, he looked around and said a command word, the orb in his staff breathed light. The surrounding area basked in the light that didn`t bring warmth.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Meneldor trudged on, exhausted, 'I must find the others', he thought.
The snow was like rock, his legs were that tired and cold that is was like pushing mount nevermind. (Not that Meneldor would mind Mount Nevermind being pushed off the map!)
"Damn Gnomes!" he cursed for no reason as he flummoxed in the snow.

_________________
Halarond

Ghyreian followed Edwin into perpetual black, defied only by the staff's light. They had entered a network of stone corridors embedded in the glacier itself. It seemed no one had passed through the ancient halls in eons.

Then she saw the tracks in the frost before her, no more than days old.

_________________

(Whats going on? do you want me to rejoin you, orrr?)

_________________
Halarond

"Seems that we are at least going in the right direction, but what happens when we get there is another thing.."

Edwin pointed out as they procceeded onwards in the dark tunnels.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

[that's why I deposited you on land so you could catch up]

They followed the tracks deeper into the network of tunnels, with Ghyreian trying to memorize the number of lefts and rights they took. At last the tunnels opened into a natural cavern about a hundred feet in diameter.

This cavern was occupied. In the maze of obtruding stalagmites and stalactites prowled a pack of snow-white wolves. Their golden eyes gleamed in the darkness, and the shadows only seemed to accentuate the skin stretched taut over their ribs.

_________________

(cool, thanks)

Meneldor doubled his eforts now, and cme to an entrance in the rock, obviously magical, he entered and follwed the corridors, feeling the stronger way with his magic.

_________________
Halarond

Ghyreian heard a subtle sound behind her and turned. Her elvensight detected a warm presence in the tunnels behind them. She poked Edwin and murmured, "Look who caught up."

_________________

"Bloody hell!" the mage gasped, eshausted.
"could have bloody waited, hehe" he chucled

_________________
Halarond

"Well you wouldn`t have been punished, if you hadn`t been such a coward..."

Edwin said coldly as he lighted the way for them, he examined the wolves in the cavern and grinned.

"And we pass how? Killing them or using invisibility..."

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

The mage sneered at this comment. Black robes use whatecer means nessecerry to save themselves, they care not for others, he thought.
He stayed in a silent thought now.

_________________
Halarond

Ghyreian stared at the prowling wolves. One of them stopped and perked its ears, as if detecting soemthing. A frozen moment later, it lowered its head and continued its stalking.

"I grow sick of battle," she replied quietly, already weaving an invisibility spell. She wove a ward against scent as well, as she knew the wolves' superior noses could sniff them out.

_________________

"Yes, they are not far off," the mage said. "I saw some wolves earlier, but I managed to... slip by them."

_________________
Halarond