For Sia it must had been a weird notion, how the black raven that had been pursuing her since her arrival in the Sieghart Mountains and her trip through the town of Rush Valley was trying to gain her attention. While it didn't caw in a frenzy like one might expect from some birds, it kept trailing her from a distance, all the way till at one moment it finally approached her, hovering in midair in front of her, beating its wings at its eyes gazed quietly into her own.

It was after that Sia would notice the bird had flown away, but not too far for it remained perched on a arcway near the outskirts of the town, as if it was beckoning for her to follow, but to where and why? It slowly started to guide her into the mountains, deeper and uphill, and then as the town left her sights it started to fly toward the Sigmundir passes.

The Sigmundir passed were a place quite known to the locals, a place which concealed equal amounts of danger as they provided opportunity. While plenty of those passes provided shelter and hideouts for the individuals with more questionable motives, it also provided one with access to unexplored caverns and secrets waiting to be discovered. But where was this raven leading her to? Only time would tell.

Should the witch call out to the raven, it would fly back to her, briefly flapping its wings while remaining a modest pace away from her, looking back at her face before returning back to guide her.

After a while the passages started to become more difficult to journey through, traditional ropebridges were exchanged by natural paths carved by nature, and after a while the raven landed on a rock near the entrance to a large underground cavern. At the entrance to the cavern were clear signs of life, or rather of what had been there. Camping supplies and a kindling fire was still burning, but the owners of the camp weren't that lively. One, a muscular giant of a man was collapsed against the side of the rock, a small puddle of blood at his feet and the source of it, a large icicle lance was impaled in his torso.

Meanwhile his comrade, a smaller and slender man was cleanly severed from the waist down, his remains lying there as if whoever had done it to him paid little attention to what had happened, but oddly enough there seemed signs of frost around his limbs.

The raven looked back up at Sia and then back at the cave, a little nudge being made with its head, as if to beckon her to enter. Was it a wise idea? Who knew, but whoever, or whatever had been waiting for her there, was clearly the reason the raven wanted Sia to find this place.

Still, that fresh pleasant scent that lingered in the air, those traces of dense mana were faintly familiar, o who could had been waiting for her inside the cave?