Avalanche Survivors

As dawn broke, the dense clouds gradually dispersed, and the snowfall waned to a scatter of delicate flakes. Storm Ridge lay in silence, as if the fierce avalanche that had raged moments before had never been.

Grayson, his left hand sheathed in a silver metal gauntlet, dug its sharp blades deep into the mountain's side. Seraphine clung to him, their bodies suspended against the sheer cliff face by the gauntlet's strength.

"Are you alright?" Grayson asked over his shoulder in a soft voice.

"I'm fine, but Morven and Katheren..." Seraphine's voice trembled as she looked down, their companions now lost to the snowy tumult.

"We don't have time to worry about them; we need to save ourselves first!" Grayson called into his hood, "Elyra, are you there?"

The owl remained silent. Grayson looked up, the cliff's edge just a few meters away, but the surrounding smooth rock offered no foothold for ascent.

"Lucky I came prepared!" Grayson muttered to himself. He drew his sword and stabbed it into the cliff for leverage.

Once secure, he grabbed the sword's hilt with his right hand and retracted the blades from the mountain, shooting them upward to the sky. The five blades whirled above, chiseling into the cliff and creating a ladder of deep notches leading to the cliff's edge.

He then directed the blades downward, circling Seraphine in a spectacular arc of light, creating more notches in the rock around her.

With the blades back in his gauntlet, Grayson urged, "Come on, climb using those notches. I'll protect you."

Gripping her mermaid staff, Seraphine carefully ascended, Grayson steadying her until she reached above him. Pulling his sword from the rock, he climbed after her, approaching the cliff top.

Finally at the top, Seraphine sat on the narrow path, catching her breath. She glanced at Grayson's gauntlet and asked, "What is that? It looks like some kind of magical weapon."

"You could say that," Grayson flexed his fingers, the metal glinting in the light. "It's a trophy from a wager, a dark wizard's masterpiece."

With a sly grin, he sent the blades whizzing towards Seraphine, embedding into the wall beside her, startling her into a scream.

"Oops, sorry! It's been a while since I've used it; I'm a bit rusty," he retracted the blades to his fingers and said with an apologetic smile, "Don't worry, it responds strictly to my will, never misfiring."

"So, that little demonstration was intentional?" Seraphine teased, her voice laced with mock annoyance.

Grayson stood, laughing off her accusation, and looked to his hood—Elyra was gone. Concern creased his face as he donned his cloak, gazing down the cliff.

Suddenly, the mountain quaked. Grayson and Seraphine swung their gaze upward just as a massive snowball hurtled towards them, thundering down the slope.

Grayson acted instantly, tackling Seraphine to the ground, his gauntlet's blades anchoring them as the snow wave rushed over.

When tranquility returned, the cliffside was buried in snow. The snowball had carved a wide path down the mountain. Then, a blue figure descended from the peak, scanning before looking down the slope as if searching.

Unexpectedly, five icy blades shot from the snow towards the figure, who turned and blocked them with a burst of energy.

Grayson emerged from the snow, retracting his blades, and said to Seraphine as she also surfaced, "Look who we've found."

"The Djinn!" Seraphine exclaimed with relief.

The Djinn, taken aback, then joyfully approached, helping Seraphine out of the snow, "Ah, what a relief to find you both safe!"

Grayson climbed out, and they exchanged glances. Seraphine, her cheeks flushed, averted her gaze from Grayson to the Djinn, "What's going on? Why are there constant avalanches?"

"It's prone to avalanches here, but today is excessively frequent," the Djinn admitted, spreading his hands helplessly. "Seems we're in a patch of bad luck; this sort of thing doesn't happen often."

Grayson surveyed the snow trail, then said, "At least we're alive. But this place isn't safe; another collapse could happen at any moment. We should head down to the valley and look for Morven, Katheren, and Elyra."

"I see my place is lower than that fool's," Elyra grumbled as she landed on Grayson's shoulder.

Grayson smiled at her unexpected arrival, "Well, your timing is impeccable. You said you found the lanky scorpion and the fool below?"

Grayson raised an eyebrow, and the Djinn carried them down the cloud, the owl guiding them to where Morven and Katheren should be.

But they found no one there. Grayson and Seraphine called their names with no response. Seraphine turned to the owl, "They were here, right? Why is there no one?"

"I left them here waiting for me to return!" Elyra replied innocently.

"Elyra's right," Grayson crouched on the cloud, examining the snow below. "They've been waiting here, Katheren's standing prints and Morven's pacing tracks are clear. But it seems they've headed deeper into the valley."

"They went in?" Seraphine gasped.

Grayson sniffed the air, catching a scent of blood that furrowed his brow. He directed the Djinn towards the source, and soon a dead Serpentfolk's body lay before them.

Grayson inspected the corpse's head wound, finding a bullet hole from which he extracted a bloodied silver bullet.

"It seems we've found our answer," Grayson concluded, holding the bullet in his palm. Suddenly, gunshots echoed from the valley, drawing their attention.