You used to make the 90 mile journey to visit Teresea and Wulfgar Shane before midsummer every year. You haven’t for the last two summers, since you heard of the darkness plague.

You’ve made this journey more out of obligation, than desire.  Although you do miss the Shanes, you’ve come to almost resent how welcoming the community is.  Regardless, the sense of obligation means you can’t go another summer without making the trek.  

You have never had fear of the trek itself, even through the regular storms that blanket the Reghed glacier. The last few times you’ve done it, it’s been without so much as an escort to the glacier’s edge.

 What you dread is the inevitable warm reception you’ll receive. The feasts in your honor, the endless embracing – oh, how you despise hugs.  It all feels wrong and unearned, filling you with shame.

This time of year in your hidden city, Sheha Alari, the sun barely sets, and it should be the same here. As you came off the Reghed Glacier, down ropes and carved steps secret to only your people, the reality of the “everlasting darkness” crept in - over the last few miles, it transitioned from day to night.  You’re not too bothered by drop in temperature here, but you know that most creatures would find this cold brutal.

At least, this time, you'll have another focus.  The elders council approached you the night before you were to leave with a request: Stay and discover the cause of the darkness that is plaguing the tundra and, if you can, a solution.

It’s not just physical darkness here, there’s a spiritual darkness too -  a palpable evil that you can’t put your finger on.  There are always dangers in the Frozenfar –  creatures waiting for a misstep:  bears, crag cats, the occasional yeti.  But now you sense there are other presences… from other planes? The hells? You wonder who is setting things in motion. Deities? Demons? Devils? And why are they doing it?

In the past, during the trek through the Dale, you usually start to dread what’s to come once you reach Good Mead, but now you’re focused on just getting there alive.  

Nearing town, you decide to walk through the night instead of setting up camp. Exhausted, you were so relieved to finally see the lights from town, you allowed a very rare occurrence - losing your footing on the river’s edge. You crashed through a thin layer of ice.  An act of such clumsiness and the resulting cold was bad enough, but losing your backpack, and with it, most of your supplies to the swift, icy river, is unforgivable.  You walk into town an hour later.  

It’s early morning, you’re bundling the possessions you were able to save in your arms, your clothing and hair frozen solid.  Reaching town, your pathetic appearance only seems to result in more doting and more hugs. You quickly learn the town is already planning a feast in your honor tonight.  

Since being driven from your migratory, coastal village on the shores of the Sea of Moving Ice, you’ve been thinking of the long-ago invitation of Eli Kabanga, the outsider fisherman who spent time living with your people every season.  He told everyone in your village in his clumsy Uluik “If you ever want to spend some time in the Ten Towns, come visit me in Good Mead. You will be welcome there.”

Eli told you tales of the town of Good Mead.  How it was settled by foreigners from the hot jungles of the far south, who traveled thousands of miles over decades. They decided to settle in this cold, ice-encrusted land that has nothing in common with their homelands. (The answer to “why” seems to have been since forgotten). He told you about how carvings of the thunder lizards of their homeland Chult are still found throughout the town. The gods of the old world are no longer worshiped, but neither are they forgotten.  

You haven’t seen Eli since the Long Darkness started, but he must still be in Good Mead. He came every season before it started, as far back as you can remember.  He’s the one who taught you to speak the common tongue of the outsiders, and to read and write it.  He was amazed at how quickly you learned.  When you had mastered Thorasta, he taught you Dwarvish.  Every year, he brought with him a crate of books from the outsiders - nature, history, religion, arcana, politics.  He was amazed at how quickly you learned, and how much you retained.  

You know other Ulutiuns from surrounding villages who have been into the Ten Towns to trade whale oil and other goods.  Their advice is mostly the same:

• • The best that you can hope for in the Ten Towns is to be ignored.

  • Stay away from taverns. Ale gives the outsiders stinging breath and makes them want to fight you even more. 

  • Make your trade and get back home

… Except, you have little to trade, and worse, you can’t go back home - ever.  The tattoo of a green line across your face will make sure of that. You’ll have to make a new way forward in this strange place. Maybe Good Mead will be different. If Eli could consider you a friend, other outsiders can too.  You’ve heard of Ulutiuns marrying outsiders and staying in the Ten Towns. Maybe those Ice Hunters were too ashamed to return, but probably the outsiders wanted nothing to do with life in a village.  After all, even Eli left every fall to return to the comforts of his cabin and community.

 Until you reach your destination, you’ve decided it’s best to stay out of sight.  Starting in the west, you’ve avoided the other towns, sticking to copses of alder and willow dotting the tundra and frozen rivers.  You’ve crossed their trails sparingly, and always quickly, then back into the bush.  Last night, you were careless. You camped closer to the trail than usual. In the morning as you were packing your things, you were surrounded by four men. You had grown aware of them approaching in time to stash a few of your belongings. You held your own for a while, knocking down two of them, but outnumbered, they took your backpack and some other precious belongings, leaving you with the warning, "Go back to your homeland. Don't set foot in the Ten again, whale-eater." In this darkness, these people grow more afraid and desperate.