The passage between Polaris and Ursa was short, but it was not sweet. Blistering winds from Ursa, whipping the eyes and ears, grating the teeth. Icy walls, a valley in the middle collecting puddles of snow; lots of places to slip. Hold on to your extremities. The frost tends to bite. Quite a marvel they were once able to shut this entrance down. Not that Audland knew.

Speaking of Audland, he's not able to come to the phone right now. A combination of Saran'zol's lasting curse and a depth of hunger welling within was taking the sensibility right out of his head. He'd chased a tunnel runner into this treacherous tunnel—a tunnel so tight Audland usually had to press against one side to get through it—and, predictably, the dang thing had gotten away. Well, enjoy becoming Order's next host, stupid deer.

So Audland pressed himself against some wall, and tried to enshroud himself with darkness.

When it didn't work, Audland could do nothing more than snarl. He doubled over, clenching his stomach. The blackness was creeping into his vision; the dark spots swam against the snow like little fish. The snow dappled Audland's fur like wisteria petals. The red sparks were starting to join them, sparking out from every exposed piece of oilstone on Audland's body.

He could try something else. Perhaps blazing his way through. His fire was cold, but it would melt the ice into ash nigh instantaneously. If it would come to him.

And it did. Purple fire erupted across Audland's fur, all around it. The smell, the fire, the smoke. Rancid, unbearable. Part of the job. Audland kept moving his way through the tunnel, letting the fire bring unholy ash into the mixture of particles swimming through the air.

Somehow, amidst it all, Audland saw something on the white floor move.

Had it been a rabbit, Audland might have lunged then and there. But no. Snake. He almost couldn't make out the glittering snails from the sparkling snow and the oncoming blindness. Lord, he hated being so blind in the only cave he was built to handle. He could set up a dark cloud to try to see what it was, where it was, what it was doing and the like. But the back hand of that was the potential to see nothing at all.

A different test, then. Audland would focus on the creature ahead—if a creature is what it was. He would try to send it to the void. Any lesser would be terrified by a glimpse into Audland's twisted mind daily visitor, the void. So many took for granted the importance of background noise, the nuisance of daily surroundings and organic minutiae. Lessers couldn't handle that absence, it set their minds on fire. Well, Audland could also do that directly, if he wanted to.

But the void was already surging forth. It latched around the snake's entire being, causing the snake(?) to wholly disappear from the world of the caves for a moment. Audland could only imagine the vacation it was now taking. A dark, dark box; an infinite shape. Maybe it was a dome? Or a circle? Did it matter? Audland liked to wonder.

When it returned to reality, the snake(!) was most certainly upset. It darted forth, forgetting what it was that it was attempting to hide from. That's right, pretty puppy. Show yourself to daddy.

Next was the lure. There were many ways to do this. Audland couldn't hold back his slobber. Audland couldn't hide his scent. Even through the cold messing with everything's sense of smell, the scent of rot and ichor was unlikely to go unnoticed. Blinding the thing would likely be of little effect. But in its panic, Audland could attempt to manipulate it. To bring it closer.

Every bite of chaos gave Audland more and more of a rush.

He attempted to stretch with his mind, to pierce the snake's panicked brain with psychic talons. TURN AROUND. Bright eyes. Every now and then I fall apart! And he needs you now, tonight. And he needs you more... than ever. And if you'll only slither forward... He'll be holding on, forever! And we'll only be making it right! 'Cause hunger is strong—

The snake is in range. Audland can reach out and grab it.

But he had to be sure it wouldn't reach out and grab him right back. Had to be sure it couldn't do that. Well, he could see right where it was. Why grab it himself when he could grab it with air? Audland focused again and tried to localize a high pressure region around the snake's head.

CRUNCH. Whisper whisper whisper... The spell left a whispering crowd around the scene of the crime. Whispering about what? Perhaps the cruelty of the display... the frostbiter's skull now crushed inward by the pressure surrounding. But Audland could not believe in its mortality just yet. He was a man of hard faith—not even seeing could be believing.

He needed to feel it in his fingers. The writhing, thrumming heartbeat. Becoming still.

He would try to summon a flame to one hand. His stomach growled; his body ached. The smell of smoke was stinging his nose. But he needed fire. Fire was the only was to predigest this creature without turning it into an inedible mess.

But the flame wouldn't flicker in his palm. As if to mock him, the remaining flames on his body snuffed out. He could feel them, leaving him in this short, blinding cave. Fair weather friends—how the surrounded him. Audland hadn't realized he'd been grinning, until it turned into a grimace.

He'd approach the snake regardless. With trepidation, but perhaps not enough. He would reach out a hand and try to quickly grab the snake's head from behind the jowls. Who knew if it still had the mind or the heart to bite him, even with the damage its brain had likely sustained.

Oh, how he failed.

There were too many distractions, to be fair. Audland couldn't quite tell where the snake was anymore. His vision felt fuzzy; the snow was fuzzy, the smoke was fuzzy, his own shed was fuzzy too. The icy walls were blurring into some other scene he'd never seen before. He tried to focus on the snake, but it felt like the snake was moving. It was moving still. His hand, wobbly, emboldened by hunger, managed to somehow find itself softly gripping the inside on the snake's mouth.

Its teeth embedded in his hand.

He couldn't quite tell if the bite stung. He couldn't tell if what he was experiencing was even a "bite". The snake wasn't moving of its own accord anymore. Likely it had died slowly from the injuries to its skull. So he'd done this to himself. Given himself a snake bite, right through the palm. Insane. Stupid!

Fortunately for Audland, the venom of a frostbiter was meant to emulate a common experience that the survivors of Ursa often spent their days fighting against. And the localized venom could scarcely make it through the rest of the many, many pounds of meat composing Audland's form. So his hand would now make for the perfect torch: unfeeling, disconnected, perfectly placed.

Audland's hand erupted into purple flame. The snake's crushed head was eviscerated, reduced to a pile of ash. Audland's hand very nearly went with it. He likely burned up the teeth embedded in his hand. He might have burned up the venom inside, too. He couldn't really tell, and it didn't really matter. Either way, that hand had lost all feeling for a time.

The rest of the now-headless snake remained intact. Audland would pick it up with the hand that actually felt something. The surging red-hot energy coursing through him—a mix of the dead Champion and his own adrenaline—goaded him to eat, EAT, EAT IT NOW! But Audland wanted to do a little autopsy first. Before he fully lost himself to the hunger and all the pain that came with it.

Audland would take the headless snake's body in delicate claws and pull it from the snow and stone. He would examine the scales as best he could, cataloguing the patterns and the length of the snake, from neck to tail. He would also search for evidence of a stone, not just on the snake but potentially within it—pressing down and cutting where necessary in the hopes of sensing any rock-like resistance.

He couldn't find one. But he would remember this snake. The way it made him feel. The exhilaration created by the ability to destroy a creature inside and out with Audland's mind alone. It sent a chill up his well-insulated spine, knowing he hadn't had to lay a finger on this creature to shape its will—to shape its very fate.

8 feet long, if you straightened the thing out and held it perpendicular to the ground. Perhaps 4 inches cut off from the absent head. As tall as Audland himself. What an interesting tussle. It had been an obstacle, even if it hadn't put up a fight.

Audland would stuff the snake down his throat like a giant noodle. Surely, it would all fit and he wouldn't even need to chew it (NOT TRUE AND NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE). He nearly choked, but the attempt was fun. No, he didn't have quite enough mouth to hold all 8 feet of snake inside.

He'd have liked to skin it and debone it properly before eating it, but he really didn't have the energy for that right now. Saran'zol's curse was wearing off, unveiling its true purpose: to give him headaches and fatigue that combined with corruption-related issues to become so painful he'd be forced to choose between DIY lobotomy and a 16-hour nap. Not very productive or safe; yet another reason to avoid being in the cave he was supposed to do his job in. He'd rather not be hungry and trying to prepare food during that experience. Bless his true goat-like omnivorous nature. He could eat a tin can if he wanted to.

Audland hobbled through the rest of the cave, neck of his dead snake clutched in the hand that could still feel things. He would use the wrist of his burnt and envenomed hand to brace against the wall when he needed to squeeze through tight portions of the tunnel.

He probably wouldn't be able to preserve its scales before it either turned to food or turned to goopy black oil. Audland would have loved to memorialize the black char at the top of the neck where the head should be. The only reminder of what once was. But, he'd have a souvenir in another way, if he could convince the magic in his body to focus on healing the fang-shaped holes in his palm. It would probably leave a scar. God, he hoped it would leave a scar.

The magic trudged forward to the wound with much the same pace as its owner. Eventually, they would make it out of the tunnel, and Audland would have his meal, his scar, and his 16-hour nap. Maybe with some concentrated effort, Audland could terraform a new connection tunnel that sucked less—or maybe he could simply widen the one he'd just traipsed through. It would be something to think about when he next... woke... up....