Backstory expansion: Part 2 - The Beginnings
Luskan and the Winter Palace
The girls entered the city wide-eyed. Much bigger and busier than Bryn Shander or anything the young girls have ever seen! Docks, ships, and hearing foreign languages! The group of girls travelled close together through the city, being sure not to straggle for fear of any slavers stalking about.
Then they turn the corner and it is there. A giant white stone structure, the Winter Palace. Little did Calistra know what was truly in store for them. As she entered, she noticed great pyres of fire giving light throughout the complex but giving no warmth. There were many people, with arcane gifts, gathered throughout the complex assisting in rituals and keeping the pyres lit. She would later learn they were Cold Cloaks, those with magical gifts here for the Frostmaiden. Calistra marveled at the arcane magics. They were a rare sight around her village back north. She never held the gift of weave nor had much interest in studying it, but seeing it first-hand was incredible.
Now that the group had made their journey to the palace, the initiations were to begin. Their first day they watched the famous Luskan wet parades, performed by city inhabitants to lighten Auril's wrath and pass the rest of the winter with somewhat ease. But with a new group of initiates in her temple, it seemed the Frostmaiden was eager to see who would survive her torture.
As a blizzard began to beset the city of Luskan, the temples' ice-priestesses had the tribal elderwomen organize the group of girls in the open center of the Winter Palace. They were stripped of any clothing that would provide warmth or protection from the cold. Auril's symbol, the six-pointed snowflake, was painted on their bodies. Calistra was reminded of the story of her birth, as she had heard the story many times back in the village.
As the height of storm began to set in, the girls began to look for shelter or cover where they could in the open courtyard. Some tried to huddle up together, but that seemed to force harsher winds upon them. The Frostmaiden was daring them to go it alone! "Focus on yourself," Calistra told herself. Concentrating on her breathing, trying to ignore the cold numbing pain in her limbs, she balled herself up against a pillar for at least half-cover from Auril's biting wind. Hours of winter's wrath besieged Luskan. The swirling snow was piling up and created snow banks, Calistra noticed that it at least brought protection from the wind. That was when she heard a single word in her head, but not of her voice... "Endure."
