Hello again. Today I burned down a city.

By accident, I swear. One minute it was there, the next *poof* it was gone.

My new firepower is seriously hard to control.

We followed the cursed road right into a ragged wooden city crouched in the depths of a crack in the earth. Splitting I guess. Steam drifted out of the crack and the whole city smelled like a fart. Honestly, I thought we had stumbled upon the behind of a snoozing, flatulent, giant. The houses kind of ruined the image.

During winter the various clans of nomads gather together, and huddle in big huts around the steaming waters inside the crack. They pass the winter swapping stories and recipes and what have you. The heat for the pools and steaming vents stave off the bitter winter cold. I don't think it is worth smelling like a fart, but then I have never seen a winter. I don't have much fear of the cold. I don't like the cold, and will avoid it if possible. But I don't fear it enough to cuddle up to suspicious smelling bubbling water.

Anyway, Onica and Lena went looking for a map, and sent Julius, Fen, and I off to find something to distract us. The city was pretty much empty. Nobody lives here during the fall, summer, and spring seasons. The entrance is a zig-zagging pathway down into the crack. Very wide and easily traversed by large groups. The nomads even have whole sections of the city reserved for their herds. Not sure how they would feed the animals though. At the top of this path is a large tent that the local leader, known as the Keeper, resides in.

They are responsible for making sure things like random strangers burning down the city don't happen. The current Keeper is a doddering old man. Long of beard and short of memory. It's almost tragic that he was left al alone out here. He is the only person in the whole of Splitting currently.

The three of us headed down into the city proper. Empty streets and empty houses. Rotten reed roofs and sunken plank floors.The only ones who live here now are pests and vermin. Nothing to be worried about, or so I thought.

So when a rat that was easily as long as I am tall and whose shoulders reach my hips came barreling out of the permanent smelly mist with a annoyingly deep squeak I was rather caught off guard. So off guard that my first reaction was to sneeze.

Twin flares burst from my nostrils. Incinerating the unfortunate disease riddled rodent, and royally pissing off its hundred of brothers and sisters. They were briefly illuminated by the flash. Hundreds of mad little eyes and ragged ears surrounded us.

Then the city was on fire.

Seriously, I have no idea what happened! All I thought was 'NOPE'. Then everything was burning. I think the wood buildings were really dry and should have been considered a fire hazard anyway. Nevermind the ever-present fart water mist that made the stones slick and wood damp. Maybe that smell is flammable?

Could be, right?

So we left in a hurry. Onica and Lena hadn't gotten much out of the rambling ancient who was supposed to be keeping the pest population in check and the city unburnt to cinders and ash. Good job, guy.

They only got vague mutterings about distant lands and multiple offers of the same moldy cookie.

We put the steadily rising pillar of smoke behind us and moved on with our lives. Hopefully the nomads can rebuild before winter. Maybe they'll make it better this time? Less burnable would be wise.

That was this morning.

So then! We did it my way!

Using my tried and true method of the random decision to decide our directon we headed away from the unlucky roads and up a mountain. It was a nice mountain. Very mountainous. There was no grumbling from my companions about using tinglewood or how we were heading into clearly unpopulated lands. Nope, they were all super happy to blindly trust in my wandering instinct. Totally.

There were pretty forests and rushing rivers. Small vibrant flowers bloomed near the icy waters of the snowmelt streams. Various cute and cuddly critters preyed on each other in the woods. The occasional shriek of prey being found by predator interspersed the rushed burbling of streams and song of birds. Some large hairy animals tried to waylay us.

They made a good lunch.

When we neared the top of the mountains the trees thinned out and then disappeared entirely. Hardy grasses and berry bushes gave way to snowy fields that climbed the rest of the way to the peak. It looked cold so we followed along the edge of the snow.

Crunching the white crusty stuff beneath our feet for fun, and making games out of throwing balls of it at one another. Lena had a clear edge though. I don't think normal snowballs home in on targets and speed up as time passes. Or explode into ice shrapnel. Or grow arms and legs and trip you.

As the day was coming to a close we saw the telltale gleam of sunlight on metal in the far distance. A tower, one of many silhouetted against the dying sun. I had successfully found a city. One much larger than the previous two we found by following roads. it was fuzzy from the distance, but I think it was on top of a mountain?

Onica was so impressed she didn't say anything. Not a single thing. Nope. She didn't insult my glorious pathfinding skills as 'dumb luck' or 'disturbing'. Because that would be rude, and Onica is a lady.

We were very far from it though. We definitely won't reach it today. Might not reach it until tomorrow or the day after even. Distance is hard to really suss out in the mountains. If we are multiple days distant though, then those towers are enormous!

We had some berries from the bushes around us and some goats we saw earlier for dinner. Then I made a structure shaped like a snoozing cat all curled up into a ball for the night.

All in all, not a bad day. For us.

Goodnight.