Arcanist Porto of the Cold

Porto was born deep inside an ancient forest, in a village of mushroomfolk like himself.

The village depended mostly on foraging to survive – farming was difficult to achieve inside the forest, with roots all around and the sun being blocked by the thick canopy of foliage above. Even so, there were plenty of berries to be found, as well as roots, fruit, and the occasional meat gained by hunting.

The forest was located in a very advantageous geographical position as well. In the summers, it was cool thanks to all the shade. In the winters, it was cold, but not cold enough to threaten anyone who had even a rudimentary shelter.

Porto’s parents were herbalists, responsible for the welfare of the entire village. They both knew all the herbs and plants of the forest, and all the ways they could be used to cure a cold, a headache, and much more. Of course, Porto started to absorb that knowledge from a very young age – his parents didn’t really have a separate building where they did their work. Instead, prospective patients were simply treated in the living room.

As Porto neared his teenage years, he did what every child born close to nature did: he explored. Either alone or with friends, he took great big walks in the forest, seeing whatever there was to see in it.

Those walks were usually quite uneventful – the forest did have animals and monsters living in it, but they kept away from the mushroomfolk – their flesh was toxic to them. And so, Porto was free to explore.

However, during one of his exploratory missions, Porto would find something that would change not only his own life, but that of his village too.

As he was walking, Porto felt a strange cold sensation. This was decidedly strange – it was autumn, and the weather could get somewhat cold, but nowhere near what he was currently feeling.

Porto was alarmed, but also curious. And so, he approached the source of the cold.

A few moments later, he came across a small pond – he had been there before, many times, and he had never felt such cold. However, this time it was different. From where he stood, near the last trees before the pond, he could see its surface clearly – and it was frozen.

It was the first time Porto had seen frost in his life – the weather never got that cold. But here, standing next to the pond, Porto shivered down to his bones. He braced, waiting for something to happen, for some kind of monster to appear and reveal itself as the source of the cold.

Yet nothing happened. The pond remained frozen, but no source of the frost showed itself. And so, Porto rushed back home to notify his parents and the rest of the village.

At first, the others didn’t believe him. However, in the end, Porto managed to convince one of the elders to come with him back to the pond. Once the elder had seen Porto’s words were true, the village finally took action.

A large group of villagers, armed with shovels and hammers, went to the pond. Using their tools, they broke the ice completely, searching for some kind of item or anything else that could perhaps power this sudden frost. They found nothing. On top of that, the moment the villagers stopped digging, the ice started to reform, solidifying almost immediately.

For the next few days, the villagers kept a close eye on the pond. With alarm, they noticed that the frost and cold were spreading. Porto was still far too young to take part in any deliberations on the matter, and so he simply waited home while his parents went to village meetings about the issue, which sometimes lasted through the night.

Eventually, the villagers decided to burn the frost out. They cut down a circle of forest to isolate the flames, then set fire to the trees around the pond.

It took a while for the trees to catch, half-frozen as they were. However, after about an hour, the small part of the forest around the pond was on fire, burning brightly.

The villagers stood and watched, ready to contain the fire. They stood for hours, Porto among them, until the fire faded to embers, and then to nothing. Of the patch of forest around the pond, nothing remained. Even the pond’s water had mostly evaporated.

And yet, the next day, the frost was back. What little water remained in the pond was frozen over, and white tendrils extended from it into the burned land around it.

It was at this point that the villagers started to despair. As time passed, the frost spread, and although the villagers did their best to control it – lighting fires around it as a border – it was inexorable.

This was the climate Porto grew up in. To save his village, he decided that the time had come for him to leave the forest. There were no answers about their predicament to be found in or near his village – but outside the forest, in stranger lands, perhaps he would find a solution. Porto’s parents disagreed with his choice, but they couldn’t really stop him – deep down, they understood his reasoning.

And so, Porto left. He traveled outside the forest for the first time, meeting humans and other strange races. In the end, he reached a small city, with a beautiful tower looming over it. This was the famed Arcanum school of magic, and once Porto learned this he instantly knew what he had to do.

The frost in the forest was clearly some form of magic – this much was apparent to him. Only by understanding magic then, could he have a hope of beating the frost back.

Porto was too old to be accepted as an initiate in the Arcanum, but he pleaded and begged until he was given a chance. He didn’t have any particular talent with magic, but what he did have was a reason to persevere. Porto studied twice as much and twice as hard as the other students, and in the end it paid off.

Graduating with the rank of Arcanist, Porto quickly returned to his village, only to find the frost had spread in his absence – reaching the village outskirts.

But now, armed with magic, Porto knew what to do. Spreading a protective net around the village, he contained the frost, making it unable to march further into the settlement.

But he couldn’t stop its spread in all directions. Slowly but surely, even today, the frost spreads. Porto must find a way to stop it permanently, or the whole forest will be taken over.

Entered by: 0x1861…Dd66 and preserved on chain (see transaction)