Nagrak was slumped against the jagged cliff wall, barely able to hold himself upright, his head tilted just above the snowline. He had expelled more than he had eaten in the past ten dawns, his body utterly emptied, hollowed. The sickness had ravaged him, leaving him frozen to the core, unable to distinguish the numbness of his flesh from the empty that seemed to echo within. He was certain he was dying.
Then, in the suffocating expanse of the Full Dark, he felt it — a touch. It coiled around him like a mantle of wapa fur, enveloping him in warmth, a warmth that was alive. It seeped into him, filling the hollows where his strength had been torn away, replacing the emptiness with something sacred and overwhelming.
From deep within, Nagrak understood. This was the [WERISS]. The sacred touch of the mountain.
Kneeling within the Full Dark, the wind shrieking around him without reaching him, Nagrak felt the weight of the mountain’s will. The dead warriors at his feet were his past, the staff in his grasp determined his chosen path, and the that now coursed through him was a mark of transformation. He thought of ork traditions, of the walkabout every ork eventually underwent — a solitary journey to prove himself to the mountain, to earn its favour and return as warriors, as protectors, as krags.
The mountain had chosen him. The mountain had armed and cleansed him.
Now, Nagrak needed to leave. A faint but undeniable pull had taken root within him. It called him away — from Gorak, from the orichs, from everything he had ever known. The compulsion was absolute. He was never more sure. He needed to leave. Right now. This was his orich walkabout. The staff, the mountain, the within the Full Dark — it had all aligned to set him on this path.
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