S3E02: Little Mouthfuls of Bitter Sunshine

Summary: The prospector's account continues thus: "I was a little spooked by that and it gave me no inclination to return for some time, in fact I did find myself some sizeable copper ingots that would sell for good money if I could get 'em back to Merwall but I put off travelling back that way for a while and went further east a ways. Even spent some time around the Sleidlar and let me tell you them is good people once you get the hang of their manner of talking and way of living. Learned a lot there I most certainly did! Well anyways eventually I loaded up my mules and set out for Merwall which was a pretty travel but I knew it would reward me if I could get there with my goods intact and by the time I passed that glacier well I was in a hurry to be by it but things had changed a lot in those few years let me tell you. Those shacks and igloos were gone and instead there was a town of log houses and cabins all in neat lines and looking civilised like. I stopped though as briefly as I could for I had no inclination to involve myself far in their affairs. The people that had been there before still seemed to be around but there was something like an organisation now. They had some kind of mine of their own, right into the glacier and there was some kind of central building made of ice. I found a place to sleep the night, but I barely got a wink because I noticed that there was something like big glowing flames atop the glacier, but they burned green and lilac like the southern lights, but all bundled up and brighter for it. I asked my host about it and she observed that they had got brighter as they dug their way into the ice. She said that the light of those fires showed them the true way and that they could discover their true purpose now. She said her mind used to be confused and fuzzy but now everything was clear to her and I believe that she truly felt happy in that light. Well I suspected that singing would be clearer if I slept there that night, so I sat by the fire and didn't close my eyes. The next morning I left early, so tired I was stumbling even on that good road they had made, and never looked back." "That was before all this recent nonsense started happening - but seeing how much that place had changed in a few years between one visit and the next, and remembering that voice in my dreams, I ain’t surprised something strange came of it. Not at all." That is the whole of that report, save some superfluous mineralogical detail, but context for recent activity near SP. Hope the sea journey is comfortable and trouble free. Saffron.