Rummaging through his notes and diaries of variating interest for different kinds of listeners Dross paused in action to look down to Raja, who retorted the questioning view with an excited face:

"Raja, is there anything, in particular, you would be excited to hear about? What are your interests? I - I don't want to bore you to death talking about the topography of Sepernius or the analysis of a very exciting . . .ok, only for geologists and historians pretty exciting drilling probe. How about the monsters we faced there, or -"

Raja rose her pale hand to Dross' snout shushing him in a soft motion. She thought for a moment and then remembered, why she opened the book a few days prior in the first place:

"Back, when I caught you on the plaza of the Four you uttered a single name when looking at me. Mine - Mino - Minaera was it, I think. I saw a view of surprise in your face mixed in with I think pain. I have to confess, that I am very curious about the person behind the said name. I -", Raja stopped noticing, that Dross was currently somewhere else looking into the distance with glassy eyes. She quickly paddled back realizing she hit a wound point: "I-If that is something you would like to talk about, which seems . . .", Raja curled her white hair nervously, "to be not the case - Right? -"

"N-no, that's not it.", Dross shakes his head slowly pressing it inside his paw, "I am more than ok to talk about her. Minaera was a hero for us all after all. It wouldn't be right to withhold her bravery. No, that wouldn't be fair to you, my anchor."

Casting a huge part of his book aside Dross pulled out his diary, where he kept track of everything his late companions had accomplished. A book filled with heroism and foolishness, bravery and betrayal, but moreso with the memories of the past two years. Fresh wounds were about to be opened with reading about that incident that happened, he thought, roughly two weeks prior. Finding the passage he spared a quick look towards his listener gifting her an honest, yet painful smile before starting to narrate what happened at that fateful day.

"Minaera was a faithful and caring snow elf, just like you, and the moral glue that kept our group of oddities together. Her joyous nature helped us to forget the bitter reality then and when to be it even for only a moment or two. She was assigned to my group due to her exquisite navigating and tracking abilities when there is nothing but snow to make out your position. Thanks to Terminus eye in the sky, we possessed a rough map of Sepernius", Dross laughed out loud, "rough would be the understatement of the century. It was as if the card was purposely made with the intention to cover up something. Nothing made sense. Anyway. It was our doing, Minaera's and mine, that we didn't lose faith in our project after the first few incidents happened. Companions vanishing overnight never to be seen again, fights for survival with scary warped abominations of the frozen waste leaving us with casualties over casualties. But we remained to be vigilant, as we slowly closed in into the unknown areas of Sepernius. A place of countless myths finally unravelled by none other than us. But then the faithful day approached. Our group of formerly 60 people shrank over the last months to a dirty dozen, battle-hardened by countless encounters, but still hopeful, as our research was quite successful at that point. We catalogued a big chunk of Sepernius despite it being a fruitless attempt as the very ground was oddly quite alive and moving, made countless discoveries of plant life and warped titan-like creatures, but we have had to encounter our biggest obstacle yet: The Ice-Wyrm!"

"An Ice-Wyrm?", Raja couldn't believe her ears, "Like those tiny ghostly draconic worms over in the national zoo? They can't even hurt themselves and even less so others."

Dross let out an iridescent laugh which ended in a more than pathetic cough. Organizing his vest, he couldn't help himself than to be amused by the airy-fairyness of Raja:

"Those things? Nonono, I can't even consider them anymore to be of the same species. Such powerless worms stripped away from all their dignity, being kept and replaced with a minimal influence of arcane flow. Those will never be able to harm anybody. Feral Ice-Wyrms, however, are more dangerous. Able to harness the flow, they can reach a height of one meter and a length of 12. Dangerous yet manageable and moreso sentient. You can get away from them with good respectful manners, as we aren't on their diet."
Raja felt the skin below Dross' fur getting colder and colder as he remembered that particular encounter. She never viewed those creatures in the zoo as something dangerous, even less . . .smart? All that felt very unpleasant thinking about, imagining how the other creatures would behave in the wild. But thrilling as well. As Dross took a deep breath, he continued with a voice lingering in fear:

"You have to understand, Raja . . .something is different in the air down there. The presence of magic is much stronger than in any place here in Etherium. The wild natural arcane flow rendered the inhabitants of that frozen region to get twisted in appearance and ambition. My instructor always told about them being oversated with the arcane, the hunger for more made them feral and crazy. This Ice-Wyrm, that was surprising us in that evening -", Dross gulped down his fear, cold sweat was taping up his fur, "It - It was gigantic. A fearsome view on the horizon, who was rapidly advancing to our position. Based on what I saw in the darkness, based on the illuminating parts of its body and their relative place on a normal Ice-Wyrm this monster was easily 15 meters tall and maybe 200 meters long. A bulldozer hungry for the flesh and souls of their victims. And it seemed to have found its prey in us as it closed in with astonishing speed. We had not much time packing and no gadgets on hand for protection. We lost one of our two furnace automatons in an earlier encounter and the other got hurt so scaring the monster away with fire was no option either. I had just enough time to grab my books and order my companions to search for something to hide in, a crack in the ice or a cave. But none were present. So I just ordered my people to run away trying to dodge the wyrm somehow. We - We were already able to hear the ghastly screen of the wyrm, as Minaera spotted a hole in the ice just 100 meters away from our position. But she realized quickly, that we wouldn't be able to get to that hole in time with the wyrm already biting at our ankles. In an unspeakable act of bravery, she took out her emergency lighter and reserve oil, quickly drenching her hair in the oil and lighting it up running away from the hole. Given the fact that she didn't warn us about her doing, most of my companions were confused by that plan losing precious seconds of taking advantage of that distraction. In the end, only I was able to understand her message and ran in tears straight across the snow to the hole and leapt in. The others were not that lucky. Those seconds caused them to get eaten or flattened by the wyrm, but I don't know that for sure. At the end of the night, only I have survived and that only thanks to her selfless sacrifice irritating the wyrm for a few precious moments. I - I will . . ."

Dross collapsed into a pile of misery. Reliving that moment once more was more stressful for him than he would have wished to. Tears were running down his face; his breath fared irregularly. Raja was concerned about him turned herself on his lap on her knees and hugged him whispering with a soft sad voice words of solace. She didn't stop hugging and comforting him in this time of sadness until Dross eventually calmed down again, which took him quite a few hours. After enjoying the rest of the wine they left behind, they both went to bed and left the day finally behind.