Hearthwick

Half its people stand frozen in place by the Rime Prior. Log houses under heavy snow and icicles, a frozen well, cold blue street lamps, warm windows where people still live; Old Sella waits by her frozen husband.

The town torch

Every town has a torch on its plaza. Light it with the staff and it becomes Wick's checkpoint: a fall ends here, resting at the lit torch heals, and a lit torch is also a stop for lantern travel. Resting heals Wick, but it wakes the land's creatures again.

People

• Ostra the innkeeper: Keeps the inn and its one hearth burning; feeds what wood there is to the fire.
• Aldo, frozen: Old Sella's husband, frozen where he stood when the cold came down the hill.
• An ice-fisher, frozen: Frozen on her way back from the lake with her catch.
• A woodcutter, frozen: Frozen mid-stride, coming in from the woods with nothing to burn.
• The baker, frozen: Frozen at his shop door, still in his apron.
• Kell the ice-fisher: Ostra's brother, who lost the sled; fishes the ice on Rimewater.
• Runa the trapper: Traps the steppe and reads its tracks.
• Mother Hild: Keeps the only fire in town that has not gone out.
• Old Sella: Hearthwick, Rimewold (frost). Waits by her husband, frozen in place by the Rime Prior; wrings her hands.

Quests

• Kell's Tally (town story)
• The Priory Bell-Note (town story)
• The Stag's Antler (choice)
• Peat for the Hearth (favour)
• The Ice-Fishers' Lynxes (favour)
• Aldo's Nets (favour)

Jory the peddler turns up in every town Wick reaches, always one town ahead or one behind, full of news from the last one.