Scorpio 8. A woman in a hot bath. Outside, snow is falling.
In the high mountains North of Peth is a hot springs known as the waters of Kelaar which flows forth into a realm of ice and snow. For the delight of travellers alchemists versed in the transplantation of weather have surrounded it with a small piece of jungle no more than100 paces in diameter. (And by the laws of weather transplantation there must exist somewhere, deep in some far off jungle a small patch of land shrouded in eternal snow).
It was here that the lady poet Jaralia loved to bathe in the warm, mineral rich waters as she gazed through the surrounding thicket of ferns and palms into the falling snow that could just be glimpsed beyond. In her famous autobiography she states, “My heart is like these waters of Kelaar, arising from unknown depths and flowing forth into their small lush land, an island arising in the midst of a realm of vast desolation.”