Five-Minute fiction - 22:58-23:03

The snow crunched underfoot as Thanus slipped from the tree and moved toward the ring of stones called the Philosophers. The immense basalt slabs had been a part of the forest for nearly the entirety of Thyers existence. No known records existed from before the citys founding but the stones were omnipresent in the myths and legends of the tribes that had settled in the area.

Many of the servants believed the stones were markers the denoted the boundaries between this world and another. The lore of Ethera was filled with stories of such dimensional portals and of heroes from the beyond the Veil as it was called who came in times of dire need. Thanus neither believed in these heroes nor in the worlds beyond the Veil. They were stories told to control children. But neither did he believe this snow was real, for it moments ago the ground of the forest had been lush and green with the fertile spring saplings that struggled for life before being starved out by the larger already established trees. But the snow