Shimmerfrost - Paul Joseph Santoro Emerick

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Résumé :
Ten years after the final events of the original novel Swordbane, a new adventure and plot unfolds. The heroes of the elite Order of the Comradery find themselves separated while pursuing and confronting a cultist caravan of the departed but glorified dark lord Dux Decius. Upon their ensuing confrontation, Marin and Linitus of the Comradery escape the ensuing turmoil of a collapsing cave mine by taking a portal to a faraway land in the north known as Shimmerfrost. Upon arriving, these two heroes must rely on each other for survival in a very hostile, cold, and unfamiliar land while uncovering a plot by a new villainous regional overlord known as Helskadi, the Winter Death Witch, who is poised to solidify her dominance over all the various beings of the region while relying heavily on her horde army of beastly creatures and the necromantic powers of a mysterious vassal of hers known as Wendigo. Eventually while seeking to return home, Marin and Linitus cross paths with various local inhabitants, including human Nordlings and an exotic group of anthropomorphic sentient beings known as dyr folk. Marin and Linitus set out to build a new alliance between these two groups after previously feuding with each other for countless years. Only through uniting these two groups can Marin and Linitus hope to have a chance of prevailing against Helskadi's dark forces that threaten to usher in a new era of darkness in the region. Meanwhile, Duchess Lucia Diem, upon sacrificing her life for her son Lucianus to escape in the earlier confrontation against the Comradery, now finds herself in the presence of the deity spirit of death, Calu. Surprising the deity spirit by rejecting her intended destination of being united with many of her ancestors in the paradise of Caelum, Lucia instead chooses to be sent to the fiery realm of condemnation known as Hadao Infernum out of utter devotion to unite with her late lover, Decius. Upon uniting in the fiery realm of hell, the two soulmates rekindle their bond. They come to a new understanding together of their present abode while forging a new dark path of domination. Decius, with Lucia at his side, seeks to make a last bid to claim the title of the supreme dark lord of hell while waging a new war against the realm's current reigning occupant, Orcus, the Lord of Punishment....