Yes, it was some years ago, where the glittering salt desert of Whitleg met the Gulf of Silber. It was once a lively place of fresh roads and crowds, where the works of the masons never seemed to stop. Salt-by-sea was its name and it had long since withered away. Enter Edvar Sewel. He threw open the wooden hatches of his loft and beheld what was left of the town. His view and the view of those in the street below were very, very different. Edvar saw his home of several years; the winding...

Night had fresh fallen over the turrets and walls of Ivriskap by the hour our story begins. As if a cluster of thin fungal flutes had risen from a corpse, the fortress’ turrets rose from an undergrowth of crenellations, turrets, courtyards and gatehouses, and too few torches shone from within its smatter of dark arches and shattered windows. For the first time in many moons, no snow fell, and the fighting pits around the foot of the fortress had thawed the days before. There were only a few...

I set out for my interview in Cologne with a suitcase full to bursting. Water bottles, filter, sealed food, a personal heater, my heaps of UBS documents, visa, even an up-to-date CSF sample. Over prepared? Maybe not, but I had no intention of letting ever-changing travel restrictions slow me down. I had even scheduled enough free-time to submit to a few medical exams in quarantine facilities. Yes, I even brought a sleeping bag. Anyone whose career has forced them to endure any amount of...