I. The Wintermail... A cause of envy and strife, murder and sorrow. Cursed are those who long for it, in dire peril is he who possess it. The mail was once as white as the purest snow, a mother's gift to her dearest son. But such finery drew envious gazes. Thus it brought doom instead of salvation. One of the son's own clansmen slew him away from other eyes, and despoiled him of the hauberk.
II. It was then that the Wintermail lost its alabaster brilliance. Its hue became darker, as though fine snow had been soiled with trodden dirt. As he looked upon it, the man knew that his sin had corrupted its beauty. He ran through the snows -- seeking only to flee where none of his kinsmen might look upon him. But still he clutched the hauberk to his chest.
III. At night the man staggered, weary and frozen -- for it was the dead of winter, when even a Nord's flesh and blood must feel the icy chill. He knew that death might come upon him, but in his anguish he cared not. Then he saw the light of a fire burning ahead, shielded from the greedy wind by mounds of rock. A woman was cooking stew, to fend off her own portion of the cold. She saw the man and offered him the warmth of her fire.
IV. The man warmed himself and ate what he was offered. And then out poured the tale of his crime, as though he could not bear to hold it in his breast a moment longer, but must spit it forth as though it were poison. The woman listened, and bade the man sleep. She promised that his troubles, even his great crime, would seem less in the morning's light. Then while he slumbered she cut his throat, and took the hauberk for her own.
V. Darker grew the hauberk, until white gave way to grey and the Wintermail bore the color of ash. But still the fates who'd gathered around it were not satisfied. The woman met her own demise on the very next day, slain by bandits who wrested the grim treasure from her dying arms. She wasn't the last. Life after life was lost to greed, for all souls with the trace of evil in their hearts who looked upon the Wintermail yearned to possess it at any cost. And thus the armor that had once been purest white was made black as night by the sins of man.
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