BlackengorgeSagaThe grasses and brambles at the edge of the forest soon gave way to a harder and dustier path, with small stones and ridges on the rocks making footing just as treacherous as the roots and low branches of the forest before. The cool and chill of the evening turned to a dedicated cold as they pressed along and every now and then Khalin couldn’t help thinking whether he’d made a mistake in deciding to plough on through the night. At the top of the next bluff Zero stopped and scanned the horizon, looking for the best route to take them back into hiding. He was amazed how dark it was out here — no signs of civilisation, no streetlights or fires. Just the bright stars and the moon to guide them and light their way. To the northeast he could see the mountains, their snow-capped peaks sparkling with the white light from the moon. To the west, back towards Blackengorge, was only endless hills rolling into darkness.
The night air grew colder as they continued and the sweat on their brows began to freeze in patches. Khalin’s beard grew slivers of white from frost where his sweat ran but the best thing to do was to press on. Here and there the thin, gnarled trees grew in small clumps. Zero tried to avoid them where he could, deciding that he didn’t particularly like the look of them, but every now and then had to use them to keep the group hidden from sight. The going began to get more difficult. The rocks and inclines were larger and sharper and it wasn’t just once that one of the group shouted out as they grazed their knee or hand and had to be hissed at to be quiet by the others.
The cold continued to press the group as they marched on. Their speed slowed somewhat as they took more breaks, rubbing their arms and their legs trying to keep the blood circulating, and adjusting their cloaks and hoods to keep the worst of the chill away from their faces. Despite the cold fog clinging to their legs the group managed to keep moving, ducking from hollow to hollow, slipping and sliding on the scree. Not once did they hear any movement out across the marches, not any signs of light or life. The stars spiralled in the sky and the moon started to sink within its arc. A pale pink glow began to surround the peaks of the grey and white mountains to the east, a bank of cloud illuminated in the sky behind them, inching inexorably towards them on the gentle easterly breeze. It would not be long before dawn spread its fingers across the pock-marked landscape.
Khalin’s enthusiasm kept up, however, extolling the groups’ virtues at every opportunity, whispering words of encouragement to keep them going. He kept glancing out to the east, though, marvelling both at the mountains and the radiance that the growing spread of dawn played out before it. At the bottom of a hollow, out of the soft light of the dawn, they took a short break, catching their breath and sipping from their waterskins, whilst Zero continued to the top of the ridge to plan their route ahead. Suddenly the rogue slid back down the slope, agitated and seemingly excited at the same time, his arm pointing back up the slope and to the north. ‘A small wood up ahead,’ he hissed through chattering teeth. ‘Not sure if its where we are looking for, or just a good place for shelter.’ He rubbed his hands together to try to get some warmth into them. ‘Looks cold, though, exposed on the top of one of the hills, plenty of frost up there.’
‘Well now, I do recall our undead hobgoblin friend relaying that this “mouth” was in the “Coilwood”. Well these are the first real trees we’ve come across, and we’ve hiked a fair few leagues across the march,’ Khalin turned to Tradden as he spoke. ‘I reckon there’s a fair chance this could be it.’ As the group approached the wood they could see the trees were the same gnarly and windswept ones they had seen all along the Stonemarch. Others had been on their own, perhaps in clumps of two or three, but these were the first they had seen in such great numbers together. Khalin judged the size of the wood as he approached, probably two or three hundred yards across and possibly as deep as far as he could see. A good dozen acres at least. The trees looked to be leaning to the left as they approached, pointing towards the west, and all were covered with a thin film of frost and ice. The group shuddered with the cold as they plunged into the treeline and out of the sun, stopping and gathering their breath, trying to keep their panting under control and low in volume.
Kireth’s nose wrinkled and he looked over at Zero. With a whisper he raised a questioning eyebrow at the rogue. ‘Burning?’
The rogue smelled the air and a warm grin spread over his face. He shook his head softly and looked at Kireth. ‘Tobacco,’ he whispered back, and put his finger to his lips for the rest of the group to see.
As Zero moved slowly through the densely packed trees the temperature dropped once more. Where there had been a light dusting of frost as its outer reaches, sparkling in the first light of day, within the trees, shrouded from the sun, lay a blanket of pearl-white snow. The rogue shivered. Within only a few strides he lost sight and sound of his companions, the gnarled trees and tangled thickets forming a close barrier and making the going slow. The wood, perhaps the Coilwood of the dead hobgoblin’s answers, was silent as only a snowshrouded forest could be. At the thought of the hobgoblin, its blank eyes and silver-foaming mouth, the rogue shivered again. The closeness of the trees and the insufferable quiet of the wood began to creep him out, branches becoming hands of the hobgoblin, reaching out to grab him. Then, almost taking him by surprise he came to a gap in the treeline, almost spilling out into the open air. Perhaps only half a dozen yards across, the passage ran east to west, winding around to the north slowly somewhere to the west in a sharp but constant curve, the same to the east. The treeline stood remorseless again to the north, slowly rising on a shallow hill. Feeling exposed he quickly turned back where he came and darted back into the trees, banging against one of the trunks in his haste. He missed cutting his head by a whisker — a rusted axe-head, its shaft long ago rotted, sat embedded in the tree, the milky white crust of a shattered skull still pinned against the gnarled bark.
Eyes were drawn to the gap, curving around from the east and the west, and the drifts of snow that Tradden had pushed out of the way. A soft blue sheen glimmered faintly in the sunlight afforded by the break in the trees. ‘Ice?’ questioned Beltak in hushed tones. ‘A frozen river, perhaps,’ replied Zero looking out to the east and back up to the west. The ground went slightly down into the break and Khalin took it slowly before levelling out. Underfoot was slippy and more than once Khalin nearly lost his footing. Inch by inch he started to make his way across with the shaft of the hammer propping him up. In an instant the warlord’s legs were in the air and he was airborne for a moment, his feet slipping out from under him and he clawed for something to grab. He came down on his chest as he twisted over, cracking the ice below him with a slam of his hammer and driving the snow away with his body. Below him the blue-white sheen of ice was stark and clear, small bubbles rising to the underside of the crust in response to the dwarf’s inadvertent lunge. He stared down, thankful that the ice hadn’t broken. Khalin’s face went white and he scrambled up as quickly as he could, arms and legs flailing from side to side. He half-ran, half-slid to the far bank near Tradden, breathing heavily and sporting a frosting film of sweat upon his pallid face.
Khalin jabbed a finger towards the ice, then made a cut-throat gesture and tugged at an imaginary noose round his neck before making a grotesque face and raising his arms like some comedy ghost. Finally he jabbed a finger at the ice in a frantic fashion once more. Khalin hoped the meaning was clear and that the others didn’t think he was describing merely a slip on the ice, but Tradden alongside him could barely contain his mirth at the usually stoic dwarf’s antics.
The trees were just as twisted and gnarled at this side of the break, low hanging branches causing the rogue a number of problems. The snow was treacherous underfoot and more than once Zero felt a crunch that was more than just that of the snow but declined to look down. Navigating the close trees was difficult, the way they lurched to one side was unnerving and made it a twisting trail to move through, slow going at best. Swinging around one of the boughs his shin went into something hard and he cursed aloud, betraying his silence up until then. He bent down to rub his leg and his hand came away wet and warm with blood. At his feet was an old shield, rusted down to a sharp edge. He was about to curse once more when he heard the faint call of voices, probably from the north, although it was hard to tell in the maze of the trees. A call or two, guttural and low. The smell of burning grew.
Ahead in the break the dawning sun glimmered off ice. Beyond there was a small trail in the trees, heading up a slope towards some unseen crest. Along the trail were a number of humanoid creatures, orcs Zero thought, looking as if they had been woken from some reverie and darting about to make themselves ready. The rogue cursed his shout from before. To one side of the trail, slightly up the hill was a large wooden device made from stout timber, perhaps as tall as one of the orcs itself. Next to it was a brazier, burning a glorious orange and casting a pale cloud of swirling smoke. Two of the orcs stood near the device, one picking up what appeared to be a large rock the same size as its head, the other holding a lit torch. The other orcs were preparing themselves with axes, as if expecting an attack, directed by a large hobgoblin. To this brute’s side stood another hobgoblin with a gnarled staff matching the trees of the wood and a small red drake, similar to the ones they had met before in the ruined keep and the dragon burial ground.
Although the group tried to stay quiet the wood and undergrowth did not let them. Khalin stamped on a branch under the snow and in a moment’s concentration lost by Kireth hissing at the dwarf, the mage managed to stumble himself, dropping to his knee in the freezing snow and howling as he drew a long cut against a rusting metal helm. As Khalin turned back to hiss back at the mage himself he realised he had broken through into the gap between the trees. The moment for observation was too late as a cry came up from the far bank with the sound of ropes being drawn taut and the creak of wood.
Orcs, hobgoblins and even a trebuchet greeted the party.
The two figures near the wooden machine made short work of the fire, quickly patting it out and throwing snow onto the wood. They moved quickly, grabbing one of the rocks and placing it within what appeared to be a net of some sort. With practiced efficiency they lowered it briefly into the brazier, dipping it up and down before pulling it and mounting it within the contraption. An adjustment or two on a lever and they appeared ready, pulling one final lever down. There was a great noise, perhaps only matched by the explosion of the fireball, as the beams of the trebuchet swept at great speeds to propel the stone down the slope. It sailed through the air in a long arc, high in the sky, before coming down towards the middle of the creek and the two hapless warriors. The stone did not hit them directly, but crashed into the ice near their feet, sending up slivers of ice that sliced into them and splashing them with a caustic and sticky flame that stank of old tobacco, residue from the brazier. Then the stone began to melt through the ice, the sticky fire making short work of the blue skin atop the water.
Tradden had regained some of his composure from his slip, but with the ice now cracked he found footing unsteady. The lash of the drake’s claws had pushed him towards the hole and he looked down into the black depths of the chill water to his side. Then, startling the young fighter, a hand came up out of the depths, a filthy, rotting hand that grabbed the top of the ice with clumsy strength. Something was pulling itself out. Beltak looked on in horror at the humanoid that had clambered from the depths. Another had started to pull itself out of the freezing water near Kireth, its lidless eyes staring out at nothing as it grasped for purchase on the ice. The first of the horrors had been in the process of rotting, but the ice had started to preserve it. There was no smell, just the same vacant look and awkward balance as the other, but Beltak knew this to be an abomination of undead. As he grasped his holy symbol he could see the remnants of the shattered ice — scattered across the top of the iced creek — from the stone missile begin to frost over and the ice sheet dull with a new layer of rime. The cold spread out around the zombie as it turned towards Khalin, sensing blood.
Most of the orcs and the zombies were eventually dispatched, but the trebuchet remained until Tradden ascended the slope. Tradden was on his game now and his controlled ferocity was a sight to be seen. Chunks of wood were hewn from the orcish structure, pulleys were cut and the orcs cut and stabbed by the onslaught. The orcs were frantically trying to load another stone, protected as they were slightly out of Tradden’s full reach. Despite his best efforts Tradden realised they were going to have time to launch another one — even now the projectile was set and the long, sturdy central rope taught. In desperation he tried one, last swing at the larger rope. His hands screamed in pain as his blows simply bounced off — it was tough than it looked and all he had succeeded in doing was cutting a couple of minor ropes on the rebound. At that moment there was an long, ominous groan and a set of snapping sounds. Almost by instinct the fighter ducked as he sensed something moving behind him. His reactions were not matched by the two orcs. They completely failed to see the remnants of a particularly taught secondary rope which flashed around wickedly, wrapping itself around the wooden structure as it did so. The green fleshy things were no barrier and it sliced completely through them leaving even more bits of orc on this particular battlefield. The trebuchet, set and primed to fire one last time was ominously still.
Kireth watched his own hands shaking through unnearthly chill with a mild sense of amusement and curiosity. When he heard the frame of the wooden trebuchet creak, groan and then crash he felt the eyes of the others turn unto him, teetering on the edge of the ice. Through an iron will he brought his limbs under control and stepped coolly away from the shattered holes in the ice of the creek, bending down and picking up the broken arrow that had been lodged in the zombie’s eye. Flush with anger, he tried to control himself by studying the thing, turning it over and over in his hands until he regained some sense of warmth.
Gingerly stepping back onto the ice, with one eye flirting back and forwards between the two dark holes, Zero glided towards the nearest orcish brute. It was large and powerful dressed in dark leather armour that was shoddily made. Within a couple of moments Zero had found little of value within its limited pockets bringing a low sigh of resignation from the rogue, realising that further examination of the remaining bodies would likely be fruitless. Unlike the hobgoblins, however, the orc was covered in markings. Predominantly over its neck, but also leading up to one of its eyes were crude marks, tattoos, or perhaps even scars. The marks were coarse and dark, rounded circles almost like that of eyes, but with a cut or slash across them. The one on its own eye seemed to be more like a scar than the others, perhaps even weeping a little in the cold. Zero looked long and hard at the arrowhead. Its design was eerie and familiar. He pondered, running through his memories, before finally settling on one. With a low register in a fearful key, he reported, ‘This design was on those amulets we found beneath that mansion back in Deepingwald. This was just after Tradden and I met up with all of you.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘And&r…dquo; there was a letter, stained with ink. It mentioned new recruits and mind-washing and something about snuffing out light and basically making everything horrible.’
Khalin turned and moved cautiously up the slope, Tradden falling in quickly behind and motioning the others to follow. Kireth sighed and simply strode up the slope with confidence leaving Zero and Beltak to shrug at each other, draw a deep breath, and venture onwards. After Kireth’s flame and the many boots of the hobgoblins, Tradden and Khalin, the slope had been slowly turning to slush, but the rising wind, whisling through the stark branches of the grotesque trees, sang a cold tune, and the melting snow was rapidly turning back to ice. It made the going slow, as the group needed to keep their eyes open in front of them, not down at their feet.
All could see the clearing before them, ringed by more gnarled trees on all sides in a giant circle or oval. Some twenty feet or so into this clearing was a steep embankment, leading sharply upwards quickly, hiding the very top from view. However, the tops of a couple of statues could be seen, their arms lifing up towards the sky. Scattered over the hillock were some thick bushes and large, old, gnarly trees. Ideal hiding places for any enemies. Khalin and Tradden, already having viewed the scene seemed more concerned with what may be atop the hillock, but the others, seeing for the first time, noticed things the pair had not. Zero pointed sharply at the statue to the east, his keen eyes spotting a humanoid form lurking within the shadows from the dawning sun. Beltak directed glances over to the west, at one of the bushes growing on the raised slope, its thick branches rustling contrary to the wind. Kireth, all traces of his scowl removed, cocked his head to one side, looking at the encircling trees. The mage spotted a number of large black birds within the trees — the first they had seen anywhere within this wood. They were quiet, though, unnaturally quiet, and all of them had their dark, beady eyes focussed upon the group. Cautious and stealth as they were, however, the group were spotted. A sharp, guttural cry came from the top of the hill, presumably from the figure within the shadows of the statue.
The battle on the hill began.
Some orcs were hidden behind the statues and they attacked first. As steel met steel near the statues the clashes rang out across the top of the hill. Faint guttural shouts could be heard, echoing from somewhere, before a multitude of sharp rings of metal on rock sounded out. The clash of steel also seemed to wake the numerous black birds sat silently and motionless in the gnarled trees surrounding the hill. With a cacophony of cries they swarmed into the air, coalescing as if a dark cloud, menacing in the air. The shouts and clang of steel on stone multiplied and both Kireth and Tradden spotted steel hooks the size of pumpkins lodge on the edge of the “mouth” of the stone. Ropes from the backs of them led down into the darkness. Ropes which were taut and faintly moving as if someone were climbing them. With continued strikes more hooks joined the others, perhaps a dozen or so in total. The first set appeared quite taut and out of the corner of his overworked eye, Tradden could see a hand or two grab hold of the lips of the mouth and orc-like bodies start to pull themselves up. Hands appeared at the top of some of the ropes and grappling hooks at the top of the “mouth” and from within the darkness a number of orcs began to slowly pull themselves up and onto the stone of the face on the hill. They were taller than the other orcs already set on the battlefield, thicker of arm and wider of neck, but just as ugly. They looked out across the hill and ordered on by the orc crouched in the eye socket, turned towards Tradden. The first pushed past another, almost knocking it back into the void of the “mouth” in its obvious delight in readying itself for the kill.
With screeches that began to echo around the hill the birds began to flock together, forming a whirling circle over the bush to the northwest that had recently been ‘vacated’ by one of the orcs under Kireth’s spell. Whirling as one they began to swoop and dart towards Kireth, Zero, and Khalin. The birds continued to caw and screech into the air as they moved, never still, and difficult to hit a single one of the creatures in flight. Black as night they blocked out anything behind them as though they were a wall of feathers.
As Zero headed northwards towards the face in the hill, whistling softly to himself at Tradden’s swordplay, the crows cried out, swirling together and altered their course. They were swift, moving together in an endless swarm of beak and claw. Within moments they caught up with and enveloped the rogue. They flocked around his head, scratching with their claws, biting with their beaks, catching in his cloak and hood and sleeves. They were all over him and began to peck at his eyes. Zero’s eyes stung as he flapped his own arms in attempt to ward off the birds. They pulled at his hair and kept their beaks and claws tearing at his vision. He couldn’t see any more, and the world went dark, his ears assaulted with the sound of the crows’ call.
Zero was surrounded by a cacophony of noise, a pain in his eyes where the birds were pecking, and the sharp taste of pain on his right shoulder and neck where the green flames spread and licked their rasping tongues against him. There were no words from within the black swirl of birds, no cries, and no shouts. But inside the tumult of beak and claw Zero began to panic. He couldn’t see and began to fitfully thrash, hoping to wallop the vicious crows with the end of his crossbow and at least lessen the terrible assault, and at the same time trying to bat out the green flames. Yet, in spite of his dire predicament, the plucky rogue still fought to make it toward the mouth, stumbling in what he hoped was the right direction. Even through the cacophony of birds he could hear the clash of battle, and headed towards that whilst flailing around with his crossbow. As he moved the birds rose and swelled darting back at him, tearing at his clothes and hair. Zero kept on going, though, breaking out of the churning mass and staggering blindly towards the mouth. However, orcs had closed in since Zero had last seen the battlefield clearly and as he staggered past one it gleefully swung its axe at the rogue’s back. The rogue reeled with the blow and staggered onwards, feeling his footing reach the stone face. It was only at the last moment, as his front foot felt just air, that he stopped, teetering on the edge of abyss, unable to see, and now very afraid of the position he had put himself in. A moment’s calm passed over him on that brink, his mind clearing and the flames subsiding. He tried to steady his nerves and will his eyes to see.
The birds settled over Zero just as the rogue’s sight began to clear. He could see himself staring into a dark abyss, perhaps fifty or more feet to the bottom where the rogue could swear he saw the glints of sharp spikes. His enlightened view was disturbed as the birds swarmed all around him once more and resumed their incessant chattering and volleys of sharp pecks at his eyes. Try as he might he could not protect his face enough to stop the birds getting through and the swift glimpse of light disappeared once again. This wasn’t quite the heroic endeavour Zero had envisaged. Assaulted by crows and with no more orcs coming up to cut the ropes on, Zero abandoned his plan and felt out one of the ropes. He batted several of his black tormentors away as he searched for one of the hooks, finding a rope still attached with his hands. Blinded, and still unsure, he swiftly hopped over the lip of the gaping maw and, praying this would end the vicious pecking, slid down into the abyss. As he threw himself into the void the birds swarmed, calling out with high pitched screeches, and tore at his skin and face with renewed vigour. They tore at his hair and his eyes, drawing a thin line of blood down the rogue’s cheek as he continued his descent. Hoping that he’d find some foothold before the rope ran out and that the crows didn’t follow the rogue slowly shimmied down into the depths. The rogue disappeared into the darkness and the rope went slack.
As the group cleared the orcs they discovered a few of them were similar black abominations like the gnoll in the shack in the woodlands, casting aside their skins and attacking the group with tricks of the mind. It took great effort between the four of them, without the missing rogue but they were eventually victorious.
‘Zero&r…dquo;’ Tradden mumbled to himself as he shambled over to the hole, trying to remember the exact spot the rogue had disappeared. Swaying ever so slightly due to blood loss and the exertions of the battle, Tradden peered down over the edge. Around the edges of the “mouth” the ropes leading down swayed gently in the light breeze, their grapples scraping and grating across the ancient white stone. The gaping portal was at least ten feet across, maybe more, and the young fighter shuddered at the memory of the orcs spewing out like vomit from its lips. Below was dark in contrast to the bright sky above — his eyes not suited to the change in brightness — and he could see nothing, but could sense the void below him.
It appeared that the ropes went down some distance, two or three dozen feet at the least. They did not travel straight down, rather they swung diagonally away and down from the opening. There was little sound below, a strange humming perhaps, oddly out of tune. The hairs on the back of Khalin’s neck began to rise as a queer feeling of a great eye staring at him grew stronger the more he peered down into the blackness.
Kireth thought quickly and cast a magelight upon a large stone; Tradden tossed it into the pit.
For a moment there was silence, a brief pair of seconds as the trio atop the summit held their breath. The glowing rock tumbled end over end into the dark, a beacon of light in the gloom below. Then there was a crash and the rock shattered into pieces, spewing shards across a great floor. Each of the shards held Kireth’s strong magic granting them all a carpet of soft light. The glow did not stretch to illuminate the top half of the chamber, but gave them a good view of the bottom, perhaps seventy feet below. The shards of stone had spread out to reveal a circular chamber probably a hundred feet across, the whole construct likely some form of dome with the “mouth” at its peak. Glittering with the shining dust of broken stone were hundreds of sharp spikes in the centre of the floor, stabbing up into the air with longing for the sky. They were arranged in a circle, matching the size of the “mouth”, forming the white of a huge eye shape carved in the floor. Near the centre of the eye was a humanoid shape, twisted and broken in a grotesque pose as though it had fallen some distance. Extending from the eye shape were three strangely angled channels, one going north, the others southeast and southwest, running away towards the edges of the chamber, still muffled in the dim light. A balcony surrounded the wide circular room, some dozen or so feet up from the bottom and about ten feet wide, cloaking the area below in gloom. A wide stone banister at the edge gleamed from the light of the stones. Tied to the banister were the ropes stretching down from the grapples hooked at the edges of the “mouth”.
Most of the south-western portion of the balcony gleamed and twinkled in the soft light as though it were wet, a slight reddish tint covering its stone floor. Just visible, sat leaning against the banister, was a rotund figure clutching a bright shortsword. Around him were scattered a couple of bodies prostrate upon the floor. The soft humming that Khalin had heard stopped as the figure looked up towards the aperture and the heads of the curious companions above. ‘You took your bloody time,’ it croaked.
Tradden moved quickly down the rope despite his injuries, trying to not look down at the spikes below. He only started to relax and enjoy himself when he was a few feet away from the balcony and the height of the fall no longer worried him. Kireth’s glowing rocks lit up the dome in a dim white light where they could, some shards playing cruel tricks with shadows of spikes looking long, thin and treacherous against the black walls. As the young fighter looked back up the way he had come from he noticed a couple of cracks in the dome roof where the two great trees on the hill had projected their roots into the abyss. Water trickled down softly from the tips of their roots, sparkling in the magelight as they dripped into the chasm. Eventually he arrived at the balcony where the rope was tied to the banister. He nearly slipped on the banister’s stone top, smooth to the touch, but managed to slide over and land near Zero, his footing unsure again with a slick film of blood upon the floor. Two large orc bodies littered the floor near the rogue, their lifeblood oozing out from deep, straight cuts, dripping from the balcony to the floor below and finding their way to one of the sickle-shaped channels, draining towards the walls. Another orc lay a couple of dozen feet away to the northwest, a familiar- looking bolt lodged neatly in the middle of its throat. With his concentration fixed upon the rogue he moved closer, slowing himself so as not to startle him. Once again Tradden caught the sound of a faint humming, but when Zero looked up at him it stopped. The rogue was covered with blood, Tradden unsure of how much was Zero’s and how much was the orcs’. ‘Are you okay, Z?’ he managed weakly, trying a smile.
Kireth simply frowned at the wall, running his hand across it softly, following Tradden slowly, his face still intent upon the wall. As the others turned to look they saw what the mage was so interested in. Running around the wall was some sort of carving — pictures and writing — as though some scene or story were being played out in the stone.
The morning passed slowly for Tradden. As the others dozed he prowled the balcony, circling the edge of the dome, but always taking care near the doors. As he slowly padded around the stone path his eyes kept getting drawn to the carvings upon the wall and the writing beneath them. Pacing around and around he gradually realised that the carvings did indeed tell some sort of story, with the beginning to the left-hand side of the southern doors as he looked at them and running widdershins around the balcony to finish at the right-hand side of the same doors. He seemed too tired, however, to fathom out the entire story, often getting confused and weary after only a few strides around the balcony. He was glad when he judged the sun had moved sufficiently in the sky above, slowly poking its rays through the “mouth” above, and he could wake Khalin. The dwarf grunted out of his sleep, looking almost shocked to be awake, but quickly composed himself and ushered Tradden to his bedroll.
Tradden settled down to get some rest as Khalin began his watch. Gradually the sun rose in the sky above its glow began to reveal more within the chamber. Looking over the balcony at the floor of the dome the warlord could see more of the layout of the spikes below. The eye of spikes appeared to be arranged in some form of emblem, the spike-filled eye and the three sickle shapes projecting from it towards the walls. The corpse of an orc slowly putrifying in the centre of the eye to match that of the three on the balcony. Khalin nodded in approval at Zero’s skill in dispatching four of the creatures — the rogue always appeared to be at the fringes of combat, cautious in putting himself at the front line, but the lad had made a fine job of getting rid of the creatures that still lurked down here. He was drawn like Tradden to the carvings and writing around the balcony as he patrolled around the dome, particularly the writing that seemed to shine in the sunlight that now spilled into the chamber with the sun high in the sky above. The writing was crafted skillfully into the wall below the carvings, each raised letter shining and polished opposed to the grime collected in the crevasses. Noting the polish Khalin then saw that the top of the wide stone banister possessed a similar smoothness, gleaming in the sunlight from above. There was nothing to be done for it for now, though. The others were asleep and it was approaching the time to wake Kireth for the mage’s watch. Returning to the orange fire and the warmth he roused the half-elf and then settled into his own bedroll, a snore picking up only moments after he had laid down.
The mage waited until he was sure that Khalin was fast asleep before he moved around the fire and knelt down next to Zero. Quietly he opened the rogue’s pack and extracted one of the gemstones Zero had found on their travels. The mage had used two before in creating a magic circle that warded off the attacks of wolves. The minor trick he’d used to change two pebbles to look like gems had now faded, and the rough stones sat in the leather pouch. With the gem in hand he rose and moved across to the writing encircling the chamber, choosing what he hoped was an appropriate section. He began to intone a spell and the gemstone crumbled within his hand. Kireth let the spent dust of the gemstone slip through his fingers as he moved around the balcony studying the writing, pausing at points to examine the carvings above. The rest of his watch was spent circling the path, reading and re-reading the words. When his allotted time was up he returned to the fire to seek out Zero. As he looked at the rogue laid out on top of his bedroll he turned back to the writing and then back to the rogue. He cocked his head slightly, a curious smile playing over his thin lips, then nudged Zero with his foot repeatedly until he woke. Without a word he sat back against the wall near the flickering orange flame, drawing his hood over his face and folding his arms. By the time Zero brushed sleep from his eyes the mage was likely asleep.
Zero’s watch passed slowly. Tired and hurt and in desperate need of a hot bath and good food, the rogue huddled with his back to the orange flames and tried his best to keep awake and alert. He felt himself drifting off a couple of times and decided to walk around the balcony to stop himself curling up and sleeping. The carvings intrigued him, particularly as they seemed to tell a story, but the subject matter appeared to be harsh with no trace of a beautifully carved woman to distract him. Disappointed and too tired to fully comprehend the tale that it told he returned back to the fire and pulled a small kit from his travel pack. The sun had moved past the “mouth” by now — the late afternoon glow fading above was slowly reducing the dome back to gloom — but the flames gave him enough light to start sewing up his clothes where they had been slashed and torn by the orcs’ attacks. Although he carried a couple of spares he was quite attached to the embroidered garments now and would hate to see them ruined. By the time he had finished he gauged it was Beltak’s turn to take watch. Donning his tunic he moved over to the scribe and gently woke him.
Beltak took up the watch without complaint although his head was still throbbing with pain. He seated himself near the fire and took out the copy of The Annals of Pelor they had found within the orc stronghold on the Old Road, thumbing through its pages and trying to fathom its meaning. As the sky through the “mouth” started to turn dark as evening approached he put down the book and readied himself to rouse the others. Slowly he woke them in turn from their deep slumbers, Tradden first and then Khalin, Zero, and finally Kireth.
It was not long before the fire began to hiss and spit, Kireth’s magics finally wearing off, and the flame began to die. Tradden quickly jumped to grab a torch, lighting the end with the final sparks from the wood as it succumbed to ash in an instant. Holding the torch high to ward off the gloom the others looked out into the darkening dome with refreshed eyes. Looking up towards the “mouth” Zero spotted something they had missed before.
‘Look!’ the rogue uttered, his voice echoing through the chamber. ‘The stars are out.’
Following his raised arm the others noticed the stars too, although they were on the inside of the dome. Carefully placed stones within the roof of the dome had been flecked with gold, reflecting the simple light of the torch back at the group, perfectly simulating a night sky above in all its detail.
‘There’s Pelor,’ stated Beltak pointing out a constellation directly above their heads, several large “stars” in a complex pattern with a cluster of smaller, fainter ones providing the appearance of a beam of light outstretched into the dark.
‘And Moradin,’ agreed Khalin gesturing towards the east and a set of stars representing an anvil with hammer beating down.
‘But what lies there?’ asked Kireth in a flat tone, pointing off towards the far side of the dome. ‘That is not the void in the sky above.‘
The others turned to look towards the south, expecting a large portion of the roof to be blank as the sky was on even the blackest of nights. However, several bright stars beamed back down at them, yellow and golden in their sparkle.
‘A spiral,’ mumbled Zero, his voice breaking.
Though as a proud dwarf Khalin was no stranger to glittering caverns, the vista that had revealed itself across the roof of the chamber was nevertheless impressive. Under a night sky the stars of Moradin always brought warmth to the warlord’s heart. But this new constellation was a mystery. The dwarf was not exactly a slouch when it came to history and racked his brains for any reference to such a star group, but none would come. Khalin turned once more to Kireth and Beltak, who the dwarf presumed were most likely to have insight on the matter: ‘Do you know of any record of a spiral star group in the histories? Or the symbolic significance of a spiral perhaps?’ As he spoke something tickled at the dwarf’s mind and he furrowed his brow as he recalled: ‘Hold on, Kireth, have you still got that wooden amulet we found back under that mansion on The Islands? Didn’t that have a swirl on it? Maybe they’re related?’
The attention then turned to the carvings around the dome.
Tradden clasped his hands behind his back and started to pace slowly up and down in front of the nearest carving, the look on his face indicating a serious, contemplative series of thoughts were passing through his mind. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, I had opportunity to consider these carvings last night, although the efforts of the day had taken their toll and it was not until I had another look this morning that it started to make sense.’ He gesticulated with one palm-up hand around the chamber. ‘It’s a story, we know that much, and seems to run around that way.’ He pointed circularly widdershins.
‘It’s not light bedtime reading — hard to take seven forty feet dark stone tablets to bed. By the way,’ this was to Khalin and was clearly a further attempt at showing off, ’&r…dquo; Obsidian or Jet?’ He let the question hang in the air for a moment and then continued. ’Odd that some parts seem to have been weathered, vandalised and also that the end is not finished. Kind of makes me wish I had brought one of my old chisels!’ No-one laughed.
Unperturbed, he continued. ‘I think I agree with Zero as to the general gist of it being a battle between some big, bad fella and maybe a group of other people. All our races seem to be included in the group — humans, dwarves, elves, halflings and even gnomes and goliaths. Not sure about these other elf-looking folk here, and here and I dare say Rhasgar might be interested to note that there are no Dragonborns kicking around.’
‘I always loved old legends and stories and whilst I might be getting carried away&r…dquo; I wonder if this second scene,’ he pointed to the second tableau, ‘is the battle that followed? The bad guy has some weird things on his side — here, the odd creatures which seem to, erm, drip, out of the background. However, the good guys seem to have some help also. The guy with the “halo” thing, well, you tell me Beltak but that looks like it could be Pelor? Khalin — isn’t the dwarf awfully Moradin like? No Corellon as far as I can see but the elven spear woman — Sehanine?’
Tradden was seriously on a roll now. ’And look, here, in the second and third sections — there isn’t the same focus but look, Bahamut, Erathis, Ioun, Kord&r…dquo; maybe Sehahine, hmm, wouldn’t make sense given what I said before, but you get the idea!’
‘We talk about gates to other dimensions, and look, on the third scene — couldn’t that be Halo Guy, erm, sorry, Beltak, Pelor, closing the doorway these dripping things are coming through? Hey!’ Tradden had a sudden thought. ‘Maybe that’s a scribe of Pelor there — with the book!’
Khalin looked like he was going to say something, but there was no stopping Tradden, history expert, now he was going. ‘By the time we get to this fourth panel it seems to be that Moradin and the others are imprisoning yonder bad guy and, erm, not being very nice to him actually, but I am sure they have a good reason for cutting out his eyes&r…dquo;’
‘Not sure that the fifth scene really adds — your bad fella is manacled to a huge rock, could be in a cave maybe, with birds feeding on the blood, do they do that? And then fading away. Weird. Not sure whether the discarded spear means anything?’
Tradden was nearly out of breath at this point.
‘As you can see, by part six things are starting to get a little rough — literally. It’s like someone didn’t have time to finish it and it doesn’t make a lot of sense — now there are lots of people, all without eyes, kind of like those orcs I guess, and what appears to be lots of humans dying. Looks like one sun eating another. What’s that all about?’
‘The seventh panel is just blank — intentional, or a story not yet finished?’
‘My take on it is that the big bad fella came, offered something to the people who refused and rose up against him and then imprisoned him. Problem is, it looks like they took their eye off the sword and now&r…dquo; well, he might be back in town.’
With that he stood back, arms folded. Proud of himself.
‘Yes, very impressive, Tradden,’ Kireth said with sincerity as he stood and walked before the carvings. ‘If you would allow me to add to what has already been cleverly deduced, my humble little ritual has helped me translate some of what is written. Each of the following corresponds, that means “attaches to”, each of the carvings in order&r…dquo; ahem.
The mage walked slowly from one panel to the next, pointing out the words as he spoke.
‘The first: “From the Elemental Eye, the ken of afar. Withheld by Celestials, a gift for believers.”’ ‘Here, the second: “The curtain slips, the Harrow to enter upon the wheels. Might of the Celestials proved.”’
‘The third: “The Eye is tempered, the curtain closed. Dual edges for the wheels, His name is struck.”’
‘Our fourth: “Chastening within chains, the First Aegis. His sight cut out, exaction in darkness.”’ ‘Now the fifth: “Stowed in the depths, below Eagle’s Nest. The black to feed. Tharizdun bound.”’
‘The strange sixth: “Light must be snuffed, perfection decayed, order dissolved, and minds fragmented.”’
‘And the seventh, well, there is no writing as there is no carving.’
‘And, while we are on the subject of translation, that script that runs around your clothing, Zero. You will have noticed the pattern is a repetition, well maybe you haven’t but it is. Anyway, the grammar of it is extremely poorly structured which makes it difficult to decipher precisely but as best I can tell it reads: “The Eagle takes flight. Trim his wings.”‘
Zero hitched up the hem of his shirt and examined the stitching. As Kireth had mentioned, there was undoubtedly a similarity to the script beneath the carvings. ‘What the&r…dquo;?’ Zero gasped. ‘What was that little bugger Lowfield up to? I certainly didn’t ask him to incorporate some cryptic, esoteric design.’
Khalin studied the panel for some moments, running his hand lightly over the stonework and peering closely at the rough carvings. He stroked his beard and turned back to the mage. ‘Hmm,’ he thought out loud, ‘the major difference that I can tell is that its not by the same person. The others are of a similar style and to a higher quality, this one is most certainly by a lesser craftsman, a different hand.’
With a crack of thunder and a flash of light a storm broke out across the night sky far above. Snow started to fall through the "mouth" and the party decided to move onwards.
With a powerful shove Tradden pushed back a set of doors and braced himself for any assault. The only assault was one of the stench of unwashed bodies and the remnants of a cooked meal. Beyond the doors was a long corridor, perhaps fifty feet in length, several doors lining the southern wall and a solitary one to the north. At the end of the corridor the room opened out into something larger, dimly lit by firelight from around the corner and a guttering lamp on a table surrounded by benches. Through another door was a bedchamber — a rough bedroll stretched out on the floor of a small cell, maybe ten feet by ten feet. It stank a little, but not too badly, but wasn’t lit. When Tradden thrust his torch into the room it illuminated all of the corners. Nothing jumped out at him and no insects scurried away. The only other contents of the room were a rough leather pack and a rickety chair to one side. In fact, most of the rooms appeared to be bedchambers, perhaps where the orcs rested, as well as a latrine area and somewhere for them to eat.
One of the chamber doors, however, was sealed. With Zero's skill it was unlocked. As torch and candlelight alike filled the room it was immediately apparent that this was another of the sleeping cells they had encountered before. However, Zero’s disappointment was tempered with the fact that this cell appeared to be more opulent than the others. Instead of a shabby bedroll upon the stone floor there was a wooden bed in the far corner, rickety, but at least looked more comfortable than a cold floor. Opposite the door was a wooden chair and desk — a polished metal sheet acting as a mirror atop it. A shaving razor and comb were left upon the top of the desk along with a metal goblet and pipe. Piquing Zero’s interest more, however, was a solid-looking wooden chest nestled under the desk.
At the top of the chest sat a small bone scroll case which Zero quickly determined contained a number of parchments — he handed this absentmindedly to Beltak over his shoulder. Underneath, lining the length of the small chest were a pair of tunics, both well made and about the right size for Tradden, ornately decorated with swirling patterns befitting a noble. The pair were a deep red with dark embroidery and Zero nodded at their eloquence. The chest was not so large and Zero was beginning to get concerned there would not be any space left for gems and jewels but underneath the tunics he found what he was looking for. A small wooden box, intricately carved and perhaps worth a good sum itself, easily opened within his hands and spilled the reflected light of Beltak’s torch across the room as it shone against a pair of rubies. The pair were laid out in a soft cloth within the box and would likely fetch two or three hundred gold back in a reputable gemsmith’s in Deepingwald. Pocketing the small box he turned his attention back to the chest. Laid upon a purple velvet cushion were a brace of bottles, dark red and labelled with flowing writing. ‘Wine!’ he squealed back at Khalin softly, stroking the bottles gently. ‘Oh, I bet this one is a good vintage,’ he continued. One of the bottles rattled against the velvet, proving it was no cushion. ‘And what do we have here?’ the rogue questioned, picking up the velvet and emptying the chest. It was heavy, Khalin could see that in the way Zero lifted it — the velvet but a wrapping.
Slowly Zero unwound the material revealing a dark stone platter, which at first he thought was just a plate. Two holes near the centre told him otherwise. Turning the platter over, the stone cold in his hands, he asked Beltak to raise the torch higher.
The dark stone was flecked with white, like snowflakes, shimmering in the torchlight, but it was not those that held Zero’s attention. It was the holes. They were eyes. The platter was a mask. For a moment Zero seemed confused, staring at the face of the mask with disbelief. Then he stood, holding it out in front of him, turning around and putting it between himself and Khalin at the doorway. He lined up the eye holes with Khalin’s questioning eyes for a second and then lowered it again, the rogue’s face growing paler. ‘Spit it out, boy,’ roared Khalin in the confusion. Zero paused for a moment, gulping. Then slowly he croaked, ‘It’s you!’
Beltak cleared his throat and began talking, assuming that everyone was listening. It was hard to tell if the scribe were talking to himself or the rest of the group. He appeared to be fascinated by the parchments in the scroll case, reading one with a puzzled expression. ‘It looks as though they are written in the common tongue,’ he began. ‘A little archaic, perhaps, but readable. They’re some sort of correspondence I guess, and you’ll like this, they’re from Skauril.’ The scribe kept focusing on the parchments, oblivious to the rest of the groups’ activities. ‘I think I’ve sorted them into some sort of chronological order, although I’d need to do a little more thinking before I catalogue them any other way.’
‘This is the first one,’ he addressed the unseen group, bringing one of the parchments to the fore and reading aloud.
“Khase, first spear, may you eat of the flesh of our Lord and drink his blood, and through him gain life everlasting. I have need of you to the west and demand you make haste, the search at Sunderpeak can be continued by Korosphylax as we need to spread our own wings. Helvec has sent word that one of the reflectors may be located far across the Stonemarch. I will go myself to supervise and find a suitable base of operations rather than have him mismanage the situation again. Take two dozen of the Severed Eye and a hobgoblin slave wagon and bring them to the Mouth of the Sleeper. Korosphlax can give you the location of the Mouth now it is open to the skies. Gather what wretches you can on the way — there are many chances here to slake the thirst of our Lord, but keep them from the Seer that still lives here, he is quite mad I am sure, although may be turned to be of use. I keep him alive if only for amusement and the chance that he may scribe something that will swing our fortunes.”
Beltak turned the parchment over a couple of times. ‘It’s definitely signed as Skauril,’ he confirmed. ‘From what I can tell it seems to be from the start of the second tenday of Alturiak. Just over a month ago.’
The scribe was not deterred by the silence of the others, simply leafing through some of the other parchments and plucking out another. This one was slightly smaller, had been crumpled and stained somewhat, and held a dark red seal, broken in half where the correspondence had been opened. ‘Looks like Skauril’s writing again,’ Beltak began holding the parchment in the air in case anyone came back out into the common room. ‘It seems as though this one has been through quite a journey — it’s addressed to the same “Khase” though.’
“Helvec’s site looks to be of great interest and we have already started excavation. To the north we have found a ruin which will suffice as a base of operations. I have sent Helvec back to the west to monitor the settlement and bolster the goblins there in case they are required. Aethelinda has headed for Gorizbadd to speed up our search there with strict council to dispatch the reflector there with one of the Aeneators to you at the Mouth as soon as it is found. You may need to use it to before I return.”
‘This one is definitely after the first and its dated on the back — the twenty sixth day of Alturiak.’
‘Erm, you’d better take a look at this, Khalin,’ he whispered. ‘It looks like a rough map of the area. You know the treelines we came through on the way to the hill with the “mouth”?’ Khalin nodded. ‘And the way that the frozen rivers or ditched between them were curved a little? Well, it forms a pattern.’
Beltak handed the parchment to the dwarf, almost reluctantly. Khalin studied it for a moment, gathering his bearings and wits. There was a rough sketch of the face on the hill, almost comical at the centre of the parchment in dried brown ink. Surrounding it were the swirls of the treelines spiralling outwards from the centre widdershins, with the channels of the breaks between the treelines making an all-too familiar pattern.
The warlord stroked his beard once more.
Heading back to the central "mouth" the group headed off in another direction.
The door gave way to a short hallway walled with the same stone as the common room stretching out for a couple of dozen yards to the east until it became lost in gloom, opening up into a chamber. In the centre of the chamber Tradden could spy the base of a black statue, dimly luminescent against the darkness that threatened to obscure it. Leading into the chamber were dark chains along the sides of the walls, starting from the door where Tradden stood and running around the chamber to the far side where another pair of stone doors stood closed. The chains were at hand height, loose and slack, hanging from iron rings set into the stone at intervals. At the bottom of each slack area appeared a heavy ball between links of the chain. The statue stood tall within the hexagonal chamber — as far as he could see it seemed to be made of the same black stone as the wall carvings around the dome. The statue had a faint luminescence, veins of a different kind of rock swirling through it giving off a dim glow. The statue itself confused him a little in its appearance — it was essentially a hooded figure with a long cloak and which sported a pair of long curved blades. Wait a minute&r…dquo; ah&r…dquo; that was what was odd&r…dquo; it wasn’t two arms, it was three — one extra arm and one extra blade. Try as he might, he couldn’t get a good angle on the face beneath the hood from where he stood, so that remained a mystery.
He first noted that each of the two chains came from out of the walls at the far eastern side of the room, near the doors, through a small hole. One didn’t need to be a dwarven metalworker to see that the chains were aged. That said, the tops of the chains were smooth and had a polished look which contrasted with the rusty, old look of the sides and underneaths of the links. The weighted balls were just plain odd — he could see the nearest ones quite well and they seemed to be eyeballs judging by their faint carvings, the pupils staring upwards. Zero gingerly reached out to grab the chain and gave it a quick shake before whipping his hand back. His eyeballs flitted about the room nervously. The iron chain slipped from his grasp easily, banging against the walls and the hoops that it ran through. It swayed like a wave along the wall, the eyes knocking loudly and twisting wildly, as though staring back at the rogue in mockery. The wave ran past the hexagonal room and the statue and finally came to rest within the holes in the far walls by the doors as though it were taught on something there.
Spotting what may be a secret door, the group believe that pulling the chain may open it and so do. There was a sharp click as the iron ball pulled back on the ring and others joined it along the chain. The whole chain seemed to be taut now and dust puffed out of the holes in the walls next to both the western and eastern doors. Small stones began to fall from the roof just in front of the doors in a fog of dust, but settled just as quickly. Khalin strained a little, his cheeks puffing out from below his whiskers, but the chain would pull no further. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ the dwarf offered, one eye on the dust and one on the young fighter. Then the noise began.
A harsh grating of stone on stone sprang up first, making the warlord jump. It came from the statue, swinging around until its blade pointed due south. Tradden dropped his torch to better grip his shortsword and the others dropped into crouches. The statue did not appear to be coming to life though, it merely stopped. But only for a moment, then its blade came down, quickly and fiercely, but missing Khalin by more than a foot, a clumsy downward swing. Its curved end caught on the chain, entangling itself within one of the links. ‘Ha!’ shouted Tradden, ‘a bad shot!’ The statue did not respond, but the blade began to rise, bringing the chain with it, pulling the iron balls further into the hoops until the chain looked like it might break. The puffs of dust began again and then there was a whirring noise as if something had been set loose. More stones fell from above the doors before iron portcullises slammed down in front of them with a resounding clatter. The sound of stone grating then rose, right in front of the group and all around them as the masonry of the walls began to part where the iron rings were pulled by the eyeballs. Doors opened and the groan and scrape of bodies within, now released, began to fill the dusty air.
At that moment the noises coming from the recesses became more than just eerie sounds — strange creatures started to shamble forwards. Tradden immediately recognised them, having seen their kind before. These were the same pitiful beings, perhaps once human but now with shrivelled and discoloured flesh that he and Khalin had encountered in the bog marsh to the southeast of Blackengorge. Well, they were similar enough — these ones were an unnatural grey whereas the others had been a greeny-yellow, but they were still ghouls nonetheless.
Then the statue came to life! The essence of the statue glimmered with a dark sheen in the torchlight, translucent and glowing as though stars were at its core. Its blades matched that of the silent stone it left behind, curved and sharp, their edges catching the torchlight and reflecting it around the chamber.
Leaving the stone behind it floated towards the group, its faces shrouded by the cowls it wore. The sickles continued to unfurl as it stretched out its three arms as it hovered off the dais, standing a couple of feet higher than even Tradden and with a reach to match it began to swing, solidifying as it struck all in its path.
It took some moments for the party to rid themselves of the undead and the strange statue. Their problem now was that the portcullis had snapped down over their exit.
The rest of the group took a moment to sit and relax, breaking out some of the dried rations they had brought along with them over the Stonemarch. Kireth continued to concentrate upon the portcullis, tracing the bars with a sparkling powder, like tiny gemstones shimmering with the torchlight. After a few minutes there was a soft groaning from the iron, a low vibrant sound, and dust began to fall from the ceiling above the bars. Unlike the deadfall in the forest, the transition between a large portcullis and a tiny one was instant and accompanied by the crack of stonework and a screech of iron. The iron clattered down onto the stone floor with a crash and as the dust settled, the way to the doors was clear.
The steps were deep and spiralled around widdershins in a tight circle, making progress slow and careful. Along the outer wall at regular intervals were small iron brackets at head height for the humans, presumably for torches, though none remained within the rusting holds. Khalin counted the revolutions as they descended, trying to judge the depth and their location. After a couple of full turns he judged them to be about level with the bottom of the dome, on the floor where the other stairs to the south of the balcony had left, but there was no entrance, the steps continuing to stretch down into darkness.
The steps led them down and through some other chambers until a final set of doors. A gust of brisk air whipped at the rogue’s cloak as the doors swung inwards allied with a flurry of snowflakes, large and radiant in the torchlight. Zero shivered involuntarily as he stared out into the gloom. They were, as Khalin had surmised, at the bottom of the dome, underneath the “mouth” and the balcony circling above. Snow slowly fell through the gaping hole in the ceiling, whipped and thrown around by a chilling breeze that circled around the chamber. Above the balcony the carvings could be seen in relief, some areas almost aglow with the lustrous black stone. Pinpricks of golden light reflected from the torches cast down from the top of the dome to reveal the tapestry of the stars, set in stone rather than the sky, the black void normally seen in the southern skies flecked with the golden light of a spiral. Zero shivered once more. The snows did not seem to be settling within the base of the dome, the flakes melting once they hit the stone floor. In amongst a few shards of white rubble the group saw the spikes, arranged in an eye from what they could remember from the balcony above, an orc still and lifeless at its centre, its blood still dripping into the channels that extended outwards at three points.
The group moved back into the maze of chambers. The others followed quietly behind, the dwarf for once bringing up the rear at point, with Zero behind the young fighter, cocking his head and trying to make sense of the noises. Kireth appeared calm in the centre of the group, his face lost in the shadows of his cowl. Beltak looked glad for the light of Khalin’s torch at the rear, looking about and trying to hear the noises the others had heard. Tradden only stopped at the open door for the briefest of moments, ducking his head around to check nothing was lurking behind before lithely stepping through the frame and moving further along the passage. ‘Junction,’ he whispered back. ‘I can hear the noises now, too. To our left I think — there’s a bit of light that way too.
Past the cells in the corridor the route opened up into a large chamber, about the same size as the common room far above. Stunted black candles lined the edge of the room, quivering with a sickly light, throwing only just enough light for the warlord to see, despite his dwarven heritage. Objects were only half-formed in the gloom, but Khalin’s stomach turned as he recognised the instruments of torture, quickly becoming a common yet unwanted occurance. However, it was the figure in the centre of the room that grasped the attention of all that looked. Seated upon a short stool in the middle of the chamber was a bald man — probably a human — his back facing the door. Even in the dim light Khalin could see he was stripped to the waist, his back gleaming with a bloody mess of lacerations. The man was rocking back and forth upon the chair, wordlessly babbling, his arms held limply by his side, caught by long chains stretching to the floor. In front of him stood some sort of lectern, bearing a large open book scrawled with messy writing. Suddenly the moaning man shook his head vigorously, making Khalin and Zero jump, shaking from side to side as if denying something, before thrashing around and facing the group. His face was a mess, covered in crusted cuts around the eye sockets, but the thing which ran a shiver down Zero’s back were the eyes — they were missing. His eyes had been torn out, leaving black pits that stared sightlessly. The group exhaled a collective breath as the figure turned back around, seemingly as if he had not seen them at all.
For a moment the figure continued to babble, his voice rising and falling, until the group suddenly realised they were in silence. The figure stopped moving, the chains clanking loudly upon the stone floor as it went limp. Slowly it turned around, its eyeless face seeking out the voice of Khalin. It croaked back at the dwarf in a broken, but understandable common, ‘Who speaks?’ it asked, ‘Who stands before me?’
‘I am Khalin&r…dquo;’ the dwarf stopped abruptly, once more wary of the stigma attached to his tarnished family name. ‘&r…dquo;Khalin of kel-Morndin,’ he finished. ‘Four companions are with me.’ The warlord glanced at the others, apparently happy to let them introduce themselves. ‘We are no friend of the orcs who dwell here, and I presume you aren’t either.’
The withered man went quiet for a moment, his blackened pits fixed upon a point just above the warlord’s head. He sniffed, almost violently, jerking his head with each intake of air. ‘A dwarf. Not the last?’ he croaked mysteriously, his dark gaze dropping and levelling directly at Khalin. He then took another sniff, followed by another, wheezing after each lungful. ‘And a warden, and perhaps a shadow and a light. And&r…dquo;’ a final sniff resulted in a violent wracking cough. When the fit passed the man’s face looked at Khalin and the thin mouth tightened. ‘What is your purpose here, dwarf?’
Khalin let the curious comment about “the last” pass for now. ‘We seek to rid this place of evil, lest it spread to the lands around.’ The dwarf pressed on, a little irked that the answers only seemed to be flowing one way. ‘I’ve given you my name, perhaps you’ll share yours? And I ask you again, who imprisoned you here?’
The figure rattled its chains as it moved around on its stool, changing its position so that it sat away from the desk and book and more towards the group, still sniffing the air and cocking its head like a dog’s. ‘Name? Name?’ the rasping voice cried. ‘Yes, I suppose I have one, or had one once.’
‘Well, why don’t you share it with us while we get you free,’ replied the dwarf, nodding to Zero to help him with the poor fellow’s shackles. Zero tentatively moved forwards as Khalin nodded at him encouragingly. The rogue was unsure, holding out his hands in a conciliatory gesture at the man. The figure began to mumble incoherently as Zero closed in and then began thrashing, pulling at its chains and starting a din. Zero leapt backwards, taken a little by surprise, as the man continued to spasm and yank at the chains, the rusting metal biting deep into his wrists. ‘You’ll have to keep still a moment while we unchain you,’ implored Khalin, mildly amused as his comrade jumped back in alarm. It took a few moments for the wretch to calm itself, the cries slowly turning to mumbles, and the effort of yanking on the chains subsiding into silence. Khalin approached once more. ‘Hold still,’ the dwarf urged as he examined the chains. ‘So, you were about to tell us about your predicament?’ he prompted once more as the warlord beckoned Tradden to join him and help calm the figure.
As the pair approached the man began to tense against the chains, sniffing the air where Tradden approached and then back towards Khalin. He then seemed to stop, locked rigid as if in pain before letting out a howl of equal measures of anguish and anger. ‘The last, the last!’ he screamed, ‘and Ayver’s ward.’ The chains started to strain and shriek against their metal pins in the floor. ‘I know you, you’re no friend to Skauril. You’re one of them! One of those the Sleeper told me!’ Seemingly with no thought to his own safety the figure began violently thrashing against the chains, cutting into his wrists as spittle flew from his lips.
Khalin stopped once more, shocked by the display, but confident the chains would hold. He raised his voice. ‘So you know of Skauril? We thought him dead, and by Moradin’s beard we’ll see him so again!’ The warlord paused, waiting for the wretch to calm down once more before attempting to free him again. He beckoned a reluctant Zero forward to examine the shackles before continuing. ‘Why am I “the last”?’
The figure did not begin to calm down this time, however, lurching from side to side until it managed to turn back towards the table. It pointed towards the bloody book in front of him. ‘In there, in there!’ it screamed as it tried to raise its hands towards its head. Khalin turned to Kireth. ‘What do you think?’ He stepped towards the book to examine it with a nod to the mage. As Khalin stepped forwards the man swivelled around quicker than the dwarf would have guessed. ‘In here, in here!’ it shouted as it tried helplessly to raise its arms to its head before its eye sockets exploded outwards in a shadow of blackness and two amorphous creature appeared before the group. The things had black oily skin and long limbs below and oversized heads with snakelike black tongues. They moved forward in tandem as the man screamed once more.
Kireth wasted no time. A ball of force shot from the mage's staff and exploded in the man’s chest with a crackle. It knocked the figure backwards, leaving it standing only by the virtue of the chains that held it in position. Slivers of the ball cascaded outwards, slicing into the table and the black creatures that surrounded the figure. The one to the south seemed unharmed, but cuts of black amorphous flesh were stripped from the one to the north, the pieces slapping against the wood and iron of the torture pieces around the room.
The seer shrieked with pain, trying to search them out with sightless eyes. He pulled at his chains with little effect as he attempted to lurch to his right, sniffing the air between his cries. ‘It is&r…dquo;’ he began to rasp, before another wrack of pain cascaded across his body. It pushed him forwards, bending over, as his back transformed into a black cloud of shimmering flesh. Three great polyps of black boiled out of the seer’s back, tumbling onto the floor behind him, before rising up from the ground. They were smaller than the ones that had leaped from his eye sockets, but looked more nimble and swift.
Combat was difficult, especially in the confines of the room, but the group were soon left with but one of the black creatures, that Tradden managed to push into an open iron maiden. Despite being restrained within the box the creature continued to thrash and pound inside, hoping to make its way out. The trio in front of the door kept pressing hard, though, and the abomination struggled to make any headway. After a few seconds, but what seemed like an eternity, the rattling and pushing stopped. A dark pool of the black viscous liquid began to gather around the bottom of the iron maiden, enough to make Kireth step out of the way to avoid the stuff despoiling his robes. The others gradually drew back and the door swung open. Black oily flesh hung from some of the spikes, but most of the creature seemed to have been consumed by its thrashing and turned to the liquid. Kireth sniffed, and turned back to the centre of the room as though the melee had been but a minor inconvenience.
The room had perhaps not been the grandest nor most appealing before the melee, but now, with the bloody corpse of the human wretch before them and the melting pools of black flesh strewn across the many torture instruments and mechanism it was a sickly sight. The only saving grace of the whole situation for the rogue was that the rapidly disintegrating corpses did not smell of rotting flesh, but of a mild savoury tobacco that he found almost a little amusing. The braziers in the corner, with the exception of the one that Tradden had been forcibly knocked into, were still burning, and gave enough light and heat for the room to be comfortable, and for Zero to notice — perhaps only for the first time — the barred cells to the north and south of the room. The cells were tiny, almost too small for anyone to lie in them comfortably, with a locked set of bars forming a door. None of the cells, either on the northern or the southern side appeared to have more than old dried bones and the rusty remains of manacles within them.
The seer lay where he had fallen, cuts across him from Tradden’s sword and a bolt protruding from his neck, half stretched across the lectern with his arms still held by the chains. A pool of dark red blood had coalesced beneath him and the rogue contemplated retrieving his bolt for a moment before he spotted the book still open atop the lectern. The book looked old from here, large and open, its pages covered in a messy crimson writing, legible even in the flickering light of the braziers.
Even for the scholarly Kireth not much of the text appeared to make any sense. The majority of the words were garbled or misleading or jumbled into meaningless phrases such as “eyes are the foe”, “looking is blindness”, and “only the dreaming eye can see the truth”. Much of the early pages were crusted together, fused by dried blood, but Kireth managed to tentatively turn back a few sheets without damaging the contents. For a few moments he said nothing, reading intently, before nodding to himself. ‘The passages in here seem mainly to be visions this seer has purported to recieve,’ the mage began. ‘They will take me a little time to interpret correctly I should think. However, he does seem to have recorded some of the more, uhm, “mundane” I suppose you would call it.’ Kireth flicked over a couple of pages. ‘Here for example,’ he poked the book with a bony finger, ‘he mentions the coming of Skauril and his entourage at the start of the year, this year, so this seer must have already been here, and already had half a full book. He doesn’t mention Skauril leaving&r…dquo;’ the mage skipped a few stanzas, ‘&r…dquo;but here it does mention that the group, now led by Khase, plundered the “Sleeper’s Sepulcher” below, after something was brought to this place only a few days ago and taken to the “portal”.’ The mage shrugged his shoulders. ‘The writing doesn’t mention anything else about Khase, or the group, after that. The writing just seems to descend into chaos, but it does say “they came”.’
The party moved on.
The passageway came to an abrupt end before the rogue’s feet, Zero only just catching himself before he plunged his foot over what seemed like a precipice. The hallway ended suddenly at the edge of an enormous circular pit, vertigo making the rogue’s head spin as the poor light picked out a floor almost three storey’s below his toes. As Tradden’s flame joined Khalin’s the rest of the chamber flickered into view. The other side of the pit could just be made out, fifty or so feet away, with another short corridor leading again into the darkness of a further chamber. Dominating the centre of this chamber, however, was a huge pillar rising from the depths of the pit, comfortably probably for two to stand abreast, the top level with the corridor. Atop the pillar was some form of wooden or metal contraption — it was hard to tell in the spluttering light — that could only be described as a turnstile. Extending from three equidistant points around the pillar, perhaps five feet below its top, were titanic sickle-like blades, scraping the stone at the edges of the pit with their points. From the cuts and gouges in the stone circling the pit it was fairly obvious that the blades must spin around, perhaps controlled by the turnstile at the centre.
The group were still recovering from the battle, and not in a state to tackle the machinations of some diabolical contraption just yet, so for now they turned on their heels and heading back the way they had come.
The passageway was now becoming almost familiar and the group, led by Khalin as the dwarf pushed past the young fighter, turned to the left and back towards the bottom of the spiral stone staircase, slowing only when he approached the door to the south. To the dwarf’s surprise the door was not made of the solid wood the northern one was, but of a dark stone, itchingly similar to the carvings up in the dome above. Carved into the centre was a bas-relief, outlined in the spluttering torchlight, the stone itself appearing to glow with its own dull power. It was carved with the same skill and grace as the first six of the seven tableaux above, illustrating a tall, bald humanoid with strangely pointed ears. One of its arms stretched out towards the door’s handle, its claws wrapped around a large keyhole. It bearing appeared almost regal, relaxed, and waiting.
The rogue scanned the door and surrounding frame and walls with a beady eye before he went anywhere near that keyhole. Large, impressive doors, in his experience, usually protected something or someone large and impressive. Often they were doors to bedchambers, which always held something impressive in his opinion, although such chambers didn’t usually have such an ugly characters with long claws carved into the front. Not usually. The bas relief was incredibly smoothed, particularly the arm and the claws around the keyhole, as though the stone had been rubbed over countless years. The rest of the door was solid stone, probably a few inches thick judging by the width of the frame. He noticed that dust and stone had built up in front of the door, perhaps an indication that it had not been opened in quite some time. He knew some bedchamber doors that didn’t have the opportunity to get opened very much either. Marks on the stone frame, but not on the door itself, seemed to indicate that someone or something had perhaps tried to use a crowbar, or something similar, to prise the door open. A folly in the rogue’s opinion, judging by the quality of the door.
A stale, flat air greeted the young fighter as he pushed past the door, as though the room were breathing out after holding its breath for years. It ruffled his hair and threatened to extinguish his torch for a moment until it settled down, leaving behind a dry and dusty taste in his mouth. The torchlight gradually calmed to reveal a triangular room, with Tradden at the peak, a vaulted ceiling arching away from the doorway to its highest point some twenty feet up at the wide end of the room, some thirty or so feet away, dim in the gloom. As he pushed the torch forwards he noticed a figure at the far side of the room, coming towards him with arms upraised and the young fighter immediately dropped into a fighting stance. Khalin grabbed the young fighter on his shoulder. ‘Steady, lad,’ he said in a calming voice. ‘‘Tis but a statue.’ The statue was directly opposite the door he had just come through, but on the far side of the room. It appeared to be a man with his arms and face raised towards the sky, similar in style to the broken ones atop the hill near the “mouth”. Flanking it on either side were two stone doors, similar to the one Zero had just managed to open. To the east and west, leading out of this chamber, were wide archways, perhaps into other rooms, lost in the gloom and darkness.
The young fighter was about to step forward, to usher the light into the archways, when he noticed the unusual markings upon the stone floor. It bore an artful pattern of raised black stones, a couple of feet across each, littering the floor of the chamber. To get to the other side of the room there seemed little option but to step on or between the stones. The nearest was only some inches from Tradden’s feet. Lowering the torch he looked at the nearest by his feet to see that it was exquisitely carved, an eyeball looking out from the blackness, the channels of the carvings glowing ever so slightly. The others had eyeballs too, some looking up, some looking to the side, and some perhaps behind. As the others came into the room behind him, Tradden was nudged forwards just a little more. There was a soft scraping, of stone on stone, and a puff of dust released from the floor towards the centre of the room. One of the eye stones slowly, but surely, rotated around to stare at the young fighter. Then another scrape and puff and another from the side of the room rotated around to match the first. Then another, and another, until there was a short cacophony of scraping. Then silence. Only the silence of the stares of countless eyes.
With that, Tradden tossed the first torch out over the eyes, towards the statue. As the torch tumbled through the air some of the eyes scraped in their stone sockets as they followed the flight of the flame. Others kept their stare firmly fixed upon the group. The torch clattered into one of the eyes near the based of the statue, bouncing backward a little off its round shell onto another of the eyes where it stood on end for what seemed like an eternity. Then it fell, onto the space between the eyes, with a crack. And a click. All eyes were on the floor, some literally, but it was the ceiling which now drew the attention, startling the group for a second as a small trapdoor swung downwards and a noose dropped, twitching and swinging in the air. Zero rubbed his neck with a large swallow. ‘So let me get this right,’ the rogue rasped, grasping the potential mechanism of the trap as he looked up at the ceiling where a multitude of small trap doors littered the stonework. ‘If you stand on the spaces between the eyes then a rope drops down around your neck? Urgh!’
The rogue made it halfway across the stones before pausing for a breather, skillfully negotiating the turning eyes, trying not to look down at them in fear they would be looking right back. A quick wave back at the group and he was off again, but his right foot stepped down upon an eye that quickly whirled around. He slipped, his foot sliding down the side of the eyestone and onto the stone floor to its side. For a brief moment, Zero thought he had gotten away with it. Then, there was a click.
The click was not at Zero’s foot, however, the stone itself moving slightly without even a scrape. The sound was from the ceiling, as a hatch popped open and a rope descended swiftly. There was a gurgle from the rogue as the rope seemed to writhe of its own accord, stretching around his neck and then tightening, before yanking him upwards with a jolt towards the hatch. Before the others could even react his head was into the opening.
Quickly getting underneath his fellow human Tradden grabbed onto the high quality pair of leather boots that were now dangling at waist height, stuck his shoulders underneath, set his own feet squarely on top of two of the raised eyeball stones and boosted up, as high and as strong as he could. There was an audible, if muffled, intake of breath, and the fast-paced squirming from up above told Tradden that Zero was furiously trying to free himself. Had Tradden’s boots been as high a quality as Zero’s, it might have worked. Alas, they were mid- range efforts with a tread that had long since worn away. As a result, the downward pressure from the extra weight slowly but surely caused one boot to slip off the side of an eyeball. Tradden’s leg gave way thanks to the unexpected movement and both humans tumbled to the floor and the clicks of unseen pressure-catches echoed around the room.
At that point ceiling fell in, almost quite literally, a multitude of hatches in the ceiling dropping open, suddenly. Through the thick dust that now filled the room all the two humans could really see were long thin ropes. Lots of them. All snaking down. There was then silence as they waited for the inevitable. But nothing seemed to happen. When the dust had completely cleared the scene was not quite as they had expected, but was something perhaps even worse. Instead of ropes looking to lasso them and haul them up there were instead ropes with bodies already on the end of them! Dozens of them! No one said anything, neither Tradden or Zero or their comrades at the edge of the room. The chamber was quiet but for the creaking of ropes and the brushing of boney toes across the floor. It seemed clear that the figures that dropped were past victims of the noose traps. Their dry and decayed bodies hanging limply down from the old ropes. Some were nearly complete corpses while others were merely heads connected to torsos, the bones of their limbs having clattered to the floor in their cacophonous appearance. The group were surrounded, even those near the northern door, the slowly swaying bodies brushing up against them in pendulous swings.
As the dwarf pushed one of the things to the side with his hammer he noticed that its rope did not appear to be attached to anything in the ceiling, but the body swung about as though it were. Khalin stopped suddenly in his tracks as he noticed all of those around him were the same, swinging in mid-air with no apparent support. ‘What mischievous magic is this?’ he exclaimed, pointing out the floating bodies and nooses with his hammer. He continued more softly, as if trying not to wake some beast: ‘Kireth, what do you make of this?’ Before the mage had time to answer the bodies suddenly began to swing wildly at the end of their short unattached ropes, the corpses themselves flailing uncontrollably as if the rope itself were the master in the puppetry. At first it was a few bumps and knocks against the group, but gradually the swinging became violent and soon the group were fighting for their lives.
The group were not long in ridding themselves of the hanged ones.
As the chamber returned to silence Khalin spat out the necrotic dust from his mouth and shook his beard. The eyes within the floor were no longer moving, but the shattered remains of corpses and skeletons made the footing treacherous.
The alcove slowly came into view as Khalin moved forwards, the torchlight reaching around the walls and softly illuminating the small room beyond. It only went back a couple of dozen feet but the dwarf had to move all the way to the entrance to spill the light into the corners. Black shapes loomed out of the side walls and Khalin drew back for a moment, raising his hammer, until he realised with relief that the shapes were little more than cloaks, hung up, a little dusty and spotted with small cobwebs. The rest of the area appeared to be harmless — a wooden table butted up against the far wall seemed to be the only other furniture, its top covered with jars and pots arranged neatly and orderly. Zero pointed towards one of the glass jars as the group followed Khalin into the room, the rogue’s stomach growling loudly. ‘Pickled onions!’ he rasped, licking his lips. ‘I’m starving.’ ‘And when aren’t you?’ enquired Tradden as the young fighter went across to inspect the cloaks. Khalin joined him, feeling the cloaks, and noticing that each of them appeared to be accompanied by a two-foot long black silk scarf on their peg. ‘I’m not sure that they are&r…dquo;’ Kireth began, before trailing off, as Zero picked up the jar of onions and tried to determine how the stopper worked. The mage smiled to himself as he reviewed the contents of the table.
With the sounds of Zero groaning as he tried to relieve the jar of its stopper in his ears, Kireth began to methodically catalogue the items upon the table and make some sense of their purpose. He already had a fair idea — some of the jars were made of a rough stone and calling Beltak over the half-elf asked the scribe if the contents were dried-out healing salves. Beltak seemed to be nodding in agreement. A few of the other jars were more curious, containing blades, many sickle-shaped and ornate. The blades were small, not meant to be weapons. Perhaps to be more precise, small cuts, on a delicate subject matter&r…dquo;
There was a shatter of glass from behind the mage and a yelp of disgust from the rogue. Everyone turned in an instant, weapons drawing by instinct, to be greeted by the sight of several small orbs rolling across the stone floor from the remnants of the broken glass.
One of the orbs rolled up to Kireth’s foot, its pupil staring up at the mage from within a brilliant blue iris, well preserved by its former home. Zero began gagging. ‘I was nearly going to eat one of those!’ he spat, suddering to himself. ‘It probably wouldn’t do you much harm,’ replied the mage calmly. The eye continued to look up at Kireth, daring him. The mage’s boot came down and there was a soft squelch. ‘I believe I have enough information from within here,’ he said as he strode off to the east.
The desks were arranged in a couple of rows, a half-dozen of them, well-built and carved with a chair as part of the structure. Kireth traced the carvings of one of the desks with his fingers — the quality of the carving was particularly good, the top flat and smooth, but well worn around the corners as though it had seen much use. Carved into the desk was space for a number of ink wells as well as other small compartments complete with lids. Beltak smiled a little as he came into the room. ‘Reminds me of home,’ the scribe said, sitting down at one of the desks. ‘I used to have to spend hours practising at desks just like these back in Deepingwald. Copying the scriptures. Pelor help you if you made a mistake and ruined a parchment before you were finished,’ he chuckled wryly.
Another door swung open silently revealing a small square room within, barely a dozen feet across. A thin film of dust rose into the air as the draught from the chamber of eyes spilled into the room, swirling around for a moment before starting to slowly settle once more upon the three large stone chests that dominated the centre of the room. The chests appeared to be carved out of the stonework of the floor, but had neither the grace nor the workmanship of the carvings upon the door. They appeared plain at first, but as Khalin slowly entered the room he could make out notches in the stonework, as though someone had been using the outside of the chests to count.
Even in the dim light — Khalin’s and Tradden’s torchlight throwing his own shadow over the contents of the chest — Zero could make out the glitter of gold.
He reached in his hand to take hold of one of the coins, and then snapped it back as though something had bitten him. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Khalin, stepping forward with his craghammer ready. Zero hissed back at him, waving him away without even looking and reached in to take the coin once more, lifting it up to the light of Khalin’s torch. The coin’s golden lustre shone in the dim room, and despite the smooth edges which belied its age the coin seemed fresh and new. Towards the rogue was the now-familiar insignia of a double- headed eagle, the design reminiscient of silver coins they had seen before and more unnervingly similar to Zero’s uncle’s signet ring that Kireth now held. ‘Heads,’ said Zero softly, rubbing the eagle with his thumb. He seemed reluctant to turn the coin over in his hand, then seemed to make a decision, throwing it over his shoulder towards the group with a practiced flourish. ‘Tails,’ he called as the coin struck the floor, rolling towards the group and finally settling at Tradden’s feet. The young fighter looked down with the others at the coin, his hand reaching out for it and plucking it from the floor, his face intent with study before he recognised the markings face-up on the coin. ‘A spiral,’ he muttered. ‘Like the necklaces, like the shape of the trees on the map surrounding the “Mouth of the Sleeper”, like the faux-stars in the dome above.’
On the shelves there were literally thousands of parchments stacked upon the shelves. Many were stacked as quires, two dozen sheets tied together with a coarse black ribbon. Others were in larger reams held together by a wrap of black cotton. The parchments did not seem to be ordered in any way, quires and reams intermingling on the shelves, so Kireth approached the closest of the bundles, softly tugging at the ribbon to loose its contents. Pulling back the top sheet to look at the contents he frowned, before looking at the next page, and then the next in quick succession. He drew one of the parchments out and turned back towards the door, thrusting the paper under Zero’s nose. ‘Your favourite story,’ Kireth intoned. ‘It looks as though they — whoever ‘they’ are — were industriously writing libelles for some purpose.’
Zero took the parchment from Kireth’s bony grasp and saw the all too familiar stanza that made him shudder every time. ‘“Light must be snuffed, perfection decayed, order dissolved, and minds fragmented.”’ he croaked out loud. ‘But there’s more&r…dquo; “The very threads of existence must be torn asunder, then burned, then the ashes scattered, until all is nothing and no one exists to remember existence.”’ The rogue took a gulp of air.
‘And then there’s some smaller writing. “Channel power to the Chained God, so he can break his chains. Retrieve lost relics and shrines to the Chained God. Pursue the obliteration of the world, in anticipation of the Chained God’s liberation.” And then there’s one of those spirals at the bottom. Joy.’
He looked back at Kireth with a distraught face. ‘And they are all the same?’ he enquired.
‘It appears to be so,’ replied the mage.
Khalin led the way out of the chamber, carefully stepping over the rounded stone eyes on the floor. The others plodded on behind wearily, Tradden with a long lingering look behind him at the place that might have served as a place to rest. It only took a few moments to wander up the corridor and bear right towards the bridges, where Khalin paused to review the scene. Their torches once again lit up the cavernous area as best they could, fading into flickering shadows in the alcoves and drops below. The turnstile in the centre of the pit seemed to be in the same position as before which reassured the dwarf, the blades still stuck in their positions. From the alcoves, just about visible at the fringes of the torchlight, the statues still stood motionless.
The team crossed the blades nimbly, using them as bridges, in single file. At the other side Khalin pressed against the far door. ‘Wait!’ came the muffled cry form Beltak, who had made it to the turnstile at the centre of the western blade bridge. But it was too late. There was a grumbling click as the door swung open, as something in the hinge seemed to give way. With a clatter behind them the double doors to the north also grated open and similar sounds from the other blade bridge echoed around the chamber. As the echoes died down there was a brief spell of silence, allowing the group to spot a dusty stone sarchophagus in the small chamber beyond the door. Before they could move, however, a tremendous clatter of distant chains and a thudding boom from somewhere below shook dust from the ceiling. Behind them, the blades began to turn of their own accord, drawing a yelp from Beltak. Within the crypt in front of the others, the sarcophagus exploded as something rose into the open air!
Away from the sight of the group a sarcophagus crumbled as the trap took effect and a silent apparition glided out towards the pit. It turned as it heard Beltak’s cry, seeking out the warmth of life. As it slid through the passageway separating the two pits it brought a chill to the air. It was vaguely humanoid in appearance, but insubstantial, hardly of this world, and only a shimmering gleam of a creature. It was pale, radiating an unearthly and sickening green-blue light, the dark pits where eyes should be drawing in the gaze of the priest.
Defeating the wraiths and beholder zombie that appeared, the group still had to contend with the spinning blades.
A white ball of force flew from Kireth’s staff, exploding against the central pillar just above the blades. As it hit, the pillar cracked, as though it were had been a leg that had been sharply broken. Below the blades, Tradden tried desperately to cling on, as the whole column shuddered and started to jerk to one side, driven by the force of the blades. His fingertips clutched at air as his hold on the pillar slipped away, fortunately just in time as a short length of chain whipped around, out of the centre of the broken column and barely missed his head. As he fell backwards he saw the blades begin to slow, grating and groaning against broken chains and the shattered stone of the column. As the young fighter righted himself he saw it slow, braked by the broken chains and mechanism, as it thudded into the ball of rotting flesh they had dispatched earlier.
Moving on, Zero headed to the far end of the chamber and to investigate the door. As he approached the entrance the rogue sniffed once, then twice. A mellow aroma of tobacco greeted his nose, drawing the hairs on his neck upright. Balancing on the end of the blade bridge he drew out his trusted hand crossbow and loaded a bolt that Kireth has enspelled with a magelight. Peering briefly down the sight he let the bolt go, and followed its glow into the room with his scouring eyes.
The bolt clanked against stone after a bare few moments, tumbling to the ground in a cascade of light and shadow. The soft illumination outlined a circular domed chamber, dominated in the centre by a carving of a vast eye staring up from the floor from within the folds of eyelids in shining, black stone. A chain from the ceiling stretched down to meet a stone orb, or at least half of one, perhaps meant to be the eye’s iris, nestled snugly within the eye. The chains connected to others in the domed roof and likely ran down through the walls to an array of winches and levers across the room, perhaps thirty feet away. Pools of what Zero could only describe as black tar were spattered across the floor here and there, and it was in counting these that the rogue’s eyes finally spotted the body just beyond the eye, still and silent, prostate, it arms reaching out to the levers.
Looking up at the chains that left the contraption Zero surmised that the levers controlled the eyeball, perhaps lifting it up. The stone thing was pretty big, so it probably needed some sort of pulley system. Khalin would likely know more on that score, so the rogue busied himself with kneeling down by the side of the corpse to see what had killed it, and to see if it had anything interesting upon its person.
There was an element of suspicion in Zero’s mind that the whole thing was a trap, so he very carefully turned the body over. It was indeed human, a male, perhaps a bit older than Zero himself, dark hair with a tuft of stubble on his chin. There were multiple dark stains upon his front, cuts and slashes had tore into his armour, and likely he had died of his wounds. His free arm was covered with blood and that blackish, tobacco-perfumed tar. A cursory search of the man’s main pockets revealed little of monetary value, much to Zero’s dismay, but did turn up a sealed letter; a dark black wax blob tying together a folded scrap of parchment. He quickly stowed this in the folds of his clothes for Kireth. He stood up, ready to head back, noticing that there was a shortsword cast on the floor between the stone eyeball and the contraption, just out of reach of the corpse. This he left for now, and headed back to the blade bridge to inform the others.
The group heaved the body out of the room and dropped it into the pit, albeit as carefully as they could and then returned - the intention to use the chamber as somewhere to rest. The group began to settle down as preparations for a rest took place. Beltak aided those with cuts and lesions, finding clean bandages from within his pack and dressing the deeper wounds. Zero produced a small black kettle from seemingly nowhere and after a few minutes of struggling to find anything to produce a fire, Kireth sparked some into life with a wave of his hand. A skin of water and their last vegetables chopped up with a few herbs soon scared the smell of tobacco and blood from the chamber. Tradden paced around the room, still too eager to settle down. He gravitated towards the contraption at the southern end of the chamber, placing his hands on the levers until a cough and stare from the mage made him retract his wandering arms. He contented himself with picking up the discarded shortsword, swinging it about for balance and then returning to his bedroll and safely storing Caldring’s armour.
Soon after a broth had been had the group began to drift to their own bedrolls. Moments after, Zero was snoring and both Beltak and Tradden were quiet and still. Khalin sat opposite the door, his back to the small fire, Aecris beside him, waiting patiently for his watch to finish. Kireth sat upon his bedroll, an eldritch white light above his shoulder, and began to examine the parchment.
‘It is from Skauril,’ Kireth said. ‘But only from two days ago,’ he continued, his eyebrow raising out of sight of the dwarf. ‘The hand is shaky, but legible, and matches with those of the other documents we found in the common room upstairs. Intriguing.’
His hands ruffled the parchment and he began to read, just loud enough for Khalin to hear.
‘Khase, we are lied to. The portals lead not unto the Shadowfell for us to unleash the power of Orcus, but somewhere else entirely. I have been there and seen how the aberrations that dwell there covet our lands. The ancient sites must have been corrupted over the years. Do not open the portal. Not until we find a way to contain and sway those within. Even with my powers I barely escaped. However, if we can force them to be our servants we will be unstoppable. I will head to treat with Korosphylax and plan our next moves. I send Morvis with this message and to help bolster your defences — there is a group come to claim the portals for their own use and they must be stopped. They are led by a mage, overconfident in his powers. Destroy them, but keep the mage alive. Send him to Sunderpeak with Morvis when you are finished with him as he has items of mine that I would take back. Skauril’
‘Interesting,’ commented the mage after a pause, and then slid down into his bedroll, closing his eyes.
The group were refreshed after a long rest and then took to examining the contraption in the room.
There was a sudden clank and whirl, as though chains were being dropped onto gears, and the chain leading up to the crossbeam towards the ceiling swayed for a moment and stretched taut. There was a grating of stone on stone and chinks of iron links being rattled along the length of the chains as they grew taut once more. The crossbeam tried to move across to the left, but the stone orb in the floor held the chain back with a groan. With a snort Zero switched the lever to the other side, but the stone orb held fast. Another lever and there was a clank from somewhere inside the mechanism and the chain flexed briefly as though it had been hit by a hammer, sending a tremor along its length. By the time the mechanism came to a rest the orb was swinging gracefully in the air a good four feet from the floor. A gentle aroma of tobacco wafted up from the hole in the ground that it revealed.
Khalin had been used to many of the tunnels and carved thoroughfares within the mines of kel- Morndin back on The Islands and descended the iron ladder swiftly and surely. However, even for his attuned dwarven senses it was difficult to judge how far he had come — somewhere between fifty and hundred feet he estimated — before he spied a level floor beneath him in the flicker of the torchlight. Stepping off the last rung of the ladder onto the stony floor was a relief on his muscles and limbs and he stretched out, moving away from the base of the ladder and pushing the torch up to get a good view of what lay ahead.
Leading away from the bottom of the shaft was a tight tunnel, starting off towards the west but then swiftly winding its way around a long curve and out of sight. Perhaps only four or so feet wide, closer in than the corridors above, but much higher, at least a dozen feet. Tentatively moving forwards, Khalin could sense the ground descending a little beneath his feet, a gentle slope downwards as he ventured towards the curve. He heard the huffs and puffs and clanks of steel of Tradden getting to the bottom of the shaft behind him, the sounds echoing down the vaulted tunnel. The flickering light of Khalin’s torch reflected from the stone of the walls — a curious smooth, black substance, almost glowing by itself, reminiscent of portions of the carvings from the dome where they had entered this structure, now far above.
The temperature along the tunnel seemed to be fairly warm, with little breeze or current in the air the dwarf noted, only that faint odour of tobacco in the air. The curve of the tunnel seemed to have flattened out as he continued his slow progress, and then turned the other way, the floor ascending slightly. Looking back he couldn’t see the others, and decided to wait for a moment, noticing he’d probably come further out on his own than he had intended to. He couldn’t hear the others, either, unusual for such a close tunnel. As he pondered where the others might be he was rudely pushed from behind as Tradden bumped into him, almost knocking the torch out of his hand. ‘Watch where you’re going!’ the dwarf grumbled. ‘And how did you get in front of me?’ Tradden looked back quizically at the warlord. ‘In front? I’ve just followed you up here,’ he stated. ‘The others are right behind.’
The passageway wound itself around gently curving lines, often seeming to rise and at other times to fall slightly. One section of the wall appeared to look just like the other. The darkness seemed to suck the life out of the torch that Zero held, and even the magelight from Kireth’s staff appeared to be paler than usual. It might have only been a few seconds, or perhaps it was a few minutes, Khalin finally spied an end to the passageway, perhaps a way out. The corridor ended abruptly, but the roof branched upwards — a pattern of iron bars set into the stone in front of them leading up as though a ladder. A helpful rope cascading down in front of the bars, just out of the dwarf’s reach, swung gently in the little breeze that there was. It took longer to climb up than it had to descend, and it was harder work as well. However, in short order the fighter clambered up to the very top. And stood, one hand on a hip, in the midst of the eyeball mechanism room that they had started in. He stood there for a moment. For effect. Not that anyone was watching, but it felt right.
They started again.
The group followed after Khalin, the dwarf setting a stiff pace down the passageway, trying not to stop nor seemingly to take breath. Passing down the silent and twisting tunnel, with no end in sight to the darkness ahead was disconcerting, giving a sense of dislocation and weightlessness. The soft glow here and there emanating from the black walls only adding to the eerie feeling and the rise of hairs on the back of necks. It seemed like an age before Khalin called a halt to the march, his keen eyes spotting an end to the tunnel. ‘Looks like there’s a doorway or something up there,’ the warlord stated. ‘Prepare yourselves.’ Cautiously plodding forwards the end of the tunnel came into torchlit sight. The end was rather abrupt, the dark stone blending into normal grey as a small winding staircase led up and out of view widdershins.
The stairs turned several times around to the widdershins, leaving the black stone far below. As Khalin climbed he felt refreshed, as though he had come out of a snooze or dream, or his head clearing from a bad dwarven cold. The odour of tobacco grew stronger as they climbed, though never overpowering, its sickly sweet smell hanging in the air. Before the group could get dizzy with the tight turns of the staircase an open arch before them led them into a small chamber, a dozen or so feet square. The chamber split at the far wall, two separate stairways leading up — shallower in incline than the spiral staircase — and away into darkness.
The stone steps appeared solid enough to the young fighter as he followed the slight curve around to the right as the path ascended. He carefully placed his feet just in case, and eventually he came towards the end of the stairs, his head poking up into another, larger chamber, his eyes growing wide.
The others had followed Zero’s route up the stairs and came up and into the chamber, Kireth’s light spilling into even the darkest recesses. The statues, towards each corner of the square chamber, looked at first to be the most distinctive thing in the room, but lining the floor were a number of dead bodies, that held the attention somewhat. Khalin managed to pry his eyes away from the bodies, looking for exits, but found none. The walls of the chamber were simply solid with stone, with no gaps nor doorways. The statues were tall, taller than a man, and with their arms outstretched almost reached the roof. The only other feature he spotted was a small stone block near to Zero, where a bundle of what appeared to be blood-stained rags sat.
Beltak had been kneeling down by the nearest corpse as the others had found their bearings. ‘I think they’ve been dead for a while,’ the priest said calmly. ‘They’re cold and stiff.’ ‘A dozen of them at least,’ offered Tradden over the scribe’s shoulder.
Zero paused by the small raised block as the others looked around the room. Atop the block was what appeared at first to be a bundle of clothes, badly stained with blood, but on closer inspection he thought might be part of a canvas sail or suchlike. It was very much out of place with the rest of the room. As he leant over the rags to get a closer look he felt something splat over his shoulder and whirled around quickly. Kireth was stood behind him, looking at his shoulder, as the rogue felt a dampness seep through the cloth of his shoulder pad. Slowly Kireth looked up, Zero following his gaze. Above them, carved beautifully out of the same black stone in the tunnel below, was a huge face, mimicking the visage in the top of the hill where they had entered. One white above, this one black below. As the pair stared, a trickle of dark liquid began to collect along one of the stone eye sockets and dropped down like a tear. Zero jumped out of the way and the drop splashed silently into the rags. The crimson colour and slight iron tang to complement the odour of tobacco gave the liquid away as blood.
‘It is indeed a puzzling scene,’ agreed the mage. ‘A ritual of some sort gone terribly wrong perhaps? Skauril mentioned a “portal” in his writings — it may be connected to that. But, I am guessing just like you really.’ The mage moved towards the pile of cloth in the centre of the room, but the way that he moved had Zero a little worried, the half-elf seemed determined to investigate it but afraid of it in equal measure. ‘Something&r…dquo; er, odd?’ enquired the thief, but almost immediately regretted it, realising that rags being dripped upon by ever-flowing blood from an eye socket in the ceiling was pretty much the very definition of “odd”. He braced himself for the attack of sarcasm. It didn’t come. ‘Odd? Yes, odd,’ the mage spoke aloud but clearly it was meant for himself as he carefully approached the cloth. His eyes never moving from them, not even to blink.
Everyone had now turned to look the mage. They saw the look in his eyes. ‘Kireth,’ spoke Khalin, in not much more than a whisper, ‘what is it, man? What do you see?’ ‘Power!’ replied the mage as he stopped short of the canvas. ‘More power than every single item or weapon we have amassed on our journey. Not if we piled it all together would it shine like this.’ These were not the words of a man greedy to get his hands on it. These were the words of warning of a man afraid of it. The words were not wasted on the group as they fell silent, looking at the pile.
Kireth encroached no further, though, keeping a respectful, short distance. The glistening crimson of the cloth in front of him convulsed with a beat every time a drop fell from the relief above. The mage appeared to be waiting, patiently for once, for someone else to make the next move. Four beats. Five beats. Six beats&r…dquo;
Khalin sighed, he raised his head sheepishly towards Kireth. ‘I’m sorry for not listening to your warning, I think you’re right.’ Eyebrows rose at the dwarf’s contrition. ‘I thought I’d spoken about it, maybe I hadn’t, who knows with everything that’s gone on,’ the dwarf mumbled in an uncharacteristic fashion. ‘ I had a dream, a vision, call it what you will. I was going to speak of it when we reached Winterhaven, but considering&r…dquo;’ His companions were rapt as the warlord continued. ‘There was a child, a baby, dead. Held in the arms of a dwarf. By the look of him an ancestor perhaps. He warned me it was a vision of what would have happened had we not followed orders. Back at the time of the great retreat I presume.’ ‘He spoke of a flag, a standard. But then the girl we met, Iolanthe? She spoke of a standard too, as an offering the Severed Eye orcs were planning, somewhere here in the “mouth”. I was told in the vision to “Find the truth. Find the standard, find the last of the last!” The last words in the vision were&r…dquo;’ the dwarf’s brow furrowed as he searched for the memory. ‘“Hunt&r…dquo; the&r…dquo; shadowed&r…dquo; chain&r…dquo;”’ Well here we’ve seen a chain, and perhaps this is the standard that was offered?’ The others looked incredulous. ‘I must at least look,’ Khalin finished.
Checking that his friends were indeed ready for any mischief that might ensue, Khalin reached out gingerly to take the cloth. He raised it reverently before him and began to unravel the material. It was heavier than the warlord thought it would be, even considering it was soaked in blood. The cloth looked to be in poor condition — ragged as the edges, perhaps even traces of scorch marks under the crimson stains. As he folder back another layer of the cloth, something within slipped out and tumbled towards the floor.
With effortless assurance Zero’s hand appeared from nowhere to catch the falling object. One moment the rogue had not been there, the next he had caught the thing and was staring at it in his hand. ‘What is it?’ asked Tradden, the first to open his mouth. Zero did not answer, though, his body stiffened and his face began to turn pale.
The others turned to face the stationary rogue, whose eyes were transfixed on the object in his hand. It glinted in the witchlight of Kireth’s spell, reflections cast around around the chamber by its mirrored surface, streaked with smears of blood. A hand mirror, possibly even ornate, but hard to tell beneath the blood. ‘Oh, gods, that’s horrible!’ spluttered Zero, dropping the thing from his hand to the floor, luckily not smashing the fragile glass. The rogue remained pale, his chest heaving a bit, as though he were about to vomit.
Zero finally caught his breath. ‘In the mirror,’ he began, still shaken, ‘I saw the reflection of the face above us. Something&r…dquo; something was bulging out of its mouth, like a membrane. Black&r…dquo; awful. It looked like something was going to come out of it. It looked like the portal under the keep.’
The group’s attention had been diverted by the crimson cloth before them and Khalin’s deliberate curiosity. As they all turned to look up to verify the rogue’s words they witnessed a violent explosion of shimmering black spew out of the mouth above them. Great lumps of darkness tore through a thick membrane that had been covering the orifice and splattered with sickening squelches onto the stone floor around and before them, some landing on the corpses by the statues. Too stunned to move, they watched transfixed as the lumps moved, swiftly and surely. The ones already on the corpses seemed to seep into the bodies, the others heading towards unclaimed cadavers. The largest of the lumps did not seek a corpse, however, raising itself up from the floor by the northern wall, taller than a man and with two extruded limbs ending in a vicious trio of black claws. It appeared to gesture with those limbs, raising upwards, and the bodies began to rise. First to its feet was the warrior man with the spear through its leg, pulling the battleaxe up with it. When it opened its eyes all they could see were black orbs glaring back. The scent of tobacco grew as the bodies closed in.
Hundreds of black drones descended from the mouth as another giant abomination grew large. The group were sorely pressed.
Through the battle thoughts went through Khalin's mind and he took the chance to snatch a spear haft from one of the dying figures and wrap the soiled rags, perhaps a standard about them. With a surprising deftness in the heat of battle he threaded what he hoped was the standard he’d been searching for onto the makeshift flagpole and raised it aloft with his shield- hand. As the spear shaft was raised into the air the soiled rags began to unfurl, but saturated with blood they hung limply against the pole. A keen observer might have seen a moment of silver or gold against the crimson stains, but their eyes were drawn back to the dwarf as Khalin uttered a cry of ‘To Arms!’. The shout filled those surrounding the warlord with renewed hope and their eyes became fixed upon him, leading their charge against the aberrations before them. The standard renewed their vigour.
As they defended themselves the group implored Zero to smash the mirror.
Raising the mirror dramatically in the air with his left hand, he paused for effect, gritting his teeth, and then hammered it down with all his might onto the stony floor. The glass shattered with a shrill scream, littering the floor with shards of sparkling crystal. As the sound echoed around the chamber it was answered by a low grumble from above as the dark, bulbous portal membrane expanded outwards. Zero started to point a finger towards the growing mass above, but it was too late. There was an almighty boom and the ceiling seemed to explode. The force sent most tumbling end over end, but Khalin managed to stand his ground, his short, sturdy frame helping him withstand the blast. The others, with the exception of Zero, were thrown roughly to the floor, banging their heads and deafened by the sound of the explosion. The explosion was even enough to catapult to huge abomination into the base of one of the statues, bouncing off and leaving a trail of tar against the floor as it landed awkwardly on the stone steps. Its fellow drone was not so lucky; launched into the northern wall where it splattered against the stone. Looking upwards, Zero could see that where the black membrane had been was now just the carving of stone, a mouth, The occasional blood drop still fell from its maw, but the portal was gone.
The dwarf struck at the thing once more, hoping to land a fatal blow with his craghammer. It was an almighty blow from the warlord, striking the abomination at its central bulk, just as it was recovering from the blast from the portal. The craghammer sank into its oily, black flesh as flame leapt down the dwarf’s bracers to catch alight on the skin. The creature’s levitation faltered and it crashed onto the stone steps, sliding down, where it lay still, the flame really starting to take hold, and the flesh popping and fizzing. A thick smoke began to rise from its body and the same sweet smell of tobacco began to fill the chamber.
As each of the group finally had a moment to register that the fight was over, a strange quiet came over them. Stood, deep underground, in amongst the twisted corpses of humans, hobgoblins and of course the more bizarre, there really wasn’t a lot to say.
In an enclosed chamber Zero thought that they would all be coughing and spluttering with the effects of the smoke by now. However, he could see that the smoke was getting out; spiralling up and out through the nose and the mouth of the carving on the ceiling. Small holes in the mouth — perhaps where the blood had dripped from — seemed to be sucking up the smoke.
Tradden strode over quickly to the abomination, and began poking its melting remains with the point of his longsword. The thing was decomposing quickly and it would not be long before it was just a pool of tar on the stone floor, much like the ones in the room they had previously come from. The aroma emanating from the black remains along with the smoke did indeed smell like “Avandra’s Forgelight” as far as he was concerned. Other than that, though, the abomination held no other mysteries — apart from where it had come from, how it floated and how it was connected to the portal that had been above — that he could discern.
With an unnerving smirk of superiority on his face Kireth broke the brief moment of silence as the companions gathered themselves together. ‘I’m sure you are all aware of the great power that this room possessed.’ He looked up at the black face. ‘That above had incredible power, but is now fading fast; as is the power from that,’ he continued, nodding at the smashed mirror. ‘A great shame you decided to smash it, Zero.’ Ignoring Zero’s dropped jaw and look of dismay, the mage paced the room. ‘That shortsword has power of some sort, but we can wait upon that,’ he advised Tradden, tapping the weapon with his staff as he went past. ‘But this,’ he mused, arriving next to Khalin and staring up at the rags atop the spear that the dwarf was now calling a “standard”, ‘this has great power. Great power indeed. Try not to misuse it Khalin, that would be most unfortunate.’
After a moment’s pause Khalin decided that his pack was fastened and secure and turned to the group. ‘Let’s go,’ he began. ‘I’ve had quite enough of this place. But at least we don’t leave empty-handed,’ he finished, patting the spear pole at the side of the pack. With that he heaved his luggage onto his back and headed towards the central stairs. ‘I think everything is safe now,’ he declared, ‘but let’s just be careful on the way back up, eh?’ The others adjusted their own packs and fell into line: Zero following Khalin quickly, hoping to get back to fresh air; Kireth in the middle of the group enshrouded in his black robes; Beltak still looking troubled came next; and Tradden brought up the rear, his usual happy-go-lucky smile returning to his face.
They followed the claustrophobic corridor under the chamber of the portal, winding its way about and around. The radiant black stone seemed to be confusing and befuddling them but, after several bouts of hesitation and confusion, they finally found themselves at the bottom of the shaft upwards and they climbed back up the iron rungs into the chamber with the huge eyeball on a crane. ‘It is starting to make a little more sense now,’ Kireth mused as they gave the human corpse near the levers a wide berth. ‘Skauril must be alive. He sent this courier,’ he pointed at the dead body, ‘to ensure that they didn’t open the portal below until he could “find a way to contain and sway those within”. Skauril now knows about these black things, and he obviously knows how to open these portals.’
‘But he went ahead and opened that portal under the ruined keep,’ protested Khalin.
Kireth rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, but I don’t think he knew about them, or the consequences of opening the portal, at that point,’ the mage surmised. ‘Perhaps he learnt of them as he was pulled into the portal under the keep, or soon after? The letters we found in the chambers above would suggest that he was all set for opening this portal to begin with. Something must have changed his mind to send the courier.’ The dwarf nodded. ‘You are probably right,’ he agreed. ‘All the more reason for us to quickly meet up with the Talons and get into the Nentir Vale. Perhaps we can find someone to help us understand all of this there? I want to know that these things actually are for one.’ With that the warlord headed through the western door.
Khalin led them onwards, up the stairs and through the storeroom with the abandoned ballistae. Heading out through the double doors they came to the bottom of the dome. To their surprise the floor was covered in a thick blanket of snow and a chill pervaded the room. Huge flakes cascaded down from the opening way above and the roar of a wind and storm echoed around. Near the centre of the chamber, amidst the spikes that had done for at least one orc at the hands of Zero, there was a little circle not affected by the snow; wisps of smoke spiralling upwards, melting the snow around it. Zero, who had seen the orc fall onto the spikes, let out a disgusted sigh.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Beltak.
‘The spikes,’ Zero coughed. ‘The blood.’ The rogue looked as though he was going to be ill. ‘That’s where the blood was coming from, dripping down into the portal chamber below through that face. The opening in the dome and the spikes below. I bet they used to toss people down there onto the spikes and then their blood ran into the ritual chamber. It’s disgusting. You can see that the smoke is from the big, black thing; there must be holes for the blood to drip down, and the smoke is coming up through them.’
The rogue shivered, and not only just with the cold, before Khalin placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘C’mon, lad, let’s keep moving,’ he offered and headed towards the southern corridor and the way up to the dome’s balcony.
The group plodded up the stairs and through the chamber where they had encountered the statue with the blades. Not much remained of it — Kireth’s shock of force and Tradden’s blades seemed to have done for it quite well. Picking their way across the debris and festering corpses of the remains of the ghouls they headed towards the balcony. The door was open as they had left it and the cold air was chilling them even before they reached the threshold.
Watching the snow flood into the chamber through the mouth of the dome was mesmerising. Khalin’s and Tradden’s torches lent an orange tint to the flakes against the fading light from above. Every once in a while the winds across the Stonemarch were caught in the mouth above, whirling the flakes around violently in spirals and causing the flames of their torches to sway this way and that. The moans from the wind, caught in the aperture of the Mouth, were like an old man groaning his final throes on his death bed.
‘It’s starting to get dark out there,’ murmured Zero. ‘And bloody cold, too.’
‘We’ve spent enough time down here already,’ Khalin replied. ‘We need to get moving if we are going to meet up with the Talons in time. I do not particularly want to march out in the snow, but we have no idea when it will stop. We will have to go at some point and now may be better than later. The downfall might give us some cover from watching eyes from the sky until nightfall.’
There was a shudder from the rogue’s shoulders at the mention of eyes from the sky, followed by a resigned slump. Zero began fastening the straps on his pack in silence.
At the top of the “Mouth” Tradden and Beltak heaved the mage up. The young fighter had fashioned enough of a method out of the thick, woven lines to pull others up and the scribe had lent his strength to the effort. As Kireth clambered over the lip and freed himself from the loops, the ropes went down once last time for the dwarf. Zero had to offer his strength to the pair to bring the dwarf up, Tradden jeering at Khalin about too many ales and not enough exercise until all of the Krakens were up and out. Atop the “Mouth of the Sleeper” the air was very welcome. Fresh and clean it was as refreshing as sleep and everyone took in lungfuls to cleanse their body of the death and decay, and the lingering stench of tobacco, from below.
Packs were hoisted and attention turned to Khalin. ‘Fairly simple,’ the dwarf stated, looking out into the sky. ‘We take it easy through the trees here and then we head east as fast as we dare over the Stonemarch. From the maps of Sorrow’s that we looked at, it might take a few hours. We can rest when we get to the foothills. Watch your footing, especially crossing the bits of ice in this wood.’ With that, and barely a glance back at the gaping hole atop the hill, the dwarf marched out, heading down towards the twisted trees to the east and to the Stonemarch beyond.